In 163 Galen gave an anatomy lesson in Rome before an audience that included ‘Demetrius of Alexandria, a friend of Favorinus, who was every day speakingin public on themes proposed to him, in the style and manner of Favorinus’.

An inscription found in the theatre of Hierapolisin Phrygia and recently published is of interest both in itself and because it may help to elucidate a passage of Arrian′sDiscourses of Epictetos.

Among the works of Aelius Aristides is preserved an address to an unnamed ‘king’. The prevailing view in this century has been that it is addressed to a third-century emperor, and was attributed to Aristides in error. In an article published in 1972 , 134–52), I argued that the speech was genuine, and was delivered by Aristides in 144 before Antoninus Pius. In a recent article in this journal , 172–97), Stephen A. Stertz has undertaken to rebut this view, and (...) advances a novel one: the speech is a school exercise written in the third or perhaps the fourth century, and does not refer to any particular ‘king’, not even necessarily a Roman emperor. Rather than attempt to answer all of Stertz's arguments, I have selected as samples one each from several diverse fields. Manuscript tradition. In his first paragraph, Stertz suggests that the manuscript tradition of the Eis basilea itself impugns its authenticity. ‘The oration is entitled єς βασιλέα in three manuscripts and єς τόν ατοκρτορα in another. It has been pointed out that in the former group of manuscripts the title is not preceded by the words ριστεδου λόγος, thus casting doubt on Aristidean authorship' . The accompanying footnote refers to Keil's apparatus ad loc, and the reader might infer that this argument is borrowed from Aristides’ foremost editor. What Keil said was: ‘Titulus ες βασιλα STC : єς τòν ατοκρτορα U et in indice D m recentiss.’. (shrink)

Among the works of Aelius Aristides is preserved one entitled the Rhodian It concerns an earthquake which has recently struck the city of Rhodes, and since Keil's edition of 1898 it has usually been considered spurious. The work reproduces a true speech, not something like an open letter: the clearest sign is when the author uses the deictic pronoun τοετ, ‘this here’, of the place in which he is speaking . One question is best discussed at the outset, since later (...) it will prove vital to the question of authenticity: does the speaker claim to have been in Rhodes at the moment of the earthquake? Keil assumed without argument that he does. He had clearly visited the city before the disaster as well as after it , but despite the vividness of his descriptions he nowhere says that he was present, and this reticence surely implies that he was not; and if he had been it is odd that he should talk of ‘the actual climax of the thing that befell you’ , using the second person plural. I infer that the speaker had not been present, but gave the speech several months after the event ; in the last part of this paper I will argue that he is Aristides, stopping at Rhodes on his wayback from Egypt to Smyrna in or about 142. (shrink)