History Part II: Paper 9 = Classics Part II Paper C3 [2017-18]
Course Directors: Dr J.R. Patterson ([email protected]) (Lent Term)
and Mr M. Adamo ([email protected]) (Michaelmas Term)
Aims and objectives
1. To introduce students to a range of historical writers from the Classical world.
2. To examine the aims of Classical historians, and how they conceived of, and resolved, the
problems associated with writing about the past.
3. To explore how the writings of Classical historians related to those of their predecessors,
and to the concerns of their own times, warfare and politics in particular.
4. To investigate how Classical historians perceived outsiders.
5. To consider ways (particularly poetic, epigraphic and visual) other than through literary
historiography in which the past was recorded in the Classical world.
Scope and structure of the examination paper 2017-18
The three-hour paper will contain about fourteen questions: candidates will be required to
answer Question 1 and two others. Question 1 will consist of nine passages from a list of
specified ancient texts, each given with a translation. Candidates will be required to comment
on any three of these passages. The remainder of the questions on the paper will be essayquestions concerning various of the topics covered in lectures, classes and supervisions.
(SUPERVISIONS FOR THIS COURSE WILL BE CENTRALLY ORGANISED.)
Course description
WRITING HISTORY IN THE CLASSICAL
WORLD
MR M ADAMO, DR J R PATTERSON
and others
(18L and 6C: Michaelmas and Lent)
The aim of the course is to explore ancient historiography in a comparative and
thematic way, through the study of some central ancient historical writers, and (in
particular) what classical historians themselves said about the challenges involved in
writing history. The six themes selected relate to the aims, techniques, and content
with which classical historians – both Greek and Roman - are concerned. The
introductory segment, on ‘Genre(s) of histor(ies)’ reviews the different possible
models for history-writing in antiquity, and also serves as an introduction to the key
authors being studied in the course; ‘Truth and lies’ looks at techniques of
information-gathering, the use of rhetoric to enhance the impact of the text, and
historians’ (frequently polemical) engagement with their predecessors; ‘Past and
present’ relates the writing of history to configurations of power within which
historians were writing; ‘War and peace’ examines the representation of warfare, a
fundamental (often defining) theme for ancient writers; ‘Selves and others’ looks at
how Greeks and Romans represented those outside the Greco-Roman world, and each
other; ‘The ends of history’ explores the aims, moral and commemorative, of
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history-writing. The course will also engage with the ways, other than through
literary historiography, by which a record or narrative of the past was preserved in
antiquity; in other words, how individuals and communities shaped and marshalled
their past. The course will seek, then, to promote the understanding of these
historians within a broader tradition as well as within their immediate intellectual and
political context.
Each of these themes will be explored in a sequence of three lectures and a class,
during which some of the students taking the course will give presentations, and more
general discussion of the theme and particular key passages will take place.
Herodotus 4 and 5, Thucydides 2, Polybius 6, Livy 1 and Tacitus Annals 4 are
prescribed for study, together with a list of shorter passages of particular
historiographical interest, taken from a wider range of authors. We would also
strongly recommend that in advance of the lectures, students read (in translation) the
whole of at least one of the following: Thucydides; Herodotus; Polybius; Sallust
Catiline and Jugurtha; Tacitus Annals.
Introductory bibliography:
C.S. Kraus and A.J. Woodman, Latin historians: Greece and Rome new surveys in the
Classics (Oxford, 1997).
J. Marincola, A companion to Greek and Roman historiography (2 vols: Oxford,
2001).
J. Marincola, Greek historians: Greece and Rome new surveys in the Classics
(Oxford, 2001).
L. Pitcher, Writing ancient history: an introduction to classical historiography
(London, 2009).
Provisional lecture programme (Michaelmas Term):
Introduction: Genre(s) of Histor(ies): Mr Adamo and Mr Basso
1. Classical Greek Historiography: From Homer to Xenophon (Mr Adamo]
2. Hellenistic Historiography: Local and Universal Histories, and the Histories of
Great Men (Mr Adamo]
3. Roman Historiography: Annales and alternatives [Mr Adamo]
4. Getting at the Facts: Use of documents, autopsy, witnesses etc. [Mr Basso]
War and Peace: Dr Millett
5. In command of history: Thucydides
6. Polybius writes warfare
7. The cost of ancient warfare
8. CLASS: The Historiography of War
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Selves and Others: Mr Adamo
9. Ethnography and politics
10. Ethnography and identity
11. Prejudice and racism
12. CLASS: Writing the Other, Writing as the Other
(Lent Term):
Past and Present: Dr Patterson
13. Historiography and politics
14. Writing from the Top (early senatorial historians; epitaphs and dedications; Res
Gestae)
15. Responses to Power: acquiescence
16. CLASS: Responses to Power: retirement and resistance
Truth and Lies: Mr Basso
17. Invention and Rhetoric
18. The Passions of the Historian
19. CLASS: Competitive Truths: Accusing Your Predecessors
The Ends of History: Dr Patterson
20. Learning from History: Models and Warnings
21. Historical exempla
22. Remembering and Forgetting: Shaping the collective past
23. CLASS: The Limits of Historiography (to include historical verse, popular
histories, biographies, geographies)
24. CONCLUDING CLASS: What’s History Good For? // Why Write History?
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Specified Texts 2017-2018 (NB subject to confirmation)
(in addition to Herodotus 4 and 5, Thucydides 2, Polybius 6, Livy 1 and Tacitus
Annals 4; organized by lecture. For abbreviations see Oxford Classical Dictionary 4th
edn, p. xxvii-liii.
1. Herodotus 1.1-6; Thucydides 1.1-23; Hecataeus BNJ 1 F 1a, 17, 19, 27, 27a, 324a;
Pherecydes BNJ 3 F1c, 2, 33, 155.
2. Xen.Hell.1.1; Semos BNJ 396 F4, 7, 9, 12; Fornara 1 (Parian Chronicle); Lindian
Chronicle (Higbie 2003); Polyb. 1. 3-5; Diodorus 1.1-5, 20.43; Dion.Hal. 1.1-8; Justin
Epitome of Trogus, Preface.
3. Aulus Gellius NA 2. 28; 5.18; Cic De Oratore 2. 51-4; Sallust Hist. Fr. 1; Livy 6.1;
Quint. Inst. Or. 10.1. 101-104.
4. Eye witnesses: Hdt.8.65, 9.16; other informants: Hdt.2.54, Thuc.7.43-44; autopsy:
Hdt. 2.99, 102-106; Ephorus BNJ 70 F 9; Polyb. 3.47-8; 3.58-9; 4.2; 7.9; 9.25.
5. Thuc. 2. 47-54; 2. 71-8; 3.82; 4.102-8, 5.26; 5.105. Caesar BG 5.24-37.
6. Polyb. 2.56; 12.12-22; 25; 10.15; 13.3. 2-6; 38.19-22.
7. Hdt.7.89, 184-7; Thuc.1.54-55, Thuc. 2. 47-54; Xen.Anab. 4.7.1-14; Ag. 2.9-14;
Diod. 13.57; Liv. 9.2-3; Liv. 21.1; Tac.Ann.1. 61-2.
8. Battle of Hydaspes: Arrian 5.8-19, Plut.Alex.60-61, Curtius 8.13-4; Xen. Anab. 3.1;
4.5.3-15; 6.4.12-5.2; Plut.Art.8.1-5.
9. Hdt 5.49-54; Arrian Indica 7-10; Caes. BG 1.1; 6.11-28; Tac. Agr. 9-13; 30-2.
10. Hdt. 4. 2-45; Dion. Hal. 1.9-13; 17-20; 31-35; 39-44; 72-74; Plut. Rom. 1-4; Strab.
3.4.3.
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11. Hdt. 2. 32-33; 37; 39-41; 43-44; 112-116; 4. 46-81; Paus.9.21.4; Posid. BNJ F 16;
Tac. Hist. 5. 1-13.
12. Tac. Germ.; Hippoc. Aer. (‘Airs, Waters and Places’); Lucian De Dea Syria
(trans. Lightfoot).
13. and 14. Hdt.9.81, Thuc.1.132, [Dem.]59.94-107; Polyb. 3.22-8; 3.33.17-18; Cic.
Brut. 62; Liv. 8.40; ILS 1-3; Fornara 59, 60, 78, 147; RO 13, 30.
15. Josephus BJ 3.392-408, Liv. 4.20; Tac. Hist. 1.1; Vell. Pat. 2. 104-7; 121; 12631; Polyb. 31.23-25; Dio 73.18-23.
16. Sallust Cat.3.1-4.2; Tacitus Ann. 4 esp. 32-35; Pausanias 1.26.1-4, 8.2.1-5, 8.27.1,
9.36.5.
17. Lucian On how History ought to be written; Cicero De Oratore 2.62-63; Ad. Fam.
5.12; Hdt.3.80-4; Thuc. 2.34-46; 2. 59-65; 5. 84-106; Polybius 36.1; Tac.Ann.4.10-11.
18. Lucian, On how History ought to be written [as well as for 17], Plutarch On
the Malice of Herodotus 1-10; 43 [as well as for 19], Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On
Thucydides 1-20 and Letter to Pompeius Geminus 3-6, Josephus, BJ 1.1-5.
19. Polybius 1.14-15; 2.56; 12. 3-16; 12. 23-28; 16.14; Sen. Apocol. 1.
Josephus BJ 1.1-6, Against Apion 1.1-6; Thuc.1.10; 1.20-23, Hdt.9.53; Hdt.2.143;
Plutarch On the Malice of Herodotus 1-10; 43.
20. Cic. De Orat. 2.35-36; Pol. 1.35; 3.4; 36.17.2-4; Hdt. 7. 8-18; 46-53; 9.16.
21. Cic. In Cat.; Livy 1 preface, 43.13.1-2; Plut. Aem.1, Per.1-2, Demetr.1.3-8; Sall.
Cat. 3-4; 8-13; Jug. 4-5; Tac. Hist. 1.3.
22. Paus.1.41.2-5; 4.1-3, 6-8, 14, 18-20.4, 26-7; Fornara 18 and Hdt.4.150-9;
Lycurgus 1.117-9, Thuc.1.20, 6.53-9.
23. Simonides Frr 3-5, 11, 13-16 W2; Aeschylus Persai 1-119, 155-172, 300-432;
Bacch.Ep.3.1-66; Pausanias 1.1-8.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Here is a preliminary bibliography for the course: more material will be made
available in the lectures.
General and introductory material on ancient historiography:
M. Bentley (ed.), Companion to historiography (London 1997).
T.A. Dorey (ed), Latin historians (London, 1966).
T.E. Duff, The Greek and Roman historians (Bristol, 2004).
A. Feldherr (ed.), Cambridge companion to the Roman historians (Cambridge, 2009).
A. Feldherr and G. Hardy (eds), Oxford history of historical writing vol. 1
(Beginnings to AD 600) (Oxford, 2011).
M.I. Finley, The use and abuse of history (London, 1975), esp. ch. 1.
C.W. Fornara, The nature of history in ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1983)
J. Grethlein, Experience and teleology in ancient historiography (Cambridge, 2013).
C.S. Kraus and A.J. Woodman, Latin historians: Greece and Rome new surveys in the
Classics (Oxford, 1997).
T.J. Luce, The Greek historians (London, 1997).
J. Marincola, Authority and tradition in classical historiography (Cambridge, 1997).
J. Marincola, A companion to Greek and Roman historiography (2 vols: Oxford,
2001).
J. Marincola, Greek historians: Greece and Rome new surveys in the Classics
(Oxford, 2001).
J. Marincola (ed) Greek and Roman historiography: Oxford readings in Classical
studies (Oxford, 2011).
R. Mellor, The Roman Historians (London, 1999).
A. Momigliano, The classical foundations of modern historiography (Berkeley,
1990).
C. Pelling, Literary texts and the Greek historian (London, 2000)
L. Pitcher, Writing ancient history: an introduction to classical historiography
(London, 2009).
D. Potter, Literary texts and the Roman historian (London, 1999).
T.F. Scanlon, Greek historiography (Chichester, 2015).
G.S. Shrimpton, History and Memory in Ancient Greece (Montreal, 1997).
A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in classical historiography (London, 1988).
Collections of articles on historiography:
J. Grethlein and C.B. Krebs (eds) Time and narrative in ancient historiography
(Oxford, 2012).
S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek historiography (Oxford, 1994).
C.S. Kraus (ed.), The limits of historiography: genre and narrative in ancient
historical texts (Leiden, 1999).
C.S. Kraus, J. Marincola, C. Pelling (eds) Ancient historiography and its context:
studies in honour of A.J. Woodman (Oxford, 2010).
6
A. Lianeri (ed), Knowing future time in and through Greek historiography (Berlin,
2016).
N. Luraghi (ed), The historian’s craft in the age of Herodotus (Oxford, 2001).
G. Parmeggiani, Between Thucydides and Polybius: the golden age of Greek
historiography (Washington DC, 2014).
K. A. Raaflaub, (ed.), Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in the
Ancient World (Malden, 2014).
Topics covered in the course itself:
(i) Introduction: Genre(s) of Histor(ies)
J. Marincola (ed.), A companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Oxford, 2007),
Vol.1.
N. Luraghi (ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford, 2001).
P. Liddel & A. Fear (edd.), Historiae mundi: studies in universal history (London,
2010).
F. Jacoby, Atthis: the local chronicles of ancient Athens (Oxford, 1949).
T. Cornell (ed.), The Fragments of the Roman Historians (Oxford, 2013).
R. Fowler, Early Greek mythography (Oxford, 2000).
S. Farrington, ‘Action and Reason: Polybius and the Gap between Encomium and
History’ in Classical Philology 106 (2011), 324-342.
J. Elliott, Ennius and the Architecture of the Annales (Cambridge, 2013).
C. Higbie, The Lindian Chronicle and the Greek Creation of Their Past (Oxford,
2003).
R. Thomas, Herodotus in context: ethnography, science, and the art of persuasion
(Cambridge, 2000).
D. Konstan & K. Raaflaub (edd.), Epic and history (Chichester, 2010), Chh. 8-10.
J. Grethlein, The Greeks and their Past: poetry, oratory and history in the fifth
century BCE (Cambridge, 2010).
R. Thomas, ‘The Greek polis and the tradition of polis history: local history,
chronicles and the patterning of the past’ in A. Moreno & R. Thomas (edd.) Patterns
of the Past: Epitē deumata in the Greek tradition (Oxford, 2014).
G. Parmeggiani (ed.), Between Thucydides and Polybius: The Golden Age of Greek
Historiography (Cambridge, MA, 2014), Chh. 3, 4 and 11.
E. Baragwanath & M. de Bakker (edd.), Myth, truth, and narrative in Herodotus
(Oxford, 2012).
A. Gowing, ‘From the annalists to the Annales: Latin historiography before Tacitus’
in A. Woodman (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Tacitus (Cambridge, 2009).
A. Woodman, From Poetry to History: Selected papers (Oxford, 2012).
D. Sider, ‘The New Simonides and the Question of Historical Elegy’ in
The American Journal of Philology 127 (2006), 327-346.
(ii) War and Peace
J. Keegan, The face of battle (London, 1976).
M.H. Hansen, 'The battle-exhortation in ancient historiography: fact or fiction?'
Historia 42 (1993), 161-80.
L. Tritle, From Melos to My Lai: war and survival (London, 2000).
7
V.D. Hanson, Why the West Has Won. Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam
(London, 2002).
H. Sidebottom, A very short introduction to warfare in the ancient world (2004).
J.E. Lendon, Soldiers and ghosts: a history of battle in classical antiquity (2005).
K. Kagan, The eye of command (Ann Arbor, 2006).
P. Sabin, H van Wees, M. Whitby (eds.) The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman
Warfare (Cambridge, 2007) vol. 1, ch 1-3 (& more generally).
A.W. Gomme on 'Thucydides and the Battle of Mantinea' in Essays in Greek History
and Literature (Oxford, 1937), 132-55.
N. Whately, 'On the possibility of reconstructing Marathon and other ancient battles'
JHS 84 (1964) 119-39.
A.R. Burn, ‘Hammond on Marathon: a few notes’ JHS 89 (1969) 118-9.
N.G.L. Hammond, ‘The campaign and the Battle of Marathon’ Studies in Greek
History (Oxford, 1973) 170-250.
D. Whitehead, How to survive under siege. Aineias the Tactician translated with
introduction and commentary (Oxford, 1990).
A.B. Bosworth, Alexander and the East: the Tragedy of Triumph (Oxford, 1996), 521).
N. Hammond, The Genius of Alexander (London, 1997), 164-7).
T. Rood, Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford, 1998).
P. Hunt, Slaves, Warfare and Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge, 1998).
V. Hanson, The Western way of war: infantry battle in classical Greece 2nd edn,
(Berkeley, 2000).
Robin Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New
Haven, 2004).
H. van Wees, ‘The city at war’ in R. Osborne (ed.), Classical Greece 500-323 BC
(Oxford, 2000), 81-110.
J. Price, Thucydides and Internal War (Cambridge, 2001).
T. Rood The Sea! The Sea! The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern
Imagination (London 2004).
E. Kiesling, 'The oldest "new" military historians: Herodotus, W.G. Forrest, and the
historiography of war' in P. Derow and R. Parker (eds) Herodotus and his World
(Oxford, 2003), 88-102.
H. van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London, 2004).
V. Hanson, A War Like No Other: how the Athenians and Spartans fought the
Peloponnesian War (London, 2005).
R. Waterfield, Xenophon’s Retreat: Greece, Persia and the End of the Golden Age
(Cambridge, Mass. 2006).
A.J. Woodman, ‘Sacking a city’, CQ 1972, 150-8.
N. Horsfall, ‘The Caudine Forks: topography & illusion’, Papers of the British School
at Rome 50 (1982), 45ff.
M. Paul, ‘Urbs capta: sketch of an ancient literary motif’, Phoenix 36 (1982), 144-55.
James Davidson, 'The Gaze in Polybius' Histories' JRS 81 (1991) 10-24.
M.H. Hansen, ‘The battle exhortation in ancient historiography’, Historia 42 (1993),
162-180.
A.K. Goldsworthy, The Roman army at war (Oxford,1996).
A.J. Woodman, 'The literature of war' and ‘Self-Imitation and the substance of
history', in his Tacitus Revisited (Oxford, 1998), ch,. 1 and 5.
8
K. Welch & A. Powell, Julius Caesar as artful reporter (London, 1998) esp. ch 6
J. Henderson, Fighting for Rome (Cambridge, 1998).
R. Ash, Ordering anarchy: armies and leaders in Tacitus’ Histories (1999) esp. ch 1
P. Sabin, 'The Face of Roman Battle' JRS 90 (2000) 1-17.
G. Daly, Cannae: the experience of battle in the second Punic war (London, 2002).
F.K. Drogula, Commanders and command in the Roman republic and early Empire
(Chapel Hill, 2015).
(iii) Selves and Others
F. Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus. The Representation of the Other in the Writing of
History (California, 1988).
E. Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton, 2011).
S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic
and the Development of Empire (Cambridge, 2001).
E. Almagor & J. Skinner (edd.), Ancient ethnography: New Approaches (London,
2013).
T. Harrison (ed.), Greeks and Barbarians (New York, 2002).
L. Bonfante (ed.), The barbarians of ancient Europe (Cambridge, 2011).
R. Munson, Telling Wonders: Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of
Herodotus (Ann Arbor, 2001).
I. Moyer, Egypt and the limits of Hellenism (Cambridge, 2011).
T. Harrison, ‘Sicily in the Athenian Imagination: Thucydides and the Persian Wars’ in
C. Smith & J. Serrati (edd.), Sicily from Aeneas to Augustus: New Approaches in
Archaeology and History (Edinburgh, 2000), 84-96.
A. Feldherr (ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Roman historians (Cambridge,
2009), Chh. 5, 18 and 19.
A. Augoustakis, ‘The Other as Same: Non-Roman Mothers in Silius Italicus’ Punica’
in Classical Philology 103 (2008), 55-76.
P.G. Walsh, ‘Making a drama out of a crisis: Livy on the Bacchanalians’, Greece and
Rome 43 (1996), 188-203.
J. Elsner, "Describing Self in the Language of Other: Pseudo (?) Lucian at the Temple
of Hierapolis," in S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the
Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge 2001, 123-53.
B. Gibson & T. Harrison, Polybius and his World (Oxford, 2013).
T. Duff, Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford, 1999), Ch.9.
C. Champion, Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories (Berkeley, CA, 2004).
C. Champion, ‘Romans as ΒΑΡΒΑΡΟΙ: Three Polybian Speeches and the Politics of
Cultural Indeterminacy in Classical Philology 95 (2000), 425-444.
A. Riggsby, Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words (Austin, TX, 2006).
I. Peirano, ‘Hellenized Romans and Barbarized Greeks. Reading the End of Dionysius
of Halicarnassus Antiquitates Romanae’ in JHS 100 (2010), 32-53.
S. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome (Leiden, 1979).
J. Edmondson, S. Mason & J. Rives (edd.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome
(Oxford, 2005).
G. Woolf, Tales of the barbarians: ethnography and empire in the ancient world
(Chichester 2011).
9
(iv) Past and Present
W. Hutton Describing Greece: Landscape and Literature in the Periegesis of
Pausanias (Cambridge, 2005), Ch. 2.
J. Elsner 'Pausanias: A Greek Pilgrim in the Roman World' in Past and Present 135
(1992), 3-29.
P. Liddel 'Epigraphy, legislation, and power within the Athenian empire' in Bulletin of
the Institute of Classical Studies 53 (2010), 99-128.
P. Low (ed.) The Athenian Empire (Edinburgh, 2008), Part II.
J. Sickinger Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens (London, 1999).
N. Arrington 'Inscribing Defeat: The Commemorative Dynamics of the Athenian
Casualty Lists', in Classical Antiquity 30 (2011), 179-212.
P. Rhodes 'Public documents in the Greek States: Archives and Inscriptions', Greece
and Rome 48 (2001), 33–44, 136–53.
K. Hagemajer Allen 'Intercultural Exchanges in Fourth-Century Attic Decrees' in
Classical Antiquity 22 (2003), 199-250.
K. Clarke, Between geography and history: the Hellenistic construction of the Roman
world (Oxford, 1999).
A.E. Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Cambridge, 2009), 30-41.
T. Cornell, The beginnings of Rome (London, 1995), 9-18.
T. Cornell (ed), Fragments of the Roman historians (Oxford, 2013).
E. Cowan, Velleius Paterculus: making history (Swansea, 2010).
H. Flower, Ancestor masks and aristocratic power in Roman culture (Oxford, 1996).
G. Forsythe, The historian L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi and the Roman annalistic
tradition (Boston 1994).
A.M. Kemezis, Greek narratives of the Roman empire under the Severans
(Cambridge, 2014).
S.P. Oakley, A commentary on Livy books VI-X, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1997), 21-108.
T. Rajak, Josephus (London, 1983).
J. Richardson and F. Santangelo (eds), The Roman historical tradition: regal and
republican Rome. Oxford readings in classical studies. Oxford, 2014) esp. ch 13.
R. Ridley, The emperor’s retrospect. Augustus’ Res Gestae in epigraphy,
historiography and commentary (Leuven, 2003).
D. Sailor, Writing and empire in Tacitus (Cambridge, 2008), 250-313.
C. Smith and A. Powell (eds), The lost memoirs of Augustus and the development of
Roman autobiography (Swansea, 2009).
R. Syme, Sallust (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), ch. 4-5.
T.P. Wiseman, Clio’s Cosmetics (Leicester, 1979), 57-139.
T.P. Wiseman, Historiography and imagination (Exeter, 1994), esp. ch 1-4.
A.J. Woodman (ed), Velleius Paterculus: the Tiberian narrative (2. 94-131).
(Cambridge, 2004).
L. Yarrow, Historiography at the end of the Republic (Oxford, 2006).
(v) Truth and Lies
A. Bowen (ed), Plutarch: On the Malice of Herodotus (Warminster, 1992).
W. Kendrick Pritchett (ed.), Dionysius of Halicarnassus: On Thucydides (Berkeley
and London, 1975).
10
M.D. MacLeod (ed), Lucian: A Selection (Warminster, 1991) 198-247 [Greek text
and English translation of Lucian, How History Ought To Be Written with
introduction and notes]
S. Usher (ed), Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Critical Essays, Vol. 1 (Cambridge MA
[Loeb Classical Library], 1974) 456-633 [Greek text and English translation of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thucydides].
S. Usher (ed), Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Critical Essays, Vol. 2 [Cambridge MA
[Loeb Classical Library] 1985) 349-399 [Greek text and English translation of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Letter to Gnaeus Pompeius].
J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Classical Historiography (Cambridge, 1997).
J. Marincola (ed), Greek and Roman historiography: Oxford readings in Classical
studies (Oxford, 2011) Section II. Rhetoric, Truth, and Falsehood.
T. J. Luce, ‘Ancient Views on the Causes of Bias in Historical Writing’ in Classical
Philology 84 (1989) 16-31 [reprinted in Marincola, Greek and Roman
Historiography].
C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman (eds), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Liverpool
University Press, 1993).
J. L. Moles, ‘Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’ in Gill and Wiseman
(eds), Lies and Fiction, 88-121.
T. P. Wiseman, ‘Lying Historians: Seven Types of Mendacity’ in Gill and Wiseman
(eds), Lies and Fiction, 122-146 [reprinted in Marincola, Greek and Roman
Historiography].
P.A. Brunt, ‘Cicero and Historiography’ in P.A. Brunt, Studies in Greek History and
Thought (Oxford, 1993), 181-209 [reprinted in Marincola, Greek and Roman
Historiography].
C. Damon, ‘Rhetoric and Historiography’ in W. Dominik and J. Hall (eds), A
Companion to Roman Rhetoric (Oxford, 2007) 439-50.
M. Fox, ‘History and Rhetoric in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ in The Journal of
Roman Studies 83 (1993) 31-47.
M. Fox, ‘Dionysius, ‘Lucian and the Prejudice against Rhetoric in History’ in The
Journal of Roman Studies 91 (2001) 25-35.
M. Fox and N. Livingstone, ‘Rhetoric and Historiography’ in I. Worthington (ed.), A
Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Oxford 2007), 542-561, 558-559.
M. Kempshall, Rhetoric and the Writing of History (Manchester 2012).
A. Momigliano, ‘History Between Medicine and Rhetoric’ in Ottavo Contributo alla Storia
degli Studi Classici e del Mondo Antico (Rome, 1987) 13-25.
T. P. Wiseman, Clio's Cosmetics: Three studies in Greco-Roman Literature
(Leicester, 1979).
A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in classical historiography (London, 1988) [partially
reprinted in Marincola, Greek and Roman Historiography].
G. M. A. Grube, ‘Greek Historian and Greek Critics’ in Phoenix 28 (1974) 73-80.
A. Georgiadou and D.H.J. Larmour, ‘Lucian and historiography: ‘De Historia
Conscribenda’ and ‘Verae Historiae’, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischer Welt
(ANRW) II, 34.2 (Berlin-New York 1994) 1448-1509.
R. Porod, ‘Lucian and the Limits of Fiction in Ancient Historiography’, in A. Bartley
(ed.), A Lucian for our Times (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009) 29-46.
11
N. Wiater, The Ideology of Classicism: Language, History, and Identity in Dionysius
of Halicarnassus (Berlin and New York, 2011).
G.W. Bowersock, Fiction as History (Berkeley and London, 1994).
E. Gabba, ‘True History and False History in Classical Antiquity’ in The Journal of
Roman Studies 71 (1981), 50-62 [reprinted in Marincola, Greek and Roman
Historiography].
V.J. Gray, ‘Mimesis in Greek Historical Writing’ in American Journal of Philology
118 (1987) 467-486.
F.W. Walbank, ‘History and Tragedy’ in Historia 9 (1960) 216-34 [reprinted in
Marincola, Greek and Roman Historiography].
J.A.S. Evans, ‘Father of History or Father of Lies; The Reputation of Herodotus’ in
Classical Journal 64 (1968), 11-17.
D. Fehling, Herodotus and his ‘sources’: citation, invention and narrative art (transl.
J.G. Howie) (Leeds, 1989 [German edition 1971]).
A.D. Momigliano, ‘The Place of Herodotus in the History of Historiography’ in
History 43 (1958) 1-13 [reprinted in A.D. Momigliano, Studies in Historiography
(London and New York, 1966) 127-42 and in
J. Priestley, Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture: Literary Studies in the Reception of
the Histories (Oxford, 2014).
J. Priestly and V. Zali (eds), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in
Antiquity and Beyond (Leiden, 2016).
W. Kendrick Pritchett, The Liar School of Herodotos (Amsterdam, 1993).
J.P. Hershbell, ‘Plutarch and Herodotus – the Beetle in the Rose’ in Rheinisches
Museum 36 (1993) 143-163.
J. Marincola, ‘Plutarch’s Refutation of Herodotus’ in Ancient World 20 (1994) 191203.
J. Marincola, ‘Plutarch, Herodotus and the Historian’s Character’ in R. Ash, J.
Mossman, and F. B. Titchener, Fame and Infamy: Essays for Christopher Pelling on
Characterization in Greek and Roman Biography and Historiography (Oxford, 2015)
83-95.
C.B.R. Pelling, ‘De Malignitate Plutarchi: Plutarch, Herodotus and the Persian Wars’
in E. Bridges, E. Hall, P. J. Rhodes, Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars:
Antiquity to the Third Millennium (Oxford, 2007), 145-164.
C.A. Baron, Timaeus of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography (Cambridge,
2013), ch 6.
C. Lee and N. Morley (eds), A Handbook to the Reception of Thucydides (Oxford,
2014)
N. Morley, Thucydides and the Idea of History (London, 2014)
(vi) The Ends of History
A. Feldherr (ed.), The Cambridge companion to the Roman historians (Cambridge,
2009), 13 and 21.
12
J. Chaplin, ‘Livy’s use of exempla’ in B. Mineo (ed.) A Companion to Livy
(Chichester, 2015).
S. Shapiro, 'Proverbial Wisdom in Herodotus', TAPA 130 (2000) 89-118.
T. Harrison, Divinity and History: The Religion of Herodotus (Oxford, 2000).
A. Powell (ed.), Hindsight in Greek and Roman History (Swansea, 2013).
J. Grethlein, ‘How Not to Do History: Xerxes in Herodotus' "Histories"’ in The
American Journal of Philology 130 (2009), 195-218.
N. Fisher, "Popular Morality in Herodotus," in E.J. Bakker et al. (eds.), Brill's
Companion to Herodotus (Leiden, 2002).
R. Ash, J. Mossman & F. Titchener (edd.), Fame and infamy : essays for Christopher
Pelling on characterization in Greek and Roman biography and historiography
(Oxford, 2015).
J. Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and
Political Imagination (Cambridge, 2011).
H.-J. Gehkre, ‘Myth, History and Collective Identity: Uses of the Past in Ancient
Greece and Beyond’ in N. Luraghi (ed.) The Historian’s Craft in the Age of
Herodotus (Oxford, 2001), 286-313.
K. Galinsky (ed.), Memoria romana: memory in Rome and Rome in memory (Ann
Arbor 2014).
K. Galinsky (ed.), Memory in ancient Rome and early Christianity (Oxford, 2016).
J. Shear Polis and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Classical Athens
(Cambridge, 2011)
M. Giangiulio, ‘Constructing the past: Colonial Traditions and the Writing of History.
The Case of Cyrene’ in N. Luraghi (ed.) The Historian's Craft in the Age of
Herodotus (Oxford, 2001), 116-137.
Malkin, I., ‘“Tradition” in Herodotus: the foundation of Cyrene’ in Derow, P. &
Parker, R. (edd.), Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of
George Forrest (Oxford, 2003), 153-170.
A. Mackay (ed.), Orality, literacy, memory in the ancient Greek and Roman world
(Leiden, 2008).
H. Flower, The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and oblivion in Roman political culture
(Chapel Hill, 2006).
H. van der Blom, Cicero’s role models: the political strategy of a newcomer (Oxford,
2010).
Select bibliography on individual writers of history:
(i) Herodotus:
D. Boedeker (ed), Herodotus and the Invention of History, Arethusa 20 (1987).
E.J. Bakker et al (eds), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden, 2002).
E. Baragwanath, Motivation and narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2008).
E. Baragwanath and M. de Bakker, Myth, truth and narrative in Herodotus (Oxford,
2012).
D. Branscome, Textual rivals: self-presentation in Herodotus’ Histories (Ann Arbor,
2013).
P. Derow and R. Parker (eds), Herodotus and his world (Oxford, 2003).
13
C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds) Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge
2006).
C.W. Fornara, Herodotus. An Interpretative Essay (Oxford, 1971)
J. Gould, Herodotus (London, 1989).
T. Harrison, Divinity and history: the religion of Herodotus (Oxford, 2000).
F. Hartog, The mirror of Herodotus. The representation of the other in the writing of
history (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1988).
H.R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland [APA Philological
Monograph], 1966).
E. Irwin and E. Greenwood, Reading Herodotus: a study of the logoi in Book 5 of
Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge 2007).
M. Lang, Herodotean narrative and discourse (Cambridge, Mass., 1984)
D. Lateneir, The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto, 1989)
R. Thomas, Herodotus in context: ethnography, science, and the art of persuasion
(Cambridge 2000).
R. Vignolo Munson, Telling Wonders. Ethnographic and Political Discourse
in the Work of Herodotus (Ann Arbor, 2001).
J. Roberts, Herodotus; A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2011).
R. Vignolo Munson, Herodotus. Volume 1. Herodotus and the Narrative of the Past.
Oxford Readings in Classical Studies (Oxford 2013).
—Herodotus. Volume 2. Herodotus and the World. Oxford Readings in Classical
Studies (Oxford 2013).
(ii) Thucydides
K.J. Dover, Thucydides: Greece and Rome new surveys in the Classics (Oxford,
1973).
W.R. Connor, Thucydides (Princeton, 1984).
C. Dewald, Thucydides’ war narrative (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2005).
E. Greenwood, Thucydides and the shaping of history (London, 2006).
S. Hornblower, Thucydides (London, 1987).
S. Hornblower, Thucydidean themes (Oxford, 2011).
V. Hunter, Thucydides: the artful reporter (Toronto, 1973).
V. Hunter, Past and process in Herodotus and Thucydides (Princeton, 1982).
A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis (eds), Brill’s companion to Thucydides (Leiden,
2006).
T. Rood, Thucydides: narrative and explanation (Oxford, 1998).
J.S. Rusten (ed), Thucydides: Oxford readings in classical studies. (Oxford, 2009).
(iii) Xenophon
J.K. Anderson, Xenophon (London, 1974).
J. Dillery, Xenophon and the history of his times (London, 1995).
V. Gray, The character of Xenophon’s Hellenica (London, 1989).
R. Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven,
2004).
C.J. Tuplin (ed.), Xenophon and his world (Stuttgart, 2004).
T. Rood The Sea! The Sea! The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern
Imagination (London 2004).
V. Gray (ed.), Xenophon: Oxford readings in Classical Studies (Oxford, 2010).
14
V. Gray, Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes (Oxford, 2011).
F. Hobden, C. Tuplin (eds) Xenophon: ethical principles and historical enquiry
(Leiden, 2012).
(iv) Polybius
D.W. Baronowski, Polybius and Roman imperialism (Bristol, 2011).
C.B. Champion, Cultural politics in Polybius’s Histories (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
2004).
A.M. Eckstein, Moral vision in the Histories of Polybius (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1995).
B. Gibson and T. Harrison (eds), Polybius and his world: essays in memory of F.W.
Walbank (Cambridge, 2013).
B. McGing, Polybius’ Histories (Oxford, 2010)
K.S. Sacks, Polybius: the writing of history (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981).
C. Smith and L.M. Yarrow (eds), Imperialism, cultural politics and Polybius (Oxford,
2012).
F.W. Walbank, Polybius (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972).
F.W. Walbank, Selected papers (Cambridge, 1985).
F.W. Walbank, Polybius, Rome and the Hellenistic world (Cambridge, 2002).
(v) Sallust
T.F. Scanlon, The influence of Thucydides on Sallust (Heidelberg, 1980).
D.C. Earl, The political thought of Sallust (Cambridge, 1961).
R. Syme, Sallust (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964).
(vi) Livy
J.D. Chaplin, Livy’s exemplary history (Oxford, 2000).
J.D. Chaplin and C.S. Kraus (eds), Livy: Oxford readings in classical studies (Oxford,
2009).
T.A. Dorey (ed), Livy (London, 1971).
A. Feldherr, Spectacle and society in Livy’s History (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1998).
M. Jaeger, Livy’s unwritten Rome (Ann Arbor, 1997).
D.S. Levene, Livy on the Hannibalic War (Oxford, 2000).
T.J. Luce, Livy: the composition of his history (Princeton, 1977).
G. Miles, Livy: constructing early Rome (Ithaca, 1995).
B. Mineo (ed) A companion to Livy (Chichester, 2015).
P.G. Walsh, Livy: his historical aims and methods (Cambridge, 1961).
(vii) Tacitus
R. Ash, Ordering anarchy: armies and leaders in Tacitus’ Histories (London 1999)
R. Ash, Tacitus (Bristol, 2006).
R. Ash (ed.), Tacitus: Oxford readings in classical studies (Oxford, 2012).
R. Martin, Tacitus (London, 1981).
15
R. Mellor, Tacitus (London, 1993).
R. Mellor, Tacitus’ Annals (Oxford, 2011).
E. O’Gorman, Irony and misreading in the Annals of Tacitus (Cambridge, 2000).
V.E. Pagán (ed.) A companion to Tacitus (Oxford, 2012).
D. Sailor, Writing and empire in Tacitus (Cambridge, 2008).
R. Syme, Tacitus 2 vols. (Oxford, 1958).
A.J. Woodman, Tacitus reviewed (1998).
A.J. Woodman (ed), Cambridge companion to Tacitus (Cambridge, 2009).
16
SPECIMEN PAPER
CLASSICAL TRIPOS PART II/HISTORY TRIPOS PART II
Writing history in the Classical World
Paper C3 (Classics Part II)/Paper 9 (History Part II)
Candidates must answer question 1 and two other questions.
1.
Discuss separately what we can learn from any three of the following
passages about the exercise of writing history.
(a) Ἐκ δὲ τῶν εἰρημένων τεκμηρίων ὅμως τοιαῦτα ἄν τις νομίζων μάλιστα ἃ διῆλθον
οὐχ ἁμαρτάνοι, καὶ οὔτε ὡς ποιηταὶ ὑμνήκασι περὶ αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὸ μεῖζον κοσμοῦντες
μᾶλλον πιστεύων, οὔτε ὡς λογογράφοι ξυνέθεσαν ἐπὶ τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ
ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον, ὄντα ἀνεξέλεγκτα καὶ τὰ πολλὰ ὑπὸ χρόνου αὐτῶν ἀπίστως
ἐπὶ τὸ μυθῶδες ἐκνενικηκότα.
Still, from the evidence that has been given, any one would not err who should hold
the view that the state of affairs in antiquity was pretty nearly such as I have described
it, not giving greater credence to the accounts, on the one hand, which the poets have
put into song, adorning and amplifying their theme, and, on the other, which the
chroniclers have composed with a view rather of pleasing the ear than of telling the
truth, since their stories cannot be tested and most of them have from lapse of time
won their way into the region of the fabulous so as to be incredible.
Thucydides 1.21.1
(b) Ἀννίβας γε μήν, οὐχ ὡς οὗτοι γράφουσι, λίαν δὲ περὶ ταῦτα πραγματικῶς ἐχρῆτο
ταῖς ἐπιβολαῖς. καὶ γὰρ τὴν τῆς χώρας ἀρετήν, εἰς ἣν ἐπεβάλετο καθιέναι, καὶ τὴν τῶν
ὄχλων ἀλλοτριότητα πρὸς Ῥωμαίους ἐξητάκει σαφῶς, εἴς τε τὰς μεταξὺ δυσχωρίας
ὁδηγοῖς καὶ καθηγεμόσιν ἐγχωρίοις ἐχρῆτο τοῖς τῶν αὐτῶν ἐλπίδων μέλλουσι
κοινωνεῖν. ἡμεῖς δὲ περὶ τούτων εὐθαρσῶς ἀποφαινόμεθα διὰ τὸ περὶ τῶν πράξεων
παρ᾿ αὐτῶν ἱστορηκέναι τῶν παρατετευχότων τοῖς καιροῖς, τοὺς δὲ τόπους
κατωπτευκέναι καὶ τῇ διὰ τῶν Ἄλπεων αὐτοὶ κεχρῆσθαι πορείᾳ γνώσεως ἕνεκα καὶ
θέας.
Of course Hannibal did not act as these writers describe, but conducted his plans with
sound practical sense. He had ascertained by careful inquiry the richness of the
country into which he proposed to descend and the aversion of the people to the
Romans, and for the difficulties of the route he employed as guides and pioneers
natives of the country, who were about to take part in his adventure. On these points I
can speak with some confidence as I have inquired about the circumstances from men
present on the occasion and have personally inspected the country and made the
passage of the Alps to learn for myself and see.
17
Polybius 3.48. 11-12
(c) Nec facile est aut rem rei aut auctorem auctori praeferre. Vitiatam memoriam
funebribus laudibus reor falsisque imaginum titulis, dum familiae ad se quaeque
famam rerum gestarum honorumque fallenti mendacio trahunt; inde certe et
singulorum gesta et publica monumenta rerum confusa. Nec quisquam aequalis
temporibus illis scriptor exstat, quo satis certo auctore stetur.
It is not easy to choose between the accounts or the authorities. The records have been
vitiated, I think, by funeral eulogies and by lying inscriptions under portraits, every
family endeavouring mendaciously to appropriate victories and magistracies to
itself—a practice which has certainly wrought confusion in the achievements of
individuals and in the public memorials of events. Nor is there extant any writer
contemporary with that period, on whose authority we may safely take our stand.
Livy 8.40
(d) ἐπεβίων δὲ διὰ παντὸς αὐτοῦ, αἰσθανόμενός τε τῇ ἡλικίᾳ καὶ προσέχων τὴν
γνώμην ὅπως ἀκριβές τι εἴσομαι· καὶ ξυνέβη μοι φεύγειν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ ἔτη εἴκοσι μετὰ
τὴν ἐς Ἀμφίπολιν στρατηγίαν, καὶ γενομένῳ παρ᾿ ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς πράγμασι, καὶ οὐχ
ἧσσον τοῖς Πελοποννησίων διὰ τὴν φυγήν, καθ᾿ ἡσυχίαν τι αὐτῶν μᾶλλον αἰσθέσθαι.
I lived through the whole war, being of an age to form judgments, and followed it
with close attention, so as to acquire accurate information. It befell me also to be
banished from my own country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis,
and being conversant with affairs on both sides, especially with those of the
Peloponnesians by reason of my banishment, to gain at my leisure a better
acquaintance with the course of events.
Thucydides 5.26.5-6
(e) Duae ad Luceriam ferebant viae, altera praeter oram superi maris, patens
apertaque sed quanto tutior tanto fere longior, altera per furculas Caudinas brevior;
sed ita natus locus est: saltus duo alti angusti silvosique sunt montibus circa perpetuis
inter se iuncti; iacet inter eos satis patens clausus in medio campus herbidus
aquosusque, per quem medium iter est; sed antequam venias ad eum. intrandae
primae angustiae sunt, et aut eadem qua te insinuaveris retro via repetenda aut, si ire
porro pergas, per alium saltum artiorem impeditioremque, evadendum.
There were two roads to Luceria. One skirted the Adriatic, and though open and
unobstructed, was long almost in proportion to its safety. The other led through the
Caudine Forks, and was shorter, but this is the nature of the place: two deep defiles,
narrow and wooded, are connected by an unbroken range of mountains on either
hand; shut in between them lies a rather extensive plain, grassy and well-watered,
with the road running through the middle of it; but before you come to it, you must
enter the first defile, and afterwards either retrace the steps by which you made your
way into the place, or else—should you go forward—pass out by another ravine,
which is even narrower and more difficult.
Livy 9.2.6
18
(f) Igitur de Catilinae coniuratione quam verissume potero paucis absolvam;
nam id facinus in primis ego memorabile existumo sceleris atque periculi novitate.
De quoius hominis moribus pauca prius explananda sunt, quam initium narrandi
faciam.
Therefore, concerning the conspiracy of Catiline I shall provide a brief account, as
truthfully as I can; for I regard that enterprise especially worthy of notice because of
the novelty of the crime and danger arising from it. But before I can begin my
narrative, a few remarks must first be made concerning that man’s character.
Sallust, Catiline 4. 3-5
(g) ταύτην δὲ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν ἐγκεχείρισμαι πραγματείαν νομίζων ἅπασι φανεῖσθαι
τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἀξίαν σπουδῆς· μέλλει γὰρ περιέξειν ἅπασαν τὴν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν
ἀρχαιολογίαν καὶ [τὴν] διάταξιν τοῦ πολιτεύματος ἐκ τῶν Ἑβραϊκῶν
μεθηρμηνευμένην γραμμάτων.
And now I have undertaken this present work in the belief that the whole Greekspeaking world will find it worthy of attention; for it will embrace our entire ancient
history and political constitution, translated from the Hebrew records.
Josephus Jewish Antiquities 1.2
(h) οὐ πόρρω δὲ ἑστᾶσιν Ἁρμόδιος καὶ Ἀριστογείτων οἱ κτείναντες Ἵππαρχον· αἰτία
δὲ ἥτις ἐγένετο καὶ τὸ ἔργον ὅντινα τρόπον ἔπραξαν, ἑτέροις ἐστὶν εἰρημένα. τῶν δὲ
ἀνδριάντων οἱ μέν εἰσι Κριτίου τέχνη, τοὺς δὲ ἀρχαίους ἐποίησεν Ἀντήνωρ· Ξέρξου
δέ, ὡς εἷλεν Ἀθήνας ἐκλιπόντων τὸ ἄστυ Ἀθηναίων, ἀπαγαγομένου καὶ τούτους ἅτε
λάφυρα, κατέπεμψεν ὕστερον Ἀθηναίοις Ἀντίοχος.
Hard by stand statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who killed Hipparchus. The
reason of this act and the method of its execution have been related by others; of the
figures some were made by Critius, the old ones being the work of Antenor. When
Xerxes took Athens after the Athenians had abandoned the city he took away these
statues also among the spoils, but they were afterwards restored to the Athenians by
Antiochus.
Pausanias 1.9.5
(i) Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν
Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι᾿ ἣν αἰτίην
ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι.
What Herodotus the Halicarnassian has learnt by inquiry is here set forth: in order that
so the memory of the past may not be blotted out from among men by time, and that
great and marvellous deeds done by Greeks and foreigners and especially the reason
why they warred against each other may not lack renown.
Herodotus 1.1
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2.
‘Aims and structure were closely related in classical historiography.’
Discuss.
3.
‘In classical antiquity, accounts of the past were not only to be found in the
writings of those who defined themselves as historians.’ Discuss with
reference to either Greece or Rome.
4.
Why were classical historians so frequently polemical about their
predecessors?
5.
Assess the contribution of rhetoric to ancient historiography.
6.
To what extent were documents consulted by ancient writers of history?
7.
‘Politics by another name’. Discuss this view of history writing in the
Roman Republic.
8.
How did historians cope with the advent of autocratic power in imperial
Rome?
9.
‘Ancient battle narratives are inevitably stereotyped.’ Discuss.
10.
To what extent, and for what reasons, did ancient historians present the
destructive impact of warfare in their writings?
11.
To what extent was explaining the ways of other peoples thought to be one
of the roles of the historian in antiquity?
12.
How significant a component of the ‘Second Sophistic’ was the writing of
history?
13.
How important were moral issues to writers of ancient history?
14.
‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
(SANTAYANA). Would ancient writers of history have agreed?
20