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How to write history: Thucydides and Herodotus in the ancient rhetorical tradition

Kennedy, Scott, Kennedy
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523138844396422

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Greek and Latin.
Modern students of Thucydides and Herodotus may find it odd to think of them as rhetoricians. Yet in the ancient world, both historians (and especially Thucydides) played an important role in rhetorical schools. They were among the favorite authors of ancient teachers of rhetoric and served as foundational pillars of the ancient curriculum, providing themes for school exercises and even for such seminal texts as Hermogenes' theoretical treatises on rhetoric. Modern scholars might never read technical rhetorical texts such as Hermogenes. They almost certainly would never turn to Hermogenes and his kind to help them understand Thucydides or Herodotus. But for our ancient intellectual predecessors, such an approach would have been unconscionable, as ancient rhetoric was the theoretical lens with which they understood and appreciated historical writings. In this dissertation, I explore the confluence of rhetoric and historiography in the ancient world through an examination of how Herodotus and Thucydides were used in ancient schools and then by later historians. Chapter 1 and 2 outline how these historians were embedded and encoded within the rhetorical curriculum. In Chapter 1, I examine how Herodotus and Thucydides entered the rhetorical curriculum and how rhetors incorporated them into the rhetorical curriculum through an examination of the surviving progymnasmata, scholia, and pedagogical myths. Chapter 2 then turns to the practice of declamation, that is the writing of practice speeches in which the declaimer impersonated a figure from the past. Through an examination of how rhetors wrote a historical declamation on themes from Herodotus or Thucydides, this chapter illustrates how rhetors were trained to invent a speech for a specific historical occasion. After outlining what assumptions and ideas about historiography these beginning exercises taught students, chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate how they translated these ideas into practice through an examination of imitations of Thucydides by later historians. In chapter 3, I look at imitations of events in Thucydides, such as plague, sieges, strife, and battles. Taught that Thucydides was the canonical example of these kinds of event, later historians treated him as a template for their own historical writing and often sought to improve their model or even surpass him. Or they might use him as a template for the invention of new historical scenes such as an earthquake or famine. This chapter thus challenges us to think of imitators of Thucydides as participants in a dynamic rhetorical tradition of competition and emulation. Chapter 4 then examines how emulators of Thucydides crafted Thucydidean speeches in light of their rhetorical training. It sees historical speeches as a product of declamation, which mediated Thucydides for later generations. It also seeks to reveal how rhetorical practices encoded the historian with webs of meaning, which modern scholars miss because they are generally unaware of ancient rhetorical practices. Throughout antiquity, Thucydides and Herodotus played an important role in training students to write and think about history. This dissertation helps us understand the links between rhetorical practice and historiography and more broadly step into the literary workshop of an ancient historian.
Anthony Kaldellis (Committee Chair)
236 p.
Ancient History; Ancient Languages; Classical Studies; European History; European Studies; History; Rhetoric
rhetoric, history, Thucydides, Herodotus, Historiography, Byzantium, Prokopios

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kennedy, Kennedy, S. (2018). How to write history: Thucydides and Herodotus in the ancient rhetorical tradition [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523138844396422

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kennedy, Kennedy, Scott. How to write history: Thucydides and Herodotus in the ancient rhetorical tradition. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523138844396422.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kennedy, Kennedy, Scott. "How to write history: Thucydides and Herodotus in the ancient rhetorical tradition." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523138844396422

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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