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HELLENISTIC HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE SCIENCES
PRACTICES AND CONCEPTS IN POLYBIUS’ HISTORIES
by
Lucas Herchenroeder
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CLASSICS)
December 2010
Copyright 2010 Lucas Herchenroeder
Object Description
| Title | Hellenistic historiography and the sciences: practices and concepts in Polybius' Histories |
| Author | Herchenroeder, Lucas |
| Author email | herchenr@usc.edu; lherch@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Classics |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2010-12 |
| Date submitted | 2010 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2010-09-24 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Habinek, Thomas N. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Thalmann, William G. Levitt, Marcus Smith, Bruce R. |
| Abstract | This dissertation examines the relationship between Polybius’ Histories and the culture of the sciences in Hellenistic Greece. The period often is identified with noteworthy advances in scientific thought, not only in the extension of rational culture to broader and more diverse areas of inquiry, but also in the formalization of practices within and among fields of research. These include developments in medicine, physics, ethics, mathematics and many other fields of speculative thought as well. Historical writing may also be situated in this context, especially in light of comparable efforts to define and formalize study of the past as a more serious intellectual pursuit. With the great proliferation of historical texts at this time and especially the growth of concern for standards of historical method, the Hellenistic era is characterized by an increasingly stronger sense of history’s status as a formal discipline. Polybius’ role in this set of developments is substantial; his writing is distinguished throughout by special concerns for methodology, expressed in a variety of ways ranging from criticism of other writers to more substantive observations regarding the principles of historical knowledge. In particular, it is the framework constituted by other forms of science, understood as a set of concrete models of description and analysis, which forms the basis for his approach. In this dissertation, I explain the practical and conceptual framework of contemporary science as a source of structure for this attempt to innovate in the historical field.; My approach is based on three considerations, of which the first concerns factors internal to the historical field itself. Given the basic problems with knowledge of the past and especially the lack of clear standards for historical method, the historical field is typically characterized by dispute and rivalry among writers. As Polybius’ own interest in methodology is based on this largely routine set of concerns, his relationship with the sciences is to be understood primarily from the perspective of competition with existing sources of historical authority, such as popular accounts of the past appearing in myth and poetry, and especially the work of other prose writers. Consideration of the Histories in relation to contemporary historical production thus reveals an effort to specialize study of the past on the basis of more stringent principles of historical reconstruction. Polybius’ approach is not arbitrary, but is based on formal approaches to inquiry employed elsewhere in the sciences, which, I argue, provide the basis for innovation in the historical field mainly due to the special cultural authority of such practices. Given the progress of Hellenistic science, technical adjustments in Polybius’ writing are to be understood in relation to current trends in the development of rational culture—the second main concern here. This detail not only clarifies the basis of Polybius’ critical engagement with the historical tradition, but also qualifies the relationship between history and the sciences in ancient Greece, a subject of controversy at least since Aristotle.; The final part of my argument examines the consequences of this relationship for the production and organization of historical knowledge. Even as affiliations with the sciences provide the basis for a more serious approach to history (e.g., as opposed to accounts of the past appearing in myth or in aristocratic genealogies), the same affiliations introduce constraints for historical representation as well. Thus the practices and concepts relating history to the sciences are not merely formal, but constitute a productive influence on constructions of historical perception. Overall, this project aims to provide a framework, formed on the model of Polybius’ Histories, for clarifying the relationship between the pragmatics of disciplinary development in the historical field and the organization of historical understanding more generally.; The dissertation is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, I provide an overview of ancient science by considering specific conditions governing the development of Classical and Hellenistic intellectual culture. Following modern theoretical approaches to the sociology of scientific knowledge, I examine the formation of certain research programs in this context as the expression of specific forms of social authority in intellectual culture. Ongoing regularization in the methods and categories of scientific thought may be identified with the emergence of a cultural regime, with implications for regulating intellectual production in a range of fields of inquiry, including history. I end the chapter by suggesting how efforts to implement rational models of description and analysis in the context of history are to be understood in terms of the influence of different kinds of cultural authority emergent in the context of scientific progress.; In Chapters 2 and 3, I consider Polybius’ approach to history in relation to specific developments in contemporary rational culture. Chapter 2 examines Polybius’ concern for history as a source of technical instruction for the statesman. This aspect of his writing, denoted by the controversial expression pragmatikê historia, reveals an effort to subject study of the past to concepts of knowledge and explanation employed in the practical sciences, which thus provide the model for a more useful account of political and military affairs. I argue that this approach, while ostensibly providing a useful practical resource, ultimately encourages a narrower conception of the proper domain of history, and thus limited views of historical change in the long term. In Chapter 3, I extend a similar approach to Polybius’ concept of universal history. Polybius is well known for his attempt to provide an extensive account of Roman conquest, including coverage of affairs in many theaters of activity across the Mediterranean. This approach is based on systems of analysis employed in the natural sciences, which provide the model for organizing historical description of such a broad field. Ultimately the use of this framework introduces noteworthy constraints for understanding the effects of Roman conquest and corresponding convergence of world affairs. It is not necessarily observations about the concrete effects of Roman conquest that matter here, but rather how the formal components of Polybius’ approach provide the foundations for limited conceptions of historical change at the metahistorical level. Notably, the concept of universal history may be linked to the emergence of the notion of cultural integration as a dominant idiom of historical thought, an influential development not only in antiquity, but also in the formation of historical perceptions in many subsequent periods of Mediterranean history.; In the final chapter, I examine Polybius’ approach to the study of historical causes, most notably in his accounts of the various wars described in the Histories. This aspect of his writing is based on deliberate attempts to adapt methods of explanation in the natural sciences. In particular, I consider how use of that model extends the discourse on the origins of wars beyond conventional frames of concern in practical political contexts. In seeking to elucidate war as a subject of rational explanation, Polybius alters conventional modes of understanding. Thinking about the origins of wars in terms of natural causal schemes, for example, involves disregard for the practical conventions of diplomatic discourse, which requires consideration of moral and legal criteria as a means of regulating interstate relations. While this adjustment renders explanations for war more attractive in contemporary scientific discourse, it alters how the origins of wars are to be understood in contemporary politics, and ultimately provides conditions for new conceptions of international political order. From this set of examinations, the project aims ultimately to clarify the link between Hellenistic rationalism and the construction of familiar features of the Mediterranean political and historiographical traditions. |
| Keyword | causation; Greek science; Hellenistic historiography; intellectual history; Polybius; universalism |
| Geographic subject (country) | Greece |
| Geographic subject (region) | Mediterranean |
| Coverage era | Hellenistic Period |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m3475 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Herchenroeder, Lucas |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Herchenroeder-3963 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume48/etd-Herchenroeder-3963.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | HELLENISTIC HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE SCIENCES PRACTICES AND CONCEPTS IN POLYBIUS’ HISTORIES by Lucas Herchenroeder A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (CLASSICS) December 2010 Copyright 2010 Lucas Herchenroeder |
