Herodotean Inquiries

Herodotean Inquiries PDF Author: S. Benardete
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401031614
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Herodotus has so often been called, since ancient times, the father of history that this title has blinded us to the question: Was the father of history an historian? Everyone knows that the Greek word from which 'history' is derived always means inquiry in Herodotus. His so-called Histories are in quiries, and by that name I have preferred to call them. His inquiries partly result in the presentation of events that are now called 'historical'; but other parts of his inquiry would now belong to the province of the anthro pologist or geographer. Herodotus does not recognize these fields as distinct; they all belong equally to the subject of his inquiry, but it is not self-evident what he understands to be his subject: the notorious difficulties in the proemium are enough to indicate this. If his work presents us with so strange a mixture of different fields, we are entitled to ask: Did Herodotus under stand even its historical element as we understand it? Without any proof everyone, as far as I am aware, who has studied him has assumed this to be so.

Herodotean Inquiries

Herodotean Inquiries PDF Author: S. Benardete
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401031614
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
Herodotus has so often been called, since ancient times, the father of history that this title has blinded us to the question: Was the father of history an historian? Everyone knows that the Greek word from which 'history' is derived always means inquiry in Herodotus. His so-called Histories are in quiries, and by that name I have preferred to call them. His inquiries partly result in the presentation of events that are now called 'historical'; but other parts of his inquiry would now belong to the province of the anthro pologist or geographer. Herodotus does not recognize these fields as distinct; they all belong equally to the subject of his inquiry, but it is not self-evident what he understands to be his subject: the notorious difficulties in the proemium are enough to indicate this. If his work presents us with so strange a mixture of different fields, we are entitled to ask: Did Herodotus under stand even its historical element as we understand it? Without any proof everyone, as far as I am aware, who has studied him has assumed this to be so.

The Persian Wars

The Persian Wars PDF Author: Herodotus
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Herodotus, the great Greek historian, wrote this famous history of warfare between the Greeks and the Persians in a delightful style. Herodotus portrays the dispute as one between the forces of slavery on the one hand and freedom on the other. This work covers the rise of the Persian influence and a history of the Persian empire, a description and history of Egypt, and a long digression on the landscape and traditions of Scythia. Because of the comprehensiveness of this work, it was considered the founding work of history in Western literature. A must-have for history enthusiasts.

Encounters and Reflections

Encounters and Reflections PDF Author: Seth Benardete
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226042774
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
By turns wickedly funny and profoundly illuminating, Encounters and Reflections presents a captivating and unconventional portrait of the life and works of Seth Benardete. One of the leading scholars of ancient thought, Benardete here reflects on both the people he knew and the topics that fascinated him throughout his career in a series of candid, freewheeling conversations with Robert Berman, Ronna Burger, and Michael Davis. The first part of the book discloses vignettes about fellow students, colleagues, and acquaintances of Benardete's who later became major figures in the academic and intellectual life of twentieth-century America. We glimpse the student days of Allan Bloom, Stanley Rosen, George Steiner, and we discover the life of the mind as lived by well-known scholars such as David Grene, Jacob Klein, and Benardete's mentor Leo Strauss. We also encounter a number of other learned, devoted, and sometimes eccentric luminaries, including T.S. Eliot, James Baldwin, Werner Jaeger, John Davidson Beazley, and Willard Quine. In the book's second part, Benardete reflects on his own intellectual growth and on his ever-evolving understanding of the texts and ideas he spent a lifetime studying. Revisiting some of his recurrent themes—among them eros and the beautiful, the city and the law, and the gods and the human soul—Benardete shares his views on thinkers such as Plato, Homer, and Heidegger, as well as the relations between philosophy and science and between Christianity and ancient Roman thought. Engaging and informative, Encounters and Reflections brings Benardete's thought to life to enlighten and inspire a new generation of thinkers.

Herodotus and the Question Why

Herodotus and the Question Why PDF Author: Christopher Pelling
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477318321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus wrote the first known history to break from the tradition of Homeric storytelling, basing his text on empirical observations and arranging them systematically. Herodotus and the Question Why offers a comprehensive examination of the methods behind the Histories and the challenge of documenting human experiences, from the Persian Wars to cultural traditions. In lively, accessible prose, Christopher Pelling explores such elements as reconstructing the mentalities of storyteller and audience alike; distinctions between the human and the divine; and the evolving concepts of freedom, democracy, and individualism. Pelling traces the similarities between Herodotus's approach to physical phenomena (Why does the Nile flood?) and landmark events (Why did Xerxes invade Greece? And why did the Greeks win?), delivering a fascinating look at the explanatory process itself. The cultural forces that shaped Herodotus's thinking left a lasting legacy for us, making Herodotus and the Question Why especially relevant as we try to record and narrate the stories of our time and to fully understand them.

Herodotean Soundings

Herodotean Soundings PDF Author: Andreas Schwab
Publisher: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
ISBN: 3823303910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
This volume is dedicated to the logos of Cambyses at the beginning of Book 3 in Herodotus' Histories, one of the few sources on the Persian conquest of Egypt that has not yet been exhaustively explored in its complexity. The contributions of this volume deal with the motivations and narrative strategies behind Herodotus' characterization of the Persian king but also with the geopolitical background of Cambyses' conquest of Egypt as well as the reception of the Cambyses logos by later ancient authors. "Herodotean Soundings: The Cambyses Logos" exemplifies how a multidisciplinary approach can contribute significantly to a better understanding of a complex work such as Herodotus' Histories.

The Shape of Herodotean Rhetoric

The Shape of Herodotean Rhetoric PDF Author: Vasiliki Zali
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004283587
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
In The Shape of Herodotean Rhetoric, Vasiliki Zali offers a fresh assessment of Herodotus’ rhetorical awareness. Redressing the usual view that considers Thucydides as a significant jump from earlier authors in the rhetorical tradition, Zali attempts to find a place for Herodotus. The volume explores the direct and indirect speeches in Herodotus’ fifth to ninth books, focusing in particular on the ways in which they highlight two major narrative themes: the fragility of Greek unity and the problematic Greco-Persian polarity. Through discussion of case studies and Herodotus’ literary background, Zali brings Herodotus’ sophisticated rhetorical system to life, examines the ways in which this system affects Herodotus’ authority, and demonstrates that Herodotus occupies a crucial place in the development of rhetoric.

The Mirror of Herodotus

The Mirror of Herodotus PDF Author: François Hartog
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520264231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
"The best book to come out on Herodotus in years."—G. E. R. Lloyd, King's College Cambridge

Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture

Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture PDF Author: Jessica Priestley
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191510165
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
In a series of literary studies, Priestley explores some of the earliest ancient responses to Herodotus' Histories through the extant written record of the early and middle Hellenistic period. Responses to the Histories were rich and varied, and the range of Hellenistic writers responding in different ways to Herodotus' work is in part a reflection of the Histories'own broad scope. The Histories remained relevant in this later age and continued to speak meaningfully to a broad range of readers long after Herodotus' death. Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture explores a variety of discourses where Herodotus occupies an important place in the intellectual background, and, in particular, it draws attention to writers not usually categorized as historians in order to broaden our perspectives on Herodotus' cultural importance. Through discussions of contemporary discourse relating to, for instance, the Persian Wars, geography, the wondrous, aesthetics, literary style, and biography, it nuances our understanding of how ancient readers reacted to and appropriated the Histories to serve their own distinct rhetorical goals. The volume also contributes to scholarship that reappraises the very term 'Hellenistic', drawing attention to both diachronic continuities and synchronic diversity in ancient Greek literature.

Past and Process in Herodotus and Thucydides

Past and Process in Herodotus and Thucydides PDF Author: Virginia J. Hunter
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400886287
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This is the first systematic attempt to compare Herodotus and Thucydides as contemporaries, that is, as pre- Socratic thinkers who employed rather similar concepts and intellectual tools and who worked within the same theoretical framework or space. The work also brings to the study of the ancient historians widely accepted and recognizable concepts derived from contemporary historiography and the methodology of the social sciences. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Herodotus and the Origins of the Political Community

Herodotus and the Origins of the Political Community PDF Author: Norma Thompson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300062601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The subtitle of this book is `Arion's Leap' and it is from this example of the puzzling fictionality of some of Herodotus' histories that the author starts her exploration (Arion was the singer who leapt into the sea to escape from Corinthian pirates and was rescued by dolphins). Scholars have long wrestled with Herodotus' practice of placing fanciful stories alongside factual ones, but Thompson suggests that rather than displaying a primitive conception of history, such a practice indicates a profound grasp of political theory and an understanding of the way that central stories can become the core of a political community. This major reconsideration of Herodotus' art draws his work into the modern historical debate, and the author uses the writings of Martin Bernal, Fran�ois Hartog and Edward Said to shed new light on Herodotus' conception of history.