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History and Rhetoric in Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Matthew Fox
Affiliation:
The University of Birmingham

Extract

This article explores the relationship between historical truth and rhetorical education in the Antiquitates Romanae of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. These two concerns dominate Dionysius' output, and have provided fuel for a long tradition of adverse criticism. Schwartz's RE article set the standard for a series of dismissive accounts; his premise is that by choosing a period of such remote history, Dionysius can fulfil his desire to make history the servant of rhetorical display, adding, with scorn, that Dionysius' love of the Romans disqualifies him from being a real Greek. Palm, still using Schwartz over fifty years later, is so convinced that Dionysius cannot have believed what he was writing that he ascribes the meticulously executed proof that the Romans were Greeks to ‘paradoxe Effekte’, in which anyone writing a rhetorical exercise of this kind would be careful to indulge. Polemic has recently waned, although by far the most common use of Dionysius' history is as a source for antiquarian anecdote or the lost annalistic tradition, often to highlight the originality of Livy. The recently published lectures of Gabba will do much to redress the balance, and are the first concerted attempt at harmonizing the details of Dionysius' rhetorical theory with his history.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Matthew Fox 1993. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 This article originated as a chapter in my thesis, Augustan Accounts of the Regal Period (Oxford, D.Phil., 1991)Google Scholar. I gratefully acknowledge the help of the Leverhulme Trust in granting me a study abroad studentship. Thanks are due to Professors Eder and Veit-Brause for assistance in Berlin. I received advice at earlier stages from Doreen Innes, Elizabeth Rawson, Tim Cornell, and especially Chris Pelling, and more recently from the Editor and Editorial Committee. I am grateful for all their contributions. I owe thanks too to Michael Comber, Nicki Humble, Donna Soto-Moretini, and particularly Stephanie Bird.

2 ‘Die tragischen Schmerzen, die jenen echten Hellenen das Begreifen des römischen Primats gekostet hatte, sind dieser kleinen Seele fremd’, E. Schwartz, RE V. 1,934.

3 Palm, J., Rom, Römertum und Imperium in der griechischen Lieratur der Kaiserzeit (1959), 10Google Scholar. This idea seems to have existed from at least the fourth century: see Manni, E., ‘Relazione fra Roma e il mondo ellenistico’, Parola di Passato II (1956), 170–90Google Scholar; Gabba, E., Dionysius and The History of Archaic Rome (1991), 114 and n. 46Google Scholar.

4 Balsdon, J. P. V. D., ‘Dionysius on Romulus: a political pamphlet’, JRS 61 (1971), 1827Google Scholar, gives a critical summary of the supposed sources for the account of Romulus' legislation.

5 Gabba, op. cit. (n. 3).

6 Gabba, op. cit. (n. 3), 6–9.

7 Standard positivist examinations of ancient historiography are Strasburger, H., Die Wesensbestimmung der Geschichte durch die antike Geschichtschreibung (1966)Google Scholar, who does not discuss Dionysius, and Peter, H., Wahrheit und Kunst (1965), who condemns him, pp. 333–5Google Scholar.

8 White, Hayden, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973)Google Scholar.

9 cf. Momigliano, , ‘The rhetoric of history and the history of rhetoric: on Hayden White's tropes’, in Settimo Contributo (1984), 491–59Google Scholar, and the obituary in JRS 77 (1987), ix–x.Google Scholar

10 White, Hayden, ‘The politics of historical interpretation: discipline and desublimation’, in The Content of The Form (1987), 5882Google Scholar.

11 E. Gabba, ‘Storici Greci dell'impero Romano da Augusto ai Severi’, RSI (1959), 365–8, attributes this to a particular historical tradition, which included Timagenes and Pompeius Trogus. G. W. Bowersock, Augustus and the Greek World (1965), 131, cf. 108ff., points out that Dionysius means those historians who lived at barbarian courts, so Timagenes cannot be included. On Timagenes, see M. Sordi, ‘Timagene di Alessandria: un storico ellenocentrico e philobarbaro’, ANRW 30.1 (1982), 775–97. On anti-Roman historiography, Fuchs, H., Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom (1938)Google Scholar; Volkmann, H., ‘Antike Romkritik: Topik und historische Wirklichkeit’, Gymnasium Beihefte 4 (1964), 920Google Scholar; E. Burck, ‘Die römische Expansion im Urteil des Livius’, ANRW 30.2 (1982), 1148–89, esp. 1158ff.

12 On ἀϰϱιβέα as a motivating force, see E. Noé, ‘Ricerche su Dionigi d'Alicarnasso: la prima stasis a Roma e l'episodi di Coriolano’, in Gabba, E. (ed.), Ricerche di storiografia Greca di eta Romana I (1979), 36–7Google Scholar. Schultze, , ‘Dionysius of Halicarnassus and his audience’, in Moxon, I. S. et al. (eds), Past Perspective (1986), 121–41, at 138, n. 104Google Scholar, points out that Dionysius makes light of the achievement of Timaeus.

13 Cicero, de Republica I and II. Reconstructing Varro's conception of the period of origins is problematic, but fragments of the Vita Populi Romani, ed. Riposati, B. (1939)Google Scholar and the Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum, ed. Cardauns, B. (1976)Google Scholar, De Lingua Latina V.41ff., with P. Boyancé, ‘Sur la théologie de Varron’, REA 72 (1955), 57–84, Rawson, E., Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (1985), 242–7Google Scholar and B. Cardauns, ‘Stand und Aufgaben der Varroforschung (mit einer Bibliographie der Jahren 1935–80)’, AAWM (1982), no. 4, might help those wishing to do so.

14 cf. 11.8.3 for an anti-Roman etymology of patrician.

15 e.g. Bowersock, op. cit. (n. 11), 130–1; Palm, op. cit. (n. 3), 11. But see now Gabba, op. cit. (n. 3), 80.

16 Hill, H., ‘Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the origins of Rome’, JRS 51 (1961), 8893Google Scholar, rejected by Bowersock, op. cit. (n. 11), 131 n. 5; 110 n. 7.

17 Sordi, op. cit. (n. 11), discusses Timagenes’ reputation for being anti-Roman, observing that it rests more upon anecdotal than firm evidence from the fragments.

18 Gabba points out that Livy could in fact be much less discriminating in his use of sources, op. cit. (n. 3), 96.

19 11.30.2–3.

20 Romulus: 11.30.5. Dionysius on Greek precedent in the same portion of the work: 11.8.1–2; 11.12.3–4; superiority to Greece in social openness: 11.17; religion: 11.19; in placing sons under the jurisdiction of their fathers: 11.26.

21 11.4.1–2.

22 11.15.1–4.

23 11.16.

24 11.17.

25 11.11.

26 111.1–31.

27 Lists of echoes can be found in Flierle, J., Ueber Nachahmungen des Demosthenes, Thucydides und Xenophon in den Reden der römischen Archäologie des Dionysius von Halicarnass (1890)Google Scholar; Ek, S., Herodotismen in der römischen Archäologie des Dionys von Halicarnass (Diss. Lund, 1942)Google Scholar. S. Usher, ‘The style of Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the Antiquitates Romanae’, ANRW 30.1 (1982), 817–38, reassesses the value of such research.

28 In the words of one critic, ‘Für den Kenner der klassischen Literatur ist es ein Graus, die von echtem, wahrem Pathos getragenen Reden eines Thucydides oder aufgelöst zu sehen’: Strebel, H. G., Wertungund Wirkung des Thucydideischen Geschischtswerkes in der griechischrömischen Literatur (Diss. Munich, 1934), 47Google Scholar.

29 I follow Sacks, K. S., ‘Historiography in the rhetorical works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’, Athenaeum 61 (1983), 6587Google Scholar, on the relationship of the contents of the letter to the earlier treatise πεϱὶ μιμήσεως. Sacks argues that rather than simply reproducing juvenile material, Dionysius used the letter as the opportunity to give a general account of his views on historiography, something he did not do elsewhere. The crudity of the criticism in comparison to Thuc. results from the comparative method of criticism; it need not be evidence that the letter was an early work, unrepresentative of the mature Dionysius.

30 Thuc. 39, p. 580ft.

31 ‘Unless the writer, in his grudge against the city for his sentence, is showering her with reproof, hoping that all will come to hate her’, Thuc. 41, p. 591.

32 cf. Thuc. 41, p. 590; the Athenians themselves would have been very upset.

33 Cicero, Orator 9.30: ‘Ecce autem aliqui se Thucydios esse Profitentur: novum quodam imperitorum et inauditum genus.’ See Bowersock, G. W., ‘Historical problems in Late Republican and Augustan Classicism’, Entretiens Hardt 25 (1978), 5778Google Scholar. esp. 64 ff.

34 He praises Thucydides explicitly for being fair in his judgement of individuals: Thuc. 8, p. 480.

35 In Pomp., he is superior in συντομία for example 3, P. 382.

36 Pomp. 3, P. 374–6. Cf. Thuc. 10.

37 Heidegger, Martin, Sein und Zeit (16th edn, 1986)Google Scholar.

38 Gadamer, H.-G., Wahrheit und Methode, Ges.Werke Vol. I (5th edn, 1986)Google Scholar.

39 See , Georgia Warnke, Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition and Reason (1987), 108–17Google Scholar, with notes, for Habermas’ criticism of Wahreit und Methode on these grounds, and Gadamer's response.

40 Classen, C. J., ‘Die Königszeit im Spiegel der Literatur der römischen Republik’, Historia 14 (1965), 385403Google Scholar. Guia, M. A., ‘La valutazione della monarchia a Roma in età repubblicana’, SCO 16 (1967), 308–29Google Scholar.

41 Heldmann, K., Antike Theorien über Entwicklung und Verfall der Redekunst, Zetemata 77 (1982), 122–31Google Scholar, discusses Dionysius' conception of rhetorical revival against a background of his and other authors' conceptions of history and the history of rhetoric. See also Gabba, op. cit (n. 3), ch. 3.

42 The idea of direct access to the author through his writings, and of criticism including both, was not new: see Polybius XII.24.1, and Pédech, ad. loc. (Budé ed.), and Homeyer, H., ‘Zu Plutarchs De Malignitate Herodoti’, Klio 49 (1967), 181–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 See Hubbell, H. M., The Influence of Isocrates on Cicero, Dionysius and Aristides (Diss. Yale, 1913), 41ff.Google Scholar

44 Isocr. 5.

45 cf. [Longinus] 13–14. See Flashar, H., ‘Die klassizistische Theorie der Mimesis’, Entretiens Hardt 25 (1979), 79111Google Scholar, for a discussion of Dionysius' theory in a context that goes back to Aristotle.

46 Thuc. 52–5.

47 Thuc. 50.

48 Polybius 1.1ff. At 1.4 he puts forward the idea of universal history.

49 1.1.2.

50 Gozzoli, S., ‘Polibio e Dionigi d'Alicarnasso’, SCO 25 (1976), 149–76Google Scholar.

51 See Polybius IX.2. ὠΦέλεια and τέϱψις are contrasted at XV. 36.

52 Pomp. 6, P. 392 (Loeb).

53 IX. I. This leads in turn to the dismissal of entertaining history.

54 1.41.1.

55 Diodorus IV. 17ff. Polybius' shadow hung just as heavily over Diodorus: see Rawson, op. cit. (n. 13), 223–4.

56 The historicizing treatment of myth persists: C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘“Myth” and history: on Herodotus 111.48 and 50–53’, Opusc. Ath. 17 (1988), 167–82.

57 Schultze, op. cit. (n. 12), 130f.

58 11.4.

59 11.8. 1–2; 11.12.3–4.

60 The Sabine women ask their permission to act as ambassadors, 11.45–3–4.

61 11.62.

62 111.1.4ff.; in.36.

63 e.g. from the Etruscans to Tarquinius Priscus, 111.50; Ancus to the Latins, 111.37.3. Tullus postpones an audience with the Alban ambassadors, 111.3.3.

64 Schultze describes how in the transition from monarchy to republic, Dionysius lays particular emphasis on the king/consul equivalence, and upon continuity with the regal constitution, op. cit. (n. 12), 131.

65 IV.10.4ff.

66 Gabba, E., ‘Studi su Dionigi da Alicarnasso II, il regno di Servio Tullio’, Athenaeum n.s. 39 (1961), 98121Google Scholar; op. cit. (n. 3), 164ff.

67 111.21.7 lays particular emphasis on the savagery of early Rome: ‘So remorseless in hatred of baseness was the character and morality of those early Romans that if one were to compare them to present practices and ways of life, they would appear cruel and harsh and not far from savage nature.’

68 111.34.4.

69 Gabba, op. cit. (n. 3), ch. 5 is the culmination of many years' study of the Roman annalists preserved in Dionysius. The interpretation which I have proposed here, trying to reconstruct Dionysius' way of reading and writing, differs from Gabba's, with its aim of restoring a lost period in Roman historiography.

70 cf. Vico's conception of sensus communis, the idea of common educated language as the basis for rhetorically informed utterance, articulated as a defensive response to Cartesian logic: Gadamer, op. cit. (n. 38), 19ff. and Schaeffer, John D., ‘The use and misuse of Giambattista Vico: Rhetoric, orality and theories of discourse’, in Aram Veeser, H. (ed.), The New Historicism (1989), 89101Google Scholar, esp. 95–101.