The essays in this volume explore various aspects of late Hellenistic Greek literature, with the concept of dialogue taking centre stage as both an interpretative lens and a thematic focus. Each chapter goes beyond interpreting individual authors, offering multiple perspectives on how literary works interact with one another and with their broader cultural and historical contexts.
The introduction addresses the challenge of periodization, which often artificially separates the Hellenistic period from the subsequent Roman Imperial era. As highlighted by scholars like Tim Whitmarsh (‘Greece: Hellenistic and early imperial continuities’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic (Oxford 2017) 11–24) and Angelos Chaniotis (Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian (Cambridge MA 2018)), this division is more porous than traditionally understood. While the editors emphasize continuity, sometimes minimizing historical and political events, they compellingly argue against viewing the Battle of Actium and the end of the Roman civil war (31–30 BCE) as a strict divide between the Hellenistic and Imperial ages, especially from the Greek perspective.
Another key issue is the nature of surviving sources, which can create a false sense of discontinuity where, in reality, there is more continuity than previously believed. The essays focus on texts, including inscriptions, from the second century BCE to the first century CE, spanning from Polybius to Strabo, and engage in dialogue with later Imperial texts up to the early third century CE. This framework captures a wide spectrum of literary forms and functions, acknowledging the volume’s understandable aim not to offer a comprehensive discussion of late Hellenistic literature. The dialogic approach surpasses traditional genre boundaries, emphasizing the importance of examining authors such as Polybius and Strabo as more than, respectively, just a historian and a geographer.
While the chapters lack thematic division, the first five concentrate on space, landscape and empire. Nicolas Wiater highlights Polybius’ innovative metaphor of the body of empire, which anticipates Cicero’s corpus rei publicae and Ovid’s corpus imperii. Thomas A. Schmitz examines the presentation of geographical data in the epigrams collected in the Garland of Philip, exploring the tension between local and global perspectives. The absence of explicit historical contexts in most of these epigrams poses several difficulties, but the author demonstrates that these epigrams reveal a mental map of the known world. Mario Baumann compares Diodorus’ description of the Red Sea with Philostratus’ Imagines 2.17, noting similar ekphrastic technique, but also a contrast between Diodorus’ bookish description and Philostratus’ artificial orality. Jason König discusses the celebratory attitude towards landscape alterations in late Hellenistic and Augustan literature, particularly in Diodorus’ Library and Strabo’s Geography. Benjamin Gray contrasts the cosmopolitan and local views of Polybius, Diodorus and Strabo with the inscribed civic documents of late Hellenistic cities, arguing convincingly that these epigraphic texts can fruitfully be considered literature.
The following chapters, though harder to categorize thematically, remain equally stimulating. Emma Greensmith delves into the anti-Homeric tirade in the third book of the Sibylline Oracles, where the Sibyl’s Jewish identity triumphs over her epic rival—the only chapter that offers an extended consideration of Greek literature in a Jewish context, apart from Simon Goldhill’s conclusions. Joy Connolly examines the idea of Athens through Cicero’s De finibus, reflecting on Hellenistic literature from a Roman perspective, and drawing parallels with contemporary identity-politics debates, underscoring one of Goldhill’s key points about the relevance of the ancient world to modern concerns. Myrto Hatzimichali re-examines Strabo, considering him not merely a geographer but a philosopher and cultural historian, offering stimulating insights into cultural dynamics and migration patterns. Felix K. Maier investigates the concept of contingency in historical narratives, illustrating how Plutarch uses sideshadowing to represent history as a series of possibilities rather than a predetermined sequence of events, building on narrative strategies from Polybius to present a subtle view of history’s undetermined nature.
Lawrence Kim’s comprehensive chapter examines the similarities and, more importantly, the stylistic differences between Hellenistic and Imperial sophistic oratory and the Classical or classicizing oratory of authors such as Lysias, Demosthenes and Dio of Prusa. Dio of Prusa’s On Training for Public Speaking is analysed in Casper C. de Jonge’s chapter alongside Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ On Imitation: he argues, contrary to some scholars, that their reading lists differ significantly.
In his concluding chapter, Goldhill draws together the various threads emerging throughout the collection, which are sometimes loosely linked by the overarching theme of dialogue. Goldhill’s chapter stands out for its comprehensive perspective on Greece and Rome, past and present, global and local, while also fruitfully considering the interplay between literature, culture and politics. If one had to choose just one chapter of this book, it would be Goldhill’s, but after reading his Envoi, many readers may find themselves eager to explore the rest of the volume. Scholars of Greek history, literature and culture will find this book a stimulating resource that challenges conceptual boundaries and enhances understanding of this complex period.
