No field of Latin literature has been more transformed over the last couple of decades than that of the Roman historians. Narratology, a new receptiveness to intertextuality, and a re-thinking of the relationship between literature and its political contexts have ensured that the works of historians such as Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus will be read as texts with the same interest and sophistication as they are used as sources. In this 2009 book, topics central to the entire tradition, such as conceptions of time, characterization, and depictions of politics and the gods, are treated synoptically, while other essays highlight the works of less familiar historians, such as Curtius Rufus and Ammianus Marcellinus. A final section focuses on the rich reception history of Roman historiography, from the ancient Greek historians of Rome to the twentieth century. An appendix offers a chronological list of the ancient historians of Rome.

No field of Latin literature has been more transformed over the last couple of decades than that of the Roman historians. Narratology, a new receptiveness to intertextuality, and a re-thinking of the relationship between literature and its political contexts have ensured that the works of historians such as Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus will be read as texts with the same interest and sophistication as they are used as sources. In this 2009 book, topics central to the entire tradition, such as conceptions of time, characterization, and depictions of politics and the gods, are treated synoptically, while other essays highlight the works of less familiar historians, such as Curtius Rufus and Ammianus Marcellinus. A final section focuses on the rich reception history of Roman historiography, from the ancient Greek historians of Rome to the twentieth century. An appendix offers a chronological list of the ancient historians of Rome.

The Roman historian Sallust emerges from recent scholarship as one of the most innovative and original writers of the ancient world. His works describe the political and moral crises of Rome's civil wars in the first century BCE and raise questions about the possibilities for narrating the past that matter profoundly to historians today. This volume provides a substantial introduction to scholarship on Sallust, bringing together some of the best and most important studies from the last decades and setting them within the context of a rich and continuing scholarly tradition that includes influential works by Eduard Schwartz (1897) and Kurt Latte (1935). Each contribution presents a distinctive vision of the historian and together they reveal different aspects of his complexity and surprising modernity. Substantial attention is given to all three of Sallust's works: the monographs on the Catilinarian conspiracy and the war with Jugurtha, as well as the fragmentary Histories. Translations of important contributions by German and Italian scholars as well as a survey of the early modern reception of Sallust offer unprecedented access to the scope of Sallust studies. This volume will be an important resource for students of ancient history and Latin literature at all levels and also introduce a wider scholarly audience to Sallust's importance and interest.

The Oxford History of Historical Writing is a five-volume series that explores representations of the past from the beginnings of writing to the present day and from all over the world. Volume I offers essays by leading scholars on the development and history of the major traditions of historical writing, including the ancient Near East, Classical Greece and Rome, and East and South Asia from their origins until c. AD 600. It provides both an authoritative survey of the field and an unrivalled opportunity to make cross-cultural comparisons.

Volume I of The Oxford History of Historical Writing offers essays by leading scholars on the development and history of the major traditions of historical writing, including the ancient Near East, Classical Greece and Rome, and East and South Asia from their origins until ca. AD 600. It aims at once to provide an authoritative survey of the field and to provoke cross-cultural comparisons. This is the first of five volumes in a series that will explore representations of the past from the beginning of writing to the present day, and from all over the world.

Public spectacle--from the morning rituals of the Roman noble to triumphs and the shows of the Arena--formed a crucial component of the language of power in ancient Rome. The historian Livy (c. 60 B.C.E.-17 C.E.), who provides our fullest description of Rome's early history, presents his account of the growth of the Roman state itself as something to be seen--a visual monument and public spectacle. Through analysis of several episodes in Livy's History, Andrew Feldherr demonstrates the ways in which Livy uses specific visual imagery to make the reader not only an observer of certain key events in Roman history but also a participant in those events. This innovative study incorporates recent literary and cultural theory with detailed historical analysis to put an ancient text into dialogue with contemporary discussions of visual culture. In Spectacle and Society in Livy's History, Feldherr shows how Livy uses the literary representation of spectacles from the Roman past to construct a new sense of civic identity among his readers. He offers a new way of understanding how Livy's technique addressed the political and cultural needs of Roman citizens in Livy's day. In addition to renewing our understanding of Livy through modern scholarship, Feldherr provides a new assessment of the historian's aims and methods by asking what it means for the historian to make readers spectators of history.

This book offers a novel interpretation of politics and identity in Ovid's epic poem of transformations, the "Metamorphoses." Reexamining the emphatically fictional character of the poem, "Playing Gods" argues that Ovid uses the problem of fiction in the text to redefine the power of poetry in Augustan Rome. The book also provides the fullest account yet of how the poem relates to the range of cultural phenomena that defined and projected Augustan authority, including spectacle, theater, and the visual arts.

Andrew Feldherr argues that a key to the political as well as literary power of the "Metamorphoses" is the way it manipulates its readers' awareness that its stories cannot possibly be true. By continually juxtaposing the imaginary and the real, Ovid shows how a poem made up of fictions can and cannot acquire the authority and presence of other discursive forms. One important way that the poem does this is through narratives that create a "double vision" by casting characters as both mythical figures and enduring presences in the physical landscapes of its readers. This narrative device creates the kind of tensions between identification and distance that Augustan Romans would have felt when experiencing imperial spectacle and other contemporary cultural forms.

Full of original interpretations, "Playing Gods" constructs a model for political readings of fiction that will be useful not only to classicists but to literary theorists and cultural historians in other fields.