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Hecataeus' Heroic Boast: Personal and Impersonal Genealogies in Archaic Greek Literature

By Joseph Baker Zehner

In his 2006 Kernos article on Genealogy, Robert Fowler credits the impersonal style of Pherecydes with helping to “invent factuality” (p. 46). Yet Fowler does not address the 'content' of Pherecydes' genealogies, probably since it might reveal a personal motive for its peculiar focus on the Philiad clan (Jacoby 1947, pp.30-33). Even for all the “matter-of-fact brevity” of Pherecydes' factual style (Fowler 2006, p.

The Impact of Evidentiary Bias on Macro-Level Approaches to Greek History

By Scott Lawin Arcenas

The last three decades have seen vast increases in both the amount and the accessibility of information concerning the roughly 1,100 poleis inhabited by the ancient Greeks. Consequently, it has become possible for the first time to write histories of ancient Greece that are truly panhellenic in scope. To analyze this information responsibly, however, historians need to develop new methods to detect, measure, and compensate for the deep biases of the evidentiary record. In this paper, I introduce one such method.

Diodorus, Roman Generals, and Ptolemaic Egypt

By Alexander Skufca

This paper places Diodorus Siculus’ description of Scipio Aemilianus’ embassy to Ptolemaic Alexandria and Egypt (33.28b) within the context of his historiographical aims for the Bibliotheke as a unified narrative of history’s lessons as well its more contemporary political ramifications. The surviving ancient sources which mention this Roman diplomatic tour to Egypt deliberately contrast the obese and effeminate Ptolemy VIII with the vigorous and dynamic Scipio (Plut. Mor. 200F, 777A; Athen.

Empathy and Ancient Historiography

By Regina M Loehr

Polybius claims that history should instruct the readers through learning from others’ experiences in the past (Polybius, 1.1.3). That is, they should benefit from others’ experiences and live through them, learning what path and choices to take (and what not to take) without having to undergo those experiences. However, Polybius also argues that a historian should write from personal experience first and foremost and in Book 12 famously criticizes Timaeus for failing to do so.

Croesus in conversation: past tense and dramatic form in Herodotus

By Tobias Joho

This paper will investigate the semantic effects of Herodotus’ tense usage with regard to verbs of speaking in the conversations that Croesus has first with Solon and then with Cyrus. Its aim is to demonstrate that in his selection of tenses Herodotus deliberately draws on the semantic differences that obtain between the aorist and the imperfect in order to give the scene a specific dramatic form and to highlight the character of each speaker.