Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography: The ‘Plupast' from Herodotus to Appian

Cambridge University Press, 4/19/2012
EAN 9781107007406, ISBN10: 1107007402

Hardcover, 268 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Language: English

Historians often refer to past events which took place prior to their narrative's proper past - that is, they refer to a 'plupast'. This past embedded in the past can be evoked by characters as well as by the historian in his own voice. It can bring into play other texts, but can also draw on lieux de mémoire or on material objects. The articles assembled in this volume explore the manifold forms of the plupast in Greek and Roman historians from Herodotus to Appian. The authors demonstrate that the plupast is a powerful tool for the creation of historical meaning. Moreover, the acts of memory embedded in the historical narrative parallel to some degree the historian's activity of recording the past. The plupast thereby allows Greek and Roman historians to reflect on how (not) to write history and gains metahistorical significance. In shedding new light on the temporal complexity and the subtle forms of self-conscious reflection in the works of ancient historians, Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography significantly enhances our understanding of their narrative art.

1. The historian's plupast
introductory remarks on its forms and functions Jonas Grethlein and Christopher B. Krebs
2. Speaker's past and plupast
Herodotus in the light of elegy and lyric Deborah Boedeker
3. The mythic plupast in Herodotus Emily Baragwanath
4. The use and abuse of history in the Plataean debate (Thuc. 3.52–68) Jonas Grethlein
5. The plupast in Xenophon's Hellenica Tim Rood
6. Magna mihi copia est memorandi
modes of historiography in the speeches of Caesar and Cato (Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 51–4) Andrew Feldherr
7. Negotiating the plupast
Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Roman self-definition Clemence Schultze
8. M. Manlius Capitolinus
the metaphorical plupast and metahistorical reflections Christopher B. Krebs
9. Repetita bellorum ciuilium memoria
the remembrance of civil war and its literature in Tacitus, Histories 1.50 Timothy Joseph
10. Mimesis and the (plu)past in Plutarch's Lives Alexei Zadorojnyi
11. War stories
the uses of the plupast in Appian Luke Pitcher.