Part of the Digital Classicist London Seminar Series
Event
Ancient Colores and Modern Emplotment
Advance booking is strongly encouraged for this hybrid seminar
This paper examines the different attitudes Greek and Roman historians brought to the subject matter of their work, and in particular the role that praise and blame played in the choice and treatment of subject matter. The notion in antiquity that history should ennoble great deeds was counterbalanced by the belief that history must also record ignoble actions. How those actions were to be interpreted required that the ancient historian offer a particular color on events. The approach has a good deal in common with Hayden White’s notion of emplotment, and I argue that the different ways in which ancient historians emplotted the same events offers important insights into their (and, by extension, our) notions of historical truth.
Speaker details
Professor John Marincola is Leon Golden Professor of Classics, Emeritus at Florida State University and currently a Visiting Fellow at the ICS. Professor Marincola's main research interests are in Greek and Roman historiography and rhetoric. Originally interested in the ways in which ancient historians asserted their authority as reliable narrators of actions, he has also developed over the years a greater interest in the ways in which societies remember and give meaning to their pasts.
This page was last updated on 1 May 2025
