At the end of this investigation ‘‘history’’ and ‘‘inquiry’’ still stand out as terms in need of definition. It has not been our intention to give simple answers to difficult questions. All we can hope for is that the present, tentative survey, imperfect and imbalanced as it may be, at least provides a few parameters for following the course of an ongoing debate within Greek historiography, and stimulates reflection and further research, especially with regard to the important developments that took place after Thucydides. There is a growing awareness now among scholars that so-called histoire evenementielle is over-represented in our surviving historians and that especially in the Hellenistic period the historiographical genre saw a huge increase in the number of authors writing history and a great diversification in terms of their themes. It is surely one of the major challenges of present and future research in classical studies to address the question of the composite nature of history.
Since, according to Strasburger’s estimate (1977), hardly 2 percent of Greek historical writing has come down to us directly, it is clear that the idea of ‘‘history and inquiry’’ in Greek antiquity can only be adequately studied (of course within the limits imposed by our documentation) if scholars are prepared to engage seriously and systematically with the fragmentary remains. Such a study should include the allimportant sector of local historians (below, p. 180) and furthermore ought not to sideline the many practitioners of what has come to be designated quite disparagingly ‘‘antiquarian history’’ (cf. Schepens 2006b, for a critical reassessment of the separation of ‘‘antiquarian’’ literature from ‘‘history’’; below, p. 515). The greater part of the numerous fragments pertaining to the huge variety of sub-genres lumped together under this collective term is still to be edited and commented upon within the framework of the ongoing project FGrHist Continued (Schepens 1997, 1998).
It seems to me that no definitive canon or master narrative exists and that any attempt to construct either must be resisted. To quote a phrase (cf. Bercovitch 1995), we can only write ‘‘federated histories’’ of the many branches and genres which together embody the idea of history writing in Greek culture.
FURTHER READING
The questions of beginnings and genre are treated in two excellent articles: Marincola 1999 and Pelling 1999a. Pleading the case for seriously engaging with the study of the fragmentary remains of post-Thucydidean historiography, Humphreys 1997 challenges the traditional and still widespread ‘‘Whig’’ interpretation of Greek historiography based on a limited number of selected ‘‘canonical’’ historians, which sees the development of the genre in terms of progress until Thucydides and, from then onwards, in terms of decadence or return to Thucydidean standards. As to beginnings of Greek historiography, the Whig interpretation rests on what Thomas (2000: 24) has called the ‘‘linear development fallacy.’’ In a similar vein, Desideri 1996 offers pertinent, more general criticism of Jacoby’s and, above all, Momigliano’s excessively ‘‘presentist,’’ static, and monolithic views of Greek historiography.
Both Murray 1972 and Gabba 1981 provide stimulating and insightful introductions into how the pluriform and open Greek concept of historie responded in the Hellenistic period to the new challenges connected with the widening of the geopolitical horizon and the creation of the Hellenistic monarchies. At the same time they show how historiography catered to the new tastes of the reading public.
The many and wide gaps in the textual tradition from antiquity until today make it virtually impossible for us to think of local history, and of city histories in particular, as a type of history writing that might have been as vitally important to the competitive world of the individual poleis as Hellenica or universal histories were to the Greek world at large. Since space precluded treatment of this major branch of the Greek historical literature here, I take the liberty of referring to Schepens 2001a (and cf. below, p. 180).
World History
