The Importance of Narrativity for History: An Attempt Using Two Examples from Antiquity

Abstract

The examples of the Atthidographers (exemplified here by Philochoros) as a supposedly annalistic-chronistic "local history" and the ancient chronicles (exemplified here by the Chronicon Romanum) show the importance of the aspect of narrativity in the assessment and evaluation of Greek historiography. The current re-evaluation of the relationship between history and narrativity is part of a general tendency, which classifies the forms of historiographical representation in a different and less hierarchical way (as has been suggested by H.-J. Gehrke in the concept of intentional story). In particular, Hayden White has suggested a new relationship between form and content regarding the organization of material and content in historiography: his definition of narrative coherence allows to overcome the traditional opposition of annals and chronicles vs. history. Therefore, also annals and chronicles can be shown as independent alternatives to discursive representations of history. The examples of the Atthidographers and the Chronicon Romanum shall show which ways of generation of meaning give historical coherence to an annalistic-chronistic presentation.