In the Philostratus trap: an enactive and embodied perspective on the Imagines and their enargeia

Abstract In his Imagines , Philostratus the Elder stages a scintillating play with several levels of representation and suggests that his verbal account can give the reader access to the pictures described and even the scenes depicted in the pictures. But does Philostratus actually immerse us in the paintings? This is a claim often made by scholars; however, an embodied and enactive analysis of the Imagines alerts us to various features that, instead of immersing us, highlight Philostratus’ rhetorical brilliance. The Imagines are not so much an ecphrasis in the sense of the Progymnasmata (that is, defined by enargeia ) as a meditation on their ecphrastic practice. In general, the reference to another representation endows the ecphrasis of artwork with a reflexivity that tends to push the goal of making the hearer see something in the background.