The Manipulation of Poetry in the Prose of the Second Sophistic

This book uncovers a sophisticated rhetorical game in Second Sophistic prose in the Roman Empire, in which authors intentionally distorted poetic quotations to challenge readers, display erudition, and creatively rework the Greek literary past.

It provides readers with a new interpretive framework for understanding the use and manipulation of quotations from classical poets, including Homer, Hesiod, and Pindar, among others, by Greek authors writing under Rome. Through close philological analysis, systematic classification of examples, and detailed case studies of authors of the Second Sophistic such as Plutarch, Lucian, Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristides, the book demonstrates how altered quotations functioned as sophisticated rhetorical strategies within elite paideia, offering tools applicable to the study of Imperial prose, intertextuality, and ancient literary culture more broadly.

This volume is suitable for students and scholars working on the Second Sophistic and Greek literature in the Roman Empire, as well as those interested in ancient rhetoric and classical literature more broadly.