Ancient Historiography Research Articles

Ancient origins: Sexual violence in warfare, Part I

Sexual violence frequently occurs in warfare. The focus here is on its perpetration throughout history, beginning with ancient Greek, Roman and Israeli societies. Many references to sexual violence in modern literature appear in studies on siege warfare. Rape has also been discussed as a main topic. The current paper explores how violence is described by ancient authors—Homer, Herodotus, Livy, Hebrew prophets and others—and in which contexts it occurs. What contemporary attitudes to these actions are conveyed by the sources? Did violations follow patterns as to how and when they were executed or did they take place at random? Was individual, physical gratification the sole motive? Ancient historiography and prose was researched and modern theories applied for the purpose of interpreting cases in greater detail. This investigation showed that ancient sources held multiple, often contradictory attitudes to sexual violence. In addition, apparent chaos in the battlefield appears more structured than expected and physical satisfaction offers only a partial explanation to the violence. In conjunction with the second part where modern evidence is discussed, the current papers provide an historical, cultural and psychological insight into the persistence of sexual violence and its influences.

Clio and the Poets: Augustan Poetry and the Traditions of Ancient Historiography

The Augustan age was one in which writers were constantly reworking the Roman past, and which was marked by a profound engagement of poets with the historians and historical techniques which were the main vehicle for the transmission of the image of the past to their day. In this book seventeen leading scholars from Europe and America examine the fascinating interaction between such apparently diverse genres: how the Augustan poets drew on - or reacted against - the historians' presentation of the world, and how, conversely, historians picked up and transformed poetic themes for their own ends. With essays on poems from Horace's Odes to Ovid's Metamorphoses, on authors from Virgil to Valerius Maximus, it forms the most important topic so central to such a particulary relevant period of literary history.

Plus ça change…. Ancient Historians and their Sources

This article addresses the problem of veracity in ancient historiography. It contests some recent views that the criteria of truth in historical writing were comparable to the standards of forensic rhetoric. Against this I contend that the historians of antiquity did follow their sources with commendable fi delity, superimposing a layer of comment but not adding independent material. To illustrate the point I examine the techniques of the Alexander historian, Q. Curtius Rufus, comparing his treatment of events with a range of other sources that reflect the same tradition. The results can be paralleled in early modern historiography, in the dispute between J. G. Droysen and K. W. Krüger on the character of Callisthenes of Olynthus. Both operate with the same material, but give it different “spins” according to their political perspectives. There is error and hyperbole, but no deliberate fiction.

Speaking the same language: speech and audience in Thucydides' Spartan debates

The Peloponnesian War, which destroyed imperial Athens and ultimately Sparta as well, continues to fascinate students of history, politics, and human nature. Thucydides' account of the twenty-seven-year conflict charts the opposition between the two great powers of the classical Greek world and the ways of life they represented. Paula Debnar explores the collapse of these powers from a new perspective, examining the ways discourse changed under the strain of a long and costly war.Speaking the Same Language seeks to recover the role played by the audiences within the History. By restoring the internal audiences to a more prominent place, Debnar emphasizes the perspective of the participants in the war and heightens the dramatic immediacy of the debates. She thoroughly analyzes twelve speeches delivered by or to the Spartans, demonstrating how the earlier speeches illustrate the role of discourse in the construction of Sparta's identity and the unification of her Dorian allies in the face of their primarily Ionian adversaries.Combining close textual analysis with an examination of narrative and historical context, Debnar bridges the gap between literary and historical studies of Thucydides. Accessible to specialists and nonspecialists alike, her work will interest those working in the fields of Greek literature, ancient historiography, rhetoric, political science, and ethnic studies.Paula Debnar is Associate Professor of Classics, Mount Holyoke College.

Discursos e Imperadores nas Histórias de Tácito

Rhetoric always had a strong presence in the ancient historiography: improving techniques for narrative construction and for transmission of an ideological message. Tacitus made use of his rhetoric experience in writing speeches for his Histories. In this book, he made a political engaged use of direct and indirect speech, with consequences in positive or negative construction of imperial and military characters.

Dionysius, Lucian, and the Prejudice against Rhetoric in History

This article will explore the familiar polarity between history and rhetoric by comparing two rather different accounts from the early Empire. The treatment of history in the rhetorical theory of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the curious work of historical theory by Lucian will be contrasted to open up some new areas of debate. Although the relationship between rhetoric and history has been the subject of numerous studies, none have given much weight to one central aspect of the juxtaposition: the dialectic between rhetoric and aesthetics, and the place of that dialectic in ancient historical theory. Since scholars generally agree that ancient historiography exists, like all other forms of ancient writing, within a culture where rhetoric provides all educational resources, and thus acts as a substitute for aesthetic theory, this is not in itself surprising. A close reading of these particular texts, however, produces a more differentiated view of what rhetoric might mean to those seeking to define historiography. Dionysius and Lucian are both concerned with the relationship between rhetoric and wider issues of moral and social education. But because rhetoric is not philosophy, but rather a system concerned above all with the formal qualities of spoken utterance, these moral issues become closely implicated with aesthetic concerns. More startlingly, they do so in each author in a significantly different way. The interweaving of moral and aesthetic may at first sight seem strange; we are accustomed to think of the aesthetic and the moral as operating in rather different spheres, at least when it comes to literary production.

Dionysius, Lucian, and the Prejudice against Rhetoric in History

This article will explore the familiar polarity between history and rhetoric by comparing two rather different accounts from the early Empire. The treatment of history in the rhetorical theory of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the curious work of historical theory by Lucian will be contrasted to open up some new areas of debate. Although the relationship between rhetoric and history has been the subject of numerous studies, none have given much weight to one central aspect of the juxtaposition: the dialectic between rhetoric and aesthetics, and the place of that dialectic in ancient historical theory. Since scholars generally agree that ancient historiography exists, like all other forms of ancient writing, within a culture where rhetoric provides all educational resources, and thus acts as a substitute for aesthetic theory, this is not in itself surprising. A close reading of these particular texts, however, produces a more differentiated view of what rhetoric might mean to those seeking to define historiography. Dionysius and Lucian are both concerned with the relationship between rhetoric and wider issues of moral and social education. But because rhetoric is not philosophy, but rather a system concerned above all with the formal qualities of spoken utterance, these moral issues become closely implicated with aesthetic concerns. More startlingly, they do so in each author in a significantly different way. The interweaving of moral and aesthetic may at first sight seem strange; we are accustomed to think of the aesthetic and the moral as operating in rather different spheres, at least when it comes to literary production.

The Pentateuch: A Social Science Commentary

This overview of the Pentateuch reviews the various historical-critical attempts to read it that arise from notions about the social evolution of Israel's religion and culture. Is the Pentateuch an accumulation of folk traditions, a work of ancient historiography, a document legitimizing religious reform? The present book, in dialogue with competing views, advocates a compositional model that recognizes the social and historical diversity of the literary strata. It argues that a proto-Pentateuchal author created a comprehensive history from Genesis to Numbers that was written as a prologue to the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy to 2 Kings) in the exilic period and later expanded by a Priestly writer to make it the foundational document of the Jerusalem temple community.

Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. John Marincola

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsAuthority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. John Marincola Matthew WatersMatthew Waters Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 59, Number 4Oct., 2000 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/468882 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 2000 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

H. Mouritsen, Italian Unification: a Study in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 70). London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1998. Pp. 203. ISBN 0-900587-81-4. £35.00.

H. Mouritsen, Italian Unification: a Study in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 70). London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1998. Pp. 203. ISBN 0-900587-81-4. £35.00.

Authority and Tradition

Authority and Tradition

Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography

Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography

Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography

Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography

The Prophetic Speeches in Chronicles: Speculation, Revelation, and Ancient Historiography

Abstract Scholars have for some time recognized that the Chronicler's prophetic speeches are his own compositions rather than materials that he has culled from source materials. The fictive nature of these speeches raises important questions regarding both the nature of Hebrew historiography and also the nature of the Chronicler's work as scripture. When the Chronicler's use of speeches is compared to a similar use of speeches in Greek historiography, it becomes clear that his fictive contributions to the history are a legitimate means to bring his theological Tendenz to bear on the narrative. A close reading of the speeches also shows that their theology has been exegetically derived from the Chronicler's canonical texts.

The Prophetic Speeches in Chronicles: Speculation, Revelation, and Ancient Historiography

Abstract Scholars have for some time recognized that the Chronicler's prophetic speeches are his own compositions rather than materials that he has culled from source materials. The fictive nature of these speeches raises important questions regarding both the nature of Hebrew historiography and also the nature of the Chronicler's work as scripture. When the Chronicler's use of speeches is compared to a similar use of speeches in Greek historiography, it becomes clear that his fictive contributions to the history are a legitimate means to bring his theological Tendenz to bear on the narrative. A close reading of the speeches also shows that their theology has been exegetically derived from the Chronicler's canonical texts.

Ammianus, the Romans and Constantius II: Res Gestae XIV.6 and XVI.10

In the History of Ammianus Marcellinus there are a large number of digressions, the majority of which conform to the practices of ancient historiography, which included them as a necessary background to the narrative text.1 Two of the digressions have, however, attracted particular attention as quite unusual within the tradition, those in which Ammianus discusses in vitriolic language the inhabitants of the city of Rome (XIV.6 and XXVIII.4).2 Since both of these so-called "Roman" digressions cover the same material and in many respects the second seems to be an expansion and variation of the first, scholars have always discussed them together. Neither of these digressions has a particular connection to the narrative which surrounds it, both are generalising, and both emphasise the vices of their subjects in language that varies from ironical to openly sarcastic, so that they have been compared to the work of the Roman satirists.3 The strongly moralising stance which they display reflects, albeit in an exaggerated form, the general tone of the History. It is usually and plausibly held, however, that the very real and personal anger evident in these digressions was a consequence of Ammianus' own experience when, some time after 378 A.D., with high expectations he arrived in the city of Rome intending to settle there and write his History, only to have these expectations dashed by the indifferent, even hostile, reception he found there. Indeed, the discussion of these digressions usually stops at this point: they are read as little more than a petulant expression of personal pique.4

J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xvi + 361. ISBN 0-521-480191-1. £45.00/US$64.95.

J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xvi + 361. ISBN 0-521-480191-1. £45.00/US$64.95.

Authority and tradition in ancient historiography

This book is a study of the various claims to authority made by the ancient Greek and Roman historians throughout their histories and is the first to examine all aspects of the historian's self-presentation. It shows how each historian claimed veracity by imitating, modifying, and manipulating the traditions established by his predecessors. Beginning with a discussion of the tension between individuality and imitation, it then categorises and analyses the recurring style used to establish the historian's authority: how he came to write history; the qualifications he brought to the task; the inquiries and efforts he made in his research; and his claims to possess a reliable character. By detailing how each historian used the tradition to claim and maintain his own authority, the book contributes to a better understanding of the complex nature of ancient historiography.

The History of Culture, Religion, and Institutions in Ancient Historiography: Philological Observations concerning Luke's History

Research Article| December 01 1997 The History of Culture, Religion, and Institutions in Ancient Historiography: Philological Observations concerning Luke’s History Hubert Cancik Hubert Cancik Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Biblical Literature (1997) 116 (4): 673–695. https://doi.org/10.2307/3266552 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Hubert Cancik; The History of Culture, Religion, and Institutions in Ancient Historiography: Philological Observations concerning Luke’s History. Journal of Biblical Literature 1 January 1997; 116 (4): 673–695. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3266552 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveSBL PressJournal of Biblical Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Converting the Past: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Moabite Historiography

Converting the Past: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Moabite Historiography