Tales of the Barbarians traces the creation of new mythologies in the wake of Roman expansion westward to the Atlantic, and offers the first application of modern ethnographic theory to ancient material.
* Investigates the connections between empire and knowledge at the turn of the millennia, and the creation of new histories in the Roman West
* Explores how ancient geography, local histories and the stories of wandering heroes were woven together by Greek scholars and local experts
* Offers a fresh perspective by examining passages from ancient writers in a new light

Translations Used vii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: Telling Tales on the Middle Ground 8

Chapter 2: Explaining the Barbarians 32

Chapter 3: Ethnography and Empire 59

Chapter 4: Enduring Fictions? 89

Notes 119

References 146

General Index 164

Index of Main Passages Discussed 168

Greg Woolf is Professor of Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (1998)  and Rome: An Empire's Story (2012) as well as the co-editor of Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (with A. K. Bowman, 1994), Rome the Cosmopolis (with C. Edwards, 2003) and Ancient Libraries (with J.König, 2013).