Foreword (Contextualizing Ancient Historiography)

Should one have to track the origin of this book, the answer would point to a group of (then) young scholars who have been meeting regularly since 2013 in Freiburg to discuss historiography and representations of the past. Over the years, these meetings, inaugurated and supervised by Hans-Joachim Gehrke and Astrid Möller, have also taken place in Munich and Trento, while the scholars involved have carried on their careers at various different universities. Many of the articles collected here elaborate on papers presented in Trento at a meeting organised in 2019 by Elena Franchi and Maurizio Giangiulio, in other articles several themes discussed in previous meetings are revisited, while still others have been conceived specifically for the present volume. They all explore themes that are timeless, and perhaps now more relevant than ever: the past, its testimonies, and its representations.