The Classical and Hellenistic Greek Historiographical Proem Tradition

Abstract This paper surveys the extant proems of Greek historiography from Hecataeus to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It considers the proems through the lens of intellectual networking, arguing that each author through his proem inscribes himself into two distinct intellectual networks: a diachronic network of the authors he wants to be considered his predecessors, both historiographical and otherwise, and a synchronic network of his readers or audience, with whom he attempts to create a bond, and in whose eyes he wants to claim authority. A fundamental principle of the diachronic intellectual network is agonistic intertextuality, that is polemics against predecessors which at the same time acknowledges their importance for one’s own work. A number of tropes are found to be typical of the extant proems, and it is argued that their function is likewise to signal the specific intellectual network to which the author wants to be seen as belonging.