HISTORY AND NOVEL IN ANTIQUITY: THE CHRONICLES OF DICTYS AND DARES

Abstract

This article aims to discuss about the relationship between history and novel in the context of Antiquity. To do this, two prose narratives were chosen: Ephemeris Belli Troiani (Journal of the Trojan War), dating from the 4^th century AD, and De Excidio Troiae Historia (History of the Fall of Troy), dating from the 5^th century AD. Ephemeris and De Excidio retell the Trojan War from a perspective of two soldiers and establish intertextuality with Homer and the entire classical collection of the Trojan myth. These two similar works develop a process of transforming what was considered myth into historical fact. They do it through demythologization and historicization, it is, making the divine presence and heroic power fading out and putting elements from historical discourse in the rhetoric of their narrative. This narrative structure has led some authors to assume the possibility of characterizing the two works as “historical fictions” or even “historical novels”. In this paper, this possibility will analyzed in order to problematize the criteria of distinction between historical and fictional narratives and the issues about crystalized model of the genres. In conclusion, the description of the two works reveals the approximation to the historical novel and, despite the distance in the time, could be both considered a type among the many specimens of this literary genre.