Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World
ISBN: 9781781385180
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / Liverpool University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Classical Drama;

This collection of essays explores the key issue of the nature of the boundary between fact and fiction, an issue which has become prominent especially through the upsurge of interest in the ancient novel and recent work on the rhetorical character of ancient historiography. The collection covers early Greek poetry (E.L. Bowie), Greek and Roman historiography (John Moles and T.P. Wiseman), Plato (Christopher Gill) and the Greek and Roman novel (John Morgan and Andrew Laird), and especially considers how far 'lying' was distinguished from 'fiction' at different periods and in different genres.


Christopher Gill is Professor of Ancient Thought, University of Exeter. His books include 'Form and Argument in Late Plato' (OUP, 1996) and a translation of 'Plato, Symposium' (Penguin, 1999). Peter Wiseman is Emeritus Professor of Roman History at Exeter University and a Fellow of the British Academy. He came to Exeter in 1977, and was Head of Department from 1977 to 1990. Although he retired in 2001, he is still involved in graduate teaching at both MA and PhD levels.

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