THE HISTORIAN AS A PUBLIC MORALIST: ON THE ROMAN ORIGINS OF A SCHOLARLY PERSONA. Issue 2 (13th June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Paul, Herman
• Is Part Of: History and theory. Volume 58:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 293
• Page End: 301
• Publication Date: 2019-06-13
• Subjects: Roman historiography -- Sallust -- Livy -- Tacitus -- virtus -- virtues -- scholarly personae; History -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Histoire -- Philosophie -- Périodiques; 901
• DOI: 10.1111/hith.12115
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0018-2656

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In her recent book, Virtus Romana, Catalina Balmaceda provides a fascinating analysis of the concept of virtus in Roman historiography. Although virtus, which translates as courage or more generally as virtue, meant different things to different Roman historians, Balmaceda shows that disagreement was never about whether historians should provide readers with examples of virtue. Historians' differences of opinion focused rather on where such models were to be found and what they should look like. This review essay summarizes Balmaceda's main arguments, raises a question about historians' own virtus, and draws some implications from the book for the study of scholarly personae. Did the persona of the historian as a public moralist, such as is known from nineteenth‐century Europe, originate in ancient Rome?