Colloquium, Department of Classical Studies
Thursday, March 20, 2025
4:45pm - 6:15pm
402 Cohen Hall, 249 South 36th St.
Students of rhetoric in the Roman world who developed speeches based on the Greek past drew heavily on the events of the Classical period (the fifth and fourth centuries BCE). But while rhetorical manuals and style treatises often cite Thucydides, Xenophon, and the Attic orators explicitly, they frequently obscure Herodotus’ persona, even among the abundance of declamatory scenarios they present based on his Histories. Drawing upon recent scholarly interest in the Imperial reception of Herodotus, this talk foregrounds the “absent presence” of the historian in the setting where most Roman readers first encountered Classical Greek history: the ancient classroom. I analyze Herodotean references and reworkings in postclassical progymnasmata (“preparatory exercises”), the rhetorical corpora of Hermogenes and Sopater, and the declamations of Imperial sophists in order to draw out from these sources the historian “in hiding.” I conclude with several arguments about why Herodotus’ discursive style and non-linear historical narrative made his Histories both attractive and uniquely adaptable to the formulation of historical fictions in the Roman rhetorical curriculum. In the ancient classroom, Herodotus’ Histories became less a record of the past than a canvas for rhetorical creativity.
4:15-4:45 pm: Coffee and cookies in Cohen Hall 2nd Floor Lounge. All are welcome.