I begin with those categories that involve neutral terminology. The inherent connection of neutral terms with the ground, the likeness of an image, has been indicated already. Interaction of other kinds does not have this characteristic. It is worth stressing that, in many ways, the more apparent the connection with the ground, the less interesting the interaction. This applies especially to explicit imagery, where, of course, the ground, or part of it, is usually made explicit as a matter of predictable organisation.

Although I have regularly cited Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography in the twenty-five years or so since it appeared, it is only with the current reissue of the work that I have gone back and read it through from beginning to end. About ten years after it was published, I gave serious thought to writing a revised version, both to incorporate much material that I had left out of the original and also (naturally) to update it in the light of more recent scholarship. In the end, I decided not to do so, mostly from the belief that scholarship is an ongoing conversation, and that a work, once published, becomes part of that conversation, dependent on its time and context. Authority and Tradition appeared at a particular point in the discussion of the nature of Greco-Roman historiography, when the linguistic and literary turn was becoming more and more prominent, and the book reflects that moment.

Through the complex processes of generating mutual expectations and demands, senatorial consensus resulted in a wider consensus held by all. Only on four occasions did the popular assemblies ever vote in a way that went against the senate’s expectations, in 209, 200, 167, and 149 BCE. Discussion of each of these instances demonstrates that the people were not accustomed to, or interested in, following their own preferences: when rogationes were brought before the popular assemblies, they were certain to be agreed. What united the very few cases of rejection was that the people’s response was highly personalized, that is, the initial rogatio pertained to a specific individual; the response aimed at inconveniencing that person; and the senatorial elite was itself divided on the person. Egon Flaig performs a threefold analysis: he measures the strength of preferences in the peoples’ assemblies; he explores the limitations to what is labelled the institutional automatism behind the acceptance of motions; and he teases out the tactical and ritualized manoeuvres of withdrawing precarious proposals. The results are merged into a checklist that gauges the semantic and situational variety of action before the contio.

All the critical twiddle-twaddle about style and form, all this pseudo-scientific classifying and analysing of books in an imitation-botanical fashion, is mere impertinence and mostly dull jargon.’ The first thing to say is that Lawrence’s protest deserves honest respect. If one had to make an exclusive choice between that version of ’criticism’ which confines itself to the technical and the typical, and a kind that sees as its task assessment of particulars unfettered by reference, even, to types and to any sort of technical consideration: if one must choose, one must choose the latter. Comparative inarticulacy is preferable to a decreative sophistication. And the second thing to say is that we need not make such a choice. Our ability to confront literature fruitfully - to be creative - requires articulacy; and true articulacy requires the direction of the recreative mind. But must articulacy imply classification and analysis?

Inasmuch as all imagery embodies the temporary displacement of the terminology ’at issue’ in favour of ’extraneous’ terminology, all imagery embodies a deviation from the terminological norm, albeit a familiar kind of deviation. Metaphor alone has the distinction of achieving this deviation through a simultaneous departure from the normal usage of the language as a whole. This, as is well known, is precisely what the so-called ’dead’ or ’faded’ or ’linguistic’ metaphor does not do. Tree in a family tree, for instance, is a ’dead metaphor’ and involves no departure from normal usage.

Political monuments are characterized by visual materiality that allows for and indeed invites engagement; the claim for permanence; and the force of visual presence. Caesar’s monuments, especially on the Capitol, signalled a decidedly new quality of presence irreconcilable with the fine balance of individual achievement and public recognition. The rules behind this balance were flexible, but collective consensus always retained the upper hand. The balance tipped only with Pompey’s enormous theatre complex on the Campus Martius. The complex created a new type of public space, and it set the precedent for Caesar, who took on the challenge of competition with his own Forum project. Such an omnipresent dynamic of increase provoked heavy polemics and fierce conflict, but this violence was not only tolerated but reckoned with as a possibility from the very start. It appeared more appropriate to accept repeated violation of tradition while still affirming it than to develop a fundamentally different, new ‘system’ of norms and behaviours. The mode of permanent transgression was indicative not only of a political culture in crisis but also of a culture of crisis.

Our study has concentrated on the explicit attempts by the ancient historians to convince the reader of their authority to narrate deeds, and to portray themselves as believable narrators of those deeds. We have seen how the dictates of ancient literary criticism enjoined authors to work within a tradition, and to show their innovation within that tradition. As certain historians became accepted models for imitation, their concerns and approach dictated for those who followed the proper way to write history. As the earlier historians were ’authoritative’, so their followers sought to imitate the manner by which those predecessors had constructed their own authority. It was in this way that authority and tradition were closely related, and so long as the belief in imitation held sway, there could be no authority outside of tradition.

The Roman senatorial elite laid claim to all roles of prominence in society. The very notion of nobilitas made prominence an all-inclusive virtue, in office-holding as much as in other public arenas. Indeed, scrutinizing an inherent tension between annual roles as embodied by the honores and more durable, sometimes life long, roles of prominence, Hans Beck argues that the aristocracy’s integrated claim to leadership wielded significant stabilizing impact upon Roman society. L. Quinctius Flamininus was expelled from the senate in 184 BCE but maintained his other social rules, his public standing, and his overall notability. In the century and a half that followed, Beck detects a gradual erosion of inclusive ideals of prominence. The crisis of the Republic is thus understood as a disintegration of social roles. In the era of the great extraordinary commands, the performance of prestige duties of the collective became less and less important. Augustus’ ostentatious unification of these under his watchful guard as princeps propelled a change in role behaviour that could easily be portrayed as a restitution of the Republican outlook.

This book is a study of the explicit attempts by the ancient Greek and Roman historians to claim the authority to narrate the deeds encompassed in their works. The term ’authority’ has many meanings over a range of disciplines, but in this book it is used to refer to literary authority, the rhetorical means by which the ancient historian claims the competence to narrate and explain the past, and simultaneously constructs a persona that the audience will find persuasive and believable. The work is thus a study of certain forms and conventions of persuasion employed by the historians. No attempt is made to evaluate the truth or falsity of historians’ claims; rather, I try to set out the various claims which are part of the construction of the author’s historiographical persona; to see how and why these claims are made; to explain how the tradition of such claims developed; and to show how the tradition moulded the way in which writers claimed historiographical authority.

Most of the ancient historians give some indication to their audience why they embarked upon writing their history. These remarks sometimes concern themselves with the unique nature of the historian’s subject matter; in addition to the greatness of the deeds, historians will frequently explain other circumstances that led them to the composition of their histories. There is, in general, a tendency as time goes on for authors, while not abandoning the magnification of their theme, to present a more ’personal’ call to history, that is, to say something of themselves and the personal experiences that underlay their writing of history.