Reading the “First Pagan Historiographer”: Dares Phrygius and Medieval Genealogy
Frederic Clark
This article traces the medieval reception and transmission of pseudo-Dares Phrygius’s De excidio troiae historia, a late antique forgery long regarded as an eyewitness account Trojan War. By examining selected manuscripts excidio, copied at height text’s influence in twelfth-through fourteenth-century England, it considers importance codicological context gauging uses spurious “ancient” materials Middle Ages. In particular, examines how Dares served prologue to genealogical accounts “origins peoples” or origines gentium, which chronicled supposed antecedents Franks, Britons, other gentes. Such codices speak varieties classical historiography flourished high world, while highlighting compilatory strategies fused hitherto disparate texts traditions. Accordingly, this study explores genealogy repeatedly refashioned tradition, both challenging reaffirming its authority.
Viator