Literary Texts and the Greek Historian

This original survey explores the ways in which non-historical texts as well as historical ones can be used to construct Greek historical accounts. It examines the fifth century authors Demosthenes, Lysias and Thucydides, as well as Greek tragedy and comedy.

Christopher Pelling is Fellow in Classics at University College, Oxford.

Preface

vii

A culture of rhetoric

1

(17)

Audiences and genres

1

(4)

Rhetorical narrative

5

(4)

Attitude and occasion

9

(9)

Rhetoric and history (415 BC)

18

(26)

Thucydides on the Herms and mysteries

18

(8)

Andocides

26

(11)

Reconstructing mentalities

37

(7)

How far would they go? Plutarch on Nicias and Alcibiades

44

(17)

Plutarch

44

(3)

Rewriting Nicias

47

(2)

Duplication with a difference: the ostracism of Hyperbolus

49

(3)

Alcibiades: dissent and decline

52

(6)

Illuminating reception

58

(3)

Rhetoric and history II: Platnea (431--27 BC)

61

(21)

The version of Apollodorus: [Demosthenes] 59

61

(6)

Thucydides on Plataea

67

(5)

right and wrong

72

(2)

Plataean citizenship

74

(3)

a matter of motives

77

(5)

Explaining the war

82

(30)

Explanatory narrative

82

(12)

To blame and to explain

94

(9)

Megarian decrees

103

(9)

Thucydides' speeches

112

(11)

`You cannot be serious': approaching Aristophanes

123

(18)

Comedy and society

123

(1)

Bewildering fantasy

124

(6)

Making comic sense

130

(3)

`We are not amused': audience prejudices and audience sympathies

133

(8)

Aristophanes' Acharnians (425 BC)

141

(23)

Dicaeopolis and Telephus

141

(4)

Cleon

145

(6)

Megara: the comic version

151

(7)

`Now, seriously, though....': a plea for peace?

158

(6)

Tragedy and ideology

164

(25)

Tragedy, comedy, and topicality: Euripides' Orestes

164

(3)

Aeschylus' Eumenides (458 BC)

167

(10)

What is ideology?

177

(7)

Orestes again: disillusionment or disorientation?

184

(5)

Lysistrata and others: constructing gender

189

(57)

Sex in context

189

(7)

Gendering tragically

196

(13)

Gendering comically

209

(9)

Gendering forensically

218

(13)

Gendering prescriptively

231

(15)

Conclusions: texts, audiences, truth

246

(8)

Notes

254

(52)

Bibliography

306

(19)

General index

325

(6)

Index of authors and texts

331

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Literary Texts and the Greek Historian

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials