HISTORIOGRAPHY CLASSES 2015-16
Classes: 4 Sessions in Michaelmas Term (Tuesdays 2-3.30, Weeks 5-6, 8; Tuesday 4-5.30,
Week 7), 4 Sessions in Hilary Term (Tuesdays 2-3.30, Weeks 1-4).
In Michaelmas, the classes will take place in St Hugh’s College (Louey Seminar Room,
Dickson Poon Building; in Hilary, the classes will be in Merton College (Hawkins Room,
Fellows’ Quad, Staircase 3).
Topics will be as follows:
Michaelmas Term:
(a) Historiography as Genre: Proems and Narrative Voice
(b) The Face of War: Battles, Sieges, and Modes of Combat
(c) A Wonderful World: Geography and Ethnography
(d) Qualis Artifex Pereo: Characterisation, Death-Scenes, Obituary Notices
Hilary Term:
(e) Res Novae: Conspiracies, Revolution, and Regime Change.
(f) The Power of Logos: Speeches and Debate
(g) Divine Intervention: Religion, Fate, and the Supernatural
(h) Final Round-Up Session
Workload
We expect each of you EITHER to hand in THREE ESSAYS (as a minimum) and tackle TWO
PRESENTATIONS, OR to hand in FOUR ESSAYS (as a minimum) and tackle ONE
PRESENTATION. There are twelve questions below from which to choose - weeks 3 and 7 can
also be split into separate Greek and Roman presentations to make fourteen.
Please choose your top three preferred presentation topics, and email us with them by Tuesday
of 2nd week (20th October). We will accommodate your preferences as best we can.
Rhiannon and Tim
Rhiannon.ash@classics.ox.ac.uk timothy.rood@classics.ox.ac.uk
1
1. Historiography as Genre: Proems and Narrative Voice
(a) How far do the proems of Sallust and Livy cohere with the practices of their Greek
predecessors in opening their works?
J.L. Moles, ‘Truth and untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in Gill and Wiseman, Lies and
Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter, 1993), 88–121.
M. Wecowski, ‘The hedgehog and the fox: form and meaning in the prologue of Herodotus’, JHS
124 (2004), 143–64.
T. Rood, ‘Herodotus’ Proem: Space, Time, and the Origins of International Relations’, Ariadne 16
(2010) 43-74. [available online in Oxford Research Archives]
C. Pelling, ‘Homer and Herodotus’, in Currie, Clarke, and Lyne, Epic Interactions (2006), 75–104,
at 77–85.
W.R. Connor, Thucydides (1984), 20–32.
A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (1988), ch. 1.
D. C. Earl, ‘Prologue-form in ancient historiography’, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen
Welt 1. 2 (1972) 842-856 (mainly on Sallust, but with useful general introductory remarks)
J. Moles, ‘Livy’s Preface’, PCPS 39 (1993) 141-68.
(D.F. Conley, ‘The Stages of Rome’s Decline in Sallust’s Historical Theory’, Hermes 109 (1981) 37982.)
M. Toher, ‘Augustus and the Evolution of Roman Historiography’ 139-54 in K.A. Raaflaub and M.
Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1990).
A.M. Gowing, Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic on Imperial Culture
(Cambridge 2005) 1-27 (on history and memory).
And if you have time (on Tacitus):
A.D. Leeman, ‘Structure and Meaning in the Prologues of Tacitus’, YCS 23 (1973) 169-208 (esp.
186-99).
B. Walker, The Annals of Tacitus (Manchester 1951) 144-61.
A.J. Woodman, Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford 1998) 40-69, ‘Tacitus on Tiberius’ Accession’.
A.J. Woodman, ‘The Preface to Tacitus’ Annals: More Sallust?’, CQ 42 (1992) 567-8 [also
available in A.J. Woodman, Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford 1998) 21-22].
J. Marincola, ‘Tacitus’ Prefaces and the Decline of Imperial Historiography’, Latomus 58 (1999)
391-404.
T. Cole, ‘Initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum T. Vinius consules...’, YCS 29 (1992) 231-45
M. Leigh, ‘Tacitus Annals 1.1.1. and Aristotle’, CQ 63 (2013), 452-4.
(b) Is it right to categorise Caesar and Xenophon as writing historiography of a similar sort
to the other set authors? How and why are their narratives different from the other set
authors?
Relevant passages on various aspects of historical technique include:
GREEK: Hdt. 3.2.2, 3.9.2, 3.16.5-7, 3.47-9, 3.120-1 (variants); 3.45. 3 (argument from probability);
3.55 (personal source, compare and contrast 3.160); 3.10, 3.60 (inclusion of material); 3.12
(autopsy, compare and contrast 3.6); Thuc. 3.87, 3.89.2-5 (plague, earthquakes; cf. 1.23.3), 3.90.1
2
(selectivity), 3.96.1 (Hesiod’s death), 3.104 (Homer and Delos), 3.116 (Etna); X. Anab. 1.8.27
(Ctesias); 1.8.15, 2.5.37, 41; 3.1.4 (self-presentation; cf. X. Hell. 3.1.2).
ROMAN: Sallust De Coniuratione Catilinae and De Bello Iugurthino (prologues); Livy Ab Vrbe
Condita (preface); also the ‘second’ preface at 6.1.1-3 and the ‘third’, at 21.1.1-3.
If you have time, you might want to think about the other set-texts: Caesar BG 1.1 is interesting,
even if it does not constitute a formal preface; and important passages in Tacitus for his own
historical outlook include: Annals 1.1-3, 3.18, 3.19, 3.65, 4.20, 4.32-3; Histories 1.1, 2.38, 2.101,
3.51 (and 3.86, 4.86 on Domitian, as well as the preface and epilogue of the Agricola); and you
may also enjoy Lucian How to Write History 52-54; Seneca Apocolocyntosis 1.
Reading:
J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge 1997).
C. Dewald, ‘Narrative surface and authorial voice in Herodotus’ Histories’, Arethusa 20 (1987),
147–70.
J. Marincola, ‘Herodotean narrative and the narrator’s presence’, Arethusa 20 (1987), 121–37.
C. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley 1983) ch. 1
C. Dewald, ‘“I didn’t give my own genealogy”: Herodotus and the authorial persona’ in E.J.
Bakker et al., Brill’s companion to Herodotus (Leiden 2002), 267–89.
N. Luraghi, ‘Meta–historiê: Method and genre’, in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds) The
Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge 2006), 76–91.
E. Bowie, ‘Ancestors of Historiography in Early Greek Elegiac and Iambic Poetry?’, in N. Luraghi
(ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford, 2001), 45-66 [on verse predecessors]
R. Fowler, ‘Herodotos and his Contemporaries’, JHS 116 (1996) 62-87, revised version in R. V.
Munson (ed.) Herodotus: Oxford Readings in Classical Studies vol. 1 (2013) ch. 2.
S. Hornblower, ‘Narratology and narrative techniques in Thucydides’, in id., ed., Greek
Historiography (Oxford, 1994), 131-66; reprinted in his Thucydidean Themes (2010) ch. 3.
D. Gribble, ‘Narrator Interventions in Thucydides’, JHS 118 (1998), 41-67
T. Rood, ‘Objectivity and Authority: Thucydides’ Historical Method’, in A. Tsakmakis and A.
Rengakos (eds), The Brill Companion to Thucydides (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 225-49.
P. Bradley, ‘Irony and the Narrator in Xenophon’s Anabasis’, in Gray (ed.), Xenophon: Oxford
Readings (Oxford 2010), 520-52
V.J. Gray, ‘Interventions and Citations in Xenophon, Hellenica and Anabasis’, CQ 53 (2003), 11123. (Also in Gray (ed.) Xenophon: Oxford Readings (2010))
A. Corcella, ‘The New Genre and its Boundaries: Poets and Logographers’, in Brill’s Companion to
Thucydides (Leiden, 2006), 33-56
S. Hornblower, Thucydides (London, 1987), esp. Introduction
M.A. Flower, Xenophon’s Anabasis (New York, 2012), Chs 2-3
J. Grethlein, ‘Xenophon's Anabasis from Character to Narrator’, JHS 132 (2012) 1-18
C. Pelling, ‘Xenophon and Caesar’s Third-Person Narratives – Or Are They?’, 39-76 in A. Marmodoro
and J. Hill (eds), The Author’s Voice in Classical and Late Antiquity (Oxford 2013).
C.S. Kraus and A.J. Woodman, Latin Historians, Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 27
(1997) 88-102.
T.P. Wiseman, ‘Practice and Theory in Roman Historiography’, History 66 (1981) 375-93.
J. Marincola, ‘Genre, Convention and Innovation in Greco-Roman Historiography’, 281-324 in C.S.
Kraus (ed), The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Leiden
1999).
3
A. Riggsby, Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words (Austin, Texas 2006).
J. Osgood, ‘The Pen and the Sword: Writing and Conquest in Caesar’s Gaul’, Classical Antiquity 28
(2009), 328-58.
B. James, ‘Speech, Authority, and Experience in Caesar Bellum Gallicum’, Hermes 128 (2000), 54-64.
V. Cleary, ‘Caesar’s Commentarii: Writings in Search of a Genre’, Classical Journal 80 (1985), 345-50.
4
2. The Face of War: Battles, Sieges, and Modes of Combat
(a) How has Livy expanded and adapted Claudius Quadrigarius’ account of the single
combat between Torquatus and the Gaul? What is the impact of Livy’s modifications?
(b) How do Greek and Roman historians add excitement to their battle-narratives? Pick on
or two examples to discuss in detail.
Relevant passages include:
GREEK: Hdt. 3.54-5 (Samos), 3.78 (fight in palace), 3.151-8 (siege of Babylon); Thuc. 2.70
(Potidaia siege); 2. 1-6 and 71-78 (opening of Plataia narrative) 3.20-4 (escape from Plataea),
3.97-8, 3.107-8, 3.112-13 (fighting in the North-West); X. Anab. 1.2.14-18 (parade), 1.8 (Cunaxa),
4.1-2, 4.6, 4.8 (mountain fighting). For night fighting see Th. 7. 42-44, esp. 44. 1-2 (Epipolai near
Syracuse in Sicily)
ROMAN (for question (b)): Caesar BG 6.4-5 (campaign against the Menapii), 6.7-8 (campaign
against the Treveri), 6.9-10 (Caesar’s crossing of the Rhine), 6.34 (dangers of terrain for
Romans), 7.35-51 (the Gergovia campaign: a defeat for Rome), 7.68-90 (multiple circles of sieges
at Alesia); Sallust BJ 23 (siege of Cirta), BJ 38 (a night battle), BJ 56-61 (the attack on Zama), BJ
66-83 (the fall of the cities of Vaga and Thala), BJ894 (the capture of Capsa); Livy 1.7 (Hercules
and Cacus), 1.10 (Romulus defeats invaders), 1.11 (Sabines attack Rome), 1.14 (war with Fidenae
and an ambush), 1.15 (war with the Veientes), 1.22-25 (war between Rome and Alba), 1.29
(destruction of Alba), 1.30 (war against the Sabines), 1.32 (Latins invade Roman territory). 1.33
(Ancus storms Politorium), 1.36-7 (war with the Sabines), 1.53-4 (war against the Gabii); Tacitus
Annals 15.1-18, 24-31 (the war against the Parthians and the command of Corbulo)
Reading, Greek:
P. Sabin, H. van Wees and M. Whitby (eds.) Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
Vol. 1 (2007), Greece, the Hellenistic world etc., esp. chs. 2 (Hornblower), 3 (Whitby), 6 (Krentz), 7
(Wheeler and Strauss), 9 (van Wees)
E. C. Kiessling, ‘The oldest ‘new’ military historians: Herodotus, W. G. Forrest, and the
historiography of war’, in P. Derow and R. Parker (eds.), Herodotus and his world (Oxford, 2003),
88-100
J. Cobet, ‘Herodotus and Thucydides on war’, in in I.S. Moxon, J.D. Smart, and A.J. Woodman,
Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge 1986), 1-18
L. Tritle, ‘Warfare in Herodotus’, in Dewald/Marincola, Cambridge Companion to Herodotus, 20923 (general discussion)
P. Hunt, ‘Warfare’, in Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, 385-413 (general discussion)
Funke and Haake, ‘Theaters of Wars: Thucydidean Topography’, in Brill’s Companion to
Thucydides, 369-84 (general discussion)
H. P. Stahl, Thucydides: Man’s Place in History (Swansea, 2003).
W.R. Connor, Thucydides, 105-6
J.M. Bigwood, ‘The ancient accounts of the battle of Cunaxa’, AJP 104 (1983), 340-57
S. Bassett, ‘The death of Cyrus the Younger’, CQ 49 (1999), 473-83
5
M. Whitby, ‘Xenophon’s Ten Thousand as a Fighting Force’, in Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March,
215-42
More generally:
V.D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience (London and New York, 1991)
L. Rawlings, ‘Alternative agonies: hoplite martial and combat experiences beyond the phalanx’,
in H. van Wees (ed.), War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London, 2000), 233-59
Reading, Roman:
P. Sabin, H. van Wees and M. Whitby (eds.) Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
Vol. 2 (2007), esp. chs. 2 (Rankov), 3 (Goldsworthy), 4 (Gilliver) etc.
D.S. Levene, ‘Warfare in the Annals’ 225-38 in A.J. Woodman (ed), The Cambridge Companion to
Tacitus (Cambridge 2009)
R. Ash, ‘Following in the Footsteps of Lucullus? Tacitus’ Characterisation of Corbulo’, Arethusa
39 (2006), 355-75.
P. Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker
(London 1989).
P. Sabin, ‘The Face of Roman Battle’, JRS 90 (2000) 1-17.
R. Ash, ‘Epic Encounters? Ancient Historical Battle Narratives and the Epic Tradition’, 253-73 in
D.S. Levene and D.P. Nelis (eds), Clio and the Poets. Augustan Poetry and the Traditions of
Ancient Historiography (Leiden, Brill, Cologne 2002).
N. Horsfall, ‘Illusion and Reality in Latin Topographical Writing’, G&R32 (1985) 197-208.
On Quadrigarius and Livy:
(Aulus Gellius 9.13 preserves for us a verbatim fragment of the Republican historian Claudius
Quadrigarius (no. 24 frag. 6 FRHist, see below) about Manlius Torquatus’ single combat with a
Gaulish warrior. This fortunate coincidence allows us to enter the historian’s workshop and learn
much about techniques of composition and modification of sources, because we have the later
version of the same episode in Livy 7.9.6-7.10.14).
S.P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI-X: Volume II (Oxford 1998), 113-48.
J. Briscoe in T. Cornell (ed.) The Fragments of the Roman Historians (3 vols, Oxford, 2013, abbrev.
FRHist), vol. 2 pp. 500-501 (text and translation of the Claudius Quadrigarius fragment) and vol.
3 pp. 302-304 (commentary on it)
P.A. Brunt, ‘On Historical Fragments and Epitomes’, CQ 30 (1980), 477-94.
E. Rawson, ‘The First Latin Annalists’, Latomus 35 (1976), 689-717 (= E. Rawson, Roman Culture
and Society (Oxford 1991), 245-71).
T. Cornell, ‘The Formation of the Historical Tradition of Early Rome’, in I.S. Moxon, J.D. Smart,
and A.J. Woodman, Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge
1986), 67-86.
T.P. Wiseman, Historiography and Imagination (Exeter 1994), 1-22, ‘The Origins of Roman
Historiography’.
S.P. Oakley, ‘Single Combat in the Roman Republic’, CQ 35 (1985), 392-410.
J.H.C. Williams, Beyond the Rubicon: Romans and Gauls in Republican Italy (Oxford 2001), 68-99.
6
M. Von Albrecht, Masters of Roman Prose From Cato to Apuleius (Leeds 1989) 86-101.
7
3. A Wonderful World: Geography and Ethnography
Does the geographical and ethnographical material in Greek and Roman historians
genuinely enhance our understanding of historical events or simply perpetuate national
stereotypes?
Relevant passages include:
GREEK: Hdt. 3.5 (route of Cambyses’ march), 8-9 (Arabs), 12 (skulls), 15.2-3, 16.3 (attitudes to
fire), 17-24 (Ethiopians), 25 (expedition against Ethiopia), 31.4, 38 (nomos), 79.3 (festival), 89-116
(satrapies); Thuc. 3.88 (Lipara islands), 3.94.3-5 (Aetolia), 2. 97 and 7. 29 (Thracians); X. Anab.
1.2.22, 1.4.9-10, 1.5.1-4, 2.3.14-16, 2.4.13-14, 4.5.25-9, cf. 5.4.32-3
LATIN: Caesar BG 5.12-14 (the ethnography and geography of Britain); BG 6.11-28 (the
ethnography of the Gauls and Germans); Sallust BJ 17-19 (the description of Africa, with G.M.
Paul, A Historical Commentary on Sallust’s Jugurtha (Liverpool 1984) 71-80); Livy 1.3.5 (Tiber as a
boundary); Tacitus Annals 15.1-17, 24-32 has a certain amount of embedded geography and
ethnography in the Parthian narrative and there is also an artful blending of foreign and exotic
themes in presenting events in Rome (See the Woodman 1992 article below).
See in addition Tacitus Annals 4.33.3 for the potential pleasure factor of situs gentium, uarietates
proeliorum, clari ducum exitus; also Lucian Hist. Conscr. 57, Cicero Brutus 322, Pliny Epistles 2.5.5.
Other relevant passages include Tacitus Agricola 10-12, Histories 5.2-10
Reading:
E. Almagor and J. Skinner (eds), Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches (London 2013) contains
useful essays including Emma Dench, ‘The Scope of Ancient Ethnography’.
D. Dueck with a chapter by K. Brodersen, Geography in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 2012), esp.
ch. 2
Greek
J. Skinner, The Invention of Greek Ethnography. From Homer to Herodotus (Oxford 2012)
F. Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus, tr. J. Lloyd (1988: French original 1980, second edition 1991).
Critiques of Hartog by C. Dewald, CPh 85 (1990), 217–24, and Pelling in Histos 1997, revised
version in Munson 2013 vol. 2, 360-379.
Other essays in Munson 2013, volume 2, including J. Redfield, ‘Herodotus the tourist’, CPh 80
(1985) 97-118
J. Gould, Herodotus (London 1989), Ch. 5.
J. Romm, Herodotus, 77-93
R. Thomas, Herodotus in Context, esp. Ch. 4
T. Harrison, ‘The Place of Geography in Herodotus’ Histories’, in C. E. P. Adams and J. Roy (eds),
Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece, Egypt and the Near East (Oxford 2007) 44-65
S. Humphreys, ‘Law, Custom and Nature in Herodotus’, Arethusa 20 (1987), 211-20
T. Rood, ‘Herodotus and foreign lands’, in The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (ed. Dewald
and Marincola, 2006), 290–305.
8
R.V. Munson, Telling wonders: Ethnographic and political discourse in the work of Herodotus (Ann
Arbor 2001)
A. Purves, Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative (Cambridge 2010), Ch. 4 and (Herodotus)
and 5 (Xenophon, Anabasis).
L. Pearson, ‘Thucydides and the Geographical Tradition’, CQ 33 (1939), 48-54 (= D. Lateiner and
S. Stephens (eds.) Selected Papers of Lionel Pearson (1983) 28-34)
R.T. Ridley, ‘Exegesis and Audience in Thucydides’, Hermes 109 (1981) 25-46
J. Roy, ‘Xenophon’s Anabasis as a Traveller’s Memoir’, in C. E. P. Adams and J. Roy (eds), Travel,
geography and culture in Ancient Greece, Egypt and the Near East (Oxford, 2007), 66-77
T. Rood, ‘Xenophon’s Parasangs’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 130 (2010), 51-66.
M.-F. Baslez, ‘Fleuves et voies d’eau dans l’Anabase’, in P. Briant (ed.), Dans les pas des Dix Mille:
Peuples et pays du Proche-Orient vus par un Grec, Pallas 43 (1995) 79-88.
S.E. Larsen, ‘Landscape, Identity, and War’, New Literary History 35 (2004) 469-90 (brief
comments on Xenophon).
Roman
T. Wiedemann, ‘Sallust’s Jugurtha: Concord, Discord and the Digressions’, G&R 40 (1993) 48-57.
C.S. Kraus, ‘Jugurthine Disorder’ 217-47 in C.S. Kraus (ed), The Limits of Historiography. Genre and
Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Leiden 1999).
R.F. Thomas, Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry: The Ethnographical Tradition (Cambridge
Philological Supplementary Volume 7, Cambridge 1982)
A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (London 1988) 180-85.
E. Dench, ‘Ethnography and History’, 493-503 and J. Engels, ‘Geography and History’, 541-52 in
J. Marincola (ed), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Oxford 2007).
K. Clarke, Between Geography and History: Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman World (Oxford
1999).
A. Vasaly, ‘Ethos and Logos: Ancient Perspectives’ 131-55 in Representations: Images of the World
in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1993).
H. Schadee, ‘Caesar’s Construction of Northern Europe: Inquiry, Contact and Corruption in de
Bello Gallico’, CQ 58 (2008) 158-80.
C. Krebs, ‘ “Imaginary Geography” in Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum’, AJP 127 (2006), 111-36.
A.J. Woodman, ‘Nero’s Alien Capital: Tacitus as Paradoxographer’, 173-88 in J. Powell and A.J.
Woodman (eds.), Author and Audience in Latin Literature (Cambridge 1992).
9
4. Qualis Artifex Pereo: Characterisation, Death-Scenes, Obituary Notices
(a) GREEK
Are Greek historians concerned to individualise their characters? And how much do they
suggest that individuals explain in history?
Relevant passages include:
Hdt. 3.30-7 (Cambyses), 3.39-43 (Polycrates), 3.50-3 (Periander and son), 3.72, 76 (Darius and
Otanes), 3.134 (Darius); Thuc. 3.36.6 (compare and contrast 1.139.4 (Pericles), 3.41 (Diodotus));
X. Anab. 1.3, 1.7, 3.1-2. Greek deaths and obits: Hdt. 3.66.2 (Cambyses), 3.125.2-4 (Polycrates),
3.128.5 (Oroetes); Thuc. 2. 65 (Pericles); 7.86.5 (Nicias); X. Anab. 1.9 (Cyrus), 2.6 (Clearchus,
Meno, Proxenus).
J. Marincola, Greek Historians, 43-8 (Herodotus: note 46 n. 119 for further bibliography on
Cambyses), 91-8 (Thucydides).
J. Romm, Herodotus, 157-72 (general discussion)
A. Griffiths, ‘Was Kleomenes mad?’ in A. Powell (ed.) Classical Sparta: techniques behind her
success (1989) 51-78
G. E. M. de Ste Croix, ‘Herodotus and King Cleomenes I of Sparta’, in Athenian Democratic
Origins and Other Essays (Oxford, 2004) 421-440
J. Gould, Herodotus, 49-56 (Periander); also use index for other characters
E. Baragwanath, Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus, Ch. 4 (on motivation in Book 3)
D. Lateiner, The Historical Method of Herodotus, Ch. 8 (on autocrats)
M.R. Christ, ‘Herodotean kings and historical inquiry’ Classical Antiquity 13 (1994) 167–202 (kings
as enquirers)
C. Dewald, ‘Form and content: The question of tyranny in Herodotus’, in K.A. Morgan (ed.),
Popular tyranny: Sovereignty and its discontents in ancient Greece (Austin, TX, 2003), 25–58.
V.J. Gray, ‘Herodotus and the images of tyranny: The tyrants of Corinth’, American Journal of
Philology 117 (1996), 361–89
K.H. Waters, Herodotos on tyrants and despots: A study in objectivity (Historia Einzelschriften 15;
Wiesbaden, 1971)
C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘“Myth” and History: on Herodotus III.48 and 50-53’, Opuscula Athenensia
17 (1988) 167-82, reprinted in her ‘Reading’ Greek Culture (Oxford, 1991) (on Periander)
D. Gribble, ‘Individuals in Thucydides’, in A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis (eds.), Brill’s Companion
to Thucydides (2006), 439-68
V.J. Gray, Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes (Oxford, 2010), esp. 71-9
N. Wood, ‘Xenophon’s theory of leadership’, C&M 25 (1964), 33-66
J. Roisman, ‘Klearchos in Xenophon’s Anabasis’, SCI 8-9 (1985-8), 30-52
T. Braun, ‘Xenophon’s Dangerous Liaisons’, in R. Lane Fox, The Long March, 97-130 (on
Clearchus and Cyrus).
C.J. Tuplin, ‘Heroes in Xenophon’s Anabasis’, in A. Barzanò et al. (eds), Modelli eroici
dall’antichità alla cultura Europea (Rome, 2003), 115-56
T. Rood, ‘Panhellenism and Self-Presentation: Xenophon’s Speeches’, in R. Lane Fox (ed.), The
Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (Yale, 2004), 305-29.
10
T. Rood, ‘Advice and Advisers in Xenophon’s Anabasis’, in D. J. Spencer and E. M.
Theodorakopoulos (eds), Advice and its Rhetoric in Greece and Rome (Nottingham Classical
Literature Studies 9; Bari, 2007), 47-61.
11
(b) LATIN
What do character sketches and obituary notices of individuals add to the historical
narratives of Latin historians?
Relevant passages include:
Caesar BG 7.4 (Vercingetorix); Sallust BJ 28.4 (character-sketch of Bestia); BJ 63 (charactersketch of Marius); Livy 1.19 (Numa), 1.22 Tullus Hostilius), 1.32 (Ancus Martius), 1.34 (Lucumo
and Tanaquil), 1.48 (Servius Tullius), 1.56 (Brutus); Tacitus Annals 15.48 (Piso), 15.57 (Epicharis),
15.60-65 (Seneca the Younger).
C. Gill, ‘The Question of Character-Development: Plutarch and Tacitus’, CQ 33 (1983) 469-87.
C. Gill, ‘The Character-Personality Distinction’ in C. Pelling (ed), Characterization and
Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford 1990) 1-31.
L. Pitcher, ‘Characterization in Ancient Historiography’, in J. Marincola (ed.), Companion to Greek
and Roman Historiography (Blackwell, 2007), 102–17.
A. Pomeroy, The Appropriate Comment: Death Notices in the Ancient Historians (Frankfurt am
Main 1991).
R. Syme, ‘Obituaries in Tacitus’, AJP 79 (1958) 18-31 (= Ten Studies in Tacitus 91-109).
J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge 1997) 128-74 (esp.
128-33).
A.J. Woodman and C.S. Kraus, Latin Historians, Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics
No. 27 (Oxford 1997) 33-7.
H. MacL. Currie, ‘An Obituary Formula in the Historians (with a Platonic Connection?)’, Latomus
48 (1989), 346-53.
C. Edwards, Death in Ancient Rome (New Haven 2007).
M. Roller, ‘Color-Blindness: Cicero’s Death, Declamation, and the Production of History’,
Classical Philology 92 (1997), 109-30.
H. Haynes, ‘The Tyrant Lists: Tacitus’ Obituary of Petronius’, AJP 131 (2010), 69-99.
J. Ker, The Deaths of Seneca (Oxford 2009).
J. Bodel, ‘Death on Display: Looking at Roman Funerals’, 259-81 in B. Bergmann and C.
Kondoleon (eds), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (New Haven 1999).
12
5. Res Novae: Conspiracies, Revolution, and Regime Change
(a) GREEK
Compare the ‘constitutional debate’ at Herodotus 3.80-2 with the analysis of stasis at
Thucydides 3.82-3. What function do the two passages serve in their works? How do they
develop themes and ideas from the earlier narrative? What do they suggest about the
different historiographical outlooks of Herodotus and Thucydides?
Reading:
C. Pelling, ‘Speech and action: Herodotus’ debate on the constitutions’, PCPS 48 (2002), 123–
58.
D. Lateiner, The Historical Method of Herodotus, Ch. 8
J. Price, Thucydides and Internal War (Cambridge, 2001), Ch. 1.
C. W. Macleod, Collected Essays (Oxford, 1983), Ch. 12.
L. Edmunds, ‘Thucydides’ Ethics as Reflected in the description of Stasis’, HSCP 79 (1975), 75-92
N. Loraux, ‘Thucydides and Sedition among Words’, in Rusten (ed.), Thucydides: Oxford
Readings, 261-92
(b) LATIN
EITHER Given that the Pisonian conspiracy ended in failure, why does Tacitus choose to
narrate it at such great length?
OR Is Livy in Ab Vrbe Condita 1 primarily concerned with contemporary issues in narrating
the end of the regal period through the intervention of Brutus?
Reading:
R. Stem, ‘The Exemplary Lessons of Livy’s Romulus’, TAPA 137 (2007), 435-71.
D. Konstan, ‘Narrative and Ideology in Livy: Book 1’, Classical Antiquity 5 (1986), 198-215.
G.B. Miles, ‘Maiores, Conditores and Livy’s Perspective on the Past’, TAPA 118 (1988) 185-208
T.P. Wiseman, ‘A Puzzle in Livy’, G&R 56 (2009), 203-10.
S.C. Smith, ‘Brutus as an Earth-Born Founder of Rome (Livy 1.56)’, Mnemosyne 60 (2007), 285-93.
V. Pagán, Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History (Austin, Texas, 2004).
A.J. Woodman, ‘Amateur Dramatics at the Court of Nero: Annals 15.48-74’, in T.J. Luce and A.J.
Woodman (eds.), Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition (Princeton, New Jersey 1993), 104-28.
E. O’Gorman, ‘Alternate Empires: Tacitus’s Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate’, Arethusa
39 (2006), 281-301.
T. Habinek, ‘Seneca’s Renown: Gloria, Claritudo and the Replication of the Roman Elite’,
Classical Antiquity 19 (2000), 264-309.
13
6. The Power of Logos: Speeches and Debate
(a) GREEK
How do the speeches in the Mytilene and Plataea debates contribute to Thucydides’ moral
and political analysis?
(b) LATIN
In what ways do the speeches in the set texts add complexity to the surrounding narrative?
(Also to think about: Does it make any difference to the impact of a speech if it is in oratio
obliqua or oratio recta? How far does the identity of the speaker add or detract from the
credibility of the speech? To what extent is the right advice delivered by the wrong speaker a
factor in the reception of a speech?)
Relevant passages include:
LATIN Caesar de Bello Gallico 6.8 (Labienus), 6.35 (a prisoner), 7.20 (Vercingetorix), 7.29
(Vercingetorix), 7.38 (Littavicus), 7.50 (Marcus Petronius), 7.52-3 (Caesar), 7.77 (Critognatus);
Sallust BJ 10 (Micipsa), 14 (Adherbal), 31 (Memmius), 65 (Marius), 81 (Jugurtha), 83 (Metellus), 85
(Marius), 102 (Sulla, Manlius), 107 (Sulla), 110 (Bocchus); Livy 1.7 (Evander), 1.10 (Romulus), 1.12
(Romulus), 1.16 (Julius Proculus), 1.22 (Tullus), 1.23 (Alban king), 1.26 (Horatius), 1.28 (Tullus),
1.39 (Tanaquil), 1.41 (Tanaquil), 1.47 (Tullia), 1.58 (Lucretia), 1.59 (Brutus); Tacitus Annals 15.2
(Vologaeses), 15.63 (Seneca), 15.67 (Subrius Flavus)
Reading, Greek:
C. Macleod, Collected Essays (Oxford, 1983), ch. 10-11.
S. Hornblower, Thucydides (London, 1987), ch. 3.
C. Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historians (2000), ch. 4 (on Plataea), ch. 6 (on Thucydides’
speeches in general)
W.R. Connor, Thucydides, 79-82, 91-5
Kitto, Poiesis, 295-302, 307-20
J. de Romilly, The Mind of Thucydides (Cornell, 2012), Ch. 3.
A. Andrewes, ‘The Mytilene Debate: Thuc. 3.36-49’, Phoenix 16 (1962) 64-85
J. A. Andrews, ‘Cleon’s Ethopoetics’, CQ 44 (1994), 26-39
J. A. Andrews, ‘Cleon’s Hidden Appeals (Thucydides 3.37–40)’, CQ 50 (2000) 45-62.
R. P. Winnington-Ingram, ‘ta deonta eipein: Cleon and Diodotus’, BICS 12 (1965) 70-82
P. Debnar, ‘Diodotus’ Paradox and the Mytilene Debate (Thucydides 3.37-49)’, RhM 143 (2000),
161-78.
L. Fulkerson, ‘Emotional Appeals in the Mytilenean Debate’, Syllecta Classica 19 (2008), 115-54.
B. Manuwald, ‘Diodotus’ Deceit (On Thucydides 3.42-8)’, in Rusten (ed.), Thucydides: Oxford
Readings, 241-60
P. Debnar, Speaking the Same Language: Speech and Audience in Thucydides’ Spartan Debates
(2001), 125-46
Hogan, Phoenix 26 (1972), 241-57 (on Plataea debate and Eur. Hecuba)
E.M. Harris, ‘How to Address the Athenian Assembly: Rhetoric and Political Tactics in the
Debate about Mytilene’, CQ 63 (2013), 94-109.
14
Reading, Roman:
A. Laird, Power of Expressions, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin Literature
(Oxford 1999)
M.H. Hansen, ‘The Battle Exhortation in Ancient Historiography: Fact or Fiction?’, Historia 42
(1993), 161-80.
C.T.H.R. Ehrhardt, ‘Speeches before Battle?’, Historia 44 (1995), 120-1.
E. Sciarrino, ‘Putting Cato the Censor’s Origines in its Place’, Classical Antiquity 23 (2004), 323-57.
C. Dué, ‘Tragic History and Barbarian Speech in Sallust’s Jugurtha’, HSCP 100 (2000), 311-25.
E. Keitel, ‘Homeric Antecedents to the Cohortatio in the Ancient Historians’, CW 80 (1987), 15372.
J. Marincola, ‘Speeches in Classical Historiography’, 118-32 in J. Marincola (ed), A Companion to
Greek and Roman Historiography (Oxford 2007).
T.P. Wiseman, ‘A Puzzle in Livy’, G&R 56 (2009), 203-10.
N.P. Miller, ‘Dramatic Speech in the Roman Historians’, G&R 22 (1975), 45-57.
N.P. Miller, ‘Dramatic Speech in Tacitus’, AJP 85 (1964), 279-96.
P.G. Walsh, Livy: His Historical Aims and Methods (Cambridge 1964), 219-44.
T.J. Luce, ‘Structure in Livy’s Speeches’, 71-87 in W. Schuller (ed), Livius: Aspekte seines Werkes
(Constance 1993).
G. Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgment (Stuttgart 1999),
74-86.
D.J. Kapust, Republicanism, Rhetoric and Roman Political Thought: Sallust Livy, and Tacitus
(Cambridge 2011).
A. Feldherr, ‘Magna Mihi Copia Est Memorandi: Modes of Historiography in the Speeches of
Caesar and Cato (Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 51-4)’, in J. Grethlein and C.B. Krebs (eds), Time and
Narrative in Ancient Historiography: the Plupast from Herodotus to Appian (Cambridge 2012), 95112.
15
7. Divine Intervention: Religion, Fate, and the Supernatural
Does the focus on religion and fate fundamentally clash with the historian’s duty to deliver a
causal analysis of events?
Relevant passages include:
GREEK: Hdt. 3.27-9, 3.64.3 (Apis), 3.30.2, cf. 3.64.2-4 (Cambyses’ dream), 3.39-43, cf. 3.125.4
(Polycrates’ ring), 3.57-8 (Siphnian oracle), 3.76.3 (omen), 3.108 (divine pronoia in animal world),
3.124.1, cf. 3.125.4 (dream of Polycrates’ daughter), 3.139.3 (Syloson); Thuc. 3.14.1, 3.50.2,
3.59.2, 3.68.3, 3.81.2-3, 3.82.6, 3.83.2, 3.92.5, 3.96.1, 3.104; X. Anab. 1.4.18 (Euphrates), 3.1-2
(oracle; dream; religious appeals in speeches), 4.3.8 (dream), 4.8.25, cf. 5.3 (Xenophon and
Artemis)
LATIN: Caesar BG 6.13 (druids), 6.16-18 (Gallic religion), 6.21 (German gods), 6.42 (fortune);
Sallust BJ 63 (Marius consults the soothsayer); Livy 1.10 (temple-building), 1.16 (deification of
Romulus), 1.19 (temple of Janus), 1.20 (appointment of priests), 1.31 (rain of stones), 1.34
(augury of the eagle), 1.38 (temple of Capitoline Jupiter), 1.39 (flames on head of Servius Tullius),
1.45 (shrine to Diana), 1.55 (temple of Capitoline Jupiter), 1.56 (snake portent); Tacitus Annals
4.20 (with R.H. Martin and A.J. Woodman, Tacitus Annals Book IV (Cambridge 1989) 151), Annals
6.22 (with R.H. Martin, Tacitus Annals V and VI (Warminster 2001) 147-50), Annals 15.44, 15.47,
15.74.
S. Scullion, ‘Herodotus and Greek religion’, in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds.), Cambridge
Companion to Herodotus (2006), 192–208.
J. Mikalson, ‘Religion in Herodotus’, in E.J. Bakker, I. de Jong, and H. de Wees (eds.), Brill’s
Companion to Herodotus (2001), 187–98.
T. Harrison, Divinity and History: The Religion of Herodotus (Oxford, 2000).
J. Gould, ‘Herodotus and Religion’, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford 1994),
91–106.
S. Hornblower, ‘The religious dimension to the Peloponnesian War, or What Thucydides does
not tell us’, HSCP 94 (1992), 169–97, revised version in Thucydidean Themes (2010) ch. 1.
W.D. Furley, ‘Thucydides and religion’, in A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis (eds.), Brill’s Companion
to Thucydides (2006), 415–38.
R. Parker, ‘One Man’s Piety: The Religious Dimension of the Anabasis’, in R. Lane Fox (ed.), The
Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven, 2004), 131-53
D.S. Levene, ‘Defining the Divine in Rome’, TAPA 142 (2012), 41-81.
J. Davies, Rome’s Religious History: Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus on their Gods (Cambridge 2004).
M.G. Morgan, ‘Omens in Tacitus’ Histories 1-3’, in R.L. Wildfang and J. Isager, Divination and
Portraits in the Roman World (Odense 2000) 25-42.
M.G. Morgan, ‘Two Omens in Tacitus’ Histories (2.50.2, 1.62.2-3)’, Rh.Mus. 136 (1993), 321-9.
J.T. Ramsey, A Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500BC to AD400 (Syllecta
Classica 17, Iowa City IA 2006).
J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans (Cambridge 2007).
D. Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts and Beliefs (Cambridge 1998).
D.S. Levene, Religion in Livy (Leiden 1993).
16
R.T. Scott, Religion and Philosophy in the Histories of Tacitus (Rome 1968).
W. Liebeschuetz, ‘The Religious Position of Livy’s History’, JRS 57 (1967) 45-55.
M. Beard, J. North, S. Price, Religions of Rome (Cambridge 1998), 2 volumes.
T. Barton, Ancient Astrology (London 1994).
W.V. Harris, ‘Roman Opinions about the Truthfulness of Dreams’, JRS 93 (2003) 18-33.
C.B. R. Pelling, ‘Tragical Dreamer: Some Dreams in the Roman Historians’, Greece and Rome 44
(1997) 197-213.
17