ABSTRACT
To Philostratean scholars little enough is certain, not least the biographer's own assertions of certainty, seldom less positive than those of his sophistic forebears. Even the ascription of works among the Philostrati remains only a matter of attractive possibility, like so much else. Yet we have a picture of the Athenian Philostratus which is at least clear in outline, however uncertain the details. 2 It throws as much light on the author and his interests as it does on his subjects. He does convey his own complacent, even arrogant, enthusiasm for the Second Sophistic, as well as that of its practitioners. Here we have a sophist to whom Nero at the Isthmus, Apollonius among the gymnosophists or an athlete consulting the ghost of Protesilaus is close to the real world of cities and emperors; and his subjects are neatly presented in conformity with his narrow world-picture. The result is a number of serious distortions more easily identified than corrected. The apparent re-emergence of Damis should restrain us from ascribing every problem to Philostratus' fabrication. But we have still to recognise that the biographer is dominated by literary reflexes which distort his view of this task as well as his subject-matter, and there is often no way of determining when biography gives way to belles-lettres.
