Letter of Philostratus to Longinus Donald Russell; Preface and bibliography of Ewen Bowie Stephen Harrison and Simon Swain; Introduction Simon Swain; Part I. Literature and Culture: 1. Prose literature and the Severan dynasty Tim Whitmarsh; 2. Severan historiography: evidence, patterns and arguments Harry Sidebottom; 3. The worlds of Nestor the Poet John Ma; 4. Sex lives of the sophists: epigrams by Philostratus and Fronto Gideon Nisbet; 5. The Cynegetica attributed to Oppian Mary Whitby; 6. Greek athletics in the Severan period: literary views Jason König; 7. Heracles, Prometheus, and the play of genres in [Lucian]'s Amores Judith Mossman; 8. Allegory and narrative in Heliodorus Glenn Most; 9. Polyphony or Babel? Hosidius Geta's Medea and the poetics of the cento Philip Hardie; 10. Unfair to Caecilius? Ciceronian dialogue techniques in Minucius Felix Jonathan Powell; 11. Cyprian's Ad Donatum Michael Winterbottom; Part II. Art and Architecture: 12. Art at the crossroads? Themes and style in Severan art Zahra Newby; 13. Landscape, transformation and divine epiphany Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis; 14. Urbanism in the Severan empire Andrew Wilson; 15. Metaphor and identity in Severan architecture: the Septizodium at Rome between 'reality' and 'fantasy' Edmund Thomas; 16. Visibility and viewing on the Severan Marble Plan Jennifer Trimble; 17. Septimius Severus: the Augustan Emperor Alison Cooley; Part III. Religion and Philosophy: 18. Severan Christianity Mark Edwards; 19. Almsgiving for the pure of heart: continuity and change in early Christian teaching Richard Finn; 20. Tertullian on flesh, spirit and wives Catherine Conybeare; 21. Sophists and rabbis: Jews and their past in the Severan age Joseph Geiger; 22. Trouble in Snake-Town: interpreting an oracle from Hierapolis-Pamukkale Ian Rutherford; 23. Magic in the Severan period Daniel Ogden; 24. Philosophy, scholarship and the world of learning in the Severan period Michael Trapp; 25. Human autonomy and divine revelation in Origen George Boys-Stones; 26. Socrates in Christian and pagan writers of the Severan era Christopher Taylor.