In Praise of Asclepius: Aelius Aristides, Selected Prose Hymns

In Praise of Asclepius: Aelius Aristides, Selected Prose Hymns 

Introduction, Text, Translation and Interpretative Essays by Christian Brockmann, Milena Melfi, Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, Robert Parker, Donald A. Russell, Florian Steger, Michael Trapp. Ed.by Donald A. Russell, Michael Trapp, and Heinz-Günther Nesselra

[Ein Loblied auf Asklepios. Aelius Aristides, Ausgewählte Prosahymnen.]

2016. X, 164 pages.

Scripta Antiquitatis Posterioris ad Ethicam REligionemque pertinentia XXIX

eBook PDF

ISBN 978-3-16-156426-0

DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-156426-0

Open Access: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Sponsored by: Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen

In the middle decades of the second century AD the acclaimed orator Aelius Aristides wrote a number of prose hymns to traditional Greek gods and thereby demonstrated that the cults of these gods had not yet become obsolete and were more than just a topic of backward-looking paideia. This volume presents four of these texts, specifically those that focus on the god of healing, Asclepius, together with a new edition of the Greek text, a new English translation with commentary, and a number of essays shedding additional light on these texts from various perspectives. All in all, the volume wants to show how in these texts of Aristides the author's rhetorical skills, his outlook on the world and his personal religiosity come together to form a remarkable whole.