Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography - Futures Past From Herodotus to Augustine

This book explores the tension in ancient historiography between teleological design and narrating the past as it was experienced by historical characters.

List of contents

Introduction: futures past: historiography between experience and teleology; Part I. Experience: Making the Past Present: 1. Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War; 2. Xenophon, Anabasis; 3. Plutarch, Alexander; 4. Tacitus, Annals; Part II. Teleology: The Power of Retrospect: 5. Herodotus, Histories; 6. Polybius, Histories; 7. Sallust, Bellum Catilinae; Part III. Beyond Experience and Teleology: 8. Augustine, Confessions; Epilogue: experience in modern historiography.

About the author

Jonas Grethlein holds the Chair in Greek Literature at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. His recent publications include The Greeks and their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE (2010) and, co-edited with Christopher B. Krebs, Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography: The 'Plupast' from Herodotus to Appian (2012).

Summary

This new approach to the temporal dynamic of historiography will appeal to classicists, ancient historians and scholars interested in the theory of history. Its application to major Greek and Roman historians yields a new and often surprising take on individual authors and the history of ancient historiography in general.

Product details

• Authors: Jonas Grethlein, Jonas (Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heide Grethlein, Grethlein Jonas
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 17.10.2013
• EAN: 9781107040281
• ISBN: 978-1-107-04028-1
• No. of pages: 436
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; HISTORY / Ancient / General, Historiography, Ancient World, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Ancient History, Classical history / classical civilisation, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, BCE to c 500 CE