Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography Futures Past from Herodotus to Augustine

The past is narrated in retrospect. Historians can either capitalize on the benefit of hindsight and give their narratives a strongly teleological design or they may try to render the past as it was experienced by historical agents and contemporaries. This book explores the fundamental tension between experience and teleology in major works of Greek and Roman historiography, biography and autobiography. The combination of theoretical reflections with close readings yields a new, often surprising assessment of the history of ancient historiography as well as a deeper understanding of such authors as Thucydides, Tacitus and Augustine. While much recent work has focused on how ancient historians use emplotment to generate historical meaning, Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography offers a new approach to narrative form as a mode of coming to grips with time.

Introduction: futures past: historiography between experience and teleology; Part I. Experience: Making the Past Present: 1. Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War; 2. Xenophon, Anabasis; 3. Plutarch, Alexander; 4. Tacitus, Annals; Part II. Teleology: The Power of Retrospect: 5. Herodotus, Histories; 6. Polybius, Histories; 7. Sallust, Bellum Catilinae; Part III. Beyond Experience and Teleology: 8. Augustine, Confessions; Epilogue: experience in modern historiography.

Jonas Grethlein holds the Chair in Greek Literature at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. His recent publications include The Greeks and their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE (2010) and, co-edited with Christopher B. Krebs, Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography: The 'Plupast' from Herodotus to Appian (2012).