Which comparative histories for ancient historians?

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to examine what role comparative history can play in the future of ancient history. My aim is to show why comparative history is important, as well as to explore the different forms of doing comparative history and the advantages and disadvantages that these different forms entail. Ancient historians use comparative history in order to fill in the gaps of the ancient evidence, to explore similarities between areas and periods separated in time and space, to ‘defamiliarise the familiar’, or to explore how other historians have dealt with similar problems. This article explores the methodological problems that different approaches to comparative history entail and provides a survey of how these approaches have affected diverse fields of ancient history. While each approach can make its own valuable contribution, there are good reasons for preferring certain approaches to others