competing narratives for Alexander (1 Viewer)

[Ludlum]

this is the topic im doing, if u dont know, the Alexander historians (at least the ancient ones) provide very conflicting stories.
im adressing how this effects us in attempting to write a modern history of alexander and how we can establish which of the histories are more reliable.

do u think that this is good or not really?

 

[ari89]

I'm doing my major project on Alexander the Great...the main ancient historians I have come across are Plutarch, Arrian and Quintus Curtis Rufus. Most of the texts written before then are lost or only fragments remain and those ancient secondary historians had access to those unlike we would now.

I don't think you can really assess which histories are more reliable but I am ignoring QUintus... for my assessment and for ancient sources I am focussing on Arrian (who A.B. Bosworth believes to be the most reliable) and Plutarch...

For mine I'm comparing views from ancient sources to contemporary sources like Bosworths and attempting to analyse the historical trend and changes in his representation over time. blah blah...

 

[Ludlum]

i think it would b a mistake to ignore curtius, his gives an interesting insight into how romans felt about alexander at the time, particularly due to the imperial government. wat im thinking of doin it assesing wat the authors wrote in terms of when they wrote and how this affected the end product, as well as how the quality of their sources affected their work.

plutarch is a pretty unreliable source, seeing as he didnt aim to write history, but it would b interesting to see how u link him with arrian or watever.

btw u should also hav a look at diodorus as a source, his is pretty decent, and sum interesting modern sources are peter green: Alexander of Macedon and Paul cartledge: alexander the great, also W.W. tarn is excellent. havent gotten my hands on bosworth yet, would u recommend it?

 

[ari89]

i think it would b a mistake to ignore curtius, his gives an interesting insight into how romans felt about alexander at the time, particularly due to the imperial government. wat im thinking of doin it assesing wat the authors wrote in terms of when they wrote and how this affected the end product, as well as how the quality of their sources affected their work.

plutarch is a pretty unreliable source, seeing as he didnt aim to write history, but it would b interesting to see how u link him with arrian or watever.

btw u should also hav a look at diodorus as a source, his is pretty decent, and sum interesting modern sources are peter green: Alexander of Macedon and Paul cartledge: alexander the great, also W.W. tarn is excellent. havent gotten my hands on bosworth yet, would u recommend it?

I'm gonna do both Green and Tarn but am yet to come accross Cartledge...Bosworth does heaps with Arrian's sources so if you do one the other is always helpful.
About Plutarch not writting history is the point of my assessment (well kind of). My research is more on the potrayal of ALexander the Great over time (ancient, medieval, revisionists, postmodernists etc etc.) Plutarch attempts to show the character of Alexander through a biography whereas Arrian tries to show it through the deeds of Alex.

A little warning is to be careful of what you do with Alexander because he can be studied as a personality under the 2 unit Ancient History course so make sure your assignment goes beyond that and focuses on extension issues.

 

[Ludlum]

well i dont do ancient so im not to worried bout crossing over into that syllabus, and im pretty confident that the ancient syllabus doesnt adress historiography and the other stuff extension focuses on?

that sounds pretty interesting, i was thinking about including sumthing on each authors style of writting eg. lyk u said plutarch wrote biography, diodorus wrote for his world history etc.

cartledge i found interesting, it was a great introductory work into alexander historiography, and unlike Green talks less about the actual events and more about the impact and background of those events, and uses a much easier to read style of writting the green, as well as setting his work out topically rather then chronologically, i find his book endlessly usefull wen i get lost or need to find a quick answer, i recommend it, i got it from borders $25

well my main focus is on arrian so bosworth would definately be worth hunting down aye

 

[ari89]

have you come across George Cary's - The Medieval Alexander? Its a great book for the Medieval views of Alexander (and can be used to show the narrow mindness of Ian Worthington.)
Oh yeah...George Cary must have been young when he wrote that book since he died at 25. I reckon that must have been a huge achievement for a young man.

FOR your focues question...how are you planning on determing which ancient source is more reliable? Through their own work or modern authors perspectives?

I believe Arrian was probably the most reliable source considering he referenced his two major sources and why he chose them. (Since they were primary sources etc).

 

[Ludlum]

i dont think i phrased correctly what i intend to do, while i do aim to assess the reliability of the contemporary historians (mainly through the critique of more modern scholars) the bigger aim of my work is to assess the usefullness of the scources through a comparison of the narrative they each present, however i believe ill only end up using curtius and arrian and hopefully diodorus.

reliability would be a tad complicated to get into to thoroughly as it isnt all that clear which sources were used by who and whether the works of other historians or nething lyk that were used.

also i think it would b good to include a section on the issues of translation and the fact that bits and pieces of each work have been lost