Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras: History without Historians

A wide examination of the ways in which the Greeks constructed, de-constructed, engaged with and relied on their pasts. This volume in “The Edinburgh Leventis Studies” series collects the papers presented at the sixth A. G. Leventis conference organised under the auspices of the Department of Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Eighteen scholars discuss the variety of ways in which the Greeks constructed de-constructed, engaged with, alluded to, and relied on their pasts whether it was in the poetry of Homer, in the victory odes of Pindar, in tragedy and comedy on the Athenian stage, in their pictorial art, in their political assemblies, or in their religious practices. What emerges is a comprehensive overview of the importance of and presence of the past at every level of Greek society.