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This book traces the intellectual influence of Herodotus among ancient Greek writers living under the Roman Empire.
List of contents
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Introduction: After Herodotus
- Chapter 1. The Ethics of Authorship: Herodotus in the Rhetorical Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- Chapter 2. Dionysius's Global Herodotus
- Chapter 3. Parallel Authors: Plutarch's "Life" of Herodotus
- Chapter 4. Hellenism in the Distance: Herodotean Fringes in Dio's Borystheniticus
- Chapter 5. Removable Eyes: Lucian and the Truths of Herodotus
- Chapter 6. Anacharsis at Border Control
- Chapter 7. Acts of God: Pausanias Divines Herodotus
- Chapter 8. Pausanias in Wonderland
- Epilogue: Herodotus without End
About the author
N. Bryant Kirkland is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Summary
Herodotus and Imperial Greek Literature is the first monograph devoted to the reception of Herodotus among Imperial Greek writers. Using a broad reception model and focused largely on texts outside of historiography proper, the book analyzes the entanglements of criticism and imitation in select works by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Dio of Prusa, Lucian, and Pausanias. It offers a new angle on Herodotus's intellectual afterlife, focused on evocations both explicit and implicit in literary criticism, the moral essay, public oration, satire, and periegetic literature.
This monograph moves beyond the study of reputation only--what ancient authors explicitly had to say about Herodotus--to examine the interrelation between Herodotus's reputation and his often implicit reworking across genre and mode. It demonstrates how Herodotus was strategically construed as fabulist, classicist, moralizer, and evasive intellectual, and how Herodotean presences played to the wider purposes of Imperial writers. Ultimately, the book examines how attention to the presence of Herodotus in various texts unveils new layers of meaning in those works, while also showing how ancient receptions offer insight into the Histories.
Additional text
[Kirkland's] excellent study is a welcome addition to the scholarly discussion. Rather than chronicle moments of allusion or quotation, it instead wrestles with the complicated question of the historian's reputation and in the process offers a sophisticated methodology that readers will likely find of use well beyond the specific example of Herodotus' afterlife... As a well-edited and beautifully produced book, it is recommended reading for anyone interested in imperial Greek literature, Herodotus or reception studies.
