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Aelius Aristides

Aelius Aristides

c. 117 CE–c. 181 CE · Smyrna

Aelius Aristides was a Greek orator and one of the foremost figures of the cultural movement known as the Second Sophistic, active in the 2nd century CE and associated with Smyrna. He left a large body of polished speeches, including praises of cities and gods, and the unusual 'Sacred Tales,' a personal record of his illnesses and the dreams and healing he attributed to the god Asclepius. His orations were admired and imitated for centuries.

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SmyrnaIonia (Asia Minor)

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

About Smyrna

Smyrna, modern İzmir on the Aegean coast of Turkey, was a leading Ionian Greek polis and a major center of rhetoric and learning under Rome. The sophist Marcus Antonius Polemon taught there, the orator Aelius Aristides was closely associated with the city, and it was one of several places claiming to be the birthplace of Homer. The mathematician Theon of Smyrna and the epic poet Quintus Smyrnaeus take their names from it.

In Smyrna at the same time

Theon Smyrnaeus, Marcus Antonius Polemon, Galen

Across the traditions, in Smyrna at the same time

See other sages who lived in Smyrna→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Aelius Aristides’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Aelius Aristides’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(56)