Roman historiography

What are the characteristics of historiography

Narrative in nature

• history is analytical w/ some narratives

• both Roman & Greeks > more narrative than analytical

• historiography is a tale → literary pov

Speeches are prominent

• Thucydides & Herodotus big influence on the Romans

• Interesting to give rhetorical power to the work

• Fun to picture the actual occasion or historical figure

  • assumed what would have been said, not there physically → the literariness of historiography

Memorialise great deeds

• glorify the past

• imitation or emulation → Romans weren’t followers of the Greeks

What are roman traits

Annalistic organisation

• dealt with big events, and treated in chunks and organised by years

Focused on politics

• more prominent than Greeks → esp Imperial time w/ power play

• many roman politicians were also historians → naturally inclined

Moralising trends

• writes history to teach stuff → more than the Greeks

• Pessimism is common → in order to teach a lesson

What are annales maximi

• Year notes written by the high priest

• each year was noted and summarised by the most important office

  • omens and large scale events with big impact

    • miraculous and periodical events

• started in 400bc

• source for earliest historiographers

• A recording of events

• Nothing survives

Who were the first historians

Fabius Pictor

• 200 BC

• wrote in Greek

• History from Aeneas to the Second Punic War

• Made the Greeks more friendly to the Romans

Cato Censor

• 234BC - 149BC

• prolific author

• Ended his speech with: btw, we should destroy Carthage

• Origins: collections of stories that deals with the foundations of several roman cities on the roman peninsula

  • written in prose

• Wrote manuals on how to farm + Roman Law

Who was Livy

• Wrote the History of Rome from the Foundation till his own time

• Famous in his age: known for writing a big book

• Ab Urbe

  • 142 chapters

  • abbreviation/summaries of Livy already existed during his time

  • First books deals w the earliest histories of Rome, mythological shit

What is livius praefatio

• The preface to the Livy’s Ab Urbe

• Roman characteristics are exemplified

• Took pleasure in the immortalisation in the deeds of important ppl → Rome centric world view

• Republican Nostalgia

  • yearning for the past

  • Glorifies the past of Rome because it was a republic rather than Imperial

• Escapism in the past and pessimism to the present

Style of Ab urbe

• Clear writing style

• Supple & even sentence structure

• Milky creamy: purity and softness of his style: lactea ubertas

• Serious sentence length

Who is Sallust

• historian, very different to Livy : out and about, successful politician

• a moralist first

• Focused on the conspiracy against Catalina

• Pointed, used older Latin words to sound more stern & difficult when compared to Thucydides

• Moved away from annalist writing but monographs

  • writing a book on one particular subject

• Wrote 2 monographies

Bellum Iugurthinum → Jugurtha

• War against the Numidian prince Iugurtha

• Introduction of Marius and Sulla

De coniuratione Catilinae

• Conspiracy of Catiline (63 BC)

• counterpart to Ciceronian propaganda

Who was Caesar

• military politician

• 44 BC - 100BC

• gained political influences via army & assembly

• becomes an absolute dictator and ruler

• killed by large no of senators

As an author

• one of strongest by those who were “wise” to do so

• de bello civili

• epigrams

• praised in antiquity

• simple yet elegant

→ still roman republic, senate and ppl assembly making the rules, then emperor

What is De Bello Gallico

• 9 year war in Gaul

• dragged on too long, Caesar’s plundering was not mentioned in reports sent back to Rome,

• Objectivity achieved by writing in the 3rd person

  • better than Xenophon

• interesting from a military historical pov due to the attention placed on propaganda and self-presentation

Who is Tacitus

• Historian that existed in a different time

• early imperial period

  • dangerous for historians to be active because emperors were thinned skinned

  • political career required allies with bad emperors

Tacitus’ style

• Short and ‘epigrammatic’

• Innuendo and ambiguity

• ‘Sine ira et studio’

What is Germania

• region of north west europe

• history and ethnography not very interesting

• he didn’t do field work, and relied on info he received in Rome

• focuses on the implicit comparison with the romans and tribes

  • lazy and uncivilised than the romans

• Roman values

  • equality

  • ‘meritocracy’

  • culture of monogamy

  • openness

  • bravery

  • simplicity

• about the customs of a tribe

• as readers suppose to understand from moral pov, better than Rome which was much more decayed, they lived a better life

• judged on their merit, not family status, monogamous

What are the histories and annales

Theme: the conflict between the principate (emperor ship) and freedom (free state)

all the emperors engaged in genocide, nepotism, censure, conspiracies,

Histories (105)

• first

• deals with the latest emperors

• Nero – Vespasianus – Titus – Domitianus

Annales (117)

• second

• deals with the second ones

• Tiberius – Caligula – Claudius – Nero

Who is Ammianus Marcellinus

• Ammian

• history of nerva until 378

• only the last 25 years of his history is left

• Roman: focus on emperors and wars

• Greek: ethnographic and scientific digressions

Who is Suetonius

• 70-130

• more of a biographer

• takes an emperor and the same method is used

• Regular structure

• De vita caesarum: the lives of twelve ceasars

Regular structure

• birth/family

• life (chronologically)

• returning categories

• good traits

• character flaws

• secrets

• appearance

• death

Who is Cornelius Nepos

• a biographer

• wrote de virius illustirbus → important man

  • on illustrious man

• Past fame as an author read in schools

What is true history

• history books today that are mostly analytical

• historians from Herodotus always criticised their predecessors for indulging in fantasy for not checking the facts

• constant cycle of back criticism

• Lucian parodied historiography