Man and the word: the orations of Himerius 9780520933712, 9780520250932

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Acknowledgments (page xi)
Abbreviations (page xiii)
Introduction (page 1)
1. Himerius's Son, Rufinus (page 19)
2. In Praise of Cities and of Men (page 34)
3. In and Around Himerius's School (page 66)
4. Coming and Going in Himerius's School (page 107)
5. The Epithalamium for Severus (page 141)
6. Imaginary Orations (page 156)
7. Orations Addressed to Roman Officials (page 207)
8. Miscellaneous Remains (page 272)
Arrangement of Orations and Concordance (page 279)
Bibliography (page 283)
Index (page 295)

Citation preview

aif. ,

The Joan Palevsky .- ~_..'.%33¢ Imprint in Classical Literature

In honor of beloved Virgil —

“O degli altri poeti onore e lume. . .”

— Dante, Inferno

Ny Pie a

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous , contribution to this book provided by the Classical Literature Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation, which is supported

by a major gift from Joan Palevsky. }

Man and the Word

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE Peter Brown, General Editor —

I Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity, by Sabine G. MacCormack Il Synesius of Cyrene: Philosopher-Bishop, by Jay Alan Bregman Ill Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity, by Kenneth G. Holum IV John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century, by Robert L. Wilken V_ Biography in Late Antiquity: The Quest for the Holy Man, by

Patricia Cox | by Philip Rousseau ,

, VI Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt,

VII Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, by A. P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein VII Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul, by Raymond Van Dam

IX Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the

Growth of the Epic Tradition, by Robert Lamberton , X Procopius and the Sixth Century, by Averil Cameron XI Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late

3 Antiquity, by Robert A. Kaster | XII Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East, A.D. 180-275, by Kenneth Harl

, XI Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, introduced and translated by Sebastian P. Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey XIV Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection, by Carole Straw XV “Apex Omnium”: Religion in the “Res gestae” of Ammianus,

by R. L. Rike ,

XVI Dioscorus of Aphrodito: His Work and His World, by Leslie S. B. MacCoull

XVII On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity, by Michele Renee Salzman XVIII Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and “The Lives

of the Eastern Saints,” by Susan Ashbrook Harvey

XIX Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius, by Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long, with a contribution by Lee Sherry XX Basil of Caesarea, by Philip Rousseau

XXI_ In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini, | introduction, translation, and historical commentary by C.E. V.

Nixon and Barbara Saylor Rodgers XXII Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital,

: by Neil B. McLynn

XXIII Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity,

by Richard Lim —

: XXIV The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy, by Virginia Burrus XXV_ Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius’s “Life” and the Late Antique City, by Derek Krueger XXVI_ The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine, by Sabine MacCormack

XXVII_ Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems, by Dennis E. Trout XXVIII The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran, by

| Elizabeth Key Fowden

XXIX The Private Orations of Themistius, translated, annotated, and introduced by Robert J. Penella XXX The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity, by Georgia Frank XXXI Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, edited by Tomas

Hagg and Philip Rousseau |

XXXII Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium, by Glenn Peers XXXII Wandering, Begging Monks: Social Order and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, by Daniel Folger Caner XXXIV Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D., by Noel Lenski

XXXV_ Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early |

Middle Ages, by Bonnie Effros -

XXXVI Qusayr ‘Amra: Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria,

by Garth Fowden :

XXXVII_ Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leader-

ship in an Age of Transition, by Claudia Rapp , XXXVI Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity, by Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony XXXIX There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence

| in the Christian Roman Empire, by Michael Gaddis , XL The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq, by Joel Thomas Walker XLI City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria, by

Edward J. Watts

XLII Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory . Imagination, by Susan Ashbrook Harvey XLIQ = Man and the Word: The Orations of Himerius, translated, annotated, and introduced by Robert J. Penella XLIV The Matter of the Gods, by Clifford Ando

Man and the Word

: The Orations of Himerius 7

Translated, annotated, and introduced by

Robert J. Penella

- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley -. Los Angeles +. London

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States,

enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England

© 2007 Robert J. Penella

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

[Speeches. English] '

Himerius, ca. 310—ca. 390

Man and the word : the orations of Himerius / translated, annotated, and introduced by Robert J. Penella.

p. om.— (The transformation of the classical heritage) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-520-2,5093-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Himerius, ca. 310-ca. 390. 2. Rhetoric, Ancient. I. Penella, Robert J. ‘Il. Title. PA4013.H§ 2007

808—dc22 2007020213

Manufactured in the United States of America

16 I§ 114 13 12 IL I0 09 O08 07

Io 9 8 7 6 § 4 3 2 «I

This book is printed on New Leaf EcoBook 50, a 100% recycled fiber of which 50% is de-inked post-

consumer waste, processed chlorine-free. EcoBook 50 | is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/ASTM D5634-01 (Permanence of Paper).

alla memoria dei miei nonni lucani : emigranti di Grumento Nova e di Montemurro

Vincenzo Pen(n)ella ) Vincenza Liuzzi

Maria Pricoli | Francesco Buonvicino

BLANK PAGE

Contents

Acknowledgments : xi

_ Abbreviations xiii

Introduction i THE ORATIONS

1. Himerius’s Son, Rufinus 19

2. In Praise of Cities and of Men 34

3. In and Around Himerius’s School 66 4. Coming and Going in Himerius’s School 107

5. The Epithalamium for Severus _ TAI

6. Imaginary Orations 156

7, Orations Addressed to Roman Officials 207

8. Miscellaneous Remains 2.72

) Arrangement of Orations and Concordance 279

Index 295

Bibliography | 283

BLANK PAGE ,

Acknowledgments

I have discovered through two decades of experience that putting Greek oratorical texts into English for the first time and annotating them to my satisfaction is slow work. I am therefore grateful to Fordham University for awarding me a sabbatical semester in the spring of 2001 to support my work on Himerius, which began in 1998. This sabbatical was followed by the generous support of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship during the first half of 2002. A number of individuals have helped me in one way or another in the course of my work, and I thank them all: Thomas M. Banchich, Timo-

thy D. Barnes, Giusy M. Greco, Edward M. Harris, John Marincola, : William H. Race, and Martin West. Iam happy to express my gratitude, once again, to Glen W. Bowersock and Christopher P. Jones, both for their general support and for their detailed criticisms, because of which I was able to improve my manuscript in many places. I am also grateful for the comments of the Press’s two readers. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that Constantine Cavafy was inspired to write his short poem [vwpiouara (“Distinguishing Marks” in Rae Dalven’s translation) by Himerius, Oration 68.1. At the head of his poem Cavafy quotes Himerius, who refers to “the word and man.” The poem itself has “man and the word”—hence the title of this book, alluding to Himerius via Cavafy.

I would be deficient in pietas if I did not end with an acknowledgment | of the beginning of it all: Gottlieb Wernsdorff, the founder of modern XI

xii Acknowledgments Himerian studies. I have restored his surname, which appears under his portrait facing the title page of his edition of Himerius, to the spelling he used (with a double f), the spelling with one fhaving originated from the Latin version of his name, Wernsdorfius. I have in common with him that my own name has suffered a similar fate (see my dedication page). I have been living with and profiting from Wernsdorff’s edition and commentary since 1998, more than two hundred years after its appearance.

: Wernsdorff died in 1774, at the age of 56, without having been able to interest a publisher in the manuscript of his edition of Himerius, which he had worked on for more than twenty years. It finally appeared, sixteen years after his death, through the efforts of his brother Christian.

Christian writes in its preface that “there were even scholars who, when | consulted by bookmen, said that it was not very useful to the world of letters to devote one’s energies to the editing of lesser Greek writers; energy is better spent in publishing an ancient classic, such as Thucydides, Xenophon, or Demosthenes.” Wernsdorff’s experience offers yet another

example of the delayed gratifications of scholarship! As for the bias

against anything not in the classical canon, I hope that we have over- , come that.

Abbreviations

CAH The Cambridge Ancient History. , CPG E. L- von Leutsch and E G. Schneidewin, eds. Corpus paroemiographorum graecorum. 2 vols. Gottingen, 1839-51.

DPA R. Goulet, ed. Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Paris, 2000-.

| Exc. Neapol. Excerpta Neapolitana (cod. Neapolitanus Bibl. Nat. er. ITC 32).

Exc. Phot. Excerpta Photiana (Bibl. cod. 243). FGrH FE. Jacoby et al., eds. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin and Leiden, 1923-. _

IG Inscriptiones graecae.

bonense). .

Lex. Lopad. Lexicon of Andrew Lopadiotes ( = Lexicon VindoLIMC Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae. Zurich, Munich, and Diisseldorf, 1981-99.

LSJ H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H.S. Jones. A GreekEnglish Lexicon. 9th ed., with revised supplement. Oxford, 1996. xill

XIV Abbreviations OCD* S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, eds. The Oxford Classi-

PG Patrologia graeca. | cal Dictionary. 3rd ed. Oxford and New York, 1996.

PLRE A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, and J. Morris, eds. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. 3 vols. in 4.

Cambridge, 1972-92. ,

RAC Reallexikon fiir Antike und Christentum. RE Paulys Realencyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft.

SEG Supplementum epigraphicum graecum, — — SIG W. Dittenburger, ed. Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum. 3rd_.

ed. Leipzig, 1915-24. | ,

Himerius was a native of Bithynian Prusias (presumably Prusias ad Hypium), the son of Ameinias, whom the Suda calls a “rhetor.”! He himself became a sophist, a master orator and teacher of rhetoric, in fourth-century Athens, where he had studied rhetoric in his youth. At some point he received Athenian citizenship. At a later date he was made an Are-

opagite. He had married into a respected Athenian family, fathering a _ daughter as well as a prematurely deceased son, Rufinus.? Athenian citizenship was a source of pride to him. The city’s academic traditions had drawn him: “Because of [eloquence] I cast aside the blessed happiness of my native land and have taken up residence by the mystic banks of the Ilissus” (Orat. 10.20). When orating outside of Athens, Himerius’s Hellenism readily took on an Attic tinge.* Yet he did not forget his native land. When he addressed Prusian students at Athens, he called them 1. Suda 1348 Adler, which gives his native city; Eunapius ( Vitae phil. et soph. 14 [494] Giangrande) calls him a Bithynian. Schenkl’s error “Prusa” in RE 8, 2 (1913): 1622 was

corrected in RE Suppl. 3 (1918): 1151. For the other Bithynian city known for a while as | Prusias, see Ruge, “Kios 1,” RE 11, 1 (1921): 486-87. Wernsdorff believed that Himerius was from this Prusias/Cius rather than from Prusias ad Hypium (Himerii sophistae quae reperiri potuerunt, x\). 2. Rufinus (see chapter 1) was clearly on his way, at the time of his death, to following in the learned footsteps of his father and grandfather. 3. Study at Athens: Orat. 41.2. For education at Athens in the Roman Empire, see now Watts, City and School, esp. 24-78. Athenian citizen: Orat. 7.2-3; cf. Orat. 30. Areopagite: Orat. 25, opening scholion. Marriage: p. 19 below. His daughter: Eunap. Vitae phil. et

soph. 14 [494]; cf. Him. Orat. 8.12. Orating abroad: p. 38 below. . I

2 Introduction “fellow citizens” and hoped that his rhetorical achievements would be

an adornment to the city of his birth (Ovat. 27). And the orations refer

| to visits to Prusias: in 12.15 Himerius appears to refer to a postponement of a visit there, in 44 he is about to leave Athens for Prusias, and in 63 he has just returned from there.4 Himerius’s teaching in Athens can be divided into two periods. The first period came to an end soon after early December of 361, when Julian began ruling as emperor from Constantinople. The emperor, who may have

met Himerius during his brief stay in Athens in 355 and had, along with | his brother Caesar Gallus and the emperor Constantius, been publicly lauded by him perhaps in 351 (Him. frag. 1.6), invited his fellow pagan to join him, and the sophist answered the emperor’s call.° Not surprisingly, Himerius hailed Julian for having “washed away . .. the darkness [i.e., the Christian throne] that was preventing us from lifting our hands up to the Sun,” for having “raised up temples to the gods, . . . established religious rites from abroad in the city [of Constantinople], and . . . made sacred the mysteries of the heavenly gods introduced into the city” (Orat. 41.8; cf. 65.32). One should not assume, however, that Himerius’s understanding of paganism and his level of religious fervor were the same as Julian’s. After Julian’s death in 363 Himerius remained somewhere east of Athens (with some time spent in his native Prusias?), not returning until after the death of the Athenian sophist Prohaeresius in 366.° This return marked the beginning of his second period of teaching at Athens. It was apparently in Constantinople that Himerius, having joined the

, emperor Julian, delivered the lost oration (51) to Praetextatus, who had just been appointed proconsul of Greece there.’ Oration 41 was also de- : livered at Constantinople, and Himerius had orated at Thessalonica and Philippi (39 and 40) on his way to Constantinople. The only information we have on Himerius’s activity during Julian’s reign is an enigmatic remark in a passage of the twelfth-century Histories of John Tzetzes (6.46.303-24). Tzetzes names five “secretaries” (grammateis): the elder Cato’s secretary Salonius, the younger Cato’s “secretary” Sarpedon, Brutus’s secretary, “the Julianic [secretary] Himerius,” and “Theodosius’s [secretary] Themistius.” The linkage of the Republican individuals with _ 4. We cannot be sure, though, that these references are to three separate visits. 5. For the Julianic invitation, see chapter 2. 6. Penella, Greek Philosophers, 83. The Prohaeresian date depends on the chronology of Eunapius’s life. Goulet’s Eunapian chronology puts Prohaeresius’s death in 369 (JHS 100 [1980]: 63; Antiquité tardive 8 [2000]: 210). 7, See p. 210 below.

Introduction | 3 the late ancient figures is peculiar. One would like to know precisely what

: Tzetzes meant in calling Himerius a grammateus, and what his authority was in this. Tzetzes remarks that Salonius helped the elder Cato with his writings, and Sarpedon is described in imperial texts as the younger Cato’s pedagogue.® Both points suggest that Tzetzes is thinking of Himerius

as someone who put his literary talents at Julian’s disposal—an appropriate role for him to play. The juxtaposition to Themistius suggests a more

prominént public role: Themistius was an important Constantinopolitan senator, urban prefect of the city under Theodosius I, and adviser and propagandist to several emperors. Such a role is inherently less likely for Himerius, given his background; and if his role had been more Themistian, we would expect to find some mention of it in late ancient sources. If lam correct, Himerius composed Oration 42, to the praetorian prefect Secundus Salutius, in the years after Julian’s death and before his return to Athens.” How long his second period of teaching at Athens lasted and when he died we do not know, although Eunapius tells us that he lived to an advanced age ( Vitae phil. et soph. 14.2 [494]: mpos yypa

paxpo). If the Flavianus of Oration 12, who is there about to assume the proconsulship of Asia, is the younger Nicomachus Flavianus, we would have evidence that Himerius was still active at the beginning of the 380s, since Nicomachus is attested as Asian proconsul in 3 82—383.!°

Other orations might show Himerius active in the 370s, but the pertinent dates of office scholars give for the officials addressed in them are conjectural."! We have equally little information about the details of Himerius’s first period of teaching at Athens and his earlier life. His birth has been placed

as early as 300 and as late as 320.'* Timothy D. Barnes has proposed that Himerius held a teaching position at Constantinople from 343 to 352, before his first Athenian teaching period began:!3 There is no solid evidence for this. Barnes has been influenced by a passage in Oration 41: When this learning of mine, after enduring Attic contests and winning the great garlands of the virgin goddess [Athena], had to leave Attica and sow the rest of the earth with the seeds of learning it got there, fate did not take

8. Val. Max. 3, praef. 2b; Plut. Cato Min. 1.10, 3.4-7. 9. See p. 215 below.

10. See p. 212 below. ] , |

11. See my comments on Orat. 24, 46-47, and 48 in the introduction to chapter 7. 12. Schenkl, RE 8, 2 (1913): 1622; Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 207—9; Schamp, DPA 3 ‘ (2000): 715. 13. CP 82 (1987): 210, 212, 224.

4 Introduction _ it to the Rhine in the West, nor did it carry it to the fabulous waters of Ocean. No, fate brought it, while still in its prime and sprouting its first beard, to you [Constantinople], so that it might plait together a hymn for the city from still tender buds. (41.2)

- All that we can get out of this passage, I think, is that some time soon

after Himerius completed his rhetorical studies at Athens, he traveled, not to the West, but to the East and delivered an oration in Constantinople. Oration 62 was also delivered at Constantinople, before 3 53.'*

But two speeches in Constantinople are not evidence enough that Himerius was settled there as a sophist. There is evidence, though, that Himerius was already settled as a sophist at Athens in the middle 340s. Eunapius tells us that Himerius was a sophist in that city when a prae-

, torian prefect of Illyricum named Anatolius organized an oratorical contest there ( Vitae phil. et soph. 10.6.6 [491]). Close analysis of Eunapius’s narrative shows that this Anatolius must be the prefect of the middle 3 40s,

not the homonymous Illyrian prefect of 357—360.'° Oration 32 is addressed to a “prefect Anatolius”—probably the prefect of 357-360, by which time Himerius will have reached his full professional strideand had the standing to do those honors. (Socrates 4.26.6 describes Himerius— and Prohaeresius—as having come into full bloom, dxpacavrwr, when Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus were studying under them

in the first half of the 3 5os.)!® : The orations show Himerius traveling within the province of Achaia. Oration 11 was a farewell address he delivered in Athens when he was on the point of departing for Corinth. Oration 30 was delivered in Athens when he returned from Corinth. Photius’s Himerian bibliography lists a ‘second oration (70), completely lost, delivered upon returning from Corinth, and a lost talk (/alia) delivered in Corinth (75). Yet another lost oration (72) was given in “the city of the Lacedaemonians [Sparta], when, in obedience to a dream, [Himerius] went to pray to the god [Apollo] of Amyclae.” Corinth was the seat of the provincial governor, with whom Himerius may, on occasion, have had business to transact. It is not clear how many discrete round-trips from Athens to Corinth are being referred to in the above notices. Nor do we have any information on when these trips occurred.

14. See pp. 38-39 below. ,

15. Penella, Greek Philosophers, 88-91. 16. For the years when Basil and Gregory were in Athens, see, e.g., Rousseau, Basil, 28; Gallay, La vie de Saint Grégoire, 36-37.

Introduction: | 5 We have the full text of Himerius’s monody for his son, Rufinus. Un-

fortunately we do not know when Rufinus died—or the year of Himerius’s marriage. Rufinus seems to have been about twenty years old at the time of his death in Athens. Himerius was away, on the banks of the Melas River. Barnes conjectures that this was the Cappodocian Melas and that Rufinus died in 362, while Himerius was crossing Asia Minor in Julian’s company. I argue below that the Boeotian Melas is meant. Rufinus died perhaps toward the end of Himerius’s first period of teaching at Athens, when the sophist had conceivably been forced out of Athens

and to Boeotia because of a professional quarrel.!’

, The conjectured professional quarrel just alluded to may have been with the Christian sophist Prohaeresius, a rival of Himerius during the latter’s first period of teaching at Athens.!® According to Jerome (Chron.,

pp. 242-43 Helm), Prohaeresius resigned from his chair when Julian banned Christians from teaching, even though the emperor was willing to make an exception in his case. Eunapius reports the opinion that Ju, lian expressed admiration for Libanius at least in part “to grieve the great sophist Prohaeresius by expressing preference for another” (Hist. frag. 26.2 Blockley [trans.]). And the same writer, in his Lives of Philosophers

and Sophists, asserts that Himerius went to the emperor Julian’s court “in the hope that he would be regarded with favor on account of the emperor’s dislike of Prohaeresius” (14 [494], trans. W.C. Wright). This, without being wrong, may be oversimplified: Eunapius had studied under Prohaeresius, and his treatment of him in the Lives is long and laudatory. He has a Prohaeresius fixation. Nonetheless, his remarks on Himerius, brief as they are, are not unappreciative: “He was an agreeable and harmonious speaker. His style of composition has the ring and assonance of political oratory. Sometimes, though rarely, he rises as high as the godlike [Aelius]

Aristides” (14 [494], trans. Wright). Sozomen (6.17.1) calls Prohaeresius : and Himerius the most highly regarded (evéoxipzwrdrors ) sophists of their time in Athens. They may have been; but one should not believe that on

the authority of Sozomen, who is extolling them here as the teachers of the great church fathers Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus.!” If, as Eunapius says, Himerius joined Julian in the hope of profiting from the emperor’s 17. For Rufinus’s age at death, my identification of the Melas, and the conjectured professional quarrel, see pp. 21-22 below. See also Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 223. 18. On Prohaeresius, see now Watts, City and School, 48-78. 19. In the parallel passage in Socrates (4.26.6), Prohaeresius and Himerius are merely described as having come into full bloom (dxuacavtwv) at the time when Basil and Gre-

. gory were studying under them. |

6. Introduction dislike of Prohaeresius, he hastened back (#retyero) to Athens, according to the same writer (Vitae phil. et soph. 14 [494]), on Prohaeresius’s death in 366. His professional future in Athens must have looked brighter with

his rival gone. Whatever Photius precisely means when he says that Himerius “headed (zpovorn) the school of rhetoric at Athens” (Bibl. cod. — 165.109a), the assertion might hint at a more secure position, one less challenged by rivals, in his second period of teaching there.

Himerius had some contact with the great Antiochene sophist Libanius. It is conceivable that they had first met during the period of Libanius’s studies in Athens, 336-339. In 355-356 Himerius, teaching in Athens, was having some problems with land he owned in Armenia. Liba-

nius was aware of what was going on and wrote to an assessor of the _ governor of Armenia named Gorgonius, asking him to intervene on Himerius’s behalf. “The man is worthy of the highest respect,” writes Libanius (Ep. 469 Foerster), “and he has no small amount of it.” If Gorgonius helps him, Libanius continues, he will honor eloquence and the _ gods of eloquence. The two sophists had participated in a rhetorical contest at Nicomedia during Libanius’s stay there from 344 to 349. In Epis-

tula 742, written in 362, Libanius recalls a contest, sponsored by Pom- | peianus, the governor of Bithynia, who “honored true eloquence and

| exposed bogus eloquence.” The oration that Libanius delivered at this contest survives as Declamation 46, a meleté on an imaginary topic, prefixed by the words “the topic that Pompeianus set.” Now we have, from Photius’s Himerian bibliography, a reference to a lost oration (53) given in Nicomedia, “when [Himerius] was urged on [to come there? to participate in the contest?] by Pompeianus, who was governor there.”

, This is surely the same contest that Libanius refers to. But there is a complication. In Epistula 742 Libanius writes the following words to his correspondent Celsus, who must have been present at the contest: “Surely you remember how [the governor] poked fun at the splendidly dressed

_ fellow from Athens, attacking him for his reluctance [to compete], for he wanted to reveal his weakness.” The “fellow from Athens” has naturally been thought to be Himerius. If so, what has happened to Libanius’s assessment of the man he praised so highly in Epistula 469? One explanation could be that their relationship had degenerated, so that Libanius was minded in 362 to represent a younger Himerius’s nervousness (and fancy clothes) in a demeaning way instead of courteously glossing over it. Or—to avoid the theory of a change in their relationship—it could

| be that Libanius said what needed to be said about Himerius in the almost official letter of appeal to Gorgonius, but had no reason to refrain

Introduction 7 from having some fun at Himerius’s expense in the “personal” letter to Celsus, his former student in Nicomedia.2° But Heinrich Schenkl has of-

_ fered another (and an attractive) way out of the difficulty: “the splendidly dressed fellow from Athens” may not be Himerius at all, but someone else who also participated in the contest. The phrase does not have

, to mean a sophist teaching at Athens; it could simply refer to one of the many graduates of Athenian schools of rhetoric.*!

The Himerian corpus that we have is hardly in ideal condition. It does contain some orations preserved in full. In other cases, where we have a continuous chunk of text, it is not always easy to decide whether we have

the whole oration (a short dialexis?) or not. For many of the orations only a series of discrete excerpts is preserved. Finally, there is some text, _ preserved in only one damaged manuscript, that is lacunose.

, Himerius comes to us partly in a direct tradition of his own, partly through excerptors and a lexicographer who culled material from his ora- . tions.** Of the manuscripts that directly transmit Himerius, the standard edition by Aristide Colonna relies on three: Parisinus bibl. nat. Suppl. gr.

352 (codex R) of the thirteenth century and, from the fourteenth century, Monacensis gr. 564 (codex A) and Oxoniensis Baroccianus gr. 131 (codex B). Codex R is the most important of these—if for no other rea~ son than simply the amount of text it uniquely preserves. Unfortunately, it has suffered serious damage, and substantial lacunae have been left in ~ anumber of the orations. Some of these lacunae can be filled by text that

survives in other sources, but, in the end, Orations 23-27, 29, 30, and 33-35 remain badly affected. The more important of the two Himerian excerptors is the ninth-century Byzantine patriarch Photius. In his Bibliotheca, cod. 243, he gives us excerpts, ranging from a few lines to a great deal of text, from more than thirty-five orations.”* Photius has the odd habit of usually telling

20. Schamp, DPA 3 (2000): 726. 21. Schenkl, RbM 72 (1917-1918): 34-40, is still indispensable on the Himerii in Libanius’s letters. See, most recently, Wintjes in Mélanges A. F Norman, ed. Gonzalez Galvez and Malosse, 231-41. 22. For the manuscript sources of Himerius’s text, I rely largely on the introduction to Colonna’s edition. For an Oslo papyrus that contains some of the text of Orat. 46 and some other skimpy and unidentifiable Himerian fragments, see Eitrem and Amundsen, C&M 17 (1956): 23-30. Volker’s review of the text-critical scholarship on Himerius is useful (Himerios, 14-25). 23. Isay “more than thirty-five” because one set of excerpts (our frag. 1) is not from a single oration but is a miscellany that could contain text from as many as eight orations.

—«8 Introduction | us that he is beginning with an excerpt or excerpts from the prooemium, but failing to indicate when he is moving from the prooemium to the main body of the speech. A second set of Himerian excerpts (the Excerpta Neapolitana) is found in the fourteenth-century manuscript Neapolitanus bibl. nat. gr. II C 32.74 Finally, we have some quotations of Himerius in the Lexicon of Andrew Lopadiotes, the so-called Lexicon Vindobonense, from the fourteenth century.*> Photius gives us more than the Himerian excerpts of Bibliotheca, cod.

243. In cod. 165 of the same work, in what I refer to as “Photius’s Himerian bibliography,” he provides a comprehensive list of some seventy titles of Himerian orations, apparently a table of contents of an exemplar available to him. Ignoring here a few complications,”* we can say

that the orations that Photius excerpts in cod. 243 come from the first half of the list of orations given in cod. 165, and that, for the most part, the order of titles in cod. 243 coincides with that of cod. 165. The order of the orations in Colonna’s edition is fundamentally that of Photius’s Himerian bibliography. Schenkl, who was working on a critical edition of Himerius that never appeared, was also using Photius’s Himerian bibliography as the basis for ordering the oratorical collection.*” Colonna believes that a ninth-century exemplar, whether Photius actually used it or one or more exemplars derived from it, was the ultimate source, the archetype, not only of Photius’s own Himerian bibliography and excerpts,

but also of the subsequent Himerian manuscripts proper, the Excerpta Neapolitana, and the quotations in Lopadiotes’ Lexicon.”® At the end of each oration (or of the excerpts therefrom) translated in this volume, I indicate its source or sources in a general way. For precise line-by-line specifications, however, one should consult the critical apparatus of Colonna’s edition. I have deviated from the order of the orations found in Colonna’s edi-

tion in order to allow certain categories of oration to stand out more

24. See, in addition to the introduction to Colonna’s edition, Schenkl, Hermes 46 (1911): 414-30. 25. For three new Himerian fragments from this Lexicon, recently brought to light, see n. 85 to Orat. 23, n. 12 to frag. 12, and frag. 17. I note here, for completeness, one Himerian fragment (our frag. 2) that is preserved by the twelfth-century Homeric commentator Eustathius. 26. E.g., the absence of the titles of Orat. 31 and 32 in Photius’s Himerian bibliography (as we now have it) despite the appearance of excerpts from them in cod. 243. 27. Cf. the list of orations in Schenkl, RE 8, 2 (1913): 1627-30, with the one given by Colonna in the introduction to his edition. 28. See pp. x and xlii of his critical edition.

Introduction 9 clearly. Many of the orations are concerned with the daily life of the ‘school. These are gathered in chapters 3 and 4. The so-called declamations, on imaginary deliberative and judicial themes, and an epideictic oration with an imaginary premise appear in chapter 6. Chapter 7 contains all the orations addressed to Roman officials. The two orations dealing with Himerius’s son, Rufinus, appear in chapter 1. The three orations Himerius delivered in Thessalonica, Philippi, and Constantinople after being summoned to join the emperor Julian belong together; I include with them, in chapter 2, an earlier oration delivered in Constantinople. The epithalamium for Severus, surviving in full, is a valuable example of its genre; I have presented it by itself in chapter 5. Finally, some

miscellaneous remains are given in chapter 8. :

Because most of the orations have more than one textual source, we often have more than one version of the title. I have felt free to select what I judged to be the most appropriate version in such cases. Often what is presented at the head of an oration, most notably in codices R and B, is much more than a normal oratorical title, something that is really a note on the circumstances or content of the oration. I refer to such notes as opening scholia and present the text or portion of text I regard as such in italics directly under the title proper. We do not know the pedigree . of these scholia, in which Himerius is referred to in the third person, but

I treat them with respect. :

The titles and opening scholia refer to individual orations with a variety of terms. Two generic terms are logos (oration) and epideixis (ora-

torical display).2? Sometimes the nature of the oration is precisely specified (e.g., monody, propemptic, epithalamium, meleté [“declamation” on an imaginary theme]). Occasionally we are told that the oration in question was originally delivered extempore. The only two terms for orations in the titles and opening scholia that need discussion here are dialexis (discourse) and lalia (talk). Both terms

refer to a simple, informal, typically rather short (although “short” is a. relative term), pleasant, and conversational oration, a less ambitious and serious rhetorical composition. Such compositions could stand alone or be delivered as immediate preludes to declamations or other oratorical works, in which case they could be called prolaliai or proagones.*° (And

| 29. Logos is sometimes implied by masculine expressions such as pyleis, potpemtt-

KOS, €K TOU, etc.

30. Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor, 295; Russell, Greek Declamation, 77-79; Pernot, La rhétorique, 2: 546—68; Korenjak, Publikum und Redner, 23.

IO Introduction the word prodialexis is attested in the Glossaria.)*! A number of Himerian orations are titled dialexeis or laliai (22, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46 [Tavryy édAnoe], 63, 64, 69, 74, 75). Where titles or opening scholia have feminine singular articles, pronouns, or demonstratives without an expressed

noun, dialexis or lalia is doubtless what we should understand (39, 40, - §4, 62, 63, 68, 74). Consider Oration 4o: the opening scholion has ravtyp ev Dirimmots dtetAekrat, and the title of this oration in Photius’s Himerian

bibliography is “The Dialexis in Philippi.” In Oration 63, the opening scholion has ravrnv . . . dveAeyOy, and Photius’s bibliography calls this oration a dialexis.** The opening scholion of Oration 74 says dueiAeK Tau S¢ adr7v, and Photius’s bibliography calls this oration a lalia. What is un-

derstood in the title protreptikos (35) is logos; what is understood in the title protreptiké (68) is probably dialexis or lalia. Are the Himerian dialexeis and laliai freestanding, or did they serve as preludes (preliminary dialexeis, prolaliai) to something else? We cannot be sure. The word dialexis can refer to either a freestanding or a preliminary piece, and there is no reason why Jalia could not be understood to mean prolalia—just as a protheoria is sometimes called simply a theoria (see next paragraph).*? I would argue that Orations 38, 40, 46, and 60 are preliminary dialexeis or prolaliai; so too, perhaps, Orations 39, 62, and 68.34 They may have originally introduced yet one more declamation on an imag- , inary theme; if so, these preliminary pieces, illustrating Himerius’s life and the life of his school, would have been judged by those responsible for their preservation to have more interest than the orations they introduced.

For several Himerian orations all or part of the thedria or prothe6ria, the “(preliminary) explanatory comment,” survives, in which the orator comments on his own oration. For Oration 9, the whole (pro)theoria is extant; for 1, 3, and 10 we have excerpts from it. One may compare the occasional survival of the (pro)thedria in Themistius and Libanius and for all but one of Choricius’s Declamations.*°

Himerius is much given to metaphor (and simile). His metaphors are not original; what is noteworthy about them is their frequency. They have 31. See Thes. Ling. Lat., s.v. “praefatio.” 32. Ido not, however, regard dseiAexra, dieA€xvOn as a technical term for dialexis, but rather as a generic term for speaking. 33. Of course, a (pro)thedria is always preliminary. 34. See my notes on the opening scholia of 38, 46, and 68, and, for Orat. 39, 40, 60 and 62, my comments in the introductions to chapters 2 and 4. 35. Them. Orat. 2, 20, 26; Liban., Orat. 59; id., Decl. 3, 6, 12, 24, 25, 46. Heath (Menan-

: der, 238n) identifies what is printed as the protheéria of Liban., Decl. 4, as a mere scholion.

Introduction | II doubtless caused difficulty for consulters of Himerius’s Greek text, perhaps not entirely familiar with the metaphorical code and already struggling with a frequently fragmentary and sometimes lacunose text.*° Hi-

merius’s students collectively are a “chorus” (Orat. 54.1; 69.6, 9), a “flock” or “drove” (ayéAn: 10.2, 12.36, 54.2). He frequently addresses them as his zat des—his “boys” or “children” (cf. 10.2 tpodijous, 54.2 Opeuporev [nurslings]). This implies, of course, that Himerius is their “father,” what Robert A. Kaster calls “one of the most common images , of the teacher in late antiquity.”*’ Another designation for Himerius’s students, common in the titles and opening scholia of the orations, is €ratpou, literally “friends.” Here the hierarchical “father/boys” is replaced by an egalitarian image that makes both teacher and students coequal members of a friendly community of learners. My translation of éraipos as “student” unfortunately obliterates the ambiguity of the Greek word. Sometimes the Himerian context leaves it unclear whether éraipos means anything more than “friend” (see the titles of 11, 44, and 62). But given the larger context of the oeuvre of a teaching sophist, the reader will forgive me for favoring the meaning “student.” Himerius seems sometimes to use the basic Greek word for “friends,” diAot, in addressing his students. Oration 27 greets students (é€ratpor) from

Prusias. In the body of the oration Himerius addresses his audience both as mat des and as diAot. Unless he is addressing a mixed audience of students and nonstudents, this oration secures w ¢tAou as a substitute for w mraides. Oration 16 urges the end of discord in Himerius’s school. It must be directed at his students, whom he addresses as diAou. Oration 45 celebrates the recovery of Himerius’s head student from illness; those he addresses as #iAou are presumably the other students. Finally, if Iam right in-understanding Oration 44 to be addressed to one of Himerius’s students on the occasion of the student’s birthday, the others present, addressed as diAou, are presumably fellow students.°° Himerius sometimes uses the language of religious initiation to describe the act of teaching. What he teaches is described as “our rites.” He initiates his students in mysteries. He shows them the sacred fire.°” 36. See Volker, Himerios, 52-68. 37. Guardians of Language, 68. Cf. Walden, Universities, 307-8; Petit, Les étudiants, ° ; : ; For various ways of referring to students, see Walden, Universities, 296-97; Petit, Les étudiants, 18-42 passim; Volker in Goltz, Gelebrte, 170-71. Libanius addresses his student Anaxentius as @iAtate (Orat. 55.1). 39. Orat. 10.4, 34 [3, 7, 20], 35 [3-6, 71], 54.3, 61.4, 69.7—9; cf. Heath, Menander,

242-43. |

12 Introduction The study of philosophy is initiation in “the greatest mysteries” (Orat.

48.21). The metaphor has a Platonic pedigree.*° ,

Eloquence or oratory is a drug (Orat. 16.1), a kind of painting or sculpture (12.2, §3 23.33 31.53 32.12-133 36.23 48.16), the provision of a feast (23.9, 59.4). But, more than anything else, it is music or song (and sometimes also dance).*! “Modern” or Asianist sophists, with their poeticized and rhythmic style, had long been said to sing (adev).42 Himerius’s cor-

pus is filled with allusions to eloquence as music or song in general or specifically as the music of the lyre, pipes,*’ cicadas, swans, nightingales, and swallows. “[Himerius’s] writings are filled with examples from history and from

all sorts of myth, either to prove.something or to make a comparison . (pos opowernra) or to add pleasure and beauty to what is said.” Thus remarks Photius (Bibl. cod. 165.108b). Many of these stories may be thought of as extended metaphors; they are analogies that illustrate the oratorical situation.** Sometimes the points of contact between story and

actual situation are multiple. Oration 60 ends with a story about Pindar. Some visiting Ionians in Athens encountered him. They wanted him

to regale them with his lyric poetry. He was not up to anything more than a short melody, but he promised them an extended orthios nomos the next day. Here Pindar is Himerius, the visiting Ionians parallel the Ionian guests who have come to Himerius’s school, the short melody is a short dialexis Himerius delivered, and the future orthios nomos is a future full declamation that Himerius promises. In Oration 34 Solon, taking his son to see Aeschylus’s plays in Athens (the scene is chronologi-

cally impossible) is the addressee Arcadius, taking his son to hear Himerius there. One needs to be attentive to the various points of con. tact in these stories and to clues that the story may give about the actual

40. Volker, Himerios, 63-68.

41. Dance: Orat. 12.383 32.13 46.2, 73 48.5, 31. 42. Walden, Universities, 233-37; Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, 294-95, 375-79. Note, e.g., Him. Orat. 38.10: “This is what I sing to you (zpoojora:) for now”; 48.2, Himerius in orating is “taking up the Muses’ songs (wéAn).” Norden(428) contrasts Himerius, who held “die Professur der modernen Sophistik,” with Libanius, “der angesehenste Vertreter der archaischen Eloquenz.” It should be noted here, with my passing reference to prose rhythm, that Himertus is an important witness for the change from a rhythm based on vocalic quantity to one based on accent (see Volker, Himerios, 73-78). Prose rhythm, of course, is a phenomenon that is completely obliterated in translation. 43. See Volker, Himerios, 54-61. 44. Cf. Wernsdorff, Himerii sophistae quae reperiri potuerunt, lix: “Nihil tamen magis eius [Himerii] proprium, quam allegoria, cum aut veris historiis aut fabulis utitur ad imaginem quandam suarum rerum adumbrandam.”

Introduction 13. situation. In Oration 65, “To Those Involved a Conflict and Absent from a Lecture,” there is a story about Agamemnon gathering together an assembly, even though Achilles, “the very leader of the Greeks,”

was absent. Here Himerius is gathering his students, and the story sug-

gests that his head student is among those absent. | : Normally, the relevance of a story in Himerius is clear enough. On two occasions, though, needed illumination is provided by the opening scholia of the orations in question. Oration 39 was delivered at Thessa- .

, lonica. In it Himerius compares Musonius, the vicar of Macedonia, who was present, to Alcibiades. After elaborating on Alcibiades’ qualities, Himerius goes on to say, “Come let us also honor Nicias by our words,” which he proceeds to do in the rest of the paragraph. We would be completely confounded by this “digression” on Nicias were it not for the fact that the opening scholion tells us that the consularis of Macedonia, Calliopius, was present at the oration as well as the vicar Musonius. In praising the cooperation of Alcibiades and Nicias, Himerius is actually praising that of Musonius and Calliopius, without explicitly alluding to the latter. Oration 40 was delivered in Philippi when Himerius was on his way to join the emperor Julian, who had summoned him. The oration

ends with an analogous story: Aristotle, summoned by Alexander, stopped at the city of Atarneus to salute the city and his former pupil Hermias with a short composition. In this story Aristotle is Himerius,

Alexander is Julian, and Atarneus is Philippi. What about Hermias? His , significance would have been lost to us without the opening scholion of

the oration, which tells us that Himerius’s former pupil Severus was , present when Himerius spoke at Philippi. _ Himerius’s stories from Greek myth or history allow for numerous flattering comparisons of Himerius himself and his addressees to figures from the past. Himerius is a new Chiron, Achilles’ teacher, and his physician-addressee Arcadius may think of himself as a new Democedes, the famous physician of old (Orat. 34). Himerius replicates Odysseus, torn between Phaeacia and his homeland (44.1). Or his addressee Hermogenes replicates Odysseus, with Himerius himself playing the role of Philoctetes, the addressee ordering the sophist to “shoot”—that is, to orate (48.1—2). Himerius is Achilles, “fac[ing] the contest late” (25 [1-14]). His addressee

Ursacius is an Abaris, come from the north (23.4-7). The teacher Privatus, addressee of Oration 29, is a new Anacharsis, come to Greece from abroad, and a new Phoenix. Two of Himerius’s addressees at Thessa-__. lonica, as has already been noted, are comparable to Alcibiades and Nicias (39.11-13). Arcadius listening to Himerius is like Solon anachronistically

14 | Introduction watching Aeschylus’s plays (34). Ionian guests visiting Himerius at Athens reenact a visit of “very prominent Jonians” to Pindar there (60.4). Timotheus’s piping for Alexander is mirrored in Himerius’s orating for

Flavianus (12.1). Himerius is a new Anacreon, Stesichorus, Ibycus (69.5); , he is like Isocrates (33); he mirrors Socrates, luring students away from inferior teachers (3 5 [9—25]) and derided by men (like Himerius) but approved by Apollo (38.5—7). And the list could go on. This surrealistic world, in which past and present are melded, as in a

dream, typical of the Greeks under Rome, is richly on display in Himerius’s orations. What are we to make of it? Such obsessive self-comparison to great figures of the past might suggest that the Greeks of the Empire suffered from a deep sense of insignificance or inferiority. Or it might incline us to accuse them of presumption.* But this is to look for

an explanation of the phenomenon in individual psychology. Without totally discounting individual psychology, I would look first for a cultural explanation of the habit. Devotion to and identification with the past was central to imperial Greek cultural identity, especially among the

elite.*° When Himerius likens himself to Socrates or an addressee to Odysseus, he is at least as much reinforcing cultural identity as meeting some psychological need.

| Almost all of Himerius’s orations have a poetic tone to them; although there is hardly anything unique in this,*’ it is remarkable how pronounced that tone is: Eduard Norden referred to the sophist’s eloquence as “Poe-

sie in scheinbarer Prosa,” poetry in what only appears to be prose.*® Himerius’s propensity for metaphor and simile is part of his poetic leaning. There is also the matter of his diction;*? but to detect in his lexicon what his contemporaries would have reacted to as “poetic” requires a 45. Rizzo, RFIC 26 (1898): 515: “quantunque non si possa che sorridere, leggendo che il retore osa paragonar la sua scuola alla scuola d’Isocrate.” 46. See, e.g., Swain, Hellenism, 65-100. The foundational study is Bowie, P@P 46 (1970): 3-41 (revised reprint in Studies in Ancient Society, ed. M. I. Finley [London, 1974)). These studies of the Second Sophistic remain applicable, in essence, to the fourth century. See also the more recent Alcock in Alcock et al., Empires, 323-50.

47. See, e.g., Rohde, Der griechische Roman, 356-61. |

48. Die antike Kunstprosa, 429. Cf. Walden, Universities, 235: “Some of [Himerius’s compositions] are as near being on the line between prose and poetry as it is well possible to be”; Schenkl, RE 8, 2 (1913): 1633: “seine alles Maas tibersteigende Hinneigung zu poetischem Ausdruck.” Volker (in Amato et al., Approches, 589-612) is essentially in agreement with Norden’s judgment. The orations on imaginary themes (chapter 6) are, in general, more sober. 49. He tells us in the prothedria of Orat. 9 that “the best rule for nuptial orations should be to look to the poets for diction. “

Introduction 15 highly developed sensitivity, and Greek poeticisms are often lost (or ig-

: nored) in translation. Another aspect of Himerius’s poetic tone is quite

simply his interest in the poets of old: quoting them, echoing them, re- | ferring to them.°° One notes, first of all, Homer; but Homer in Himerius is not particularly noteworthy, because Homer is ubiquitous.°! What is worthy of note is Himerius’s interest in the lyric poets: Alcaeus, Aleman, Anacreon, Bacchylides, Ibycus, Pindar, Sappho, and Stesichorus. This in-

terest has secured for the fourth-century sophist a place in the testimo- . nia and fragments of modern editions of these poets. Quotations, echoes, and references are not the whole story: Himerius often also compares — himself to them and compares his oratory to the music of the instruments that accompanied the poetry. Sometimes Himerius indicates quite ex-

plicitly that Homer is not enough for him; Homer must be supplemented ,

by the lyric poets. In Oration 69.5, after quoting Homer, Himerius ex- , claims, “Yet why do I need Odysseus? Why do I need Homer and the Cyclops? Come... let us rather seek consolation from the Muses and lyric poetry.” He then cites incidents in the lives of Anacreon, Stesichorus, and Ibycus that are comparable to his own current situation. In 27 [24-33] he illustrates his point by appealing not only to Homer, but also to Anacreon, Alcaeus, Simonides, Bacchylides, and Stesichorus. Elsewhere

Homer is followed by Pindar, Anacreon, Alcaeus, and Sappho (28.12). It was because of Isocrates, Himerius remarks, “that sophists’ tongues scorned those of poets and embraced a law of their own” (Orat. 33 [4-7]). But Himerius did not share that scorn; he calls himself a friend of poets (38.3). He can see himself as a counterpart of poets (9.5, 36.17) 46.6, 47.7, 48.4). We feel that he is almost expressing regret when he tells us that he is not a poet—that, when he speaks his own words, he must speak in prose (9.19-203 12.25, 323 27 [33-36]; 46.11; 48.10; frag. 1.7). “The art of rhetoric,” he says in Oration 48.5, “wrongs meinnothavingtaught _ me to play the lyra or the barbitos, but only to dance this prose darice for the Muses. So I shall let poets be frenzied and shall . . . [speak] in my own way.” Or consider what he says in 47.1: “I would have gladly persuaded my words to become lyrical and poetic, so that I could say some-

, thing about you that has a youthful verve to it, as Simonides or Pindar did about Dionysus and Apollo.” But he goes right on to add that,

50. See Rizzo, RFIC 26 (1898): 513-63; Cuffari, I riferimenti poetici; Volker, Himerios, 28-32. 51. Cuffari, I riferimenti poetici, 101-2: “sebbene la netta prevalenza di [citazioni] omeriche . .. confermi la centralita di Omero nell’ambito delle scuole retoriche.”

16 Introduction | nonetheless, “my [prosaic] words are proud and hold their heads up high;

they frolic without the restraint and beyond the confines of meter.” Himerius is proud of his profession, proud of the traditions of logoi.°? Yet the vatic and aesthetic possibilities of poetry fascinate him. - Gottlieb Wernsdorff included a Latin translation in his pioneering edition of Himerius (1790). That translation was reprinted, with revisions, along with Friedrich Diibner’s Greek text (1849). Translations into modern languages were a long time in coming. René Henry’s Budé edition of Photius’s Bibliotheca includes a French translation of the excerpts of Himerius contained therein (1971). But the first modern language translation of the whole Himerian corpus, into German by Harald Volker, did not appear until 2003. My own translation, like Voélker’s, is based on the standard critical edition by Colonna. I inform the reader when I deviate from Colonna’s text. Section numbers in the orations are given after a full stop; section 10 of Oration 31, for example, is referred to as 37.10. The lacunose orations generally have only line numbers, not section numbers, in Colonna’s

edition. I refer to these lines with square brackets: line 10 of lacunose Oration 24, for example, is referred to as 24 [10]. I use square brackets in the translation to identify quotations or allusions, for short glosses, and when I want the reader to see immediately how I am fleshing out the Greek text. Angular brackets indicate conjectural supplements. Curly brackets are used in the lacunose‘orations from codex R to suggest what

: has been lost on its damaged folios. For these suggestions I am almost always indebted to Wernsdorff or to Dibner. In my translation of lacunose passages, occasionally I tacitly leave out a word, phrase, or (at several places) one to three lines from which I can get nothing meaningful. If ] omit anything longer, I let the reader know in a footnote. Com-

ment on an individual oration is divided between the notes to the oration and the introduction to the chapter containing the oration. I do not always give a cross-reference to the chapter’s introduction in the notes

mo to the oration. 52. Orat. 35 [65-66]: “For what gift more beautiful than eloquence (Adywv) could for-

| tune have given the human race?” At 23.3 Himerius remarks that “any attempt to represent something falls short of oratory,” but it is a reference to painting that prompts this remark.

The Orations |

BLANK PAGE

CHAPTER I

Himerius’s Son, Rufinus

Two orations concern Himerius’s son, Rufinus. The first, Oration 7, Himerius’s plea before the Areopagus for free status for his son, survives only in a few excerpts. The second, Oration 8, Himerius’s lament at the

premature death of Rufinus, survives in full. In his brief sketch of Himerius, Eunapius mentions only the Athenian sophist’s daughter, not his prematurely departed son (Vitae phil. et soph. 14.2 [494] Giangrande). She is presumably the “full sister” of

Rufinus who is mentioned in Oration 8.12; Himerius there praises Rufinus’s love for and protection of her. The siblings’ mother belonged to a distinguished Athenian family, which is highlighted in both Ora-

tion 7 and 8. In 7.4 Himerius identifies Rufinus as “a descendant of Plutarch, through whom you [Athenians] educate the whole world... [,] a descendant of Minucianus, who obtained free status for many people on many occasions by means of his eloquence... [,] the descendant of Nicagoras.” In 8.21 he laments the fact that his son did not live long enough to outdo his ancestors by speaking “more forcefully than Minucianus, more solemnly than Nicagoras, more eloquently than Plutarch, more philosophically than Musonius, more intrepidly than Sex-

tus.” To list Rufinus’s maternal ancestors, Himerius says, is to make “a list of sophists and philosophers for you, and they are truly the nobil-

| 19

ity of Attica” (7.4). A sequence of fathers and sons is known for this learned Athenian fam-

20 Himerius’s Son, Rufinus ily: Mnesaeus—Nicagoras I—Minucianus—Nicagoras II.! Nicagoras II is attested in Egypt in the year 326; he is likely to be the father (conceivably the grandfather) of Himerius’s wife.” Plutarch and his philosopher nephew Sextus, both Boeotians from Chaeronea, belong somewhere on the family tree before the time of Mnesaeus.° In an Eleusinian inscription Nicagoras I boasts of his descent from them (SIG? 845). The influential view that in Orations 7 and 8 Himerius is referring to the Minucianus attacked in Hermogenes’ On Issues and that this Minucianus was Mnesaeus’s father has been questioned, on good grounds, by Malcolm Heath.‘ If the earlier Minucianus is not a member of Himerius’s wife’s family, then the question to which Minucianus Himerius is referring is eliminated. But the question to which Nicagoras he is referring remains—and whether he is referring to the same Nicagoras in both orations.° What about Musonius? He may be, not Musonius Rufus, but the Musonius who was a Stoic philosopher teaching in Athens in the early third century, when Longinus was a student.®

Rufinus’s paternal grandfather was a rhetor (Suda I 348 Adler), his father a successful sophist, and the philosophical and rhetorical achievements of his mother’s family were unusual.’ The young man whom death

cut off was genetically programmed for extraordinary intellectual and academic success.

In Oration 7 Himerius pleaded before the Areopagus for a grant of free status for his son before the latter’s legal age (7.3, apo 7Bns ), which was traditionally at the end of one’s seventeenth or possibly eighteenth

, year in Athens.® Apparently what Himerius was seeking for his son was

1. See Schissel, Klio 21 (1927): 361-73; Millar, JRS 59 (1969): 16-17; Heath, ZPE 113 (1996): 66-70, Schamp (DPA 3 [2000]: 720-22) is unaware of Heath’s article, as is Volker (Himerios, 9-13). 2. On this Nicagoras, see Fowden, JHS 107 (1987): 51-57. Father of Himerius’s wife: W. Ensslin, “Nikagoras 4,” RE 17, 1 (1936): 216; W. Stegemann, “Nikagoras 9,” RE 17, t (1936): 218; PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Nicagoras 1”; Greco, Orpheus 15 (1994): 311n. Grandfather of Himerius’s wife: Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 222. 3. Sextus from Chaeronea: SHA, Mare. 3.2; Suda 2' 235 Adler. 4. Schissel, Klio 21 (1927): 366; Heath, ZPE 113 (1996): 66-70. Schissel had conjectured that the elder Minucianus had married Sextus’s daughter (Klio 21 [1927]: 363,

3655 371).

5. If 8.21 refers to Nicagoras I, 7.4 with its juxtaposition rov éx Nixayopou . . . Tov : é€ éuavTod may refer to the more recent Nicagoras. Cf. Schissel, Klio 21 (1927): 370; Greco, Orpheus 15 (1994): 312. 6. Heath, Eranos 96 (1998): 51. Barnes (CP 82 [1987]: 222) assumes that Himerius

means Musonius Rufus. |

dure, 205-7. :

7. For details on Rufinus’s maternal ancestors’ achievements in paideia, see Heath, ZPE 113 (1996): 66—70, and the articles in RE on the various individuals. 8. I follow Harrison, Law of Athens: The Family, 74; cf. id., Law of Athens: Proce-

Himerius’s Son, Rufinus | 21 full citizen rights and cessation of tutelage.” The assertion that this ap-

peal was made when Rufinus was two years old arose from the assumption that the situation described in 8.15 was the occasion when Himerius sought full citizen rights for his son.'° In that passage Himerius

, recalls a time when he brought his two-year-old son before the Areopagites. They were impressed by the boy’s behavior. But it seems in-

herently improbable that Himerius would have sought full citizen rights for Rufinus at such a young age; on that occasion the boy must merely have been in his father’s tow. Furthermore, the remark at 8.9 that “your burial follows my plea for you before the Areopagus, your death follows my obtaining free status for you” would have no point at all if a long chronological gap separated the two juxtaposed events.!!

Death in Rufinus’s late teens or early twenties fits the details of Ora- , tion 8 well. The early grant of full citizen rights was perhaps made only several years earlier, before Rufinus’s seventeenth or eighteenth birthday, if in fact that was still the age of majority at Athens in the fourth century A.D. Himerius was away from Athens when Rufinus, apparently unusually prone to disease (8.13), died there (8.17). The only indication he gives of his whereabouts at the time is his reference to the banks of the Melas River, where he poured libations for his dead son (8.22). A number of _

| rivers were called Melas in antiquity. Inevitably, there have been conjectures as to which one Himerius means.!* I incline to the only one of them

that may be supported by an item in Himerius’s monody. In 8.23 Himerius imagines his son’s soul in the company of Eros, Hymenaeus, Bacchus, and Trophonius. Now Rufinus, marriageable and deprived of marriage by death, suitably consorts with Eros and Hymenaeus, as he does with Bacchus/Dionysus, to whom he was consecrated (8.7). But why does Himerius bring in Trophonius? Perhaps because he was near that | god’s oracular shrine at Boeotian Lebadea at the time of his son’s death. That would fit well with (and is itself suggested by) the old conjecture

9. Note Harrison, Law of Athens: The Family, 188: “Sometimes [in classical Athens] the word éAevOepos is used in an extended sense for a free man with full citizen rights.” ro. See Wernsdorff in his opening comment on Orat. 7 and on 8.15; Schenkl, RE 8, 2 (1913): 1623; cf. Schemmel, NJbb 22 (1908): 499: “fiir seinen dreijahrigen [sic] Sohn.” 11. The actual Greek at 8.9 is very terse: rd@os pera "Apevov mratyov, pret’ eAevOepiay 6 Pavaros.

12. For the various Melas rivers, see RE 15, 1 (1931): 438-40; RE Suppl. 8 (1956): 352; cf. Talbert et al., Barrington Atlas, index. In addition to the conjecture I discuss below, note PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Himerius 2” (the Thracian Melas); Schemmel, NJbb 22 (1908):

499, and Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 222-23 (the Cappadocian Melas).

22 Himerius’s Son, Rufinus that the Melas River in question is the one near Boeotian Orchomenus.'?

And why was Himerius in Boeotia rather than in Athens at the time of his son’s death? At 8.2 he asks his dead son, “Why did I separate myself from your embraces?” The answer is, “You were the spoils of an envy aimed at me, an unjust spirit’s accidental victim.” Himerius, it has been suggested,'* had become involved in a professional quarrel—with his rival Prohaeresius?—and was temporarily driven out of Athens.’ Although =~ sheerly conjectural, the notion is plausible. Prohaeresius himself had once been temporarily driven into exile from Athens.'* Himerius’s wife’s family had ancestral ties to Boeotia; it may still have had land there, to which Himerius could have retreated. He could have easily hoped there that his __

| ~ son would visit him from Athens (see 8.2). Oration 8 is not an epitaphios or paramuthétikos logos, but a monody. The purpose of a monody is to express lamentation, although it also contains praise of the deceased.1” Monodies were commonly delivered over the young; they told of hopes raised and then dashed to the ground, complaining against the divine powers and the injustice of fate.!® Himerius’s loss was made especially bitter because he was not with his

son during the latter’s last days, death, and funeral. Oration 8 has a strong tragic coloration and is influenced by the master monodist, Aelius

Aristides.” Himerius praises his son’s virtues and rhetorical skill, underscoring his precocity, his “exceed[ing] the limits of [his] age” (8.12). Precocity seems to have been a common encomiastic theme, whether the individual being praised had died prematurely or not.?° In Himerius’s monody this theme is taken to great heights. When Rufinus was almost three years _ old and Himerius brought him before the Areopagites, the boy astounded

them with his seriousness, “like someone who had already been learn-

13. For this river, see E Gisinger, RE Suppl. 8 (1956): 352. It does not appear in Talbert et al., Barrington Atlas. Wernsdorfft on 8.22 had already suggested that Himerius’s Melas was the Boeotian river. For the possible relevance of the mention of Trophonius, cf. Wilamowitz, Kleine Schriften, 4: 648. 14. Wernsdorff, Himerii sophistae quae reperiri potuerunt, | (“Vita Himerii”).

15. In Wilamowitz, Kleine Schriften, 4: 648, the conjecture has become fact. __ , 16. For Prohaeresius’s exile, see Penella, Greek Philosophers, 86. 17. For the three possible rhetorical responses to someone’s death, see Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor, 347. Monody’s purpose: Men. Rhet. 2.16 [434] Russell-Wilson. 18. Men. Rhet. 2.16 [435.2-I1, 436.21-22].

so 19. For the influence of tragedy and of Aelius Aristides, see the introduction and commentary, passim, in Greco’s forthcoming edition of Orat. 8. 20. Wiedemann, Adults and Children, 49-80 passim, 167-70. Cf. Ael. Aristid. Orat.

31.4, 11 Keil. ,

Himerius’s Son, Rufinus 23 ing the ancient stories about that court for some time.” Rufinus on that occasion was more silent than his father, more reserved than the Areopagites themselves (8.15).7! No “terrible twos” here. Also, at a young age Rufinus, with special ties to Athena, Dionysus, and the Eleusinian deities (8.7, 8, 13, 18), had an old man’s attachment to the worship of the gods (8.11). And Himerius asserts that Rufinus was already a public speaker when he spoke his first words, in his swaddling clothes (8.4). This, of course, is not intended to be taken literally. But we may accord some credibility, despite exaggeration, to the representation of Rufinus as precocious in eloquence. Himerius contends that, despite the young man’s premature death, he had already outdone his father as a rhetor: “I regarded your words as better than mine. I always preferred your inar- — _ ticulate speech to my serious efforts.”22 And Himerius had hoped that — his son’s eloquence would also eventually outdo that of the latter’s highly : learned maternal ancestors (8.21). Eloquence and paideia in general were

routinely valued by the upper classes of the Empire and encouraged in their offspring;7? but Himerius portrays his son as a budding rhetor’s rhetor, who would have taken family traditions of excellence in paideia to an even higher level had cruel fate not struck him down. TRANSLATIONS

7. From the Areopagiticus; or, [The Plea]

for Free Status for His Son, Rufinus | [1] Men [i.e., Areopagites] who long ago made decisions for the gods on who should [legally] prevail and now make decisions for the Athenians on the granting of free status *4 21. Cf, Themistius’s panegyric on the three-year-old Valentinianus Galates: sitting on the speaker’s platform, he was “more still than any old man”; while the rest of the audience fell asleep, he was prepared to sit patiently through the proceedings all day long (Orat.

; 9.12IC).

22. Cf. Aelius Aristides’ praise of his young pupil Apellas: “Nor would Nestor, although an old man, seem still to speak like ‘honey,’ if he were compared to this boy” (Orat. 30.19 Keil, trans. C. Behr). 23. See Schmitz, Bildung und Macht, 105-8. 24. Himerius is thinking of the days when gods heard cases on the Areopagus. See Dem. 23.66; Apollod. Bibl. 3.14.2; Ael. Aristid. Orat 1.45-48 Lenz-Behr; Him. Orat. 6.8; August. De civ. Dei 18.10. These texts specifically mention trials of Ares and of Orestes and make clear that the gods themselves did the judging. Yet Himerius here says that, in those mythological days, “men ... made decisions for the gods” (cf. Him. Orat. 8.15: “gods pleading their cases before those judges [i.e., Areopagites]”; Liban. Orat. 18.115: “Gods were judged [at Athens] before [a tribunal of] Athenians”; Amm. Marc. 29.2.19: “[Areopagites], whose justice is said to have resolved even the gods’ disputes”). In Orat. 6.8

24 Himerius’s Son, Rufinus [2] So, in obedience to the law, I shall speak only with reference to the

matter at hand.*° I have been both a sophist and a father among you. You know whether or not Jam an accomplished sophist, for Iam always speaking, and my life is lived in lecture halls. Whether or not Iam an Attic father, the present occasion will show. [3] For I find it intolerable not to

call the son of Athenians free. I entrust my son with freedom even be-

, fore he reaches the legal age. He is mine, he is an Athenian, he belongs to a city that honors its own antiquity as a commonwealth more than

others honor their fathers’ old age. [4] This young man is a descendant of Plutarch, through whom you educate the whole world. He is a descendant of Minucianus, who obtained

free status for many people on many occasions by means of his eloquence. I have brought before you the descendant of Nicagoras, my own

son. [In mentioning these ancestors of my son], I am making a list of sophists and philosophers for you, and they are truly the nobility of Attica.2® [5] I have often spoken as a sophist, now I speak as a father. [6] You have given me a son of the Attic race; accept him now as one

made free by your decree. Free my son for me by your decree and let your free voices resound with [his], so that as an Athenian—which is the same as saying as a free man—he may speak and propose laws among you and, if the gods are willing, play a political role in your commonwealth.?’

[Exc. Phot.] : 8. A Monody for His Son, Rufinus

[x] I am utterly wrong in speaking now that Rufinus lies buried; nonetheless I shall speak, since fate has preserved me solely to lament

Himerius has the gods do the judging, but with human Areopagites as their judicial colleagues. If more of Orat. 7.1 had survived, it might have emerged that 7.1 is not at odds with 6.8, for “men who . . . made decisions for the gods” does not necessarily exclude gods deciding along with them as colleagues. 25. Himerius promises to speak eis 76 7payua, acknowledging his obligation, for example, to avoid digressing from the issue and to refrain from rhetorical tricks that arouse emotions. See, e.g., Arist. Rhet. 1.1 [13 54a11-31]; Lysias 3.46; Lycurg. Contra Leocr. 11-13;

Lucian Anachars. 19. Dibner and Colonna assume a lacuna after this opening sentence. 26. For Rufinus’s ancestors, see pp. 19-20 above. 27. “resound with [his]”: or “resound with [mine]”? “propose laws”: ypady. Cf. Him. Orat. 4.17, with my note.

Himerius’s Son, Rufinus 2.5 this tragedy.?® For it would not be right for me to fail to mourn in words

, the child of eloquence. And what a glorious subject to speak on! Surely, [my son], glorious fortune has preserved your father’s eloquence for you.

I do wish that I had been speaking next to your tomb, that your grave had been my platform—a platform of the thrice-happy. As it is, you have been snatched away from me without having spoken to me, without having addressed me, without having embraced me for the last time. [2] Fate actually seemed to give birth to tragedy before you died, from that day when it deprived me [by my absence] of my enjoyment of you and separated you from my hugs and kisses. But why do I bring a charge against fate? It was I who was responsible for losing you, my child, [by my departure]. Why did I separate myself from your embraces? You were the spoils of an envy aimed at me, an unjust spirit’s incidental victim.?? Oh, what a tragic and cruel day that was! What light shone on me before that, what darkness then took its place! I had stood there every day

with my ears ready to take in much-desired news [about my son]. I always kept watch for a messenger who would tell me that Rufinus was coming. What great news that would have been. But what news the [evil]

spirit was preparing for me instead! | , [3] At night I used to think about a bath, a house, and riches for you—

about all the things that human beings consider the finest. During the day I worked to provide such things for you. Little did I know, wretch that I was, that I was preparing a tomb for you instead of a bath, a grave and a mound instead of a house, gifts for the tomb—the most tragic offerings there are for human beings—instead of riches and luxury.°*° [4] Would that you had not been born at all, my dear son, or at least

that you did not shine on me so much and so greatly with your soul, _ your body, and your virtues. You were already a public speaker as soon 28. “Fate” here is 6 daiuwyv, which I usually translate as “the [evil] spirit” in this oration (see Burkert, Greek Religion, 179-81). “Thrice-happy” in sections 1 and 5 is

T pPLOEVOGL[LWV. | |

29. “an envy aimed at me”: For what Himerius might be alluding to here, see p. 22 above. Himerius feels himself, not his son, to be fate’s primary victim. “an. . . incidental victim”: wapepyov. For épyov meaning “victim,” see LSJ, s.v. IV 3. 30. Wernsdorff suggested that with the word “bath” Himerius is referring to his son’s future marriage, a ritual bath for bridegroom as well as for bride having being part of the preparations for a wedding (see, e.g., Oakley and Sinos, Wedding in Ancient Athens, 15). But the juxtaposition “a bath, a house, and riches” makes it easy to conjecture that Himerius instead means a private bath, which would have been an aristocratic amenity (Berger, Das Bad, 31-33; Y. Thébert in Veyne, History of Private Life, 1: 380). “Little did Iknow... preparing”: #yvoour 6€ dpa... aviota@v. With Greco, AAP 42 (1993): 315, I prefer codex R’s duordv to Photius’s advuoras, which Colonna adopted. R’s reading makes better sense temporally.

2.6 , - Himerius’s Son, Rufinus as you spoke your first words. You made the whole world hang on you

with your still unintelligible whimperings. Pericles was the love of elite ears from all over the world, but he became a public speaker only after

studying under Anaxagoras; you, on the other hand, were a public speaker right in your swaddling clothes. Alcibiades won over his whole

audience with his [physical] beauty, but he was already at the peak of -young manhood and in his teens; you had this effect on people when you : were still at the breast, taking your mother’s milk.?! Oh calamity worthy of Aeschylus’s grandiloquence! What shall I lament? What shall I praise? I shall say what those who were familiar with you know and what those who hear about you suppose. [5] O you

who once were the adornment of the Graces but now that of the Erinyes! , Alas, on account of you I have acquired epithets quite opposite to the ones I had: I was once called thrice-happy because of you, but now Iam ~ called thrice-wretched. For what land did you not traverse in reputation? What place did you not fill with your fame and your young qualities? Heracles needed to do much traveling and to endure the Twelve Labors, I suppose, in order to get the whole earth to witness his virtue; but you, with your wonders, have gone beyond the Pillars of Heracles for us [in

| reputation] without even leaving your circle of acquaintances.** How you have ensnared everyone with your charms! [6] Fathers exalt other children, I think, by commonly and often making up things about them. But in your case the normal situation was reversed: your father was silent or said little about your fine qualities, being apprehensive of fortune’s spite because of the greatness of your virtue. It was everyone else who told your father about your fine qualities! Thus

by your wondrous nature you enslaved people of every station and of every age all by yourself. 31. For the beneficial effects of Anaxagoras’s teachings on Pericles’ eloquence, cf. PI. Phaedr. 269e-—70 For what mourning have I been kept alive! I have dared to speak on every subject, avoid-

ing only laments. I was unaware, of course, that I was being kept alive to lament my own misfortune. 33. “lock of hair”: i.e., adornment. Cf. Ael. Aristid. Orvat. 18.9 Keil; Liban. Orat. 61.12; Him. Orat. 31.11. “to grow for Dionysus”: It was a common custom to consecrate one’s hair to and grow it for a god. The unshorn hair would have been cut and offered to the god at puberty or earlier (note Anth. gr. 6.155). See Sommer, Das Haar, esp. 18-34; Rouse,

Greek Votive Offerings, 240-45. }

34. For Cithaeron as a tragic site, see Him. Orat. 66.6, with my note. Demeter and Kore were the goddesses of the Eleusinian mysteries. “your hearth-initiate”: tov ad’ éoTias, L.e., TOY matda ad’ éorias punbévra. For this position and its “quasi-sacerdotal func' tions,” see Clinton, Sacred Officials, 98-114. “instead of a father”: Himerius is alluding to the dedication of a child to Dionysus by his father, such dedicants being called wartpo- — puvorat (Merkelbach, Die Hirten, 88-89). “daduchs”: The title of these Eleusinian officials means “torch-bearers.” The punishing Poenae were commonly associated, when not identified, with the Erinyes. See Kruse, “Poine 1,” RE 21, 1 (1951): 1211-13; cf. Him.

Orat. 4.24.

35. “A place beneath the earth where he could lie” is 7ov xa'rw OaAapov, and “a bed in this upper world . . . with a wife” is Tas dvw 7acrddas. There is play in the word thalamos, which can refer both to the grave and to the bride-chamber. Lurking here too is the idea of the death of an unmarried young person as an ersatz marriage. An unmarried girl could be thought of as “taken” by Hades. A young male, “not having looked upon a bridal bed (vipudera A€xyn)” in life, “descended to the inescapable thalamos of Persephone” (Anth. gr. 7.507b; cf. 7.508). See, e.g., Alexiou and Dronke, StudMed 12, 2 (1971): 819-51 passim; Seaford, JHS 107 (1987): 106-7 and passim; Rehm, Marriage to Death, index s.v. “Hades (as ersatz bridegroom).” Menander Rhetor recommends that, in a monody for a prematurely deceased young man, reference should be made to the marriage he never experienced (2.16 [435.4-5, 436.13]).

28 Himerius’s Son, Rufinus [9] lam wrapping you in words, my child, since I have been prevented from wrapping you in a shroud. J am building you a sepulchral mound with words, since my absence kept me from heaping up the one over your

corpse. And what words I am uttering about you now after the equally

, noteworthy ones of an earlier occasion! For your burial follows my plea for you before the Areopagus [i.e., Orat. 7], your death follows my obtaining free status for you. Because of you, it seems, the spirits who are neighbors of that court [the Areopagus] remembered their ancient names, being unable to bring any charge or accusation against you.*° [10] For who loved his father as much as you did? Who was more just in his relations with his kin and parents? I and your mother, ill-starred parents that we are, used to compete with one another in our love for you. But you would put an end to that competition, approaching each of us in such a way that we both

thought we were winners of the prize. Oh how the words you spoke flowed with honey! What a voice you had, sweeter than the nectar that is praised and celebrated among the gods! [x11] Long ago you were giving thought to your departure from this world, long ago you were making clear to those capable of reading the signs that you were too good for life here on earth. For what old man was as attached to the worship of the gods as you were? What seer or priest would run to sacred precincts and altars with such divine inspiration? What sacred pipe sounded hymns more sweetly than your tongue did? What lyra, what kithara played paeans to the gods that were more

melodious than what came out of your mouth??”

[x12] O you who earlier exceeded the limits of your age in your possession of the virtues and have now done so in your dying! O you who in your love of your sister deserve more praise than the Dioscuri! For they waged war on Helen’s behalf but could not prevent her from being carried off; you, though, were a phalanx for your full sister, stronger than

any wall.%® |

36. The “spirits” are the Erinyes, who had a sanctuary near the Areopagus (Paus. 1.28.5—6). The ancient name alluded to here is the Eumenides (E. Wiist, “Erinys,” RE Suppl.

8 [1956]: 88). This name ascribes edévera, “goodwill,” to them, a quality not consonant

with the bringing of accusations. , 37. For the philosophical “giving thought” (éweAeras ) to death, cf. Pl. Phaedo 67e. Lyra (i.e., chelys-lyra) and kithara are two different types of stringed instrument, but lyra ~ can also be used generically: Maas and Snyder, Stringed Instruments, chaps. 3 and 4, and note pp. 79-80. 38. The Dioscuri (Castor and Polydeuces) waged war to recover their sister Helen, which they did, but they had been unable to prevent her original capture by Theseus: see

, Himerius’s Son, Rufinus | 29 Who, even among the very solemn, was more naturally made for selfcontrol than you? You kept away from what was harmful on your own,

| often not even waiting for someone to tell you to keep away. Once you knew that something could lead to harm or disease, you would never have touched it, not even with the tips of your fingers, not even if you were drawn to it by thoughts of thousands upon thousands of happy outcomes. And if you did ever come into contact with something harmful in ignorance, it was enough to tell you so, and you would immediately

heed the warning. |

[13] How could one marvel [enough] at your courage? Severe attacks of disease get the better of people who are otherwise invincible. But you, relying only on your soul’s fortitude, always stood firm against all the diseases that attacked you—and they were serious. Perhaps it was for this very reason that that evil and savage spirit, having striven to defeat you and worsted by you so many times, in the end used a treacherous and deceitful contrivance to knock you down.*? Even so, you did not yield to the spirit until the very last, as one can learn [from those who witnessed your death]. You succumbed in body, but not in mind. He kept trying to strangle and overpower you, while you, with a noose around

your neck, continued to call out the name of your dear nurse Athena, until he isolated you from all your allies and thus was able to tighten the noose. For he knew that, when your father was present and fighting by your side, he had often gone away defeated.

[14] How much time will be needed to end my attachment to your fine qualities? What mix of Egyptian drugs will detach me from them?*° How can I look upon the plain of Athena now that you are gone? What

Isoc. 10.18—19; Diod Sic. 4.63; Plut. Thes. 31-33; Apollod. Bibl. 3.10.7. Himerius specifies that Rufinus had a full sister (75 adradéAdov) surely because he adheres here to a view that would deny at least one of the Dioscuri a full sibling relationship with Helen. He is probably assuming here that all three siblings had Leda as their natural mother, but that Zeus fathered Helen and Polydeuces, whereas Tyndareus fathered Castor; this, despite the

fact that at Orat. 47.11 Himerius calls Castor. the son of Zeus. (Note that in Hymn. Hom. 33 the brothers are “sons of Zeus” and “Tyndaridae” at one and the same time; cf. Theoc. 22.13 5-37.) Another version has Helen raised by Leda but the natural offspring of Zeus and Nemesis. Yet another version makes Helen the daughter of Ocean and Tethys. See Bethe,

“Dioskuren,” RE 5 (1905): 1112-13; id., “Helene 3,” RE 7, 2 (1912): 2826-28. For Himerius, then, Rufinus outdoes the Dioscuri both as a defender of his sister and in the fullness of his relationship to her. “a phalanx”: Greco (AAP 42 [1993]: 318) restores codex R’s “phalanx” in place of Photius’s dvAa€ (guardian), the reading adopted in Colonna’s

edition. Photius’s reading is a trivialization of the hyperbolic metaphor. | 39. “a treacherous and deceitful contrivance”: Himerius seems to be saying that the fatal nature of Rufinus’s final disease was not apparent to anyone. 40. For Egyptian drugs that palliate sorrow, see Hom. Od. 4.2109ff.

30 Himerius’s Son, Rufinus place in the countryside or in the city shall I look upon without immediately being filled with lamentation, tears, and all manner of wailing? If I go to the council-chamber, I shall think that I see you on the speaker’s platform trying to win over the members of the council. If I go before an audience, it will remind me of my gloomy tragedy, for it was before audiences that everyone often praised you en masse. [15] Even the best of the Athenians all let the acclamations go to you alone. It was you alone who caused all alike to rejoice when you outdid them, some because of

the goodwill engendered by their love [of you], others perhaps out of fear of what might happen [to you] in the future. The former you won over, the latter you unsettled—no, you carried off the victory prize in every contest in a spirit of goodwill and love. How can I look upon the Areopagus? When you were not yet three years old, you astonished everyone there with your seriousness, like someone who had already been learning the ancient stories about that court for some time. You outdid your father there by maintaining a silence that was more remarkable than his eloquence. You were more reserved and imperturbable than the members of the court. On that occasion one

could see the always pensive council smiling for the first time. You touched their souls, and they fell in love with you. Not even gods pleading their cases before those judges had managed to touch their souls in this way.*! [16] How shall I be affected when I look out at audiences who have

gathered to hear [my] oratorical displays? It was you who used to con- | vene such gatherings at our home for me, although in your character you gave me something sweeter than all the voices of the world. In the

, future, the places that I formerly loved the most will be hostile to me; all the places I previously preferred J shall regard as unfriendly. The

beautiful grove that I planted for your wedding has become your

, grave.

[17] Where will you embrace me if I come [back to Athens]? In our house? But you deserted that house, having left it behind as a reminder 41. “you astonished”: Colonna’s €£é7Anéa must be a typographical error for é€é7An- | Eas. “seriousness . . . silence . . . reserved”: These were proverbial qualities of Areopagites; see CPG 1.181, 2.146; Wallace, Areopagos Council, 110-11. “Not even gods” etc.: For what Himerius is referring to here—one of the “ancient stories” mentioned above in this paragraph—see his Orat. 7.1, with my note. 42. “all the voices of the world”: the voices of auditors, which had expressed approval of Himerius’s oratory. “The . . . grove that I planted”: Wernsdorff suggested that this grove would have provided the ceremonial branches and torches used in a wedding; see Oakley and Sinos, Wedding in Ancient Athens, index s.vv. “branches (sprigs),” “torches.”

, Himerius’s Son, Rufinus 31 of my gloomy tragedy alone. Well, will you embrace me in those sacred groves, thick with trees? I shall find you there, but I shall find you offering me streams of tears instead of kisses. O sweetest child, how you paraded [in death], as they tell it, from the city to a place that was once pleasant but is now more tragic than Cithaeron!*? Not the way you once paraded with your father, sometimes on horgeback, sometimes in:a carriage. O you who often said things more marvelous than what men have written in serious memoirs! What day went by, what journey or place was there, in which one did not hear your pleasant voice or a well-aimed

remark from you? | [18] By your death you have barred me from the gates of the city.

For how will my eyes be affected if I pass through them? You have barred

me from Eleusis. For how shall I, who bring a charge against the goddesses of that place [Demeter and Kore], enter their sacred precinct?

How shall I put my trust in a Dionysus who has failed to protect for | me my son, who was consecrated [to him]? How shall I sacrifice to Athena, who did not shake her Gorgon [aegis] at that [evil] spirit in defense of you, my child? How shall I pray to the god of our fathers, a father myself in grief over what happened to my son?** How can I go before a Greek audience to make a lament for you the introduction to my

rhetorical displays? How shall I tolerate my suffering when I look at your coevals? How, after setting my eyes on my young students, can | endure my woe? When I was away, you shepherded them for me, guiding all of them by kindnesses rather than words. [19] You were a guard to my years through the love people felt for you; for with you in mind people were ashamed to do any injury to me. They all respected your

youth more than my old age.

Oh you shameless words! Rufinus lies dead, but you keep pouring forth [from my mouth] with youthful insolence! Oh unfortunate tongue | [of mine], previously the instrument of the Muses, but now that of a crude (dprovoov) spirit!*> Let this rhetorical display of mine be part of the painful

dirge being sung for him. |

[20] O sweetest son, once much-desired, now lamented more than anyone else. In the past you were the support of my house, now you are its 43. Cithaeron: see section 8 above with my note 34. 44. At Athens, “the god of our fathers” or “our ancestral god” (zarpdios ) should almost certainly be Apollo, although conceivably Zeus; see Roscher, Ausfiihrl. Lex. 3, 2 (1902-1909): 1714-17. In Orat. 48.33 Himerius does call Apollo at Athens zrarpa@os (but ' see Diibner’s apparatus criticus). 45. Le., the spirit or fate (Saiuwv) that brought death to Rufinus.

32 , | Himerius’s Son, Rufinus dark and gloomiest sorrow. You shone more quickly than the morning star, but you were also quickly extinguished. When the sun first saw you,

you showed me a day brighter than all other days; and after I got that tragic and unfortunate news [of your death], you showed me one darker

than all others. |

[21] What shall I say that is worthy of your qualities? What sort of mournful and tragic music shall I compose in order to bewail you as much as I wish? What hopes I had for you! To what bad luck my [evil] spirit has condemned me! I now lament the person who I hoped would speak more forcefully than Minucianus, more solemnly than Nicagoras, more eloquently than Plutarch, more philosophically than Musonius, more intrepidly than Sextus—in a word, more brilliantly and better than . all of his ancestors.*° I myself yielded the prize to you when you were still a boy. I regarded your words as better than mine. I always preferred

your inarticulate speech to my serious efforts. But the [evil] spirit has robbed me of all this and gone off, letting me have laments and tears instead of you. [22] Accept these libations, then, which I pour out for you by the banks

| of the Melas [Black] River. The experts would know if this river ever confirmed the appropriateness of its name on some other occasion by | the character of its waters. But in the present circumstances it really did

turn dark and black for me, more dismal than any a Cocytus or Acheron.*’ It is just as if the [evil] spirit waylaid me so that everything would be worthy of the stage and the tragedy—the place, the time, the knowledge of my misfortune. The time was night, the place was the Melas River, the message was that Rufinus was dead. In the middle of this was your father, simultaneously lamenting and writing a speech, torn between

- my labors and my tears. [23] You, O child, have gone, of course, to the place to which the [evil]

spirit led you. But, if possible, you will be immortal [here on earth] through your father’s efforts, even if you now surely observe everything from up there somewhere, frolicking with the gods-—playing with Eros, _ making merry with Hymenaeus, prophesying with Bacchus, being inspired with Trophonius. (It would not be likely, of course, that such a great soul went down somewhere into the netherworld instead of joining the company of gods.) I shall honor you with funeral competitions,

46. For these ancestors, see pp. 19-20 above. | : 47. For the Melas River, see p. 21 above. The Cocytus and the Acheron are rivers of the underworld.

Himerius’s Son, Rufinus 33 I shall hand down your name to time, and I shall be more ambitious than the [evil] spirit at least to this end: that, if that spirit has your body and heaven your soul, your repute may be a possession of all humankind.*®

[cod. R, with passages also in Exc. Phot.] , 48. Bacchus: According to Wernsdorff and Diibner, codex R has Bayou; according to Colonna, Ba'yyou. Turcan has reexamined the manuscript and determined that it is Colonna who is misreporting its reading (MEFR 79 [1967]: 147-51). Dibner and Colonna both adopted Wernsdorff’s emendation “Branchus,” the mythological founder of Apollo’s oracle at Didyma, who had himself been given the gift of prophecy by Apollo (Conon Narrat. 33 [FGrH 26 F 1]; Lactant. Plac. on Stat. Theb. 8.198). But I am persuaded by Turcan to return to the (true) reading of codex R. Bacchus was, in fact, associated with prophecy

(Turcan, 149-50), and Rufinus was consecrated to him (above, section 7). Trophonius: Trophonius was the god of an oracle at Boeotian Lebadea. “Being inspired” (Qeodopovpevos )

probably hints at prophetic activity (see Dio Chrys. ro [11].56; Lucian Philops. 38); thus there are two varied references to love (with Eros and Hymenaeus) and two to prophecy (with Bacchus and Trophonius). “funeral competitions”: Perhaps Himerius means only that he will encourage people to compete in eulogizing his son. For actual funeral competitions in ancient Greece, see, e.g., Pritchett, Greek State, 4: 106-24.

CHAPTER 2 | In Praise of Cities and of Men

Apparently sometime after his arrival in Constantinople on December 11, 361, the emperor Julian summoned Himerius to his court. Himerius was

not the only pagan man of learning so summoned; and if the philosopher Chrysanthius begged off, the philosophers Maximus and Priscus joined the emperor. Himerius himself decided to leave his school of rhetoric in Athens and to accept Julian’s invitation. Photius’s Himerian bibliography records the title of a lost oration “To the Emperor Julian, When

He [Himerius] Was About to Depart” (Orat. 52 Colonna)—apparently delivered at Athens before Himerius left the city. He traveled north, mak-

_ ing stops at Thessalonica and Philippi before reaching Constantinople. In each of these cities he delivered at least one public oration. These three surviving orations (39-41) are presented here along with a much earlier oration (62), delivered, like Oration 41, in Constantinople. In the interval between Oration 62 and Orations 39-41 Himerius’s hair had turned

gray (62.7, 41.2).!

| Himerius arrived in Constantinople some time during Julian’s stay there, from December 11, 361, until the middle of June 362.7 In Ora-

tion 41 Julian is not addressed in the second person and was not present | 1. Date of Julian’s arrival in Constantinople: Amm. Marc. 22.2.4. Summons of Himerius: the opening scholia to Him. Orat. 39, 40, and 41; Eunap. Vitae phil. et soph. 14.1 [494] Giangrande. Chrysanthius, Maximus, and Priscus: see Penella, Greek Philoso-

phers, 68-69, 119-20. |

| 2. For Julian’s departure, see Bidez, La vie, 274; Bowersock, Julian, 83-85. 34

, In Praise of Cities and of Men 35 when it was delivered: Himerius ends the oration by asserting that he must stop speaking and “set my eyes on the emperor” (ddre viv. . . Baotrdws Odav rrowjoac8a). That means that he was unable to set his eyes

on him during the oration.? When the scholiast in the opening note to

Oration 41—an oration that includes praise of Julian—writes that Himerius “delivered his oration to the city and to the emperor” (ets Te THhv TOAW Kat Tov Bactdéa . . . dtetAexrat), he is speaking loosely and does not have to be understood to imply Julian’s presence.* Julian must

have been somewhere else in Constantinople when Himerius delivered Oration 41. It is clear from the opening words of that oration that Julian was still in Constantinople when Himerius arrived there: “I have cleansed my soul through Mithra the Sun, and through the gods I have

| spent time with (ovyyevojevot) an emperor [Julian] who is a friend of the gods.”° Having finished delivering the oration, Himerius wanted to

“set [his] eyes” once again on the emperor, still present in the city—unless Julian had just recently left, and Himerius was about to follow and catch up with him. Himerius’s primary audience for Oration 41 was not the

Mithraic initiates.° | emperor (or a large number of Constantinopolitans), but his fellow All four orations, being speeches of arrival (é€muBarypior Adyor) of a

3. It has been suggested to me, though, that Julian actually might have been present during the oration, but sitting behind Himerius, who was looking out at the audience and therefore would not have been able to look at the emperor while addressing them. 4. Cf. the title of Oration 41 found in Phot. Bibl. cod. 165.108a: pybeis év KwvorarTwovToret els abryv Te THV TOAW Kat Toudavov Tov BactAéa Kat eis THY MiOpov rederrp;

one can see from the last prepositional phrase that eis here means that the orator is speaking “to a topic,” actually to three topics, one of which is Julian. 5. The only way one could argue that Julian had already left Constantinople when Himerius arrived is to maintain that ovyyevopevor here means only “I have now become a [religious] comrade [i.e., a fellow Mithraic initiate]” of Julian; see LSJ, s.v. ovuyyi’yvo-

peas II, 5. Greco, in fact, although without reference to the word ovyyevopevot, has Himerius leaving Athens in July of 362 or June-July of 362 or 363 (Orpheus 15 [1994]: 316, 319). The option 363 should be excluded, which is implicitly done by Greco in a later publication (in Criscuolo, Da Costantino a Teodosio, 153). (J assume that June or July means the end of the academic year [cf. Walden, Universities, 279], before which Himerius presumably would not have wanted to leave Athens. But he could have departed before the end of the term without disrupting his students’ studies by leaving them in the hands of one or more assistant teachers.) Cf. Criscuolo in Filologia, 198: “Imerio lascio Athene dopo il luglio del 362” (my emphasis). Gartner also implies that, when Himerius reached Constantinople, Julian was already gone (RAC 15 [1991]:.167: “Im J. 362 reiste er [Himerios] nach Antiocheia zu Kaiser Julian”). Cf. Schemmel, NJbb 22 (1908): 499: “Reiste [Himerius] auf Einladung des Kaisers Julian nach Antioch, traf ihn aber nicht mehr an.” 6. “But for our [fellow Mithraic] initiates let me propose an oration as a thank- offering since Apollo and the Sun [ = Mithra], I think, are one and the same, and words are chil-

dren of Apollo” (41.1). :

36 In Praise of Cities and of Men sort, praise the cities in which they were delivered.’ That praise is generally predictable and unremarkable. Himerius lauds the virtue of Thes-

salonica (39.4-5) and the wisdom of both Thessalonica and Philippi (39.5, 40.2). The “whole of learning” (azravres Acyot) is a friend to Constantinople (41.2). Himerius specifies that philosophy especially thrives there, and he notes the city’s complete attentiveness to it (41.12). He is

thinking of Themistius, among others.® In his earlier oration in Constantinople (62), he had remarked that “everything everywhere [there] is brimming with the Muses’ arts and has been adorned because of them” (62.7). Philippi is praised for its antiquity (¢pyatav) and its good fortune (40.2).? Moving now to more tangible urban features, we find Himerius highlighting Constantinople’s geography in Oration 41: he tells the city that

it is “almost a complete continent that has given rise to a city... you are the beginning of Europe [cf. Him. Orat. 62.3] and also its end, and you have been allotted the same role in Asia.” The city’s position allows

it to enjoy the Black Sea, the Bosporus, and the Aegean (41.4~-5; cf. 62.3-4). Both Thessalonica and Constantinople can be proud of their size. But in both cases Himerius insists that the cities are beautiful as well

as large. In Thessalonica Himerius singles out for their beauty “places of assembly (ayopai),... baths, colonnades. . ., and religious shrines”;

in Constantinople, “gold... . [the city’s] senate-house...,its baths... , its theaters” (39.6—7, 41.6—7). He had earlier told the Constantinopoli-

, tans that their city had a “heavenly beauty” that outdid Rome’s (62.2, 5). And in Oration 41 he also praises the city’s population: it is large and divine (41.11, 13). The Hellenism of the three cities, though, is of special importance. Himerius’s references to their virtue, wisdom, and learning, noted above, certainly imply Hellenism.!? Thessalonica displays virtue and wisdom, “even though it is surrounded by people who almost all speak foreign

7. For speeches of arrival, see Men. Rhet. 2.3 [378.2, 382.1off.] Russell-Wilson. A lost speech, Orvat. 72 Colonna, whose title is preserved in Photius’s Himerian bibliography (“To

the city of the Lacedaemonians [i.e., Sparta], when [Himerius], in obedience to a dream, went to pray to the god [Apollo] at Amyclae”) was presumably also encomiastic. 8. See Them. Orat. 6.84a; Demegoria Constantii 21a. g. For the compliment “ancient,” cf. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes, 303-4.

1o. And there is nothing implicit about Him. Orat. 40.2: “Through the Athenians | [Philippi] got wisdom.” Cf. Flinterman, noting, in his discussion of Apollonius of Tyana as an advocate of Hellenism, the ethical nature of Greek identity in Apollonius’s letters and “the unproblematical identification of wisdom with Greekness” in Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius (Power, Paideia, and Pythagoreanism, 97-98).

In Praise of Cities and of Men 37 languages”—Paeonians, Illyrians, Moesians, and Thracians. Here the contrast between virtue and wisdom, on the one hand, and foreign languages, on the other, is tantamount to that between Hellenism and barbarism; and Himerius goes on to say explicitly that Thessalonica “maintains the Greek language like a golden center point and keeps it free of contamination by any neighboring tongue” (39.5). In another explicit mention of Thessalonica’s Hellenism, Himerius can say that “everything about this city is Greek—its language, its walls, its dress” (39.6). Coming right after this assertion, the reference in 39.7 to the city’s agorai, baths, colonnades, and religious shrines gives proof of its Hellenism as well as its beauty. It enjoys not merely good fortune, but a Greek for-

: tune (39.8).

In Philippi, Himerius tells his audience that their city once received an influx of Attic colonizers; it was through them that the Philippians got their wisdom and the Attic dialect. This was “the work of Callistratus,” the Athenian politician who, in exile, persuaded the Thasians to found the colony of Crenides on the mainland in 360/59 B.c. Philip I of Macedon took it in 356, renaming it Philippi. Callistratus’s founding, however, included no influx of Attic colonizers. Nonetheless, Himerius saw himself at Philippi as a “nightingale with her Attic odes, ... re- _ mind[ing | those who speak Attic Greek of Athens” (40.2-3). That he actually heard much pure Attic Greek spoken there may be doubted.'! He also told the Constantinopolitans in 362 that Athens was their mothercity (41.2-3). That claim is found in Ammianus Marcellinus as well, unelaborated in both texts (Amm. Marc. 22.8.8: “Constantinopolis, vetus Byzantium, Atticorum colonia”). In his earlier oration (62.2), Himerius had applied the phrase “the support of Greece,” which Pindar (frag. 76 Snell) had used of Athens, to Constantinople. Using a common panegyrical technique in Oration 41, Himerius makes Constantinople outdo the city with which it is flatteringly linked: comparing the emperor Julian, a native of Constantinople, to Cecrops, the first offspring of Athens, Himerius exclaims, “O city that brought into the light a child who was even better than one whom your mother-city itself brought forth!” (41.3).

Again, as Himerius explains (41.11), the earth-bound condition of the inhabitants of Byzantium/Constantinople, derived from their purported Athenian colonizers, whose mythical founder Cecrops was earth-born, was improved by the entrance of Julian’s family, or more generally of

11. On all of this, see my note on Orat. 40.2. |

38 In Praise of Cities and of Men Constantius Chlorus’s descendants, into Constantinople’s life, for they made the city “a reflection of some heavenly world.”

, Whenever he could, Himerius preferred to be an enthusiast of cultural Atticism rather than of a more generic Hellenism. He says in Ora-

| tion 41 that, after having studied rhetoric at Athens and left the city, he felt himself bound to “sow the rest of the earth with the seeds of learning” he got there (41.2). Himerius saw himself as a latter-day Triptolemus; that mythological figure had scattered literal seed throughout the earth from his flying chariot upon leaving Attica.!* Himerius must have been thoroughly smitten with the prestige of the Harvard or “Oxbridge”

of his day. It was precisely that academic idolizing of Athens that Themistius, who had no ties to Athens, combated in his Oration 2.7, “On

the Need to Give Thought, Not to Where [We Study], but to the Men [Who Will Teach Us],” in which he exclaimed, “Do you think that the city where eloquence first made its appearance [i.e., Athens] is the only fitting place to be educated?” (33 6c—d)!3 Himerius may have found it hard to answer no. In any case, his Hellenism seems to narrow readily to Atticism. ©

In the four orations under consideration, Himerius praises individuals as well as cities. Indeed, in Oration 41 he speaks of the laudation of Constantinople as “a prelude to the hymns of praise to be offered to [the emperor]” (41.2). Let us look now at the individuals praised in, and at some problems connected with this aspect of, the four orations. We begin with the earliest, Oration 62. In that oration, Himerius told the Constantinopolitans that the Muses were especially pleased that “a man who takes his name from them and has rejoiced in their rites is governing the city” (62.6). This governor is described as the “creature of the Muses,” but he is also compared to their leader Apollo. He is encour-

aging cultural achievements in Constantinople and is responsible for Himerius’s visit to the city at a time when the latter could still describe his eloquence as “youthful” (62.7). The man’s name must have been either Musonius or Musonianus. He held the proconsulship of Constantinople, an office that became defunct late in 359. If his name was Musonius, there are two obvious candidates, the proconsul of Achaia or the vicar of Macedonia (see below). But scholarly opinion has favored Strategius Musonianus, who held the Constantinopolitan proconsulship be-

12. See my note on Orat. 41.2. , 13. Not actually a question in the Greek text, but I follow my own syntactical remake in Private Orations, 170.

In Praise of Cities and of Men 3 39 , fore 353.4 The title of Oration 62 given both by codex R and in Photius’s Himerian bibliography says that Himerius published it (€€édwxev) for

eraipw Kwvoravtwourodiryn. Does éraipw mean “a friend” or “a student”? Heinrich Schenkl understood it to mean “a friend,” specifically

Musonianus himself.!° Perhaps, instead, Himerius saw to the oration’s | : proper publication at the prompting of a “Constantinopolitan student” of his in Athens, who would have had a special interest in his teacher’s earlier ties with the city on the Bosporus. Next, Oration 39. Here is its opening scholion: [Himerius] delivered this [discourse] in Thessalonica when, upon the sum_ mons of the emperor Julian, he was hastening to the East. He was officially invited by the city and [two] dignitaries, the vicar [of the diocese of Macedonia] and former sophist Musonius, and the consularis [of the province of Macedonia] Calliopius. He addressed the end of the oration to the Musonius who had been proconsul of Greece [Achaia] and was present on the

occasion.

The vicar Musonius is addressed in the second person in the course of Oration 39 and was surely present in the audience (39.8—10). Some words are devoted to the second Musonius, the former proconsul of Greece, to-

ward the end of the oration (39.14-15), as the opening scholion notes;

| although this Musonius is not addressed in the second person, the scholion tells us that he was present, too. In line with a common, if annoying, sophistic habit, neither Musonius is explicitly named by Himerius. The second Musonius is introduced as follows, after an allusion to the Homeric Alcinous: “Yet how much more worthy of respect than Homer’s

Alcinous is your own—I mean rov 6uuvupor [the man with the same name, the homonymous fellow].” The opening scholion allows us to see that Himerius means “with the same name as your vicar Musonius,” not “with the same name as Alcinous.”!° Perhaps the two Musonii were sitting together in Himerius’s audience, and Himerius gestured to the sec-

ond one as he called him ov 6puevupov. What about Calliopius, con- , sularis or governor of the province of Macedonia, which is part of the 14. Seeck, Die Briefe, 282; Keil, Hermes 42 (1907): 552n; Schenkl, RE 8, 2 (1913): | 1623; Seeck, “Strategius 1,” RE 4A, 1 (1931): 182; K. von Fritz, “Musonius 18,” RE 16, 1 (1933): 899; PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Strategius Musonianus”; Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 220; Greco, Orpheus 15 (1994): 3113; Schamp, DPA 3 (2000): 727. 15. RE 8, 2 (1913): 1623. 16. Wernsdorff (ad loc.) believes that Himerius is calling Musonius a second Alcinous; he “translates” Tov 6uwyvvpov as “virum Alcinoo dignitate similem.” Diibner (ad loc.) calls Wernsdorff’s interpretation “incredibilis” but prints his translation of tov opwyrvupov

nonetheless. But he suggests rov opovupor.

| 40 In Praise of Cities and of Men vicariate of the same name? After comparing the vicar Musonius to Al- | cibiades, Himerius says, “But since Alcibiades . . . [has] been mentioned, come let us also honor Nicias by our words—Nicias, who was Alcibiades’ colleague “ (39.12). Himerius then goes on to tell how well Alcib-

' iades and Nicias cooperated with one another. Surely “Nicias” is Calliopius, who was doubtless also in the audience. I suspect that he was sitting or standing close to the vicar Musonius and that, once again, Himerius gestured to him as he made the initial reference to Nicias quoted above. Cooperation would have been a desirable quality between vicars and the governors in their vicariate. One would expect the vicar Muso-

| nius and Calliopius to have been present to hear Himerius: they were in local office and (according to the scholion) had both invited Himerius to speak. Hence the scholion bothers to comment explicitly only on the presence of the ex-proconsul Musonius.!” _ The vicar Musonius received high praise at Thessalonica (39.8—11): “An Attic Muse shepherds the city,” Himerius proclaims. “The sophist’s chair has embellished the vicar’s chair.” The point is that Musonius taught rhetoric at Athens before entering the Roman civil service.!® In making Musonius the Macedonian vicar, the emperor “has taken the single most

beautiful possession he has and has given it as a gift to this victorious city,” thereby demonstrating “how the Greeks, who once conquered everyone with their weapons, now do so with the virtues of their men in office.” In lauding Musonius, Himerius is also insisting on the importance of a rhetorical formation for those in office. But he must make the additional point that Musonius is not all words and no action; this he does through a comparison of Musonius to Achilles, Pericles, Themis- _.. ~ tocles, and Alcibiades. All these Greeks of old, like Musonius, combined

: “deeds and actions with... words.” The comparison to Achilles, Pericles, and Themistocles is very briefly made. A much lengthier picture of Alcibiades is drawn, as military victor as well as skilled speaker.

oo The praise of “Nicias”—that is, of the governor Calliopius—that immediately follows (39.12—13) focuses on the latter’s ability to work cooperatively with Musonius or, more generally, on the ability of each to cooperate with the other. Once again, Himerius’s remarks on the relationship of Alcibiades and Nicias, which is a type of that of Musonius

138-39.

17. For the two Musonii and Calliopius, see PLRE, vol. 1, s.vv. “Musonius 1,” “Mu- !

sonius 2,” “Calliopius 2”; Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 214, 216. 18. PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Musonius 2” and my comments in Greek Philosophers, 129,

In Praise of Cities and of Men AT and Calliopius, is drawn out, this time even more so than his remarks on Alcibiades’ mix of deeds and words. This fleshing out of the pictures of Alcibiades and Nicias, combined with the passing references to Pericles and Themistocles, may be a product of Himerius’s Athenian preoc-

cupations, as is his insistence that in Musonius Thessalonica has a specifically Attic Muse. The Himerian Alcibiades and Nicias are faultless, and their cooperative relationship is idealized: “They were rivals of one another, when doing so was to the

benefit of the city”; they worked together “just as when waters that emerge from a single source split into two rivers in the course of their flow but are connected with one another by the beauty of their nature.”

Although the two men in fact were generals together and could collab- | orate to avoid ostracism, Thucydides and Plutarch stress their rivalry and

: differences.!? But the panegyrist’s needs and purposes are different from those of the historian or biographer. Finally, Himerius offers some words of praise to the ex-proconsul Musonius at the end of Oration 39 (14-15). Musonius is more worthy of respect than Homer’s Alcinous, friendly, and ready to meet whatever fortune brings. He is “a man who has honestly guided the rudders of the Greeks [i.e., served as proconsul of Achaia] in the company of a sweet Siren; for persuasiveness always sits upon his lips.” Here, then, is another example of an ideally formed official, who combines eloquence with action. We also have here another reference to the Athenian model Per-

, icles, for with his comment on Musonius’s persuasiveness Himerius is echoing a well-known remark of Eupolis’s (frag. 94.5 Kock) about the fifth-century statesman. We move on now to Oration 40, beginning again with the opening scholion: [Himerius] delivered this [discourse] extempore in Philippi when, having __ been summoned by the emperor Julian, he went off to the court. The first part of the speech [is aimed] at the city, the last part at [Himerius’s] pupil

: Severus, who arranged for the oratorical display to be given. The Severus who is here called Himerius’s pupil (ératpov) is apparently the same person as the “newly arrived” (véyAvv) Severus to whom Oration 21 was addressed when he first entered Himerius’s school. Oration 9 is the epithalamium that Himerius wrote for him. He was young at the time of his marriage: “Very recently he was a reveler in the camp of the 19. On Alcibiades and Nicias, see nn. 50 and 51 below.

42 In Praise of Cities and of Men Muses [i.e., in Himerius’s school],” Himerius says, “then he suddenly leaped away from my precincts and took his merrymaking to Aphrodite” (9.5). Oration 24 shows that Severus went on to have a successful career in imperial administration.*° His wife’s fatherland, according to Oration 9, was “a Thracian city (7roAus . . . Opaxd@v) named after King Philip... . Her family. . . traced their most distant roots back to kingly stock” (9.13;

_ ef. 17). Himerius goes on in the quoted passage to allude to members of her family who were still preeminent among the Thracians. Severus’s _ wife’s city has plausibly been identified as Philippopolis.7! But it may have

been Philippi instead.** Using “Thrace” in a loose geographical sense, - Himerius could have thought of the area west of the Nestos River, where Philippi was located, as Thracian rather than Macedonian.’ If Severus’s wife was from Philippi rather than from Philippopolis, an inevitable conjecture follows: Severus arranged Himerius’s speaking engagement at Philippi, as the opening scholion to Oration 40 tells that he did, with the

assistance of his wife’s prominent family there. : The opening scholion to Oration 40 says that “the first part of the

_ speech [is aimed] at the city, the last part at [Himerius’s] pupil Severus.” Himerius does indeed begin with the city, praising it and delighting in its friendship, which he says he is repaying by his display of eloquence. Not a word in the oration, however, appears to be spoken about or directed at Severus. Gottlieb Wernsdorff could not accept this anomaly. He contended that there is a hidden address of Severus in the oration.” In telling the Philippians that he is paying them back for their friendship by a display of his eloquence, Himerius explains that he is following an ancient

law “that one should pay back those who have initiated a friendship from the resources one has” (40.3). Then he gives examples: the husbandman pays back with grain, the grape-presser with grapes, the hunter 20. Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 212-13.

, 21. Seeck, Die Briefe, 276; PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Severus 6”; Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 212-13. 22. Both Wernsdorff and Dibner (in his critical apparatus) on Orat. 9.13 assumed that the city was Philippi, without even considering Philippopolis. Vélker (on Orat. 9.13) considers both Philippopolis and Philippi and opts for Philippopolis. 23. See Casson, Macedonia, Thrace, and Illyria, 37-42; E. Oberhummer, “Thrake 3,” RE 6A, 1 (1936): 395-96. Note Amm. Marc. 17.5.5, referring to a phase of history when the Strymon River, west of Philippi, was the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace. : Philip had originally fortified Crenides/Philippi against the Thracians (App. Bell. civ. 4.105; Theophrast. De causis plant. 5.14.6). In Orat. 39.5, Himerius says that “Thrace borders so closely on this city of yours [Thessalonica] that it touches its suburbs.” Thessalonica is southwest of Philippi.

24. In his opening remark on Orat. 40: “tecta allocutione Severi ... quem imagine Hermiae adumbrat.” More on Hermias below.

In Praise of Cities and of Men | 43 with his bag, birds and cicadas with their songs; then—returning to his own resources—Odysseus at Ogygia and Phaeacia and Gorgias of Leontini at Plataea and Athens with their eloquence. Now, one final example in sections 6—7 of the oration: Aristotle showed his love for his pupil Hermias of Atarneus by verbally saluting the city of Atarneus and Hermias himself when, on one occasion, he was passing by the city. Himerius fleshes out this last example, noting Hermias’s virtue and thorough train-

ing in eloquence. Wernsdorff wants us to see in Atarneus and Hermias | a hidden reference to Philippi and Severus, one that the Philippians and Severus, present at Himerius’s oration, would presumably have readily appreciated. Wernsdorff may be right,” but one still might have expected Himerius to have addressed Severus explicitly, or (if he was not present) at least to have referred to him, before the oration ended. We should therefore consider the possibility that a part of this oration that was explicitly aimed at Severus has been edited out in the course of transmission—

, in other words, that we have only a portion of Oration 4o. It is, after all, only 58 lines long in its present form. I can declaim it in Greek at an

unhurried pace in less than ten minutes. If I am right, then in the lost portion of Oration 40 Himerius will have continued the praise that (if Wernsdorff is correct) he obliquely gives to Severus in his remarks on 'Hermias, praise given in part in gratitude for Severus’s having arranged

for Himerius’s oration at Philippi. |

But another explanation may be offered for the brevity of Oration 40. Its opening scholion refers to it in the feminine (ravryp duetAexrau [‘Tépros)).

That should imply either dialexis or lalia; and, in fact, Photius’s Himerian

, bibliography does refer to the oration as a dialexis. It may have been a preliminary dialexis (or, to use another term, a prolalia),*® introducing the main oration, which perhaps was on an imaginary theme (see chap- __ ter 6). This would then explain Oration 40’s brevity. The interesting occasional piece was more likely to be preserved than one more meleté on an imaginary topic. Of course, having suggested that Oration 40 is a preliminary dialexis, I should do the same for Oration 62 (69 lines) and per-

haps also for the longer Oration 39 (131 lines); like Oration 40, both are referred to in their opening scholia in the feminine singular (ravr7y). | 25. The situation here would be somewhat different from the one I laid out for Oration 39. There the vicar Musonius is addressed and explicitly compared to Alcibiades; thus : the audience was made ready, when Himerius introduced Alcibiades’ colleague Nicias, to see in him a type of Musonius’s colleague Calliopius. In Oration 40, on Wernsdorff’s explication, the audience would have to have appreciated the hidden reference without a cue.

26. See pp. 9-10 above. ,

44 , In Praise of Cities and of Men On the other hand, I do not believe that there was anything preliminary

, about Oration 41, which seems to have been the centerpiece oration on the occasion of the Mithraic initiation of Himerius and others. Interest-

ingly, its opening scholion refers to it by the unspecific term émidetéts. | Photius, in his Himerian bibliography, thinks of it simply as a Aoyos, for

he refers to it in the masculine singular (p7Oets).?’ | When Himerius finally reached Constantinople, he offered praise to the emperor Julian, in Oration 41. The description of this speech, in its

opening scholion, as an “oration to the city and to the emperor” is confirmed in the text itself, in which Himerius says that he is delivering “an oration for the emperor and the city” and refers to the praise of the

city as “a prelude to the hymns of praise to be offered to [Julian]” - (41.1-2). Himerius here praises Julian for his fortune and his virtue (41.2, 3, 8). The emperor is lauded in some detail for his various benefactions to Constantinople: for the buildings he has erected there, his restoration

of pagan worship, his introduction of foreign rites into the city— Himerius is thinking here of the Mithraic mysteries*’—and for his en- , hancement of Constantinople’s reputation and the protection he affords it (41.8—1o). Most interesting, though, is the suggestion in section 9 that Julian should be extolled as a kind of founder or transformative hero of Constantinople. According to Himerius, Julian is to Constantinople as Romulus is to Rome, Theseus to Athens, Danaus to Argos,”? Lycurgus to Sparta, and Brasidas to Amphipolis. On Theseus, Himerius remarks that “if anyone should ask the Athenians why they are so much more high-spirited than other people, they begin with Theseus and trace their long line of successes from him.” Lycurgus, Himerius says, “was the be- ginning of Sparta, for before his time people almost refused to live there.” The Lacedaemonian Brasidas captured Amphipolis during the Peloponnesian War. The city had been settled by the Athenian Hagnon, but the Amphipolitans came to regard Brasidas as their founder, Hagnon having suffered a damnatio memoriae (Thuc. 4.102, 5.8-11). Himerius explains that the Amphipolitans “reassign[ed] their city from Hagnon to Brasidas.” There is just a hint here that the Constantinopolitans might

27. Mras’s misunderstanding of Orat. 41’s opening scholion led him to call the oration a prolalia (WS 64 [1949]: 77-78).

| 28. See, in addition to the opening scholion quoted above, Liban. Orat.. 18.127, where I would understand 7@ 7Hv j€pav ayovtt Oe@ to be Mithra ( = the Sun). 29. Danaus’s name is conjecturally restored in Himerius’s text. For Danaus as Argos’s Egyptian founder, see Paus. 2.16.1, 19.3—4; Apollod. Bibl. 2.1.4; cf. Him. Orat. 6.3, where “founders” is apparently meant to include Danaus’s daughters.

In Praise of Cities and of Men 45 want to reassign their city from Constantine to Julian. “Julian as Con- , stantinople’s founder” joins “Athens as Constantinople’s mother-city” |

(41.3) as fitting propaganda for the reign of the Hellenic apostate.*” _ Oration 41 does not end before offering praise to a second person, the urban prefect of Constantinople (41.14—-15). Actually, the prefect is _ praised outright only for his eloquence; Himerius otherwise offers him

a series of seven exhortations: “Let him be gentle.... Let him be mild in his words but quick in his actions. . . . Let him build up the city... . ,” and so on. Then, after the exhortations, comes this statement: “It is reasonable to expect that he will be properly motivated if he is of noble birth, has been raised with a proper education and exposure to good literature, has plenty of royal standards to guide him, has so great an emperor as a witness to virtue, and receives the honor of office as a reward for his justice and not for a payment of gold.” Himerius, I think, is saying that the prefect does have the qualities enumerated in the if-clause but has not been in office long enough yet to have displayed them in action. Hence, too, the series of exhortations: the prefect is at the beginning of office and has not yet built up a record of achievements that Himerius can praise. The first urban prefect of Constantinople, Honoratus, was appointed in December (or September) of 359. After reaching Antioch on July 18, 362, Julian appointed Domitius Modestus to the office, and

Gilbert Dagron regards this Modestus as the prefect referred to by Himerius. But the Himerian prefect may have been a tertius quis who

held office briefly between Honoratus and Modestus. Holding this plau- | sible view, Thomas Brauch attempts valiantly to revive the argument that

the Himerian tertius was none other than Themistius.3! I am not persuaded to accept the identification, the positive evidence for which is a few Byzantine and Arabic texts of dubious value, and I believe that there is a strong point to be made against it: Himerius, in his remarks on his prefect, says nothing about devotion to philosophy. Philosophy was central to Themistius’s identity;** if the Himerian prefect were Themistius,

Himerius would not have failed to say that his prefect was a philosopher, especially given Himerius’s statement in section 12 of Oration 41

30. See Greco in Criscuolo, Da Costantino a Teodosio, 157-60. | 31. Honoratus and Domitius Modestus: PLRE, vol. 1, s.vv. “Honoratus 2,” “Modestus 2”; Dagron, Naissance, 215-17, 240-44. Date of Julian’s arrival in Antioch: Bidez, La vie, 277 with n. 1; Bowersock, Julian, 96. Brauch’s argument is in Byzantion 63 (1993): 37-78. Wernsdorff (on Orat. 41.15, 16) already believed that the Himerian prefect was Themistius.

32. See my comments in Private Orations, 4-5.

46 In Praise of Cities and of Men that philosophy was thriving at Constantinople. There is no positive evidence that the urban prefect was present to hear Oration 41: Himerius

does not address him in the second person. : _ Himerius’s Orations 39-41 show their declaimer making good use of the time spent in traveling from Athens to Constantinople to join the emperor Julian. With the help of influential friends, he put his eloquence on display along the way, probably taking advantage of an already existing reputation as well as exploiting the opportunity to enhance it. The friends to whom he was indebted were rewarded with public praise. The pagan emperor he hoped to serve was publicly celebrated. And he felt confident enough of his status to offer some words of advice to the new Constan-

_ _ tinopolitan prefect. Throughout it all, he remained a champion of Hellenism, proud of his ties to Athens. Where Triptolemus had scattered seed, Himerius scattered logoi. - TRANSLATIONS

62. The [Talk] He Published for a Constantinopolitan Student? [x] I hear that the Ethiopian stone [statue] wondrously makes music when the light of day appears. (The Ethiopians themselves call this stone statue Memnon, saying that it is named after Memnon the son of Day.) According to the Ethiopians, when the statue first sees dawn smiling, it suddenly breaks its silence and makes music, producing melodies for its _ mother. Now is it right, my friends, for me to seem musically inferior to Memnon? Is it right for me to behold this city [Constantinople] in silence, without mobilizing every piece of music and every Siren for it??* [2] I think that I shall take up Pindar’s lyre and, with it, make music for this city. It will not be enough to call the city the support of Greece,

the phrase that Pindar used with reference to Athens; rather it is the sweetest glory of every land that the sun shines on. Poseidon, king of the sea, surrounds you with his bluish waves, as if you were a Naiad 33. On the title, see p. 39 above. The codex has simply tav7nv, Photius’s Himerian bibliography simply 7»—so understand AaAav or duaAcEww.

34. For the stone statue of Memnon, see Plin. HN 36.11.58; Paus. 1.42.3; Philostr. Vita Apoll. 6.4, Imag. 1.7.3; Callistr. Stat. descript. 1.5, 9. But by the fourth century the statue was silent—since the days of Zenobia, if Bowersock’s conjecture is correct (BASP 21 [1984]: 21-32). Note that here and in Orat. 19.6 the Memnon statue is wrongly placed . among the Ethiopians rather than among the Egyptians (as in Orat. 44.5); so, too, Philostr. maj. Imag. 1.7.3 and Callistr. Stat. descript. 9. The enchanting song of the Sirens can be a

metaphor for charming speech (Philostr. Vitae soph. 502; Liban. Orat. 18.20; Eunap. Vi- :

tae phil. et soph. 6.5.2 [465]). |

In Praise of Cities and of Men 47 nymph; he embraces you on every side and rejoices in you. Choruses of sea-purple Nereids, leaping on the surface of the waves, dance around the whole of you in a circle. Your lover is not some alien river, like those

boasted of in certain poetic utterances about cities. No, it is divinely , : possessed emperors who love you; it is they who put the golden diadem [of walls] around you and added a kind of heavenly beauty to your earthly features.*> [3] It would not be a lie to call you the apex of all Europe, for Europe begins from you and stretches to the very ocean and to the shores of the - Atlantic. Every kind of sea displays itself around you. On one side, the Aegean comes up onto your beaches right through the middle of the Hellespont; on the other side, a narrow strait [the Bosporus] assumes the form of a river, as if contracted so that, through its agency, it can bring close

to you, as a gift, the continent [of Asia]. And, in another part of the re- , gion, the Cyanean [rocks], which tragedy has called the Symplegades, close off the Propontis and send forth the great [Euxine (Black)] Sea from

where they are located. [4] So I find fault with Homer because, when wishing to write about Poseidon’s marriage, he makes a river’s wave his bridal chamber. He should have put the god’s bedroom on your shores,

: where he would have been able to have not a small amount of water, but the whole sea all around him—not a wave mimicking the sea, but the whole surging ocean around his bedroom.*® [5] You alone have outdone the city of Romulus in the wonder you instill; you have combined such beauty with your size that the inhabitants of [Rome] have nothing to match with your beauty.°”? Merchantmen sail to you from everywhere and from all harbors, in need of no Tiber to get to your fortifications; they put in immediately from the sea and tie their cables right to your walls.

35. “the support of Greece”: Pind., frag. 76 Race. “diadem [of walls]”: xcpydeuva. For . the expression, see Heubeck et al. on Hom. Od. 13.388. Himerius is referring to the Constantinian walls, which Constantine’s son Constantius continued to work on (see Janin, Constantinople, 26-31; Dagron, Naissance, index s.v. “murailles [de Constantin]”; Jul. Orat. 1.414). 36. The Cyanean rocks are off the northern end of the Bosporus on the European side. “tragedy ...Symplegades”: Eur. Androm. 794, Med. 2. For the river’s wave as bridal chamber, cf. Him. Orat. 9.6. “not a wave ... sea”: Colonna has od Kipa Te puwoupevny [sc., maoav... Tv AddAacoav] meAd ov, the last word being Castiglioni’s emendation. With Dibner I read ov Kkipud tu purovpevov méAayos. (The manuscript, according to Colonna, has ov kia re wysoupevyny éAayov.) See Hom. Od. 11.241-45, which refers to the river’s

“wave” (xvpa). |

37. This is an important text for the development of the notion of Constantinople as a new Rome.

| 48 In Praise of Cities and of Men oo [6] Since the Muses too must honor this city along with the other gods, they all gather here from everywhere, not only from Helicon and Pieria, and not only the ones who inhabit Pangaeum, but also those whom Attic meadows rear. They seem to me always to love this city and gladly to establish their choruses here, but to be delighted to dance here much more now because it happens that a man who takes his name from them and has rejoiced in their rites is governing the city.°*® [7] Thus I believe what Simonides has proclaimed about the Muses in his songs. This is what he says. The Muses always dance, and these goddesses love to be engaged in music and song. But whenever they see Apollo

beginning to lead the dance, then they prolong their melody more than before and broadcast from Helicon an elaborately harmonious sound.

One can see this happening now in the city under you, for everything _ everywhere is brimming with the Muses’ arts (jrovouc7s) and has been _ adorned because of them. It was your great yearning [for me] that caused my eloquence to travel before its hair turned gray in Attic meadows and that brought it here and now persuades it to display its youthful beauty - in public.?? [8] But accept the first-fruits [of my oratory] with a tranquil

countenance, O most excellent creature of the Muses [i.e., the “man who ... is governing the city”]—for it is good to use such language of you. Please look upon my eloquence in this way, just as it expected when it undertook the present contest.

[cod. R] | 39. [The Discourse in Thessalonica] [Himerius] delivered this [discourse] in Thessalonica when, upon the summons of the emperor Julian, he was hastening to the East. He was officially invited by the city and [two] dignitaries, the vicar [of the diocese of Macedonia] and former sophist Musonius, and the consularis [of the province of Macedonia] Calliopius. He addressed the end of the oration to the Mu-

38. Mt. Helicon was sacred to the Muses and their frequent haunt. Pieria was their birthplace (see Him. Orat. 39.1, with my note). Pangaeum, or Mt. Pangaeus, in Thrace, refers to Thracian, and therefore Constantinopolitan, Muses. Himerius himself represents

Attic Muses. For the “man who takes his name from” the Muses, see p. 38 above. 39. Simonides: no. 578 in Campbell, Greek Lyric,.3: 463. “your great yearning”: The Greek is merely 6001 7000, but Himerius is clearly referring to the yearning of the “gov-

, ernor” of Constantinople, whom he addresses in the next sentence.

In Praise of Cities and of Men 49 sonius who had been proconsul of Greece [Achaia] and was present on the occasion.*° [1] Once, when Simonides was hastening to Pisa to honor Zeus with a hymn, the Eleans got hold of his lyre, and the populace publicly ordered him to sing of Zeus’s city [Elis] before singing of Zeus himself. So what, friends, tell me, what do you order me to do? Do you want me to interrupt my hurried course for a short while and give you a taste of my Attic pipe? This is certainly what some of you are praying for, and they are true neighbors of Pieria.*! [2] Well, then, I gladly submit to your command, and I regard your pressuring me to be to my advantage; for nothing that the beloved does

is a burden or troublesome to his lover. When Anacreon was on his way to Polycrates’ court, he was glad to address the great Xanthippus [at Athens first], and Pindar was pleased to salute Hieron before addressing _ Zeus.** Aleman, who joined the Dorian lyre with Lydian song, happened * 40. The opening scholion serves as the title in cods. R and B. It has simply ravrnv bre tAexTat in the opening line, hence d:aAeEw (cf. n. 55 below) or AaAtav. The Excerpta Neapolitana

have the title “To Julian,” which could pass for Orat. 41 but does not fit Orat. 39. Why Colonna confected the title AaAta eis TovAavev Kat eis Movowvov for Orat. 39 is not clear to me. For the individuals mentioned in this scholion, see pp. 39-40 above. 41. “Once... Zeus himself”: = Simonides no. 589 in Campbell, Greek Lyric, 3: 471. “Zeus’s city”: The whole territory of Elis was sacred to Zeus (Strabo 8.3.33 [357—-58]).

“before singing of Zeus”: apo As, mpo being an emendation of pos; cf. “before addressing Zeus” (z1p6 rot Atos) in section 2. Himerius has stopped at Thessalonica on his way to Julian. He gives five exempla of poets and a piper who keep Zeus, Polycrates, or Alexander waiting in order to greet some individual or a city. “true neighbors”: not be-

cause of their geographical proximity to Pieria, but because their desire to hear Himerius — speak shows that they reverence the Muses, born in Pieria (Hes. Theog. 53-54, with West’s comment on 53; G. Herzog-Hauser, “Pierides 1,” RE Suppl. 8 [1956]: 495-96). 42. “the beloved .. . his lover”: For use of the language of love to describe the relation between a speaker and the city he is praising, cf. Them. Orat. 24.302c—d, 306a; Him. Orat. 41.16; and p. 213 below. “When Anacreon ... addressing Zeus”: = Anacreon no. 493 in Campbell, Greek Lyric, 2: 135. Himerius says that Anacreon was detained [at Athens] to address Pericles’ father Xanthippus. Xanthippus apparently fathered Pericles in the middle or late 490s B.C. (Podlecki, Perikles, 1), His appearances in the historical record occur between 490 and the early 470s (Kirchner, Prosopographia Attica, no. 11169; Podlecki, Perikles, 2-7). Polycrates was tyrant of Samos probably from the 5 40s till his death ca. 522 (Shipley, History of Samos, 74-80). It is chronologically possible, but difficult, to imagine Anacreon detained by Xanthippus during Polycrates’ tyranny; cf. Wilamowitz, Kleine Schriften, 4: 647.

“and Pindar was pleased” etc.: Colonna refers the reader here to Pind. Ol. 1. The reference is derived from Wernsdorff, who has this comment: “Respicitur ... ad Pindari Oden I. Olymp. v. 14 ubi Jupiter dicitur a poetis laudari, ad palatium Hieronis confluentibus. Se- , quitur v. 36 laudatio ipsius Hieronis senioris . . . et tandem v. 151 canitur ipsum Olympicum certamen, ut omnino ante Olympium Jovem videatur Hiero ornatus.” But I cannot see any clear saluting of Hieron prior to an addressing of Zeus in Ol. 1. Perhaps Himerius is referring, not to a text, but to an incident that supposedly occurred at Hieron’s court.

5O In Praise of Cities and of Men to be carrying his songs through Sparta on his way to the shrine of Zeus Lycaeus; but he did not pass by Sparta before greeting both the city itself and the Dioscuri.** [3] I also hear a story about Ismenias the piper, who was summoned from Thebes by Alexander [the Great] to make the _ latter’s victory celebration resound with song after a slaughter of the Persians. Ismenias learned in Phocis that the Delphians were celebrating the Pythian games with sacrifices. When a Delphian embassy promptly approached him and asked him not to pass by their festivities in silence, he welcomed the embassy and honored the city with song. This was a favor-

able sign for the king [Alexander] since [Ismenias’s song] was a victory

prize for Apollo. [4] We, then, would not sail past a city that is brimming with so much virtue; for silence is not Attic, nor is it worthy of the talkative city [of

Athens]. Xerxes, admiring the foliage of a plane tree in Lydia, bedecked , it with gold. He did not know how to speak; he was as poor in eloquence as he was rich in gold. But from us it is only reasonable that your city _ demand the gifts that our rulers have at their disposal.*° 43. “Aleman... Dioscuri”: = Aleman no. 24 in Campbell, Greek Lyric, 2: 415. “Al- , cman”: Himerius actually writes AAxpatwvr. Cf. the entry AAkpéwva: tov AAkpdava in Hesy-

chius; the variant AAxpaiwv for AAcpay in a scholion (ed. E. Schwartz) to Eur. Troad. 210; the form “Alcmaeon” (variant “Alemeon”) in Jer. Chron. 658 B.c., p.94b Helm. “who | joined (xepdoas). . . Lydian song”: Wernsdorff thought that Himerius was referring here to a blending of musical modes, but more likely he is simply saying that Alcman was a Lydian who composed in Doric Greek. The ancients were divided over whether Alcman was a Lydian or a Laconian: see Alcman, testimonia 1-9, 18 (scholion) in Campbell, 2: 336-45, 352-53; Lefkowitz, Lives of the Greek Poets, 34-35. On his dialect, see Calame, Alcman, Xxiv—xxv. “the shrine .. . Lycaeus”: in Arcadia (Paus. 8.2, 8.38.2-6). “the Dioscuri”: For _ their connection with Sparta, see Roscher, “Dioskuren,” Ausfiihrl. Lex. 1 (1884-1890): 1164-67; Bethe, “Dioskuren,” RE 5 (1905): 1099. . 44. Ismenias was remembered as an accomplished piper (e.g., Plut. Reg. et imp. apophth. 174f; Apul. De deo Socr. 21 [169]; Aelian Var. hist. 4.16; Diog. Laert. 7.125). The Alexander Romance has him playing and pleading at the feet of Alexander in the hope that he could convince the king to spare a rebellious Thebes. But Alexander was unbending and even ordered Ismenias to play while Thebes was being destroyed. See Historia Alexandri Magni 1.46a, pp. 54-62 Kroll (2nd ed.); “Scholium de Amphione et Zetho” in O. Smith, ed., Scholia graeca in Aeschylum, 2: 2 (Leipzig, 1982) 9; John Tzetzes Hist. 7.397—401, 10.404—-5. “since [Ismenias’s song]. . . Apollo”: Wernsdorff understood “since [the Pythian games] were a victory prize for Apollo,” those games having been founded to commemorate the god’s killing of the monster Python (Strabo 9.3.10 [421]; Ov. Met. 1.438-51). My understanding of the ellipsis is textually easier. Ismenias played in honor of Apollo’s victory over Python and offered his song to the god as a victory prize; he apparently played the traditional Pythikos nomos or something like it (see West, Ancient Greek Music, 212-14, 337). The text allows but does not require us to understand, as Wernsdorff did, that Ismenias actually competed in the games. Himerius says that Ismenias’s celebration of Apollo’s victory over Python portended more victories for Alexander over the Persians. 45. For the plane tree, cf. Hdt. 7.31; Aelian Var. hist. 2.14. “the gifts ... disposal”: A subject’s “gift”—in this case, eloquence—in some sense belongs to the emperor; cf. section 9 below, where a talented man is called the emperor’s possession.

In Praise of Cities and of Men 51 [5] Such gifts suit this city of yours because of all its virtuous behav- | ior and not least of all because of the zeal that it displays for wisdom, even though it is surrounded by people who almost all speak foreign languages. To the north the Paeonians press upon it. The next neighbors of the city are the Illyrians, who in turn pass that role on to the Moesians.

Thrace borders so closely on this city of yours that it touches its suburbs. : Your city, in isolation, maintains the Greek language like a golden center point and keeps it free of contamination by any neighboring tongue. Thus I censure and find fault with the Thracian tale that robs this city of

Orpheus, Calliope, and awards him to the mountains of Thrace. Because there are no human beings there to listen to him, the tale creates an assembly of wild animals for him.*¢ [6] So everything about this city is Greek—its language, its walls, its dress. It begins high in the mountains, lifting the ridge above it, like a peak, high up into the middle of the heavens. It then comes down to the shore, where it divides itself into countless cities, scattered round about, but it peoples the central area with one city.*’ It rides at anchor on the very waves, as if annoyed because the adjacent sea does not allow it to spread out as much as it wishes. [7] Your city, of such great size, is adorned on all sides: here there are places of assembly (dyopat),** nearby there

are baths, colonnades are found throughout the city, and religious shrines everywhere. One would be unable to decide what to marvel at first. Just as those who observe the vernal sky have to look at every single part of it because of the beauty of the sight, and whatever first overpowers an observer holds his attention, so too this city astonishes people both as a whole and in all its individual parts. [8] But I have not yet proclaimed the greatest feature of the city’s Greek

fortune. An Attic Muse shepherds the city. The sophist’s chair has embellished the vicar’s chair; rhetorical skill has given more grace to the good luck [of office] than it has got from it. For a helmet is more glori46. “The next neighbors ... Moesians”: eyoudvens dé TAAvpi@v cat Mvodv trapabsdovTwr TO yeiToow Elvat THS oAEews. I would adopt Wernsdorff’s emendation Muocis. The

Muse Calliope was commonly said to be Orpheus’s mother. The Thracian Orpheus enchanted animals with his music. See E. Wiist, “Oiagros 1,” RE 17, 2 (1937): 2082-83; K. Ziegler, “Orpheus,” RE 18, 1 (1939): 1219-20, 1228-38, 1247-49. Himerius would have preferred that Orpheus had been associated with Greek Thessalonica. 47. Cf. Menander Rhetor’s advice (1.2 [351.17-18]) in his discussion of how to praise a city (the passage concerns a city “built partly in the plain and partly on hills”): “You will try ... to show that it is like many cities in one” (trans. D. Russell and N. Wilson). Cf. ' Ael. Aristid. Orat. 17.11 Keil. 48. Vickers, without citing this passage, suggests that Thessalonica had at least two agoras (JHS 92 [1972]: 163).

52 In Praise of Cities and of Men. ous when it protects a glorious head, a shield when it covers an Ajax’s chest, a tribunal when a Cyrus gives judgment from it, a lyre if a Pindar or an Anacreon plucks its strings. [9] Look all around you, by the gods,

and see how the Greeks, who once conquered everyone with their weapons, now do so with the virtues of their men in office. The advantage of having every city guided by the Muses’ rudders for the whole world. But since this was impossible, he has taken the single most beautiful possession he has [i.e., Musonius] and has given it as a gift to this victorious city. In so doing he has aroused my rhetorical skills more than they say that the olive crown

aroused the Olympic victor Cylon. That man wanted to be a tyrant but fell short of his desire; but you, [Musonius], have conquered by surrendering yourself to an emperor, and even before having armed yourself.*? [10] In representing the life of Achilles, Homer has him take up the lyre on one occasion and the spear on another; and you too, [sir], have intermingled your deeds and actions with your words. This is how Pericles led the people; this is how Themistocles governed. The platform held

the orator, and the arena of war held the general. Oratory stood before the assembly, and trophies stood in the face of the enemy. [11] I understand that just such a mix of talents characterized Alcibiades. When he was full of the Lyceum and of what he had learned in the Lyceum, the image he projected was that of a very skilled speaker. He dazzled everyone into submission to himself. After leaving the Lyceum, he gave himself to the vicissitudes and activities of a public life. When he gave as much effort to arms as he had given to his studies, he became a military

, victor. The Hellespont saw his name inscribed on two trophies. The great king [of Persia], the Macedonians, Thrace, and all humankind saw him 49. “An Attic Muse”: i.e., Musonius, vicar of the diocese of Macedonia, a sophist who taught rhetoric in Athens before holding imperial office (cf. p. 40 above). “Muse” alludes to his name as well as to his learning (cf. Him. Orvat. 62.6). The word for “vicar” here is Umapxos. The high style of oratory disallowed the Latin Buxaptos, which is what we find in the opening scholion. ("Yzapyos is commonly “praetorian prefect.” But cf. how ézapxos can also apparently be used either of a praetorian prefect or of a vicar: Mason, Greek Terms, 13, 139, 155; Jones, Hermes 125 [1997]: 211.) “a Cyrus”: Cyrus the Great, idealized in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. “”: cf. Diibner’s Latin text. “he... has given it as a gift to this victorious city”: cf., above, “an Attic Muse shepherds the city.” Musonius, of course, is a gift to, and shepherds, all the cities of his diocese. But if Thessalonica was the vicar’s seat at the time of this oration (cf. Piganiol, L’empire chrétien, 14; Demandt, Die Spatantike, 249), then he could be thought to have a special relationship with that city. “this victorious city”: vxndepw, playing on the name Thessalonica. For Cylon’s attempt to seize power at Athens, see Hdt. 5.71; Thuc. 1.126. An olive crown was awarded to Olympic victors (J. Wiesner, “Olympia,” RE 18, 1 [1939]: 31). “even before having armed yourself”: i.e., before taking up office.

In Praise of Cities and of Men 53 get the better of everyone—now militarily, now verbally. That is why he was the only general deemed worthy of a Pythian proclamation.°° [x12] But since Alcibiades, eloquence, Athens, the Lyceum, an Attic

| sophist [i.e., the vicar Musonius], and auditoria filled with his presence have been mentioned, come let us also honor Nicias by our words—Nicias,

who was Alcibiades’ colleague, and whom we revere as a good general over the whole course of his life. Rather, if it is agreeable to all of you, I

will give you a full account of him. When the city of the Athenians was | at its height, with the Lacedaemonians lying dead at Pylos and the [Athenian] people directing everything, Alcibiades and Nicias shared the generalship. They were rivals of one another, when doing so was to the benefit of the city. [13] With such a pair in control of everything, the city was filled with true happiness. The council deliberated under the guidance of the laws, there was prosperity in the mar: ketplace, sacred processions were held and divine rites celebrated, vice was

nowhere in sight, the rule of law and the rudder of reason were everywhere. Alcibiades spoke, and Nicias drafted laws. The one was general in the city, the other sailed around the Peloponnesus. Alcibiades was quick to understand [what the situation demanded], and Nicias was skilled at

converting those views into a finished piece of legislation. They jointly held : the generalship and jointly manned the rudders—just as when waters that emerge from a single source split into two rivers in the course of their flow

but are connected with one another by the beauty of their nature.>! [14] Well, I would love to remain among you for a year and keep com50. “In representing ... the spear on another”: cf. Him. Orat. 21.1, frag. 1.6; Hom. Il. 9.443. Himerius gives an entirely favorable assessment of Alcibiades, who represents the vicar Musonius, to suit his panegyrical needs here. For faults that could have been imputed to him, see Thuc. 6.15; Corn. Nepos Alcib. 1.4; Plut. Alcib. 16; id. Syncrisis Coriolan. et Alcib. 1.3, 2.1-2, 2.6, 3.1, 5.2. “the Lyceum”: Socrates, who had a great impact on Alcibiades, is sometimes found in the Lyceum in Plato (Euthyphro 2a; Lys. 203a—b; Euthyd. 271a, 303b). It was a place where, according to some, one could have heard a work of Protagoras read aloud during the latter’s lifetime (Diog. Laert. 9.54). Wernsdorff understood “Lyceum” here “pro omni eruditione attica.” For Alcibiades’ skill as a speaker, see Corn. Nepos Alcib. 1.2; Diod. Sic. 12.84.1; Plut. Alcib. 10.3-4; Gribble, Alcibiades, index, s.v. “Alcibiades, rhetorical ability.” I know of no text that illuminates Himerius’s allusion to a “Pythian proclamation.” 51. “Nicias” is surely the consularis Calliopius mentioned in the opening scholion; see p. 40 above. Himerius’s portrayal of Nicias, like that of Alcibiades and again to suit his panegyrical needs, has no hint of criticism in it—no reference to the charge that.Nicias was dilatory and too cautious or even cowardly (Thuc. 7.42.3; Plut. Alcib. 21.8; id. Nic. 7.3, 8.2, 14.2—3, 16.9). Although Alcibiades and Nicias were generals together (along with others) and could collaborate to avoid ostracism (Kagan, Peace of Nicias, 143-47), Thucydides and Plutarch stress their rivalry and differences (Thuc. 5.43.2, 5.45.3, 6.15.23 Plut. Alcib. 14, 17.2-3, 18.2-3, 20.1-3; id. Nic. 11.1-5, 12). Himerius has created an idealized exemplum of cooperation for the edification of officials in his audience (cf. Wernsdorff).

54 In Praise of Cities and of Men posing speeches. For whether one is seeking the islands of the blessed or an Ethiopian meadow of boundless fertility or the horn of Amaltheia, your city would satisfy everyone’s desire. And so I forgive and pardon Odysseus for having composed a very long speech at Alcinous’s palace; by prolonging his stay there he was delighting in his love of the place.°? Yet how much more worthy of respect than Homer’s Alcinous is your own-—TI mean the man with the same name [as your vicar]. [15] Despite

the remarkable qualities of this city, who will not [also] praise a man who has honestly guided the rudders of the Greeks in the company of a sweet Siren; for a persuasiveness always sits upon his lips.°> Who is warmer in friendship? Who is as well-suited for whatever fortune may bring? Who is as great when fortune comes with favorable winds, but no less stately if the breeze dies down? [x6] Wait! The sound of chariots seems to strike me; “the din of swiftfooted horses strikes my ears” [Hom. II. 10.535]. I seem to hear the emperor saying, “Think of your great-hearted return [to Constantinople], glorious Odysseus.” So accept this cup of friendship for now, however little it contains. If the gods ever permit me to return, I shall address the city again after seeing the emperor, as I have now done before seeing him.**

[cods. R and B, with passages also in Exc. Neapol. and Lex. Lopad.] “with the Lacedaemonians lying dead” etc.: a reference to the Spartan surrender at Sphacteria, the island off of Pylos, in 425 B.c. One hundred and twenty-eight Lacedaemonian hoplites had perished there (Thuc. 4.38.5). “the [Athenian] people directing”: i.e., Athens was a democracy. Alcibiades and Nicias were generals together from 418/17 to 415/14 (Fornara, Athenian Board of Generals, 62-64). “the other [i.e., Nicias] sailed around the Peloponnesus”: Is Himerius thinking of the Athenian capture of Cythera and assaults on the southern coast of the Peloponnesus in 424 (Thuc. 4.53-56)? If so, Wernsdorff already noted that Alcibiades was not a general in that year (Fornara, 59). “Alcibiades was quick... demanded”: cf. Plut. Alcib. 10.4, Alcibiades was “most capable of coming up with and perceiving what was required.” | 52. “the horn of Amaltheia”: i.e., the horn of plenty. See Roscher, “Amaltheia 1,” Ausfitbrl. Lex. 1 (1884-1890): 263—65; CPG 1: 8; 2: 54, 685. “a very long speech”: i.e., books 9-12 of the Odyssey. “by prolonging ... the place”: rH Action diarpiPH Tov exet moOov dpemropevos. Diibner in his critical apparatus suggested Awrov for wofov. Wernsdorff suggested oixov for éxet, understanding the Greek to mean “dum longiore dissertatione desiderium patriae fallere studuit.” For éxet I would read éxet or Exel. For 7oGov dSperouevos, cf. Pind. frag. 123.1 Snell, Epwitwv dpémecban.

53. “theman...vicar”:i.e., Musonius the former proconsul of Greece; see p. 41 above. “TY Jour own [Alcinous]” here is a metaphor for “the man (or one of the men) among you who is hosting me.” “a sweet Siren”: The Sirens represent the charm of oratory (see n. 34

above). “for a persuasiveness ... his lips”: Himerius is echoing Eupolis’s remark (frag. 94.5 Kock) about Pericles, whom he has just mentioned in section 10 as one who blended eloquence with action; cf. Them. Orat. 2.37b; Jul. Orat. 1.33a. 54. “swift-footed horses”: who will take Himerius forward on his journey to Constantinople. “Think of . .. Odysseus”: The first part of the line, véorou 67) uvijca peya-

In Praise of Cities and of Men 55 40. The Discourse (AidAeéts ) in Philippi

[Himerius] delivered this [discourse] extempore in Philippi when, having been summoned by the emperor Julian, he went off to the court. The first part of the speech [is aimed] at the city, the last part at [Himerius’s] pupil Severus, who arranged for the oratorical display (émidei€ews ) to be

given.°> |

[1] Sometimes the swan sings by the ocean and, with its melody, outdoes the loudly resounding sea. Sometimes it sings by the eddies of the Cayster River and the waters of the Hermus or the Hyllus.°° On occasion it finds a small spring of pure and translucent water; it is delighted by the spring and, after washing its wing, honors the waters with song. [2] Will a sophist, then, appear to be less vocal than a swan? Will he rush past an ancient city in silence? Philippi, you know, was a city [of the] ancient [world] even before Philip. Its population was Attic. It was the work of Callistratus, who gave . the city the language it deserved. Rather, let me say that, given that there are two blessings universally held in high regard, wisdom and good fortune, your city has obtained one of these from each of your two founders; through the Athenians it got wisdom, and through Philip it took pride in its power and good fortune.°” O¥pov, is Hom. II. 10.509; the rest is, e.g., Od. 10.251. Himerius is “returning” to Constantinople, i.e., this will not be his first visit there (see Ovat. 62). “I shall address the city again”: Similar sentiments end Orat. 40 and 41. 55. [Lhe opening scholion serves as the title in cods. R and B. “This [discourse]” is sim' ply ravryv. Photius’s Himerian bibliography has duc/Aets év BiAarzrous , which I use as the title.

56. The Cayster, the Hermus, and the Hyllus are rivers of Asia Minor. For the Cayster’s swans, cf. Hom. Il. 2.460-61; Anacreontea 60.8 West; Ov. Met. 5.386—87; Sil. Ital. Pun. 14.189—90; Philostr. maj. Imag. 1.11.3, p. 311 Kayser. In Orat. 47.4 and 48.7, Himerius again mentions the Cayster’s swans. 57. The Athenian politician Callistratus, in exile, persuaded the Thasians to found the colony of Crenides on the mainland in 360/59 B.c. In 356 it was seized by Philip II of ~ Macedon and renamed Philippi. See Kirchner, Prosopographia Attica, no. 8157; Collart, Philippes, 133-60; Hammond and Griffith, History of Macedonia, 2: 187-88, 234-36, 246-50. Himerius erroneously believes that Crenides was colonized by Athenians. Cf., in a proverb explained by Zenobius, Cent. 4.34 (CPG 1: 94): “Callistratus, exiled from Athens | (Adxyvnfev), persuaded the Athenians to colonize the land across from [Thasos].” But Biihler, following others before him, correctly emends “Athenians” here to “Thasians,” the reading that is found in other versions of the proverb, and suggests that the error “Athenians” arose from A@yvnbev (Zenobii Athoi proverbia, 4: 164-71). Himerius imagines the Attic language—and, more generally, the “wisdom” associated with Athenian culture— to belong to Philippi’s heritage, as does the fortune of having been part of the powerful Macedonian state. But how much Attic Greek did Himerius actually hear spoken in Philippi (see section 3)? Note the comments of Lemerle, BCH 59 (1935): 126-27. “Philippi ...a

56 , In Praise of Cities and of Men [3] Come, then, let me set up a krater here for Zeus, god of friend_ ship. Let me pay back the altar. of Zeus, god of hospitality, with a gift of eloquence. For this is an ancient law, that one should pay back those who have initiated a friendship from the resources one has. The husbandman honors others with sheaves of grain, the grape-presser with bunches of grapes, the hunter with his bag; all honor others with all the things from which they make a living. The guest swallow comes with her melody, the

cicada with his song, the nightingale with her Attic odes, no doubt to remind those who speak Attic Greek of Athens.°® She does not judge locations in which to exercise her voice on the basis of their size; she is happy with any grove that can resound with her songs. [4] Of course, even Homer knew this law to which I am referring. Thus,

wishing to inscribe this law on everyone, he imposes wandering on no one but an orator, so that [that orator], Odysseus, may, by speaking, make | the ordinance unshakable. So Odysseus spoke on Ogygia and filled the great island with his eloquence. Again, he spoke among the Phaeacians © and made Alcinous’s city great by means of his oratory. [5] When Gor-

gias of Leontini—for, as it advances, my oration has discovered that a sophist and not a poet was the originator of the law we are considering— when Gorgias went on an embassy from Sicily to Athens, he amazed the

city with his oratory. He had to proceed from Athens through Boeotia,

; - but he did not pass by Plataea before addressing that ancient city.°? [6] Now since our rule has been ratified by the customary practice of _ city... before Philip”: The Greek literally says “Philipppi was an ancient city even before Philip,” but Himerius hardly means that Philip considered it ancient. My fleshing out of the text conveys what Himerius intended. For the compliment “ancient,” cf. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes, 303-4. 58. “god of friendship ... god of hospitality”: the common epithets philios and xenios; see H. Schwabl, “Zeus,” RE 1oA (1972): 341, 371. “the nightingale ... Athens”: According to Him. Orat. 74.5, the nightingale of myth is of Attic origin. Cf. Liban. Decl. 2.27: “the Attic nightingale.” 59. “[that orator], Odysseus”: For Odysseus and other Homeric figures as orators, see the testimonia collected in Radermacher, Artium scriptores, 6-9. Odysseus on Ogygia: This is not a well-chosen example of eloquence requiting hospitality. Calypso is hospitable to Odysseus on the island of Ogygia, but she keeps him there against his will. When we hear him speaking on Ogygia, it is to ensure that Calypso is really going to let him go, as he desires. See Hom. Od. 1.13—153 5.130-36, 15 1-58, 165-224, 233-68; 7.25 5-60. Odysseus’s long speech among the hospitable Phaeacians is Od. 9-12. For Gorgias’s embassy of 427 B.C. on behalf of Sicilian Leontini and the Athenians’ admiration of his speaking, see Thuc. 3.86 with Pl. Hipp. maj. 282b, and Diod. Sic. 12.53. Again, Himerius adduces a less than ideal example of requiting hospitality with eloquence: although Gorgias also spoke privately in Athens, his oratory there as ambassador is more readily thought of as a means by which to persuade Athens to give Leontini military aid than as a thank-offering for hospitality. Himerius is the only source that mentions a stop by Gorgias at Boeotian Plataea. (In 427, Plataea surrendered to Sparta after having been under siege since 429; then, after

In Praise of Cities and of Men 57 a sophist and the utterance of a poet, come let us also get the approval of philosophy. There was a man named Hermias, of the stock of Atarneus.

Atarneus is a city of the Mysians, not large but a splendid place to see, and named after a Mysian king. Now Hermias was a pupil of the Stagirite [i.e., Aristotle], one of those most closely attached to him. With all the virtue Hermias possessed, he affected his mentor deeply, causing Aristotle to love him from the bottom of his heart. Aristotle gave many indications, as one can hear told, of his love of Hermias. He trained him thor-

oughly in eloquence and taught -him virtue, and Hermias was the only one of Aristotle’s pupils whose death he honored with an elegiac poem.© about a year [Thuc. 3.68.3], in 426, it was totally destroyed, not to be rebuilt till the late 380s B.c. [E. Kirsten, “Plataiai 1,” RE 20, 2 (1950): 2306—9].) “my oration has discovered that a sophist” etc.: Himerius has not seriously changed his mind here (note the opening of section 6). He is just playfully complimenting his own profession. 60. For Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus and environs and friend and pupil of Aristotle, see Wormell, YCS 5 (1935): 57-92; Bidez, Académie royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la classe

des lettres 29 (1943): 133-46; During, Aristotle, 272-83; Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy, 6: 26-36, 44. The sources reveal both a favorable and an unfavorable tradition * on Hermias. “of the stock of Atarneus” (Arapvevs yévos): cf. Aristotle in Diog. Laert. 5.8: “the nursling (€vrpodos) of Atarneus.” Theopompus called Hermias a Bithynian (in Didymus Chalcent. In Dem. col. 4.69, p. 13 Pearson-Stephens); so did Demetrius of Magnesia (in Diog. Laert. 5.3). Other texts, probably erroneously and maliciously, call him a barbarian. “named after a Mysian king”: Himerius appears to be the only ancient source that offers this information. In a treaty Hermias signed with Erythrae, an Atarneus is mentioned as the eponymous hero of the city (SIG* 229). “a pupil of the Stagirite”: Ivwpusos here

and below (“pupils”) can be “pupil” or “friend.” For Hermias’s special closeness to Aristotle, cf. Didymus Chalcent. In Dem. col. 5.62—63, p. 18 Pearson-Stephens; their friendship was discussed by many ancient writers (Euseb. Praep. evang. 15.2.13 des Places). The high Himerian tone implicitly refutes the charge that Hermias and Aristotle had a sexual

relationship (cf. Chroust, Aristotle, 1: 42). “the only one... an elegiac poem”: Reading Wilamowitz’s conjecture Oavarov, “death” (Aristoteles und Athen, 2: 405n), unreported in Colonna’s edition, we can see here a reference to Aristotle’s elegiac poem in honor of the dead Hermias, which is preserved in Didymus Chalcent. In Dem. col. 6.39—42, p. 21 Pearson-Stephens and Diog. Laert. 5.6. If we retain the transmitted reading @aAapov, “bedchamber,” 1.e., “marriage” (thus Wernsdorff and Diibner), then Himerius will agree with an entry in the Suda that gives Hermias a wife (E 3040 Adler sub fine) but will be the sole extant ancient source that refers to a poem by Aristotle in honor of their marriage. (A number of texts call Hermias a eunuch, but that may be nothing more than malevolent fabrication. Some sources refer to a daughter of Hermias; others specify that this was only an adopted daughter: Harpocration, s.v. ‘Epyias; Diog. Laert. 5.3; Euseb. Praep. evang. 1§.2.12, 14 des Places.) The one attraction in retaining the reading @aAapov is that it sets up a nice parallel: just as Aristotle had honored his pupil Hermias’s marriage with a poem, so too Himerius had written an epithalamium (viz. Orat. 9) in honor of the wedding of his former pupil Severus, the very man who had arranged for him to speak in Philippi (see the opening scholion of Orat. 40) and to whom Himerius may intend us to see a reference in the figure of Hermias (see next note, ad fin.). V. Rose (Aristotelis fragmenta [Leipzig, 1886], frag. 674) retains OaAapov but understands it to have the sense “tomb” (cf. Him. Orat. 8.8), obtaining a meaning close to that which Wilamowitz obtained through an emen_ dation. The difficulty with this solution is that Aristotle’s elegiac poem honored a statue of Hermias at Delphi, not his tomb (Diog. Laert. 5.6). Hermias was captured by the Persians and perished in their country. Another emendation of OoAajov was proposed by

58 In Praise of Cities and of Men But let me tell you now about the strongest evidence Aristotle gave of his devotion to Hermias. [7] The great philosopher happened to be summoned to Asia by Alexander [the Great] to be both herald and observer of his Persian victories. When in the course of his journey he reached Atarneus and saw that the whole of that small city was thirsting for virtue and wisdom, he did not pass by it in silence but saluted the city and Hermias with a short composition.®! [8] This, O friends, is my thank-offering for your hospitality. If the gods permit it, I shall set up fuller kraters for the city on another occasion.©

[cods. R and B, with passages also in Exc. Neapol. and Lex. Lopad.|]

41. [The Oration in Constantinople] : | [Himerius] went to give a display of his eloquence in Constantinople when he was traveling to the emperor Julian’s court, to which he had been summoned. He was initiated in the Mithraic mysteries before giving his oratorical display (émdei€ews). He then delivered his oration to the city and to the emperor who had established the initiatory rite [in Constantinople].©

[x] I have cleansed my soul through Mithra the Sun, and through the gods I have spent time with an emperor [Julian] who is a friend of the Bernays, inspired by the tradition that Hermias was a eunuch: for @aAapov provw he proposed @Aadiav povov (i.e., “he honored the only eunuch among his pupils with an elegiac poem”); see Usener, Gesammelte Abhandlungen von Jacob Bernays, 294.

61. It is not clear whether Himerius regards Hermias as alive or dead at the time of this incident. If alive, then he is chronologically confused, for Hermias died probably in 341 B.C. (Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy, 6: 35), whereas Alexander did not begin his push east until the late 330s. If Himerius regards Hermias as dead here, Aristotle’s “short composition” is apparently the philosopher’s extant “hymn” to virtue in honor of the dead Hermias; see V. Rose, Aristotelis fragmenta (Leipzig, 1886), frag. 675, and Wormell, YCS 5 (1935): 86. (The hymn is preserved in Didymus Chalcent. In Dem. col.

| 6.23ff., pp. 19-20 Pearson-Stephens; Athen. 15.696b—d; and Diog. Laert. 5.7—-8.) Wilamowitz (Aristoteles und Athen, 2: 405n) surmised that Gorgias’s stop in passing at Plataea (section 5, above) and Aristotle’s similar stop at Atarneus were Himerius’s own inventions, intended as analogues to his own stop in passing at Philippi. The unhistorical notion that Aristotle was with Alexander during his Persian campaigns is found in the Aris-

totelian biographical tradition: Vita Marciana 23, Vita vulgata 23, Vita Latina 23 (in Diiring, Aristotle, 100, 135, 154). For Aristotle accompanying Alexander on his expeditions, see also Hertz, Abhandl. der philos.-philologischen Cl. der k6nigl. Bayerischen Akad. der Wissenschaften 19, 1 (1891): 26-36, 90-103. For the possibility that one is meant to see in Hermias a reference to the Severus mentioned in the opening scholion of this oration, see p. 43 above. 62. Cf. the opening of section 3 above. 63. The opening scholion serves as the title in cods. R and B. The Excerpta Neapolitana have the title “To Constantinople.” The title in Photius’s Himerian bibliography is

In Praise of Cities and of Men 59 gods. So let me now light not a torch, but an oration for the emperor and the city. Attic law commands initiates to carry light and stalks of grain to Eleusis as signs of a civilized life. But for our [fellow Mithraic] initiates let me propose an oration as a thank-offering, since Apollo and the Sun, I think, are one and the same, and words are children of Apollo.

Having begun, then, with the gods, let us now address the city. [2] Again there are Attic Muses |[i.e., Himerius] in your midst; again Athens addresses its own progeny. It seems to me that the whole of learning is a friend of this city. That is why, when Constantinople was about

to bring forth a man divinely fated to be emperor [i.e., Julian], the city left it to the Muses to be the midwives of his character, so that he might surpass [all] those who had ever prided themselves on the good fortune [of the imperial throne]—surpass them, I mean, in virtue rather than in [mere] good fortune. My own learning was destined, as if by some better fate from on high, to belong to this city. Let me tell you what the greatest proof of that is. When this learning of mine, after enduring Attic contests and winning the great garlands of the virgin goddess [Athena], had to leave Attica and sow the rest of the earth with the seeds of learn-

ing it got there, fate did not take it to the Rhine in the West, nor did it carry it to the fabulous waters of Ocean. No, fate brought it, while still

in its prime and sprouting its first beard, to you, so that it might plait to- | gether a hymn for the city from still tender buds. But when its hair turned

gray, when it got gray locks, it praised the emperor on his own, so that this city might again be a prelude to the hymns of praise to be offered to “TAn Oration] Given (py$eis) in Constantinople for the City Itself, for the Emperor Julian, and for the Mithraic Initiation.” Barnes (CP 82 [1987]: 222) has asserted that it was Julian himself who initiated Himerius in the Mithraic mysteries (so too Brauch, Byzantion 63 [1993]: 66-67). But neither this scholion nor the text of the oration provides any grounding for that assertion. 64. While I agree with Smith, Julian’s Gods, 124-37, 163-71, that the role of Mithraism in Julian’s religiosity has been exaggerated and that “the notion that Julian promoted Mithraism as a feature of his imperial policy may be discarded,” I still maintain (as Smith does) that Julian was a Mithraic initiate. In the opening scholion to this oration, “had es; tablished the initiatory rite” must mean “in Constantinople.” I would compare Liban. Orat. 18.127, which I, with others, understand as a reference to a Mithraeum that Julian built in the palace at Constantinople, where he is described as “initiated and initiating.” Note also section 8 below: “[Julian] has established religious rites from abroad in the city [Constantinople], and has made sacred the mysteries of the heavenly gods introduced into the city.” Turcan (Mithras, 113-14), who denies that Julian was a Mithraist, must reject the opening scholion of Orat. 41, claiming that there is misinformation in it, deduced with misunderstanding from the text of the oration. He also dismisses the pertinence of the reference to Mithra in section 1, viewing it as nothing more than a hackneyed literary way of naming the Sun. For light (torches) and stalks of grain on the road to Eleusis, note Mylonas, Eleusis, 256, 275-76. The common equation Mithra = Sun = Apollo allows a nice transition from the question of initiation to that of the oration at hand.

60 In Praise of Cities and of Men him. Let us now, then, first address the city, beginning with what it is proud of and rejoices in.® [3] O city that lit the torch of freedom for all humankind! O city that conceived and brought forth a fortunate infant! O city that brought into the light a child who was even better than one whom your mother-city it-

self brought forth! For the first offspring of your mother-city was Cecrops. . He was not yet a genuine human being, since, from the waist down, he had his mother’s [serpentine] coils, and he did not yet speak Attic Greek.®¢

But your offspring, of course, has an unmixed nature. In him there is a conjunction of the highest good fortune and the highest virtue; both shaped

his birth, I think, and they were present, not in half measure, but in full. [4] All lyres have made the island of Delos, which had the honor of being the place of Apollo’s divine birth, the subject of poem and song, even though it is a small island, almost hidden by the waves. But you are not what people call an island or an [ordinary] city; you are almost a

complete continent that has given rise to a city, and what poet or prosewriter would not hymn you with good reason? I marvel and am amazed

65. “Again there are Attic Muses”: Himerius seems to be referring to his earlier orating in Constantinople, Orat. 62 and below “fate brought [my learning], while still in its prime ..., to you.” “Athens addresses her own progeny”: Himerius propagates the view that Byzantium/Constantinople was a colony of Athens, as in section 3 below. Cf. Amm. Marc. 22.8.8: “Constantinopolis, vetus Byzantium, Atticorum colonia.” “to bring forth a

man... midwives of his character”: Julian was born and had his earliest upbringing in Con- . - stantinople and studied grammar and rhetoric there after his exile at Macellum: Bidez, La vie, 5-54; Bowersock, Julian, 21-27. Note Zos. 3.11.2. “had to leave Attica and sow the rest of the earth”: Himerius is comparing himself to Triptolemus, who scattered seed throughout the earth from his flying chariot upon leaving Attica (Ov. Met. 5.642ff.; Apollod. Bibl. 1.5.23 Ael. Aristid. Orat. 1.36 Lenz-Behr; Hygin. Fab. 147). “to the Rhine ... Ocean”: Himerius may be alluding to the visit of Prohaeresius, his rival at Athens, to emperor Constans in Gaul: Eunap. Vitae phil. et soph. 10.7.1-3 [492]; Penella, Greek Philosophers, 88-90. Barnes (CP 82 [1987]: 208), putting the visit to Constans in ca. 343, sees a reference in

“Ocean” to that emperor’s British expedition of 342/43. Schamp warns, though, that Himerius’s reference to graduates of schools of Greek rhetoric going west may have “une portée générale” (DPA 3 [2000]: 716-17). Even if Himerius himself is thinking specifically of Prohaeresius here, Schamp rightly wonders whether anyone in the Constantinopolitan audience would have appreciated the allusion. “so that it might plait together a hymn”: i.e., deliver an oration. “it praised the emperor on his own”: “On his own” is xa@” éavrov. Himerius seems to be alluding to the lost oration (52) he gave in praise of Julian before he left Athens. Having devoted an oration exclusively to Julian, he can now couple praise of Julian with the city of Constantinople and its prefect, beginning with the city. But for scholarly hesitation and emendation, see the critical apparatus in Diibner’s and Colonna’s editions. “might again be a prelude” (my emphasis): i.e., as it has been in other orations that various individuals have given during the emperor’s stay in Constantinople? 66. Cecrops, the first king of Attica/Athens, was born of the earth, represented by his lower serpentine half: Ar. Vesp. 438, with schol.; Eur. lon 1163-64; Apollod. Bibl.

3.14.1; Hygin. Fab. 48. “he did not yet speak”: With Wernsdorff, I emend d0eyyouevyy to dbeyyopevos.

In Praise of Cities and of Men 61 at all your other features, too. For you are the beginning of Europe and also its end, and you have been allotted the same role in Asia. With you the billowy [Euxine (Black)] Sea comes to a halt, and the Aegean issues forth from you. [5] The great Bosporus is your neighbor—straits that all _ poets and all orators vie with one another in praising, straits that calmed the sea for Zeus’s beloved [Io] and, in my opinion, prophesied that they would nurse in their bosom an emperor sprung from Zeus. For it is said that it was by Zeus’s decision that Inachus’s daughter Io was transformed from a maiden into a cow and swam these waters, giving the straits their name as an indication of what her fortune had been on that occasion.®’ [6] Who could find great or beautiful enough words with which to hymn your great size or beauty? This city begins to be bathed by the waters that are almost halfway across the straits. It extended itself quite a distance to the west, making a great city out of the mainland that welcomed it and leaving not even its crannies vacant nor the that circumscribes whole peninsula. Once spread out over the whole . shoreline and all the plains, it then actually turned the sea itself into part of the mainland and forced it to become part of the city; it has turned what by its nature is rolling and constantly on the move |i.e., the sea] into

something immobile. [7] Now when Homer wanted to make Sparta’s great size clear in his poetry by giving it an appropriate epithet, he call it xnrweocav, meaning “of considerable magnitude.” If this really is the right word

to use to describe a city’s size, then I should apply it to you, [Constantinople], not Homer , although this city, in my view, does not have size . For just as in a necklace gold the gems, so too Constantinople combines the flower of beauty with its great

size. Hence the city’s gold causes people to look now here, now there. The wonders of its craftsmanship attract those who behold them. Its senate-house shines forth, its baths are enchanting, its theaters also win people’s favor. Everything here is, quite simply, Aphrodite’s kestos!® 67. Delos: For Apollo’s birth there, see Him. Orat. 64.1, with my note. Io, driven into flight by Zeus’s jealous wife Hera, at one point crossed the Bosporus, giving it its name (understood to mean “cow-crossing”). (Not all ancient sources agreed that Inachus was her father [Eitrem, “Io,” RE 9, 2 (1916): 1732-33]). Zeus had turned Io into a cow in an attempt to hide his affair from Hera. Himerius takes the Bosporus, named for an incident

in which Zeus prominently figured, as an omen for the birth of an emperor at Constan- | tinople, “sprung from Zeus” being an epithet applicable to any monarch (see Them. Orat. 2.34d, 6.79b, 15.188b). For the story of Io, see Aesch. PV 561-886; Ov. Met. 1.583-746;

Apollod. Bibl. 2.1.3.

68. “its crannies”: Aayovas. Or “the flanks of its hills” (on which see Janin, Comstantinople, 4-6 with the “carte hypsométrique”). The text here is cevov d€ adjKe moAews ov8 doov els Aayovas Kal THY KUKA@ TEpiTTUGGOVOGY ViGoV dTracav pepilerat. I despair

— 62 In Praise of Cities and of Men [8] I have not yet mentioned the greatest and most beautiful ornament _ of the city, an ornament that shines on the city’s splendor more brightly than any gold and makes its beauty more colorful than any artificial dye. I am referring to the divine emperor. The city that brought him forth is every day the recipient of countless favors from him, and countless ornaments and crowns from him wreath its head. He does.not favor it merely with great and beautiful buildings. He has also washed away by his virtue the darkness that was preventing us from lifting our hands up to the Sun

and has thereby given us the gift of raising us up to heaven as if from | some Tartarus or lightless life. He has raised up temples to the gods, has established religious rites from abroad in the city, and has made sacred the mysteries of the heavenly gods introduced into the city. He did not heal everything gradually, as those with human skills heal the sick, but all at once with benefits of [spiritual] health that took immediate effect. After all, one would have expected someone who links his nature with the Sun both to give light and to reveal a better life.°’

[9] He also builds up the reputation of the city by his daily actions and deeds, just as the deeds of Romulus exalt Romulus’s city, and the famous trials of virtue endured by Heracles exalt Heracles’ city. If anyone

of tiv KUKAw .. . dtacav. Wernsdorff has “nihil vacuum urbe relinquitur, neque ipsum . illud spatium, quod partim praerupta collium latera, partim circumfusae undique insulae | occupant.” Dibner altered “circumfusae undique insulae occupant” to “cingens undique insula occupat.” I tentatively propose that something like zapo‘Avov ryv has fallen out after 7epurTUccoucav. Nijoov would have to be understood as “peninsula”; see LSJ Rev. Suppl., s.v. vacos. “it... turned the sea itself into part of the mainland”: cf. Zos. 2.35.25 Sidon. Apoll. Carm. 2.57-58. xnrweooav: Hom. Il. 2.581, Od. 4.1. Homer applies the adjective to the whole of Lacedaemon. Both the reading and the meaning of the Homeric

word were disputed in antiquity; see Heubeck et al. on Od. 4.1. “not Homer ... ”: a corrupt passage, for which I attempt to reconstruct the general sense. See Wernsdorff’s and Diibner’s editions. Aphrodite’s kestos: apparently a breast halter or kind of brassiere; see Janko on Hom. II. 14.214-17, and Sider on Philodem. Epigr. 17.3 It is associated with allurement and seduction. Themistius(Orat. 6.83d—84a) also calls Constantinople Aphrodite’s kestos. Aelius Aristides uses the term of Corinth, with the remark “whatever this object is through which the goddess chains all men to herself” (Orat. 46.25, trans. C. Behr). 69. “the darkness”: a Christian throne. In Jul. Contra Heracl. 229c, Julian is revealed to be the Sun’s child. The Sun was very important in Julian’s religiosity (see Athanassiadi, Julian, index, s.v. “Helios”). Smith (Julian’s Gods, 158-59, 165) has rightly reminded us that many gods are identified (or partially identified) with the Sun and that we should not

always assume the equation Mithra = Sun; but it is hard not to think of Mithra in this paragraph, given the mention of “Mithra the Sun” in section 1 above. “religious rites from abroad (évas )”: i.e., Mithraism (see p. 44 above). I would raise the possibility, which I do not favor, that Himerius means vas more generally: “rites alien [to Christian Constantinople].” This interpretation will be attractive to those who stress the Christian character of the Constantinople that Constantine founded and passed on to his son Constan. tius (e.g., Barnes, Constantine, 222).

In Praise of Cities and of Men 63 should ask the Athenians why they are so much more high-spirited than » other people, they begin with Theseus and trace their long line of successes from him. is an ornament to the Argives, just as Lycurgus is to the Spartiates. Lycurgus was the beginning of Sparta, for be-

fore his time people almost refused to live there. The Amphipolitans, reassigning their city from Hagnon to Brasidas, pride themselves more on the virtue of that Laconian [i.e., Brasidas] than on the marvelous features of their land that nature has given them. What better ornament is there for this city than such a great emperor, who is so proud of his na-

tive land?”° :

[zo] In building up [a verbal picture of] an Assyrian city [i.e., Baby-

lon], the Carian Muse—I mean Herodotus’s Muse [Hdt. 1.17880], al- . most superior to poetry’!—divides and walls the city by means of a barbarian river [i.e., the Euphrates]. But your wall is a great emperor and the sea, the emperor making a wall of arms for the city and the sea pro-

tecting it with its waves. | [x1] The population of a city of such size had to be proportionately large. For if the stars are an adornment to the heavens, a city’s glory is its inhabitants. Those who call themselves a race sprung. from their native land trace their cities’ origins back to a mythical founder. They invent stories that go against the laws of nature because they lack any con-

nection with higher beings. This was your condition. But a family that | derived from the gods mated with unstable humanity and by mating produced a family of heroes. This stock commingled with you and truly made

, this city a reflection of some heavenly world.” 70. “Heracles’ city”: his native Thebes (Him. Orat. 6.3, with my note). For Danaus, see also Him. Orat. 6.3, with my note. Amphipolis: During the Peloponnesian War the Lacedaemonian Brasidas captured Amphipolis, which had been settled by the Athenian Hagnon. The Amphipolitans came to regard Brasidas as their founder, Hagnon having suffered a damnatio memoriae. Brasidas had died while fighting the Athenians at Amphipolis (Thuc. 4.102, 5.8-11). “reassigning their city from Hagnon to Brasidas”: There is a hint

here that the Constantinopolitans might want to reassign their city from Constantine to Julian. 71. Cf. Herodotus as the “prose Homer”: Lloyd-Jones, ZPE 124 (1999): 2-3, 10-11. 72. “a race sprung from their native land”: One thinks of the Athenians (Him. Orat. 6.2). “a mythical founder”: apparently Cecrops (see n. 66 above). “stories that go against the laws of nature”: i.e., birth from the earth. “This was your condition”: i.e., you lacked a direct connection with higher beings, because Athens was your mother-city (sections 2 and 3 above). I do not accept the conjectural supplement ov that Wernsdorff proposed. Traditional praise of Athens, of course, affirmed connections with the divine in her mythhistory (see Him. Orat. 6.4-8). But here Himerius criticizes certain features of Athenian myth-history (cf. section 3) because he wants to elevate Constantinople over Athens. “a family that derived from the gods”: Julian’s family or more generally the descendants of

Constantius Chlorus. .

64 In Praise of Cities and of Men [12] Consequently—and given that the whole city is so attentive to it—philosophy dwells among you, both foreign-born and native philosophy. Like a good bee from undefiled meadows making honey, it feeds on the whole city. Now it buzzes in the theaters and through its personal efforts unites you to the Academy and to Ariston’s son [Plato]; then it

| fills the souls of the young with the whole of virtue, just as they say that Pythagoras did when he was fortifying Italy against the Lyceum.” [13] When poets were building Athena’s ship the Argo, the first vessel and the one that opened up your shores, they favored it, I think, with a divine cargo; for this vessel, which alone was the work of Athena, had to be rowed by heroes.” Like the Argo, you too, [Constantinople], have

a divine crew—not the crew of a single trireme, but that of a whole city. The nature of this cargo of yours is such that from beginning to end it

is made pure by the gods. | [14] And where in the chorus shall we place [i.e., the

prefect] of this city? Clearly in first place. Think, for comparison, of a circular shield: whatever point you touch along the edge that runs around it is regarded as the first. Thus it is clearly quite essential that he who will sit at the rudders of the city be a master helmsman. If a city is small, then

a man who is a counterfeit governor and uninitiated in the art of governing is only a small danger; for any damage he does, minimized by the city’s fortune, is hidden from general view. But I think that a city of high

rank needs a person of high rank to steer such a great sea of a city. Let the city’s helmsman be gentle (7710s ), to use Homer’s word, so that he may have this paternal designation that comes to him. Let him be mild in his words but quick in his actions so that he will not give offense by shouting but will be seen in action before people even expect any action to be taken. Let him build up the city, but only if its inhabitants rejoice in his projects and are not distressed by their cost; for if the city rejoices in his projects, it will not have the feeling that any money is being. spent. Let him deepen the harbors and surround them with porticoes,

73. “philosophy dwells among you”: cf. Them. Orat. 6.84a; Demeg. Constantii 21a: “all men from everywhere have unanimously conceded that [Constantinople] is supreme in philosophy”—both passages in contexts that implicitly and explicitly, respectively, praise the efforts of the Constantinopolitan philosopher Themistius. “Pythagoras ... Lyceum”: i.e., Pythagoras’s philosophical efforts in southern Italy rivaled Athenian philosophy and learning, which “Lyceum” stands for. 74. For the role of Athena in the building of the Argo, see Apoll. Rhod. Argon. 1.18-19, II0-11, 526-27; Apollod. Bibl. 1.9.16. For the Argo as the first ship, Jessen, “Argo 1,” RE 2 (1896): 722-23; Herter, RAM 91 (1942): 244-49. The Argo “opened up” the site of

Constantinople by sailing from the Aegean into the Black Sea.

In Praise of Cities and of Men 65 which are a welcome relief for sailors from their toils at sea. Let him build temples to the gods; may he propitiate the higher powers and make them friendly to the city. Let him extend the portico whose royal character is confirmed, I think, by its beauty and size.” Let him shun unjust gain because of an inclination to be just, not out of fear of the laws; for the lat-

ter motivation is a mark of cowardice, whereas the former is a mark of temperance. [15] It is reasonable to expect that he will be properly motivated if he is of noble birth, has been raised with a proper education and exposure to good literature, has plenty of royal standards to guide him, has so great an emperor as a witness to virtue, and receives the honor of office as a reward for his justice and not for a payment of gold. Homer has represented the man of Pylos [i.e., Nestor] as having a sweeter voice than the other speakers at Troy. But this [urban prefect of ours], who holds such a great office, governs such a great city, and keeps the whole senate subject to his scepter, has a voice sweeter than honey, whomever he talks to. Thus he clearly outdoes Nestor, because, however much he is outdone

by Nestor in age, he is superior to him in the charm of his eloquence.’® , [16] Well, I have yielded to my love of the city, and I see that my words are leaping without restraint around their beloved. I fear that, if they stay

here longer, they may suddenly end up suffering from forgetfulness, as if among some Lotus-eaters. So let me, let me now skillfully corral them in and set my eyes on the emperor. And let my love [of the city] be stirred up once again, [on another occasion], by all the arrows it wants to be the target of.”” [cods. R and B, with passages also in Exc. Neapol. and Lex. Lopad.]

75. “this paternal designation”: The point is that Homer uses 70s to describe a father (II. 24.770, Od. 2.47, 2.234, §.12, 15.1523; cf. Od. 14.138—41). Indeed in Orat. 48.32

Himerius describes another official with the full Homeric phrase arp S’ws amos ev. .

For the “royal” portico, see Janin, Constantinople, 91-92. |

76. “not for a payment of gold”: cf. Them. Orvat. 31.353b—c, with reference to his own Constantinopolitan prefecture of 384. For old Nestor’s eloquence, see Hom. II. 1.247-§2. “senate subject to his scepter”: For the urban prefect as head of the senate, see Dagron, Naissance, 230-31, 283; cf. Chastagnol, La préfecture urbaine, 68—69. For the view that the urban prefect praised in this oration is Themistius, see p. 45 above. 77. The Lotus-eaters gave lotus to Odysseus’s men, which caused them to want to remain with their hosts and to forget about the task of getting back home (Hom. Od. 9.82ff.). “And let my love [of the city]” etc.: avfis b€ wavra ewat Tots épaow, doa Kai BovAovrat Kal’ éavta@v BéAn kvkAwoaocba. Wernsdorff translates: “Alio rursus tempore cuncta amoris

tela, quaequnque expetetis, in vos effusius vibrare licet” (and similarly Dibner and Volker). He understands rots épa@otw to mean the city, Himerius’s beloved, or the city’s love of Himerius. I understand it to mean Himerius’s love of the city, as in the first sentence of this paragraph. “arrows”: of Eros (Cupid).

, CHAPTER 3

In and Around Himerius’s School

Many of Himerius’s orations illustrate various features of the daily life of his school. Arrivals and departures of students (and of Himerius himself) were often noted in the orations. Pieces on arrivals and departures are collected in chapter 4. Orations bearing on various other school issues are gathered here.! Two of the orations presented here, 34 and 35, concern the recruitment of new students. Oration 34 is addressed to the physician and comes Arcadius, who is considering enrolling his son in Himerius’s school. Himerius approves of the care Arcadius is taking in selecting a teacher for his son: many fathers “risk their dearest charges on a toss of the dice,” but Arcadius is showing the concern (and discrimination) that Peleus did in selecting Chiron as Achilles’ teacher. Himerius tells two stories that apply to the situation at hand. First, in a chronologically impossible story, he recalls that Solon, although already well-seasoned in wisdom, improved himself even more by attending the plays of Aeschylus upon returning to Athens after traveling around the world. Solon was accompanied by his son when he saw Aeschylus’s plays. Next, Himerius notes that Democedes, already famous as a physician and having practiced in

66 ,

_ 1. Actually, several orations in this chapter do touch on arrivals and departures, but only in passing: Orat. 44.1-2, 61.4, 69.8—9. Orat. 35 greets students who have defected from other sophists, but I place it in this chapter as illustrative of one way by which students were recruited.

In and Around Himerius’s School 67 Persia, returned to Greece to soak up the wisdom of Pythagoras, valuing it more highly than the wealth of the Persian court. Solon, his son, and Aeschylus are analogues of Arcadius, his son, and Himerius respectively. Arcadius’s son was probably present when Himerius delivered this

oration before Arcadius. Himerius remarks that Aeschylus was “still

young” when Solon attended his plays; this may (or may not) mean that | Himerius still regarded himself as young when he delivered Oration 34. , The second story, which parallels Democedes and Pythagoras to Arcadius and Himerius, is especially appropriate, since both Democedes and Arcadius were physicians. These historical analogies flatter both Arcadius and Himerius himself. As both the opening scholion and the opening lines of Oration 34 indicate, Arcadius had already got a taste of Himerius’s eloquence, having heard him deliver an epithalamium. But Oration 34 courts Arcadius directly. Not all fathers of potential pupils would have been so courted and honored. But Arcadius was no ordinary father; he had been awarded the _

imperial title comes. |

If courting the fathers of potential students was one way of augmenting | | class size, another way was to receive the disaffected students of other sophists. The young man mentioned in the opening scholion of Oration 26 (see chapter 4), “who had become [Himerius’s] pupil and was attending his school against the wishes of his parents,” may have been one

such student. Oration 35 is addressed to just such a group of students. , They have left other sophists and have transferred to Himerius’s school. He welcomes them. Comparing himself to Socrates, he notes that some of Socrates’ own students—among them, apparently, Plato himself—had consorted with lesser teachers before finding a true master. Oration 35,

: though, is not exclusively concerned with the circumstances that led its addressees to Himerius. Himerius goes on to give the newly enrolled students a lecture on the importance of stylistic variety (zoucA‘a). The point is made by noting the universality of variety (resourcefulness, versatility)

| in every human and natural sphere—beginning with Plato’s “multifaceted learning.” __ What to make of the remains of the lacunose Oration 29 is not immediately obvious. It is addressed to “Privatus, the Teacher of the Proconsul Ampelius’s Son.” Ampelius was proconsular governor of Achaia

(Greece) in the years 359-360.2 Oration 31 (see chapter 7) is the

2. PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Ampelius 3.”

| 68 In and Around Himerius’s School propemptic speech that Himerius delivered at the end of Ampelius’s pro-

consulship. I am assuming that Ampelius’s son was with his father in Greece during the latter’s proconsulship; Athens itself may have been where the boy was studying under Privatus, unless it was the administrative capital, Corinth.’ What survives of Oration 29 consists of three

| historical vignettes. They are clearly intended as analogues to the situation at hand, although the points of comparison are not made explicit. We first have a picture of Anacharsis the Scythian, drawn, in his love of wisdom, to Athens. At Athens “he immediately became Attic in speech and gave up the Scythian language,” immersing himself in all of the city’s cultural riches and seeking instruction from Solon. Anacharsis is an ana-

logue of Privatus, whom the title of Oration 29 describes asa Roman, Romaios, perhaps meaning that he is from the city of Rome (or at least

from Italy?).4 Privatus must have transplanted himself from Italy to Greece, where he taught Greek literature, just as Anacharsis had come from Scythia to Greece. We next get a picture of the Samian Polycrates as a youth eager to learn lyric poetry. His father supports that eagerness by arranging for Anacreon to teach his son, and “the boy worked hard on the lyre to achieve kingly virtue.” We are to think here of Ampelius encouraging his son’s education. Finally, we get a laudatory picture of Achilles’ teacher Phoenix, an analogue to Privatus, the teacher of Ampelius’s son.° Why these flattering representations of Privatus? Privatus is said in the title of Oration 29 to be Ampelius’s son’s teacher (zratdevovra). Wernsdorff speculated, in his opening remarks on the oration, that Privatus was

: the boy’s pedagogue. Perhaps, instead, he was the boy’s secondary teacher or “grammarian.” Himerius might have been hoping to recruit Ampelius’s son when the latter was ready to leave Privatus for advanced rhetorical study, and Privatus may already have directed students to Himerius.° If this reconstruction is correct, then we may group Oration 29 with 34 and 35, all concerned in one way or another with recruitment.

Two of the orations presented here, 61 and 69, mark the recom, 3. Note the opening scholion of Orat. 33. 4. Cf. Magdalino’s comments on the implications of the Byzantine name R6maios in Cameron, Fifty Years of Prosopography, 49-50. 5. lam in accord with Wernsdorff in my understanding of the analogies. Volker (Himerios, 227 n. 18) thinks that Himerius sees himself in Solon, Anacreon, and Phoenix. 6. Forthe “channeling” of students from grammarian to sophist, see Kaster, Guardians

of Language, 133, 202. :

In and Around Himerius’s School 69 mencement of studies after a break. Oration 61 was perhaps delivered at the beginning of the regular academic year, “the season for eloquence”

(61.1). Himerius makes the simple point that celebrating the commencement of his students’ studies by giving a display of eloquence is appropriate, because it is precisely eloquence that they are hoping to acquire in his school. He acknowledges two individuals in the audience who have come from abroad: the one, a visitor, who apparently had once been Himerius’s classmate; the other, a student from Pamphylia. He tells the student a story that suggests that his study at Athens will redound to the glory of his homeland.

, The opening scholion of Oration 69 informs us that it was delivered

“after [Himerius’s] wound healed, when studies were [re]commencing.” : The oration begins by asserting that “[i]t is time to open the lecture hall... , since the Muses are giving eloquence its season.” We may be at the regular beginning of the academic year or of a segment of it, which on this occasion followed closely on Himerius’s recovery from a wound. Sections 3-4 can only mean that Himerius was a victim of academic violence’—

or, as he puts it, of “envy’s fight against eloquence” (69.2). We know from Libanius how dangerous the life of a fourth-century professor at Athens could be (Orat. 1.85). One sophist there was assaulted and had his face rubbed in the dirt. Another was seized and taken to a well; he . would have been thrown in had he not agreed to leave the city. Besides commenting on his wound and his readiness now to resume teaching, Himerius offers special greetings to some recently arrived students from Asia Minor and Egypt, apologizing for his tardiness in doing this (69.1, 8-9). There is also some general advice for all his students: apply yourselves to your studies, and do not be distracted by amusements and pleasures.*®

Oration 44 was delivered to honor the birthday of an évatpos, which I take to mean “a student” and not merely “a friend.” The individual is

| in Athens, presumably studying under Himerius, and had come there from Egypt, whose wonders Himerius praises in this oration. In implicitly com-

paring himself and the addressee of Oration 44 to Xenophon and Cyrus ~ the Younger respectively, Himerius says that Xenophon “provided Cyrus

7. Cf. Wernsdorff’s opening remarks on this oration; Walden, Universities, 313-14; Norman, Libanius’ Autobiography, 153; Volker, Himerios, 352 n. 2 8. For student laziness and distraction, see Liban. Orat. 1.5; 3.6, 10-143 34.10-I2; 43.10; 62.6, 19; id. Ep. 175.4, 666.2 Foerster; Walden, Universities, 3 19ff.

70 In and Around Himerius’s School with an excellent arena in which to be schooled” (44.6); Himerius will have done the same for the addressee of Oration 44. Menander Rhetor (2.8) gives instructions for the composition of a birth-

day speech, and in the piece under discussion we can see Himerius following one of Menander’s instructions, to praise the season of the year in which the honoree was born. But Himerius does not write the full en- — comium recommended by Menander. This is because Oration 44 is only ~ ashort Jalia. Himerius explicitly acknowledges that he is speaking briefly and promises that he will say more about the honoree at some future time. In addition to the expected praise of the individual whose birthday is being celebrated, including the assertion that he is greater than a mere mortal, we also find that Himerius does not let the occasion pass without underscoring the importance and excellence of his own oratory, despite some obligatory self-deprecation. In a comparison of himself to _ Odysseus (44.1-2), he can see even this short birthday talk as “a memorial of himself,” worth an investment of effort even though he is on the verge of leaving Athens for his native Prusias. Although in one passage he tells the honoree that “you outstrip my eloquence by your resources of character” (44.7), in another he invites a comparison of his “modest Muse” to the wonders of Egypt. Finally, the comparison of himself to Xenophon in section 6 includes the detail that Xenophon “outdid swarms of bees in his eloquence,” inviting the hearer or reader to assume the same for Himerius himself. In their in loco parentis role, sophists must have often got involved in one way or another when their students became ill. Libanius mentions attending to sick students as a routine part of his activities. The Athenian sophist Prohaeresius intervened on behalf of the health of Eunapius, his student-to-be, before even meeting him: Eunapius was still regaining his strength after an illness that had struck him on the sea voyage to Athens,

| so Prohaeresius asked his students to be gentle with the new recruit during his hazing.? In Oration 45 Himerius is celebrating the recovery of an eTatpos from illness. It is clear from section 3 of this talk (/alia) that the ETaipos in quéstion was Himerius’s “head student” or student leader. His recovery will have demanded notice more pressingly than that of an ordinary student. The opening scholion to this talk notes that it “includes a treatment of envy,” a theme that is illustrated mythologically (45.4). What is meant here is the envy of fortune, which strikes at and brings down.

g. Liban. Orat. 36.8; Eunap. Vitae phil. et soph. 10.2 [486] Giangrande.

In and Around Himerius’s School 71 | those who prosper, although in this case Himerius can rejoice in the fact

that the student has recovered from the misfortune that had struck him. Three pieces presented here, Orations 16, 65, and 66, are concerned with student disorders. Oration 66 is addressed to students (doiryr av)

who, in some way, have been rebellious or unbridled (adyvidlew). Himerius tells them an Aesopic story about Apollo and the Muses. Apollo was leading the Muses in a chorus of music and dance when a group of nymphs showed up and joined them. But these nymphs, who “may have

been utterly wicked ..., leaped to the sound of the music . . . in disaccord with Apollo’s lyre” (66.2). Apollo got angry at them but refrained from shooting at them with his arrows; instead, he “change[d] from a gentle to a harsh melody” (66.4). A personified Mt. Helicon also protests

against the nymphs, urging them to give up their self-destructive mad- | ness, which, in fact, they show signs of doing. The point of the story is transparent enough. The nymphs represent Himerius’s rebellious stu-

- dents. Apollo’s refraining from shooting at the nymphs represents Himerius’s rejection of the use of physical punishment, a policy he announces explicitly in Oration 54.2; Himerius rebukes the students only

verbally.!° And the signs that the nymphs are reforming represent Himerius’s hopes that his rebellious students will do the same. This is an appropriate place to note the lost oration “To the Followers of Quintianus, Who Had Been Disorderly Auditors When [Himerius] |

, Was Speaking Extempore” (Orat. 67 Colonna). The title alone survives, in Photius’s Himerian bibliography. It has been assumed that Quintianus was a rhetor.!! He may actually have been one of Himerius’s own stu-

dents, the ringleader of a group of students who misbehaved in class. The title of Oration 16 describes the occasion of the speech with the — words émt 77} Kara TH dvarpiPr ordoet. The word ordots is also used in section 5, and the word épts (strife) in section 1. I translate the phrase in the title as “when discord arose within his school.” It is possible, though, that it means “when discord [between his own students and those of another sophist] arose within his school.”!* Eunapius describes the fight-

ing between Julianus’s and Apsines’ students as intestine war, éudvAvov | 10. On sophists’ use of physical punishment, see Walden, Universities, 324-25; Marrou, History of Education, 272-73; Festugiére, Antioche, 111-12; Booth, EMC 17 (1973): 107-14. Libanius eventually came to feel that it was counterproductive (Orat. 58.1). 11. By Colonna; cf. Volker, ad loc.; also PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Quintianus 1.” “Quintianus” (Kuvrtavov) is Colonna’s emendation of the transmitted Kuriavov. 12. Cf, Liban. Ep. 715.3: “In my view [Athenian teachers] are forming soldiers rather than orators, and I saw many boys who bore scars from their wounds in the Lyceum” (trans. S. Bradbury).

72 In and Around Himerius’s School moAeuov (Vitae phil. et soph. 9.2.2 [483] Giangrande); from one perspective, all students in Athens belonged to a single category, and all conflict between them was “civil war.” In any case, the excerpts surviv-

ing from Oration 16 give no details on the nature of the strife that Himerius was facing. What they stress is his belief that his oratory could

, quell that strife. His words will have the same power that Helen’s words had on her sorrowing guests, that Timotheus’s music had on Alexander the Great. They will be as calming as the Zephyr on the ocean, as eloquent as Alcibiades’ words. “Won’t an Attic rhetor with his Greek eloquence put an end to discord merely by expressing himself?” (16.5).

Our Oration 65 must be an excerpt from something longer. If my explanation of the allusions in section 3 is correct, it was delivered, presumably in Athens, early in Julian’s reign, before Himerius left to join

the emperor. Here we do seem to be dealing with a conflict between Himerius’s students and those of another sophist. The situation is illustrated metaphorically in section 1: Agamemnon gathers together hisarmy, lamenting the physical wounds they have suffered from their opponents; he was made sadder still by the absence of Achilles, “the very leader of the Greeks,” due to the latter’s psychological wound. We are to understand that Himerius has gathered his students and is lamenting the fact that some of them were wounded in a conflict with the students of another -sophist and are therefore absent: the title is “To Those Involved a Conflict”—the Greek actually says “the conflict,” 74 ovpaAnyddi—“and Absent from a Lecture.” Probably one of the absentees is Himerius’s head student, the analogue to Achilles.!% In section 2, Himerius applauds the

general who “rejoices with soldiers when they are winning and grieves with them when they are not doing well”—therefore, we infer, the sophist should do the same with his students. But the sympathetic tone quickly changes: the injured students who are absent from class are retarding the performance of the class as a whole. “We enjoy listening to cicadas, but

only when all of them produce their summer song together.” Himerius | can sympathize with his students’ wounds, but he must urge them to get over the disruptive incident and return to class as soon as possible. It will be noted that, in Colonna’s judgment, the alternate title of this oration, a title that appears in Photius’s Himerian bibliography, is “A Rebuke of 13. Cf. Greco, Prometheus 24 (1998): 270. Note that Wernsdorff in his opening remarks on this oration infers that it was directed “maxime in nobiliorem quendam discipulum”— for “nobiliorem quendam discipulum” I would say the head student. For the physical violence of student fights and their description in military language, see Liban. Orat. 1.19,

21; id. Ep. 715.2-3; Eunap. Vitae phil. et soph. 9.2.1-2 [483].

In and Around Himerius’s School 73 Those Who Are Carelessly Following His Course of Instruction [i.e., by nonattendance].”

Oration 21 (included in chapter 4, because it seems to have been concerned primarily with the arrival of a new student, Severus) also addressed

itself to some sort of student conflict. The version of its title preserved in Photius’s Himerian bibliography refers to a ovupp7Ayyad: that Severus had turned his attention to or come upon, ovymAnyads being the same

word that we find in the title of Oration 65.4 In the fragments of Oration 21 Himerius reminds Severus that “Achilles .. . did not forget his lyre even while battles were going on” (21.1), apparently making the point that Severus likewise should not neglect rhetoric because of the stu-

dent conflict. Himerius also remarks, in another fragment (21.2), that Athena and Poseidon did not use violence in their strife over Athens, ap-

parently urging Severus to imitate them in this regard. “Choruses of Muses and Apollo play in soft meadows,” says Oration 21.3; perhaps

the point here was to differentiate meadows from battlefields. Finally, the remains of five orations on a variety of themes (13.1-5; 19; 22; 68; and 74) are also included here. Two, 13.1-5 and 68, are referred to in their titles as “protreptic” orations;!5 Oration 74 advertises its protreptic intentions by its use of the word mporpé7re: in section 1. In Orations 19.10 and 68.8, 11, Himerius clearly identifies his audience as _ students by addressing them as his “boys” (zat des ); in 68.11 they are said to have “tossed [their] books aside.” We can be fairly confident that an oration arguing that “one must always be in [rhetorical] training” —

: namely, 74—was addressed to a student audience. The remains of Ora-

audience. | ,

tion 13.1-§ give no indication of who the audience was. The one surviving excerpt from Oration 22 gives no hint of its theme, let alone its Although the title of Oration 13.1-5 does not announce its theme, it

| is clear from the first three excerpts what it must have been. Himerius here urged that his listeners take advantage of opportunity («atpos ), that they act “in season,” “at the right time.” If, as is likely, he was addressing his students, he may have been telling them specifically to take advantage of their years of study and not to waste their time on trivial pursuits (cf. Orat. 69.7).

The title of Oration 19 does announce its theme: “Fine Things Are 14. See my note on the title of Oration 21. 15. Orat. 68 is called a “protreptic [talk]” in codex R and a zporpozy in the version of its title in Photius’s Himerian bibliography.

74 In and Around Himerius’s School Rare Things.” We value highly—in this case, Himerius’s oratory—what we do not see or experience regularly, what we are deprived of for stretches of time (cf. Him. Orat. 30 [20ff.]). Conversely, “familiarity breeds satiety” (19.8, 10). Himerius speaks of the arrogance of satiety, in a kind of personification of the fact of overexposure to something, an overexposure that is full of itself.

How to understand excerpts 1-5 of Oration 19 is not immediately apparent. Excerpts 1, 4, and 5 are preserved, in that precise order, in Photius (cod. 243). Excerpts 2 and 3 survive in the Excerpta Neapolitana; Colonna placed them between 1 and 4. In these short fragments Himerius remarks that the Persians are always preoccupied with their bows and arrows; these weapons of theirs are always present, even when they are feasting. Excerpt 4 says, “I praise the custom. It is a fitting test of in-

dustriousness.” Excerpt 5 affirms the oration’s theme: “For it is proper } that things held in honor be rare.” Himerius is praising the Persians’ skill with and constant focus on their bows and arrows. This focus must be the “custom” to which he refers; he approves of their industrious appli-

cation to these weapons. The further point, made in the lost text, presumably was that Persian skill in archery was highly regarded precisely because it was not common.!¢ Oration 68 announces itself, in its title, as a protreptic that encourages “variety,” zrouciAia, in oratory, a theme also found in the protrep-

tic Oration 35. Himerius presents himself at the beginning of Oration 68 as God’s rhetorical gift to Athens, who came there to relieve the city’s oratorical “drought”; if his “boys” really believe this, they will take his advice very seriously indeed. The argument proceeds, as it does in Oration 35, by noting the ubiquity of variety. We might have assumed from the title that Himerius implies that variety can be achieved simply by using all the existing rhetorical devices. That assumption is doubtless not incorrect. Yet the one specific injunction Himerius gives urges that one should (also) achieve variety through innovation: we should “refuse al- ways to be satisfied with the ancient models and instead . . . keep coming up with new works of art to fashion” (68.3). Himerius practiced what

he preached here in Oration 10 (see chapter 4), in which he apparently | sees himself innovating by composing a propemptic oration that consists | largely of an imaginary dialogue. “The treatment we give to common _ themes,” he explains in that oration’s protheoria, “is what makes them our own.” 16. Cf. Volker on Him. Orat. 19.5.

In and Around Himerius’s School : 75 At the end of Oration 68 Himerius mentions that his students have constructed some sort of makeshift auditorium for him. He cleverly links this activity of theirs to the main theme of the oration by pointing out

that in turning from study to construction they have already opted for

| (a kind of) variety. But they should not neglect their studies too long. They should imitate Amphion, who combined lyre-playing ( = oratory) with wall-building. They will thus be displaying variety of activity and, if they follow the advice of this oration, the literary/rhetorical variety that it advocates as well. Finally, Oration 74 is on a theme that is very appropriate for students: that one must always be in training, that practice makes perfect. The opening scholion notes that this talk was delivered in the summer.'” That may have a direct relevance to the theme: that one should not let even

the heat of summer put an end to rhetorical training. It was in that spirit that Libanius urged his student Calycius to use the summer to review and refresh what he had already learned before resuming studies under him in the next academic year (Ep. 379.5, 9). Himerius’s oration on the theme “That One Should Certainly Not An-

nounce Lectures Publicly” (73 Colonna) is lost. We know of it from Photius’s Himerian bibliography. The title probably refers to lectures that

were intended only for the ears of Himerius’s students. , The orations included in this chapter and the next reveal how frequently Himerius chose to orate formally before his students. Whether or not the situation was inherently ceremonial and readily invited an oration (e.g., a birthday, the opening of the academic year or a segment of it, arrivals or leave-takings), all the pieces are concerned with “real-life”

issues of the school.!8 They should thus be differentiated from the orations on fictitious themes (in chapter 6) that the sophist gave to model those central academic exercises for his students. For them, of course,

| school life was real life; the sophist’s orating on the daily business of the school reinforced the idea that eloquence had practical uses in communal life. His communicating in the school through formal oratory rather than informally gave all the more examples of accomplished eloquence and reinforced, in its many references to the canonical authors and the Greek past, the classical encyclopedia that those aspiring to the highest level of culture needed to master.

17. Inote that both Wernsdorff (ad loc.) and Keil (Hermes 42 [1907]: 5 56) questioned the textual soundness of the phrase “in the summer” (€v @epwaits ). 18. Cf. Liban. Orat. 3, 34, and 58, all on various issues in the life of the school.

76 In and Around Himerius’s School TRANSLATIONS

13.1-5. From Another Protreptic Oration’ , [1] Lysippus, you know, was clever of mind as well as of hand. He used his mind to create such daring works of art. He enrolled Opportu- , nity (Ka:pov) among the gods, then made a statue of him and explained his nature by how he represented him. To the best of my memory, thisis

: what the statue looks like. Lysippus represents Opportunity as a boy of graceful form, at the peak of adolescence. He has hair on his temples and

~ forehead, but, from there back, he is hairless. He is armed with iron in his right hand and is extending his left hand toward a balance. His an-

| kles are winged, not to be lifted way up above the ground into the air, but so that, while appearing to touch the ground, he may escape notice

as he stealthily desists from resting on the ground. ”? | [2] Glaucus, waylaying, as I think, the very opportuneness (70 aipuov) of the contest, in which the prize was a crown, just showed up and was the first to get the crown. *!

[3] For everything is good in season (év katp@), and the archer who knows how to shoot his arrows at the right time (xatpia) is the one who hits his mark. t9. “From Another Protreptic Oration” is the title of these excerpts in Phot. Bibl. cod. 243. Colonna regards the three fragments from the Excerpta Neapolitana under the title “To the Newly Arrived Followers of Poseidon” (13.6-8)—with “Poseidon” emended to “Piso” from the uncorrupted version of this title that appears in Photius’s Himerian bibliography—as part of Oration 13. 1 keep them separate and place them in chapter 4.

| There is nothing in their content that argues that they should be joined with 13.1-5. Colonna’s joining of 13.1-5 and 13.6-8—which, of course, might be right—results from his desire to keep the order of the titles in Photius’s Himerian bibliography (Bibl. cod. 165) as well aligned as possible with the order of the excerpts in Phot. Bibl. cod. 243.

- 20. For the statue by Lysippus, sculptor of the fourth century B.c. from Sicyon, see esp. Anth. Plan. 275 and Callistr. Stat. descript. 6; also Pollitt, Art, 53-54; Stewart, Greek

Sculpture, 1: 187-88; P. Moreno, “Kairos,” LIMC 5, 1 (1990): 920-26. The youthful beauty of Opportunity/Time teaches that “beauty is always opportune and that Opportunity is the only artificer of beauty” (Callistr., trans. A. Fairbanks). One can grab Opportunity by the hair as he approaches, but not after he has passed by. “iron”: i.e, the razor with which he was equipped. “extending . . . balance”: Cuy@ ty Aaidy éréyovra. The Greek cannot mean “holding a balance in his left hand,” pace Pollitt, Moreno, and Volker (ad loc.). The participle must mean either “extending toward” or “resting on.” Opportunity’s winged feet denote his swiftness. He stands on tiptoe because he is always running (Anth. Plan. 275)

21. Glaucus was a famous Greek athlete of old (Kirchner, “Glaukos 33,” RE 7, 1 : [1910]: 1417). Colonna reads the transmitted nKe . . . yovos, “was the only one who showed up”; I adopt Diibner’s emendation ne . . . wovov, “just showed up.” A contest consisting of one contestant is hardly a contest. Rather Glaucus, sensing his opportunity (e.g., knowing ahead of time that the other contestants would be easy to beat), merely had to show up to win.

In and Around Himerius’s School 77 [4] Nightingales fly from earth into the sky; for myth dares to lift birds

up into the sky itself because of their song. ?? | , [5] So they came to the swan, which was in a vernal meadow and just about to surrender its wings to the Zephyr and to sing. * [Exc. Phot.]

His School ,

| 16. From the Extempore Oration Given When Discord Arose within [1] What drug is there in my words, my friends, that is capable of stilling strife? Does my rhetorical skill aim at achieving the kind of dazzling

result that Homer hints at through Helen’s mixing bowl, which that daughter of Zeus sets up in Menelaus’s palace for guests who were overcome by tears? Isn’t it true that Helen’s drug was not an herb, that she did not have an Egyptian’s ability to prepare a drink that would banish sorrow? Rather, her remedy was sweet and all-wise speech, which, like a drug, is able to extinguish emotions that swell up from the depths of the heart. [2] Homer’s poem puts the story [of Helen’s acquisition of the

' drug] in distant Egypt in order to hint at the fact that that land is the . mother of wise words. 2*

[3] Once the king [Alexander the Great] was having rather base thoughts. Timotheus would not allow this; instead, by means of his music he lifted Alexander’s mind heavenwards. [4] The king’s anger intensified beyond the point of moderation; Timotheus came to his side and re-

moved the excess of emotion through his melodies. The king was disheartened; Timotheus immediately made him smile. Alexander surrendered himself to pleasures, but you would have seen him turn serious immediately after hearing Timotheus’s music. In a word, one could see

22. As Wernsdorff suggested, “to lift... into the sky” is probably meant figuratively (i.e., “to praise”) as well as literally here. 23. For the swan’s song being caused by the wind, see Him. Orat. 63.3, with my note. 24. Himerius is referring here to Hom. Od. 4.219-32. In that passage, Helen, daughter of Zeus and wife of Menelaus, is stilling the tears of her guests Telemachus and Nestor’s

son Pisistratus by means of a drug that she mixed with wine. Homer says that an Egyptian woman gave drugs to Helen; Himerius understands this to have taken place in Egypt (cf. Hdt. 2.116; Philostr. Vita Apoll. 7.22; see Clader, Helen, 39). For Himerius’s view that it was Helen’s words, not a drug, that soothed her guests, cf. Plut. Quaest. conv. 614¢; Macrob. Sat. 7.1.18—19. For the renowned wisdom of Egypt, mentioned also in Him. Orat. 34 [25-27] and 48.8, cf., e.g., Hdt. 2.160; Joseph. Ant. Jud. 8.42; Ael. Aristid. Orat. 3.180 Lenz-Behr, 26.73 Keil; Aelian De nat. animal. 12.7; ps.-Callisth. Hist. Alex. Magni 1.1.1 Kroll.

78 In and Around Himerius’s School that king take on whatever mood Timotheus caused in him through his

piping. * : [5] The Zephyr calms the ocean’s waves with its breezes. Won’t an Attic rhetor with his Greek eloquence put an end to discord merely by

_ expressing himself? . [6] Xenophon went on military campaign, for he had taken up the

, spear after associating with Socrates. 7® [7] For what is of good natural disposition is well-tempered. [8] Alcibiades lived a voluptuous life when among the Athenians. In

, Lacedaemon he was grave. He alone outdid the Persians in luxury. But whenever he had to think out a speech and exercise himself in philosophy, he would turn everything into a Lyceum and an Academy through his conversations. ?7 [9] They, working hard on an account of these men [x0] We shall be so advanced in wisdom ?° [Exc. Phot. (1-9), Exc. Neapol. (several lines of 4 and 10)] 19. Fine Things Are Rare Things

From the oration he gave on the occasion when, having been asked to give an oratorical display (émidevEw), be held off for a while and then

spoke. .

25. On the aulete Timotheus and the effect of his music on Alexander, see Chares of Mytilene in Athen. 12.53 8f; Chrysippus in Athen. 13.565a; Dio Chrys. Orat. 1.1-8; Him. Orat. 12.1; Suda A 1122 Adler. Dio Chrysostom believes that Alexander was affected by Timotheus’s music more because of Alexander’s temperament than because of the music’s power. Expecting his own oratory to be compared to the music of a piper, he insists on the superiority of the former to the latter. Himerius too is making some sort of comparison in

| this part of Orat. 16 between music and eloquence, but not necessarily to the detriment of the former. 26. After associating with Socrates, Xenophon took up the hoplite’s spear and became

a mercenary for Cyrus, claimant to the Persian throne (Anderson, Xenophon, 20-33, 73-80). 27. “lived a voluptuous life”: dBpos, precisely the word used of Alcibiades by the anonymous comic poet quoted in Athen. 13.574d (Adesp. frag. 3 Kock); see Gribble, Alcibiades, 69-79. On Alcibiades’ ability to assume the way of life of those among whom he found himself outside of Athens, cf. Satyrus of Callatis in Athen. 12.53 4b; Corn. Nepos Alcib. 11; Plut. Alcib. 23.3-6, Quomodo adulator 52e; Aelian Var. hist. 4.15; Jul. Orat. 1.13b—c; Gribble, esp. 26-27, 3 5-36. Plutarch, Aelian, and Julian do not regard this as an admirable trait. For Alcibiades’ skill in speaking, see Corn. Nep. Alcib. 1.2; Plut. Alcib. 10.3—4, 16.4; in the passage under discussion, Himerius adds a reference to philosophy, thinking of Alcibiades’ association with Socrates. “a Lyceum and an Academy”: L.e.,

a 28. school of philosophy. . Cf. Pl. Euthyd. 294e.

In and Around Himerius’s School 79 [x] The Persians busy themselves with the bow, and their whole life consists of the quiver and arrows.”? [2] Whenever he [a Persian] is feasting, arrows will not be lying far from the mixing-bowl; and, in a word, their bows are weapons for them if they have to fight and ornaments when they are at peace. [3] The [Persian] king himself trains in the use of the bow.°° [4] I praise the custom. It is a fitting test of industriousness.

[5] For it is proper that things held in honor be rare. °! , [6] Nature knew this law before the Persians [did]. A person would never have thought seeing the ocean to be something worthwhile, unless he had embraced the ends of the earth after fleeing from its middle regions. What repute would the pyramids have, if they were not a spectacle far removed from us? What repute would the stone statue of Memnon among the Ethiopians have, if his mother [Eos] had not placed it, too, inland beyond the view of most people? It is because of the statue’s location that we believe what they say about it to be true and not a mere myth—namely, that, once it has come into contact with the sun, it sounds

~ forth and speaks like a human being.” [7] Nature also gives human beings the rose bit by bit. It does not spring

up and blossom all at once; rather it remains inside of its bud during much of its prime, emerging and breaking forth only after a long period [of concealment]. Nor can people gather the harvest whenever they want to; if you want apples or wish to pluck ripe figs, you must wait for the

harvest season, which takes its very name from the word for harvest.*°

[8] Time hated the bronze gong at Dodona because it resounded end-

lessly, and so it reduced the device to mere story.** For familiarity has , the power to breed a sense of satiety and, by its overbearingness, to sully what is available to us.

29. For Persian skill with the bow, see, e.g., Aesch. Pers. 86; Hdt. 1.136. 30. Guida, reexamining the Excerpta Neapolitana, which preserve this fragment, corrects the misreported reading ovdé Bactrevs to 6 b€ BaowAevs (in Bianchetti, JIOIKIAMA, 590). He notes that Aeschylus (Pers. 556) calls the Persian king toxarch. 31. For my understanding of excerpts 1-5, see p. 74 above. 32. “Nature knew this law”: i.e., that “fine things are rare things.” “seeing the ocean”: Himerius is alluding to the belief in an outer ocean that surrounds the inhabited world. For the statue of Memnon, cf. Him. Orat. 62.1, with my note. 33. “Gather the harvest” is é7wptlew.’Onwipa. is “fruits,” “harvest,” or “late summer/

autumn.” .

34. On the gong of Dodona, which was proverbial for loquacity, see Cook, JHS 22 (1902]): 5-28. When Himerius says that the gong has been reduced to mere story, he pre-

sumably means that it no longer exists.

80 - In and Around Himerius’s School [9] The sun, too, often annoys us because we get too much of it. [10] When we live on land, we seek the sea; conversely, when sailing, we look around for fields of grain. The seaman thinks that the farmer is lucky, and the man at the plow has the opposite view: he believes that it is the sailor who is happy. This is all the sport of satiety. Familiarity breeds satiety. Let us flee from satiety, my boys. In its arrogance it often shoots

its arrows even at lovers. I heard this once in a proverb.» [2, 3, 9 exclusively in Exc. Neapol.; 1, 4-8, 10 in Exc. Phot., with some of these sections also, wholly or partly, in Exc. Neapol.] 22. From a Talk (Aadta) Whenever the Muses dance together on Mt. Helicon, everything is filled with sound for me. The cicada sounds forth and, in its song, calls to mind a tale: “I,” as it says, “was always singing when I was a human being; and when I gave up one nature for another, I did not abandon my desire to sing along with a particular form of life.”** The race of nightin-

_ gales and that of swallows, as well as groups of swans, dance together

[Exc. Phot.] around the goddesses [i.e, the Muses].

29. To the Roman Privatus, the Teacher of the Proconsul Ampelius’s Son?’

Desire for the Eleusinian fire even led Anacharsis the Scythian to the mys-

| teries. This Anacharsis was wise and a lover of virtue. Although he was Scythian both in outer appearance and in what he had tasted of eloquence, he immediately became Attic in speech and gave up the Scythian language; that is how remarkably well his disposition overcame what had been cus-

tomary for him and how effectively his love of virtue transcended an35. The notion that satiety breeds arrogance (or “overbearingness,” section 8) became proverbial (Theogn. 153; Solon in Arist. Ath. pol. 12.2; CPG 1: 308, 2: 218). “I heard... in a proverb”: The proverb speaks of arrogance destroying love (Liban. Ep. 801.1, 922.1 Foerster). Himerius means the arrogance of satiety. 36. Himerius is referring to the story of the old Tithonus’s transformation into a cicada (Davies and Kathirithamby, Greek Insects, 126-27). Eustathius (on Hom. I] 11.1) links the cicada’s vocalism specifically to Tithonus’s numerous petitions to be freed from his decrepit old age. I suggest a lacuna before the last sentence of this excerpt.

37. For Ampelius, see p. 67 above. ,

In and Around Himerius’s School SI cestral habit. He also busied himself attending to the rest of the Athenians’ marvels—their handiwork, their language, their crafts, their learning, and their laws [10]. Nothing escaped this lover of learning, not a [single Athenian] street, holy precinct, or story. ... gave, and he came to know about how Poseidon contended for it... . {He learned about the olive branch} that prevailed, and the wave that resounded on the crest

[of the Acropolis], just as... causes... to make noise.*° {... Then Anacharsis went} to Solon—for Solon’s fame had reached him, the belief that [Solon] .. . {could} speak like someone divinely inspired. What gave him this {fame}, I think, was. . . . When he was inside

[Solon’s] house, Anacharsis ... the story ... [Solon] was bringing [Anacharsis], enamored [of his wisdom] up to that point, back to a Scythian mentality, and he summoned him... , {although?} previously {he} often {. . . him} to poetry [20], so that Anacharsis too might. . . . and to tell some other stories, by which one might better. . . .

Polycrates was a youth. This is the Polycrates who [subsequently] was , not only king of Samos, but also of the whole Hellenic [Aegean] sea, by which the land [of Asia Minor] is bounded. Anyway, this Polycrates loved the music and songs of Rhodes and persuaded his father to support him in his love of music. His father sent for the lyric poet Anacreon and gave him to his son to teach him what he desired to learn. Under Anacreon the boy worked hard on the lyre to achieve kingly virtue, and he would fulfill the Homeric prayer [30] for his father by becoming better [than

everyone else] in all respects.*? .

38. For Anacharsis’s interest in things Greek, his visit to Athens, and, in the next paragraph, his relationship with Solon, see Plut. Solon 5; Lucian Scyth. 1, 3-4, 6-8; Diog. Laert. 1.101—3, 105. Lucian’s Anacharsis is a dialogue between Anacharsis and Solon. Also note Ep. Anachars. 1, 2, 10. “Eleusinian fire”: cf. Him. Orat. 60.4, with my note. According to Lucian Scyth, 8, Anacharsis was initiated in the [Eleusinian] mysteries. For Athena’s and Poseidon’s contention for Athens, see Him. Orat 6.7, 21.2. They made an olive tree and seawater appear, respectively, on the Acropolis as tokens of their claim to the land. 39. This problematic paragraph is Anacreon no. 491 in Campbell, Greek Lyric, 2: 134. See Barron, CO 14 (1964): 219-23, with the literature cited there; Sisti, QUCC 2 (1966):

96-99; West, CO 20 (1970): 207-8. “by which the land [of Asia Minor] is bounded”: Campbell suggests that this is a quotation from Anacreon (cf. Barron, 222). “the music... of Rhodes”: This phrase is troublesome, despite Colonna’s attempt, ad loc., to make sense of it by citing Athen. 8.360a. To read the Greek to mean “this Polycrates of Rhodes loved music and song” is also troublesome. For a solution that entails the conjectural deletion of the reference to Rhodes, see Labarbe, AC 31 (1962): 186 n. 125. “the Homeric prayer”:

Il. 6.476-79. “for his father”: I have deleted “Polycrates” after “father.” Colonna accepts codex R’s r@ warpit IToAvkpadre: (against the Excerpta Neapolitana’s 7@ zarpi [loAvKparns ), which would mean that Himerius believed that the name of the father of the young Polycrates of this passage, the famous Herodotean tyrant, was also Polycrates (instead of Aeaces). This is precisely the tradition we find in Suda I 80 Adler, where “Polycrates, father of the tyrant”—read 6 [ToAvkpatys tod Tupavvov taryp—surely

82 In and Around Himerius’s School And Homer marvels at Achilles’ teacher Phoenix for teaching the young man how to act and speak when Achilles was in Thessaly—for it was there, in company with Achilles, that Phoenix taught him virtue— and for being everything to him in loco parentis when Achilles was at Troy, for he was with him there, too.*° Thus this hero became so great in deeds and words that he was almost solely responsible for the mak-

ing of Homer’s great poem [the Iliad]. | [cod. R, with passages also in Exc. Phot. and Exc. Neapol.] 34. To Arcadius, the Physician and Comes

[Himerius] addressed these words to Arcadius the {physician and comes}... Arcadius happened to have previously heard [Himerius’s] epithalamium; and wanting {to put him to the test [as a possible teacher

for his son]?}..., to which [Himerius] addressed himself." | ... {Why} don’t we give {him} a taste of our own {lyre}? Why don’t we

show him our own armed Muse, under whose aegis {we undertake} to | initiate... . For [our Muse] just now gave an account of young people playing around the bedroom and outdoing the grace of poets with their charms. But now we are faced with another contest, another racecourse, and a Muses’ precinct open to holy initiates. For the unhallowed set their sights on a vulgar initiation . . . {and on initiators} who will show {them the unsanctified instead of ?} the holy. But the soul brought up with every kind of learning [10] {desires}, like... , to seek out {the Muses’ fonts}

so that it may draw from them to its fill. Now many fathers, {misled} by the number {of sophists}, risk their means “Polycrates, father of the famous tyrant of the same name” (cf. Barron, 223). But Guida (in Benedetti and Grandolini, Studi, 394-98) reexamined codex R and reports that its reading is actually [ToAvcparov. His suggestion, which I adopt, is that [ToAv«pa‘roul IloAveparys in line 30 is an intrusive gloss. On this reconstruction, there is no reference to the name of the famous Polycrates’ father in Himerius. 40. See Hom. Il. 9.434-605. “how to act and speak”: cf. Il. 9.443. 41. “wanting {to put him to the test}”: Colonna suggests BovAdjevos Sox{etv}. Perhaps instead dox{iualew}.

42. “our own armed Muse”: perhaps “armed” (i.e., with their instruments) like Athena, in whose city Himerius teaches. “an account of young people” etc.: a reference to the epithalamium mentioned in the opening scholion. “open to holy initiates”: While Himerius himself will initiate a new student in rhetoric in his school (“a Muses’ precinct”), the new student must already be initiated enough in learning so that he is ready to benefit from Himerius’s teaching. Other sophists give a vulgar initiation, but Himerius offers the Muses’ fonts.

In and Around Himerius’s School 83 dearest charges on a toss of the dice; and, as you might expect, they are ~ very quickly punished for their ignorance through what befalls their children. {Peleus?} ..., and likewise he was the one who procured for his son [Achilles a teacher who would have] such great authority over him, since he trusted no one but himself [in this matter]. . . . There were many

Centaurs at the time of Chiron. Peleus, though, sent his son, not to any | of the others, but to Chiron. Some Athenians at Athens initiated {their sons?} in... as well as in [the mysteries of ] Eleusis and Demeter, but the

father [20] ... sent {his son?} to Athens to participate in these rites [here].43

I want to tell a story that applies to the business at hand. They say that Solon, who was a lover of wisdom, traveled around the whole world, always hunting down some bit of wisdom. He came to Lydia, was also seen by the Ionians after being among the Lydians, and then went on to

the land of the Egyptians—and what wisdom did he not learn among them, what excellent learning did he not bring to the Greeks from there?

When he reached the Greeks, he found Aeschylus. The latter was still . , young; and, after Thespis and those who produced tragedy before Thes-

pis, he was just then lifting [tragic] poetry way up off the ground [30], , so that he would be able to address the spectators from on high. Solon marveled at tragedy and often went, along with his son, to see Aeschylus’s plays, so that the two of them might learn the tragic stories from those plays.* They also say that, when Democedes, that famous man of Croton and

43. “risk... dice”: cf. Pl. Protag. 313¢; Jul. Orat. 9.190b Rochefort. “{Peleus?} ... : | over him”: For rH1s tovavrns tyepovias etropos Tw trast yiveras (“he was the one... such great authority”) Wernsdorff and Dibner have “per se ducendi filii sui negotiationem exercuit.” Wernsdorff suggested that the lost subject of this sentence is Nestor, the son being Antilochus. But Himerius may already be talking about Peleus and Achilles. “Some

Athenians” etc.: The end of the paragraph is too lacunose to make any certain sense of it. | Choice of cult seems to be used here as a metaphor for choice of teacher. “the father”:

whose father? |

44. “I want to tell a story”: actually, two stories, one about Solon and one about Democedes. Both show adults still interested in learning and discriminating—as Arcadius will be in sending his son to Himerius. Democedes was a physician, as is Arcadius. Solon actually went to Egypt before going to Lydia (Hdt. 1.29-30; Plut. Solon 26-27; Diog. Laert. 1.50-51). The more basic problem with the story of this paragraph, however, is that Solon was dead before Aeschylus was even born! “tragedy before Thespis”: cf. [Pl.] Minos 321a; Suda © 282 Adler. “just then lifting ... the ground”: If this is not meant metaphorically, it applies better to an elevated stage (cf. Hor. Ars poet. 279) than to high buskins (cf. Hor. Ars poet. 280; Philostr. Vitae soph. 492, Vita Apoll. 6.11; Them. Orat. 26.316d). See Lai’s discussion of Himerius’s story about Solon and Aeschylus in AION 20 (1998): 179-88; Greco’s comments on Him. Orat. 8.4 (on Aeschylus), in her forthcoming edition of that oration.

84 In and Around Himerius’s School the first to bring Greek medicine to barbarians, went to hear Pythagoras after he had been to Susa and among the Medes, he marveled more at the bliss of Pythagoras’s wisdom than at the [Persian] king’s wealth. [cod. R, with passages also in Exc. Phot. and Exc. Neapol.] 35. From a Protreptic Oration Addressed to the Students Who Came

Over [to Him] *® ,

A protreptic oration addressed to the students who came over to him [i.e., Himerius] from other sophists and on the question of [stylistic]

variety. ... |

... {we see them now?} looking closely at my rites. So where were these young men initiated in [the mysteries of ] the Muses? Why {didn’t they from the first enter} the open {doors of my school}? Well, then, let us lead these initiates forth now; let us show them the mystic fire now.*” But be-

7 fore... I want to sing a preliminary song. Let this song be a sacred im- | _ age that explains to them where the [true academic] home of young men

is to be found... {In the past} it took some time for people in Athens to find the Lyceum

and to begin their studies with Socrates [10]. They were busying themselves here and there {with study}. . . but [still] were not tasting true learn-

ing and philosophy. When by good fortune, like... , they looked upon Socrates’ philosophy, they threw away all other instruction and, like... , gave themselves over to his teachings. So just as when, on the stage, engineers position {cranes for a change in the action}, one could observe how those men too, after beginning to associate with Socrates, {were changed}... in their lives, their learning, and quite simply in every way. He who had a high-spirited soul came to be called courageous by tempering his emotions with reason. He who led a Juxurious life achieved

. self-control by moderating his nature [20]. By removing the mist from his soul he acquired a different kind of sophistication and .. . {learned} 45. For Democedes in Persia and his return to Croton, see Hdt. 3.129—37. Democedes

a Pythagorean: Iambl. Vita Pyth. 35 [257, 261]. Cf. Him. Orat. 64.2. “to barbarians”: I

: read the variant zapa BapBapous instead of rapa BapBapots. 46. This is the title in the Photian excerpts and Photius’s Himerian bibliography, except that in the former “protreptic” has been corrupted to “propemptic.” The longer scholion below the title, which begins with the same words as the title, is from codex R and

| contains a 16-space lacuna.

47. For the “mystic fire,” cf. Him. Orat. 60.4, 69.7.

In and Around Himerius’s School 85 to honor his oath and to reverence the gods. For what person who had

| learned to swear by a dog or a plane tree would not subsequently have become much more piously cautious when swearing by the gods? And it was only after Alcibiades left the sophists that he filled the whole world

with his trophies.*°

It was at that time that {Plato} rightly learned to love... , and {he . . .} Philolaus, who appears as a genuine lover [of knowledge] in Socrates’

conversations [Pl]. Phaedo 61d] ... {not?} only the theaters, but also wrestling-schools and byways and drinking-parties ... and it was not his habit to be very concerned with astronomical phenomena [30], as was the case with other [philosophers] ... {But just as} musicians, by giving expression to their skills on a whole range of instruments, entice every one of their listeners by [appealing to] the appropriate part of their

| ing} a multifaceted learning.* , souls, so too did [Plato] capture every ear that heard him... {by offer-

That the sophist Orpheus perhaps also had a similar talent {is hinted at} in the stories about him ... [Myth] gathers for him an audience of every kind of creature, I think, to hear him play the lyre, convinced that his resourcefulness and versatility {would enchant} his listeners. And Homer, in his admiration of Odysseus, has made clear the many sides of Odysseus’s skillfulness [40] by means of one utterance: “Tell me, O Muse, of a resourceful man” [Od. 1.1]. For lack of versatility creates a dryness in everything. {Wise men have even found a multiformity in} the laws of nature. For

48. Lyceum: Socrates in the Lyceum: Pl. Euthyphro 2a, Lys. 203a-b, Euthyd. 2712,

303b. “engineers ... cranes”: The reference is to the deus ex machina, who resolves a | difficulty in the play’s action. “by removing the mist”: a metaphor of Homeric origin (Hom. Il. 5.127; Pl. Alc. II 150d—e; Them. Orat. 21.247d, 22.267d). “a different kind of sophistication”: érépav sodiay, i.e., true wisdom. “to honor his oath” etc.: For the transmitted

otxov (household) I accept Wernsdorff’s conjecture 6pxov (oath). I understand “to honor

his oath and to reverence the gods” to mean “to honor an oath sworn by the gods.” People learned to swear by a dog or a plane tree from Socrates. The point seems to be that, ifa | person had learned to swear by a dog or a plane tree to avoid too lightly invoking the

Greek gods, then, when he did swear by the gods, he certainly would have kept his word. See CPG 1: 152-53; scholion to Pl. Apol. 22a. “Alcibiades left the sophists”: What is im-

plied is “and associated with Socrates.” , } 49. It seems clear that this lacunose paragraph is referring to Plato. There is apparently a reference to his abandoning theaters, wrestling-schools, byways, drinking-parties— and the pre-Socratic Philolaus—for Socrates. This is in line with the theme of the previous paragraph. For Plato’s early interest in writing and staging tragedies and in wrestling, see Diog. Laert. 3.4—5; Aelian Var. hist. 2.30; Him. Orat. 48.21; Riginos, Platonica, 41-51. For Plato’s connection with Philolaus (and the charge that he plagiarized from him), see Riginos, 62-63, 170-74; Huffman, Philolaus, 4-5, 12-14. “Philolaus . . . conversations”: I follow Vélker’s understanding of this passage.

86 In and Around Himerius’s School they divide time into a variety of seasons, and they divide . .. the motion of the heavens. They traditionally separate the soul into three parts, and this whole universe .. . of various elements. {Even} the governor of this whole universe in the heavens, who the leading wise men declare {is

called} either Apollo or the Sun, {is multifaceted} ..., he who delights the choruses of human beings as he appears to them in {various} forms. If you desire a musical lyre, {his tunes} sound forth (?) nearby. {If some} ailment {plagues you}, the Paean Apollo is at hand. If the earthly medium is weary, the song sent [to him by Apollo] is not weary [50]. If {you want to see} the heavenly torch [i.e., the sun]... , he favors everyone with it. (But I suspect that the Cimmerians, a dejected people who do not have

, the sun and live in a [perpetual] night, have actually come to hate the sun they have never seen.)>*°

The meadow owes its sweetness to the fact that it teems with every kind of flower, and it is the necklace {graced by} a beauty gathered {from stones of various kinds} that is valued. Why do people marvel at the peacock more than at other birds? Isn’t this because peacocks are so variegated in their coloring. . . . And Sybaris is famous because of the variety of its cuisine. The sea, too, varies its nature and takes on many forms. It becomes wine-colored when it flattens out the waves into a calm surface,

but it takes on a dark look when it is stirred up and provoked by the winds [60]. At one time it ... with white foam, {at another time} it surges... Don’t we marvel at Alcinous’s royal palace and the Phaeacian gardens because {in their hospitality . . .}? Homer’s {poem} allows their land, through a variety of blessings, to have the fruits of all the seasons in one season and to enjoy the horn of Amaltheia. {Their land} has been honored ... by those who perhaps {regard} those blessings, too, to be a metaphor for eloquence. For what gift more beautiful than eloquence could fortune have given the human race? {It is varied}, as was Socrates’ voice, and so was Homer’s poetry, Pythagoras’s music, Herodotus’s history, and {Mt. Helicon’s sounds, for to Mt. Helicon} the Muses brought

7 {all} kinds of instruments from everywhere and made the sound of all of them the valley’s lyre [70] . . . {and} because of Socrates {men?} imitated the [Muses’?] rite.>! 50. “three parts [of the soul]”: 1.€., reason, spirit (ups ), and appetite, according to Plato. Apollo’s roles as Sun, musician, healer, and prophet are well-known. The Cimmerians live in perpetual darkness (Hom. Od. 11.13-19). 51. Sybaris: The variety of its cuisine was part of its generally luxurious style of living (Diod. Sic. 8.18.1; Athen. 12.518c—21d; Aelian Var. hist. 1.19). “the fruits of all the seasons in one season”: see Hom. Od. 7.117-18. “the horn of Amaltheia”: i.e., the horn of

In and Around Himerius’s School 87 But, as [I] have said, it is time to light the fire.°7 | [cod. R, with passages also in Exc. Phot. and Exc. Neapol.]

44. On the Birthday of His Students __ A talk (kad) on the birthday of his students, which [Himerius] presented when about to depart for his fatherland [Prusias].

[x] Although Homer’s Odysseus was longing for his fatherland and the memory of his kin, Alcinous the game-master induced

him to display his prowess in return for the hospitality shown to him. The festivities were a public event; the sport was being dedicated to the gods; and in the midst of everything were all the Phaeacians, clad in white.

_Now Odysseus was present only in body, because yearning for the land that had reared him was taking hold of his mind. Still, he did not shrink from the competition, preparing himself to perform while the king [AIcinous] was watching him. The explanation of his frame of mind is as follows: although he loved his alone, the inducement he

found for [prolonging further] his absence [from his fatherland] when , he was thus summoned to action [among the Phaeacians] was that he

would be leaving a memorial of himself behind.*? | [2] Now, my friends, isn’t my situation the same as that of Odysseus?** Couldn’t our predicaments be similarly represented? Come, then, let me,

with one and the same effort, both celebrate a birthday and make my separation [from home] less painful, as I emulate in word that man of Ithaca, who long ago competed in deed. A display of the voice’s music is similar, I think, to a demonstration of the body’s strength. [3] O most beautiful and revered season of the whole year, in which , Demeter and Bacchus, [who represent] the choice products of the land,

plenty (cf., e.g., Athen. 11.497c). “has been honored . . . by those who. . . {regard}”: I propose {AapPajvovor . . . TeTiwnras. 52. “as [I] have said”: cf. the first paragraph of this oration.

53. “longing... kin”: warpida wofoivra kal Tay olkelwv THY prynv: With Wernsdorff and Dibner, I assume that a second participle has fallen out after uvyuny. “although : he loved... alone”: For the manuscripts’ dav tiv ovr I adopt Wernsdorff’s suggestion dilwv tHv povnv. Himerius is referring in this paragraph to the opening pages of Homer’s Odyssey 8. It was actually Alcinous’s son Laodamas, not Alcinous him-

self, who induced Odysseus to display his prowess. .

54. Le., Himerius must have been on the verge of leaving Athens for a visit to his native city, Prusias.

88 In and Around Himerius’s School join together! Demeter has already been working at the threshing-floor _ and is bringing her work to an end; Bacchus begins before she finishes and causes his gift [the grape] to succeed hers. Hail to these two stewards of life, who have assigned a single time of the year [to their work]! This [young] man of mine belongs in their company, in third place. Iam ashamed to refer to him as a mortal, yet I refrain from calling him a god; the latter would subject me to the charge of brazenness, the former would be putting forth a lie. P’ll call him a hero, and Iam convinced that I shall

thus be able to give him both mortal and divine praise.°° [Young man], your mind takes no delight in pretending that praises that belong to others are yours. [4] You do not have, as a distinguishing mark, the ivory shoulder of the descendants of Pelops. We cannot praise you for the very sharp swiftness of foot that belonged to the descendants of Perseus. Your badge is not the golden knot of hair worn at the top of the head by the descendants of Cecrops. No, what you have is self-respect, grace, and nobility of character.°° |

[5] Now if you deemed Egypt worthy of your birthday and [yet] are ; celebrating this pleasant festivity here [in Athens], [at least] hear about what is most excellent in that land. And what would that be? What is it that has adorned that land? You are familiar with the Nile’s love life, for you have heard the sound of his waters and furthermore have seen that marvelous river with your own eyes. You are familiar with the Nile’s

consort too, who carries in her womb and brings forth all manner of | fruit. The greatest aspect of their relationship is that, when the river re-

| cedes, it does not withdraw so much that it cannot still love and be loved by its consort. Also, people have stood to contemplate the size of the pyramids, and they have marveled at Apis, in the form of a bull, as he predicts the future. Meroe’s sound and the din of the Cataracts would often detain travelers by their wondrousness. That marble statue of Memnon, which produces through an inanimate sound an animate ut-

terance, has been regarded as a divinity who salutes the divine Sun.°” } 55. “This [young] man of mine belongs in their company”: 1.e., his birthday occurs : when the grain has been harvested and the grape harvest is beginning. “a hero”: Heroes are “midway between divine and human nature” (Him. Orat. 9.10). 56. For the mark of Pelops’s descendants, cf. Jul. Orat. 3.81¢ Bidez; Them. Orat. 6.77b, 21.250b; Greg. Naz. Orat. 4.70. Perseus’s feet were provided with wings (Ov. Met. 4.61 4ff.;

Apollod. Bibl. 2.4.2-3). For the Athenian-Ionian knot of hair, see Him. Orat. 60.1, with my note. “Golden” refers to the gold cicada-pin that, according to Thuc. 1.6.3, fastened

the te Nile’s consort is the land of Egypt; cf. Him. Orat. 9.8. Himerius is referring to the annual receding of the Nile’s floodwaters. On Apis, see Dio Chrys. 15 (32).13; Aelian

In and Around Himerius’s School 89 These are the great excellences of Egypt; these are what adorn your [birthday] celebration. [6] Add to these wonders my modest Muse, if you wish, a Muse that may be pleasing to many but prefers one person alone. Tradition holds that the most sweet-sounding Xenophon, he who outdid swarms of bees in his eloquence and imitated oozing honey in his narrative, did not regard the hero Alcibiades as a friend, even though the son of Cleinias [i.e.,

Alcibiades] was his classmate and loved [him] alone and had heard Socrates’ teachings together with Xenophon. Tradition also holds that Xenophon was not keen on associating with the magisterial Plato, for he knew that Plato had many friends in his philosophical circle and would transfer his love [from the resourceless] to the wealthy. Xenophon would associate only with Cyrus, and he provided Cyrus with an excellent arena in which to be schooled. I don’t know from my own experience whether

| Cyrus recognized Xenophon’s worth. But I do find that Cyrus is constantly honored by Xenophon.°*® [7] Now, most excellent fellow—for you outstrip my eloquence by your

resources of character—do not judge this thank-offering of mine by its

length, but rather by its intention; ascribe the weakness of my song solely , to the [limited] time I have for it. The men of Andros, a people not un-

versed in expressing gratitude, once experienced kind fortune from Apollo. When they subsequently wanted to pay the god back, they merely lit a fire, since they had no better sacrifice to make.°’ The god was pleased with their manner of thanking him, accepted the fire’s flame alone, and

_ preferred this symbol of their homage to a drink-offering. I, O friends,

, speak only a few words, but there are greater sentiments within me to De animal. 11.10; Amm. Marc. 22.14.7—8. For the deafening noise of the Cataracts, see Cic. Rep. 6.19; Sen. Quaest. nat. 4A.2.4—5; Plin. HN 6.35 [181-82]; Amm. Marc. 22.15.9. Meroe was between the fifth and sixth Cataracts. For the statue of Memnon, see Him.

Orat. 62.1, with my note. It is actually made of a sandstone conglomerate (Bliimner, “Basalt,” RE 3 [1899]: 38). 58. “one person alone”: Himerius prefers the person whose birthday is being celebrated, as Xenophon preferred Cyrus. “he who outdid ... bees”: The Suda & 47 Adler says that he was called “the Attic bee.” “loved [him] alone”: Wernsdorff suggested “loved

alone.” With the charge that Plato was attracted by the wealthy, cf. the accusations that he was an-avaricious parasite and a glutton (Riginos, Platonica, 7off.). For tension in Xenophon’s relationship with Plato, see Diog. Laert. 2.57, 3.3.4; Athen. 11.504e-505b (contrast Aul. Gell. 14.3). “and he provided Cyrus ... schooled (ris Kupou yéyove mradetias Kadov épyaoryptov)”: i.e., by militarily supporting Cyrus the Younger’s rebellion. Literally,

“he became an excellent laboratory of Cyrus’s schooling.” The wording makes us think | of the Cyropaedia. But the only way to save Himerius from conflating Cyrus the Great and Cyrus the Younger is to suppose that he is referring to the latter from here through the end

, of the paragraph.

59. Note the anecdote about their penury in Hdt. 8.111.

90 In and Around Himerius’s School which I am giving birth. I hope to present them to you, [young man],

when they are mature and it is the season for them.

Health® | [cods. R and B, with passages also in Exc. Neapol. and Lex. Lopad.] ,

45. A Talk (Aadta) Given upon His Student’s [Recovery of His]

_ The talk includes a treatment of envy.

[x] The swallow opens the theater of its voice after the winter’s cold and does not hide the song produced by its beautiful tongue once it sees that luscious spring has bloomed again. Cicadas sing in the walks once the month hostile to budding passes, the month I have heard poets call

, “leaf-shedding.”°! [2] Thus it is not unfitting for me to play my appro-

have been ill. |

priate role too and once again to greet those I love with song after they What a day that was that recently presented itself to me, when an attack of fever seemed to plague everything! I shared in the suffering, my friends; I got a taste of the disease through my love [of its victim]. I was not physically ill, but my mental suffering was worse than any physical suffering. And I cannot fault my mind for having been in that state [3]; for, as Demosthenes said, when the head is ill, every ailment suddenly befalls you. So too, when the helmsman is ill, the whole ship suffers with him; and when the leader of a chorus lies sick, the chorus remains joyless. So naturally at that time I beheld the sun rather dimly. The Nile seemed to me to be dejected, even though it was in flood. It was as though I had exchanged my present existence for the very dark life of the Cimmerians.°* But now we have dismissed the envy [of fortune], and festiv-

ity takes over the future. |

[4] My friends, I want to tell you a story that has a bearing on what has happened. Dionysus was still young, and the race of “Telchines” 60. “His student” here is tov ératpov, which could also be rendered as “his friend.” But see pp. 69-70 above. 61. “walks”: Restore the transmitted dpduois instead of the conjecture dpupots ; cf. Diog.

Laert. 3.7. “poets”: literally, “sons of poets.” For this expression, see LSJ, s.v. zrats I, 3. “leaf-shedding [month]”: dvAAoycdor. See Hes. frag. 240 Rzach; Callim. frag. 260.12 Pfeif-

fer; Apoll. Rhod. 4.217; Nonnus Dionys. 38.278. 62. “the head”: 775 xedadjs , but Himerius is thinking of the head student (see Walden, Universities, 296-97). For “head” applied to persons, see Lampe, Patristic Greek Lex., — s.v. kepadAy IT B. Himerius is remembering Dem. 2.21, 11.14.

In and Around Himerius’s School 91 sprung up against the god. Bacchus started growing up, and all the Ti-

tans were bursting with envy. Finally, not able to contain themselves, they , | wanted to tear the god apart. They prepared snares and readied drugs and the stings of slander against him and tried to trick him about who they were. They hated Silenus and Satyrus, I believe, and they called them sorcerers because they pleased Bacchus. So what happened as a result of this? Dionysus lay wounded, I think, and bemoaned the serious blow he

had suffered. The vine was dejected, wine was sad, grapes seemed to be : crying, and Bacchus’s ankle was not yet in any condition to move. But crying did not win out in the end, nor did victory go to the enemy. For © Zeus the overseer had his eye on everything. He got Dionysus back on his feet, as we are told, and let the myths drive the Titans off. [cods. R and B, with passages also in Exc. Neapol.]

61. As Studies Began®* [x] Let us honor the season for eloquence with an oration, so that, as , if under the auspices of a lyre of the Muses, we may open Hermes’ doors with a song. For if the pipe opens the doors of a bedchamber, if trum63. This mythological story “has a bearing on what has happened” because the Titans, whom Himerius metaphorically calls Telchines, malicious and envious figures, in the end did not prevail against Dionysus-Bacchus, just as “the envy [of fortune]” did not prevail against Himerius’s head student; see Lobeck, Aglaophamus, 569n; Herter, “Telchinen,” RE 5A, 1 (1934): 205-7. In the ordinary version of the story, the Titans do, in fact, “tear the god [Dionysus-Bacchus-Zagreus] apart.” See J. Schmidt, “Zagreus,” in Roscher, Ausfiibrl. Lex. 6 (1924-1937): §32ff.; Guthrie, Orpheus, 107ff., 130-33; Burkert, Greek Religion, 297-98. “They prepared snares”: The Titans (or Hera) distracted Dionysus with a mirror and/or toys: Clem. Alex. Protrep. 2.17.2 Mondésert; Arnob. Adv. nat. 5.19; Firmic. Matern. De err. profan. relig. 6.1-5; Nonnus Dionys. 6.173. “tried to trick . . . they were”: €ueAerwv... ddoews payyaveduara. They disguised themselves by smearing chalk on their faces: Harpocrat. s.v. dmouartrwv; Nonnus Dionys. 6.169-70. “they called them

sorcerers”: The Titans, who accuse Silenus and Satyrus of binding Dionysus to themselves | by magic, were themselves, as “Telchines,” thought of as sorcerers (Herter, RE 5A, 1 [1934]:

205). Silenus was Dionysus’s tutor (Firmic. Matern. De err. profan. relig. 6.1-5). “the vine... grapes”: Dionysus, of course, is the wine god. “[Zeus] let the myths drive the Titans off” (Tirdvas éroies mapa ta&v pvOwv éAavvecbar): After the dismemberment of Dionysus-Zagreus, Zeus tortured and killed the Titans (Clem. Alex. Protrep. 2.18.2) or struck them with a thunderbolt (Firmic. Matern. 6.1-5) or struck them with a thunderbolt and hurled them into Tartarus (Arnob. Adv. nat. 5.19). Himerius’s éAavveo@ar reminds us of Hes. Theog. 820: dm ‘ovpavot é€éAacev Zevs . (Zeus drove the Titans from heaven into Tartarus after the Titanomachy.) Indeed, Wernsdorff proposed adding az’ ovpavod (“from

heaven”) to Himerius’s text. ,

64. If Colonna is correct in seeing the words eis Tous Eraipous axédtov pyev in Photius’s

Himerian bibliography as an alternate title of this oration, then we obtain the additional

piece of information that it was delivered extempore.

92 In and Around Himerius’s School pets go in procession before agonothetes, and if pastoral melodies escort a flock of sheep, then surely, as the season for eloquence begins, it will

bid eloquent words honor it.© , [2] Besides, I have often heard from other craftsmen, those. who use their hands as well as literary craftsmen, that, before beginning instruction, they create examples of their art for those who come to learn it from

them, so that the young may thereby learn the arts more easily. The painter is equipped with a tablet that has just been prepared and is ready

| to be sketched on. The sculptor displays wax figures and small statues as an introduction to his art. [3] The piper teaches the student of piping by playing a tune on the reed instrument first himself, and the lyre-player teaches the student of the lyre by sounding the instrument himself before the students do. A boy holds onto the rudder with the aid of an old man, and the youth who is learning how to shoot fingers the‘arrow with the aid of an Indian archer. When birds lead their young out of the nest, don’t they teach them to venture on flying by spreading their own wings? The teacher of eloquence does the same thing so that he may teach the young to venture on speaking by lifting up their souls, just as people get nonswimmers to swim by supporting them with their hands.®¢ [4] What I am saying is not inappropriate to our present situation. For we have two foreigners in our midst. One of them was a comrade of eloquence long ago and now comes here as an ambassador and agonothete; where the Hellespont runs between Asia and Europe, splitting and separating them with its waves. The other individual is still young; he came here from abroad because he wished to taste of our rites. [5] Come, then, let us tell him a story con-

cerning his own country.°’ Before Cimon, the Pamphylians were not genuinely Greeks; they still

sided with the Medes and were followers of Xerxes and the Persians. But , when Cimon defeated Pamphylia in a double victory, not only was the

65. Hermes ts the god of eloquence (cf. Him. Orat. 64.3; Liban. Orat. 11.183, 58.4; Jul. Orat. 11.132a-b Lacombrade; Choric. Orat. 7.49 Foerster-Richtsteig). “opens. . . bedchamber”: apparently at a wedding. 66. “ready to be sketched on”: 1.e., by the painter, as an example for students. “the reed instrument”: r@ Kkaddpw, referring to the main pipe, made of reed (West, Ancient Greek Music, 86; Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 183). For Indian archers, see p. 138 n. 95 below. “just as... with their hands”: cf. Ael. Aristid. Orat. 3.243 Lenz-Behr. For the thought of this paragraph, cf. Him. Orat. 54.3. 67. “a comrade of eloquence”: He had been Himerius’s classmate? “an ambassador ° and agonothéte”: i.e., advanced enough in eloquence to hold positions of responsibility; _ meant metaphorically. “his own country”: Pamphylia.

In and Around Himerius’s School 93 Eurymedon celebrated more than the Nile, but the Pamphylians also sided | with the Athenians, and our city’s name was extolled even among them.*°

[cods. R and B] 65. To Those Involved a Conflict and Absent from a Lecture®

[x] At one point Homer gathers together an assembly, even though Achilles is absent from it; but it is small and sullen, as though, it seems to me, the poet wants to show that he convenes this meeting reluctantly and unwillingly. Consider that spectacle and what the poet thought about it. The king [Agamemnon] was depressed about the current situation and | blamed fortune for having caused his whole army to be wounded. Of his soldiers and generals, one showed the effects of a blow to the forehead,

another had been struck on the head, one had an injured hand, another had a missile lodged in his leg. So the sight of his army was painful to the king. For the poem shows us that he loved his soldiers very much. He was grieved and made sadder by the fact that the very leader of the Greeks [Achilles] had been forced by a serious wound to remain absent

from battle.” . |

[2] Let us approve of this attitude of the king, my boys; for I do think that, if a person rejoices with soldiers when they are winning and grieves

with them when they are not doing well, we can take this as an indica- , tion that he has the mind of a general. For a person who accepts an unpleasant performance from dancers is certainly not skilled in [directing] a dance; no one who tolerates ineptness in sailors is skilled in seamanship.’! The lyre does not sound its song if even one string is not prop68. For Cimon’s double victory at the Eurymedon River in Pamphylia, see Thuc. 1.100;

Diod. Sic. 11.61. The Pamphylians had contributed thirty ships to Xerxes’ fleet (Hdt. 7.91). 69. Colonna (and already Wernsdorff) regards the title “A Rebuke of Those Who Are Carelessly Following His Course of Instruction (rots pablpws dxpowpévois THY Adywv) [i.e., by nonattendance]” in Photius’s Himerian bibliography as a variant on the title given to this piece by codex R. 70. “Homer gathers together an assembly”: For the ascription to the poet himself of his characters’ actions, cf. Him. Orat. 9.4, with my note. For the content of this paragraph,

Wernsdorff directed the reader to the opening of Iliad 9 and to accounts of the wounding | of Greeks in 11.250ff. (and 8.323ff.). Greco points also to Iliad 19.40ff., noting that Himerius displays here “una metodologia alquanto libera nell’ utilizzo dei dati fornitigli dal racconto epico” (Prometheus 24 [1998]: 268-70). Achilles’ “serious wound” is the psychological wound that had caused him to withdraw from fighting. 71. “dancers. ..dance”: r@v xopevTayv, yopov. These words can also mean “students” and “class”: LSJ, s.v. xopeurijs ; Petit, Les étudiants, 21-22. For Himerius’s change of tone here, see p. 72 above.

94 In and Around Himerius’s School erly tuned. We enjoy listening to cicadas, but only when all of them pro-

duce their summer song together. |

[3] But perhaps this is not the time to continue in a sullen vein. Fortune demands a recantation from me. Come, then, let us put this gloomy talk aside and hymn the gods’ victory. Let us pray that victory may at-

: tend [my oration] here. O golden-winged Victory, Victory, daughter of great Zeus, child of a noble father, and lover of laughter—for these are the epithets by which poetry exalts you—be propitious and grant that

[cod. R] ,

, we may sacrifice to you again, as we have in the past, in celebration of a victory over barbarians.” |

Rebellious | |

66. An Extempore Speech to Some Students Who Seemed to Be [x] Again I shall use story with reference to the present situation. Again

, I shall call upon Aesop to come and help me. I have found for you, not a Libyan or an Egyptian tale, but one that comes right from the midst of the excellent Phrygians, among whom story first appeared—I found it among the very delights of Aesop—and I want to narrate this tale to all of you.” [2] When Apollo was tuning his lyre for a song—and it is my belief 72. “the gods’ victory”: Is this a reference to the accession of Julian the Apostate? If so, then the date of the oration must be sometime after Julian’s accession but before

: Himerius left Athens to join him. Wernsdorff, in his opening remarks on this oration, saw _ in the word “gods” a reference to holders of imperial power, thinking either of Constantius II and his Caesar Gallus or of Constantius II and his Caesar Julian. “O golden-winged Victory” etc.: Cf. the last two lines of Menander’s Dyscolus (968-69), where Victory (Nike) is also called “child of a noble father” and “lover of laughter.” The same two epithets are applied to Athena in a scholion to Ael. Aristid. Orat. 13.180 Dindorf = 1.322 Lenz-Behr: nv Lwos tratda mpoceiretv edoeBés. There was, in fact, a cult of Athena-Nike. Nike could have come to be thought of as Zeus’s daughter either through her identification with Athena

or through her association with Zeus. See Bernert, “Nike 2,” RE 17, 1 (1936): 290-91, 295-96; Gomme and Sandbach on Men. Dysc. 968-69. For Nike’s golden wings, see Ar. Av, 574. “a victory over barbarians”: What is Himerius thinking of here? 73. For geographical categorization of fable, see Theon Progymn. 4 [73] Patillon, with , the editor’s note 169. Himerius calls the fable that follows Phrygian because it is from Aesop, whom he believes to have been Phrygian (see sections 4 and 5 below); cf. Aelian Var.

hist. 10.5: “This story is Phrygian, for it is from the Phrygian Aesop.” For the tradition | that Aesop was Phrygian, see Testimonium 4 in Perry, Aesopica, 1: 215; id., Babrius and Phaedrus, x\-xlii. “among whom fable first appeared”: Himerius presumably means “in the person of Aesop.” If Babrius could say (prol., pt. II) that Aesop was the first to tell fables to the Greeks, Quintilian (5.11.19) and Theon (Progymn. 4 [73] Patillon) insisted that this was not the case. Himerius’s tale is Fab. gr. 432 in Perry, Aesopica, 1: 492.

In and Around Himerius’s School 95 that he is always tuning his lyre, because he is nothing but lyre and word—

the Muses came from all directions and stood around him, forming a

chorus for the lyre. But another group also showed up as an audience for the song, some Dryad and Hamadryad nymphs. They were mountain spirits, and they may have been utterly wicked. When they expressed a desire to dance with the Muses, they seemed to be goddesses and were regarded as Muses. But when they leaped to the sound of the music in a

. boorish and sorry way and in disaccord with Apollo’s lyre, he got angry. Why shouldn’t he have got angry when he saw a most unrefined (aLovooTarov)chorus prancing around? Yet he did not immediately resort to his arrows and quiver.”* [3] Aesop, you see, does not tell the kinds of story about Apollo that Homer

, dared to tell in the Iliad. Homer often tells lies about the gods in his desire to curry favor with his audience. Consequently, I shall not readily believe that the gods have the characteristics that Homer assigns to them. I shall beg the Homerids to forgive me if I do accept such assertions about the gods. For how would it be possible for me to believe that

Apollo, a god and leader of the Muses, always gets as angry as Homer wants him to get, or that he changes his looks in conformity with night,

or that he takes hold of his arrows even to shoot a Greek subject [Il 1.44-52]? Let us refuse to accept such assertions from Homerids and from any other poet who wishes so loosely to tell lies about the gods.

Let us believe Aesop instead. | [4] Aesop does summon the gods to his tale and lets his reproach ascend to the heavens; but, unlike poets, the Phrygian [Aesop] has no desire to speak arrogantly against the gods. Although he fashions tales, all his remarks and utterances about the gods are such that they have some bit of wisdom cloaked in them. [5] So what does that fashioner of tales do in his story when the chorus gets disorderly? He makes Apollo retune his lyre and change from a gentle to a harsh melody, and he has the god sound the strings with a plectrum rather than with his fingers.” The mountains, glens, rivers, and birds in Aesop get angry along with Apollo when he is wronged by the nymphs. Helicon itself, as a result of its anguish, is now transformed into a human being, begins to speak, and protests against the nymphs. And let us not consider this feature of the

74. As Himerius does not use physical punishment; see p. 71 above.

| 75. Using the plectrum instead of the fingers “produces a stronger, sharper sound,” as M. L. West comments in a letter to me of August 19, 1999, a sound that reflects Apollo’s irritation.

96 In and Around Himerius’s School story to be audacious. For if Helicon knows how to make poets out of shepherds—and we certainly believe Hesiod in this—then it is not right for us to be annoyed at the Phrygian [Aesop] for making a mountain speak.’¢ [6] What, then, does Helicon say to the nymphs in the story? “Nymphs, - where are you going? What is this grievous sting that has driven you mad?

Why, having turned your backs on Helicon, the Muses’ workplace, do you hasten to Cithaeron? There are misfortunes and troubles on Cithaeron, and the praises of Cithaeron are a source of tragedy. I make poets out of shepherds, but Cithaeron turns those who are sound of mind into crazed beings. There a mother rages against her child, and family wages war on family; but here one finds offspring of the Muses and gardens of Mnemosyne and nourishment for [Mnemosyne’s] progeny.’’ So they dance and sport with Apollo now, and of course they always accompany

him as he sings. But as for your ailment, I fear that it may become part of theatrical repertoire and the preface to a sad tragedy for you. “T7] But why all this talk? The nymphs are quickly anticipating the end of my speech. One of them there is right next to the god, another will soon be so, and yet another will become a devotee of this chorus before long. For the spell of Apollo’s lyre is overwhelming, and in its de-

lightfulness it outdoes every charm of Aphrodite.” | This is what Helicon says in Aesop. Whether this story has any bear-

ing on the present situation is for all of you to surmise. | [cod. R] 76. “if Helicon knows”: i.e., the Muses of Helicon, sacred to them. See Hes. Theog. 135; Him. Orat. 47.9. Helicon and Cithaeron are personified in Corinna no. 654 in Campbell, Greek Lyric, 4: 26-29; and Philostratus major (Imag. 1.14) describes a painting in which Cithaeron was personified. 77. “crazed beings. . . against her child”: surely a reference to Pentheus’s mother Agave - and other Theban women, who, overcome by a Bacchic frenzy, tore Pentheus apart on Cithaeron (Eur. Bacch. 66off., 1030ff.). “family wages war on family [i.e., kin on kin]” (woAenel TO yévos TH yévey: Himerius could still be referring to Agave’s attack on Pentheus. But Wernsdorff saw a reference here to the conflict between the brothers Eteocles and Polyn-

ices. (According to Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.5, Polynices and his companions were at Cithaeron when, through the ambassador Tydeus, they demanded that Eteocles yield Thebes to his brother. When Eteocles refused, war ensued.) The baby Oedipus was exposed on Cithaeron (Soph. Oed. Tyr. 1391-93; Eur. Phoen. 801-5; Apollod. Bibl. 3.5.7). Yet another tragedy that occurred there, according to a number of sources, was Acteon’s being devoured by

his dogs: Eur. Bacch. 1290-91; Apollod. Bibl. 3.4.4; Philostr. maj. Imag. 1.14. For Cithaeron as a site of tragedy, cf. Him. Orat. 8.8, 17. “offspring (yovar) of the Muses”: i.e., in a metaphorical sense (song, dance, etc.). Earlier translators understood “homeland” (thus Volker). “Mnemosyne”: the mother of the Muses; see Hes. Theog. 52ff., 91 5ff., with

West’s comment on Theog. 54. |

In and Around Himerius’s School 97 68. A Protreptic [Talk] on the Need to Be Favorably Disposed to Variety in One’s Orations [Himerius] delivered this [talk] before the oration that has the title “On

the Derisive Remark”’® ,

[x] When I saw the theaters of Attic eloquence so parched, I hastened to relieve the drought with my eloquence, as if with a sudden burst of rain. Each land, you know, produces its distinctive fruits and offspring. Horses point to the Thessalian, long hair to the Celt, a lavish table to the Mede, the laurel to the Delphian, and war to the Spartiate. But the word

and man are the fruits of this city [Athens]. [2] When any of those fruits : is in decline, we say that the land that produces it is in bad condition. So when eloquence is thriving, it lifts Athens up to the heavens; but when

| it ceases to be heard, it casts the city back down.” One can see that this is true from past times. The stage once flourished, and so did the city along with [dramatic] eloquence. The speaker’s

platform blossomed with its rhetors, and so did the people’s thinking along with them. The Lyceum abounded in wise men at that time, and all majestic houses everywhere were filled with wisdom. But once the pub-

lic voice became silent, speaking was almost [entirely] removed to [the private world of] sailors and slaves.*° [3] Come, then, boys, let us kindle the whole of eloquence, like an in-

78. “this [talk]”: ravryy implies Aaday or ducdAeEw. Mras (WS 64 [1949]: 77-78) understood “before the oration .. . ‘On the Derisive Remark’” to mean “immediately before the oration,” and therefore regarded Orat. 68 as that lost oration’s prolalia. This is probably correct, but “before the oration” could mean simply “chronologically prior,” not “im-

mediately prior.”

79. “I hastened” etc.: i.e., by coming to Athens to teach and speak. For Thessalian .

horses, see Anth. gr. 14.73.23 Them. Orat. 27.335b; schol. to Hom. I/. 2.761-65 Erbse; schol. to Ael. Aristid. Orat. 13.102 Dindorf = 1.25 Lenz-Behr: dAAas pév yap xwpas éAédhavres; CPG 2: 199 n. 87; Keller, Die antike Tierwelt, 1: 227-28. For the Celts’ long hair, see Strabo 4.4.3 [196]; App. Celt. frag. 8. Hence, “Gallia Comata,” i.e., “long-haired Gaul” (Dio Cass. 46.55.5). A “Median table” is proverbial for luxury: Thuc. 1.130 (“Persian”); Plut. De Alex. fortuna 342a; Synes. De insomn. 13.146c Terzaghi; CPG 1: 275, 2: 38, §27. The laurel (bay) is associated with Delphic Apollo: see Steier, “Lorbeer,” RE 13, 2 (1927): 1439-40; Parke and Wormell, Delphic Oracle, 1: 26; Fontenrose, Delphic Oracle, 215, 224-25, 353. Lhe martial orientation of the classical Spartan state is well-known; Hooker, = for example, writes of their “mak[ing] military proficiency the be-all and end-all of their life” (Ancient Spartans, 139). For the appearance of eloquence (“the word”) and of human beings first in Athens/Attica, see Pl. Menex. 237d—e; Isoc. 4.48 (Acyot), 49 (Adyos); Ael. Aristid. Orat. 1.2, 6, 25, 33, 43 Lenz-Behr; Them. Orat. 27.336c—d, 3374. 80. It is not clear to me precisely what Himerius has in mind historically in this paragraph; Volker (Himerios, 347 n. 11) thinks of the post-Demosthenic world of Macedonian domination over Athens. With Colonna and against the earlier editors, I retain the

98 In and Around Himerius’s School extinguishable fire, and in this fire let us ensure the city’s preservation.

This fire would shoot up and illuminate everything, if those who give . shape to words would refuse always to be satisfied with the ancient models and instead would keep coming up with new works of art to fashion.

[4] For the conception of new works in a sense strengthened the talent of Phidias and the artistry of the other craftsmen whose hands we admire for their skill. Phidias did not always sculpture Zeus. He did not _ always make bronze statues of Athena armed. He applied his craft to

, other gods too; and he adorned the maiden [Athena] by letting a blush cover her cheeks, so that he might hide the goddess’s beauty under that blush rather than under a helmet.*! [5] Isn’t art’s purpose the same in the case of Dionysus, whose form the theologians’ sons change into that of a young man?® The god lets hair grow on his cheeks, and the golden down ofa beard spreads over them. For this, I think, is the way in which the beautiful Dionysus had to be adorned; he had to have a beauty whose flowers would blossom together with the beauty of spring. [6] And, with regard to other things, what has the plan of the great craftsman in heaven been? At one time he conceals the sun with clouds and whitens the whole earth and sea with snow. [By this wintry weather] he frightens the sailor and ships on the sea, he drives the cattleman and his animals from the meadows, he makes peace for the hoplite and hides his sword, and he makes the soldier unwarlike. At another time he gives humans spring, the clouds and sent the golden sun. He crowns the earth with flowers, the sky with choruses of stars, and the sea with calm and stillness. After this come ears and sheaves of grain, after ears of grain come fruits and grapes, the bounding winepresser, and

the gleaming kindness of autumn.* :

transmitted readings BaciAewa (“majestic houses,” after Colonna’s suggestion “domus illustres”) and ro Aéyew (“speaking”). There is no eloquence in the speech of sailors and slaves; cf. Him. Orat. 69.6, on sailors. 81. “and he adorned the maiden” etc.: For comment on this passage and debate about the identity of the statue, see Plommer, CR 9 (1959): 206-7; Magi, PP 169 (1976): 324-35; Volker, ad loc. 82. “Isn’t art’s purpose the same”: i.e., in this case, to vary the representation of a god. “theologians’ sons”: The term occurs in Proclus Theol. Plat. 4.12 ad fin. Saffrey-Westerink; In Plat. Parm. 844-45. It means “theologians’ disciples” or simply “theologians”; see LSJ, s.v. mats 1 3; cf. Him. Orat. 37.1, 45.1. Dionysus could be represented as young or old, bearded or unbearded (C. Gasparri and A. Veneri, “Dionysos,” LIMC 3, 1 [1986]: 414,

420-22). | |

83. “craftsman”: The Greek is codiarys, which also designates the earthly master of

rhetoric. The winepresser “bounds” as he treads the grapes; for the practice, see, e.g., Anacre-

In and Around Himerius’s School 99 : , [7] Look, if you wish, at that beautiful Homeric meadow that has everything in it, the meadow that the poets call “the shield of Achilles.” Examine the endless banquet on that shield, how many things it offers. One person does battle on it, another sails, one person’s thoughts are fixed on marriage, another’s on the tending of his cattle, someone is busy playing the lyre, someone else makes music flow from his pipe, here a person cuts grain with his sickle, and there someone else works the earth

with a golden plough, behind which the soil seems to split open and blackens.*

, [8] Let us also, my boys, imitate Apollo’s most clever lyre. How did he tune it? Well, Colophon has his lyre, but his tripods [at Delphi] resound [with his oracular utterances] as well. Furthermore, you will see the waters of the Branchidae helping him issue his oracle; and you will also see the god prophesying in the midst of the Delians’ trees. At one time we honor Apollo as the sun, when, after bathing himself, he drives his horses up out of the ocean and above the earth with his falling hair and blazing fire; at another time we honor him as Dionysus with beautiful hair, when, having put the [sun’s] flame out, he delights in song and

dance.® |

[9] It seems to me that Proteus was also a sophist, one skilled at elo-

ontea 4.iii.15-16 West; Athen. 5.199a; Anth. gr. 9.403; Greg. Naz. Orat. 45.25 (PG 36.657); Verg. Georg. 2.7-8. 84. For Achilles’ shield and Himerius’s comments on it here, see Hom. I]. 18.478-608.

85. “Apollo’s ... lyre”: i.e., his oracular voice. The shrine of Claros was near Colophon, that of Didyma (Branchidae) near Miletus. “his tripods resound as well” (rpimrodes 56€ dAdAws Hyovow): For dAAws, perhaps read aAAws; see LSJ, s.v. dAAws

2. Dibner wanted to emend dAAws to AeAdots, but a reference to Delphi would have been understood without the specification; according to Apollonius Lex. Homer., s.v. tpizrodas , there were so many votive tripods at Delphi that “Delphic tripod” came to mean “votive

} tripod” in general. “the waters (anyds) of the Branchidae”: apparently the sacred spring. See Fontenrose, Didyma, index s.v. “springs.” In an account of the origins of the prophetic shrine, Callimachus writes of “twin springs”; see Callim. frag. 229.11 Pfeiffer, with the editor’s note. “the Delians’ trees”: Aelian (Var. hist. 5.4) notes “the Delian tradition that the trees which flourish on Delos are the olive and the palm. When Leto took hold of them she immediately gave birth [to Apollo]” (trans. N.G. Wilson). Only a palm tree is mentioned in connection with Apollo’s birth, e.g., by Hymn. Hom. 3.18, 117; Theogn. 5—10; Callim. Hymn. 4.210. Delos and the birth of Apollo (and of Artemis) are associated with the palm and laurel or the palm, laurel, and olive by Euripides (Iph. Taur. 1097-1102, Ion 919-22, Hec. 458-61) and with the palm and olive in Ov. Met. 6.335. “At one time” etc.: For the sun god Apollo as Dionysus, see Macrob. Sat. 1.18, esp. 1.18.8: “a mysterious rule of religion ordains that the sun shall be called Apollo when it is in the upper hemisphere, that is to say, by day, and be held to be Dionysus, or Liber Pater, when it is in the lower hemisphere” (trans. P. V. Davies); Liebeschuetz in Athanassiadi and Frede, Pagan Monotheism, 193. “after bathing . . . the flame out”: Rizzo (RFIC 26 [1898]: 527) saw some hexametrical citations in the Greek text here. “[H]e drives his horses . . . with his falling hair and blazing fire” is Pindar, frag. dub. 356 Snell.

LOO | In and Around Himerius’s School quence. When a Momus with his censure-loving tongue verbally harassed him, he used many qualities of style in his response, so that he could thus prove that that Momus’s derisive remarks about him were false. But when Proteus encountered a more skillful sophist [i.e., Homer], he found himself being represented in that sophist’s tale as having the same multiformity that he had managed to achieve stylistically in his response to that Momus. Hence the Homeric Proteus [Od. 4.417-18, 456-58] kindles like a fire, flows like water, roars like a lion, grows tall and flourishes like a tree.°¢

[10] I want to tell you one of Protagoras’s stories. When nature made human beings and the other animals, almost predisposed as it was to one pattern, it imposed a single shape on the appearance of all creatures. Upon becoming aware of this absence of embellishment, Zeus agreed to send the two heavenly beings—I mean Prometheus and Epimetheus—to help nature. They brought with them, from [the god] who had sent them, mind and perception, also strength and speed. Thus they introduced variety into nature’s pattern, altering it by this diversification of the appearance |

of what nature had fashioned. Reason received humankind; and the re- . maining faculties, in a fitting manner, received each of the other kinds of animal, making nature’s beauty motley now by the multiformity of

its creatures.°” |

[x1] So, my boys, you, no less than I, have Protagoras’s story to prepare you through its myth to introduce variety into your orations. Actually, you opt for variety even before Protagoras and I do, for yesterday I saw you acting as workmen for your orator [i.e., Himerius], when _ you tossed your books aside and built this makeshift auditorium for the Muses, an auditorium that is much better than the wall erected against the Lacedaemonians by Demosthenes and the Athenians in Pylos. That ~ wall was built because of the winter, but this auditorium was built because of the desire and yearning of your ears, which longed for a new 86. Proteus a “sophist”: Pl. Euthyd. 288b. “a Momus” (tis . . . duos): On Momus (Blame), who appears as the offspring of Night in Hes. Theog. 214, see W. Kroll, RE 16, I (1933): 42; he appears repeatedly in Lucian. “[Proteus] used many qualities of style”: “Qualities of style” is i6€as, and Himerius is apparently alluding to idea theory, on which see Rutherford, Canons of Style, esp. 6-21. Note Hermog. Id. 1.11 [279] Rabe: “A speech is especially admirable when it is constructed out of opposing types [of style] (ideav) that are well blended together. But such mixing and blending of styles is difficult” (trans. C. W.

Wooten). Dionysius of Halicarnassus compares Demosthenes’ stylistic versatility to the .

metamorphosing Proteus (Dem. 8). : 87. Cf. Pl. Protag. 3z0c-22d, and Them. Orat. 27.338a—d, but all that the three versions have in common is that they deal with Prometheus, Epimetheus, and the creation of

living beings. |

~° In and Around Himerius’s School IOI declamation. [12] But turn your gaze away from the walls [of the auditorium] to the tongue, and imitate Amphion, if you will. He applied his hands partly to the wall [of Thebes] and partly to his lyre and spread his country’s fame abroad because he walled Thebes so harmoniously.**

[cod. R]

69. The Discourse (Atade&ts ) Delivered after His Wound Healed

[Himerius] delivered these remarks after his wound healed, when studies were [re]Jcommencing and he was about to speak for the first time in the very same auditorium.

[x] It is time to open the lecture hall, my boys, since the Muses are giving eloquence its season. We must do what they say Hesiod did when he threw away his little pipe in his desire to attend on the Muses with his lyre. And let me first offer hospitality here to those who have come to my school from other lands, so that I may finally pay an old debt. I have not willingly let my tardiness in paying this debt reach this point in time. It is not a pleasant thing when eloquence takes time off, like those collectors of money who customarily seek to retreat from the crowd so that, when they encounter them [later], they will seem more impressive to those who behold them.°®” [2] But envy is good at abusing lofty tongues as well as lofty fortunes, and envy’s fight against eloquence is much more intense than its fight against material prosperity. For the lesser boon of material prosperity, although it has often incurred envy, does not provoke it very much; but a lofty and great tongue, I think, shoots at the very center of envy’s heart. [3] So no human being in the whole world envied Sardanapalus, even

, though he ruled over countless people and, because of the way in which 88. “the wall erected... by ... the Athenians”: See Thuc. 4.4. The Athenians built the wall despite the fact that they did not have the proper tools. Amphion was a lyre-player who walled Thebes. His enchanting music caused the stones to move into place on their own. This preternatural event is what Himerius is alluding to in saying that Amphion walled Thebes “harmoniously” (€upedds). See the frag. of Eur. Antiope 84-89, in Page, Select

Papyri, 3: 68-71; Palaephatus ITept daiorwv 41 Festa; Apoll. Rhod. 1.735-41; Paus. 9.5.6-8; Apollod. Bibl. 3.5.5. 89. Hesiod: A reference to Hesiod’s transformation from mere shepherd to poet (Hes. Theog. 22-23). Himerius means that it is now time for serious rhetorical endeavor. “like | those collectors of money” etc.: Wernsdorff suggests that Himerius is referring to speakers who charge fees; by occasionally absenting themselves from the public arena they enhance their perceived worth.

102 , In and Around Himerius’s School he decked himself out, was almost thought to be made of pure gold. But insolent envy did not let Palamedes and Orpheus go until it made them victims of an accuser and of madness respectively. [4] And I know that on Homer’s plains many demigods became the playthings and sport of envy: “the son of Tydeus, strong Diomedes, has been hit; Odysseus, fa-

mous for his spear, has been hit, and also Agamemnon” [cf. Hom. II. 11.660—61]. Envy chases the whole phalanx of heroes away from battle through the wounds they suffer. Poetry struck down even the gods themselves, as if it sought to console mortal heroes by pointing out that envy shoots its arrows as far as heaven. Thersites is the only one in Homer - who is not injured, for he had nothing by which to annoy envy.” “But endure, my heart,” said the wise man [Odysseus] after the Cy-

clopes, the Laestrygonians, and the ocean [Hom. Od. 20.18]. [5] Yet why do I need Odysseus? Why do I need Homer and the Cyclops? Come,

in our fight against reproach let us rather seek consolation from the Muses and lyric poetry. Anacreon tuned his lyre after an illness and once again greeted his dear loves in song. Stesichorus also tuned his lyre after his suffering. There is a widespread story that Ibycus fell off his chariot as he was riding from Catana to Himera. Having broken his hand,

he did not sing for quite some time but made his lyre a votive gift to Apollo.7! [6] But enough of woes! Enough of pain and disease! Perhaps we can-

3 - not say “enough of envy,” though, so long as.eloquence soars with its golden wings. Let us speak again, let us lead our chorus again in the midst of envy. Surely the Muses will do what they can to blunt envy’s arrows,

for it is they who, like shepherds, tend to eloquence. Now the Muses’ | 90. “the lesser boon of material prosperity”: i.e., a lesser thing than eloquence. Sardanapalus: the Assyrian king, remembered for his luxury (Diod. Sic. 2.23). Palamedes and Orpheus: False charges of treason. brought by Odysseus against Palamedes led to the latter’s being put to death (Apollod. Epit. 3.8; Hygin. Fab. 105; Serv. on Aen. 2.81; schol. to Eur. Or. 432). Palamedes was credited with (among other things) the introduction of the

alphabet (E. Wiist, “Palamedes 1,” RE 18, 2 [1942]: 2505-9) and is associated with logoi and the Muses by Philostratus (Vita Apoll. 4.13). Orpheus was torn apart by mad Mae__ nads or Thracian women or Thracian and Macedonian women (see esp. Ov. Met. 11.1-60; also Conon, FGrH 26 F 1.45; Verg. Georg. 4.520—-22; Apollod. Bibl. 1.3.2; Paus. 9.30.5). Persuasive speech was compared to Orpheus’s charming music (Ael. Aristid. Orat. 3.4.45 Keil; Philostr. Vitae soph. 520; Eunap. Vitae phil. et soph. 23.3.3 [502]). Himerius’s thought now moves from how envy is stirred up by cultural rather than material success to how at Troy it was stirred up by heroes and not by a base fool like Thersites (Hom. II. 2.248, 258). 91. “Anacreon...insong”: Anacreon no. 494 in Campbell, Greek Lyric, 2: 135. Stesi-

chorus’s suffering: probably a reference to his temporary blinding, connected to his slander of Helen (Pl. Phaedr. 243a—-b; Isoc. 10.64; Dio Chrys. Orat. 11.40; Lazzeri, SRCG 5 [2002]: 169-74). “There is a widespread story” etc.: Ibycus no. 343 in Campbell, Greek Lyric, 3: 291.

In and Around Himerius’s School | 103 trumpets are sounding, the calls of sailors have come to an end, cicadas are breaking off their songs and giving way to the eloquence [of sophists], and nightingales are refraining from their melodious sounds and yielding to sophists. The Nile’s flow is abating, and what for a time was a sea is becoming a river [again]; it is the Muses’ rivers and streams whose wa-

ters are rising.”” ,

[7] Come, then, before proceeding to the rites and the shrine, let me tell you what it is right to do and to refrain from doing. Let all initiates and those entering the higher degree of initiation listen. Throw the balls out of your hands. Put all your energy into using your styluses. Put the palaestra’s games behind locked doors, and let the Muses’ workshops be opened. Say good-bye to the streets, and stay at home more and write. Hate the vulgar theater, and give your attention to the better theater [of | the school of rhetoric]. Let luxury and the pursuit of pleasure be removed from your labors; show me that you can be austere and can overcome luxury. This is my pronouncement and law—a great deal contained ina few words. Whoever of you listens and obeys will let Iacchus’s song sound

to the full; if any of you disobeys and has taken no heed of what I say, I shall conceal from him the [sacred] fire and lock him out of the shrines of eloquence.”? [8] This pronouncement is for everybody, but it is especially directed, my young men, at those of you who are newly initiated and have recently

come to me. Of these new students, [Mt.] Argaeus sent one—a mountain at whose foot sprout golden saplings of my family. The peoples and cities of the Galatians sent another, and this is the first “colony” they have dispatched to learn rhetoric [under me]. Some come to the mysteries who live close to the river Caicus; and when this pair leaves us and returns to that river, I think that it will swell with golden waters. [9] Of course, among the initiates there is also a chorus from the Nile. When I 92. “golden wings... speak again. . . lead our chorus again”: For the apparent Stesichoran echoes, see Lazzeri, SRCG 5 (2002): 175. “let us lead... envy”: Wernsdorff reports that the manuscript reads yopnyauev ev T@ PO0vw and notes that Reiske would delete

ev. Dibner claims that Wernsdorff added an év that does not appear in the manuscript. Colonna has no év and no comment in his apparatus. If the manuscript does not have ép, ~ | would supply it. “the calls of sailors”: i.e., rough speech, as opposed to the sophist’s eloquence (thus Wernsdorff); cf. Him. Orat. 68.2. “The Nile’s flow” etc.: The abundance of eloquence is replacing the abundance of the Nile’s waters (thus Wernsdorff).

93. “all initiates ... higher degree of initiation”: i-e., wvorns (junior initiate) Kal exonTys (senior initiate). See Mylonas, Eleusis, 274. “Iacchus’s song”: Himerius is alluding to the procession with the statue of Iacchus from Athens to Eleusis during the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries (Mylonas, Eleusis, 252-57). “[sacred] fire”: the great fire of the Eleusinian mysteries; see Him. Orat. 35 [6], and 60.4, with my note.

104 } In and Around Himerius’s School have bedecked them with the Muses’ garlands, I shall send them from the Ilissus [River] to Egypt with a lyre, so that, with Attic frenzy, they may hymn the Nile’s sea.” This is my proclamation, and it has been given by way of a preface. Let me now reveal the sacred [rites] to the initiates both in my actions and in my speech. [cod. R] 74. The Theme [of This Talk] Is That One Must Always Be in Training

[Himerius] delivered this [talk] extempore in the summer.” [x] “Practice makes an endeavor succeed” [Hes. Op. 412]. These are the words of an emulous poet. But suppose that something other than this poet can urge us on, and that I call your attention to it and divulge it.?° Well, so that in this matter we do not put our trust just in the poets, I shall tell you a story about the topic under consideration. [2] Once, during the Pythian Games, Timagenidas announced that he would play the pipe. But before he entered into competition with his

94. “[Mt.] Argaeus ... [with] saplings of my family”: The manuscript has “[the] Aegaean” (Aiyatos ), which cannot stand. Wernsdorff conjectured Apyatos. Argaeus is a moun-

tain in Cappadocia, near Caesarea. (I note that Talbert, Barrington Atlas, map 63 E4, also shows an “Arg(ai)os Mons” southwest of the Mt. Argaeus near Caesarea.) But Wernsdorff, wanting to keep Himerius’s family in his native Bithynia, suggested that Argaeus was another name for Bithynian Mt. Arganthoneium (Arganthus, ArganthonJe]), near Prusias-

Cius, which he believed was Himerius’s native city (Himerii sophistae quae reperiri potuerunt, xl). Nothing, however, prevents us from assuming that Himerius had relatives in Cappadocia. Caicus: The Caicus River, in Asia Minor, flows into the Aegean. Pergamum and Elaea, among other cities, are not far from it. “this pair”: Himerius probably pointed here to two students from the Caicus area in the audience. “I shall send them... with a lyre”: after Himerius “plays the lyre,” i.e., gives them a propemptic oration (thus Wernsdorff)? Or “equipped with their own lyre,” 1.e., with the ability to be orators themselves? The Ilissus is a river of Athens. “with Attic frenzy”: Arruccts otorpots. I retain the manuscript’s reading (literally, “goads”). Cf. Stat. Theb. 1.32-33: “tempus erit, cum Pierio tua fortior oestro / facta canam,” a text that Wernsdorff knew, and see LSJ, s.v. ototpos II, 3. Wernsdorff’s conjectural emendation ceforpois was accepted by Diibner and Colonna and is retained by Volker. The sistrum was a religious rattle typical of Egypt (Philostr. maj.

a lalia. Imag. 1.5).

95. The opening scholion in codex R refers to this piece in the feminine gender (avr). The version of the title that appears in Photius’s Himerian bibliography explicitly labels it

96. “an emulous poet” (dtAoriov): The adjective reflects Himerius’s understanding of the quoted Hesiod, Op. 412: the poet “urge[s] us on” to practice, excel, and win glory. “Emulous” also calls to mind the contest of Hesiod and Homer and that Hesiod was the

advocate of “good strife” or “rivalry” (Op. 11-26).

In and Around Himerius’s School IO5 fellow pipers, he quietly took leave of the crowd to practice solely in , the company of his friends. First he practiced a melody on a single pipe, then, blowing more forcefully, on two instruments together. For a while he played a melody, restricting his practice to a prenomic tune; then he played what they call the nome of Athena’s contest [the Panathenaea].?”

For practice, you see, cannot fail to spur on and keep improving people’s skills. [3] Thus, a horse is swift at racing, not when he goes from the manger

directly to the racecourse, but when he beholds the racecourse after a period of training. An athlete is quickly proclaimed the victor when he willingly subjects himself to training before going to the table. If a person is a soldier, I urge him not to wait for battles to occur, but to practice using his weapons in peacetime, before war breaks out. We see those

devoted to agriculture attending to the plow before the setting of the Pleiades and sharpening the sickle before the rising of those goddesses | so that, when summer comes, they will be ready to harvest the crops.”®

[4] As for those who are devoted to the spoken word, is there anything they should do except constantly to practice composing orations? I once heard a wise man—he was wise, that is, in the art that we pursue—

expressing the opinion about the matter under discussion that “speech always comes from speech.”?? [5] The reason why the Attic myth deprives the nightingale of its tongue is that it does not speak incessantly but spends some of its time in silence and some in song. Myth thus calls its melody a lament, berating it, I think, because, although it is of Attic origin, it does not devote itself to singing incessantly. On the other hand, myth says that swans are sacred to Apollo 97. Colonna, after Wernsdorff, emends the manuscript’s “Timagenidas” to “Antigenidas,” the famous Theban piper apparently of the early fourth century B.c. Perhaps that emendation should be adopted; but “Timagenidas” may be Himerius’s own mistake. Pipes (auloi) were normally played two at a time. See West, Ancient Greek Music, 81-82, 103-5, 367; Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre, 218-22. (I regret using LSJ’s gloss “flute” for aulos in my Private Orations of Themistius; for the incorrectness of that translation, see West, | 1-2, 82-85.) For the nome (nomos), “a specific, nameable melody, or a composition in its melodic aspect, sung or played in a formal setting in which it was conventionally appropriate,” see West, 215-17; Mathiesen, 58-71. 98. For the setting and the rising of the Pleiades as signs indicating that it is a time to plow and sow and to harvest respectively, see Hes. Op. 383-84; Philostr. min. Imag. ro, p. 406 Kayser.

_ 99. The quoted line, an iambic trimeter whose author is unknown, is frag. 514 incertorum poetarum Kock; it apparently became proverbial. Himerius is referring to the teaching of an Athenian sophist named Phrynichus. But if this Phrynichus belongs to the third century, Himerius heard some other “wise man” teaching the Phrynichan doctrine. See Keil, Hermes 42 (1907): 548-51; Greco, Orpheus 15 (1994): 307-9; Heath, Menander, 23.

106 In and Around Himerius’s School and marvels at their song because they never stop fashioning a hymn of praise to their god through their singing.!° [cod. R] 100. “nightingale”: Himerius seems to be thinking of the myth of Procne and Philomela. There is a version of the myth in which it is Philomela, whose tongue is cut out, who is transformed into a nightingale rather than her sister Procne: see, e.g., Agatharchides in Phot. Bibl. 250.443a; Hygin. Fab. 45; Serv. on Verg. Ecl. 6.78. But Philomela’s tongue is cut out to silence her (e.g., Ov. Met. 6.549-62; Ach. Tat. 5.5; CPG 1: 61; Serv. on Verg. Ec. 6.78), not because “she does not speak incessantly.” The Procne-Philomela story is . one of several versions of an old nightingale story, which are associated with various localities: see Thramer, “Aédon 1,” RE 1 (1894): 467-74. In the standard version of the . Procne-Philomela story, Procne kills her son, and she and her sister Philomela are turned into a nightingale and a swallow respectively (Apollod. Bibl. 3.14.8) because “the note of these birds is plaintive and like a lamentation” (Paus. 1.41.9, trans. W.H.S. Jones). In a cognate version of the story, a woman named Aédon (Nightingale) kills her son, is changed into a nightingale, and mourns her dead son (Hom. Od. 19.518-23; Pherecydes Athen., FGrH 3 F 124; Helladius in Phot. Bibl. 279.531a). For the lament of the nightingale, see also Steier, “Luscinia,” RE 13, 2 (1927): 1859-64 passim; Thompson, Glossary of Greek Birds, 20. “she does not devote herself to singing incessantly”: Yet an ancient etymology derives “nightingale” (dndav) from det ddew, “to sing incessantly,” i.e., “both in summer

| and in winter” ({[Athanas.] Lib. de definit. 4 [PG 28.544]). A much more modest ancient assertion is that the nightingale sings incessantly, at a certain season of the year, for fifteen days and nights: Arist. Hist. animal. 8(9).49b [632b20]; Plin. HN 10.43 [81]. For the swan as Apollo’s bird, see Gossen, “Schwan,” RE 2A, 1 (1921): 788; Thompson, Glossary of Greek Birds, 184; and add to the references Pl. Phaedo 85b.

CHAPTER 4

Coming and Going in Himerius’s School

Arrivals at and departures from Himerius’s school in Athens were often

| occasions for oratory. There are enough examples of Himerian oratory associated with such occasions to warrant examining them here as a group.

Four of the pieces (11, 30, 63, and 64) concern Himerius’s own com- . ings and goings. The meager remains of Oration 11 are from a “syntactic” or farewell talk that he delivered to his pupils at Athens when he was about to depart for a visit to Corinth. We have a description of a

syntactic oration in Menander Rhetor 2.15. One might imagine on the basis of Menander’s comments that in the essentially lost Oration 11 Himerius expressed distress at the thought of being separated from his pupils. He may have explained why he had to go to Corinth, at the same time wondering how he would be received there. He may have praised both Athens and Corinth. He probably prayed both for his pupils in Athens and for a safe voyage for himself. Himerius delivered Orations 30, 63, and 64 upon returning to Athens, 30 upon returning from Corinth—whether this was the same visit that Oration 11 refers to is not clear—and 63 upon returning from a visit to his original homeland, Bithynian Prusias. Oration 64 gives no indication of where he had returned from when he delivered it. In Oration 30 he appropriately stresses the sadness he felt abroad, as he yearned for those

| IO7

108 Coming and Going in Himerius’s School he had left behind in Athens.! His desire for Athens was like Odysseus’s yearning for Ithaca. But this routine motif is qualified by another thought: his students will appreciate him more now that they have been deprived

of him fora while.

In Oration 63, on his return from Prusias, Himerius makes the point

that, since he has been away from Athens and oratory for “a consider- | able .. . time,” he needs to practice before speaking publicly. This oration to his students is, then, appropriately a dialexis, a work of limited , ambition.* Himerius wants to deliver a declamation (63.7), but because of his vacation from oratory he is now capable only of a dialexis. He will soon speak before the general public, but now he restricts himself to his home and to an audience of students. This dialexis insists, through a series of comparisons, on the importance of practice before giving a public display of oratory: the oratorical mode that Himerius adopts reflects his own unpracticed state while teaching the importance of practice. In Oration 64.3 Himerius tells his students that “I have met with you here [i.e., in his Athenian school] again for rhetorical purposes after hav-

ing contended in many great auditoria.” Himerius had been away and, during his absence, had spoken before many large audiences. His return to Athens leads him to comment on the “small auditorium” of his school there, contrasting it with the “great auditoria” in which he had spoken while away. Two points are made: that his students will always highly regard the place where they took their first serious steps, however small it was, and that truly great accomplishments can be carried out in a modest physical setting. Himerius’s absence from Athens has caused him to appreciate the city and his academic quarters there more. Many pieces presented here mark a student’s or student group’s arrival at or departure from Himerius’s school. The arriving students are sometimes referred to as verjAvdes, “newly arrived,” which should be the equivalent of “newly enrolled” or “freshmen” (see titles of Orat. 13.6-8,

| 14, 21, 26, 54, the lost 57 Colonna, and text of 54.3).° Himerius saw ' his speeches of welcome as a continuation of the practice of Isocrates, 1. See Men. Rhet. 2.3 [382.31-383.9, 384.28-32]. | 2. See p. 9 above. 3. Cf. Lampe, Patristic Greek Lex., s.v. véndus 1. Olympiodorus of Thebes refers to verjAvdes being led to the baths and pushed around in a hazing ritual (frag. 28 Blockley). } They are described as dv re puxpot av Te preyador. I suspect that this means “whether puny or well built”—i.e., the physically impressive students were subjected to the same pushing

. around as the puny ones. Walden (Universities, 302) translates “large and small” but seems to understand this to mean “young and old” (303n). Blockley (ad loc.) translates “junior and senior” but does not explain what he means by junior and senior newcomers.

Coming and Going in Himerius’s School 109 who “always opened up the doors of his royal school to lovers of eloquence by means of an oration” (Orat. 33 [7—9]). He welcomed, on various occasions, the enigmatic “followers of Piso,” presumably a group of students (13.6—8); an Egyptian (14); a group of Cyprians (17); a Cappadocian (18); Severus (21); a group of Ephesians, Mysians, and citizens of his own Prusias (26); Phoebus, son of the proconsul Alexander (33); and a group of students apparently of mixed provenance (54). The young

men from Prusias whom he addressed in Oration 27 have probably just . arrived, either as newly enrolled or continuing students.’ In a lost ora- tion (57), whose title is known from Photius’s Himerian bibliography (cod. 108b), Himerius welcomed “the newly arrived Aphobius” (or, in a variant reading, “Aphobinus”). Another lost oration (58), whose title is known from the same passage of the same source, addressed “the [student] who came [to Himerius’s school] because of the oracle he received from Poseidon”; this was probably also a speech of welcome on the student’s first arrival. What is left of Oration 18 is not explicitly identified as a welcoming address, but excerpt 4 of it—“Rumor leads the young man [to me?] from there [i.e., Cappadocia?]”—certainly suggests that that is what it is. Jean _ Bernardi, however, views it as an oration at the addressee’s departure.

He suggests that the addressee was none other than Basil of Caesarea, . | leaving Athens probably in 358.° The successful Severus of Oration 21 is known from other Himerian orations.® As for the Phoebus of Oration

33, he has been thought to be the son of the Alexander who was proconsul of Constantinople in 342.’ But Barnes, reviving a suggestion of _Wernsdorff, suggests that the father may, instead, have been a proconsul of Achaia. The opening scholion to Oration 33 refers to “Phoebus, 4. The information on the provenance of Himerius’s students provided by these orations may be supplemented by a few more notices. The addressee of Orat. 44, whom I take to be a student, was from Egypt (44.5). Orat. 61.4—5 mentions a student from Pamphylia. Orat. 62 was published for a Constantinopolitan student, if éra/pw in the title means “student.” Orat. 69.8—9 mentions a group of students from Egypt, one from Galatia (Himerius’s

first from there), one perhaps from Cappadocia (see my note on 69.9), and some “who live close to the river Caicus” in Asia Minor (probably from Pergamum). Himerius’s former student Flavianus was a native of Corinth (12.17, 36). His students Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea were Cappadocians (Socr. 4.26.6). Cf. Eunapius’s remarks on the provenance of the overseas pupils of Himerius’s Athenian rival Prohaeresius—mainly Asia Minor and Egypt (Vitae phil. et soph. 10.3.12-13 [487—88]). 5. Bernardi, REG 103 (1990): 90-92; cf. id., Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 42-43: 38-40. For Basil as a student of Himerius, see Socr. 4.26.6; Sozom. 6.17.1. 6. See p. 141 below.

' 7. PLRE, vol. 1, s.v. “Alexander 3”; Dagron, Naissance, 220-21; Schamp, DPA 3 (2000): 724-25.

L1O Coming and Going in Himerius’s School. son of the proconsul Alexander . . . {entrusted} to [Himerius] by his father after his schooling in Corinth.” If Alexander were something other _ than the proconsul of Achaia, whose gubernatorial seat was at Corinth, we might have expected the scholion to tell us that. Oration 54 is a special case. Although the title we have is “To Newly Arrived Students,” Himerius is actually addressing a mixed audience of new students and upperclassmen. He urges the upperclassmen to take the new students in hand and act as their mentors. Some recurring motifs can be seen in the remains of Himerius’s welcoming orations. First, Himerius shows an interest in the fatherland of new students, praising or at least referring to it in his welcome. “Every person, I think,” says Himerius in Oration 23.2 (see chapter 7), “is fond of what belongs to his own country. If an Egyptian should come here, he will find the Nile—that is, our conception of it—swelling in orations we deliver on Egypt” (cf. Him. frag. 5). To a new Egyptian student he

makes a point precisely by appealing to the Nile (Orat. 14). New Cyprian students hear him praise Cyprus and its association with Aphrodite and are assured that “its inhabitants [are] genuinely Greek in language” (17). A welcoming address to a young Cappadocian includes a story about the Cappadocian Melas River (18). Next, Himerius praises the students themselves. He appears implicitly if not explicitly to have told the newly enrolled Cyprians that they were in the camp of the heavenly, not the vulgar, Aphrodite (17.7—8) and to have made the Cappadocian feel that he was one of those youths who “look proud and carry their heads high because they were born right from Zeus’s chest” (18.5).

In Oration 33 Himerius remarks that Isocrates used welcoming speeches in his school to provide an introduction to his teachings. Himerius probably did this too. We certainly find general remarks about eloquence in what survives of the welcoming orations. Oration 13.6—8 notes that eloquence allows the rhetor to get control over the masses; 18

glorifies Apollo’s arrow, which transported the Scythian Abaris all around the world, the arrow being understood to be eloquence; and 33 , celebrates the traditions of Attic eloquence. Himerius assures his new students that he will love them as well as teach them, that he will have a “cheerful bearing” and not use physical punishment (33 [27-28], 5 4.1-2). New students might be given general advice: the young Egyptian is told : 8. Barnes, CP 82 (1987): 216. But if Alexander was proconsul of Constantinople, | see nothing, pace Barnes, in Orat. 33 that requires us to believe that Himerius left Athens

and went to Constantinople to get Phoebus. :

Coming and Going in Himerius’s School III that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” that steady hard work leads incrementally to one’s goal. Sometimes the advice needed to be tailored to special circumstances: the newly enrolled Severus was or just had been involved in a conflict, and in Oration 21 Himerius seems to have urged him not to be obsessed by strife nor to resort to violence. Orations 59 and 60 welcome a group of Ionians. They are identified | as “guests” (€€vor), not students. Yet at one point Himerius addresses them

as “boys” (59.6). I suspect that they were youths whom Himerius was | trying to attract to his school. Himerius affirms the Attic ancestry of the Ionians, as he also does in Oration 26; he can therefore welcome them to their motherland and speak of the shared ancestors of the Athenians and the Ionians. He praises Ionian accomplishments in Asia Minor and in Magna Graecia, including contributions to the development of the art of rhetoric. In the ecphrastic Oration 59, he takes the Ionian visitors on a verbal tour of Athens.? The opening scholion of Oration 60 explains that Oration 59 was an informal dialexis, but that “on this day [i.e., on the day on which he delivered Oration 60] Himerius spoke on a topic (Cyryua) extempore.” This probably means that he treated the Ionians to an oration on an imaginary topic proposed to him by someone in the audience or on some other theme at length.!° Oration 60, then, only a few lines longer than Oration 59, can hardly be that oration but is another dialexis, a preliminary dialexis or prolalia, that immediately preceded it.'! In this second dialexis, Himerius tells an apt anecdote. Once, a group of Ionians visited Athens during a fes-

tival, at a time when Pindar was playing his lyre. Pindar was not feeling well, so he played only a “short melody” for the Ionians; but he promised that, on the next day, he would perform the extended and complex orthios nomos. Lyric poetry here stands (typically) for oratory, the “short melody” for a dialexis, and the orthios nomos for a declamation. If Hi-

merius thinks of himself as a Pindar, he can also flatter the young Ionians’ , self-image by noting that Pindar’s visitors were “very prominent Ionians

from the families that trace their ancestry back to Codrus and Neleus.” : Two pieces, Orations 10 and 15, mark the departure of a student from Himerius’s school and are titled “propemptic” orations.!*7 Menander

is a periodos (17.21). , | 10. See Korenjak, Publikum und Redner, 116-20.

9. Cf. the verbal tour of Smyrna given in Ael. Aristid. Orat. 17 Keil. Aelius’s oration

11. See p. 9 above. 12. That the addressee of 15 was a young man, presumably Himerius’s student, is suggested by 15.1 (cf. 15.4).

112 Coming and Going in Himerius’s School Rhetor notes, as features of the propemptic talk, expression of the pain of separation and “encomiastic and amatory (€pwruxous ) passages” (2.5 [395.6—7, 396.3ff., 398.28-29]). We do find in Oration 10 that Himerius

expresses sadness at the departure of the addressee (10.2, 16), praises him (10.15, 17, 19), and speaks of the love (€ows)—the spiritual love— that characterizes the teacher-pupil relationship (10.9, 10, 15). A specific compliment recommended by Menander for an educated person who is

departing is to suggest that he will one day have his own school (2.5 - [397.28-33])—which seems to be precisely what Himerius is suggesting of his addressee at the end of 10.17. Menander also remarks that the propemptic talk “can admit advice when a superior is sending off an inferior, e.g. a teacher his pupil, because his own position gives him a character which makes advice appropriate” (2.5 [395.8—12], trans. Russell and Wilson). We can clearly see Himerius giving advice—about the need

for a young man to establish his own reputation, about the relation of eloquence to virtue, about the cardinal virtues and the virtues that depend on them—in the few remains of Oration 15. In 15.1 Himerius warns

that a young man cannot lean on his father’s reputation and that a fa-

| ther’s renown can actually highlight the deficiencies of his children; as Wernsdorff already suggested (ad loc.), this hints that the young man in

question was the son of a prominent father. : Oration 10 has the distinction of being largely in dialogue form. This : is noted both in its opening scholion and in its surviving protheoria, or preliminary explanatory comment. In the prothedria Himerius takes none

other than Plato as his dialogic point of reference, contending that by employing the dialogue form he is making the relatively new genre of the propemptic oration seem older. Oration tro did not consist entirely of an imaginary dialogue; in some sections, as I have already indicated—surely in 10.2, 13, 15-17, 19, 20—Himerius is speaking about (or to) the depart-

ing young man (or about his father).!° It should be noted that excerpts 5, 7 8, and 16 of this oration survive exclusively in the Excerpta Neapolitana and that their placement relative to the remaining Photian excerpts is merely the conjectural act of Aristide Colonna, the editor of our modern edition. One of the interlocutors in the dialogue of Oration 10 is Socrates him-

self (10.10). Another, presumably, is the Diogenes who appears in the title, “Diogenes; or, A Propemptic Oration.” On the assumption that 13. Inhis tentative assignment of parts in this dialogue, Volker gives only sections 20-22

to Himerius himself. _

Coming and Going in Himerius’s School 113 Himerius chose interlocutors who were actual historical figures and co- _ evals, Wernsdorff’s suggestion that this Diogenes is the pre-Socratic from Apollonia is plausible. Diogenes Laertius (9.57) calls him a physikos. His presence in the dialogue is consonant with Himerius’s inclusion of physical (and theological) as well as ethical material (see the protheoria of Oration 10). Were there other interlocutors? A Cleinias is mentioned in section 10, but we have no clear indication that he was a speaker. Wernsdorff is inclined to identify this Cleinias with Alcibiades’ brother. He might have noted, in support of this suggestion, the mention of Pericles in section 11. The relevance of Pericles to Alcibiades’ brother is that the former was the latter’s guardian—and the guardian of Alcibiades as well (Pl. Protag. 320a, Alcib. I 104b). As for the content of Oration 10’s di-

| alogue: although we can see that it included discussion of Eros—if 10.9 , is, in fact, from the dialogue portion of the oration—and of virtue (10.10, rr), unfortunately so little of it survives that we cannot even come near to saying what its argument was. TRANSLATIONS

10. From-the Speech Entitled “Diogenes; or, A Propemptic Oration”

This oration is also dignified by a preliminary explanatory comment (mpo8ewpia), and the dialogue form has left its mark on it as tt was being fashioned." FROM THE PRELIMINARY EXPLANATORY COMMENT

[x] The treatment we give to common themes is what makes them our own. Thus it is possible through the art of rhetoric to make propemptic

orations seem older, even if they are a recent custom. And that is just what I have done. For I have put the present theme into the form of a dialogue without compromising the business at hand or destroying the dignity that is owed to the dialogue form.’ Although my discourse happens to be ethical, nonetheless in the manner of Plato I latch onto physical and theological considerations, mixing these with the ethical material. And since Plato hides his more divine discussions in myth, one should 14. This note appears in Photius’s Himerian bibliography.

| 15. “even if they are a recent custom”: Note the comments of Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor, 304-5, concluding that “we should take seriously the statement of Himerius ... that [prose propemptica were] a new form.” For the “dignity” (ceuvov) of

ei ai cf. Lucian Bis accus. 33, Prometh. es in verb. 6. Lucian combines dialogue-and ,

114 Coming and Going in Himerius’s School observe whether I emulated him in this. As for the other qualities of dialogues—I mean relief from monotony, arrangement of the material and interludes, also elegance and a dramatic flavor throughout—the writ-

, ten version of the oration will show better [than anything I might say here] whether or not I succeeded in achieving those qualities.!© Dialogues

begin with a rather plain style so that the nature of the diction may produce a sense of simplicity; then in what follows they become elevated [in _ style] as the action progresses. Those whose ears have been prepared by rhetorical training to listen to orations may judge whether or not I have followed this pattern.

FROM THE DIALOGUE ITSELF | [2] It is a time for silence, not for words, whenever eloquence is saddened at having to send forth pupils from its drove. Nevertheless, elo-

quence must give expression to itself, regardless of what befalls it. So if . it pleases all of you, I shall declaim to you the oration that the feelings

of concern that have taken hold of me have engendered.