Table of Contents

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

About the Author

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

Reviews

"A work of fundamental importance for students of ancientethnography. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries."(Choice, 1 November 2011) "Woolf has rendered the topic in crisp and elegant prose. Thisreviewer suspects that, like good ancient ethnography, Woolf'scontribution will very soon take on a life of its own." (BrynMawr Classical Review, 25 July 2011) W. provides new insights into ancient texts, andstimulating new ways of looking at these ancient views ofbarbarians chasing his middle ground providesan exciting challenge for Romanists working with other fields ofevidence. (Britannia, May 2013) "With Greg Woolf s brief Tales of the Barbarians weare at peace, but constantly made to sit up, not only by singleopinions but by the overall ways in which Woolf asks us to read thematerial, in particular by his convincing stress on themiddle ground where explorers and natives have met, inwestern Europe and America." (Greece & Rome, April2013)