Greek Historiography

Abstract

The writing of history in ancient Greece, an activity which occurred over a period of one thousand years (500 bce–500 ce), is a subject of great interest to modern scholars for a number of reasons. First, the very term “history” derives from the Greek word historiê (“inquiry”) which Herodotus uses to describe his work, and the subject of historical inquiry decided upon by Herodotus and his successor Thucydides—description and explanation of political and military events in the past—remained standard for many centuries. Though the fundamental differences between the activity, methodology, and expectations of the ancient Greek historians and ourselves has been increasingly highlighted in recent years, we are still in many ways the inheritors of their achievement. Secondly, the writings of the Greek historians represent one of the basic sources of our knowledge of what happened in the ancient world. As with any historical document, then, it is important for scholars to examine the nature of this evidence and the circumstances of its production. Finally, Greek historians aimed both to relate the past and to produce works of literary merit. While some have been reluctant to admit this fact, it is no longer a controversial claim, and scholars have largely moved past arguments over whether Greek historians were writing history or fiction and begun to apply techniques of literary analysis to their works. Of course, this recognition has raised questions about whether some notions central to modern historical writing—truth, accuracy, proper use of sources—operated in the same way in ancient Greek historiography. As with any field of study, the shape of scholarship has been determined by the available evidence. We can examine the texts of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon in their entirety; for other authors we have substantial amounts of continuous narrative (Polybius, Dionysius, Arrian, and others). The last three decades have seen increasing work on the hundreds of Greek historians whose works are known only in fragmentary form, through the quotations, paraphrases, and references in later, extant authors; and more attention has been given to the methodological difficulties posed by the nature of this evidence. The loss of so much historical writing contributes to the ongoing debates over the origins of Greek historiography, its development through the centuries, its essential nature and methodology, and its relationship to other forms of literary production.