Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE
K. Scarlett Kingsley
Mar 2024 · Cambridge University Press
Ebook
271
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
About the author
K. Scarlett Kingsley is an assistant professor of Classics at Agnes Scott College. She is the co-editor, with Tim Rood and Giustina Monti, of The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022), and is currently co-authoring The End of the Histories: Land, Wealth, and Empire in Herodotus (forthcoming) with Tim Rood.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
