The Fragments of the Roman Historians

The Fragments of the Roman Historians ( FRHist ) is the title of a collection of text fragments from works by ancient Roman historians that have not survived otherwise . The fragments are mostly quotations from later surviving authors. The collection was published in three volumes by Oxford University Press in December 2013 and replaces the now outdated edition by Hermann Peter ( Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae from 1870 and Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta from 1883).

The new edition is the result of a specialist conference in London in 1996, at which a new collection of Roman historian fragments was proposed. In the spring of 1997 a first meeting took place in Manchester ; soon an editorial committee was formed and an edition plan developed. Tim J. Cornell of the University of Manchester acted as editor-in-chief , the other editors include Edward Bispham ( Brasenose College and St Anne's College , Oxford), John Rich ( University of Nottingham ) and Christopher Smith ( University of St Andrews ), six other British historians were involved in the completion. Each of them took responsibility for the editing of several Roman authors (some were also edited jointly by several researchers), these were then discussed and commented on.

The collection comprises a total of 110 authors, 108 of whom are known by name. There is also an appendix by 39 authors who have not been included. The earliest recorded Roman historian is Quintus Fabius Pictor from the 3rd century BC. BC , the latest Asinius Quadratus from the time of the imperial crisis of the 3rd century . Thus, not only Roman historians who wrote in Latin were included, but also authors in Greek who are to be regarded as Roman historians. Late antique authors were deliberately excluded; However, these are taken into account by the new long-term project Small and Fragmentary Historians of Late Antiquity .

FRHist is designed as an equivalent to the famous text collection The Fragments of the Greek Historians . Volume 1 contains an extensive introduction and short biographies of the authors concerned. Volume 2 provides the original Latin and Greek text of the testimony and fragments, including an English translation. Volume 3 includes a commentary on the fragments covered.

output

• Tim J. Cornell et al. a. (Ed.): The Fragments of the Roman Historians. 3 volumes. Oxford University Press, Oxford u. a. 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-927705-6 .

literature

• Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp : On the use and disadvantage of fragmented history (s). In: Historical magazine . Volume 303, 2016, pp. 137–147 (technical discussion with appreciation of the project).

Web links

• Publisher description

Remarks

1. ^ Tim J. Cornell: Preface. In: Tim J. Cornell et al. a. (Ed.): The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Volume 1, Oxford a. a. 2013, p. VII.
2. ↑ John Briscoe ( University of Manchester ), Andrew Drummond ( University of Nottingham ), who died in 2010 , Barbara Levick ( St Hilda's College , Oxford), Simon Northwood (Teacher, Charterhouse School , Godalming ), Stephen Oakley ( University of Cambridge ) and Mark Pobjoy ( Magdalen College , Oxford).
3. ^ Tim J. Cornell: Preface. In: Tim J. Cornell et al. a. (Ed.): The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Volume 1, Oxford a. a. 2013, p. VII.
4. ↑ See Tim J. Cornell et al. a. (Ed.): The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Volume 1, Oxford a. a. 2013, p. 10.