Misinformation, Disinformation, and Propaganda in Greek Historiography

Mindful of the present state of discourse on ancient Greek historiography, this edited volume explores the major themes of pursuing factuality, falling into historical error and creating propaganda. Even the greatest ancient historians, striving for factuality and truthfulness, commence from subjectivity. Their works, when studied closely, reveal biases and ideological distortions. For this reason, Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda in Greek Historiography strives to evaluate the issues which stand in the way of factuality in historical texts and records. The contributors, all experts in the field, question the accuracy of the historiography in question; the ancient author''s fidelity to their sources; and the evidence presented in relation to their inherited oral tradition. In this way, the ancient author''s methodology is evaluated in terms of its probability, the awareness of its cultural variation and the influences which we can deduce within the texts. This volume presents an important contribution to the study of what constitutes fact and fiction within ancient Greek historiography.>

Auteur
Thomas Figueira is Distinguished Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Rutgers University, USA. He is co-editor of Ethnicity and Identity in Herodotus (2020), co-author of Wisdom from the Ancients: Enduring Business Lessons from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar (2001) and author of The Power of Money: Coinage and Politics in the Athenian Empire (1998). Rosaria Vignolo Munson is J. Archer and Helen C. Turner Professor of Classics at Swarthmore College, USA. She is author of Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Herodotus (2013), Black Doves Speak: Herodotus and the Language of Barbarians (2005) and Telling Wonders: Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of Herodotus (2001). She is also co-editor of Herodotus: Histories Book I (2022).

Contenu
List of Contributors Preface Introduction (Carolyn Dewald, Bard College, USA) Part I: Herodotus 1. A Different Persian 'Debate' in Herodotus: On Truth and Falsehood (Rosaria Munson, Swarthmore College, USA) 2. Misinformed Rivals: Agonistic Intertextuality and Hypoleptic Discourse in Herodotus (Denis Correa, University of Coimbra, Portugal) Part II: Thucydides 3. Lies and Liars in Thucydides (Paula Debnar, Mount Holyoke College, USA) 4. Disinformation, Especially Spartan, in Thucydides: Account of the "Ten Years War" (Donald Lateiner, Ohio Wesleyan University, USA) 5. Alcibiades: Secrecy, Private Initiative and Manipulation (Cinzia Bearzot, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy) 6. Thucydides 2.8.4-5 and the Nature of Ideological Sympathy in Fifth-Century Interstate Politics (Thomas Figueira, Rutgers University, USA) 7. Propaganda in Periclean Funeral Oration? (Ryan Balot, University of Toronto, Canada) Part III: Xenophon and Early Fourth Century Historiography 8. Kritias of Athens and Oligarchic Propaganda in Late Fifth-Century Athens (William S. Morison, Grand Valley State University, USA) 9. Xenophon's Partisan Account of the Thirty (Matthew Christ, University of Indiana, USA) 10. Klearchos the Warmonger or Klearchos the Cheat? Xenophon's Silence on Spartan Deception in the Anabasis (Ellen Millender, Reed College, USA) Part IV: Hellenistic Historiography 11. The Herophilos Hypothesis and the Hairy Heart of Aristomenes of Messene (Luke Madson, Rutgers University, USA) Notes Bibliography Index