Kinship in Thucydides: Intercommunal Ties and Historical Narrative
Maria Fragoulaki
Abstract
This book explores the relationship between Thucydides and ancient Greek historiography, society, and culture. Presenting a new interpretation of the Peloponnesian War and its historian, it focuses on the role of emotions, ethics, collective memory, and intangible factors more generally, in the context of political history and ethnic conflicts. Drawing on modern anthropological enquiries on kinship and the sociology of ethnicity and emotions, and on scholarly work on kinship diplomacy and Greek ethnicity, it argues that intercommunal kinship has a far more pervasive importance in Thucydides th ... More
This book explores the relationship between Thucydides and ancient Greek historiography, society, and culture. Presenting a new interpretation of the Peloponnesian War and its historian, it focuses on the role of emotions, ethics, collective memory, and intangible factors more generally, in the context of political history and ethnic conflicts. Drawing on modern anthropological enquiries on kinship and the sociology of ethnicity and emotions, and on scholarly work on kinship diplomacy and Greek ethnicity, it argues that intercommunal kinship has a far more pervasive importance in Thucydides than has so far been acknowledged. Through close readings and contextualization of a variety of sources, the book discusses the various ways in which ancient Greek communities could be related to each other (colonization, genealogies, belonging to the same ethnic group, socio-cultural symbols, political mechanisms, and institutions) and the largely cultural, emotional, and ethical expression of these ties. Through new readings of the History, Thucydides’ narrative technique, such topics as his astonishing exhaustiveness, alongside implicitness and understatement, his challenging silences, his interaction with other genres, and his intense engagement with Herodotus are dissected and discussed, this book offers a new appreciation of his authorial personality and unique contribution to historiography.
Keywords:
xyngeneia,
relatedness,
kinship diplomacy,
historical narrative,
intertextuality,
colonization,
ethnic conflicts,
religion,
ethics,
anthropology
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199697779 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697779.001.0001 |
