Cornelius Nepos and ancient political biography. Historia / Einzelschriften ; H. 47.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Slightly rubbed with minimal staining on binding, otherwise very good and clean. / Leicht berieben mit minimaler Anschmutzung auf dem Einband, sonst sehr gut und sauber. - From the first chapter: Political biography, still one of the most popular forms of literature, is one of the very few literary genres that have come down to us still bearing the imprint of the literary genre as practiced in antiquity. Moreover, by far the most widespread genre of modem literature, and one without immediate roots in classical antiquity, the novel very often takes on the form of a fictitious biography or autobiography. Plutarch�s Lives, the finest achievement and model of the genre, has received increasing attention in the last generation, and important studies have been devoted to the work of Suetonius, while Nepos� biographies have been largely taken for granted; the interest in the Lives of the Historia Augusta, the focal point of feverish scholarly activity, centers on problems far removed from the present enquiry. These authors, together with the remains of many others, have also been discussed in the more general context of the History of Ancient Biography. Unfortunately, the complete collection and discussion of the Greek authors who have survived only in fragmentary form or in references found in other authors, planned to appear in the fourth part of Jacoby�s monumental Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, is not to be expected in the foreseeable future, while the fragments of their far less numerous Latin counterparts in Peter�s Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae are badly in need of revision. Ever since F. Leo�s epoch-making work on Greek and Roman biography ancient biography has been discussed as a whole, with the emphasis set on influences and the different strains leading to the extant writers of the tradition. Leo himself recognized at the outset of his work (p. 1) some of the basic differences between political and intellectual biography. evertheless, his thesis maintains that the development of these two was for a time identical: the Peripatetics made use of the biographical form in order to describe the lives of men of letters, but came later to employ the same vehicle for the description of the lives of men of affairs; at a later stage the Alexandrians changed the mode and style to suit their own purposes in the composition of biographies of poets, writers, etc., though not of political personalities. This thesis has been the point of departure for all subsequent scholars treating the history of the genre: many of its components have been criticized to a greater or lesser degree and few scholars would confess today to the acceptance of Leo�s thesis without significant modifications. Surprisingly enough, the one component of Leo�s theory that seems to be generally accepted by present students of the problem is the assumption that in Hellenistic times, for a period at least, intellectual and political biography were written side by side in the same manner and presumably on the same scale and by the same authors. ISBN 9783515044141