Incidenza dell'antico Dialoghi di storia greca

Although ancient sources only make mention of two authors whose name is Peisandros (the archaic poet from Kameiros and the third century AD poet from Laranda), it is now generally accepted that some of the mentions of a writer named Peisandros refer to a Hellenistic prose mythographer. Such assumption is mainly based on Macr. Sat. V 2-4 and it was strongly supported by Felix Jacoby. An analysis of the arguments, provided by the several scholars who shared this opinion, shows that other scenarios are possible. An alternative explanation worth considering is the hypothesis of a pseudepigraphic tradition referring back to Peisandros from Kameiros, supported by the entry of Suda π 1465.

Peisandros | mythofrapher | notheia | Macrobius | Jacoby

This paper focuses on the different manners of acquisition of works of art in the first century BC. Until now war booties were the most important source of supply of works of art, but in the Late Republic Period there is evidence to suggest that art trade swiftly increased. The cargoes of the Antikythera and Mahdia shipwrecks, containing Neo-attic products and sculptures with traces of previous use, provide the best examples to understand the large-scale transfer of these artworks. Within the political and economic context of the Greek cities in the Mithridatic Wars, this paper will investigate how the works of art, especially the ‘antiquities’, were available in the first century BC, by focusing on the role of the agents involved in these acquisitions.

works of art | pillage | Antikythera and Mahdia shiprwrecks | Necrocorinthia

Plutarch, who is famous for creating or emphasizing the different relationships between the characters of his Vitae, has repeatedly woven the biographical, personal and political destinies of Kimon and Themistocles. The contribution examines the story, dating back to Kimon’s Life (18,6-7), which is echoed by what we can read in Themistocles’ Life (31,4-6). Both testimonies refer to the last moments of the Themistocles’ life, which are told in a not identical way. We will try to explain the chronological difficulties which arise from both extracts and the reasons for the differences in the Plutarch’s expositions.

Plutarch | Kimon | Themistocles | Themistocles’ death | chronology

From Beloch’s first lecture at the University of Rome (1877) to the last volume of the final edition of his Griechische Geschichte (1927), this survey of fifty years of Beloch’s biography and historiography tells the story of a masterpiece that remains essential reading to any student of ancient Greek history.

Beloch | Griechische Geschichte | Greek history | modern historiography | World War I

This article examines the studies of Karl Julius Beloch on Greece in the second millennium BC. Beloch evaluates this age as prehistory, and not history, due to the lack of contemporary written sources to events and has no faith in the historical value of myths, as he had in his youth: the myths for Beloch or are subsequent inventions or retain the memory of ancient stories with which the original Greeks explained the natural phenomena (the sunrise, the sunset, the phases of the moon, the death ...). Beloch read Primitive Culture of Edward B. Tylor and applied the theory of animism to the most ancient Greek history, independently of the contemporary theories of Erwin Rohde and Hermann Usener. The ‘very old’ Greeks appeared in Beloch ‘wild’ and ‘primitive’.

Beloch | Greek history in the second millennium BC | Greek myths | animism in Greek culture | Edward Burnett Tylor

This paper revisits Beloch’s interpretation of Doric migration in his still fundamental study Die Dorische Wanderung, published in 1890. In particular, it re-examines the basic aspects of Beloch’s essay, its variety of methodological approaches to the discussed topic and its hypercriticism. It focuses, moreover, on Beloch’s further reflections on the Doric migration in other scholarly works.

Beloch | Greek history | Dorian migration | modern historiography

The aim of this paper is to sketch the cultural and historical background in which K.J. Beloch developed his Homeric studies. The contribution focuses on two sets of data: 1. Beloch’s articles entirely dedicated to Homeric problems; 2. the presence of the Homeric poems in the Griechische Geschichte.

epos | Homeric poems | Beloch | classical scholarship

Julius Beloch expressed on the presence of the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean sceptical positions in an article of 1894. He was suspicious of literary testimonies and relied on archaeological evidence to assert that the Phoenician presence in the Aegean basin did not date back to a distant time. This paper analyzes his method and his arguments, and places them in the intellectual context of the time, in particular in relation to the works of Meyer, Reinach and Bérard. The latter openly debated with Beloch and defended a radically different statement, emphasizing a Phoenician Mediterranean, before the emergence of Greek colonization.

Beloch | Phoenicians | Mycenaeans | Orientalism | Eduard Meyer | Victor Bérard | Ettore Pais | Salomon Reinach

This paper examines the treatment that Beloch, first of all in the Griechische Geschichte, makes of the Greek colonial expansion of the archaic period. In the first part, account is taken of the opinions expressed by the German scholar about the more general questions posed by this important phenomenon: colonization times, causes, nature of colonial expeditions, etc. They are analyzed in the light of his historiographical approach and his scientific interests. In the second part, instead, attention is focused on some distinctive features of Beloch’s historiography recognizable in the analysis he conducted on Greek archaic colonization.

Beloch | Griechische Geschichte | Campanien | archaic colonization | Beloch’s historiography

This paper briefly considers the figure of Pericles in the modern historiography; it analyzes the cultural basis for Beloch’s interpretation of Pericles as expressed in his historiographical work; then, it focuses on Beloch’s judgment on Pericles (with Meyer’s reaction). Finally, it takes into account De Sanctis’ interpretation of Pericles, in order to recognize the traces of Beloch’s teaching.

Pericles | modern historiography | Beloch | Eduard Meyer | Gaetano De Sanctis

Karl Julius Beloch was deeply interested in fifth century Athenian history and, although he later dismissed the importance of studying this period, his first work on mainland Greek history was devoted to the history of Athens from Pericles’ death to the defeat at Cheroneia. In the Attische Politik seit Perikles he focused his attention not just on party politics, which is perhaps the weakest side of his research, but also on the economic and demographic development of the polis at its acme. The materialistic and modernist view of economic growth in Classical age leads to the shaping of an idea of ancient history, where the individualities of the leading figures play no role, or, at least, not a fundamental one, as is demonstrated in the introduction of the second edition of his seminal Griechische Geschichte. The interest in the relationship between individual and society is therefore Beloch’s most important methodological contribution for the study of Classical age.

Beloch | Attische Politik seit Perikles | economy | leaders | methodology

This article aims at inquiring the Beloch’s considerations about the tyranny of Dionysius I of Syracuse, in a specifically dedicated essay as well as in his major work, the Griechische Geschichte, where the Sicilian tyrant is represented quite as a precursor of the politics of Philip II and Alexander the Great. The conclusions of the German scholar are here analysed in the light of both his historiographical approach and his scientific interests and they are verified on the basis of the reception among his colleagues and in the subsequent investigations on that topic.

Beloch | Dionysius I | Sicily | Syracuse | tyranny

This paper considers the historiographical work of Karl Julius Beloch and his personal opinion on Alexander the Great and the Asiatic enterprise. In opposition to the recent studies that examine every aspect of Alexander’s personality, Beloch, following a positivistic approach, strongly criticized the ancient sources and credited very partially to the traditions on the Macedonian king.

Beloch | Alexander the Great | ancient Macedonia | modern historiography

This paper aims at investigating the idea of Hellenism in the works of Karl Julius Beloch (above all, but not only the Griechische Geschichte, IV 1-2), putting it in the wider context of history of historiography of XIX and early XX century BC. Some emprunts from Droysen are clear (e.g., a Manichean vision of the relationship between Greeks and non-Greeks), but it is also evident that Beloch developed an original view of that period (with an idea of decadence of the Greek world in the end of third century BC., because of the arrival of the Romans) and offered an useful chronological schema (still followed by many scholars). For some specific topics its research remains fundamental.

Beloch | Gaetano De Sanctis | Arnaldo Momigliano | Hellenism | ancient history | history of the historiography