The
Second Sophistic is a literary-historical term referring to the
Greek writers who flourished from the reign of
Nero until c. 230 AD and who were catalogued and celebrated by
Philostratus in his
Lives of the Sophists (481). However, some recent research has indicated that this Second Sophistic, which was previously thought to have very suddenly and abruptly appeared in the late 1st century, actually had its roots in the early 1st century. It was followed in the 5th century by the philosophy of
Byzantine rhetoric, sometimes referred to as the "Third Sophistic."