From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The science of Greek historical writing
Hellenic historiography
(or
Greek historiography
) involves efforts made by
Greeks
to track and record
historical events
. By the 5th century BC, it became an integral part of
ancient Greek literature
and held a prestigious place in later
Roman historiography
and
Byzantine literature
.
Overview
[
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]
The historical period of
ancient Greece
is exclusive in world history as the first period attested directly in proper
historiography
, while earlier ancient history or
proto-history
is known by much more circumstantial evidence, such as
annals
,
chronicles
,
king lists
, and pragmatic
epigraphy
.
Herodotus
is widely known as the "father of history," his
Histories
being eponymous of the entire field. Written between the 450s and 420s BC, the scope of Herodotus' work reaches about a century in the past, discussing 6th century BC historical figures such as
Darius I of Persia
,
Cambyses II
, and
Psamtik III
and alludes to some 8th century BC ones such as
Candaules
.
Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as
Thucydides
,
Xenophon
,
Demosthenes
,
Plato
, and
Aristotle
. Most of these authors were either
Athenians
or pro-Athenians, which explains why far more is known about the history and politics of
Athens
than of most other contemporary cities. Their scope is further limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, generally ignoring economic and social history.
[1]
However, while works approaching modern ethnography arose primarily amongst the
Romans
, some Greeks did include ancillary material describing the customs and rituals of different peoples,
Herodotus
himself being a prime example in his descriptions of the
Egyptians
,
Scythians
, and others.
See also
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]
References
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]
Further reading
[
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]
- Barcelo, P. (1994). "The Perception of Carthage in Classical Greek Historiography".
Acta Classica
.
37
: 1?14.
- Grethlein, Jonas (2010).
The Greeks and their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hornblower, Simon, ed. (1994).
Greek Historiography
. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Hornblower, Simon (2004).
Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry
. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Luce, T. J. (1997).
The Greek Historians
. London and New York: Routledge.
- Marincola, John (2001). "Greek Historians".
Greece & Rome, New Surveys in the Classics
.
31
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Parmeggiani, Giovanni, ed. (2014).
Between Thucydides and Polybius: The Golden Age of Greek Historiography
. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Pitcher, Luke (2009).
Writing Ancient History: An Introduction to Classical Historiography
. London and New York: I. B. Tauris.
- Sacks, Kenneth S. (1990).
Diodorus Siculus and the First Century
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Sacks, Kenneth S. (1981).
Polybius on the Writing of History
. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Shrimpton, Gordon S. (1997).
History and Memory in Ancient Greece
. Montreal and Buffalo, NY: McGill-Queen's University Press.
- Skinner, Joseph E. (2012).
The Invention of Greek Ethnography: From Homer to Herodotus
. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Woodman, A. J. (1988).
Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies
. London: Routledge.
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