APOLLONIUS OF TYANA BOOK V-VIII

PHILOSTRATUS,

ISBN 10: 0674996143 / ISBN 13: 9780674996144

Published by Harvard University Press, 2005

About this Item

Seller Inventory # NW9780674996144

Bibliographic Details

• Title: APOLLONIUS OF TYANA BOOK V-VIII
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674996143
• ISBN 13: 9780674996144
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: NEW

About this title

Synopsis

The life and miracles of a pagan holy man.

This biography of a first-century AD holy man has become one of the most widely discussed literary works of later antiquity. In a grandly baroque style style Philostratus portrays a charismatic teacher and religious reformer from Tyana in Cappadocia (modern central Turkey) who travels the length of the known world, from the Atlantic to the river Ganges. His miracles, which include extraordinary cures and mysterious disappearances, together with his apparent triumph over death, caused pagans to make Apollonius a rival to Jesus of Nazareth.

In his three-volume Loeb edition of this third-century work, Christopher Jones gives a much improved Greek text and an elegant translation with full explanatory notes. The Life of Apollonius is formally a biography (by far the longest that survives from antiquity), but in reality a combination of travel narrative, rhetorical showpiece, and much else. In the introduction, Jones addresses the question of how far the Life is history and how far fiction. He also discusses the survival and reception of the work through Late Antiquity and up to modern times, and the role that it continues to play in controversies about Christianity.

About the Author

Christopher P. Jones is George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics and of History, Emeritus, at Harvard University.