ABSTRACT
The article explores Marcus Aurelius’ attitudes to Greek poets and sophists. His philosophical Meditations express contempt for poetry and rhetoric, but like the Roman governing class as a whole, Marcus had great respect for the world of Greek culture in which poets and sophists were leading figures. It is noted that Marcus probably knew and may have had to approve Marcellus’ poems for Herodes Atticus, inscribed ca. 160 near the Via Appia outside Rome, and perhaps the anonymous elegiacs for Herodes’ return to Marathon from exile; and that ca. 177-180 Oppian dedicated his Halieutica to Marcus and Commodus, though to what effect is unknown. As to sophists, a youthful letter to Fronto preserves a scathing assessment of Polemo’s style; later another urges restraint in Fronto’s prosecution of Marcus’ former teacher Herodes. But in ca. 176 Marcus did not delegate the appointment to the new imperial chair of rhetoric in Athens to Herodes, and his own choice of Theodotus may be due to youthful infatuation attested in the Meditations. This appointment, together with the rewards, privileges and positions conferred on several sophists registered in Philostratus’ Lives (in the case of Alexander of Seleucia, ab epistulis graecis), suggest that Marcus made informed judgements about sophists’ skills and enjoyed hearing top performers like Hermogenes and Aelius Aristides, the latter of whom subsequently appealed to him successfully to help earthquake-devastated Smyrna.
