The History Written on the Classical Greek Body by Robin Osborne (Author)

ISBN: 9780521176705

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press, July 7, 2011

Paperback, 278 pages

This book challenges historians to come to terms with the distortions that they systematically introduce into their work by their reliance on what has been written on paper without looking at what was and was not written on the body. This book is concerned with the ways in which texts relating to classical Greece, and in particular to classical Athens, classified people and with the extent to which those classifications could be seen by the eye. It compares the qualities distinguished in texts to those distinguished in sculpture and painted pottery, and emphasises the frequent invisibility of the categories upon which historians have laid most stress – the citizen, the free person, the foreigner, even the god. The frequent impossibility of seeing who belonged to which category has major political, social, and theological implications which are explored here.