Beyond the ‚Invention of Athens‘. The 5th century Athenian „Tatenkatalog“ as example of ,Intentional History‘

Abstract

Summary Nicole Loraux’s seminal book „L’invention d’Athènes“ (1981) opened a new way of understanding the Athenian funeral oration. It is a well-known fact that the Athenians exploited the annual logos epitaphios in honor of the war dead to convey a patriotic image of the Athenian past, centered on a canonical list of glorious mythic-historical deeds. This list – the so called „Tatenkatalog“ – has been so far investigated in terms of either ,political propaganda‘ or ,official polis tradition‘, where both definitions involve a high degree of historical simplification and, to some extent, falsification. This view, if somehow true as for the 4th century literary version of the list, must be reassessed as for the 5th century catalogue, which in fact is to be considered as a prominent example of ,intentional history‘ (in H.-J. Gehrke’s definition), produced by – and at the same time turned to – the political community itself, as the result of complex identity needs.