The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres - Hardcover

Jakub Pigoń

9781443800150: The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1443800155 ISBN 13: 9781443800150

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009

This book consists of 22 papers originally presented during the conference on ancient historical writing held in May 2007 in Wroclaw, Poland. The authors are classical historians and philologists from academic institutions in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The collection responds to a growing interest among classical scholars in historiography and such related genres as ethnography and biography. The focus of the volume is, on the one hand, on the ancient historians' methods of approaching the external world, especially a non-Greek (or non-Roman) world, and, on the other, on the political dimension of historical writing, especially of Roman imperial historiography. There are also papers devoted to pointing and defining links between historiography and other literary genres such as epic or novel. Much attention is given to classical Greek historiography (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon), but other authors and periods are also discussed. The book is addressed to classical scholars, historians of historiography and anyone interested in ancient world. With a view to a non-specialist reader, all Greek and most Latin quotations are translated.

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Review:

"Herodotus dispensed praise and blame, told stories and attempted to assess the veracity of his sources, described manners and customs, probed political arrangements, and wondered about human mind and nature. In this sense all historians are The Children of Herodotus, and the collection at hand illustrates this vividly. The volume presents a fascinating tour of ancient historiography. Beginning with Herodotus himself the papers deal with the great figures of Thucydides, Xenophon and Tacitus, and proceed to a glittering variety of scriptores. The ancient progeny of Herodotus was a multifarious family; the present volume also speaks in many voices but consonant in the effort to preserve and comprehend the astonishing achievement of classical historiography." -Jerzy Linderski, Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "The twenty-two papers in this outstanding volume, ranging from the beginning to the end of antiquity, demonstrate the extraordinary vitality of Herodotus' legacy, and raise issues of central importance for all students of historiography. These latest children of Herodotus pay him worthy tribute. -Robert L. Fowler, Professor of Greek, University of Bristol

About the Author:

Jakub Pigon is Associate Professor of Latin at the Institute of Classics, University of Wroclaw, Poland

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