The "Second Sophistic" traditionally refers to a period at the height of the Roman Empire's power that witnessed a flourishing of Greek rhetoric and oratory, and since the 19th century it has often been viewed as a defense of Hellenic civilization against the domination of Rome. This book proposes a very different model. Covering popular fiction, poetry and Greco-Jewish material, it argues for a rich, dynamic, and diverse culture, which cannot be reduced to a simple model of continuity. Shining new light on a series of playful, imaginative texts that are left out of the traditional accounts of Greek literature, Whitmarsh models a more adventurous, exploratory approach to later Greek culture. Beyond the Second Sophistic offers not only a new way of looking at Greek literature from 300 BCE onwards, but also a challenge to the Eurocentric, aristocratic constructions placed on the Greek heritage. Accessible and lively, it will appeal to students and scholars of Greek literature and culture, Hellenistic Judaism, world literature, and cultural theory.

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Beyond the Second Sophistic and into the PostclassicalPART ONE. FICTION BEYOND THE CANON1. The "Invention of Fiction"2. The Romance of Genre3. Belief in Fiction: Euhemerus of Messene and the Sacred Inscription4. An I for an I: Reading Fictional Autobiography5. Metamorphoses of the Ass6. Addressing Power: Fictional Letters between Alexander and Darius7. Philostratus's Heroicus: Fictions of Hellenism8. Mimesis and the Gendered Icon in Greek Theory and FictionPART TWO. POETRY AND PROSE9. Greek Poets and Roman Patrons in the Late Republic and Early Empire10. The Cretan Lyre Paradox: Mesomedes, Hadrian, and the Poetics of Patronage11. Lucianic Paratragedy12. Quickening the Classics: The Politics of Prose in Roman GreecePART THREE. BEYOND THE GREEK SOPHISTIC13. Politics and Identity in Ezekiel's Exagoge14. Adventures of the SolymoiReferencesIndex