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date: 08 March 2021

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter covers pagan and early Christian authors of the period 50–250 ce, known as the “second sophistic.” The first section focuses on the Certamen, Athenaeus and Plutarch, considering their revisions of Hesiodic wisdom and the contemporary forms of scholarship on his poems. The second section uses Lucian to showcase “Hesiod parodied” before discussing Aelian, Babrius, and the Sibylline Oracles. Points treated include the cross-referencing of Hesiodic poems and the dominance of certain Hesiodic passages, such as Hesiod’s initiation by the Muses, the “Two Roads,” and the “Myth of the Races,” in appropriations of Hesiod for new (especially rhetorical) projects. Finally, “Hesiod assaulted” is discussed in view of the Christian apologists, in particular Clement of Alexandria and Theophilus, who attacked Hesiod’s inconsistency and immorality but, like Lucian, co-opted aspects of his narratives into their own.

Keywords: Certamen, Athenaeus, Plutarch, Lucian, Sibylline Oracles, Clement of Alexandria, Theophilus, Muses, Two Roads, Myth of the Races

Helen van Noorden

Helen Van Noorden is the Wrigley Fellow and senior lecturer in classics at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Classics. Her undergraduate and graduate degrees come from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and she held a junior research fellowship at Clare College. She is the author of Playing Hesiod: The “Myth of the Races” in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and her publications continue to explore ancient legacies of Homeric and Hesiodic epic, especially Hellenistic and later didactic literature, philosophy, and “apocalyptic” writing. She is currently occupied with the later Sibylline Oracles and is coediting a large volume on eschatology in antiquity. Broader research interests include cultural interaction and concepts of authorship in antiquity.

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