The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians

by Andrew Feldherr

Overview

No field of Latin literature has been more transformed over the last couple of decades than that of the Roman historians. Narratology, a new receptiveness to intertextuality, and a re-thinking of the relationship between literature and its political contexts have ensured that the works of historians such as Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus will be read as texts with the same interest and sophistication as they are used as sources. In this book, topics central to the entire tradition, such as conceptions of time, characterization, and depictions of politics and the gods, are treated synoptically, while other essays highlight the works of less familiar historians, such as Curtius Rufus and Ammianus Marcellinus. A final section focuses on the rich reception history of Roman historiography, from the ancient Greek historians of Rome to the twentieth century. An appendix offers a chronological list of the ancient historians of Rome.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521670937
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/24/2009
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Literature
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Andrew Feldherr is Professor of Classics at Princeton University, New Jersey. He is also the author of Spectacle and Society in Livy's History (1998) and Playing Gods: The Politics of Fiction in Ovid's Metamorphoses (forthcoming).

Table of Contents

Introduction Andrew Feldherr; Part I. Approaches: 1. Ancient audiences and expectations John Marincola; 2. Postmodern historiographical theory and the Roman historians William W. Batstone; 3. Historians without history: against Roman historiography J. E. Lendon; Part II. Contexts and Traditions: 4. Alternatives to written history in Republican Rome Harriet I. Flower; 5. Roman historians and the Greeks: audiences and models John Dillery; 6. Cato's Origines: the historian and his enemies Ulrich Gotter; 7. Polybius James Davidson; Part III. Subjects: 8. Time Denis Feeney; 9. Space Andrew Riggsby; 10. Religion in historiography Jason Davies; 11. Virtue and violence: the historians on politics Joy Connolly; Part IV. Modes: 12. The rhetoric of Roman historiography Andrew Laird; 13. The exemplary past in Roman historiography and culture Matthew Roller; 14. Intertextuality and historiography Ellen O'Gorman; Part V. Characters: 15. Characterization and complexity: Caesar, Sallust, and Livy Ann Vasaly; 16. Representing the emperor Caroline Vout; 17. Women in Roman historiography Kristina Milnor; 18. Barbarians I: Quintus Curtius and other Roman historians' reception of Alexander Elizabeth Baynham; 19. Barbarians II: Tacitus' Jews Andrew Feldherr; Part VI. Transformations: 20. Josephus Honora Chapman; 21. The Roman exempla tradition in Imperial Greek historiography: the case of Camillus Alain M. Gowing; 22. Ammianus Marcellinus: Tacitus' heir and Gibbon's guide Gavin Kelly; 23. Ancient Roman historians and early modern political theory Benedetto Fontana; 24. Rewriting history for the early modern stage: Racine's Roman tragedies Volker Schröder; 25. 'Tacitus' Syme': the Roman historians and twentieth-century approaches to Roman history Emma Dench.