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CHAPTER 12 Architects of Competing Transcendental Visions In Late Antiquity G.W. BOWERSOCK By the early second century of the present era, intellectuals were well established in the corridors of power as the merchants of doctrines which could bring the temporal world into harmony with the ultimate order of things. In the preceding centuries of Rome's rise to power, philosophers and sages had often whispered in the ears of great generals and potentates. Pompey had his Theophanes and Augustus his Areius. The Stoics voiced their opposition to imperial rule and felt no less free than the neo-Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana to tell an emperor what he should be doing. But it is under Trajan in the early second century that we can see an attempt to consolidate and proclaim all this wisdom within the structure of imperial government. Dio Chrysostom's four treatises on the nature of kingship and the relation of the temporal ruler to the ideal were meant to be taken seriously by the government.' And that the emperor attended to the words of such a man, even if he did not always altogether comprehend them, is amply apparent in the amusing anecdote which Philostratus tells of Trajan and Dio riding together in a chariot. Trajan turns to the philosopher and says, "I know not what you are saying, but I love you as myself." 2 The impact of visions of the ideal king upon the ideology of the state can be seen in the panegyric which the younger Pliny addressed to the emperor Trajan in the year 100 C.E., when the occasion called for rhetoric: Pliny's tribute is an attempt to give worldly substance to the philosophic ideal of the optimus princeps. The Platonism of Plutarch entered, in the same period, into the mainstream of Roman government through Plutarch's own connections with the highest levels of Roman society.3 With men like Dio Chrysostom and Plu280 Competing Transcendental Visions in Late Antiquity 281 tarch, who can equally address the rulers and the subjects of the Roman Empire, the opportunity for imposing their visions of an ideal order upon the organization of the Empire was far greater than anything a Theophanes or an Apollonius had ever known. In looking at the so-called "secondary breakthrough" in the role of intellectuals during the period of late antiquity, it is important to go back to the second century, in which the institutional authority of intellectuals was crystallized. It is no accident that in less than two generations after Plutarch an avowed moralist and philosopher sat upon the throne of the Caesars. This was Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor who composed his Meditations in Greek and consorted respectfully with the most eminent professors of his day. If historians have struggled largely in vain to trace a connection between the philosophical reflections of this emperor and his conduct of public affairs, that is scarcely warrant for assuming that Marcus did not believe himself guided by the visions he took such care to publish; nor should it diminish the significance of the first appearance of a philosopher-ruler at Rome. As Peter Brown argued five years ago in his Harvard lectures, The Making ofLate Antiquity, many ofthe most important characteristics of late antiquity can be seen to have their origins in the second century.4 For the competition of transcendental visions in the institutional history of the Roman Empire, the second century is of paramount importance as a formative age. Quite apart from the more conspicuous individual figures, such as Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch , and Marcus Aurelius, the century saw an almost unlimited development of speculative thought which often brought the traditional philosophical systems (Platonism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Epicureanism ) into conflict with each other and, equally often, engendered hybrid systems which we attempt to identify by such terms as Middle Platonism, neo-Pythagoreanism, and so on. An acute observer of the scene, Lucian of Samosata, found all of this good material for satire in his essay "Philosophies for Sale," and he was able to parody with precision the influence of philosophers among highly placed persons in the society of the Empire in his work "On Hired Philosophers in the Houses of the Rich." In this period transcendental visions were not merely competing with each other: they were jostling for space. The early theorists of Christianity were also a part of this scene; and inasmuch as they were brought up on a diet of Graeco-Roman philosophy, it is scarcely surprising...

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