A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

Chapter Three: Free Speech in the Classical World
1 This is Themistius’ Oration 5. It is to be found, with commentary, in Heather
and Moncur, Chapter Three. The ancient post of consul, held by two men for a
year, was the most senior of the magistracies, and emperors would use it to boost
either their own status or that of senior officials they wished to honour.
2 The quotation comes from Book III:43 of Thucydides, The Peloponnesian
War, Rex Warner translation, Harmondsworth, 1954.
3 Aristotle, the opening sentence of his Metaphysics (I.1.980a21—7). The
opening paragraphs of the Metaphysics are often quoted as the direct opposite of
the view put forward many centuries later by Augustine that curiosity is ‘a
disease’. Aristotle’s view was championed by Thomas Aquinas, who sought to
bring the power of reason and delight in learning back into European thought.
See further Chapter Fourteen.
4 See Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience and The Revolutions of Wisdom, for
studies in the evolution of Greek philosophy and science.
5 Geoffrey Lloyd. In one of his more recent studies, Ancient Worlds, Modern
Reflections, Lloyd shows how in China in these same centuries, the state was, in
the last resort, the only employer of intellectuals and thus there was a premium
on conformity.
6 See ‘Rhetoric’ in Brunschwig and Lloyd, pp.465—85. The quotation from
Gorgias is on p.474.
7 Aristotle, Metaphysics II. 1. 993a0—34.
8 See Bobzien for an excellent example of how debates within Stoicism
remained at a high level.
9 Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes, 2.2.7. Quoted in Snyder, p.93. This is an
excellent introduction to the issue discussed here.
10 These are well covered in Ehrman.
11 Quoted in Grafton and Williams, p.63.
12 For the following discussion of Porphyry and Lactantius I have drawn heavily