The Limits of Ancient Biography

465 Pages·2007·3.361 MB·English

by  Brian McGing, Judith Mossman

The LimiTs of
AncienT
BiogrAphy
edited by
Brian McGing

and
Judith Mossman
The LimiTs of
AncienT
BiogrAphy
Editors
Brian McGing
and
Judith mossman
Contributors
ewen Bowie, richard Burridge, John Dillon, mark edwards,
sean freyne, noreen humble, elizabeth irwin, Jason König,
Andrew mayes, Brian mcging, John moles, Judith mossman,
christopher pelling, Alexia petsalis-Diomidis,
Zuleika rodgers, Keith sidwell, simon swain, Justin Taylor,
michael Trapp, Tim Whitmarsh, Alexei Zadorojnyi
The Classical Press of Wales
first published in 2006 by
The classical press of Wales
15 rosehill Terrace, swansea sA1 6Jn
Tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
www.classicalpressofwales.co.uk
Distributor in the United states of America:
ISD, LLC
70 Enterprise Dr., Suite 2, Bristol, CT 06010
Tel: [phone]
www.isdistribution.com
© 2006 The contributors
All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
isBn 978-1-910589-48-9
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset by ernest and Andrew Buckley, clunton, shropshire
printed and bound in the UK by gomer press, Llandysul, ceredigion, Wales
The Classical Press of Wales, an independent venture, was founded in 1993, initially to support the
work of classicists and ancient historians in Wales and their collaborators from further afield. More
recently it has published work initiated by scholars internationally . While retaining a special loyalty to
Wales and the Celtic countries, the Press welcomes scholarly contributions from all parts of the world.
The symbol of the press is the red Kite. This bird, once widespread in Britain, was reduced by 1905 to some
five individuals confined to a small area known as ‘The Desert of Wales’ – the upper Tywi valley. geneticists
report that the stock was saved from terminal inbreeding by the arrival of one stray female bird from germany.
After much careful protection, the red Kite now thrives – in Wales and beyond.
conTenTs
page
preface vii
introduction Brian McGing and Judith Mossman ix
Early lives
1. Biography in the ancient world: the story of the rise of David 1
Andrew D.H. Mayes (Trinity college, Dublin)
2. The biographies of poets: the case of solon
13
Elizabeth Irwin (columbia University, new york)
Holy lives?
3. reading the gospels as biography 31
Richard A. Burridge (King’s college, London)
4 gospel and genre: some reservations 51
Mark Edwards (christ church, oxford)
5. mark’s gospel and ancient biography 63
Sean Freyne (Trinity college, Dublin)
6. The Acts of the Apostles as biography 77
Justin Taylor (École Biblique et Archéologique
française de Jérusalem)
7. Cynic influence upon first-century Judaism and 89
early Christianity?
John Moles (University of Newcastle)
8. Philo’s adaptation of the Bible in his Life of Moses 117
Brian McGing (Trinity college, Dublin)
9. Portrait of the Sophist as a young man 141
Ewen Bowie (corpus christi college, oxford)
10. holy and not so holy: on the interpretation of
late antique biography 155
John Dillon (Trinity college, Dublin)
v
Contents
Self-presentation
11. Justice for Justus: a re-examination of Justus of Tiberias’ role in
Josephus’ Autobiography 169
Zuleika Rodgers (Trinity college, Dublin)
12. sacred writing, sacred reading: the function of Aelius Aristides’
self-presentation as author in the Sacred Tales 193
Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (corpus christi college, oxford)
13. Dreams of glory: Lucian as autobiographer 213
Noreen Humble and Keith Sidwell (national University of
ireland, cork)
14. The cynic and christian lives of Lucian’s Peregrinus 227
Jason König (University of st Andrews)
Lives on the edge
15. Breaking the bounds: writing about Julius caesar 255
Christopher Pelling (christ church, oxford)
16. Travel writing, history, and biography 281
Judith Mossman (University of nottingham)
17. ‘This in-between book’: language, politics and genre in
the Agricola 305
Tim Whitmarsh (University of exeter)
Writing lives
18. Biography in letters; biography and letters 335
Michael Trapp (King’s college, London)
19. Lords of the flies: literacy and tyranny in imperial biography 351
Alexei V. Zadorojnyi (University of Liverpool)
Beyond the limits
20. Beyond the limits of greek biography: galen from Alexandria
to the Arabs 395
Simon Swain (University of Warwick)
index 435
vi
prefAce
This volume had its genesis in a biography workshop organized (splendidly)
by Judith mossman, and held at All hallows college, Dublin in september
2001. The workshop itself took place under the aegis, and with the financial
support, of the programme for mediterranean and near eastern studies at
Trinity college Dublin, a joint research project of the schools of classics
and of hebrew, Biblical and Theological studies (latterly renamed religions
and Theology). started in 1999, the project seeks to study diverse aspects
of the cultural encounter in the ancient world between east and west. We
acknowledge with gratitude the generous funding received under the irish
government’s programme for research in Third Level institutions, efficiently
administered by the higher education Authority. our title echoes that of
c.s. Kraus (ed.) The Limits of Historiography (Leiden 1999). We hope the
editor of that excellent volume will regard our imitation of her title as a form
of flattery rather than of competition.
B.McG.
vii
inTroDUcTion
Brian McGing and Judith Mossman
‘There are three rules for writing biography, but unfortunately no one
knows what they are.’ This attractive, but somewhat suspect, ‘quotation’1
does illustrate well just how slippery the term ‘biography’ is. And a quick
look at the shelves of a modern bookshop – interestingly in the history,
not biography, section – turns up two examples very much on the frontiers
of the land we probably think of as biography: p. Ackroyd, London. The
biography (London 2000) and p. Lamont, The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick.
The biography of a legend (London 2004). neither author offers any justifica-
tion for using the term biography: in his introduction, Ackroyd compares
London to a body, which seems to be his reason for calling it a biography
(if it is alive, you can write a biography of it?), but Lamont actually says he
is writing history.2 clearly, the word ‘biography’ in a title sells, and not just
in the publicity shots that masquerade as biographies of film, football or
pop stars. A random selection from a catalogue search reveals the following
biographical subjects: a country church, a germ, a nation, a silver fox, a tree,
a Victorian village, bric-à-brac, the constitution of the United states, the
english language.3 in many cases use of the term is purely meretricious (or,
more kindly, metaphorical) and means little more than ‘the story of’; and
the story does not even need to have come to an end. But the suggestion
that the biographical form and techniques used to analyse and present the
life of a person might profitably be transferred to tell the story of something
other than a person, can lead in interesting literary directions. Virginia
Woolf’s perfectly structured biography of elizabeth Browning’s dog, flush,
is a brilliant parody of Lytton strachey’s biographical style.4 stretching the
genre considerably further is mark Kurlansky’s study, Cod. A biography of
the fish that changed the world (new york 1997). While it would be easy to
argue that this is not really a biography at all, the author does consciously
exploit biographical techniques and conventions, and there is a strong sense
of moving from birth through life to the death (to all intents and purposes)
of the cod industry. The same biographical movement, although perhaps
more artificially constructed, is to be found in Jack miles, God. A biography
(new york 1995), which is a study of the literary figure of god as presented
ix
Brian McGing and Judith Mossman
in the hebrew Bible. in order to have god moving from action to speech to
silence (a sort of death) miles has to use the hebrew Bible rather than the
old Testament (which has the prophets at the end rather than in the middle).
Although the attempt to present god as moving from vigorous creator to
a sort of silent and eternal old age is perhaps not entirely successful, this is
something close to a biography in its examination of the deeds, character and
personality of god.
if the genre-bending, and indeed genre-busting, world of modern writing
takes us beyond the limits of what we usually think of as biography, what
exactly biography was in the ancient world, and how it was written, are
equally slippery concepts and equally subject to challenge: not least because
of the methodological difficulty of using genre-theory to discuss ancient
prose writing which is not oratory.5 of course that has not prevented people
from trying to define ancient biography, to trace its origins, or indeed to
identify texts which challenge the notional boundaries of their supposed
genre. many of these attempts have been very fruitful, but some have suffered
from the adoption of too strict a notion of what a genre might be or mean;
even some recent work has tended to view exceptional texts as ‘bad’ examples
of biography, or perhaps as ‘not’ biography.6 We need a more sophisticated
approach than that, and yet the alternative gambit of stating that it does not
matter or that there is no real genre of ancient biography will hardly do either:
some ancient biographers, after all, were very clear indeed that they were
writing not history but lives,7 and it is evidently constructive to try to discern
when and where texts are innovating, renewing and playing with expectations
of their readers, which are inevitably partly influenced by generic character-
istics.8 edwards has suggested that it may be preferable not to strive to define
a genre of biography, but to think instead in terms of ‘the biographical’ and
recognize it not as a genre but as a trait present in a variety of texts.9 yet when
a reader begins a text which is entitled ‘A Life of …’ he or she inevitably has
some generically-inspired expectations which are more precise than a concept
of ‘the biographical’ alone conveys. edwards’ cautionary note was welcome,
but may be too cautious, as pelling argues, using the approach of Dubrow, who
sees the reader approaching the text with a question which is then provision-
ally answered:10 what if this work is a biography? Then probably it will begin
somewhere near the birth of the subject and end somewhere near his or her
death, and will include information about his or her actions and characteristics
– but perhaps this text will be interestingly different … recent work on the
concept of genre, while it recognizes generic essentialism to some degree, lays
more emphasis on generic experimentation, the power of texts simultaneously
to react to and to reinvent genres; this is surely right, and seems an approach
particularly suited to the complexities of a ‘messy’ genre like biography.11
x
Introduction
Whatever can or cannot be said about the genre of ancient biography,
one thing is clear: as momigliano showed, it was not called biographia.12
Ancient biographers wrote bioi, lives. This nomenclature perhaps suggests
that, although no definition can possibly embrace the full variety even of
those ancient biographical texts which survive, leave alone those lost to us,
momigliano’s basic working definition may nonetheless be useful, a benign
piece of vestigial essentialism: ‘an account of the life of a man from birth
to death is what i call biography.’13 his further contention that ‘nobody
nowadays is likely to doubt that biography is some kind of history’, may
raise rather more questions than it solves, though it must be admitted that
it is clear that ancient biographers frequently did define themselves against
history.14 But momigliano’s extraordinarily wide-ranging attempt to trace the
origins of biography quite rightly covers far more influences than just histor-
ical writing, with the result that his work, in conveying a sense of biography
as fluid and versatile, has stood the test of time extremely well, even though
he never does succeed in explaining why the ancients separated biography
so firmly from history, in their protestations if not in their literary presenta-
tion.15 And if for momigliano ancient views of the genre are inexplicable, at
least he notwithstanding takes them into account, always a wise proceeding.
it may well be perfectly proper to project some modern categories back onto
ancient texts and create categories such as ‘political biography’, as geiger
argues for,16 as long as this does not lead us to criticize ancient texts for not
living up to generic expectations they were never trying to fulfil; but if ancient
writers of lives wished to distinguish themselves from writers of history there
must be a reason for it. strachey, in drawing a distinction between ‘strictly
biographical’ and ‘historical’ points of view, remarks: ‘human beings are too
important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value
which is independent of any temporal processes – which is eternal, and must
be felt for its own sake.’ The telling of the individual’s story, it is implied, the
description of the individual, both call for different skills from the writing
of history and allow for, even demand, a greater variation in form. But the
argument cannot really run: ‘people are different, therefore biographies are
different in form to accommodate different lives’, since it is clearly possible
to write lives of the same subject which vary wildly in form. A case in point
would be plutarch’s and suetonius’ Lives of Julius caesar, which are very
differently organized as well as very different in outlook.
Leo, indeed, famously divided biography into two types, the plutarchean
and the suetonian,17 the former being characterized by a straightforward
chronological approach and the latter by a combination of chronology with
a more thematic description of the subject. This distinction now seems much
too neat, partly thanks to the discovery of other forms of biography, such
xi
Brian McGing and Judith Mossman
as satyrus’ Life of Euripides, written in dialogue, but even though we may
accept that Leo’s use of this distinction and his account of the origins of the
different types of biography were flawed, it remains useful to acknowledge
that biographies even of the same individual can look very different from one
another and so bring out very different facets of an individual.18 To return
to the relationship of biography and history: perhaps the real reason ancient
authors made the distinction so firmly was to allow themselves freer rein,
to head off criticism that information they wished to include in what they
wrote was inappropriate; perhaps the problem really lay in the primacy of
the Thucydidean definition of history (as against the more open herodotean
model with its happy mixture of chronology and description of individuals
and nations)19 and not in biography at all. perhaps, to use an analogy from
poetry, biography must inevitably define itself against history just as comedy
must define itself against tragedy.
it may also be interesting to ask, as swain among others does, whether
there are particular historical contexts which are particularly conducive to
the production of biography.20 This is an approach which works well for
late antiquity, but sometimes in relation to other societies simply founders:
why on earth isn’t fifth-century Athens teeming with political biography?
The question is a recurring one: francis Bacon, as momigliano recorded,21
was puzzled at the comparative paucity of biography in his own day (The
Advancement of Learning [1605], ii.ii.10): ‘for lives, i do find it strange
that these times have so little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the
writing of lives should be no more frequent. for although there be not many
sovereign princes or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected
into monarchies, yet are there many worthy personages that deserve better
than dispersed report or barren elogies’; and this was echoed closely three
hundred years later by Lytton strachey: ‘the art of biography seems to have
fallen on evil times in england … With us, the most delicate and humane of
all the branches of the art of writing has been relegated to the journeymen of
letters; we do not reflect that it is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to
live one.’22 clearly neither an abundance of good subjects nor an abundance
of good writers guarantees the production of good (or any) biography; we
are thrown back on explanations involving the interests of other kinds of
thinkers such as Theophrastus or freud; or forced to look for more indirect
motives for writing biography than the commemoration of famous men,
such as nostalgia for the past, or polemic, or, as with the english puritan
biographies and autobiographies from the early seventeenth century, the
promulgation of religion.
We have included essays on autobiography in this volume, because the
autobiography23 seems the most obvious way in which writers have toyed
xii