Dionysius Of Halicarnassus And Augustan Rome

Interprets the works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, an important critic and historian in Rome, in a range of contexts.

In The History of Archaic Rome, Dionysius purposely viewed Roman history as an embodiment of all that was best in Greek culture. Gabba places Dionysius's remarkable thesis in its cultural context, comparing this author with other ancient historians and evaluating Dionysius's treatment of his sources. In truth, the last decades B.C. made the historian's task an enormous challenge. On the one hand, the ancient writers knew Rome to be the greatest empire the world had seen, seemingly impregnable in military power and still capable of expansion. On the other hand, they were acutely aware that it recently had barely survived half a century of civil strife. Gabba recalls to us how little was confidently known of Rome's actual origins in an illuminating examination of Dionysius's methodology as a historian.

THE few facts known about the life of Dionysius are virtually all given us by the author himself. At the close of the preface to the Roman Antiquities (chap. 8) he announces himself as Dionysius, the son of Alexander, and a native of Halicarnassus. He also informs us (chap. 7) that he had come to Italy at the time when Augustus Caesar put an end to the civil war in the middle of the 187th Olympiad (late in 30 B.C. or in 29), and that he had spent the following twenty-two years in acquainting himself with the language and the literature of the Romans, in gathering his materials, and in writing his History. The preface is dated (chap. 3) in the consulship of Nero and Piso (7 B.C.), and the first part, at least, of the work must have been published at that time. It is generally assumed that the entire History appeared then; but in Book VII. (70, 2) Dionysius refers to Book I. as having been already published. This leaves it an open question in how many instalments and at what intervals he issued the work. We do not know the exact date of his birth; but two casual statements in the History enable us to fix it within certain limits. Aeterna Press

Dionysius of Halicarnassus has long been regarded as a rather mediocre critic. This book rehabilitates the Greek rhetorician by demonstrating the creative ways in which he integrated theories from different linguistic disciplines into a coherent programme of rhetoric.

In Seven Volumes. Text Is In English And Greek.

This is the first systematic study of Greek classicism, a crucial element of Graeco-Roman culture under Augustus, from the perspective of cultural identity: what vision of the world and their own role in it motivated Greek and Roman intellectuals to commit themselves to reliving the classical Greek past in Augustan Rome? This book will be of interest to scholars working on late Hellenistic and Early Imperial Greek and Roman literature and culture, the Second Sophistic, and ancient cultural identity, as well as intellectual historians of Western thought. All Greek and Latin is translated.

This book investigates Dionysius of Halicarnassus' description of Rome's 'founders' and situates Dionysius' historical work in the cultural and political contexts of Augustan Rome. Beatrice Poletti examines Dionysius' methods and engagement with his sources to illustrate the significance of his work in his contemporary intellectual milieu.