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PREFACE

This volume consists of ten substantially revised and updated essays and five previously unpublished. I am immensely grateful to the original editors and publishers, all of whom have graciously permitted republication. It would be tedious, even if it were possible, to list all who deserve thanks for shaping the ideas in here, but at the risk of invidious omission let me record that my ideas about the Second Sophistic and its limitations have been formatively shaped by discussions with Jaś Elsner, Simon Goldhill, Constanze Güthenke, Brooke Holmes, Richard Hunter, Larry Kim, Helen Morales, Dan Selden, and Froma Zeitlin. I owe a huge debt also to those who have offered me the opportunity for discussion of these ideas in variously inchoate forms, among them Eran Almagor, Alain Billault, Peter Bing, Barbara Borg, Bracht Branham, Jésus Carruesco, Honora Chapman, Katharine Earnshaw, Marco Fernandelli, Tom Habinek, Owen Hodkinson, Marko Marinčič, Emeline Marquis, Francesca Mestre, Teresa Morgan, Maren Niehoff, Michael Paschalis, Jim Porter, Jonathan Price, Tessa Rajak, Zuleika Rodgers, Kim Ryholt, Thomas Schmitz, Eva Subias, Ruth Webb, and Nicolas Wiater. My wonderful friends and colleagues at Corpus Christi College—Ewen Bowie, Ursula Coope, Jaś Elsner (again), Peter Haarer, Stephen Harrison, John Ma, Anna Marmodoro, Neil McLynn, and Tobias Reinhardt—have been an ever-present source of inspiration and advice both intellectual and practical during the shaping of this project. I am also indebted to a number of my former colleagues at the University of Exeter (where I worked for the years 2001–7), especially Chris Gill, Rebecca Langlands, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, and John Wilkins: without their support, tolerance of crude experimentation, and tough quizzing the ideas in this book would never have made it to this stage. Erich Gruen, Fergus Millar, Thomas Schmitz, and Stephanie West have saved me from various egregious misprisions, although others will surely remain. Special thanks to my amazingly patient and forgiving parents (Judy and Guy) and children (India and Soli); this book is for them all.

All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are my own.