Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus

Why did human beings first begin to write history? Lisa Irene Hau argues that a driving force among Greek historians was the desire to use the past to teach lessons about the present and for the future. She uncovers the moral messages of the ancient Greek writers of history and the techniques they u...

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Main Author: Hau, Lisa Irene (auth)
Format: Book Chapter
Published: Edinburgh University Press 20160620
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Online Access:Get Fullteks
DOAB: description of the publication
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245 1 0 |a Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus 
260 |b Edinburgh University Press  |c 20160620 
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520 |a Why did human beings first begin to write history? Lisa Irene Hau argues that a driving force among Greek historians was the desire to use the past to teach lessons about the present and for the future. She uncovers the moral messages of the ancient Greek writers of history and the techniques they used to bring them across. Hau also shows how moral didacticism was an integral part of the writing of history from its inception in the 5th century BC, how it developed over the next 500 years in parallel with the development of historiography as a genre and how the moral messages on display remained surprisingly stable across this period. For the ancient Greek historiographers, moral didacticism was a way of making sense of the past and making it relevant to the present; but this does not mean that they falsified events: truth and morality were compatible and synergistic ends. 
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650 7 |a Literary studies: classical, early & medieval  |2 bicssc 
653 |a Classics 
653 |a Classical 
653 |a Early and Medieval 
653 |a Ancient History 
653 |a Literary Studies 
653 |a Didacticism 
653 |a Diodorus Siculus 
653 |a Herodotus 
653 |a Polybius 
653 |a Thucydides 
653 |a Xenophon 
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