The Greeks invented history as a literary genre in the fifth century BC. This book follows the development of history from Herodotus, via Thucydides, Xenophon and Polybius, until the Hellenistic age.

This survey of more recent work on Herodotus, Thucydides and Polybius synthesises some of the most important research from the last few decades.

Grant shows us how the historians of antiquity routinely try to deceive, but he argues for the continuing vital importance of their work, and offers new ways of reading and interpreting it. An indispensible guide to using source-material.

This volume in The Edinburgh Leventis Studies series collects the papers presented at the sixth A. G. Leventis conference organised under the auspices of the Department of Classics at the University of Edinburgh. As with earlier volumes, it engages with new research and new approaches to the Greek past, and brings the fruits of that research to a wider audience. Although Greek historians were fundamental in the enterprise of preserving the memory of great deeds in antiquity, they were not alone in their interest in the past. The Greeks themselves, quite apart from their historians and in a variety of non-historiographical media, were constantly creating pasts for themselves that answered to the needs - political, social, moral and even religious - of their society. In this volume eighteen scholars discuss the variety of ways in which the Greeks constructed de-constructed, engaged with, alluded to, and relied on their pasts whether it was in the poetry of Homer, in the victory odes of Pindar, in tragedy and comedy on the Athenian stage, in their pictorial art, in their political assemblies, or in their religious practices. What emerges is a comprehensive overview of the importance of and presence of the past at every level of Greek society. In the final chapter the three discussants present at the conference (Simon Goldhill, Christopher Pelling and Suzanne Said) survey the contributions to the volume, summarise its overall contributions as well as indicate new directions that further scholarship might follow.

From the leading scholars behind The Greek Plays, a collection of the best translations of the foremost Greek historians, presenting a sweeping history of ancient Greece as recorded by its first chroniclers “Just the thing to remind us that human history, though lamentably a work in progress, is always something we can understand better.”—Sarah Ruden, translator of The Gospels and author of The Face of Water The historians of ancient Greece were pioneers of a new literary craft; their work stands among the world’s most enduring and important legacies and forms the foundation of a major modern discipline. This highly readable edition includes new and newly revised translations of selections from Herodotus—often called the “father of history”—Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the four greatest Greek innovators of historical narrative. Here the reader will find their most important, and most widely taught, passages collected in a single volume. The excerpts chart the landmark events of ancient Greece and provide a comprehensive account of the entire classical Greek age. From the start the Greek historians demonstrated how broad and varied historical writing could be and brought their craft beyond a mere chronicle of past events. This volume explores each author’s interest in religion, leadership, character, and the lessons of war. How, for instance, should readers interpret Herodotus’ inclusion of speeches and dialogues, dreams, and oracles as part of the “factual” record? What did Thucydides understand about human nature that (as he said) stays constant throughout time? How did Plutarch frame historical biography as a means of depicting the moral qualities of great men? Complete with introductions to the works of each historian, footnotes providing context and explaining obscurities, maps, and an appendix on the Greek conduct of war, this volume is an invaluable resource for students and passionate readers of history alike.

The main focus of this book is the ancient formation and development of the canons of Greek historiography. It takes a fresh look on the modern debate on canonical literature and deals with Greek historiographical traditions in the works of ancient rhetors and literary critics. Writings on historiography by Cicero, Quintilian, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus are chiefly taken into account to explore the canons of Greek historians in Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Ages. Essential in canon-formation was the concept of classicism which took shape in the Age of Augustus, but whose earlier developments can be traced back to Isocrates, a model rhetor according to Dionysius at the end of the 1st century BC. The analysis explores also late-antique authors of school treatises and progymnasmata, a field where historiography had a pedagogical function. Previous studies on canonical literature have rarely considered historiography. This book examines not only the works of ancient historians and their legacy, but also the relationship between historiography, literary criticism, and the rhetorical tradition.

The Greeks invented history as a literary genre in the fifth century B.C. The first historians owed much to Homer and adopted his vivid and direct style in narrating historical events. Yet, despite the influence of Homer the birth of history was basically a reaction against mythical accounts of the past. Homer wrote about war and travel in foreign lands, in the distant and mythical past. In contrast, the Greek historians of the fifth century wrote about contemporary or very recent events, where eye witnesses could be interviewed and facts checked. The Greek Historians follows the development of history from Herodotus, via Thucydides, Xenophon and Polybius, until the Hellenistic age. It introduces the individual writers and their topics, yet it also outlines their attitudes to historiography and their criticisms of each other. Such themes as the uses and value of truth and causation are traced, as well as the growing constraints on free speech under Hellenistic monarchs and the Romans. Written in an accessible and captivating manner, with suggestions for further reading, this book serves as a lucid introduction to Greek historians and writing of history.

This book challenges conventional opinion by arguing that slaves and Helots played an important part in classical Greek warfare. Although rival city-states often used these classes in their own forces or tried to incite their enemies' slaves to rebellion or desertion, such recruitment was ideologically awkward: slaves or Helots, despised and oppressed classes, should have had no part in the military service so closely linked with citizenship, with rule, and even with an individual's basic worth. Consequently, their participation has tended to drop out of the historical record. Focusing on Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, this study attempts to demonstrate the actual role played by slaves and Helots in warfare, the systematic neglect of the subject by these historians, and the ideologies motivating this reticence.

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