Emotion and Historiography in Polybius’ Histories

Emotion and Historiography in Polybius’ Histories
Author: Regina M. M. Loehr
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2023-12-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1003835112

This volume explores emotion and its importance in Polybius’ conception of history, his writing of historiography, and the benefits of this understanding to readers of history. How and why did ancient historians include emotions in their texts? This book argues that in the Histories of Polybius – the Greek historian who recorded Rome’s rise to dominion in the ancient Mediterranean – emotions play an effective role in history, used by the historian to explain the causes of actions, connect events, and make sense of human behavior. Through analysis of the emotions in the narrative and theory of Polybius’ Histories using critical terminology and frameworks from modern philosophy, psychology, and political science, this work calls into question assumptions that emotions were purely irrational and detrimental in ancient history, politics, and historiography. Emotions often positively shape Polybius’ historical narrative, provide criteria for the success and morality of agents, actions, and even historians, and aid the historian in guiding readers to become intelligent leaders and citizens of a new world centered on Rome. Emotion and Historiography in Polybius’ Histories is a fascinating read for students and scholars of ancient historiography and history, as well as those working on ancient political thought, emotions in the ancient Greek world, and emotion in history and literature more broadly.

Emotion and Historiography in Polybius' Histories

Emotion and Historiography in Polybius' Histories
Author: Regina M. Loehr
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024
Genre: Emotions
ISBN: 9781032423630

This volume explores emotion and its importance in Polybius' conception of history, his writing of historiography, and the benefits of this understanding to readers of history. How and why did ancient historians include emotions in their texts? This book argues that in the Histories of Polybius - the Greek historian who recorded Rome's rise to dominion in the ancient Mediterranean - emotions play an effective role in history, used by the historian to explain the causes of actions, connect events, and make sense of human behaviour. Through analysis of the emotions in the narrative and theory of Polybius' Histories using critical terminology and frameworks from modern philosophy, psychology, and political science, this work calls into question assumptions that emotions were purely irrational and detrimental in ancient history, politics, and historiography. Emotions often positively shape Polybius' historical narrative, provide criteria for the success and morality of agents, actions, and even historians, and aid the historian in guiding readers to become intelligent leaders and citizens of a new world centered on Rome. Emotion and Historiography in Polybius' Histories is a fascinating read for students and scholars of ancient historiography and history, as well as those working on ancient political thought, emotions in the ancient Greek world, and emotion in history and literature more broadly.

Emotion and Historiography in Polybius’ Histories

Emotion and Historiography in Polybius’ Histories
Author: Regina M. M. Loehr
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2024-01-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1003835163

This volume explores emotion and its importance in Polybius’ conception of history, his writing of historiography, and the benefits of this understanding to readers of history. How and why did ancient historians include emotions in their texts? This book argues that in the Histories of Polybius – the Greek historian who recorded Rome’s rise to dominion in the ancient Mediterranean – emotions play an effective role in history, used by the historian to explain the causes of actions, connect events, and make sense of human behavior. Through analysis of the emotions in the narrative and theory of Polybius’ Histories using critical terminology and frameworks from modern philosophy, psychology, and political science, this work calls into question assumptions that emotions were purely irrational and detrimental in ancient history, politics, and historiography. Emotions often positively shape Polybius’ historical narrative, provide criteria for the success and morality of agents, actions, and even historians, and aid the historian in guiding readers to become intelligent leaders and citizens of a new world centered on Rome. Emotion and Historiography in Polybius’ Histories is a fascinating read for students and scholars of ancient historiography and history, as well as those working on ancient political thought, emotions in the ancient Greek world, and emotion in history and literature more broadly.

The Histories

The Histories
Author: Polybius
Publisher: London, Heinemann
Total Pages: 434
Release: 1922
Genre: Greece
ISBN:

Timaeus of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography

Timaeus of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography
Author: Christopher A. Baron
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2013
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1107000971

Timaeus of Tauromenium (350-260 BC) wrote the authoritative work on the Greeks in the Western Mediterranean and was important through his research into chronology and his influence on Roman historiography. Like almost all the Hellenistic historians, however, his work survives only in fragments. This book provides an up-to-date study of his work and shows that both the nature of the evidence and modern assumptions about historical writing in the Hellenistic period have skewed our treatment and judgement of lost historians. For Timaeus, much of our evidence is preserved in the polemical context of Polybius' Book 12. When we move outside that framework and examine the fragments of Timaeus in their proper context, we gain a greater appreciation for his method and his achievement, including his use of polemical invective and his composition of speeches. This has important implications for our broader understanding of the major lines of Hellenistic historiography.

The Rise of the Roman Empire

The Rise of the Roman Empire
Author: Polybius
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 747
Release: 2003-08-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0141920505

The Greek statesman Polybius (c.200–118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their world came to be dominated by Rome. Opening with the Punic War in 264 BC, he vividly records the critical stages of Roman expansion: its campaigns throughout the Mediterranean, the temporary setbacks inflicted by Hannibal and the final destruction of Carthage. An active participant of the politics of his time as well as a friend of many prominent Roman citizens, Polybius drew on many eyewitness accounts in writing this cornerstone work of history.

A Cultural History of the Emotions in Antiquity

A Cultural History of the Emotions in Antiquity
Author: Douglas Cairns
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-08-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350091650

This volume provides an overview of some of the salient aspects of emotions and their role in life and thought of the Greco-Roman world, from the beginnings of Greek literature and history to the height of the Roman Empire. This is a wide remit, dealing with a wide range of sources in two ancient languages, and in the full range of contexts that are covered by the format of this series. The volume's chapters survey the emotional worlds of the ancient Greeks and Romans from multiple perspectives – philosophical, scientific, medical, literary, musical, theatrical, religious, domestic, political, art-historical and historical. All chapters consider both Greek and Roman evidence, ranging from the Homeric poems to the Roman Imperial period and making extensive use of both elite and non-elite texts and documents, including those preserved on stone, papyrus and similar media, and in other forms of material culture. The volume is thus fully reflective of the latest research in the emerging discipline of ancient emotion history.

An Early History of Compassion

An Early History of Compassion
Author: Françoise Mirguet
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2017-10-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1108509576

In this book, Françoise Mirguet traces the appropriation and reinterpretation of pity by Greek-speaking Jewish communities of Late Antiquity. Pity and compassion, in this corpus, comprised a hybrid of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman constructions; depending on the texts, they were a spontaneous feeling, a practice, a virtue, or a precept of the Mosaic law. The requirement to feel for those who suffer sustained the identity of the Jewish minority, both creating continuity with its traditions and emulating dominant discourses. Mirguet's book will be of interest to scholars of early Judaism and Christianity for its sensitivity to the role of feelings and imagination in the shaping of identity. An important contribution to the history of emotions, it explores the role of the emotional imagination within the context of Roman imperialism. It also contributes to understanding how compassion has come to be so highly valued in Western cultures.