PHILOSTRATUS AND EUNAPIUS. (a) Of the distinguished Lemnian family of Philostrati, Flavius Philostratus, 'the Athenian', was a Greek sophist (professor), c. A.D. 170-205, who studied at Athens and later lived in Rome. He was author of the admirable Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Loeb Nos. 16 and 17) and Lives of the Sophists (which are really impressions of investigators alert but less fond of scientific method and discovery than of stylish presentation or things known), one part concerning some older, the other some later 'provessors'. Other extant works of this Philostratus are Letters and Gymnasticus, but the Heroicus or Heroica is apparently by another Philostratus, and the Eikones (Imagines, skilful descriptions of pictures, Loeb No. 256) were probably by two Philostrati, on being the son of Nervianus and born c. A.D. 190, the other his grandson who wrote c. AD. 300. (b) The Greek Sophist and historian Eunapius was born at Sardis in A.D. 347, but went to Athens to study and lived much of his life there teaching rhetoric and possibly medicine. He was initiated into the 'mysteries' and was hostile to Christians. Lost is his historical work (covering the years A.D. 270-404) but for excerpts and the use of it made by Zosimmus, but we have his Lives of Philosophers and Sophists mainly contemporary whth himself. Eunapius is our only source of our knowledge of Neo-Platonism in the latter part of the fourth century A.D.

PHILOSTRATUS AND EUNAPIUS. (a) Of the distinguished Lemnian family of Philostrati, Flavius Philostratus, 'the Athenian', was a Greek sophist (professor), c. A.D. 170-205, who studied at Athens and later lived in Rome. He was author of the admirable Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Loeb Nos. 16 and 17) and Lives of the Sophists (which are really impressions of investigators alert but less fond of scientific method and discovery than of stylish presentation or things known), one part concerning some older, the other some later 'provessors'. Other extant works of this Philostratus are Letters and Gymnasticus, but the Heroicus or Heroica is apparently by another Philostratus, and the Eikones (Imagines, skilful descriptions of pictures, Loeb No. 256) were probably by two Philostrati, on being the son of Nervianus and born c. A.D. 190, the other his grandson who wrote c. AD. 300. (b) The Greek Sophist and historian Eunapius was born at Sardis in A.D. 347, but went to Athens to study and lived much of his life there teaching rhetoric and possibly medicine. He was initiated into the 'mysteries' and was hostile to Christians. Lost is his historical work (covering the years A.D. 270-404) but for excerpts and the use of it made by Zosimmus, but we have his Lives of Philosophers and Sophists mainly contemporary whth himself. Eunapius is our only source of our knowledge of Neo-Platonism in the latter part of the fourth century A.D.

Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (c. 170/172 - 247/250), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probably around 172, and is said by the Suda to have been living in the reign of emperor Philip the Arab (244-249). His death possibly occurred in Tyre c. 250 AD.Lives of the Sophists, written between 231 and 237 AD, is a semi-biographical history of the Greek sophists. The book is dedicated to a consul Antonius Gordianus, perhaps one of the two Gordians who were killed in 238. The work is divided into two parts: the first dealing with the ancient Sophists, e.g. Gorgias, the second with the later school, e.g. Herodes Atticus. The Lives are not in the true sense biographical, but rather picturesque impressions of leading representatives of an attitude of mind full of curiosity, alert and versatile, but lacking scientific method, preferring the external excellence of style and manner to the solid achievements of serious writing. The philosopher, as he says, investigates truth; the sophist embellishes it, and takes it for granted.

This book examines the role of social networks in the formation of identity among sophists, philosophers and Christians in the early Roman Empire. Membership in each category was established and evaluated socially as well as discursively. From clashes over admission to classrooms and communion to construction of the group's history, integration into the social fabric of the community served as both an index of identity and a medium through which contests over status and authority were conducted. The juxtaposition of patterns of belonging in Second Sophistic and early Christian circles reveals a shared repertoire of technologies of self-definition, authorization and institutionalization and shows how each group manipulated and adapted those strategies to its own needs. This approach provides a more rounded view of the Second Sophistic and places the early Christian formation of 'orthodoxy' in a fresh context.