Speech and Narrative Setting in Herodian's History: Marcus Aurelius and Pertinax

Iglesias-Zoido analyzes the 'narrative settings' in the speeches of Herodian's History of the Empire. By narrative setting he refers to a complex structure with three levels used by Classical-era historians, such as hucydides, to introduce speeches in their narratives. These settings serve crucial goals: they define where and when a speech is uttered, characterize the speaker, and create a referential and pragmatic framework that aims to condition the rcaderlv response. Unlike these introductory, highly elaborated sections, the closing settings that follow a speech are simpler, being focused instead on the intra-diegetic audience's reaction to and the consequences deriving from it. He argues that analysis of Herodian's systematic but underacknowledged use of the narrative settings for his speeches can shed new light on the rhetorical style and narratological strategies of a historian who has traditionally been misunderstood by critics and whose speeches have been criticized as poorly elaborated and evidence of a second-rate author.