Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/420

 396 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE (46-120 A.D.) wrote his immortal Lives, perhaps the most widely and permanently attractive work by one author known to the world, and the scarcely less interesting mass of treatises which are quoted under the general name of Moralia. . He was no scientific historian, and the value of his statements depends entirely on the authorities he chances to follow ; but he had a gift of sympathy, and a power of seeing what was interesting. As a thinker he is fundamentally a bon bourgeois, and has his obvious limitations ; but he is one of the most tactful and charming writers, and one of the most lovable characters, in antiquity. In pure literature or 'sophistic' we have many names. Dion Chrysostomus, Herodes Atticus, and Aristides are mere stylists, and that only in the sense that they can write very fair stuff in a language remarkably resembling that of Demosthenes or Plato. The Philostrati are more interesting, both as a peculiarly gifted family, and for the subjects of their work. There were four of them. Of the first we have only a dialogue about Nero and the Corinthian Canal. Of the second we have the admirable Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the Neo-Pythagorean saint and philosopher who maintained a short-lived concur- rence with the founder of Christianity; also a treatise on Gymnastic, and some love-letters. Of the third and fourth we have a peculiar series of * Eikones' (Pictures), descriptions of works of art in elaborate poetical prose. They are curious and very skilful as literature, and are valued by archaeologists as giving evidence about real paintings. The description of pictures was a recognised form of sophistic, which flourished especially at the revival of art under the Antonines, and lasted on to the days of Longus and Achilles Tatius.