Philostratus: Lives of the Sophists (Flavii Philostrati Vitas Sophistarum)

Oxford Classical Texts, also known as Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, provide authoritative, clear, and reliable editions of ancient texts, with apparatus criticus on each page. Philostratus 'The Athenian' was well-respected in philosophical and imperial circles of the third century AD and he was the first to coin the phrase 'The Second Sophistic'. His semi-biographical Lives of the Sophists was highly influential on later Neoplatonist philosophy. Based on a comprehensive study of manuscript tradition, this critical edition of Philostratus' history of the Greek sophists takes into account all major scholarly work on the text which has emerged since the last critical edition appeared in 1871. A detailed English preface provides the reader with the key information surrounding the independent witnesses used as a basis for the constitution of the text. Throughout the text, the volume's critical apparatus incorporates all relevant readings, as well as later emendations by modern scholars, and provides a clear and succinct presentation of all the textual variants. Also included is an apparatus fontium which identifies Philostratus' citations of older works, and an appendix containing the text of two declamations by the second-century sophist, Polemon, grounded in an exploration of all extant manuscripts and integrating all essential scholarly revisions made since the previous edition of Polemon published in 1873.

Rudolf S. Stefec is a former researcher at the Institut für Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik.