Book Description

"Over the past thirty years the study of classical historiography has undergone great changes. While not abandoning traditional questions about sources and reliability, newer scholarship, influenced and informed by the current debates in the academy at large about the nature and purpose of all historiography, has sought to understand the ancient historians on their own terms and has more closely engaged with the ways in which the Greeks and Romans constructed their pasts, with the various roles that history played in these societies, with the relationship of history as a literary composition to other genres, and with the importance of the historian himself in giving form and meaning to his history. The essays in the present volume, six of which are translated into English for the first time, address these and other issues. Topics treated include the relationship of history and myth, the importance of oral tradition in the formation of both Greek andRoman historical traditions, the role of memory (both individual and societal) in shaping notions of the past and determining what is thought worthy of record, the influence of other genres such as poetry and oratory on historiography, and ancient notions of falsehood and historical truth. An introduction places the essays in the larger context of earlier and more recent trends in the study of Greek and Roman historiography"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of cover.