Philostratus

What does Philostratus' Gymnasticus have to offer modern students and scholars of sport?  To find out, we need a reading that considers historical context, Hellenic paideia, and the relationship between nature and culture.  To understand Philostratus’ Gymnasticus, we must get beyond surface appearances and attune ourselves to the symbols and meanings that underpin Greek athletics.  If we do this, we will learn that gymnastics is not just a form of healthy recreation, but a meaningful activity that demands education and develops a kind of ethical aesthetic.  We will discover that, beyond technical expertise, wisdom is needed to make the most of our experience with sport.  And, most of all, we will come to understand that those who practice and appreciate athletics constitute a community with a particular identity informed by a glorious history.

À quoi sert la prose ? Quelle est la tâche spécifique qui lui incombe ? Quel pouvoir neuf se donne le langage, quand il se détourne du vers ? Telles sont les questions abordées dans ce volume, à travers certaines des réponses que leur ont données les Anciens. Les travaux ici réunis se focalisent particulièrement sur un moment précis de l’histoire antique : la fin de l’époque hellénistique et les premiers siècles de l’Empire romain ; la prose, en effet, accède alors dans le paysage culturel à une position dominante, qui rend justement problématiques sa fidélité à elle-même et son identité.

RESUMO Objetiva-se, nesse artigo, mostrar como se constituíram duas memórias sobre o personagem de Apolônio de Tiana, uma como feiticeiro charlatão e outra como homem divino, no período do Principado romano. Para isso, apresentaremos como havia uma fronteira muito tênue entre práticas de cunho mágico não consideradas negativas, de outras tidas como maléficas dentro daquilo que os antigos gregos e romanos do Principado pensavam sobre a magia. Da mesma forma, buscaremos levantar aspectos sobre a construção de Apolônio de Tiana na documentação da Antiguidade Tardia e nos conflitos desse contexto. A partir disso, faremos considerações sobre as memórias em torno de Apolônio de Tiana na contemporaneidade, sendo que uma das memórias do personagem que a Antiguidade Tardia nos legou é sua constituição enquanto rival de Jesus Cristo. ABSTRACT The article aims to show how two memories about Apollonius of Tyana were constituted, one as a sorcerer and charlatan and another as a holy man, in the Roman Principate. For this, we will present the very fine line that existed between what was considered beneficial and what was seen as a curse among what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought about the sorcery. Similarly, we will seek to show some

Ulisse è il campione della ragione che trionfa in Occidente, l’eroe dell’intelligenza e dell’avventura. Ma la sua figura non è univoca nella tradizione antica. Le maschere del mito greco parlano di altre ragioni, di passioni irriducibili, di colpe che l’eroe non ha pagato. E di una giustizia che non si lascia iscrivere nella legge condivisa.
Ulisse che calunnia; Ulisse, infido e vigliacco in battaglia; Ulisse che corrompe; Ulisse che tradisce; Ulisse che sacrifica una fanciulla affinché soffino venti favorevoli alla partenza da Troia; Ulisse che seduce e abbandona; Ulisse, il reduce, che fa strage di giovani a Itaca. Capitolo per capitolo, la luce tocca personaggi femminili e maschili – compagni di impresa in guerra e in viaggio, madri e figlie, padri e figli, dee e mortali. Nauplio, Teti, Aiace, Neottolemo, Ecuba, Polissena, Calipso, Nausica, Eupite – figure ai bordi della narrazione maggiore, travolte e stravolte nella loro vicenda mitica dal genio contorto di Ulisse. Dalle fonti antiche emergono le loro voci che, in concerto, compongono un grave atto d’accusa contro l’eroe.

Il libro è disponibile su: https://bit.ly/Contro_Ulisse_Salerno_Editrice_2021

Semíramis Corsi | O sábio Apolônio de Tiana em testemunhos contrastantes Sumário | 28 O sábio Apolônio de Tiana em testemunnhos contrastantes: a tradição epistolar e a obra do sofista grego Filóstrato (séc. III d.C.) Semíramis Corsi RESUMO A realidade em torno do sábio Apolônio de Tiana, polêmico personagem envolto em magia e filosofia pitagórica, que viveu, provavelmente, no séc. I d.C., é permeada por dúvidas. Além da biografia Vida de Apolônio de Tiana, escrita pelo sofista grego Flávio Filóstrato, em meados do séc. III d.C., temos algumas menções sobre Apolônio em textos e testemunhos da cultura material e uma série de cartas transmitidas como de autoria do próprio Apolônio. Contudo, a autoria dessas cartas é muito questionada, assim como os demais testemunhos trazem visões esparsas sobre o tianeu, carregadas dos julgamentos de seus autores. Portanto, temos poucas informações sobre quem foi e o que fez Apolônio além do que é mostrado por Filóstrato, sendo o retrato de Apolônio no texto filostratiano também discutido pelos estudiosos que percebem diversos elementos do contexto do biógrafo na obra. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste artigo é apresentar uma análise desses dois documentos, as cartas e a obra de Filóstrato, em contraste. Partimos do pressuposto de que há elementos de identificação entre Apolônio e o grupo que Filóstrato fazia parte, os sofistas gregos da Segunda Sofística, que não se encontram nas cartas. Tal análise documental traz informações importantes para a compreensão do momento histórico em que viveu o biógrafo e suas intenções na obra. Além disso, com tal análise, percebemos aspectos sobre a política e a administração do Império Romano do séc. III d.C. e podemos discutir a interessante relação entre biógrafos e biografados na escrita das biografias. PALAVRAS-CHAVES Vida de Apolônio de Tiana; Flávio Filóstrato; sofistas gregos; séc. III d.C.; biografias. Calíope: Presença Clássica | 2015.1 . Ano XXXII . Número 29 Sumário | 29 INTRODUÇÃO polônio de Tiana foi um personagem que viveu, provavelmente, no séc. I d.C. O possível Apolônio histórico e sua trajetória são motivo de dúvidas e de muitos questionamentos por parte de estudos acadêmicos, além de especulações de cunho A religioso e esotérico. Envolvido em diversas polêmicas, Apolônio foi comparado a Jesus Cristo no séc. IV d.C. por Sosiano Hierócles, governador da Bitínia e perseguidor de cristãos ao lado do imperador Dioclesiano, que teria valorizado os atributos miraculosos de Apolônio contra Jesus, testemunho que, porém, não chegou até nossos dias. Tal comparação foi criticada mais tarde pelo cristão Eusébio de Cesareia em Contra Hierócles, a quem devemos o testemunho sobre tal comparação feita por Hierócles. Apolônio esteve envolvido em uma acusação de práticas mágicas e parece ter-se relacionado com governantes romanos e até imperadores, segundo testemunhos de Flávio Filóstrato na biografia Vida de Apolônio de Tiana. 1

This article addresses how the sophistic-style analysis in Philostratus’ Gymnasticus gives expression to the physical and social complexities involved in ancient athletic training. As a case in point, the article provides a close reading of Philostratus’ description and criticism of the Tetrad, a four-day sequence of training, which resulted in the death of an Olympic athlete. To make physiological sense of the Tetrad, this method of training is compared to the role of periodization in ancient medicine and modern kinesiology. At the same time, Philostratus’ own critique of the Tetrad is compared to Foucauldian models of discipline and bodily attention. Ultimately, it is argued that the Tetrad fails because it does not incorporate καιρός, a theme common to athletics, medicine, and rhetoric. Overall, therefore, Philostratus’ critique of the Tetrad helps us to appreciate the underrepresented role that γυμναστική occupied in the larger debates on bodily knowledge in antiquity.

La découverte de fossiles de dinosaures et d’animaux préhistoriques ne date pas de l’époque contemporaine. Répandue dans l’Antiquité, notamment en Grèce, elle a suscité de multiples interrogations, engendré des fantasmes et donné naissance à des créatures imaginaires ou extraordinaires. Parmi celles-ci, se trouvent entre autres les gryphons, les héros, caractérisés également par une taille démesurée, ou encore les Géants.

From Herakles’ slaying of the Nemean lion, which is portrayed in a fashion similar to wrestling on Attic vases, to literary references to athletic competition as a substitute for single combat, to the presence of Ares and Agōn side by side on the ivory and gold table at Olympia where the victors’ wreaths were kept, competition and combat have a long relationship and history of tension in Greek myth and culture. Though this does not mean that the origination of athletic competition in ancient Greece was necessarily martial, several literary examples from the Classical Greek through Imperial Roman periods make clear that a belief in an inextricable, etiological link between combat and athletic competition was widespread among ancient authors and observers. This belief, in turn, contrasts interestingly with the shifting role of athletic competition in ancient Hellenic culture, particularly with regard to its relationship with combat. This paper utilizes the hoplitodromos, or race in armor, as an exemplar of that belief, and of the subsequent devolution of Greek athletics as a whole. As the growing prevalence of hoplite warfare reduced the opportunity for warriors to earn kleos aphthitōn on the battlefield, athletic competitions became a partial replacement for the lost opportunities to achieve eternal glory. Further, the rise of a classical “gymnasion culture,” which valued physical beauty, youth, and eroticism most highly, may have sparked a pushback on the part of our ancient sources, who sought in return to emphasize all the more the martial practicality of athletic training and competitive events, which many saw as the proper role and logical origin of athletics within Greek society.

The Vita Apollonii leaves much open to interpretation. In 4.45 Philostratus tells us
about a young woman who was thought dead by her family and the whole of Rome.
Apollonius whispers something in her ear and the maiden starts talking again. The
narrator comments it was impossible for the bystanders and still is impossible for
him to say whether the girl was really dead or not: whether it was a case of Scheintod
which proved Apollonius’s extraordinary powers of observation or whether it was a
resurrection-miracle which would signal a special ontological status for ‘the man’ from
Tyana. In his suspension of judgment, Philostratus uses the words arrhêtos hê katalêpsis
combining a technical term from Stoic epistemology (katalêpsis) with a concept
related to the Mysteries (arrhêtos). We discuss the Philostratean interpretative strategies,
link them to the Pythagorean tradition of selective communication, and read
the reference in this chapter to the story of Alcestis to the epistemological debates
between Stoics and Skeptics about the limits of human wisdom.

« Trictrac », « jeu de dames », « échecs », autant de traductions trompeuses
données au fil du temps pour le mot grec πεσσεία qui était en réalité une forme d’activité ludique pratiquée avec des pions sur un plateau et dont les origines remontent à la Guerre de Troie selon des récits traditionnels de la Grèce antique. Loin de se borner à une question de lexique et de choix de traduction, cet article vise à comprendre les spécificités d’une telle forme de jeu à partir de l’analyse des circonstances de son invention et de l’identité de son auteur, à savoir le héros Palamède. Par une analyse détaillée des passages concernant Palamède et son invention des jeux, de Gorgias à Philostrate, cette contribution entend permettre de mieux comprendre à quel point la πεσσεία était liée à une modalité très particulière de l’action divine de Palamède, à savoir son pouvoir prophétique et mantique qui en faisait un héros de la structuration sémiotique de l’espace.
Mots-clés : Palamède, sémiotique, mantique, récits d’origine, rossignol.

This list covers many of the aliases and pen names that were used from the first century CE, up to near modern times (see my paper, 'Napoleon Bonaparte & The Holy Roman Empire', which, gives his descent from Arrius Piso and his relationship to various popes). By the way, I have often been asked to research and uncover the truth about all of the popes; all the way up to the current pope. I have no interest in revealing the family trees of later day popes. Other researchers are free to do that if they so choose. However, regarding the use of aliases and pen names by notables in history, there are many, many more that are known by me than can be listed here currently. And, many more will be listed in later updates to this list. The reason for giving this list is to help researchers to get on with their work as an aid, so that they may tell just which individual was using which names or whose biographical data was being given by authors using those names. To be able to obtain, deduce and confirm the various aliases being used is time consuming and much more complex than the vast majority of researchers are as yet prepared to do on their own. This has been a monumental task. Due to the requirements involved in uncovering these alias names, only a handful of individuals at this point in time may be able to do this. And, since we all have (at this time) a relatively short lifespan, and due to other factors; not everyone will be able to do this, nor would they want to devote what they must in order to do it correctly. Since I have been studying ancient history and religion correctly (using every required facet involved) for more than 20 years, I have this unique ability. I have already written several research papers explaining just what is needed in order to do this; but I will be writing more so as to better clarify and instruct researchers in this process. A part of this process is compiling individual 'profiles' (an example of one such profile is given near the end of this paper). In the meantime, researchers who have not yet acquired the discipline necessary to do this themselves, will have to rely upon the information which has been given them by those such as myself. Also, for now, I will give what examples I can to help fellow researchers to better understand just how these alias names and pen names have been uncovered and why they were used in the first place. At the end of this paper, you will find some links to research papers that various examples, etc. These aliases are key to understanding the true nature of ancient history and religion, and are necessary to understand ancient texts as the authors themselves did, as well as their extremely well-educated royal readership. As it happens, I have had a huge edge in getting at the truth and true nature of ancient texts, as I have made many important discoveries; including the use of a language inside of language, which is now known as 'The Royal Language'. As you may or may not know, I am the founder of new methodology and processes that comprise a whole new way of studying ancient history which is known as 'The New Classical Scholarship'. What must now be known and accepted by academia is that ancient history and all other literature written in antiquity on up to Medieval times and beyond, was being written by royalty within a synthesized environment known as an Oligarchy, a situation in which has now been termed 'Royal Supremacy'. Those who have yet to learn what I and a few others have regarding uncovering aliases is that a) this is what we were left with, and b) this is the only real means of uncovering the truth in history, and c) what is to be found and learned regarding history is not, and never has been, in our

Le Immagini raccontano sessantaquattro pitture che adornavano il portico di una villa nei pressi di Napoli. Filostrato le descrive e le interpreta per un gruppo di giovani ascoltatori fondando nella letteratura occidentale il genere dell’ékphrasis, e inventando la forma del museo letterario. La descrizione coglie la verità della pittura, frutto della sapienza dell’artista e obbligatoria palestra per il poeta e per il retore. Reinterpretate da Goethe e recuperate da innumerevoli pittori, le eikones mettono in scena l’eterno confronto tra parola e immagine.

L’opera è corredata da apparati esegetici e critici di Andrea L. Carbone, arricchita da un percorso iconografico e completata da un saggio di Michele Cometa che mette in luce la fondamentale rilevanza del testo per le moderne indagini della cultura visuale.

This paper focuses on the reciprocity between visual and verbal that characterizes ancient ekphrasis. According to the authors of the Progymnasmata (Aelius Theon, Hermogenes, Nicolaus, Aphtonius), a major feature of ekphrasis is its vividness (enargeia), i.e. its ability to "bring before the eyes" what is absent.  Ekphrasis is not aimed at the imitation of a given object, but at the effect this very object produces on the audience. This ecphrastic shift, according to which the fictive object is more vivid, and hence more persuasive, than the real object, is a key feature of Philostratus' Eikones. Philostratus himself defines his own work as a logos graphes, i.e. as a "speech on verbal images," which is paradigmatic for the mutual dependence between visual and verbal in ancient ekphrasis.

Die Quintilier sind zweifellos die berühmteste und am besten dokumentierte Familie aus Alexandria Troas. Insbesondere die letzten vier Generationen haben durch ihre Tätigkeit in der römischen Reichsverwaltung, ihre engen Verbindungen zu den Kaisern und Geistesgrößen ihrer Zeit, ihr literarisches Wirken sowie ihren ausgedehnten Villenbesitz mannigfaltige Spuren hinterlassen. Eine willkommene Bereicherung fand unser Quellenmaterial vor Kurzem durch drei neue Inschriften vom alexandrinischen Forum, die 2008 und 2016 von E. Schwertheim veröffentlicht wurden und Auskunft über zwei frühe, zuvor unbekannte Quintilier geben sowie einen nicht näher zu greifenden Κυιντίλ[ιος] der hohen Kaiserzeit nennen. +++ Damit sind inzwischen acht Familienmitglieder sicher bekannt: ein P. Quintilius Maximus und seine Tochter Quintilia Apphia in iulisch-claudischer Zeit, ein Sex. Quintilius Valerius Maximus und sein gleichnamiger Sohn in der Zeit von den Flaviern bis Hadrian sowie die beiden nachfolgenden und bekanntesten Generationen mit jeweils einem Sex. Quintilius Valerius Maximus und einem Sex. Quintilius Condianus in der Antoninenzeit. Hinzu kommt der Vater des ältesten Sex. Quintilius Valerius Maximus, von dem aber leider nur sein Vorname Sextus überliefert ist. +++ Die epigraphischen Neufunde nahm ich zum Anlass, die Familiengeschichte erneut aufzurollen und erstmals einen ausführlichen Gesamtüberblick in deutscher Sprache vorzulegen. Der bislang ungeklärten Frage nach der origo der Quintilier widmet sich der erste Abschnitt, der zwar keine eindeutige Antwort zu liefern vermag, aber zumindest drei mögliche Szenarien aufzeigt und diese hinsichtlich ihrer Plausibilität überprüft. Die nachfolgenden Ausführungen orientieren sich an der chronologischen Abfolge, wobei der fünfte Abschnitt auch eine Darstellung zum reichen Familienbesitz enthält. Die Schlussbemerkung richtet ihren Blick schließlich auf das Verhältnis zwischen den Quintiliern und ihrer langjährigen Heimatgemeinde Alexandria Troas.

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Art and rhetoric in Roman culture / [edited by] Jaś Elsner. pages cm ISBN 978-1-107-00071-1 (Hardback) 1. Art, Roman. 2. Communication in art. 3. Rhetoric, Ancient. I. Elsner, Jaś editor of compilation. N5763.A78 2014 709.37-dc23 2014007625 ISBN 978-1-107-00071-1 Hardback

Letters inserted into Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History can be interpreted fruitfully within the context of the usage of embedded letters in imperial Greek literature. Elite Greek narrative texts regularly attributed letters to famous Greeks of the past in order to model elite convention and to reveal heroic character. Similarly, Eusebius’ subtle and manipulative reproduction of letters by past Christians foregrounds these Christians as exemplars of proper ecclesiastical conduct. Eusebius’ letters represent wide communication, harmonious resolution of dif erences, and conformity to past Christians’ conduct as essential to Christian identity, particularly in his narratives of the paschal and rebaptism controversies. Eusebius presented epistolary conventions so as to render Christian character acceptable to elite Greek-speaking audiences.

-An addendum to this article now appears in my "'The Only Event Mightier than Everyone's Hope,"" Histos 13 (2020), p. 10 n. 47.
-I missed 4.26.13 among the letters quoted by Eusebius.

Filóstrato foi um sofista grego que viveu de meados do século II a meados do século III d.C. Teve contato próximo com o poder imperial romano no período dos primeiros imperadores da dinastia dos Severos, Septímio Severo e Caracala, e ocupou cargos públicos em Atenas. Uma das obras de sua autoria é a Vida de Apolônio de Tiana, que acreditamos ter sido escrita no período do governo de Severo Alexandre (222-235). Nesse texto de gênero híbrido (biografia/ficção/hagiografia), Filóstrato descreve o contato do biografado com diversos tipos de povos, como indianos, partos, egípcios, os próprios gregos, além de relações do protagonista com alguns imperadores romanos. Para nós, nesta obra, Filóstrato deixa entrever aspectos de sua visão sobre o Império Romano, especialmente no que tange às relações de poder com povos de dentro e de fora da administração romana em um processo de ordem e integração no qual a cultura grega e homens formados como Apolônio possuem, na visão do autor, um papel importante. Dessa forma, o objetivo desta Tese é analisar a representação de Apolônio feita por Filóstrato, considerando a construção dos contatos político-culturais do biografado pelas regiões por onde passa, a construção de fronteiras identitárias e a afirmação da identidade e da paideia grega. Partimos do pressuposto de que há elementos de identificação de Filóstrato e de sua categoria, os sofistas, em Apolônio. Também tivemos como hipótese que há alegações na descrição do biografado de funções para os sofistas no jogo de forças do poder imperial. A Vida de Apolônio de Tiana é nossa documentação principal, mas utilizamos referências de todo corpus filostratiano. Utilizamos também textos de Herodiano (História do Império Romano) e Dião Cássio (História Romana), buscando elementos para a compreensão do contexto Severiano. Buscamos, ainda, subsídios para a compreensão das funções do sofista em discursos de Dião de Prusa, Apuleio e Élio Aristides. A pesquisa é feita dentro dos atuais debates historiográficos sobre identidades, fronteiras e ordem no Império Romano. Vinculamo-nos aos estudos da Nova História Cultural, que permitem novas abordagens centradas nos contatos político-culturais, identidades e representações.

The True Context Of Ancient History And The Gordian Emperors (Roman Piso, 02-25-2017) This paper is about the Gordian Emperors; Gordian I, Gordian II, and Gordian III. However, it is also about much, much more. It is about their ancestors and their royal relatives, as well as statistical data and how they were related to a group of ancient authors known as the Philostratii. [I] I, and a few other researchers have discovered something which had never been considered within academia before, but which is now of extreme importance and must be considered because of what it means to research itself. Basically, what we have discovered is that there is an alternate version of history that exists, but that has not been known except to those few who did not want others to know. That other version of history changes the context in which we must now view it. And that is because what we contend, due to what has been discovered, means that only royalty had the privilege of writing anything for publication (under penalty of death); no matter what the subject matter. Most of us now know of at least some examples where history (or those recording history) had lied or deliberately misled us. And, we also now know of several examples of what we term "whitewashed" history. [II] Some of us have long wondered, how it was that there were so many people (i.e., the masses or non-royals) within such a great empire, who were illiterate. And yet, somehow, there were some people who lived an entirely different life within that empire than the majority did, people who had received a fantastic education, and who demonstrated great genius within their writings. And this, our discovery of the true nature of ancient history, gives us that answer.

This paper discusses the blurring of the differences between necro-mancy and resurrection from apparent death in Apuleius' works, focusing on the necromantic tales of Socrates and Thelyphron in Metamorphoses 1 and 2, and two episodes where doctors wake supposed corpses from coma (Met.10.5–12 and Florida 19, on Asclepiades of Prusa). The necromancers and the doctors are portrayed similarly, while verbal allusions between all four Apuleian episodes enhance the confusing effect. The behaviour of the comatose and the necroman-tically revived dead is similar, too, and their appearance is often undistinguish-able, mystifying their audience as to their exact nature. Surprisingly, the biaio-thanatoi Thelyphron and Socrates both speak, but the two comatose patients do not, although they are alive. Other contemporary texts (Philostratus VA 4.45; Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri 26–27) do not blur this boundary and use speech to mark revived comatose patients as alive. Apuleius' boundary-blurring is unsur-prising in a novel featuring Isis, a goddess who herself crosses the border of life and death in her myth. During his Isiac mystery initiations, Lucius, too, experiences death and rebirth and keeps mystical silence about the initiation process. This cross-over of miracles and medicine is therefore Apuleius' preparation of his readership for the end of the novel.

According to ancient aesthetics, the art of gem engraving involved a special cooperation of human and natural artistry, and was characterized by a peculiar fluidity in its relationship with the “major” arts, namely painting and sculpture. Literary sources point to the hybrid status of glyptics, which from a technical viewpoint is indeed a form of sculpture, but whose medium possesses a natural mimetic potentiality which is eminently pictorial: engravers paint with precious stones like painters with pigments, giving semantic significance to the natural colours, veins and spots of the mineral. Alongside literary sources, on the peculiar ambiguity of glyptics with respect to painting and sculpture played the engravers who signed their intaglios and cameos assuming the names of great painters and sculptors of the past. The analysis of two jaspers signed by the imperial engraver Aspasios discloses the room left to the creativity of the glyptic artist when he confronts the celebrated masterpieces of painting and sculpture.

This paper focuses on ecphrastic patterns in Philostratus the Elder’s most known work, the Imagines. I claim that the Imagines have a specific rhetorical character, and have to be understood as a verbal creation independent from actual visual models. This work is, as Philostratus points out, a graphe, a “drawing/painting”, i.e. a literary and visual description/depiction of fictive paintings. The ambivalence of the term graphe (which occurs some 130 times in the Imagines) is at the core of Philostratus' ecphrastic account, as entails from passages in which he defines his own work as a logos graphes, a “discourse on the word-painting” (1.25.1, 2.13.2, 2.14.1). I argue that Philostratus' ekphraseis involve not only the author/narrator, i.e. the “internal” audience (the Sophist and the boy), and the reader, i.e. the “external” audience; they involve also the figures of the pictures described, whose realism deceives both the “internal” and the “external” audiences. Such interaction of different fictional levels is particularly evident in the description of the Narcissus painting, where verbal and pictorial fiction are mingled, and the border between illusion and reality becomes ambiguous.

Enfim, na lógica do rizoma em que mais contam os nós que os
ramos, Filóstrato: novas abordagens convida o leitor a seguir a trama que
se tece de capítulo a capítulo, em que se buscam tanto as conexões do
escritor com os antecedentes, quanto com os contemporâneos e, enfim,
com o futuro (o que nos inclui) – quanto, ainda, a própria conexão de
Filóstrato consigo mesmo, pois a multidisciplinaridade que marca sua
escrita levou a que se questionasse se seria ele um ou muitos. Isso implica
que cada aspecto de sua vida e obra exige consideração cuidadosa, como
a que lhe dedicam cada um dos autores que aqui escrevem. Os nós que
cada texto tece encontram outros nós tecidos pelos outros textos e assim
têm o efeito de traçar de modo pertinente o perfil de um intelectual erudito e multifacetado, a cujo conhecimento se convida o leitor.
Jacyntho Lins Brandão
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

""Recent scholarship in Classics and related fields has shown great interest in letters and epistolary literature of all forms (e.g. Morello and Morrison 2007; Trapp 2003; Rosenmeyer 2001).  The use of embedded letters to advance the narrative in genres such as historiography and the novel, and the potential for real or pseudonymous letters to function as biography (real or fictionalized), autobiography, or historical fiction, mean that letters in antiquity play a crucial role in the development of narrative literature of many kinds.  The apparent popularity of letters as reading matter rather than merely tools for communication, especially in the Imperial period, makes it essential that we pay attention to this genre, as we assess the reading practices and literary preferences of antiquity. The literary qualities of Greek letters are often overlooked, despite the fact that they display the same kind of awareness of generic conventions and self-consciousness of their literary nature as other narrative genres. 
Letters are always about narrative, among other things, whether directly – narrating events to absent correspondents - or indirectly – presenting fragments of an underlying narrative that the reader attempts to reconstruct.  This collection of essays explores the inherent narrative quality of letters and its use by Greek authors in a variety of genres and time periods, as well as the limited and sometimes even willfully obscure nature of epistolary narratives that omit vital information in the name of verisimilitude.  A series of case studies, with topics ranging from Classical poetry and historiography through to Philostratus and Christian martyrs, asks why particular authors choose the letter form; how an embedded letter relates to its narrative environment, and, conversely, the effect of the epistolary form on the narrative it contains; and how each author manipulates the epistolary tradition.  It explores various types of epistolary forms:  individual letters (embedded or free-standing); collections of continuous epistolary narrative; and letters presenting fragmented or discontinuous narrative.  It pays close attention to the self-consciously literary or fictional qualities in Greek letters, including intertextuality with other literary texts and particularly allusions to earlier letters as literature.  A chronological organization of the volume encourages the reader to consider epistolary narrative as a kind of literature that develops over time, growing in popularity and in the variety of forms it takes.  ""

La magie, dans la Vie d'Apollonios de Tyane, est au centre d'un noeud de problèmes qui mettent en jeu le statut du personnage principal, et à travers lui le sens global du projet de Philostrate. Dans quelle mesure celui-ci cherche-t-il à faire apparaître Apollonios comme un magicien, à l'associer à des pratiques, des symboles, des figures de magie ? Il est vrai que la notion de magie est par nature fuyante et délicate à définir 1 ; convenons néanmoins que les Anciens désignaient par « magie » certaines pratiques rituelles permettant à un individu de transformer l'ordre du monde, et d'imposer sa volonté aux dieux pour servir son intérêt personnel. En première approche, Philostrate occupe vis-à-vis de la magie et des magiciens une position très sévère, qu'il affiche à plusieurs reprises dans ses ouvrages. Jamais un sophiste ne prendrait le risque de ternir sa réputation par de telles pratiques, affirme-t-il dans les Vies des sophistes à propos de Denys de Milet et Hadrien de Tyr, tous deux victimes d'accusations de sorcellerie (VS 523, 590). Quant à Apollonios, sa réputation de magicien, au moment où Philostrate s'intéressa à lui, était déjà bien établie 2 ; pourtant, si le Sage de Tyane accomplissait des prodiges, insiste Philostrate, ceux-ci étaient le résultat de sa sagesse et de sa proximité avec le divin, non d'une contrainte imposée à celui-ci (I, 2, 1-2). Α plusieurs reprises, par la suite, il revient à la charge pour vilipender les magiciens, ces κακοδαιµονέστατοι 1 V. GRAF FRITZ, La magie dans l'Antiquité gréco-romaine. Idéologie et pratique, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, coll. "Histoire", 1994 : 11-29 et COLLINS DEREK, Magic in the Ancient Greek World, Malden (MA), Blackwell, coll. "Blackwell Ancient Religions", 2008 : 1-25 sur l'histoire des approches anthropologiques de la magie, et les problèmes épistémologiques que soulève cette définition. 2 V. en particulier les témoignages de Luc. Alex. 5 ; Dion Cassius 77, 18, 4. Sur le statut d'Apollonios antérieurement au livre de Philostrate, cf. BOWIE EWEN, "Apollonius of Tyana : Tradition