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Although digressive discourse constitutes a key feature of
Greco-Roman historiography, we possess no collective volume on the
matter. The chapters of this book fill this gap by offering an
overall view of the use of digressions in Greco-Roman historical
prose from its beginning in the 5th century BCE up to the Imperial
Era. Ancient historiographers traditionally took as digressions the
cases in which they interrupted their focused chronological
narration. Such cases include lengthy geographical descriptions,
prolepses or analepses, and authorial comments. Ancient
historiographers rarely deign to interrupt their narration’s main
storyline with excursuses which are flagrantly disconnected from
it. Instead, they often "coat" their digressions with distinctive
patterns of their own thinking, thus rendering them ideological and
thematic milestones within an entire work. Furthermore, digressions
may constitute pivotal points in the very structure of ancient
historical narratives, while ancient historians also use excursuses
to establish a dialogue with their readers and to activate them in
various ways. All these aspects of digressions in Greco-Roman
historiography are studied in detail in the chapters of this
volume.
Plato’s contribution to narratology has traditionally been traced
in his tripartite categorisation of narrative modes we read of in
the Republic. Although other aspects of storytelling are also
addressed throughout the Platonic oeuvre, such passages are treated
as instantaneous flares of metanarrative speculation on Plato’s
part and do not seem to contribute to the reconstruction of his
‘theory of narrative’. Vasileios Liotsakis challenges this view
and argues that the Statesman, the Timaeus/Critias and the Laws
reveal that Plato had consolidated in his mind and compositionally
put into effect one systematic mode in which to express his
thoughts on narratives. In these dialogues Liotsakis recognizes the
birth of a proto-narratology which differs in many respects from
what we today expect from a narratological handbook, but still
demonstrates two key-features of narratology: (a) a conscious focus
on certain aspects of narrativity which are vastly discussed by
narratologists and pertain to the structuring and reception of
narratives; and (b) a schematised mode of interaction between
metanarrative reflections and textual bodies which serve as the
paradigms through which to explore the interpretive potential of
these reflections.
Although the relationship of Greco-Roman historians with their
readerships has attracted much scholarly attention, classicists
principally focus on individual historians, while there has been no
collective work on the matter. The editors of this volume aspire to
fill this gap and gather papers which offer an overall view of the
Greco-Roman readership and of its interaction with ancient
historians. The authors of this book endeavor to define the
physiognomy of the audience of history in the Roman Era both by
exploring the narrative arrangement of ancient historical prose and
by using sources in which Greco-Roman intellectuals address the
issue of the readership of history. Ancient historians shaped their
accounts taking into consideration their readers' tastes, and this
is evident on many different levels, such as the way a historian
fashions his authorial image, addresses his readers, or uses
certain compositional strategies to elicit the readers' affective
and cognitive responses to his messages. The papers of this volume
analyze these narrative aspects and contextualize them within their
socio-political environment in order to reveal the ways ancient
readerships interacted with and affected Greco-Roman historical
prose.
The fact that aspects of witnesses and evidence put them in the
centre of the institutional and cultural (e.g. religious, literary)
construction of ancient societies indicates that it is important to
keep offering nuanced approaches to the topic of this volume. To
advance knowledge of the processes of presenting witnesses and
gathering, or constructing, evidence is, in fact, to better and
more fully understand the ways in which deliberative Athenian
democracy functions, what the core elements of political life and
civic identity are, and how they relate to the system of using
logos to make decisions. For, witnesses and evidence were important
prerequisites of getting the Athenian citizenship and exerting the
civic/political identity as a member of the community. It is
important, therefore, all the matters that relate to
information-gathering and decision-making to be examined anew.
Emphasis can be placed on a variety of genres to allow scholars
recreate the fullest and clearest possible image about the
witnessing and evidencing in antiquity. Chapters in this volume
include considerations of social, political, literary, and moral
theory, alongside studies of the impact of information-gathering
and decision-making in oratory and drama, with a steady focus on
the application of key ideas and values in social and political
justice to issues of pressing ethical concern.
The use of suspense in ancient literature attracts increasing
attention in modern scholarship, but hitherto there has been no
comprehensive work analysing the techniques of suspense through the
various genres of the Classical literary canon. This volume aspires
to fill such a gap, exploring the phenomenon of suspense in the
earliest narrative writings of the western world, the literature of
the ancient Greeks. The individual chapters focus on a wide range
of poetic and prose genres (epic, drama, historiography, oratory,
novel, and works of literary criticism) and examine the means by
which ancient authors elicited emotions of tense expectation and
fearful anticipation for the outcome of the story, the development
of the plot, or the characters' fate. A variety of theoretical
tools, from narratology and performance studies to psychological
and cognitive approaches, are exploited to study the operation of
suspense in the works under discussion. Suspenseful effects are
analysed in a double perspective, both in terms of the artifices
employed by authors and with regard to the responses and
experiences of the audience. The volume will be useful to classical
scholars, narratologists, and literary historians and theorists.
A significant trend in the study of Greek and Roman
historiographers is to accept that their works are to a degree both
science and fiction. As scholarly interest broadens, in addition to
evaluating ancient historians on the basis of the reliability of
the information they record, and verifying the narratives against
various elements of the material (inscriptions, excavations,
numismatics), new studies are beginning to elaborate on the
stylistic and narrative qualities of the texts themselves. The
present volume offers a fine collection of essays that on the whole
emphasize the literary dimensions of the ancient Greek and Roman
historians. Offering narratological, linguistic, and theoretical
approaches to historiography, the contributors of the book
elaborate on the intersections between historiography and other
literary genres, the literary manipulation of military events and
the criteria of selectivity, the reception of ancient historical
texts in other genres, time and space in historical narrative, and
plenty of other relevant topics. The shared belief of the authors
is that there is a close interrelation between the literary
features and the scientific value of ancient Greek and Roman
historiography.
Since antiquity, Book 8 of Thucydides' History has been considered
an unpolished draft which lacks revision. Even those who admit that
the book has some elements of internal coherence believe that
Thucydides, if death had not prevented him, would have improved
many chapters or even the whole structure of the book.
Consequently, while the first seven books of the History have been
well examined through the last two centuries, the narrative plan of
Book 8 remains an obscure subject, as we do not possess an
extensive and detailed presentation of its whole narrative design.
Vasileios Liotsakis tries to satisfy this central desideratum of
the Thucydidean scholarship by offering a thorough description of
the compositional plan, which, in his opinion, Thucydides put into
effect in the last 109 chapters of his work. His study elaborates
on the structural parts of the book, their details, and the various
techniques through which Thucydides composed his narration in order
to reach the internal cohesion of these chapters as well as their
close connection to the rest of the History. Liotsakis offers us an
original approach not only of Book 8 but also of the whole work,
since his observations reshape our overall view of the History.
A significant trend in the study of Greek and Roman
historiographers is to accept that their works are to a degree both
science and fiction. As scholarly interest broadens, in addition to
evaluating ancient historians on the basis of the reliability of
the information they record, and verifying the narratives against
various elements of the material (inscriptions, excavations,
numismatics), new studies are beginning to elaborate on the
stylistic and narrative qualities of the texts themselves. The
present volume offers a fine collection of essays that on the whole
emphasize the literary dimensions of the ancient Greek and Roman
historians. Offering narratological, linguistic, and theoretical
approaches to historiography, the contributors of the book
elaborate on the intersections between historiography and other
literary genres, the literary manipulation of military events and
the criteria of selectivity, the reception of ancient historical
texts in other genres, time and space in historical narrative, and
plenty of other relevant topics. The shared belief of the authors
is that there is a close interrelation between the literary
features and the scientific value of ancient Greek and Roman
historiography.
Arrian's Alexandrou Anabasis constitutes the most reliable account
at our disposal about Alexander the Great's campaign in Asia.
However, whereas the work has been thoroughly studied as a
historical source, its literary qualities have been relatively
neglected, with no autonomous monograph existing on this matter.
Vasileios Liotsakis fills this gap in the studies of Alexander the
Great's literary tradition, by offering the first monograph on
Arrian's compositional strategies. Liotsakis focuses on the
narrative techniques and verbal choices, through which Arrian
allows praise and criticism to intermingle in his portrait of the
Macedonian king. His main point of argument is that Arrian
systematically exploits an abundance of narrative means (military
descriptions, presentation of peoples, march-narratives,
anachronies, and epic elements) in order to draw the reader's
attention not only to Alexander's intellectual skills but also to
the fact that the king was gradually corrupted by his success. This
book puts Arrian's literary contrivances under the microscope,
sheds new light on unexplored aspects of the Anabasis' narrative
arrangement, and contributes to the studies of Alexander's
prosopography in Classical historiography.
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