Greek 'local histories', better called polis and island histories, have usually been seen as the poor relation of mainstream 'great' Greek historiography, and yet they were demonstrably popular and extremely numerous from the late Classical period into the Hellenistic. The extensive fragments and testimonia were collected by Felix Jacoby and have been supplemented since with recent finds and inscriptions. Yet while the Athenian histories have received considerable attention, those of other cities have not: this is the first book to consider the polis and island histories as a whole, and as an important cultural and political phenomenon. It challenges the common label of 'antiquarianism' and argues that their role in helping to create 'imagined communities' must be seen partly as a response to fragile and changing status in a changing and expanding Greek world. Important themes are discussed alongside case studies of particular places (including Samos, Miletus, Erythrai, Megara, Athens).

motw/Polis Histories, Collective Mem - Rosalind Thomas.pdf

Thomas, Rosalind

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2019

Cambridge, cop. 2019

producers:
Cambridge University Press

Memory of the World Librarian: outernationale

Cover 1
Half-title page 3
Title page 5
Copyright page 6
Dedication 7
Contents 9
Acknowledgements 11
Note on References and Abbreviations 12
Introduction 15
Chapter 1 What Are Polis Histories? What Are Local Histories? Popular History and Its Audiences 43
Chapter 2 Tales for the Telling: τὸ μυθῶδες 88
Chapter 3 Ethnography for the Greeks? The Polis as a New Subject for Historiography 114
Chapter 4 Fostering the Community: Accumulative Historiography 165
Chapter 5 Origins, Foundations and Ethnicity: Greeks and Non-Greeks 191
Chapter 6 Saving the City: Political History or Paradoxa? Miletus and Lesbos 241
Chapter 7 Polis in Flux: Dislocation and Disenfranchisement in Samos 289
Chapter 8 Athenian Polis Histories 330
Chapter 9 The Aristotelian Politeiai and Local Histories 372
Chapter 10 Polis and Island Histories and the Late Classical and Hellenistic World: A New Hellenism? 400
Appendix 1 Miletus 424
Appendix 2 Polis, Island and Ethnos Historians Dated to the Fourth Century 429
Appendix 3 Register of Polis, Island and Ethnos Histories: Jacoby’s Local Histories 431
Bibliography 460
Index Locorum 489
Index 489

The first comprehensive re-assessment of the phenomenon of Greek 'local history-writing', which emerged as a popular and important form of history in the late classical and early Hellenistic periods. Argues that these works were central to creating political and cultural identity in a changing and expanding Greek world.

2025-10-27