Aristides in Four Volumes: Panathenaic oration and In defence of oratory

Book excerpt: PUBLIUS AELIUS ARISTIDES (A.D. 117-180) was born at Hadriani in Mysia. Apparently wealthy, he was superbly educated. Among his teachers was Alexander of Cotiaeum, who later instructed Lucius Verus and the future emperor Marcus Aurelius. Aristides determined to become a professional orator at a time when Greek oratory was enjoying a renewed popularity. Early in his life his health began to fail, and his illnesses, partly real, partly imagined, often impeded, but never overcame his desire for success in his chosen career. Although at first a devotee of the healing god Sarapis, he later became a worshipper of Asclepius, at whose temple in Pergamum he spent two continuous years as an incubant and in whose cult he kept faith throughout most of his life. His stylistic abilities and his attempts at emulating the great Attic writers made him famous. He was on friendly terms with many of the most powerful figures of the province of Asia and with a number of high dignitaries of the Roman Empire. Fifty three separate works of his survive, among which are to be found criticisms of Plato, treatises on oratory, the source of the Nile, orations on provincial matters, prose hymns to various gods, the Panathenaic Oration and the speech To Rome. Of especial interest are the Sacred Tales, which provide through the narrative of his illnesses and his dreams over many years, a unique insight, particularly for psychoanalysts, into the psychopathology of a highly neurotic man of classical times.