Dr Katherine Clarke: List of publications

<jats:p> <jats:disp-quote> <jats:p>‘Verbal disharmonies reflect the complexities of history and all that is ambiguous in the behaviour of men. … His theme was savage and sinister, with no place for hope, ease or happiness. … Tacitus took possession of the Latin language, bent it to his will, and pushed to the utter limits all that it knew or promised of energy, gravity, and magnificence.’</jats:p> <jats:attrib>(R. Syme, <jats:italic>Tacitus</jats:italic>, 1958: 347–8, 358)</jats:attrib> </jats:disp-quote> </jats:p> <jats:p>Sir Ronald Syme, whose appreciation of the greatest of Roman historians remains vivid, insightful and compelling more than sixty years after the publication of his monumental work, thus highlighted one of the most challenging and enriching aspects of our own engagement with this author—the simultaneous difficulty and resonance of his language. Any reader will recognise Syme's characterisation of a Latin language bent to Tacitus’ will. Difficult for students, testing for experienced academics, Tacitus’ Latin defies the morphology of the primer and the syntax of the grammar. Everything we learned from Cicero about Latin forms, balanced clauses, rhetorical crescendos and word-order is thrown by Tacitus into disarray. His use of Latin jars and disrupts. Even the call for <jats:italic>variatio</jats:italic> is subverted, with a conservative and limited vocabulary in play, involving frequent repetition of key abstract terms, but conversely little pattern or regularity in the syntax of sentences. The ‘verbal disharmonies’ both challenge the reader and enrich the meaning. The highly charged nature of Tacitus’ Latin and its capacity, in his ‘possession’, to encapsulate the political complexities of the period is well established. No word is casually or carelessly chosen; phrasing carries resonance; echoes are significant.</jats:p>

<p>This chapter explores the interaction between man and nature in Herodotus through the figure of Cheops, the pyramid builder. It argues that, although grand engineering projects are often used in Herodotus to contribute to a negative characterization of players within the narrative, the focalization of such episodes introduces considerably greater complexity. Rather than simply concluding that building pyramids constitutes a despotic abuse of nature, as has been traditionally assumed of Cheops, this chapter notes that negative comments about Cheops and his pyramid-building activities are all focalized through the Egyptians. Herodotus, in propria persona, highlights instead the miraculous technical achievement of this project, and reverses the damnatio memoriae imposed by the Egyptians on this king. It is possible, therefore, by not only setting this episode alongside other instances of man’s control over nature, but also paying attention to issues of focalization, to challenge the view that Herodotus condemns this king.</p>

This book is about time and history in the Greek world. It argues that choices concerning the articulation and expression of time, especially time past, reflect the values and aspirations of both those who ‘make’ it and their audiences. Time is thus not only constructed, but also negotiated. This study ranges from the widespread awareness of time’s malleability and the perceived value of the past by the citizens of the Greek polis to the formal analysis of time-systems by Hellenistic scholars. It addresses the development by historians of ways to articulate the long span of historical time, from the chronological strategies developed by those who wrote universal narratives to those whose stories were about the individual polis. The negotiation of time is of interest in any social context, but it carries particular resonance in the world of Greek poleis, where each community had its own calendar and ran to its own time. Both the articulation of time and the establishment of ‘shared’ histories have been seen individually as modes of self-expression for communities. An exploration of their intersection is, therefore, especially illuminating. By focusing on the phenomenon of city history, the creation of the past within a relatively restricted community, it is possible to examine more closely the dynamics of how time and the past were ‘made’. Therefore, this study brings together the wider theme of ‘managing time’, with an exploration of how history was created at a local level, within a civic context. It looks at the construction of the past as a social activity, which both reflects and contributes towards the sense of a shared identity.

AbstractThis book is about time and local history in the Greek world. It argues that choices concerning the articulation and expression of time reflect the values of both those who ‘make’ it and their audiences. This study ranges from the widespread awareness of time's malleability and the perceived value of the past by the citizens of the Greek polis to the formal analysis of time-systems in Hellenistic scholarship. It addresses the development by historians of ways to articulate the long span of historical time, from the chronologies developed by those who wrote universal narratives to those whose stories were about the individual polis. The negotiation of time is of interest in any social context, but it carries particular resonance in the world of Greek poleis, where each community had its own calendar and ran to its own time. Both the articulation of time and the establishment of ‘shared’ histories have been seen as modes of self-expression for communities. An exploration of their intersection is, therefore, especially illuminating. By focusing on city-history, the creation of the past within a restricted community, it is possible to examine more closely the dynamics of how time and the past were ‘made’. Therefore, this study brings together the wider theme of ‘managing time’, with an exploration of how history was created at a local level, within a civic context. It looks at the construction of the past as a social activity, which both reflects and contributes towards the sense of a shared, civic identity.