We find the practitioners of the Second Sophistic and their successors producing the same kinds of
rhetorical displays in the cities of the Roman Empire hundreds of years after the age of Gorgias and the
earlier sophists. These displays took the form of impersonation either of historical figures from the
Classical Period or of mythical characters (for example, a fourth-century speech in which Orestes
justifies his murder of his mother). But these were not the only ways in which Greek orators of the Roman
period displayed their skills. There was a constant need for their services in providing impressive
speeches for the many public ceremonial occasions that arose, like funeral orations for members of the
emperor's household or speeches welcoming Roman officials on state visits. Also, since many aspects of
the life of the polis continued unchanged under Roman rule, orators were in demand as they had been for
centuries for such local performances as a speech commemorating the dedication of a temple or praising a
home-town athlete who had won a prize at the Panhellenic games. The implied continuity between the
Classical past and the Roman present is the key to the success of this new breed of sophists: By
persuading themselves and their audiences that they were in no way different from their Classical
forebears, they made it possible for them and their contemporaries to imagine that nothing had changed,
that the Greeks were just as much in control of their own circumstances as they were in the age of
Pericles. The popularity and the articulateness of these orators encouraged the Roman authorities to put
them to use as spokesmen for official policy, particularly in the eastern half of the empire. For, as a result
of its historical development, the Roman Empire was divided along “cultural” lines into two distinct
halves, with the dividing-line running north and south somewhere between Greece and Italy; in the
western half of the empire the Latin language and Roman culture had been adopted by peoples whom the
Romans regarded as less civilized than themselves, whereas Greek language and culture were established
in the eastern half long before the Romans assumed authority. Even in the west, however, there remained
pockets of Greek language and culture, in cities like Naples, Syracuse, and Marseille that had been
founded by the Greeks in the Archaic Period and in which populations of native Greek-speakers retained
their Greek identity.

A Greek Writing about Romans and a Roman Writing in Greek

During the Hellenistic Period, the most noticeable split in the Greek world was between the cities, which
were the centers of Hellenism, and the less urbanized areas, which preserved the language and culture of
the indigenous populations. These indigenous languages and cultures could be treated with condescension
or even ignored by the Greeks and by those who sought the prestige that Greek culture was thought to
confer. Now, however, there were two cultures that could claim equal status and prestige, the culture of
Rome in the west and that of Greece in the east. Anyone who wished to be taken seriously as an
intellectual and anyone who wished to be well informed with regard to the latest developments in the
world of ideas needed to be conversant with both cultures.

We can see this most clearly, perhaps, in the lives and writings of two very different men, one Greek and
one Roman. Plutarch, who lived from about AD 45 until about AD 120, spent most of his life in the small
town in central Greece where he was born. Marcus Aurelius (AD 121–180) was born in Rome at about
the time of Plutarch's death and became the ruler of the Roman Empire before he reached the age of 40.
Both men received the best education available in rhetoric and philosophy, Plutarch primarily at Plato's
Academy in Athens and Marcus in Rome. Plutarch devoted his life to literature and philosophy, writing
numerous works, most of which survive, on a great variety of subjects; Marcus' duties as Roman emperor
prevented him from writing and studying as much as he would have liked, but he left behind one important
work, written not in Latin but in Greek. The background and outlook of Plutarch and Marcus were clearly
quite different, but they shared a deep and abiding commitment to the literary, intellectual, and cultural