Herodotus and the Presocratics

Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century Bce
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-1-009-33854-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 230 mm, Gewicht: 516 g

Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kingsley, K Scarlett

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: transtextual histories: history, philosophy, and intellectual culture; 2. Relativism, king of all; 3. The pull of tradition: egoism and Persian revolution; 4. History peri physeos; 5. Physis on the battlefield; 6. Historical inquiry and presocratic epistemology; 7. Herodotean philosophy.

Über Autor(innen)

Kingsley, K Scarlett
K. Scarlett Kingsley is an assistant professor of Classics at Agnes Scott College. She is the co-editor, with Tim Rood and Giustina Monti, of The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022), and is currently co-authoring The End of the Histories: Land, Wealth, and Empire in Herodotus (forthcoming) with Tim Rood.