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Book 21 of Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res Gestae is principally concerned with Julian’s rise to supreme power (in the preceding book he was proclaimed Augustus by his soldiers): in chapter 1 he is in Vienne, celebrating the fifth anniversary of his elevation to the position of Caesar; in chapter 5, still in Vienne, he addresses his soldiers, revealing to them his decision to wage war on Constantius; in chapter 10 he is well advanced in his swift movement eastwards to confront the old emperor (he s...

1. In un celebre saggio del 1966, molto influente e molto discusso, H. Strasburger contrappose il modello storiografico “integrante” di Erodoto, con la “grandiosa ampiezza e varietà” dei suoi contenuti, che spaziavano dalla storia della civiltà alla storia politica, a quello restrittivo tucidideo, incentrato tutto sul momento cinetico (Thuc. 1.1.1-2), al punto da trascurare l’analisi delle condizioni di equilibrio per concentrarsi piuttosto sulla sua rottura. Così, la dinamica, in Tucidide, a...

Nelle due principali opere storiche di Senofonte, l’Anabasi e le Elleniche, si riscontra una spiccata attenzione per l’elemento religioso: da una parte si hanno riferimenti a forme di religiosità tradizionali; dall’altra si possono notare osservazioni – di carattere particolare e di tono più generale – relative all’azione del divino nella storia. Su queste ultime si concentra il presente lavoro, che non solo le discute, ma soprattutto cerca di metterne in evidenza la matrice socratica. Gli at...

Among the many marvellous anecdotes that populate the Late Antique biographers’ imagination, some are meant to strike the sensibility of the reader while maintaining a veneer of credibility: in numerous episodes, the protagonist is portrayed as the privileged interlocutor of a monarch. The correspondence between Ambrose, bishop of Milan, and the queen of the Marcomanni, addressee of a catechetical letter not devoid of political echoes (Paul. Med., Vita Ambr., 36.2), is only one example of thi...

In some ways the Hellenistic era was characterized by a significant development in siege craft. Military innovations of the ivth century BC contributed greatly to progress in siege techniques and increased the role of sieges in warfare. Polybius’ Histories, generally considered a major source on the wars of the iii and ii centuries BC, describes a total of 26 sieges in detail (Sardis, Syracusae, New Carthage, Ambracus etc.), of which 19 were successful, and reflects the author’s apparent inte...

La obra de Polibio ha atraído a numerosos especialistas durante la última década. Este nuevo giro polibiano ha permitido comprender mucho mejor la práctica historiográfica de un historiador cuya obra ha sido considerada a menudo como un escrito de gran actualidad. En su texto se han buscado desde los antecedentes de una moderna apreciación del imperialismo hasta se ha querido reconocer el testimonio de la emergencia de una primera globalización. En los últimos años, el interés por este último...

“Avoir découvert le temps, c’est la caractéristique de l’homme moderne ! Non seulement par rapport à l’homme de l’Euphrate et du Nil, au Grec, mais même à l’homme médiéval ! Le Moyen Âge n’a pas de temps : quand les primitifs peignent une crucifixion, les personnages de calvaire sont habillés comme les contemporains du peintre ! Si vous voulez savoir ce que c’est que le temps du Moyen Âge, justement, représentez-vous une crucifixion avec saint Jean en chapeau melon et la Vierge sous un parapl...

1. Alessandro Magno è tra i personaggi che compaiono più spesso nelle declamazioni a tema storico. L’alone semileggendario che ben presto venne ad ammantare le sue gesta, la quantità di aneddoti più o meno storicamente attendibili tramandati intorno alla sua figura, facevano di lui un candidato ideale a figurare, oltre che come fonte inesauribile di exempla retorici, come protagonista delle esercitazioni scolastiche, soprattutto suasoriae (esercizi del genere deliberativo, in cui un personagg...

On one occasion in the reign and presence of the emperor Antoninus Pius, the Greek orator Aelius Aristides dispensed with direct adulation of the ciuilis princeps and instead addressed an encomium to a personified Rome.He commented on the opportunities the Empire offered all its inhabitants, regardless of ethnic background (Rom., 70): “a common democracy (δηµοκρατία) of the earth has been established under a single, best ruler and organizer (ἄρχοντι καὶ κοσµητῇ) and, as though gathered in a c...

Diversamente da Tucidide, Senofonte non ha redatto un proemio metodologico. Come ha notato fin dalla metà del secolo scorso M. Sordi, rivendicando a Senofonte la dignità metodologica che spesso gli è stata negata, il suo metodo va recuperato dall’esposizione. Mi è parsa quindi utile una ricerca sui concetti di verità e menzogna in Senofonte, tenendo conto del fatto che la terminologia storiografica è oggetto attualmente di attenta riflessione. Del concetto di aletheia in storiografia si è occ...

Natural de Bitinia, en Asia Menor, Dion Casio Coceyano ocupó altos cargos político-administrativos, especialmente los de senador, pretor y cónsul. Habiendo nacido en el 155 d.C. y muerto en el 235 d.C., Dion Casio vivió bajo las dinastías Antonina y Severa, ejerciendo funciones públicas en tiempos de ambas: comenzó su carrera ya en tiempo de Cómodo (177-192 d.C.), pero la terminó durante el principado de los Severos (193-235 d.C.). Efectivamente, este autor griego mantuvo una particular proxi...

Introduction Between February 24 and November 27, 1926, at Satyagraha Ashram in Ahmedabad, India, Gandhi withdrew from mass political activity and devoted much of his time and energy to translating the Gita from Sanskrit into his native Gujarati. Probably like his original listeners, today Gandhi’s readers in search for spiritual guidance are also used to find inspired pages full of a half-Christian eclecticism – the word “God”, for example, is recurrent – that helps to put the verses from th...

Introduction The life of the Spartan commander Dercylidas may be chronologically divided into three parts, using as watershed his command in the Greek expedition in Asia because it is the period for which we have the greater part of information, mostly thanks to Xenophon’s Hellenica. Before and after this stage, various sources provide only scattered mentions that do not make it easy to reconstruct a comprehensive picture of his political and military activity. This paper, however, does not a...

Ancient historiography included many digressions about local customs, monumental buildings, geography and zoology. In their works, historians not only discussed the matter they purported to be handling but also expressed their own views on other matters and contemporary values. This article examines the moralizing digression on Babylonian prostitution we encounter in Curtius’ Latin history of Alexander the Great (Historiae Alexandri Magni, 5.1.36-39). My article shows how the digression follo...

The Roman emperors of the Flavian dynasty, especially the last one, Domitian, have their traditional images formed from contemporary or immediately posterior prose works – such as the ones by Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny the Younger – still taken as informative or transparent by some historians and classicists. This image has a markedly negative nature; however, in poetic works, contemporary to the emperor, rarely considered in their political views, Statius and Martial unveil a more positive...

Nicolás de Damasco y el FGH, 61 de Jacoby El estudio de la tiranía en el panorama político de la antigua Grecia cuenta con una larga y completa tradición historiográfica. La mayoría de los trabajos publicados hasta la fecha sobre la tiranía en Sición se han centrado en los datos numéricos de los cien años (c. 676-575 a.C.) de duración que se mantuvo este tipo de régimen político en el poder. Alrededor de este argumento principal se han sucedido las interpretaciones en cuanto a la fecha exacta...

“Più si studia e si scopre in storiografia antica,più si è colpiti dal formidabile potere della tradizione” Thucydides’ first book famously includes a section describing the fifty years between the end of the Persian Wars and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, the so-called Pentecontaetia (Thuc. 1.89-117). This narrative portion of Thucydides’ work is meant to fill the gap between Herodotus’ Histories and his own history of the Peloponnesian War. Moreover, with the methodological chapter...

Polybius’ work, according to the preserved fragments of the author, narrates the history of the Roman conquest from the beginning of the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) to the submission of Macedonia in the Third Roman-Macedonian War (171-168 BC). Polybius takes the second war between Rome and Carthage as the starting point of his history because of the simultaneity of this event with two other major conflicts: the dispute between Antiochus III and Ptolemy IV Philopator in the Fourth Syrian War...

Introducción En plena ebullición política de la Europa de entreguerras, durante la configuración y consolidación de los estados totalitarios, S. Freud publicó El malestar en la cultura (1930), obra de contenido filosófico y sociológico. El tema central de la misma es la tensión entre las pulsiones (o pasiones) del individuo y la sociedad como factor limitante. En otros términos: sobre cómo la sociedad contiene y uniformiza las pasiones humanas situándolas en un marco civilizado. Naturalmente ...

Leggere le Supplici di Euripide Se si leggono le parole di R. Goossens ‒ “il semble à première vue que tout ait été dit sur la signification politique des Suppliantes” ‒ e quelle più recenti di I. C. Storey ‒ “in Suppliant Women we are never allowed to stand securely on any firm ground” ‒ risulta evidente quanto la natura delle Supplici di Euripide rimanga enigmatica: se nel 1932 si era sicuri che fosse già stato detto tutto circa la tragedia, più recentemente si è restii ad affermare con sic...

Écrite en grec au milieu du iiie s. p.C. par un dénommé Hérodien, l’Histoire des empereurs romains est l’une des principales sources littéraires à notre disposition couvrant les années 180-238, de la mort de Marc Aurèle à l’avènement de Gordien III. Production contemporaine de son sujet, l’Histoire nous est de plus parvenue (relativement) complète. L’historien, par ailleurs inconnu, y revendique même un témoignage personnel (1.2.5 : παρὰ πάντα τὸν ἐµαυτοῦ βίον εἶδόν τε καὶ ἤκουσα ; 2.15.7 : ἃ...

Dans le premier volume dédié aux Sources et modèles des historiens anciens, nous abordions la réception de Florus en France au xviie siècle à travers trois ouvrages qui se réclamaient de lui dès leur titre même : le Florus Francicus, le Florus Gallicus et le Florus sanctus. L’objet du présent article est de prolonger cette enquête. Nous avons choisi pour bornes temporelles les dates de publication de deux ouvrages appelés à devenir des références pour les savants ultérieurs. À notre point de...

The final part of the Historiae abbreuiatae (mistakenly known as De Caesaribus) reads as follows: “For this reason, so that there might be no rebellion among the Gauls, who are headstrong by nature, especially because the Germans were ravaging most of those districts, Constantius appointed Julian as Caesar in command of the Transalpine regions since he was acceptable to him by virtue of their family relationship, and the latter quickly subdued (those) fierce nations and captured their famous ...

Lo stretto legame esistente, nell’antichità, fra epica e storiografia è ben noto. Già i primi storici greci vedevano in Omero un predecessore e un modello di cui tenere conto. A Roma, la storiografia e l’epica letteraria fecero il loro ingresso più o meno contemporaneamente, tra la fine del iii e l’inizio del ii secolo a.C., nell’ambito di un più ampio insieme di mutamenti riguardanti i modi di costruzione e trasmissione della memoria culturale; e per gran parte del periodo repubblicano l’epi...

Fruit d’une large collaboration internationale, le présent volume, qui réunit 35 articles de spécialistes du domaine, se veut une contribution à l’étude de l’écriture de l’histoire dans l’Antiquité, en Grèce et à Rome, d’Hérodote à l’Empire de Byzance. À travers des enquêtes consacrées aux principaux historiens et textes historiques de cette période, ces différents textes donnent lieu à des relectures qui prennent en compte les projets historiographiques de chacun. Car si une idée traverse les diverses enquêtes qui sont rassemblées ici – et la diversité des approches a été dès le départ conçue comme un des traits du volume –, c’est qu’il convient d’aborder chaque témoignage en le replaçant dans le contexte dans lequel il a été composé, car souvent, il en apprend au moins autant sur le moment où il a été écrit que sur celui qu’il décrit. Fruit of a large international collaboration, the present volume collects 35 papers produced by experts. Its chief aim is to provide a contribution to the studies on the writing of history in Greco-Roman Antiquity from Herodotus to the Byzantine Empire. All these inquiries give rise to re-readings of each historian's historiographical project: if there is one idea pervading all the texts here collected – the diversity of approaches was thought from the start to be the one of the hallmarks of the volume – it is that each testimony should be addressed by reallocating it in the context of its own production, since these testimonies shed light both upon the moment when they were written and the one they describe.

Quando, fra il 530 e il 533 d.C., la commissione incaricata dall’imperatore Giustiniano si dedicò alla composizione dei Digesta, essa pose in una posizione di rilievo un lungo stralcio di un’opera di grande originalità, un unicum nel panorama della letteratura giurisprudenziale: l’Enchiridion (cioè il Manuale) di Sesto Pomponio. Il Digesto (o Digesta), l’antologia di opere giurisprudenziali che si affianca, nel Corpus iuris, alla raccolta di leges (il Codex Iustinianus) e alle Institutiones ...

Premessa Nel precedente volume, O. Devillers e B. B. Sebastiani hanno messo in risalto la molteplicità delle forme in cui si articola il rapporto degli storici con i loro predecessori. Coerentemente con l’intenzione espressa dai curatori di “faire écho à une grande variété d’approches et de sensibilités”, credo ci si possa accostare alla storiografia tardoantica da angolazioni molto diverse; queste includono la critica delle fonti, lo studio delle dinamiche allusive, l’analisi diacronica del...

La reazione di Tiberio alla morte del proprio figlio Druso, avvenuta nel 23 d.C., è documentata dalle fonti con modalità diverse e tra loro contrastanti. Scrive, quasi con brutalità, Svetonio (Tib., 52.1): filiorum neque naturalem Drusum neque adoptiuum Germanicum patria caritate dilexit, alterius uitiis infensus. Nam Drusus fluxioris remissiorisque uitae erat. Itaque ne mortuo quidem perinde adfectus est, sed tantum non statim a funere ad negotiorum consuetudinem rediit iustitio longiore inh...

The Breuiarium of Festus, perhaps the shortest history of Rome written in Antiquity, has attracted very little attention. The neglect of Festus’ Breuiarium is such that, despite it being only 3800 words long, a translation into English has never been published. There are, however, two internet translations available and the work has been translated into other languages. It was not always thus. In the Middle Ages, the Breuiarium of Festus was immensely popular and at least 185 manuscripts surv...

Il est heureux que la recherche soit depuis quelques années très active autour des Histoires Philippiques de Trogue Pompée/Justin. Les travaux menés dernièrement permettent de repousser définitivement certaines théories qui tendaient à affadir le travail des deux auteurs, et de s’appuyer sur des éléments plus sûrs (s’il est toujours un peu dangereux de parler de certitudes) pour faire avancer l’état des connaissances. Ainsi l’on s’accorde aujourd’hui sur la date de composition des Histoires P...

Tacitus is one of our earliest successors of Flavian historiography, not only as a traditional compiler of contemporary historians, but also as a vociferous critic at the end of Hist., 2.101.1: Scriptores temporum, qui potiente rerum Flauia domo monimenta belli huiusce composuerunt, curam pacis et amorem rei publicae, corruptas in adulationem causas, tradidere: nobis [...] uidentur. “The historians of the period, who during the ascendancy of the Flavian family composed the chronicles of this ...

La tâche première de l’herméneutique est, selon P. Ricœur, de chercher dans le texte, d’une part, la dynamique interne qui préside à la structuration de l’œuvre, c’est-à-dire, son sens, et, d’autre part, la puissance de l’œuvre de se projeter hors d’elle-même et d’engendrer un monde qui serait la “chose” du texte, donc, son référent : le monde que l’œuvre déploie en quelque sorte en avant et que le lecteur pourrait habiter. À la dynamique interne du texte, Ricœur consacre toutes ses analyses...

Caesar wrote his De Bello Gallico in seven books, in which one can find out the conflicts between Romans and Gauls, as well as his own military campaigns. Caesar also used his work to justify his conquest of Gaul. Caesar, although there has always been a great discussion about his use as a reliable source for those facts, is fundamental to this research. In fact, during his years in Gaul, he has penetrated in an alien territory, in a universe not so well known and that was feared by the Roman...

Dans cet article, nous entendons examiner la figure du poète-historien antique dans les textes de H. Arendt. Voyant une filiation entre l’épopée d’Homère et l’historiographie d’Hérodote et de Thucydide, Arendt oppose leurs récits, qui mettent au centre les actions humaines, au concept moderne de processus, porté à son paroxysme par le totalitarisme, qui annihile, de fait, toute possibilité de penser l’action, nécessairement imprévisible. Nous soutenons qu’elle adopte cette parole narrative du poète-historien quand elle pratique elle-même le récit de vie dans Men in Dark Times (Vies politiques), narrant des vies singulières de héros, au sens d’acteurs politiques. In this essay, I intend to explore the figure of the ancient poet-historian in H. Arendt’s works. Seeing a connection between Homer’s epic and Herodotus’s and Thucydides’s historiography, Arendt opposes their stories, which put the emphasis on human actions, to the modern concept of process, brought to a fever pitch by totalitarianism, and de facto annihilating any possibility of conceiving action, which is necessarily unpredictable. I argue that she adopts the poet-historian’s narrative speech when telling herself stories of lives in Men in Dark Times, narrating the unique lives of heroes, in the sense of political actors.

International audience; As of the end of the fifth century, the Athenian strategoi on the front lines sent letters to the city informing it of ongoing operations. This mode of communication, mentioned by historians such as Thucydides and Xenophon but also in the corpus of the ten Attic Orators, allows us to study how the Athenians situated themselves regarding information. On the one hand, written messages open a new perspective to the debate concerning the importance of the oral or written word: only the articulation of both leads to political decision-making. On the other hand, politicians’ use of letters to convince the demos offer an insight into the conceptions and manipulations of information at work in classical Athens.; À partir de la fin du Ve siècle, les stratèges athéniens en campagne envoient des lettres à la cité pour informer des opérations en cours. Ce mode de communication, évoqué par les historiens que sont Thucydide et Xénophon mais aussi dans le corpus des dix orateurs attiques, permet d’étudier le rapport des Athéniens à l’information. D’une part, les messages écrits ouvrent une nouvelle perspective sur le débat concernant la primauté de l’oral ou de l’écrit : c’est l’articulation de l’un et de l’autre qui conduit à une prise de décision politique. D’autre part, l’emploi des lettres par les hommes politiques pour convaincre le dèmos offre un aperçu des conceptions et des manipulations de l’information à l’œuvre dans l’Athènes classique.

Cet article examine trois scènes de peste tirées des deux premiers livres de Rabelais. La question que pose Alcofribas dans le chapitre XXV du Gargantua (1535) est essentielle : pourquoi les individus qui portent secours aux pestiférés meurent-ils tous, alors que les « pilleurs » et « meurtriers » ne tombent jamais malades ? Suivent-ils des mesures prophylactiques pour ainsi l’éviter ? Nous examinons ensuite l’usage ou le mésusage de la prophylaxie chez Panurge, le grand semeur de peste du Pantagruel (1532). Comment parodie-t-il les recettes des régimes prophylactiques afin de semer, et non de prévenir, la maladie ? Que fait-il pour entraîner une peste dans la gorge de Pantagruel tout en l’empêchant d’en tomber malade ? This article considers three plague scenes in Rabelais’ first two books. The question that Alcofribas asks in chapter XXV of Gargantua (1535) is essential: why do the individuals who offer aid to the infected in time of plague all die, while the “thieves” and “murderers” never fall ill? Do they follow prophylactic measures to avoid it thus? We then examine the use or misuse of prophylaxis by Panurge, the great plague-sower of Pantagruel (1532). How does he parody recipes of prophylactic regimes in order to sow, and not prevent, the disease? What does he do to cause a plague in Pantagruel’s throat while also keeping him from falling ill?

Des différents discours rapportés par Thucydide, l’un des plus étudiés et interprétés est celui de Diodote dans l’affaire de Mytilène. Sa profondeur, le fait qu’il touche un grand nombre de problèmes centraux à la réflexion politique, tels que le rôle de la justice, la place de la force et du droit dans une communauté politique, ainsi que la relation entre la démocratie et l’empire, expliquent cette importance. Mais est-ce que les différents écrits et interprétations ferment l’horizon possible de la réflexion autour de ce sujet ? Non, car ce discours, riche en questions, problèmes et réflexions, mérite une nouvelle lecture, qui dégage son sens profond de la façon la plus claire et précise possible. Pour accomplir cette tâche, l’auteur commence par présenter le contexte du discours, puis expose l’interprétation de Leo Strauss, centrée sur le droit naturel et la supposée paternité de ce concept par Diodote. Puis, il analyse les séminaires de Castoriadis à l’EHESS sur l’ancienne Grèce, où est défendue une lecture fort différente, qui présente Diodote comme un continuateur de la pensée traditionnelle d’Athènes. L’auteur montre ensuite les limites de ces interprétations, en montrant en Diodote un homme politique de premier ordre, qui a proposé une nouvelle politique athénienne, qui cherche à harmoniser l’empire et la démocratie, en fondant une nouvelle institution politique qui dépasse les limites étroites de la cité. Of the various discourses reported by Thucydides, one of the most studied and interpreted is the speech of Diodotus in the Mytilenian debate. The importance of this speech stems from its depth and the fact that it touches on a large number of issues central to any kind of political reflection, such as the role of justice, the place of force and law in a political community, and the relationship between democracy and empire. But do the various studies and interpretations encompass the entire potential for reflection on this subject? The answer is no. Abounding with questions, problems, and reflections, this speech deserves a new reading, one that sets off its deep meaning in the clearest and most precise way. To accomplish this task, the author begins by presenting the context of the discourse, and then describes Leo Strauss's interpretation, centred on the natural right and Diodotus’ supposed authorship of this concept. The article goes on to analyse the Castoriadis seminars on ancient Greece at EHESS, arguing for a very different reading, in which Diodotus is presented as a follower of the traditional Athens thinking. Lastly, the author shows the limits of these interpretations, revealing Diodotus to be a first-rate politician who proposed a new Athenian policy – a policy that seeks to align the empire with democracy by founding a new political institution that goes beyond narrow limits of the city.

This paper argues that we should distinguish the devastation of cultivated land in Herodotusfrom attacks on nature. It describes the main emphases of Herodotus’ descriptions of the wasting and pillageof agricultural land and elucidates the relation between these emphases and the events of the PeloponnesianWar. The paper concludes with an argument that Herodotus portrayed devastation of land as an action thatwas both intended and understood as an act of war, and that his accounts of such attacks should be consideredas part of his presentation of warfare., Cet article soutient que chez Hérodote il faut distinguer la dévastation de terres cultivées des atteintesà la nature. Il précise les principaux aspects que lesquels insiste l’historien quand il évoque la dévastation et lepillage de terres agricoles, et analyse la relation entre ces thèmes et les événements de la guerre du Péloponnèse.Il montre enfin qu’Hérodote a dépeint la dévastation des terres agricoles comme un acte de guerre, et que sesrécits de telles attaques devraient être considérés comme faisant partie de sa présentation de la guerre.