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The survival of ancient Greek historiography is largely due to its preservation by Byzantine copyists and scholars. This process entailed selection, adaptation, and commentary, which shaped the corpus of Greek historiography in its transmission. By investigating those choices, Kaldellis enables a better understanding of the reception and survival of Greek historical writing.
Byzantine Readings of Ancient Historians includes translations of texts written by Byzantines on specific ancient historians. Each translated text is accompanied by an introduction and notes to highlight the specific context and purpose of its composition. In order to present a rounded picture of the reception of Greek historiography in Byzantium, a wide range of genres have been considered, such as poems and epigrams, essays, personalized scholia, and commentaries. Byzantine Readings of Ancient Historians is therefore an important resource for scholars and students of ancient history.
List of contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
- Xenophon in Byzantium and the coded poem for Leon VI
- The Excerpta historica of Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos
- The Scholia on the Zosimos manuscript
- Ioannes Tzetzes' verse scholia on Thucydides
- Scholia on Diodoros of Sicily by Niketas Choniates and others
- Theodoros Metochites and the Greek Historians
- Ioannes Kanaboutzes' Commentary on the Roman Antiquities of Dionysios of Halikarnassos
Bibliography
About the author
Anthony Kaldellis is Professor of Classics at the Ohio State University. His areas of expertise include Byzantine studies and Greek historiography.
Summary
Byzantine Readings of Ancient Historians includes translations of texts written by Byzantines on specific ancient historians. Each translated text is accompanied by an introduction and notes to highlight the specific context and purpose of its composition. In order to present a rounded picture of the reception of Greek historiography in
Report
"Kaldellis's translations are a pleasure to read. The notes and introductions to the translations will surely be highly informative for readers without knowledge of Byzantine history... I appreciate how the book depicts the ancient and Byzantine approaches, demonstrating how each tradition can complement and -even if it sounds paradoxical - explain the other. Kaldellis's book stands as yet another success in making Byzantine intellectual culture more accessible."
- Przemyslaw Marciniak, University of Silesia, Poland, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016
"... elegant... an original collection of texts from the middle and the late Byzantine era ... [this] anthology is an important and original one."
- Irene-Sophia Kiapidou, University of Patras, Greece, BYZANTINA SYMMEIKTA 2018
