Abstract

It is almost a quarter of a century since this reviewer could observe that "Not another book on Philostratus!" was a cry unheard in Classical scholarship. Since then, one further general monograph by Alain Billault appeared in 2000. Now at last Bowie and Elsner have assembled a sixteen-strong team to take on this many-faceted author. The reasons that have deterred large-scale study are clear enough: the hitherto persistent problems of identifying the author among up to four Philostrati and the spread of expertise necessary to face an author who can apply his sophistic talents to subjects as disparate as a Flavian holy man, the problems of third-century gymnastics, and the phenomenon he himself treacherously termed the Second Sophistic. The editors have rightly allowed their contributors to avoid the problem of attribution; safety in numbers provides the necessary spread of specializations.