Survey of Roman Historiography

Survey of historical writing in the Roman world via detailed readings, both of major authors (Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius and Plutarch) and ones that survive in fragments. Evolution of Latin historiography in relation to other kinds of discourse about the past (priestly records, inscriptions) and to Greek historiography (Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius). Narrative strategies of individual authors, and the role of rhetoric as a defining feature of literary genre(s); effects of the writer¿s environment on the works themselves. Readings in English.