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2 - Establishing a New Genre

Thucydides and Non-historiographic Memory

from Part I - Context and Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2023

By
Jonas Grethlein
Edited by
Polly Low
Polly Low
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

This chapter explores Thucydides’ important contribution to the shaping of history as a genre of writing. The discussion focuses in particular on the ways in which Thucydides engaged with other, non-historiographic modes of commemorating the past in the 5th century BCE, a process here labelled ‘meta-history’. The chapter analyses three examples of meta-history in the work: the Periclean Funeral Oration, the Mytilenean Debate and the tyrannicide digression. It shows how these episodes help us understand Thucydides’ claims for the usefulness of his work.

Keywords

historiographycommemorationmemoryoratoryagon
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Thucydides , pp. 17 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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