The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography

In this volume an international group of scholars revisits the themes of John Marincola's ground-breaking Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. The nineteen chapters offer a series of case studies that explore how ancient historians' approaches to their projects were informed both by the pull of tradition and by the ambition to innovate. The key themes explored are the relation of historiography to myth and poetry; the narrative authority exemplified by Herodotus, the 'father' of history; the use of 'fictional' literary devices in historiography; narratorial self-presentation; and self-conscious attempts to shape the historiographical tradition in new and bold ways. The volume presents a holistic vision of the development of Greco-Roman historiography and the historian's dynamic position within this practice.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: the authoritative historian K. Scarlett Kingsley, Giustina Monti and Tim Rood; Part I. Myth, Fiction, and the Historian's Authority: 1. Seven types of fiction in the Greek historians Michael A. Flower; 2. Folktale and local tradition in Charon of Lampsacus Nino Luraghi; 3. Mythical and historical time in Herodotus: Scaliger, Jacoby, and the chronographic tradition Tim Rood; 4. Myth and history in Livy's preface A. J. Woodman; Part II. Dislocating Authority in Herodotus' Histories: 5. Herodotus as tour guide: the autopsy motif Scott Scullion; 6. Interpretive uncertainty in Herodotus' Histories Carolyn Dewald; 7. 'It is no accident that…': connectivity and coincidence in Herodotus Richard Rutherford; 8. Through barbarian eyes: non-Greeks on Greeks in Herodotus Deborah Boedeker; Part III. Performing Collective and Personal Authority; 9. Singing and dancing Pindar's authority Lucia Athanassaki; 10. Authority, experience, and the vicarious traveller in Herodotus' Histories K. Scarlett Kingsley; 11. Veni, vidi, vici: when did Roman politicians use the first-person singular? Harriet Flower; 12. Self-praise and self-presentation in Plutarch Frances B. Titchener; Part IV. Generic Transformations: 13. Thucydides' Mytilenaean debate: political philosophy or authoritative history? Paul Cartledge; 14. Tradition, innovation, and authority: Caesar's historical ambitions Kurt A. Raaflaub; 15. Tradition and authority in Philostratus' Lives of the Sophists Ewen Bowie; Part V. Innovation within Tradition: 16. 'When one assumes the ethos of writing history': Polybius' historiographical neologisms Giustina Monti; 17. How tradition is formed: from the fall of Caesar to the rise of Octavian Mark Toher; 18. 'Burn baby burn (disco in Furneaux)': Tacitean authority, innovation and the Neronian fire (Annals 15.38–9) Rhiannon Ash; 19. The authority to be untraditional Christopher Pelling.

About the Author :
K. Scarlett Kingsley is an Assistant Professor of Classics at Agnes Scott College. Her research focuses on Greek historiography and philosophy, and she has published articles on Herodotus, Thucydides, and the Presocratics. She is finishing a monograph on Herodotus and intellectual culture, which was awarded a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship. Giustina Monti is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies (Greek Culture) at the University of Lincoln. Her main research interests lie in Greek historiography, and she has published articles on Alexander the Great, Herodotus, and Polybius. She is the author of Alexander the Great. Letters: A Selection (forthcoming). Tim Rood is a Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor in Classics at St Hugh's College. He is the author of Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (1998); The Sea! The Sea! (2004); American Anabasis (2010); and (with Carol Atack and Tom Phillips) Anachronism and Antiquity (2020). He is also the co-editor (with Luuk Huitink) of Xenophon: Anabasis Book III for the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series (2019).