Histos (Journal)
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Per un’Etnografia del Mezzogiorno Italiano (on E. Lelli, Sud antico. Diario di una ricerca tra filologia ed etnologia)
No full textCh. 4. Filling in the Gaps: Studying Anachronism in Diodorus’ Narrative of the First Sicilian ‘Slave War’
No full textDiodorus Siculus’ narrative of the First Sicilian ‘Slave War’ is often considered to offer an ‘accurate, reliable, and comprehensive’ account of the war. This article aims to demonstrate that the text is not necessarily authoritative by reassessing the narrative function of an anachronistic explanatory passage that is often ‘fixed’ in modern accounts with a plausible, but hypothetical alternative. It is argued that we cannot ‘fix’ this anachronism without thereby jeopardising the text’s narrative structure. In sum, the anachronism was inserted because the author did not understand the events he narrated or their immediate historical context.
Published in Alexander Meeus, ed., Narrative in Hellenistic Historiography (HISTOS Supplement 8), p. 115-43
Real Epitome or a Cuckoo’s Egg? (on B. Mineo, ed., Justin: Abrégé des Histoires Philipiques de Trogue Pompée. Tome I: Livres I–X. Texte établi, traduit et commenté par Bernard Mineo, notes historiques de Giuseppe Zecchini)
Get PDFDie Vita Martini des Sulpicius Severus im Spannungsfeld von Hagiographie, Biographie und Historiographie (on P. Burton, ed., Sulpicius Severus’ Vita Martini)
Get PDFChronological Tables for Caesar’s Wars (58–45 BCE)
Get PDFThis chronological outline of Julius Caesar\u27s campaigns in Gaul and during the civil wars is the first of its kind in coverage and depth. Never before have the years 58-50 BCE been parsed in such detail. For an account of how the dates in that period were determined, the reader is referred to Histos 11 (2017) 1-74. The tables covering the years 49-45 expand and refine previously published outlines of this sort, virtually all of which rely to some extent on Colonel Eugène Stoffel\u27s \u27Tableau de Dates\u27, first published in vol. 2 of his Histoire de Jules César: Guerre Civile (Paris, 1887) 421-38. A fresh analysis, taking advantage of subsequent scholarship and using modern digital maps based on a GIS interface, has made it possible to refine data and arrive at a more securely grounded reconstruction of Caesar\u27s movements and the sequence of events in his wars and campaigns. This improved presentation of chronology gives us a better understanding of the course of history in those years by synchronizing events in the field with political developments in Rome and happenings elsewhere in the Roman empire
Learning from Thucydides: An Ancient Historian Writes Contemporary History
Get PDFAncient writers of history such as Thucydides and Polybius had to depend mostly on eye-witness testimony, collected in personal interviews. Thucydides was explicit about the problems inherent in this method: eyewitnesses were biased, unaware, forgetful. In 2013–16, I had a unique experience for a modern historian of antiquity: while writing a book about radical guerrillas of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I personally interviewed many actual participants in dramatic historical events. I found that Thucydides’ warnings about the pitfalls of the interview method were more than affirmed by my own direct experience
Textkritik und Epikureismusforschung (on W. Lapini, L’Epistola a Erodoto e il Bios di Epicuro in Diogene Laerzio. Note testuali, esegetiche e metodologiche)
Get PDFCh. 2. Geographical and Historical Patterning in Diodorus Siculus
No full textThis paper explores the function of geographical and historical patterning in Diodorus’ work, in particular parallels between Sicily and mainland Greece created both through explicit plotting of events and through intratextual and intertextual echoes. It examines how Diodorus relates two Sicilian leaders, Agathocles and Dion, to Alexander and Philip of Macedon; how he creates links between Agesilaus’ invasion of Asia and Dionysius I’s conflict with Carthage; and how he picks up Thucydides’ Sicilian narrative in his account of Gelon’s victory over Carthage. The paper also explores and questions the language of East and West that scholars have applied in speaking of links between mainland Greece and Sicily.
Published in Alexander Meeus, ed., Narrative in Hellenistic Historiography (HISTOS Supplement 8), p. 23-68
Ch. 3. Implied Motivation in Diodorus’ Narrative of the Successors
No full textThis chapter examines the issue of implied motivation in Diodorus’ narrative of the Successors, Bibliotheke Books XVIII–XX. It focuses on the depiction of three individuals, Peukestas, Peithon, and Polyperchon, and argues that Diodorus preserves evidence of a sophisticated and layered narrative that combined historical narrative with a critical dissection of individuals’ thoughts and motives. The use of embedded focalisation within the text reveals an interest in a hermeneutic approach to history which, while likely not Diodorus’ own, was preserved by him because it fit the moral-didactic programme of Diodorus’ Bibliotheke.
Published in Alexander Meeus, ed., Narrative in Hellenistic Historiography (HISTOS Supplement 8), p. 69-114
Ch. 5. Emotion and Greekness in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Account of the Exile of Coriolanus
No full textDionysius’ account of Coriolanus’ exile is rarely treated on its own terms, normally being deprecated as inferior to Livy or Plutarch’s version of the same. On the contrary, Dionysius’ account is a powerful illustration of his method in combining Roman source-material with Greek literary heritage. In particular, Dionysius uses epic and technical elements of stage language to draw out the psychological tensions at play in the story. This account, therefore, not only helps us get closer to Dionysius’ vision of Romanness, as Greek-inflected and distinct from Livy’s; it also problematises tough, Roman masculinity, suggesting that Dionysius is a more subtle observer of Rome than is usually imagined.
Published in Alexander Meeus, ed., Narrative in Hellenistic Historiography (HISTOS Supplement 8), p. 145-69