Useful Truths, Enchanting Fictions. Historians and Novelists at Play

An analysis of the relationship and interactions between narrative and historiography, two literary genres that are only apparently well differentiated. Especially in Hellenistic and Imperial times, historiography uses fiction to improve enargeia/evidentia, and thus becoming more appealing to a larger public; it aims at offering instruction and truth, but also a form of learned and pleasant entertainment. Narrative, on the other side, primarily aims at offering entertainment, but it never dismisses the possibility of providing learning and instruction. It is fictional by definition, but it often tries to conceal it under an appearance of historiographical and truthfulness: this way it allows the reader to surrender himself to the narrative, that he can easily pretend to be truthful and therefore fully enjoy.