5. The Use of Documents in Xenophon’s Hellenica Cinzia Bearzot The conference ‘L’uso dei documenti nella storiografia antica’ (Gubbio 22–24 maggio 2001), which presented findings of research conducted under the direction of Paolo Desideri, and the proceedings of which were published in 2003, highlighted the fact… Read more
6. The Causes of the Peloponnesian War: Ephorus, Thucydides and Their Critics Giovanni Parmeggiani The causes of the Peloponnesian War constitute such a persistent theme in discussions of fifth-century Greek history, in part because of the complexity of the aetiological view of our earliest source, Thucydides. … Read more
7. Ephorus in Context: The Return of the Heraclidae and Fourth-century Peloponnesian Politics [1] Nino Luraghi In a famous passage at the beginning of Book 4, Diodorus discusses the difficulties facing the historian who wants to include in his work what… Read more
8. Ephorus, Polybius, and τὰ καθόλου γράφειν: Why and How to Read Ephorus and his Role in Greek Historiography without Reference to ‘Universal History’ [1] John Tully I would be making the understatement of the century if I were… Read more
9. Greek Monographs on the Persian World: The Fourth Century BCE and its innovations Dominique Lenfant While it is the best-known Greek monograph on the Persian world, Ctesias’ Persica is often cited today as an illustration of the supposed decadence of the historical genre in the fourth… Read more
10. The Sick Man of Asia? Christopher Tuplin If you will take, I don’t say unlimited time or many generations, but only these last fifty years immediately preceding our generation, you will be able to understand the cruelty of Fortune. For can you suppose,… Read more
11. Local History, Polis History, and the Politics of Place Rosalind Thomas The Greek polis was, as we all know, the central and abiding socio-political institution of the Greek world, continuing in the Hellenistic period and even into Roman times, but with vastly reduced political power. Read more
5. Digressing toward a Possible Regime Although the basic trajectory of the Republic could certainly be understood in other ways, one can see the conversation rising from the Piraeus (in the wake of a spectacular event), moving through ideal political regimes and ascending to a high point… Read more
6. Imagining Images in Chains In this chapter, I approach Plato’s scenario of the Cave, starting with some narratological observations and then considering the sequence that moves from the Good through Sun and Divided Line to the Cave. It will take some preparation to reach the Cave… Read more
Afterword It is generally assumed that Plato, while cultivating and perpetuating Socrates’ legacy of ostensible ignorance in the most important matters, writes as a knower with a persuasive, didactic agenda. Some see Plato promoting specific theoretical doctrines; others figure that Plato is guiding us to adopt practices… Read more
