Knowra Second Sophistic Second Sophistic The Second Sophistic was a movement of Greek literary and rhetorical activity under the Roman Empire, flourishing especially in the first three centuries CE. Its performers cultivated classical Greek styles through public speeches, declamations, and displays of learning.
Dio Chrysostom : A Greek orator and philosopher of the first and second centuries CE who delivered speeches across the Roman Empire. His speeches exemplify the movement’s blend of civic counsel, philosophical themes, and rhetorical display.
Declamation : A practice of delivering speeches on invented legal or deliberative scenarios, especially in rhetorical education. Its imagined cases trained speakers to display invention and command of classical language.
First Sophistic : The fifth-century BCE movement of Greek teachers and public intellectuals associated with figures such as Protagoras and Gorgias. It is the earlier sophistic tradition from which the later movement took its name, but not its direct institutional continuation.
Greek cities under Roman rule : Self-governing Greek communities that maintained civic institutions while belonging to the Roman Empire. Local civic life supplied the venues and audiences on which many sophists depended.
Hellenism : The spread and adaptation of Greek language, education, and cultural practices beyond Greece. The movement was a Roman-era expression of Greek cultural influence across a far-reaching empire.
Aelius Aristides : A Greek rhetorician of the second century CE, known for his speeches and surviving Sacred Tales. His performances and writings provide unusually rich evidence for a sophist’s career and self-presentation.
Atticism : A preference for the vocabulary and style associated with classical Attic Greek, especially in later Greek prose. Its ideal of classical linguistic purity shaped the movement’s deliberate imitation of earlier authors.
Isocrates : An influential fourth-century BCE Athenian teacher and prose writer who made rhetorical education central to civic formation. His educational ideal helped establish the prestige of rhetorical training that imperial Greek elites inherited.
Panhellenion : An association of Greek cities founded at Athens under Hadrian in the second century CE. Its promotion of a shared Greek identity paralleled the cultural affiliations expressed by imperial-era sophists.
Greek language in the Roman Empire : The widespread use of Greek as a language of communication, education, and literature across the Roman Empire. Sophists’ Greek performances asserted the language’s prestige in a politically Roman world.
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