This volume brings together revised versions of papers originally presented at the Sixth A. G. Leventis conference, ‘History without Historians: Greeks and their Past in the Archaic and Classical Era’, which was held at the University of Edinburgh, 5–7 November 2009. The conference was an attempt to get at the issue of what we would know about Greek conceptions of the past if we lacked the historiographical texts of Herodotus, Thucydides and others.
J.M. would like to thank the Classics Department at the University of Edinburgh for the honour of naming him the A. G. Leventis Chair in Greek Studies in 2009. The hospitality shown by the department and the School of History, Classics and Archaeology during his stay was extraordinary, and he thanks in particular Sandra Bingham, Glenys Davies, Elaine Hutchison, Gavin Kelly, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Wendy and Keith Rutter, and – last but assuredly not least – his nonpareil assistant, Kate Collingridge. At a later stage he benefited (as always) from the sage advice of Christopher Pelling. He also thanks his research assistant, Anastasia Belinskaya, for her help in compiling the Index Locorum.
We are grateful to the Department for its care in putting on the conference and in making it such a wonderful occasion. We also offer thanks to Fiona Sewell, our excellent copy-editor, and especially to Carol Macdonald, our editor, who encouraged and supported the project from the beginning and patiently awaited the final version.
Tallahassee, Edinburgh, Leeds
J.M.
L.L-J.
C.M.