Plutarch's On the Malice of Herodotus and the Writing of History in the Greco-Roman World

The essay, On the Malice of Herodotus, which has come down to us in the corpus of Plutarch, has often been considered a problematic work because of its hostile tone, the object of its attack, and the quality of its argumentation. This book seeks to set the work in the larger context of the standards and traditions of Greek and Roman historiography and classical criticism more generally as they developed in antiquity. Individual chapters explore Plutarch's place in the critical reputation of Herodotus in antiquity, the nature and importance of historiographical style, the 'signs and tokens' used by Plutarch to convict Herodotus of malice, the particular kind of polemic on display in the essay, its relationship to Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Plutarch's own attempts to re-write the famous incidents narrated by Herodotus, and the importance ancient critics placed on determining the disposition of the historian.

The book shows that throughout the essay, Plutarch, although often revealing a distinctive approach towards his subject, is none the less working in a recognizable tradition using methods and approaches that many of his predecessors had employed and which are essential to understand in order to arrive at a more comprehensive evaluation of how the Greeks and Romans wrote history.

John Marincola, Leon Golden Professor Emeritus of Classics, Florida State University

John Marincola is Leon Golden Professor Emeritus of Classics at Florida State University. His main interests are in Greek and Roman historiography and rhetoric. He is the author of numerous articles and books, and has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Institute for Advanced Study. He is currently Visiting Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Oxford.