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Herodotus | Thucydides
Contents:
The History of Herodotus
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
The History of Herodotus
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
616 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1952
18 people are currently reading
203 people want to read
About the author
Herodotus
1,657 books786 followersHerodotus (Greek: Ηρόδοτος) (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He has been described as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information.
Herodotus has been criticized for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides accused him of making up stories for entertainment. However, Herodotus explained that he reported what he could see and was told. A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists.
The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information.
Herodotus has been criticized for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides accused him of making up stories for entertainment. However, Herodotus explained that he reported what he could see and was told. A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 25, 2018
I read this (Thucydides's account of the Peloponnesian War) for the first time, some 20 years after having been taught it in school. Ironically, the goal was to teach an engaging, one-off class of around 40 minutes, to 50 High School students. I say "ironically", because the Peloponnesian War is one of the most notoriously boring subjects for Greek High School students, at the very least since the 60s.
Furthermore, the point was to approach the subject, not as a teacher, but as a storyteller. Let me tell you, it was not easy.
Let us get one thing out of the way: students are quite rightly bored by this subject and the reason for that is its very importance: it is a detailed, objective and near-exhaustive chronicle of a war that took place around 2500 years ago. Not a very riveting read.
So why should they care? Why should we? Well, the very reason is that it set the foundations for impartial historical accounts (you know how history is written by the victors? Well, Thucydides was on the losing side - that of Athens - and at the time in exile for 20 years!), but even more importantly, it clearly illustrates the model for almost every war ever since: war is fought for profit, the trigger is usually something almost unrelated, or even fabricated and the fate of whole populations depends on the whims and decisions of a handful of men - and often, not the best men.
The story of the Peloponnesian War is the story of all wars; clear, concise and arguably as impartial as can be. If we ever endeavored to learn from the past, it's all laid out there, clear as day.
Furthermore, the point was to approach the subject, not as a teacher, but as a storyteller. Let me tell you, it was not easy.
Let us get one thing out of the way: students are quite rightly bored by this subject and the reason for that is its very importance: it is a detailed, objective and near-exhaustive chronicle of a war that took place around 2500 years ago. Not a very riveting read.
So why should they care? Why should we? Well, the very reason is that it set the foundations for impartial historical accounts (you know how history is written by the victors? Well, Thucydides was on the losing side - that of Athens - and at the time in exile for 20 years!), but even more importantly, it clearly illustrates the model for almost every war ever since: war is fought for profit, the trigger is usually something almost unrelated, or even fabricated and the fate of whole populations depends on the whims and decisions of a handful of men - and often, not the best men.
The story of the Peloponnesian War is the story of all wars; clear, concise and arguably as impartial as can be. If we ever endeavored to learn from the past, it's all laid out there, clear as day.
May 17, 2016
I presume most people who have read both of these classic histories favor Herodotus over Thucydides, and I now fall into that camp as well. That's not to say Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is bad, of course, but it is not nearly as expansive as Herodotus (and, well, it is a lot drier).
I didn't comprehend the title of Herodotus' work until quite a ways into it: it's not truly "History of the Persian War" - that seems to be some poor editorial work over the years (or perhaps good advertisement, upon further consideration). It's really just his "History." It's more or less the history of the mighty nations of the world (Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Persia) up to and then, almost as an extended postscript, the war between Persia and Greece. The war doesn't really get going until about 2/3s of the way into the work. At times, though, one doubts Herodotus' veracity, especially if your edition has editorial notes about how Herodotus is clearly wrong (or sometimes likely guessing when he's purporting experiential authority) - so a veneer of skepticism may prevail upon modern readers (unlike, say, Victorian readers). Still, though, it's a grand story that certainly bears rereading, and not just to try to grasp these many historical personages. It's remarkable how much has been made over such brief episodes: Thermopylae, Marathon, Salamis - they are hardly paraded by Herodotus as the most memorable historical lessons to be learned, but somehow they have become such. His treatment of Darius is likewise perplexing: he is both a tremendous villain and a mighty visionary, at times simultaneously. Plus, so many asides, anecdotes, and episodes of history only come from this book (veritable or not). Definitely a must-read, even without the Persian War sections.
Thucydides, as intimated above, is much drier, more text-book like, and not nearly as didactic as many would have you believe (though he does occasionally comment on a few events). Thucydides does a decent job (not that I have anything to compare against) presenting the Athenians as basically culpable for the war, even though most of us likely go into it thinking "naturally, the warlike Spartans are the villains." Similarly with Herodotus, some of the famous bits/people are really only extended cameos (which makes more sense upon actually reading the thing instead of reading about the thing, since he covers over twenty years of conflict) - Pericles' famous funeral oration is truly his brief shining moment in this history. Alcibiades, likewise, shows up, disappears, shows up again, and basically the story is done. It's a worthwhile read, unquestionably, for all human beings interested in the world and humanity, but it is a bit of a challenge (especially if the translation is somewhat archaic like in this series, an admittedly odd thing to say about a work more than 10x older than my country). This would make a great maxi-series, that's for sure.
I didn't comprehend the title of Herodotus' work until quite a ways into it: it's not truly "History of the Persian War" - that seems to be some poor editorial work over the years (or perhaps good advertisement, upon further consideration). It's really just his "History." It's more or less the history of the mighty nations of the world (Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Persia) up to and then, almost as an extended postscript, the war between Persia and Greece. The war doesn't really get going until about 2/3s of the way into the work. At times, though, one doubts Herodotus' veracity, especially if your edition has editorial notes about how Herodotus is clearly wrong (or sometimes likely guessing when he's purporting experiential authority) - so a veneer of skepticism may prevail upon modern readers (unlike, say, Victorian readers). Still, though, it's a grand story that certainly bears rereading, and not just to try to grasp these many historical personages. It's remarkable how much has been made over such brief episodes: Thermopylae, Marathon, Salamis - they are hardly paraded by Herodotus as the most memorable historical lessons to be learned, but somehow they have become such. His treatment of Darius is likewise perplexing: he is both a tremendous villain and a mighty visionary, at times simultaneously. Plus, so many asides, anecdotes, and episodes of history only come from this book (veritable or not). Definitely a must-read, even without the Persian War sections.
Thucydides, as intimated above, is much drier, more text-book like, and not nearly as didactic as many would have you believe (though he does occasionally comment on a few events). Thucydides does a decent job (not that I have anything to compare against) presenting the Athenians as basically culpable for the war, even though most of us likely go into it thinking "naturally, the warlike Spartans are the villains." Similarly with Herodotus, some of the famous bits/people are really only extended cameos (which makes more sense upon actually reading the thing instead of reading about the thing, since he covers over twenty years of conflict) - Pericles' famous funeral oration is truly his brief shining moment in this history. Alcibiades, likewise, shows up, disappears, shows up again, and basically the story is done. It's a worthwhile read, unquestionably, for all human beings interested in the world and humanity, but it is a bit of a challenge (especially if the translation is somewhat archaic like in this series, an admittedly odd thing to say about a work more than 10x older than my country). This would make a great maxi-series, that's for sure.
July 27, 2013
These two classics establish the poles between which all subsequent history-writing has navigated.
This review will focus on Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, since I have already reviewed The Histories of Herodotus separately.
The "poles" I referred to above are the storytelling approach exemplified by Herodotus and the "chronicle" approach exemplified by Thucydides. For while Herodotus tells his history as a series of yarns, hearsay, and human-interest stories, Thucydides sees himself as a searcher for and reporter of literal, factual truth. Thucydides himself is conscious of the disadvantage that this approach puts him under, as he explains near the end of chapter 1:
I wonder whether Thucydides, writing in the 5th century BC, in using the phrase "a possession for all time", imagined that his work would still be read 2,500 years later.
His history is an account of the Peloponnesian War, a grim 21-year conflagration that consumed Greece in Thucydides' own lifetime; indeed he himself took part in it as a commander of forces at Thasos. This war, though long and brutal, may seem to be a mere byway of ancient history, but I took interest in it because Arnold J. Toynbee, in his A Study of History series, identifies it as the turning-point of the Hellenic Civilization, when its period of flourishing ended and its Time of Troubles began. Here, according to Toynbee, began its long and bumpy ride downward to its final dissolution as a distinct civilization, manifested in the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. If the Peloponnesian War really was the beginning of the end for the Hellenic civilization, could the Greeks somehow have pulled themselves back from the precipice and found a way to inject new creative life into their society?
The war itself was about which of the two dominant states in Greece, Athens or Lacedaemon on the Peloponnese, would be masters of Hellas. In the days since the Greeks had miraculously fought off the invading Persians (the story told by Herodotus in his book), Athens and Lacedaemon had both acquired little empires for themselves within Greece: leagues of subordinate states that paid tribute to the hegemons and joined with them in military alliances. But running these teams of "allies" was like herding cats, for the member states were always fighting amongst themselves and switching sides when it seemed convenient.
As I read Thucydides' description of the causes of the war in chapter 2, I was reminded of the events leading up to World War I in the sense that such seemingly trivial beginnings led to such a ferocious catastrophe. In this case it had to do with the civic politics of Epidamnus and Corcyra (modern Corfu), two states on the Ionian Sea. Internecine conflicts dragged in their imperial masters, and hey presto: regional war. Athens and Lacedaemon make repeated attempts to resolve their differences, and even sign more than one peace treaty, but all to no avail. At bottom, they both think they can win, so war it must be.
As a read I found this book tough going. There are many detailed and circumstantial accounts of particular episodes in the long war, involving many different places and people. To follow these in detail would require vastly more time and effort than I was prepared to put in. Occasionally I referred to the maps at the back of the book, but mostly I just let the information wash over me, sitting up straighter as I reached passages where the author summarizes things and also where he reports the speeches of various characters involved, for here could be found a number of powerful arguments on different aspects of politics and war. Thucydides describes his own handling of speeches thus:
One famous dialogue occurs when the powerful Athenians are trying to persuade the much weaker Melians to surrender to them without a fight. When the Melians point out the injustice of the Athenians' actions, the Athenians give this chilling reply:
There in capsule form lies the political theory that underlies just about all of human history.
As a writer Thucydides is sober, astute, and understated. His goal is not to tell a captivating story, but to provide, for people who have not actually participated in this war, the next best thing to being there. His prose reads like a long military report, including signs of special interest and eagerness over the tactical details of specific engagements.
Here again I found myself flummoxed by the star-rating system. For while this book was not pleasure reading for me, I found it to be deep and worthwhile. My impression is that societies become prone to war when they become rich, bored, and lacking in intellectual vigor. It was true 2,500 years ago, and it's true right now.
This review will focus on Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, since I have already reviewed The Histories of Herodotus separately.
The "poles" I referred to above are the storytelling approach exemplified by Herodotus and the "chronicle" approach exemplified by Thucydides. For while Herodotus tells his history as a series of yarns, hearsay, and human-interest stories, Thucydides sees himself as a searcher for and reporter of literal, factual truth. Thucydides himself is conscious of the disadvantage that this approach puts him under, as he explains near the end of chapter 1:
The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.
I wonder whether Thucydides, writing in the 5th century BC, in using the phrase "a possession for all time", imagined that his work would still be read 2,500 years later.
His history is an account of the Peloponnesian War, a grim 21-year conflagration that consumed Greece in Thucydides' own lifetime; indeed he himself took part in it as a commander of forces at Thasos. This war, though long and brutal, may seem to be a mere byway of ancient history, but I took interest in it because Arnold J. Toynbee, in his A Study of History series, identifies it as the turning-point of the Hellenic Civilization, when its period of flourishing ended and its Time of Troubles began. Here, according to Toynbee, began its long and bumpy ride downward to its final dissolution as a distinct civilization, manifested in the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. If the Peloponnesian War really was the beginning of the end for the Hellenic civilization, could the Greeks somehow have pulled themselves back from the precipice and found a way to inject new creative life into their society?
The war itself was about which of the two dominant states in Greece, Athens or Lacedaemon on the Peloponnese, would be masters of Hellas. In the days since the Greeks had miraculously fought off the invading Persians (the story told by Herodotus in his book), Athens and Lacedaemon had both acquired little empires for themselves within Greece: leagues of subordinate states that paid tribute to the hegemons and joined with them in military alliances. But running these teams of "allies" was like herding cats, for the member states were always fighting amongst themselves and switching sides when it seemed convenient.
As I read Thucydides' description of the causes of the war in chapter 2, I was reminded of the events leading up to World War I in the sense that such seemingly trivial beginnings led to such a ferocious catastrophe. In this case it had to do with the civic politics of Epidamnus and Corcyra (modern Corfu), two states on the Ionian Sea. Internecine conflicts dragged in their imperial masters, and hey presto: regional war. Athens and Lacedaemon make repeated attempts to resolve their differences, and even sign more than one peace treaty, but all to no avail. At bottom, they both think they can win, so war it must be.
As a read I found this book tough going. There are many detailed and circumstantial accounts of particular episodes in the long war, involving many different places and people. To follow these in detail would require vastly more time and effort than I was prepared to put in. Occasionally I referred to the maps at the back of the book, but mostly I just let the information wash over me, sitting up straighter as I reached passages where the author summarizes things and also where he reports the speeches of various characters involved, for here could be found a number of powerful arguments on different aspects of politics and war. Thucydides describes his own handling of speeches thus:
With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the war; some I heard myself, others I got from various quarters; in all cases my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said. [slightly compressed]
One famous dialogue occurs when the powerful Athenians are trying to persuade the much weaker Melians to surrender to them without a fight. When the Melians point out the injustice of the Athenians' actions, the Athenians give this chilling reply:
You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
There in capsule form lies the political theory that underlies just about all of human history.
As a writer Thucydides is sober, astute, and understated. His goal is not to tell a captivating story, but to provide, for people who have not actually participated in this war, the next best thing to being there. His prose reads like a long military report, including signs of special interest and eagerness over the tactical details of specific engagements.
Here again I found myself flummoxed by the star-rating system. For while this book was not pleasure reading for me, I found it to be deep and worthwhile. My impression is that societies become prone to war when they become rich, bored, and lacking in intellectual vigor. It was true 2,500 years ago, and it's true right now.
September 5, 2014
I appreciated both Herodotus and Thucydides, but I imagine the reading will be monotonous to those who do not have a taste for history or ancient wars. Herodotus covers a good deal of culture and the interrelations between people and countries while often allowing himself to be sidetracked with interesting (if not so relevant) side notes, whereas Thucydides relates the Peloponnesian War with attention to the most important events, speeches, and persons involved without going into even a quarter of the number of rabbit trails that Herodotus did.
I enjoyed this particular translation a great deal — the other translations that I found online to use for quotes all too frequently fell short of the clear, engaging wording from this edition.
Though I would suggest either book to history lovers, I would warn younger audiences away from Herodotus, who seems to have quite the interest in the taboo. The opening section of the book contains the story of a ruler who forced one of his subordinates to watch his wife undress, which gives a fair idea of what to expect further into the History.
Thucydides wrote a much more purposeful History, though that made him sound a little dry after Herodotus. Thucydides gave a direct overview of the war between the Greeks and the Athenians, and it is hard to doubt his relation of the facts because he appears to give an unbiased description of what occurred on both sides of the war. Herodotus painted a more vivid picture, but Thucydides grounded his work in the chiefest facts he had available to him. To quote Thucydides:
"And with reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time."
I enjoyed this particular translation a great deal — the other translations that I found online to use for quotes all too frequently fell short of the clear, engaging wording from this edition.
Though I would suggest either book to history lovers, I would warn younger audiences away from Herodotus, who seems to have quite the interest in the taboo. The opening section of the book contains the story of a ruler who forced one of his subordinates to watch his wife undress, which gives a fair idea of what to expect further into the History.
Thucydides wrote a much more purposeful History, though that made him sound a little dry after Herodotus. Thucydides gave a direct overview of the war between the Greeks and the Athenians, and it is hard to doubt his relation of the facts because he appears to give an unbiased description of what occurred on both sides of the war. Herodotus painted a more vivid picture, but Thucydides grounded his work in the chiefest facts he had available to him. To quote Thucydides:
"And with reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time."
August 9, 2016
I surprised myself by really liking Herodotus. I assumed he would be dry and boring but it wasn't. I learned a ton about the ancient world, especially the Persian War. I listened to the Great Course on Herodotus and that really added to my enjoyment by providing historical context and analysis. I liked learning about how it influenced other works and what scholars debate about what is true from his work.
November 19, 2018
9 books of Herodotus’ History of the ancient world, followed by 8 books of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War all compressed into one book with fine print and two columns per page made for some dense reading. It is amazing how much we can learn from ancient history and how many things humans had already been through that they tend to repeat again.
August 18, 2019
Herodotus threw in everything but the kitchen sink in his history often deviating from the Persian Wars to describe distant landscapes and peoples. Thucydides was more focused and organized in his history of the Peloponnesian Wars which I found more enjoyable to read.
November 20, 2012
Herodotus has the more interesting stories and fables. Thucydides is the more factual true historian, but is dry and boring.
December 16, 2012
First attempts at writing true history. Important on many levels and an introduction to the historical process.
November 7, 2016
The real history as told by the two ancient historians.
I just need to take the time to read this again.
I just need to take the time to read this again.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews