Il logos Eleusinios di P. Aelius Aristides tra l'Attica e l'Asia: cronologia, contesto storicco e significato politico

This study investigates the relationship between P. Aelius Aristides’ speech on Eleusis (or. xxii Keil) and the Costobocs’ raid into Greece, with the sacking of the sanctuary of Eleusis, which occurred under Marcus Aurelius. Analysis of the biographical data contained in the subscriptio allows us to date the speech to early September 171 AD. At the end of his oration, Aristides appeals to the ‘Greeks’ (Hellenes) to provide military aid in defence of Athens, still threatened by barbarians: the speech would have been delivered in the political context of a federal assembly of the koinon of the Greeks of the province Asia, held in the bouleuterion of Smyrna, perhaps in the presence of the proconsul of Asia, M. Nonius Macrinus.