Roman Historiography An Introduction to its Basic Aspects and Development

Romans began to write their own history after the great conflict between Rome and Carthage in the late third century B.C. However, the genre quickly developed, shaped by some of Rome's greatest writers, including Sallust, Caesar, Livy, and Tacitus. In this book, ancient historian and classical philologist Andreas Mehl presents an erudite and readable survey of Roman historical writing, from its origins through to Christian late antiquity. Mehl considers works in Greek and Latin, running from the Annales Maximi and the fragmentary early annalists through to Orosius and Procopius of Byzantium. He discusses every historical writer of significance, outlining their biographical details, considering their work in terms of essential themes, and situating it in the context of Roman literature and society more broadly. His account enables students to negotiate the differences between ancient and modern historical writing, and so better to understand the texts and the world which is represented within them.

Andreas Mehl is Professor of Ancient History at the Martin Luther University at Halle and Wittenberg. He is the author of Seleukos Nikator und sein Reich (1986); Tacitus über Kaiser Claudius: Die Ereignisse Am Hof (1974); and Römische Geschichtsschreibung: Grundlagen und Entwicklungen: eine Einführung (Stuttgart, 2001).

Hans-Friedrich Mueller is the William D. Williams Professor of Classics at Union College in Schenectady, New York. He is the author of Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus (2002) and the editor of an abridgment of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (2003).

Introduction 1. Ancient Literature and Roman Historiography 2. Traditions and annalistic history in the early and middle Roman republic 3. Early Roman Historiography 4. Roman historiography in the late republic 5. Augustan Rome and the Early Empire 6. Imperial History and Biography 7. Roman History and World History between Paganism and Christianity 8. Conclusion Bibliographic Essay