Ancient Historiography on War and Empire by Timothy Howe

Ancient Historiography on War and Empire by Timothy Howe

In the ancient Greek-speaking world, writing about the past meant balancing the reporting of facts with shaping and guiding the political interests and behaviours of the present. Ancient Historiography on War and Empire shows the ways in which the literary genre of writing history developed to guide empires through their wars. Taking key events from the Achaemenid Persian, Athenian, Macedonian and Roman ‘empires’, the 17 essays collected here analyse the way events and the accounts of those events interact. Subjects include: how Greek historians assign nearly divine honours to the Persian King; the role of the tomb cult of Cyrus the Founder in historical narratives of conquest and empire from Herodotus to the Alexander historians; warfare and financial innovation in the age of Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great; the murders of Philip II, his last and seventh wife Kleopatra, and her guardian, Attalos; Alexander the Great’s combat use of eagle symbolism and divination; Plutarch’s juxtaposition of character in the Alexander-Caesar pairing as a commentary on political legitimacy and military prowess, and Roman Imperial historians using historical examples of good and bad rule to make meaningful challenges to current Roman authority. In some cases, the balance shifts more towards the ‘literary’ and in others more towards the ‘historical’, but what all of the essays have in common is both a critical attention to the genre and context of history-writing in the ancient world and its focus on war and empire.

All of the papers are thought-provoking… * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
This is a massive, well-organised work on the historiography and history of the ancient world; as such, it makes a significant contribution to the present-day overview of historiography; the papers are erudite, well written, [..] Last but not least, it offers numerous fresh and provocative approaches to the seemingly marginal and/or somewhat neglected themes of historiography. * Ancient West & East *

Timothy Howe is Professor of History and Ancient Studies at St. Olaf College (USA). His main research interests are in Alexander the Great, ancient Mediterranean warfare, agriculture, law, religion, trade, and, Greek and Latin epigraphy. Sabine Müller is Professor of Ancient History at Marburg University (Germany) where she specialises in ancient Near East, Greece, Macedonia and Rome including iconography and the study of ancient writers in relation to archaeological evidence. Richard Stoneman is Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter (UK) with particular research interest in the continuity of the Greek world and Greek tradition up to the present day and in Alexander the Great, especially in later legend.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781785702990
ISBN 10	1785702998
Title	Ancient Historiography on War and Empire
Author	Timothy Howe
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxbow Books
Year published	2016-11-30
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.