Greek and Roman Historiography

Greek and Roman Historiography is a collection of important articles from the last thirty years which treat the ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans thought about and wrote their histories. Six of these articles have been translated into English for the first time. Avoiding issues such as sources and reliability which were the concern of earlier scholarship, the contributors focus much more on how the ancients themselves engaged with their past: the relationship between myth and history; the role of memory and oral tradition as they shaped both Greek and Roman notions of the past; the role of the historian in giving form and meaning to his history; and the different notions of historical truth and falsehood. A specially written introduction places the essays in the larger context of earlier and more recent trends in the study of Greek and Roman historiography.

John Marincola is Leon Golden Professor of Classics, Florida State University