Mindful of the present state of discourse on ancient Greek historiography, this edited volume explores the major themes of pursuing factuality, managing witness/source bias, falling into historical error and creating or confronting propaganda. Even the greatest ancient historians, striving for factuality and truthfulness, must commence from subjectivity. Their works, when studied closely, reveal biases and conceptual or ideological distortions, their own and others’. For this reason, Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda in Greek Historiography evaluates the issues which stand in the way of factuality in historical texts and records.
The contributors, all experts in the field, explore and question the accuracy of the historiography in question; the ancient author’s fidelity to their sources; and the evidence presented in relation to inherited oral traditions. In this way, the ancient author’s methodology is evaluated in terms of its probability, the awareness of its cultural variation and the influences which we can deduce within the texts. This volume presents an important contribution to the study of what constitutes fact and fiction within ancient Greek historiography.
Introduction (Carolyn Dewald, Bard College, USA)
Part I: Fifth-Century Greek Historiography
1. ‘Bad News’, Unwelcome, Deceptive, or Untrue Data in the Texts of Herodotos & Thoukydides (Donald Lateiner, Ohio Wesleyan University, USA)
2. Agonistic Intertextuality and Authorial Rivalry in Hdt. II. 143 and Thuc. I. 97 (Denis Correa, University of Coimbra, Portugal)
3. Marcellinus’ Genealogy of the Philaids and the Role of Cimon Coalemos Reconsidered (Sco Mari, Free University of Berlin, Germany)
4. Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori: How to Criticize Militaristic ‘Propaganda’ in Classical Athens (Ryan Balot, University of Toronto, Canada)
Part II: Herodotus
5. A different Persian ‘Debate’ in Herodotus: On truth and Falsehood (Rosaria Munson, Swarthmore College, USA)
6. Herodotos and ‘Fake News’ in Classical Athens (Loren J. Samons II, Boston University/The American College of Greece, USA/Greece)
Part III: Thucydides
7. Lies and Liars in Thucydides (Paula Debnar, Mount Holyoke College, USA)
8. Thucydides 2.8.4-5 and the Nature of Ideological Sympathy in Fifth-Century Interstate Politics (Thomas Figueira, Rutgers University, USA)
Part IV: Xenophon and Fourth-Century Historiography
9. Kritias of Athens and Oligarchic Propaganda in Late Fifth-Century Athens (William S. Morison, Grand Valley State University, USA)
10. Xenophon on the Thirty: Deception and Disinformation in Politics and Historiography (Matthew Christ, University of Indiana, USA)
11. Clearchus the Warmonger or Clearchus the Cheat? Xenophon’s Silence on Spartan Perfidy in the Anabasis (Ellen Millender, Reed College, USA)
Part V: Hellenistic Historiography
12. Alcibiades between Secrecy, Private Action and Manipulation (Cinzia Bearzot, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy)
13. The Herophilos Hypothesis and Aristomenes of Messene (Luke Madson, Rutgers University, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Height:
Width:
Spine:
Weight:0.00