Lectures on Greek Prose: Herodotus, Thucydides, and Plato on Poetry

The monograph contains the revised text of three lectures from the two preceding academic years. The first is dedicated to Herodotus, an intellectual and traveller living in the first half of the fifth century BC, the father of history as he was called by Cicero. The second lecture amply treats Thucydides, who established critical historiography. Central passages and figures of his monograph on the Great War between the Athenians and the Spartans, which dominated the second half of the fifth century BC, are presented and discussed. Finally, a lecture introduces into Greek literary criticism. The first major critic was Plato, a towering figure of intellectual life from the turn of the fifth to the fourth century BC onwards. Each lecture focusses on items characteristic of the authors treated. In the case of Herodotus, for instance, the question of reliability is of great importance. Thucydides, on the other hand, establishes himself as a powerful analytic force, owing some of his concept to contemporary thinking, though. Eventually, Plato’s ideas have been much criticised during the last century. He appears to voice strangely authoritarian views, which seem to contradict his own upbringing in democratic Athens.