Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras

A wide examination of the ways in which the Greeks constructed, de-constructed, engaged with and relied on their pasts. This volume in "The Edinburgh Leventis Studies" series collects the papers presented at the sixth A. G. Leventis conference organised under the auspices of the Department of Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Eighteen scholars discuss the variety of ways in which the Greeks constructed de-constructed, engaged with, alluded to, and relied on their pasts whether it was in the poetry of Homer, in the victory odes of Pindar, in tragedy and comedy on the Athenian stage, in their pictorial art, in their political assemblies, or in their religious practices. What emerges is a comprehensive overview of the importance of and presence of the past at every level of Greek society.

...offer[s] much to anyone interested in scholarly debates as well as in archaic and classical Greece more broadly... The editors deserve thanks, then, for a volume that should do much to inform and nuance future debate.--Tim Rood, St. Hugh's College, Oxford "Classical Journal Online", John Marincola opens this volume with a lucid critique of Jacoby's influential entwicklungsgeschichtliches model, according to which the development of Greek historiography (and of the Greeks' historical consciousness in general) resided in the individual progress of Herodotus from geographer and ethnographer to historian. What follows is a tour-de-force from Homer to third-century inscriptions. The sixteen contributors and three commentators (Simon Goldhill, Suzanne Saïd and Christopher Pelling) break down the old dichotomy of critical historiography, on the one hand, and other, inferior forms of engagement with the past, on the other. This book provides excellent snapshots of the current state of the study of social memory in ancient Greece, but also shows the way for further research in this exciting field... Everybody interested in the manifold uses and meanings of the past in archaic and classical Greece should read it. --Bernd Steinbock, University of Western Ontario "Bryn Mawr Classical Review"

John Marincola is Leon Golden Professor of Classics at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is senior lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Calum Maciver is lecturer in Classics at the University of Leeds.