Product Description

Ronald Mellor demonstrates that Roman historical writing was regarded by its authors as a literary, not a scholarly exercise, and how it must be evaluated in that context.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2848432 in Books
• Published on: 1998-12-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From the Back Cover
The Roman Historians provides a clear survey and a critical analysis of five centuries of historical writing in and about ancient Rome. The book examines authors of various historical genres - narrative, biography, and autobiography - and places then within the political and social framework of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Since Roman historiography is an extension of political conflict and moral discourse, all these writings are examined within the context of Roman public life.
The book begins with Cato and the early Roman annalists and includes major chapters devoted to Sallust, Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus Marcellinus. In these chapters Ronald Mellor brings together the historians' political experience with their particular rhetoric and style. Chapters on biography and autobiography treat Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars and Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War. Other chapters examine such issues as censorship, literary style and the moralism of Roman historical writing.
This book illuminates how and why Roman authors told the stories of their past. All Roman historical writing is highly political and deeply moral, and we see how the political experience and moral vision of the historian shapes the historical narrative and intimately informs the content, the rhetoric and the literary style of the history.

About the Author
Ronald Mellor is Professor of History at U.C.L.A. He is the author of Tacitus (1993) and Historians of Ancient Rome: An Anthology (1997).