[151] προσωποποιΐα, for which see Theon. Progymnasmata, c. 10, ed. Spengel, vol. ii. 115: Quintil. 3. 8. 49; 9. 2. 29. The word ὑποκρίνεσθαι was sometimes applied, e.g. Philostr. V.S. 1. 21. 5, of Scopelianus, whose action in subjects taken from the Persian wars was so vehement that a partizan of one of his rivals accused him of beating a tambourine, “Yes, I do,” he said; “but my tambourine is the shield of Ajax.”
[152] “They made their voice sweet with musical cadences, and modulations of tone, and echoed resonances:” Plut. de aud. 7, p. 41. So at Rome Favorinus is said to have “charmed even those who did not know Greek by the sound of his voice, and the significance of his look, and the cadence of his sentences:” Philostr. V. S. 1. 7, p. 208.
[153] Orat. lix.
[154] Rohde, pp. 336 sqq.
[155] This trained habit of composing in different styles is of importance in relation to Christian as well as to non-Christian literature. A good study of the latter is afforded by Arrian, whose “chameleon-like style” (Kaibel, Dionysios von Halikarnass und die Sophistik, Hermes, Bd. xx. 1875, p. 508) imitates Thucydides, Herodotus, and Xenophon, by turns.
[156] Philostratus, V. S. 1. P. 202, τὴν ἀρχαίαν σοφιστικὴν ῥητορικὴν ἡγεῖσθαι χρὴ φιλοσοφοῦσαν. διαλέγεται μὲν γὰρ ὑπὲρ ὧν οἱ φιλοσοφοῦντες ἃ δὲ ἐκεῖνοι τὰς ἐρωτήσεις ὑποκαθήμενοι καὶ τὰ σμικρὰ τῶν ζητουμένων προβιβάζοντες οὔπω φασὶ γιγνώσκειν ταῦτα ὁ παλαιὸς σοφιστὴς ὡς εἰδὼς λέγει: ib. p. 4, σοφιστὰς δὲ οἱ παλαιοὶ ἐπωνόμαζον οὐ μόνον τῶν ῥητόρων τοὺς ὑπερφωνοῦντάς τε καὶ λαμπρούς, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν φιλοσόφων τοὺς ξὺν εὐροίᾳ ἑρμηνεύοντας.
[157] On the distinction, see Kayser’s preface to his editions of Philostratus, p. vii.
[158] Philostratus, V. S. 2. 3, p. 245, says that the famous sophist Aristocles lived the earlier part of his life as a Peripatetic philosopher, “squalid and unkempt and ill-clothed,” but that when he passed into the ranks of the sophists he brushed off his squalor, and brought luxury and the pleasures of music into his life. On the philosopher’s dress, see below, [Lecture VI. p. 151].
[159] Epictetus, Diss. 3. 21. 6; 3. 23. 6, 23, 28: so Pliny, Epist. 3. 18 (of invitations to recitations), “non per codicillos (cards of invitation), non per libellos (programmes, probably containing extracts), sed ‘si commodum esset,’ et ‘si valde vacaret’ admoniti.” Cf. Lucian, Hermotimus, 11, where a sophist is represented as hanging up a notice-board over his gateway, “No lecture to-day.”
[160] Philostratus, V.S. 2. 10. 5, says that the enthusiasm at Rome about the sophist Adrian was such that when his messenger (τοῦ τῆς ἀκροάσεως ἀγγέλου) appeared on the scene with a notice of lecture, the people rose up, whether from the senate or the circus, and flocked to the Athenæum to hear him. Synesius, Dio (in Dio Chrys. ed. Dind, vol. ii. 342), speaks of θυροκοπήσαντα καὶ ἐπαγγείλαντα τοῖς ἐv ἄστες μειρακίοις ἀκρόαμα ἐπιδέξιον.