The Limits of Ancient Biography

The genre of biography in the ancient world is interestingly diverse and permeable and deserves intensive study, bearing as it does on ideas of characterization and the individual. This volume considers both the form and the content of biography across the ancient world, and is particularly interested in the frontiers with other related genres, such as history.



The papers range from the Old Testament to the Arab world, from the New Testament to the Lives of Saints, from the classic Greek and Roman biographers to less well known practitioners of the art.

Brian McGing is Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College, Dublin, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is co-director of the Centre for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies, a research project studying the interchange between east and west in the ancient world, and funded under the Irish Government's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutes. His main research interests are Hellenistic Asia Minor and Greco-Roman Egypt. He is currently working on a book on Polybius. Judith Mossman is Professor of Classics at the University of Nottingham. She was previously Senior Lecturer and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and an associate of the Centre for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies. She has published a number of articles on Plutarch and has also edited a volume of essays entitled Plutarch and his Intellectual World (Classical Press of Wales 1997). She also writes books and articles on aspects of Greek Tragedy, especially Euripides. She is married with one son.