Professor John Marincola

The Challenges of Reconstructing Hellenistic Historiography

My work at the institute of Classical Studies is part of a larger project on Hellenistic historiography, a project which will, when completed, attempt to re-examine the writing of history in the Greek and Roman world from the death of Alexander the Great to the death of Cleopatra VII. Before pursuing such a project, however, it is essential to consider what the challenges are in trying to reconstruct a historiography that is largely fragmentary and that ranges over several centuries and many locales. One must, in addition, confront the challenges inherent in using two very different historians on whom we rely for a good deal of our knowledge of Hellenistic historiography: Polybius and Diodorus. The goal of the project is not to ‘solve’ the problems presented by each of these individual challenges, but rather to explicate the methodological issues that are fundamental in the attempt to come to a better understanding of Hellenistic historiography, and in this way clear the ground, so to say, for a new study.