Documentality : : New Approaches to Written Documents in Imperial Life and Literature / / ed. by Jacqueline Arthur-Montagne, Scott Jared DiGiulio, Inger Neeltje Irene Kuin.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2022 Part 1
• MitwirkendeR: Amory, Yasmine,; Arthur-Montagne, Jacqueline,; Bodel, John,; Corbier, Mireille,; DiGiulio, Scott J.,; Fournet, Jean-Luc,; Kamphorst, Sjoukje M.,; Kuin, Inger N. I.,; Mheallaigh, Karen ní,; Schneider, Pierre,
• HerausgeberIn: Arthur-Montagne, Jacqueline,; DiGiulio, Scott Jared,; Kuin, Inger Neeltje Irene,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes , 132
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (XI, 290 p.)

This volume unites scholars of classical epigraphy, papyrology, and literature to analyze the documentary habit in the Roman Empire. Texts like inscriptions and letters have gained importance in classical scholarship, but there has been limited analysis of the imaginative and sociological dimensions of the ancient document. Individual chapters investigate the definition of the document in ancient thought, and how modern understandings of documentation may (mis)shape scholarly approaches to documentary sources in antiquity. Contributors reexamine familiar categories of ancient documents through the lenses of perception and function, and reveal where the modern understanding of the document departs from ancient conceptions of documentation. The boundary between literary genres and documentary genres of writing appears more fluid than prior scholarship had allowed. Compared to modern audiences, inhabitants of the Roman Empire used a more diverse range of both non-textual and textual forms of documentation, and they did so with a more active, questioning attitude. The interdisciplinary approach to the "mentality" of documentation in this volume advances beyond standard discussions of form, genre, and style to revisit the document through the eyes of Greco-Roman readers and viewers.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- Introduction -- Part I: Approaches to Ancient Documentality -- Documenting Identity in the Early Roman Empire -- Copying the Canon: Imperial School Texts as Documentary Traces -- Documenting Wonderland: Lucian’s True Stories and the Documentary imaginaire -- Part II: Documentary Communities and Landscapes -- Cities Full of Words: Illiteracy and Epigraphy in Lucian of Samosata -- Documenting the oikoumenê: What “Documents” Supported the Description of the Inhabited World in the Hellenistic and Early Imperial Periods? -- A Community Set in Stone? Monumental Decrees as Instruments of Greek Interactions -- Part III: Between Documents and Literature -- Dead Letters, Documentality, and the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius -- The Relationship between Documents and Literature in Late Antiquity: The Case of the Petition, between Document, Adaptation and Literary Creation -- When the Letter Speaks Up: Living and Lifeless Letters -- Epilogue -- The Ancient Historian and His Documents: Reader, Interpreter, and/or Author? -- List of Contributors -- Index Locorum -- Index Rerum