1. introduction giovanni parmeggiani

8/18/2019 1. Introduction Giovanni Parmeggiani

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1. Introduction

Giovanni Parmeggiani

In the modern reception of ancient Greek history, the fourth century BCE hasalways een seen as a period of transition from the golden Classical age of the

!fth century to the "ellenistic period an appendi# to the former, a prologue tothe latter. Given this peculiar and unfavourale intermediary position, thefourth century has often een seen in a negative light, and has never reallygained the status of an age with a proper, legitimate identity.

It is a widespread opinion that, as often happens with periods of transition, thefourth century was, aove all, a time of decadence $decadence of the Greekpolis, and of Greek historiography%. Considering that many political and culturalchanges did take place in the period &'&()*) BCE, however, the concept ofdecadence is hardly helpful. +n the contrary, since it has een rought intoplay in order to e#plain the transition from the greatness of the Classical to the"ellenistic age, it appears to reect the pre-udice that the !fth century was the

pinnacle of the Greek cultural e#perience as a whole. It goes without sayingthat such a perspective is aected y a classicist ias and is, in every respect,/uestionale. 0he idea that the time when founders of estern thought such asPlato and 2ristotle lived, and also the literature they shared, was decadentdoes not seem particularly convincing.

0he fourth century has always suered from comparison with the !fth. 0his isan initial di3culty that every modern scholar has to deal with when studyingfourth4century historiography and, more generally, the way that fourth4centuryliterature dealt with the past. Indeed, one could speak of the shadow that the!fth century casts on the fourth. 5ust as Photius the Patriarch was pu66led y

0heopompus of Chios7 self4praise, oserving that the superiority 0heopompusclaimed for himself over !fth4century predecessors was inconceivale ecauseof the undisputed greatness of "erodotus and 0hucydides, 819 similarly :eli#

5acoy stated in 1;*< that Greek historiography reached its perfection with 0hucydides, thus implying that historians of the fourth century could not matchthe greatness of their predecessor. 8*9 =2stieg nach 0hukydides,> di#it 5acoy,and once again the concept of decadence creeps in, as a conse/uence of thepreconceived superiority of the !fth century. 0hings do not appear to havechanged much since the time of Photius $ninth century CE%.

Classicist pre-udices are prevalent even today. But a closer e#amination of 0heopompus7 own words as they have een transmitted to us y Photius would

su3ce to make clear that 0heopompus was not simply praising himself, utalso the literature of his time, seemingly regardless of genre oundaries. If wecannot agree a priori with 0heopompus $for in so doing we would simplyreverse the classicist ias%, we should meditate on this statement and take it asa starting point for a careful ree#amination of fourth4century culture.

2 survey of the 0r?mmerfeld $=!eld of ruins>% of ancient Greek historiography@as "ermann Atrasurger memoraly called it 8)9 @and of fourth4century


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historiography in particular, gives discouraging results. 0he most importantworks of that time, admired y the ancients for centuries, survive only inscanty fragments, mostly citations y later authors. 0his oviously complicatesinterpretation, since the manner of citation is diverse and often driven yagendas and interests that have nothing to do with those of the original author.ecent studies, for e#ample, have shown how the various iases of Polyius,2thenaeus, and iodorus distort our image of the lost historical works that theymade use of and /uoted. 8&9 0he shadow pro-ected y the citing author overthe author cited presents a second di3culty in dealing with the fourth centurythe Dcover te#t7, as Guido Achepens taught us some time ago, 89 and as isillustrated in various papers collected in the present volume, always re/uires acareful approach and in4depth study.

+n top of this, there is a third di3culty we need to consider the tendency ofmodern critics to use inade/uate concepts for de!ning and understandingfourth4century literature. 0his approach has oviously led to seriousmisunderstandings, as in the case of Isocrates $Farincola, this volume% and

enophon $Hicolai, this volume%. 0he concept of Drhetorical historiography7 is ama-or case in point. It rests on the false premises that Isocrates, as the teacherof Ephorus and 0heopompus, was the proponent of an historiographicalprogram and that devoting attention to style and using historical e#empla arepractices incompatile with the search for the truth. 0hus, the concept ofDrhetorical historiography7 not only hides the real nature of Ephorus7 and

0heopompus7 historiography $see elow%, ut prevents us from understandingIsocrates in a more constructive way as an intellectual who participated in thedeates on the meaning and utility of history $an aiding interest for everyintellectual in the fourth century, and not for historians alone%. Aimilarly,modern critics tend to apply misleading laels to enophon and his works.

2ccordingly, they fail to understand that he, like Isocrates, was ane#perimenter in various prose genres, and did not feel compelled to conform topre4e#isting models, ut rather changed them, freely moving from one genre toanother within a single work.

+nce we ecome aware of the pitfalls outlined aove, new and moreconstructive avenues of interpretation open up. Indeed, the last point indicatesa fundamental feature of the fourth century. It seems that intellectuals of thisperiod@historians, orators, and philosophers alike@looked for new modes ofwriting, delierately crossing the oundaries etween genres. Perhaps ecausethe oundaries of prose genres were yet to e clearly de!ned $as in the case of historiography, see elow%, and also ecause intellectuals did not think thatknowledge was the prerogative of a particular discipline, they could aord tomove freely across generic oundaries on the asis of particular goals. 0hiswas an age for e#perimenters and innovators, an age for polymaths.nsurprisingly, the fourth century was the time when philosophers such as2ristotle were ale, when necessary, to practice history with a high degree ofmethodological awareness, clearly inspired y the method of 0hucydides$Bertelli, this volume%.


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Certainly, the fourth century was also the time when historiography, ydistinguishing itself from other disciplines, ecame a literary genre $genoshistorikon% with precise methods and aims. +ne may say that de!ning andcrossing oundaries are two closely connected activities, and in this respect,

0heopompus of Chios7 contriution was decisive $Jattuone, this volume%. +neof the most comple# and important intellectuals of the fourth century@on a parwith Isocrates, enophon, and 2ristotle@the historian 0heopompus is oftenrememered as philalethes y ancient authors. Indeed, he never disavowed

0hucydides7 historical credo, ut rather e#tended the purview of historicalin/uiry, y insisting that the practice of historiography was not a parergon,something to e carried out on the side, ut rather re/uired a speci!c methodof research, i.e. a thoughtful use of the sources.

+n this, a comparative look at other fourth4century historians may einstructive. enophon, in his "ellenica, appears to have een less interested indocuments than 0hucydides had een. Honetheless, his use of documentsseems consistent with his predecessor7s, with documents serving

historiographical and not merely decorative purposes $Bear6ot, this volume%.Ephorus of Cyme drew upon comedy not as an authority to e lindly followed,as scholars have sometimes thought, ut as evidence demonstrating thatPericles7 responsiility for the outreak of the Peloponnesian ar was puliclydeated y contemporaries and that his rhetorical strength was a decisivefactor in initiating the war $Parmeggiani, this volume%. Ephorus thus evinces asophisticated approach to historical evidence. In this respect, we have everyreason to conclude that fourth4century historians succeeded in maintaining thehigh standards of their !fth4century predecessors, and may even havesurpassed them.

Concepts of continuity and development actually descrie the relationshipetween !fth4 and fourth4century historiography etter than discontinuity andregression. 0heopompus e#panded the !eld of aitiai alongside the causes ofevents, he studied the reasons for men7s actions, their aims, plans, wishes, andpassions. 0he 0hucydidean aetiology of [email protected]. the historical practice ofrevealing the most hidden causes of events and actions@was, in this way,strengthened. 2 similar claim can e advanced for Ephorus. "is version of thecauses of the Peloponnesian ar testi!es to how his consideration of new dataand his disclosure of Pericles7 thoughts and aims e#tended 0hucydides7 point of view on the causes of the war to give a dierent and, aove all, a morecomplete picture. Ephorus treated Pericles7 personal aairs, the internal politicsof 2thens, the politics of the elian Keague, and the relationship etween2thens and Aparta as interwoven prolems $Parmeggiani, this volume%. 0heincreased attention devoted to historical causation is visile also in the factthat even fourth4century writers of Persica, a genre that ordered onethnography, paid greater attention to e#planation than did their !fth4centurypredecessors $Kenfant, this volume%.

Clearly there is much more at stake than the simple Dpraise and lame7 thatmodern critics usually ascrie to Ephorus and 0heopompus@and to various


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other historians@as if it were the only cause and purpose of their works. If theparadigmatic vision of history was crucial for some authors who, like enophon,did not feel compelled to adhere to the oundaries of genos historikon, thesame cannot e said for others, such as Ephorus and 0heopompus, who workedon the contrary to de!ne these oundaries. +nce again, we see that theconcept of Drhetorical historiography7 does not ade/uately de!ne Ephorus7 and

0heopompus7 work and historiographical practice. e may also oserve this inother respects. 2ccording to the traditional view of the fourth century, thecollapse of the polis system gave rise to a new historiography, whose interestwas mainly in ethics and literature, and not in politics $this eing an eect ofthe Dcorruption7 of historiography y rhetoric%. But far from eing out of sight,politics were in fact crucial in the works of Ephorus and 0heopompus. 0his issuggested y, for e#ample, the choice y Ephorus of the eturn of the"eraclidae as the starting point for his "istories. In the age of Philip II ofFacedon, the eturn appears to have played a prominent role in politicaldeates, to the point that no writer of an history of Greece could ignore it. 0hevery choice of such a eginning, then, con!rms that Ephorus7 approach tohistory was informed y his awareness of contemporary politics $Kuraghi, thisvolume%. 0he attention Ephorus paid to Apartan history as a central theme inhis work points to a similar conclusion $0ully, this volume, discussing whetherDniversal "istory7 is a legitimate lael for Ephorus7 "istories%.

Ephorus is another ma-or piece in the complicated pu66le of the fourth4centuryintellectual milieu. 8


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cultural identity, y recording local deeds, traditions@even if mutuallyconicting@and monuments $0homas, this volume%. Aomething similarhappened, one may oserve, with the outstanding individuals of the age, whocrafted their uni/ueness efore the pulic through statues, monuments andhistorical works $:errario, this volume% memory was the attleground foridentity, for individuals and communities alike. 0he ourishing of localpolishistories in the fourth century, especially in the Ionian poleis, seems ettere#plained as a conse/uence of the need for political and cultural self4assertionagainst the hegemonic claims of 2thens and Persia, than as a literary reaction@as 5acoy maintained@to the =grand history> of the struggle etweenPersians and Greeks $0homas, this volume%. +nce again, we must conclude, thevariety of forms of fourth4century historiography seems to !nd its roots inpolitics, and not in the inner dynamics of a literary tradition supposedlydisconnected from politics.

2 etter understanding of fourth4century historiography and of fourth4centuryliterature that dealt more generally with the past ecomes possile when we

put these writings into conte#t, i.e. when we pay attention to their period andits historical speci!city. hen we put aside the preconceived notions that havelong inuenced modern critics, the fourth century appears in its full light as aperiod of innovations, prolematic ut stimulating, and in no way inferior to the!fth. 0he editor and the scholars who have contriuted to the present volumewill e satis!ed if the collected papers provoke the reader to rethink, as nowseems necessary, this comple# of prolems.

Biliography

Bloch, "., ed. 1;


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Atrasurger, ". 1;QQ. =mlick im 0r?mmerfeld der griechischenGeschichtsschreiung.> In "istoriographia anti/ua. CommentationesKovanienses in honorem . Peremans septuagenarii editae, ed. 0. eekmans etal., )(*. Keuven.

:ootnotes

8 ack 9 1. Photius Biliotheca 1Q

1. introduction giovanni parmeggiani

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