P. M. Fraser
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264287
- eISBN:
- 9780191753978
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264287.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This volume is a contribution to the study of the ancient Greek vocabulary used to describe the local origins of individuals. It sheds light on ancient grammarians, and other ancient writers (many of ...
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This volume is a contribution to the study of the ancient Greek vocabulary used to describe the local origins of individuals. It sheds light on ancient grammarians, and other ancient writers (many of them ‘lost’ in the sense that they survive only in quotations in later sources). At the heart of the volume is a study of the sources that lie behind an enigmatic treatise, which survives only in epitome: the Ethnika of the grammarian Stephanus of Byzantium. This supplement to the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names is the final work of its founding editor (d. 2007).Less
This volume is a contribution to the study of the ancient Greek vocabulary used to describe the local origins of individuals. It sheds light on ancient grammarians, and other ancient writers (many of them ‘lost’ in the sense that they survive only in quotations in later sources). At the heart of the volume is a study of the sources that lie behind an enigmatic treatise, which survives only in epitome: the Ethnika of the grammarian Stephanus of Byzantium. This supplement to the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names is the final work of its founding editor (d. 2007).
Simon Hornblower
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199562336
- eISBN:
- 9780191804403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199562336.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter considers personal names, which have elicited very little interest among scholars of ancient historians, and how they can reflect the factual truthfulness of historical texts. This ...
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This chapter considers personal names, which have elicited very little interest among scholars of ancient historians, and how they can reflect the factual truthfulness of historical texts. This general neglect of onomastic evidence by historiographers may be partially due to the fact that prior to the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN), there was no properly scientific way of establishing whether a particular name was common everywhere, or rare anywhere, or common but only in a specific region. The last possibility should be of interest to the student of the Greek historians because if it can be shown that a historian used a name for, say, a Thessalian from Pharsalos which epigraphy allows us to say is common in Thessaly and especially common at Pharsalos, then the presumption must be that the ancient historian in question did his research and wrote the name down and got it right. That is, we have an important and sophisticated, but deplorably under-utilized, control on the accuracy and authenticity of a historiographical text. The chapter discusses this claim and addresses possible objections to it.Less
This chapter considers personal names, which have elicited very little interest among scholars of ancient historians, and how they can reflect the factual truthfulness of historical texts. This general neglect of onomastic evidence by historiographers may be partially due to the fact that prior to the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN), there was no properly scientific way of establishing whether a particular name was common everywhere, or rare anywhere, or common but only in a specific region. The last possibility should be of interest to the student of the Greek historians because if it can be shown that a historian used a name for, say, a Thessalian from Pharsalos which epigraphy allows us to say is common in Thessaly and especially common at Pharsalos, then the presumption must be that the ancient historian in question did his research and wrote the name down and got it right. That is, we have an important and sophisticated, but deplorably under-utilized, control on the accuracy and authenticity of a historiographical text. The chapter discusses this claim and addresses possible objections to it.
