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420 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
apart from his practice? M. is aware of all these questions. Explicit statements cannot
be the whole story of how a historian 'compels belief' (p. xii). There were other ways
of finding out about the past than through narrative history (p. 20). M. also resists
crude, schematic distinctions such as that between a Thucydidean political history and
a 'pleasure-oriented, highly artificial "rhetorical" historiography, whose . . . patron
saint was Isocrates' (pp. 2-3). At times, however, the reader comes up against some
fairly rigid distinctions beween sub-genres: Ammianus' famous story of his escape
from Amida is seen as a pastiche of elements of memoir and of the 'narrative of
exciting adventure and escape' (p. 203). M.'s procedure of treating explicit statements
in isolation from their implementation has also, I suspect, the unintended consequence
of enhancing the similarities between historians.
Ammianus was very conscious of his place in a tradition. As T. D. Barnes has put
it, he 'intended his Res Gestae to sum up the whole of Greco-Roman historiography'.
But were all historians equally aware of the weight of tradition? M's approach,
in particular his thematic structure, succeeds in unearthing a number of interesting
links between historians-Ammianus' description of himself as 'miles quondam et
Graecus', for example, is seen as a nod to the tradition of the Greek soldier-historian
(pp. 256-7)-but many other connections are rather less concrete. How is it, for
example, that Ctesias shows 'an immediate appreciation and grasp of the possibilities
opened up by Thucydides' (p. 186), except in so far as both claimed to write from
experience? It is important to distinguish, moreover, between degrees or types of
reference. M.'s Ammianus 'cites' and makes 'a clear reference to' Herodotus (p. 255),
but, as Fornara has argued in an article cited by M. (p. 257 n. 208), Ammianus'
knowledge of the Greek historians was, by contrast to his knowledge of Latin writers,
'not substantial', indeed largely second-hand. Terms such as 'reference'and 'citation'
are too blunt. Similarities between historians-the pattern, for example, whereby they
assure readers of their evidence before praising a man (p. 173)-are not always the
subject of conscious emulation, or of a sense of tradition.
Such a broad focus will inevitably reduce the complexities of any single historian in
a way that will be painful to those of narrowerscope. I cannot believe that Herodotus
'seems to refer to effort only once', at 3.115.2 (p. 148): what, for starters, of his travels
in search of Herakles at 2.44? The statement that the Egyptian priests' appeal to the
authority of Menelaus (as opposed to Homer) 'may symbolically represent the
superiority of inquiry over inspiration, the triumph of history over poetry' (p. 226) or
the three-sentence summary of Herodotus' historical procedure (p. 67) shout out for
qualification. There are ample references to more thorough accounts. (How can one
expect more in the context of such a broad survey?) But there is an extraordinary
optimism in such generalizations, an optimism that underlies M.'s project as a whole.
What does it mean to compare Ammianus with Herodotus, or to seek to distil from
both together the practice of 'the ancient historian'? M., of course, does not paint out
the individual. Indeed, his stress on the 'individual within the continuity and
development of the tradition' is an important plank of his differentiation of his
project from those of previous scholars (p. xi). Nor does he exclude the pressures of
social context: a particular theme of the book is the way in which, especially Roman,
historians learnt to exist in a monarchical world where the 'belief that all historians
wrote out of fear and favour must have become deeply ingrained' (p. 166). But his
summations of the procedure of 'the ancient historian' are often banal. M. unfailingly
notes variant procedures-statements of autopsy, for example, can act as 'a voucher'
for a marvel or they can underline splendour or number (pp. 82-3)-but the
classificatory zeal seems Procrustean. Shifts in historiographicalpractice are presented
422 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
as the result of clear choices, as if the historian went about his task with the help of a
handbook: historians after Thucydides had three ways, we are told, of dealing with
'myths': avoid them, rationalize them, or include them and leave the reader to make his
own judgement (p. 118).
It is all, surely, more problematic. It is hard not to question whether the themes of
authority and tradition might more rewardinglybe pursued through the close analysis
of particular authors (or relationships between authors). M. undoubtedly has done
much of the groundwork for such closer studies. He has provided an enormously
useful, enormously learned guide to many of the most central questions of ancient
historiography. But in attempting to survey this vast landscape, I sense that he has
flattened it.
UniversityCollege London THOMAS HARRISON