Lisa Hau - Truth and History in the Ancient World: Pluralising the Past

Truth and History in the Ancient World

Pluralising the Past

This collection of essays investigates histories in the ancient world and the extent to which the producers and consumers of those histories believed them to be true. Ancient Greek historiographers repeatedly stressed the importance of truth to history; yet they also purported to believe in myth, distorted facts for nationalistic or moralising purposes, and omitted events that modern audiences might consider crucial to a truthful account of the past.

Truth and History in the Ancient World explores a pluralistic concept of truthone in which different versions of the same historical event can all be trueor different kinds of truths and modes of belief that are contingent on culture.

Ian Ruffell is a Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Glasgow, UK. He is author of Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old Comedy: The Art of the Impossible (2011) and Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound (2012).

Lisa Irene Hau is a Lecturer in Classics at the University of Glasgow, UK. She has published articles on Greek historiography, moralising and narrative technique, and her monograph Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus (2016) examines the role of moral didacticism in Greek historiography from the fifth to the first century BC. She is co-editor of Beyond the Battlefields: New Perspectives on Warfare and Society in the Graeco-Roman World (2008).

Routledge Studies in Ancient History

Cicero and the Catilinarian Conspiracy
Charles Matson Odahl

Ancient Graffiti in Context
Edited by Jennifer Baird and Claire Taylor

Roman Elections in the Age of Cicero: Society, Government, and Voting
Rachel Feig Vishnia

Time in Roman Religion: One Thousand Years of Religious History
Gary Forsythe

Banishment in the Later Roman Empire, 284476 CE
Daniel A. Washburn

Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City
Rebecca Futo Kennedy

The Tombs of Pompeii: Organization, Space, and Society
Virginia L. Campbell

The Popes and the Church of Rome in Late Antiquity
John Moorhead

Imagining Ancient Cities in Film: From Babylon to Cinecitt
Edited by Marta Garca Morcillo, Pauline Hanesworth and scar Lapea Marchena

Rewriting Ancient Jewish History: The History of the Jews in Roman Times and the New Historical Method
Amram Tropper

Truth and History in the
Ancient World

Pluralising the Past

Edited by Ian Ruffell and
Lisa Irene Hau

First published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2017 Ian Ruffell and Lisa Irene Hau

The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ruffell, Ian, editor of compilation. | Hau, Lisa Irene, editor of compilation.

Title: Truth and history in the ancient world : pluralising the past / edited by Ian Ruffell and Lisa Irene Hau.

Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge studies in ancient history | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016022533| ISBN 9781138839403 (hardback : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9781315733463 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: GreeceHistoryTo 146 B.C.Historiography. | History, AncientHistoriography. | HistoriansGreeceHistoryTo 1500. | HistoriographyGreeceHistoryTo 1500. | TruthSocial aspectsGreeceHistoryTo 1500. | TruthPolitical aspectsGreeceHistoryTo 1500. | Cultural pluralismGreeceHistoryTo 1500. | GreeceIntellectual lifeTo 146 B.C.

Classification: LCC DF211 .T748 2016 | DDC 938.0072dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022533

ISBN: 978-1-138-83940-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-73346-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

This volume is based around papers presented at the Celtic Conference in Classics held at Bordeaux in July 2012. We would like to thank the founder and chair of this remarkable institution, Anton Powell, for his support of the panel and at an early stage in the subsequent project, and the conference organisers in Bordeaux for laying on a truly splendid event. We would also like to thank all those who participated in the extremely fruitful discussions at Bordeaux, both in and outside the formal panel.

We would also like to mention those who presented papers at the event but who were unable to contribute to this volumeMatthew Fox, Elizabeth Irwin and John Oksanish. Their invaluable contributions to the discussion can be felt in the papers presented here. We are delighted also to be able to present the contribution of Matthew Wright, who was unable to make it to the conference, and the additional paper of our Glasgow colleague Jan Stenger on lyric poetry.

The volume was improved by the helpful and stimulating comments of the two anonymous readers. We owe a particular debt to our colleague Christopher Burden-Strevens for helping us out by delivering a translation of a complex paper at very short notice. Last, but by no means least, we would like to thank everyone at Routledge for their support and flexibility, in particular Lizzi Thomasson.

Abbreviations follow those of LAnne Philologique, in the case of journals, and LSJ, in the case of Greek authors (except Hcld, rather than Heracl. for Euripides Heraclidae; Thesm. for Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae).

Note in addition the following: