The aim of the research is to trace the history of the concept of the “Second Sophistic”. This label is broadly assigned to an intellectual movement involving Greek-speaking intellectuals in the Roman Empire (50–250 A.D.), studied in first place by late 19th century philologists. The concept was previously defined for the first and only time by the Greek sophist Philostratus (170–244/9 A.D.) in the Lives of the Sophists which have long been used as a documentary source on the intellectual environment of the 1st–3rd centuries. Nevertheless, a comparison between the Philostratean Second Sophistic and modern periodization(s) shows that the continuum between the two is not linear. The project will provide answers to three interrelated research questions. (1) How did Philostratus define the intellectual movements of the Roman Empire? Did the previous intellectuals mentioned by him define themselves as “sophists” belonging to a unified movement? (2) How can we explain the frequent contestations of Philostratus’ presentation of the Second Sophistic in Late Antiquity and Byzantium? (3) To what extent can the modern periodization(s) of Greek literature be interpreted as a cultural construct? Emphasis will be put on the antagonism between German and French academic cultures in the late 19th century, since scholars from these two countries paid a great deal of attention to Greek sophists of the Roman Empire within wider debates about Antiquity and European national identities.