On Writing History from Herodotus to Herodian

What is history and how should it be written? This important new anthology contains all the seminal texts that relate to the writing of history in the ancient worldThe study of history was invented in the ancient world. Treading uncharted waters, writers such as Plutarch and Lucian grappled with big questions such as how history should be written, how it differs from poetry and oratory, and what its purpose really is. This book includes complete essays by Dionysius, Plutarch and Lucian, as well as shorter pieces by Pliny the Younger, Cicero and others, and will be an essential resource for anyone studying history and the ancient world.Runner-up in the 13th Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature."an excellent tool for the study of ancient historiography at all levels, and it is bound to become a standard point of reference in the future" Bryn Mawr Classical Review

“an excellent tool for the study of ancient historiography at all levels, and it is bound to become a standard point of reference in the future”

-- Lisa Irene Hau Bryn Mawr Classical Review

John Marincola (Translator)John Marincola was born in Philadelphia in 1954, and was educated at Swarthmore College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University. He has taught at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, and at Union College in New York, and is currently an Associate Professor of Classics at New York University. From 1997 to 1999 he was Executive Director of the American Philological Association, and in 1999-2000 he was a Junior Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge, 1997), Greek Historians (Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 31, Oxford, 2001), and of several articles on the Greek and Roman historians.

'My historian is to be this kind of man: fearless, above bribery, free, a friend of frank speech and truth, one who calls figs figs and a trough a trough' What is history and how should it be written? How does it differ from other forms of writing? What responsibility does the historian bear? This new anthology of writings from the ancient world, when the study of history was just beginning, explores these questions and many more. It ranges from longer pieces, such as the complete essays 'On Thucydides' by Dionysus, 'On the Malice of Herodotus' by Plutarch and the witty 'How to Write History' by Lucian, to key shorter writings by Polybius, Cicero, Xenophon and Pliny the Younger, brought together here in fresh new translations. Edited and Translated by John Marincola

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