Rosalind Thomas
Biographic Data
| ID | 3663216 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rosalind Thomas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rosalind |
| FAMILY NAME | Thomas |
| SIGNATURE | THOMAS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Royal Holloway University of London |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 250 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Sappho’s Lesbos
Chapter 2 of The Cambridge Companion to Sappho investigates the island of Lesbos, home of Sappho, during the archaic period (sixth and fifth centuries BC), and how its geography – both of the island itself, and of its place within the wider Greek and Mediterranean worlds – is reflected in her poetry and in the poetry of her contemporary, the poet Alcaeus.
Polis Histories, Collective Memories and the Greek World
Greek 'local histories', better called polis and island histories, have usually been seen as the poor relation of mainstream 'great' Greek historiography, and yet they were demonstrably popular and extremely numerous from the late Classical period into the Hellenistic. The extensive fragments and testimonia were collected by Felix Jacoby and have been supplemented since with recent finds and inscriptions. Yet while the Athenian histories have rec…
Truth and authority in Herodotus’ narrative
Thucydides and His Intellectual Milieu
The chapter examines Thucydides’ intellectual milieu, concentrating on medical theories of the time, rhetoric, and especially the rhetorical use of theories of justice and self-interest. It examines the account of the Plague and the impossibility of isolating a cause, akribeia as a wider aim of medical writers, and Thucydides’ familiarity with intellectual theories, which he then supersedes. Finally, it examines aspects of the presentation of rhe…
Patterns of the Past
In this volume, an international group of leading academics undertake an examination of epit{macr}edeumata ('way of life') in Greek history, looking at cultural practices as acts which relate meaningfully to perceived sequences of past acts
Pindar's ‘difficulty’ and the performance of epinician poetry
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Herodotus and Eastern Myths and Logoi
This chapter examines the looser type of legend and story patterns familiar to Herodotus' audience. It considers the possibility of legends and stories that seem to belong primarily to the Persian or Near Eastern sphere and which Herodotus uses himself, taking two examples as case studies: Pythius and Lydian (7.38–40) and Deioces the Mede (1.96–101). It uses these to examine the sorts of truth, understanding, and interpretation that a Greek write…
Reading the Victory Ode
The victory ode was a short-lived poetic genre in the fifth century BC, but its impact has been substantial. Pindar, Bacchylides and others are now among the most widely read Greek authors precisely because of their significance for the literary development of poetry between Homer and tragedy and their historical involvement in promoting Greek rulers. Their influence was so great that it ultimately helped to define the European notion of lyric fr…
Writing, Reading, Public and Private “Literacies”
This chapter begins with an observation of literacies that have developed in different ways and contexts. This is followed by a discussion of the literacy practices that are associated with various social, economic, and political groups. It focuses on the ways that different uses of reading and writing are embedded in specific institutions in classical Athens, such as the distinct uses of literacy in banking and other commercial activities, the u…
‘And You, The Demos, Made An Uproar’
The Greek world was a world of open-air gatherings, festivals, processions and performances. It is not only performances that are missing, but part of the very character of Athenian democracy. In this paper, the author addresses the following issue: while we should certainly take into account the insights drawn from study of the inscriptions, some claims seem to present an exaggeratedly contemporary image. Was politics in Athens driven by speeche…
The intellectual milieu of Herodotus
The scope of the Histories , covering anthropology and geography, early origins and the grand narrative of Greek-barbarian relations culminating in the Persian Wars, is not to be found in any writer we know of before Herodotus. The story of the Persian Wars themselves has been called 'the greatest continuous prose narrative in Greek literature, and a literary masterpiece', but of course the Histories is more than a narrative, encompassing descrip…
Thucydides’ Intellectual Milieu and the Plague
The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus
Herodotus' Histories is the first major surviving prose work from antiquity. Its range of interests is immense, covering the whole of the known world and much beyond, and it culminates in a detailed account of the Persian Wars of the early fifth century BC. Moreover, research has shown that Herodotus is a sophisticated and at times even ironic narrator, and a pioneer and serious practitioner of historical research at a time when the Greeks' tradi…
Writing, Law, and Written Law
Athenians of the classical period so venerated their ancient law-giver, Solon, that the laws of Solon still formed the basis of Athenian law in the radical democracy. Even after they revised the law code in the late fifth century, Athenians still referred to Athenian laws as “the laws of Solon,” confusingly mingling new and old laws under this one description. Yet we are told, even these laws were flawed. Some critics are mentioned by the Aristot…
Prose Performance Texts
In the early fourth century, Alcidamas wrote a piece attacking the trend toward writing speeches rather than speaking spontaneously, On the Writers of Written Speeches or On Sophists , yet he admitted that it was ironic that he, too, had written his piece because it would bring him fame. Written publication and oral performance jostled side by side in the late fifth and early fourth centuries. The very attack by Alcidamas, not to mention Plato's …
Performance and written literature in Classical Greece
This paper examines the nature of performance literature in Ancient Greece, comparing it with other modern and medieval examples. It concentrates on archaic Greek 'song culture', and especially choral praise poetry. It discusses the social and cultural significance of the original performances and, drawing on comparative examples, investigates the 'gap' between performance and text, possible cultural explanations and interpretations of 'difficult…
Herodotus in Context
Herodotus’ Egypt and the Foundations of Universal History
Anthropological work on oral tradition provides eloquent tes timony to the existence of what is called the ‘floating gap’ and to the ‘hourglass effect’ which is closely associated with it. In societies where knowledge of the past is dependent upon memory and oral tradition, there tends to be a clustering of traditions and memo ries around the very distant past and the very recent.’ This seems to be the case in whatever way the oral traditions are…
Written in Stone? Liberty, Equality, Orality and the Codification of Law
Notices—notes de lecture
Inventing the barbarian. Greek self‐definition through tragedy, Edith HALL, Oxford, 1989, paperback 1991, 277 + xvi pages ISBN 0–19–314895‐X Mithra et le mithriacisme, Robert TURCAN, Paris, Les Belles Lettres Histoire, 1993, 100 FF. Les Exempla médiévaux. Introduction à la recherche suivie des tables critiques de l'Index exemplorum de Frederic C. Tubach, Jacques BERUOZ et Marie Anne POLO DE BEAUUEU éds, Carcassonne, 1993. Avant‐propos de Claude B…
Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek Studies and Folkloristics
Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens
Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece
This book explores the role of written and oral communication in Greece and is the first systematic and sustained treatment at this level. It examines the recent theoretical debates about literacy and orality and explores the uses of writing and oral communication, and their interaction, in ancient Greece. It is concerned to set the significance of written and oral communication as much as possible in their social and historical context, and to s…
Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens
Despite its written literature, ancient Greece was in many ways an oral society. This is the first serious attempt to study the implications of this view. Dr Thomas stresses the coexistence of literacy and oral tradition in Greece and examines their character and interaction. Concentrating on the plentiful evidence from Classical Athens, she shows how the use of writing developed only gradually and under the influence of the previous oral communi…
Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens
Despite its written literature, ancient Greece was in many ways an oral society. This is the first serious attempt to study the implications of this view. Dr Thomas stresses the coexistence of literacy and oral tradition in Greece and examines their character and interaction. Concentrating on the plentiful evidence from Classical Athens, she shows how the use of writing developed only gradually and under the influence of the previous oral communi…
Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece
This book explores the role of written and oral communication in Greece and is the first systematic and sustained treatment at this level. It examines the recent theoretical debates about literacy and orality and explores the uses of writing and oral communication, and their interaction, in ancient Greece. It is concerned to set the significance of written and oral communication as much as possible in their social and historical context, and to s…
Herodotus in Context
Patterns of the Past
In this volume, an international group of leading academics undertake an examination of epit{macr}edeumata ('way of life') in Greek history, looking at cultural practices as acts which relate meaningfully to perceived sequences of past acts
Performance and written literature in Classical Greece
This paper examines the nature of performance literature in Ancient Greece, comparing it with other modern and medieval examples. It concentrates on archaic Greek 'song culture', and especially choral praise poetry. It discusses the social and cultural significance of the original performances and, drawing on comparative examples, investigates the 'gap' between performance and text, possible cultural explanations and interpretations of 'difficult…
Thucydides and His Intellectual Milieu
The chapter examines Thucydides’ intellectual milieu, concentrating on medical theories of the time, rhetoric, and especially the rhetorical use of theories of justice and self-interest. It examines the account of the Plague and the impossibility of isolating a cause, akribeia as a wider aim of medical writers, and Thucydides’ familiarity with intellectual theories, which he then supersedes. Finally, it examines aspects of the presentation of rhe…
Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens
Despite its written literature, ancient Greece was in many ways an oral society. This is the first serious attempt to study the implications of this view. Dr Thomas stresses the coexistence of literacy and oral tradition in Greece and examines their character and interaction. Concentrating on the plentiful evidence from Classical Athens, she shows how the use of writing developed only gradually and under the influence of the previous oral communi…
Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece
This book explores the role of written and oral communication in Greece and is the first systematic and sustained treatment at this level. It examines the recent theoretical debates about literacy and orality and explores the uses of writing and oral communication, and their interaction, in ancient Greece. It is concerned to set the significance of written and oral communication as much as possible in their social and historical context, and to s…
Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens
Notices—notes de lecture
Inventing the barbarian. Greek self‐definition through tragedy, Edith HALL, Oxford, 1989, paperback 1991, 277 + xvi pages ISBN 0–19–314895‐X Mithra et le mithriacisme, Robert TURCAN, Paris, Les Belles Lettres Histoire, 1993, 100 FF. Les Exempla médiévaux. Introduction à la recherche suivie des tables critiques de l'Index exemplorum de Frederic C. Tubach, Jacques BERUOZ et Marie Anne POLO DE BEAUUEU éds, Carcassonne, 1993. Avant‐propos de Claude B…
Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek Studies and Folkloristics
Written in Stone? Liberty, Equality, Orality and the Codification of Law
Herodotus’ Egypt and the Foundations of Universal History
Anthropological work on oral tradition provides eloquent tes timony to the existence of what is called the ‘floating gap’ and to the ‘hourglass effect’ which is closely associated with it. In societies where knowledge of the past is dependent upon memory and oral tradition, there tends to be a clustering of traditions and memo ries around the very distant past and the very recent.’ This seems to be the case in whatever way the oral traditions are…
Herodotus in Context
Prose Performance Texts
In the early fourth century, Alcidamas wrote a piece attacking the trend toward writing speeches rather than speaking spontaneously, On the Writers of Written Speeches or On Sophists , yet he admitted that it was ironic that he, too, had written his piece because it would bring him fame. Written publication and oral performance jostled side by side in the late fifth and early fourth centuries. The very attack by Alcidamas, not to mention Plato's …
Performance and written literature in Classical Greece
This paper examines the nature of performance literature in Ancient Greece, comparing it with other modern and medieval examples. It concentrates on archaic Greek 'song culture', and especially choral praise poetry. It discusses the social and cultural significance of the original performances and, drawing on comparative examples, investigates the 'gap' between performance and text, possible cultural explanations and interpretations of 'difficult…
Writing, Law, and Written Law
Athenians of the classical period so venerated their ancient law-giver, Solon, that the laws of Solon still formed the basis of Athenian law in the radical democracy. Even after they revised the law code in the late fifth century, Athenians still referred to Athenian laws as “the laws of Solon,” confusingly mingling new and old laws under this one description. Yet we are told, even these laws were flawed. Some critics are mentioned by the Aristot…
The intellectual milieu of Herodotus
The scope of the Histories , covering anthropology and geography, early origins and the grand narrative of Greek-barbarian relations culminating in the Persian Wars, is not to be found in any writer we know of before Herodotus. The story of the Persian Wars themselves has been called 'the greatest continuous prose narrative in Greek literature, and a literary masterpiece', but of course the Histories is more than a narrative, encompassing descrip…
Thucydides’ Intellectual Milieu and the Plague
The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus
Herodotus' Histories is the first major surviving prose work from antiquity. Its range of interests is immense, covering the whole of the known world and much beyond, and it culminates in a detailed account of the Persian Wars of the early fifth century BC. Moreover, research has shown that Herodotus is a sophisticated and at times even ironic narrator, and a pioneer and serious practitioner of historical research at a time when the Greeks' tradi…
Writing, Reading, Public and Private “Literacies”
This chapter begins with an observation of literacies that have developed in different ways and contexts. This is followed by a discussion of the literacy practices that are associated with various social, economic, and political groups. It focuses on the ways that different uses of reading and writing are embedded in specific institutions in classical Athens, such as the distinct uses of literacy in banking and other commercial activities, the u…
‘And You, The Demos, Made An Uproar’
The Greek world was a world of open-air gatherings, festivals, processions and performances. It is not only performances that are missing, but part of the very character of Athenian democracy. In this paper, the author addresses the following issue: while we should certainly take into account the insights drawn from study of the inscriptions, some claims seem to present an exaggeratedly contemporary image. Was politics in Athens driven by speeche…
Pindar's ‘difficulty’ and the performance of epinician poetry
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Herodotus and Eastern Myths and Logoi
This chapter examines the looser type of legend and story patterns familiar to Herodotus' audience. It considers the possibility of legends and stories that seem to belong primarily to the Persian or Near Eastern sphere and which Herodotus uses himself, taking two examples as case studies: Pythius and Lydian (7.38–40) and Deioces the Mede (1.96–101). It uses these to examine the sorts of truth, understanding, and interpretation that a Greek write…
Reading the Victory Ode
The victory ode was a short-lived poetic genre in the fifth century BC, but its impact has been substantial. Pindar, Bacchylides and others are now among the most widely read Greek authors precisely because of their significance for the literary development of poetry between Homer and tragedy and their historical involvement in promoting Greek rulers. Their influence was so great that it ultimately helped to define the European notion of lyric fr…
Patterns of the Past
In this volume, an international group of leading academics undertake an examination of epit{macr}edeumata ('way of life') in Greek history, looking at cultural practices as acts which relate meaningfully to perceived sequences of past acts
Thucydides and His Intellectual Milieu
The chapter examines Thucydides’ intellectual milieu, concentrating on medical theories of the time, rhetoric, and especially the rhetorical use of theories of justice and self-interest. It examines the account of the Plague and the impossibility of isolating a cause, akribeia as a wider aim of medical writers, and Thucydides’ familiarity with intellectual theories, which he then supersedes. Finally, it examines aspects of the presentation of rhe…
Truth and authority in Herodotus’ narrative
Polis Histories, Collective Memories and the Greek World
Greek 'local histories', better called polis and island histories, have usually been seen as the poor relation of mainstream 'great' Greek historiography, and yet they were demonstrably popular and extremely numerous from the late Classical period into the Hellenistic. The extensive fragments and testimonia were collected by Felix Jacoby and have been supplemented since with recent finds and inscriptions. Yet while the Athenian histories have rec…
Sappho’s Lesbos
Chapter 2 of The Cambridge Companion to Sappho investigates the island of Lesbos, home of Sappho, during the archaic period (sixth and fifth centuries BC), and how its geography – both of the island itself, and of its place within the wider Greek and Mediterranean worlds – is reflected in her poetry and in the poetry of her contemporary, the poet Alcaeus.
History (20 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (19 works) · Art (16 works) · Literature (15 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Ancient history (6 works) · Archaeology (6 works)