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When did the influence of the Second Sophistic movement begin to weaken?
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Sophist
Plato (center left) and Aristotle, detail from School of Athens, fresco by Raphael, 1508–11; in the Stanza della Segnatura, the Vatican. Plato is shown pointing to the heavens and the realm of forms, Aristotle to the earth and the realm of things.
The influence of the Second Sophistic movement began to weaken by the 3rd century CE. During this period, the movement's distinct impulse started to fade, and it eventually became indistinguishable within the broader stream of Greek literature.1
This decline was part of a larger shift in the intellectual life of the late empire, which was increasingly characterized by the fossilization of education based on rhetoric (paideia) and a growing emphasis on philosophical and religious polemical literature among both pagans and Christians.2