Gowing, Alain MJones, Brandon2015-09-292015-09-292015Jones_washington_0250E_14697.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/1773/33678Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2015This study is about the construction of identity and self-promotion of status by means of elite education during the first and second centuries CE, a cultural and historical period termed by many as the Second Sophistic. Though the Second Sophistic has traditionally been treated as a Greek cultural movement, individual Romans also viewed engagement with a past, Greek or otherwise, as a way of displaying education and authority, and, thereby, of promoting status. Readings of the work of Quintilian, Tacitus and Pliny, first- and second-century Latin prose authors, reveal a remarkable engagement with the methodologies and motivations employed by their Greek contemporaries—Dio of Prusa, Plutarch, Lucian and Philostratus, most particularly. The first two chapters of this study illustrate and explain the centrality of Greek in the Roman educational system. The final three chapters focus on Roman displays of that acquired Greek paideia in language, literature and oratory, respectively. As these chapters demonstrate, the social practices of paideia and their deployment were a multi-cultural phenomenon.application/pdfen-USCopyright is held by the individual authors.Classical studiesAncient languagesAncient historyclassical languages and literatureThesis