Sample Response
Thucydides (460BCE – c.400) confronts histories that he determined to be theocratic or
mythical: theocratic because they deal with gods or supernatural rulers of human societies in an
unsure time in the past, mythical because they are histories that exist in some dateless time in
the past, falling outside of what later historians would label ‘scientific.’
The Trojan Wars between the Athenians and the Persians is not dateless, however. In the
eighth century BCE, some 300 years before Herodotus (the so-called ‘Father of History’, Homer
had created The Iliad and The Odyssey, both of which offer accounts of episodes in a war that
were of great historical importance. The Iliad recounts the adventures and tribulations of the
hero Achilles against the backdrop of the war; The Odyssey tells of the adventures of the hero
Odysseus on his journey home from the war. They are poetic tales of aristocratic heroes but
they are also stories that appear to unfold over time, concerning a war that actually took place
and historically verifiable as taking place around 1200 BCE, some 400 years before Homer
composed his poetry. Why then do we not assume that they constitute the origins of historical
writing?
A number of factors distinguish them from the kind of narratives produced by Herodotus
(c.484BCE – c.430) his successors. The first is that their unfolding takes place in a kind of
mythological time rather than the continuous time of human societies. The events, the death of
Achilles with his vulnerable heel, or, Odysseus’s encounter with the one-eyed Cyclops, all
happen in an order but there is no clear conception of chronology that relates to the rest of the
world. The timeframe of the myth pertains only to the myth itself; events are not set against the
real world of real people. This is because Homer’s aim, unlike that of Herodotus, was not to
explain how things became as they are but to elucidate moral lessons from a tale set in the time
of gods and heroes. This is a time in which events are moved solely by the passions of heroes
and the caprice of the gods: we presume that this was the only kind of causal explanation for
change that his society required. The stories are mythological rather than historical because
Homer’s society needed myth rather than history - the moral lessons that could be derived from
this type of storytelling.
This would not remain so. Explaining how we get to a society that produced what we recognise
as history and why they did so is our first task. This process involves elements that distinguish
‘scientific’ history from tales of gods or mythology associated with the early Greek writers.
Fact-gathering, awareness of change and continuity, causation of factors, thesis, synthesis,
summary and conclusion – these are all words associated with histories written by Thucydides.
Not that Thucydides was entirely cold stone rational in his approach to history. He was reported
to have once witnessed a reading by Herodotus and to have left in tears. Despite this outburst
of emotion, he has tended to be more attractive to historians than Herodotus - historians who
prefer their histories without seasoning or spice, wrapped in the more insipid flavours of
profession-based methodologies. Thucydides favoured history as performance - both the
Greeks and Romans read aloud regardless of whether or not they were in private or public,
alone or in a group – and perhaps this emphasis on performance has attracted the more
thespian-inclined teacher or lecturer. Certainly Thucydides for all is reason and scientistic
approaches to the discipline can be quoted with gusto.
There is an explanation for this apparent rationality of approach, influenced by two factors. The
first is the attachment of Thucydides to the Sophistic movement of his day who were
practitioners of rhetoric, argument and debate. This attachment positions Thucydides for us as
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‘proto-rational,’ confident in the mental powers of humanity and the effectiveness of the force of
persuasion. Every dispute had two viewpoints. This would extend, presumably, to disputes
over historical interpretation and this, the argument might run, forms the basis of his historical
methodology. Second, he was attached to the then growing science of medicine which involved
the close observation of symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, conditions of environment and so on.
Thus for Thucydides truth was a goal of history. While absolute truth was unobtainable and
approximate, historical truth was observable and could be conveyed to a popular audience. For
these reasons, perhaps, historians contemporary to us tend to describe the work of Thucydides
as ‘full,’ ‘perceptive,’ ‘neutral,’ ‘austere’ and ‘objective’. Herodotus, by comparison, hardly cuts
the rational mustard.
Who was Thucydides? Like Herodotus, little is known of his life. He is thought to have been
born around 460 BCE to a well-off and aristocratic Greek family. As a general in the Athenian
army he was well-placed to write about warfare and political intrigue. He was out of favour,
however, when in 423 he was exiled from Athens as a punishment for losing the strategically
important Amphipolis to the Spartans. He died in mysterious circumstances around 400 and
many sources suggest that he was murdered. His work on the Peloponnesian War was
continued by Xenophon (444BCE – 357) but in a radically different style. Thucydides will be
remembered for his approach to history which was much admired in his own time and much
copied afterwards, especially in the years of Renaissance.
Yet Thucydides was not above piling on the ‘literary artistry.’ His use of rhetoric in his accounts
of political speeches, of the oratory of generals to their soldiers before battles, his coverage of
historic debates, and most famously his reproduction of Pericles funeral oration add up to more
than minimalist reportage. This is a quotation that should have stuck out in your set reading:
Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was
chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper time arrived, he advanced from
the sepulchre to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as
possible, and spoke as follows:
'Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part
of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the burial of those who fall
in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in
deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds; such as you now
see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And I could have wished that the
reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single
individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak
properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are
speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story
may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and
knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy
to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure
to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their
own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and
with it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their
approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes
and opinions as best I may'
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War From the ‘Internet Classics Library’
<http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.2.second.html>
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This use of the speech as a rhetorical device was explained by Thucydides in the following
terms:
As to the speeches of the participants, either when they were about to enter the war or
after they were already in it, it has been difficult for me and for those that who reported to
me to remember exactly what was said. I have, therefore, written what I thought the
speakers needed to say given the situations they were in, while keeping as close as
possible to the gist of what was actually said. As to the events of the war, I have not
written them down as I heard them from just anybody, nor as I thought they must have
occurred, but have consistently described what I myself have or have been able to learn
from others after going over each event in as much detail as possible. I have found this
task to be extremely arduous, since those that who were present at these actions gave
varying reports on the same events, depending on their sympathies and their memories.
Walter Blanco (Trans) and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts (eds.), Thucydides, The
Peloponnesian War (New York, 1998), p.11.
This is sophisticated stuff. Here we find Thucydides displaying an advanced and acute
awareness of the nature of evidence, of the vagaries of memory (both that of his witnesses and
of his own as an historian) of the reliability of witnesses, the need for the historian to make a
judgement about that reliability. There is also a ready acknowledgement that memory and
evidence is contested, ‘depending on their sympathies and memories’. Thucydides takes
licence with evidence, reporting what the speakers ‘needed to say,’ but he is quite open about
his processes and clearly keeps to the ‘gist’ of the actualite.
This sophistication also explains, perhaps, why he has been preferred to Herodotus by
historians writing in the last century or so. Thucydides apparently ignores the supernatural,
preferring to focus on the earthbound forces of politics. No doubt that he squeezes the moment
for all its dramatic juices but it is still rooted in the notion of historical phenomenon as rational
and explicable by the human senses. There is not a ‘gold-digging ant’ (as is the case with
Herodotus) in sight and likewise none of his historical players is goat-footed or performs
monumental feats of supernatural strength or endurance. At the same time, there are no causal
links made between human and natural disasters, man-made war and earthquakes, drought,
famines or eclipse – rarely, if at all, are they raised as a portent of things to come or as occurring
in direct consequence or as punishment for human folly. In classical times, gods wage wars of
favour, taking the side of this people or that City. Humans are often at the mercy of these gods
and they run the affairs of mortals at a collective whim. By the time we get to Thucydides,
however, the gods had been more or less expelled from human affairs. Indeed some have
suggested that the originality of Thucydides lies in the very fact that he attempts to gather all
human action within the realm of what is humanly possible. In this respect he has been
regarded as the first modern, objective, rational historian who has little time for myths, oracles or
for gods as prime movers in history.
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