Aelius Aristides (AD 117-181) may not be the most respected of the Greek orators, but the extent of his surviving works provides a vital window into the history of Greek culture in the second-century Roman Empire. Harris (history, Columbia U.) and Holmes (classics, Princeton U.) present 14 papers from an April 2007 conference exploring the works of Aristides. Topics include Aristides and early Greek lyric, elegiac, and iambic poetry, Aristides' use of myths, Aristides and the Greek pantomimes, bathing and oratory in Aristides' Hieros Logos I and Oration 33, body and landscape in Aristides The Sacred Tales, Aristides and Plutarch on self-praise, Aristides and the politics of Rome, and Aristides' reception at Byzantium. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
This volume, containing fourteen papers given at a conference held at Columbia in 2007, is the most concerted attempt in recent times to understand the famous and enigmatic orator and to set him in his cultural, religious and political context.
