To us, the first and second centuries mark different epochs. Whether in relation to the Christian or Roman worlds, this periodization is problematic. Even on a “rational” modern dating of c.85 CE, Acts in some areas may resonate as much with the second century as with the first. One such area is the burgeoning “Second Sophistic” This paper discerns strong classical elements as co-existing with Jewish and Christian, with the corollary that our author envisages pagan readers and listeners, as well as Jewish, Christian, and “God-fearing” Early Christian writings, including Luke-Acts, did make some impact upon second-century pagan writers, including the philosopher Celsus and the satirist Lucian (Cook 1993; König 2006: 230), hence upon their readers. But in the case of “political” texts, the modern periodization finds an ancient analogue: contemporaries contrasted Nerva's and Trajan's “new age” with Domitian's “tyranny” Thus in 100 Rome could be said to be at a cross-roads (Tacitus, Agr. 3.1; Pliny, Pan. 2.2–3; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.61). If, then, Acts actually belongs to the second century (specifically, I believe, to the first decade), this contextualization should be eloquent, alike in the contexts of the Second Sophistic, of Roman persecution, especially under Domitian (Lane Fox 2006: 433), and of Christianity's growth.

Scholarly responses to this most challenging speech fall into diverse categories:

1. Socles' speech is ‘incredibly inapt to the occasion’.

2. Herodotus is just using the occasion to tell stories.

3. The speech is a mélange of opposing political traditions: Athenian democratic, Corinthian anti-tyrant, Cypselid anti-Bacchiad and Panhellenic, the latter propagated by Delphi.

4. It exhibits the narrative leisureliness of inserted stories in Homer.

5. It is one of the main statements of Herodotus the tyrant-hater, or – more sophisticatedly – one of the main items in Herodotus’ tyrannical template/typology/model.

6. As contextualized, it serves more to prompt reflections about contemporary and recent history than to explain the historical situation of 504.

7. Its moralizing is unintelligent, because what really motivates states is self-interest, as largely applies to Sparta here, and the reinstatement of tyranny at Athens on this occasion would ultimately have entailed less destruction than the toleration of Athenian democracy.

8. Its emotive rhetoric aims to scare the audience into agreement.

9. The apparent inappropriateness of some of the material is only apparent and the oblique storytelling approach matches a tricky diplomatic situation.

Some of these views are diametrically opposed. Others differ only in degree. Some convict Herodotus of incompetence, others of literary opportunism. Some emphasize the oral Herodotus, others the written. Some see the speech as detached from its context, others as fully contextualized. Some are free-standing, others combinable.

In his later poetry, Horace himself spins a narrative about these controversial topics. Poetry can be 'useful', 'delightful', or both (Ars Poetica 333-4). It has 'useful' ethical functions (Epistles 2.1.126-31). Writing 'well' (technically and morally) requires 'wisdom' sourced from Socratic and Platonic philosophy (Ars Poetica 309-22): Socratic writings provide the poet’s basic material; life is like a drama, but different social roles have appropriately different 'duties', 'parts' and 'characters'. Here the poetic representation combines the 'is' and the 'ought', and traditional Peripatetic literary theory is overwritten by the moral relativism of the Stoic philosopher Panaetius (who greatly influenced late Republican Roman philosophy). 'Philosophy', both in its broadest sense and in the narrow sense of specific philosophies, informs Horace’s own poetry.

Epistles 2.2.57-60 itemises Horace’s range:

The Satires

Horace has written ‘lyric’, ‘iambics’ and ‘conversations’ (= ‘satires’). Why the emphasis on Bion, the largely Cynic (‘doggish’) philosopher?

The Satires parade numerous satiric predecessors, models and exemplars without naming Bion, but Horace here advertises his reading of Bion: ‘black salt’ refers both to the salt fish sold by Bion’s father and to Bion’s ‘abrasive’ wit. ‘Conversations’ glosses ‘diatribes’, or ‘informal philosophical talks’, a form associated with Bion The Roman satirist Lucilius ‘rubbed the city down with much salt’ (Satires 1.10.4) and was ‘of wiped [keen] nose’ (1.4.8), just as Bion’s father ‘wiped his nose with his elbow’ Lucilius is Horace’s ‘satirical father’.

Scholars disagree over the philosophical and political aspects of Epistles 1. While earlier generations (represented by Heinze, Courbaud and Fraenkel) talked freely of ‘philosophical conversion’ and Macleod, Kilpatrick, Ferri and Harrison still see the book as philosophical, Williams, Mayer and Rudd deny it even formal philosophical status, although both Rudd and Mayer project Horace as a moralist. Similarly, where Williams and Mayer see unequivocal praise of Augustus and Maecenas, Seager, Lyne and Oliensis detect disengagement, even disaffection. These questions entail general questions about Roman poetry: the relationships between literature and life, between persona and person, between literature and politics and between poet, patron and addressee.

This chapter argues that the Epistles are both formally and profoundly philosophical; that the philosophical and political interrelate; and that the poems express some tensions, ambiguities and reservations in Horace's attitudes both to public life and to Maecenas and Augustus, tensions which inform a wide-ranging and radical debate about the pros and cons of engagement in, or withdrawal from, that public life.

PHILOSOPHICAL POETRY

The Cynics had no ideals of their own and assumed the worst of everybody else; hence the modern usages ‘cynic’ and ‘cynical’.

Among non–classicists today these are perhaps the two dominant, although contradictory, images of Cynicism. The first projects Diogenes’ behaviour, which some might regard as merely loutish, as illustrating a truly admirable independence of spirit; indeed, some versions add that Alexander delightedly exclaimed: ‘Had I not been Alexander, I would have wished to be Diogenes’ (Plu. Alex. 14. 5; D.L. VI. 32). The second projects the Cynics as, if not positively immoral, at least unpleasantly amoral. Neither seems to encourage claims that the Cynics made an important contribution to ancient political thought, and the contradiction between the two is but a pale reflection of the many difficulties involved in the attempt to uncover a true picture of Cynicism. Any assessment, therefore, of the Cynic contribution must begin by resolving these difficulties.