The Roman Historians
The Greek Antecedents and
models
What is History
According to the Greeks:
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historia - Greek term defined as:
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a) a learning by inquiry; knowledge or
information obtained by inquiry; b) a
narration of what one has learnt, historical
narrative (Ancient Greek Dictionary –
Lidell and Scott)
Modern Definitions of History
A science or an answering of questions
concerned with human actions in the past
 An account of events of the past; a
written text that contains the
reconstruction of past events
 the study and interpretation of the record
of human societies
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How does History proceed:
By the interpretation of evidence
 Evidence such as documents and material
evidence
 Documents – in a variety of forms
(Documents that exist here and now)
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Cicero on the purpose of
historia
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“To be ignorant of what happened before
your birth is to remain always a child. For
what is the meaning of a man’s life unless
it is intertwined with that of our ancestors
by the memory of history.” (Cicero, Orator
120, tr. Hubbell (Loeb))
The Idea of History as it belongs to
our own time
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History is a science or an answering of questions
concerned with human actions in the past
pursued by interpretation of evidence
pursued for the sake of human self-knowledge
History is about change and continuity
Essential for human beings since it provides the
link between the past, present, and future.
Historiography
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Both the writing of history and the study
of historical writing
The Greaco-Roman World
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Roman culture influenced by Greek culture from
its earliest days (Hellenization)
Wave 1: Via Etruscans and Greek colonists;
through trade with Greece,
Wave 2: Conquest of Greek city states in Italy
and Sicily; Conquest of Greek East
Influx of Greek slaves – during conquest many
Greek intellectuals brought to Rome as teachers
for the children of prominent/wealthy Romans
Greek education in rhetoric, philosophy,
literature, art, etc, and fluency in Greek became
essential for Roman elite
Cultures of Ancient Italy
The Ancient Mediterranean World
Emergence of Greek Historiography
Beginning of Greek literature: 8th century
BCE Homeric epics (traditional date of
founding of Rome)
 Homer: The Iliad and The Odyssey
 Written versions of traditional stories
transmitted orally for centuries
 Written down ca. 500 years after events
 Didactic poetry: transmitting cultural
values, traditions
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Homeric epics
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The Iliad: setting war – Greek expedition against Troy (cause Helen,
wife of Menelaos, went with Paris to Troy)
Reflects world of aristocrats, heroes, gods
Language elevated, reverent, solemn – not everyday language
Heroic history – not concerned with ordinary people or collective
human fate
The Odyssey – belongs to stories about the returns of heroes
(Odysseus) from Troy, set in peace time
Focus on family values, household, includes pictures of every-day
life in archaic world, economy, trade, etc
Not history in modern sense but represented history and traditions
for the ancient Greeks and Romans
Purpose: transmitted cultural values, traditions, cultural identity
Homeric audience
Everyone in the village - aristocrats and
ordinary people
 Form of escapism: audience did not want
to be reminded of their own (miserable)
daily life
 Wanted to be entertained, inspired and
excited,
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Homer and the Romans
Homeric Epics central to basic education
of Greeks and Romans
 Roman foundation legends was connected
to the cycle of Trojan myths: Aeneas, the
founder of the Roman race was a Trojan
refugee
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Ancient and Modern Perception of
Homeric Epics
Ancient perception: – timeless ideals and virtues
taught by heroes of the past
 Past consisted of grand heroic deeds and divine
actions
 Modern perception: - Homeric period – as a
blend of Mycenaean age with Greek Dark Ages
and the Archaic period, provides information
about values, customs, trade relations, military
expeditions, plunder, strategies of war, social
hierarchies, household structures, and more
 modern perceptions and concepts would have
been totally alien to Homeric audiences.
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Hesiod ca. 700 BCE
Works: Theogony; Works and Days
 Theogony: a genealogy of the gods from the
creation of the universe to the present reign of
the Olympian gods; inspired literature
 Works and Days: Form of didactic, moralistic
poem and farmer’s almanac – all in one,
 contains advice on farming, when to take a wife,
how to be just etc.,
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Hesiod’s Theogony
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Includes view of a collective human past: 5 Ages of
Man:
1. Golden Age (man was godlike, no care, no suffering,
no toils)
2. Silver Age (cruelty, passion for war,)
3. Bronze Age (worse, extremely strong people wasted
lives in warfare);
4. Age of heroes (noble humans and demi gods,
destroyed themselves in wars – Trojan War);
5. Iron Age ( present time of ordinary people, misery,
injustice, no kindness, aging and death)
Hesiod and the Romans
The idea of a collective human past in
terms of a decline from Golden Age to
present became a prominent theme in
Roman historiography
 Romans did not include the Heroic Age
 Romans adopted and adapted tradition of
Greek myths
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External Changes that influenced
Greek Historiography
After 800 BCE development of Greek poleis
(sing. polis) – independent city states
(autonomous urban centers with own territory)
 Political organization of city states varied:
Athens – developed into a democracy, others
had a tyrant, oligarchy, monarchy, etc.
 Colonization – founding of new city states
throughout the Mediterranean world including
Italy and Black sea cost.
 Contacts with other cultures influenced Greek
poetry, art, philosophy
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The Ionian
Intellectual Revolution
Ca. 6th century BCE in Ionia, Asia Minor
Began with Thales of Miletus continued by others
Sought rational explanations for natural phenomena;
Explored: 1. The origins of the universe, 2. basic
substance all things were made from 3. the
transformation of basic substance into variety of things
in the cosmos
Scientific explanations of cosmos replaced
anthropomorphic structure of physical world, i.e. Zeus –
sky god, etc.,
Focus was on physical cosmos not on human
phenomena
The Ionians
Subsequent Ionian philosophers also
investigated geography and ethnography
 Changed Greek views about space and
time
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Sophist movement
 4th
century BCE the age of Socrates and
Plato, turned philosophers’ interests to
problems of human existence
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The political and intellectual developments
had far-reaching impact on Greek History
writing
The First Greek Historians
Hecataeus of Miletus ca. 500 B.C.
 Works: Journey round the World
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Genealogies
Hellanicus of Lesbos, late 5th century
 Herodotus of Halicarnassus c 490/480429/5 B.C. The Histories
 Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian
War c. 460/55-399/8
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Hecataeus of Miletus
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Only fragments survived
Shaped understanding of Geography of his time
Evidence suggests that he tried to link age of
humans with mythical age by constructing
sequence of ‘generations’.
New concept of continuous time
Link to past established in human terms
Resulted in tradition of looking for divine/semidivine ancestors for cities and families
Continued tradition in Roman period (the Julian
family–divine ancestry – Venus mother of
Aeneas)
Hecataeus and the gods
He did not deny the gods and heroes but
reduced the mythical tradition to human
experience:
 “I wrote about that in the way it seems to
me to be true; because what the Greeks
tell about the mythic tradition varies quite
a bit and is, it appears to me, laughable.”
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Hellanicus of Lesbos
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Late 5th century –
Important contribution: applied ‘generations’ count
to establish date for fall of Troy ; placed it around
1240 BCE;
Proposed new method for dating events: use of
office holders and victors at games
Result: other lists followed: Olympic victors;
Spartans dated based on office of ephors,
Romans followed tradition – dating by consulships
But no universal dating – type varied from place and
author
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
490/480-429/5 B.C.
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The Histories – concerned with the Persian
Wars
 Broad approach that includes much ethnography
(origins and customs of different peoples) and
geography
 In his inquiry into how Greeks and Persians
came into conflict he includes many sections
that appear to be digressions as far away as
Egypt, Arabia and India. In the end, however,
he unifies all of these sections in his History of
the Persian Wars.
Herodotus: War and Gods
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Herodotus recounts period of Persian War –
Greek victory and glory
War itself is not glorified as in Homer
War is a collective experience of ordinary people
– invited questions such as why, when, etc.,
(causation)
Gods still have prominent position but rarely
intervene in human affairs
Gods only became angry when provoked by
hybris (arrogance, excessive pride)
Otherwise gods are silent, do not intervene
Herodotus and causation
Human beings seem to shape their own
lives
 Generally: not the gods cause doom but
human weaknesses (hybris; greed, etc.)
i.d. example of king Croesus’ downfall is
caused by his hybris
 Some confusion remains about human
decisions, human fate, and divine
judgments.
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Herodotus – and causation
Gives as causes for war – man’s hybris which
provoked the disastrous outcome for the
Persians by angering the gods, scheming exiles
(Athenians ex-tyrant Pisistratus) in Persian
court; false oracles, hope for booty, revenge for
Athen’s support of Ionian revolt and many other
reasons
 Even if gods became angry - it was
nevertheless due to human actions
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Dating in Herodotus
No systematic scheme. Each segment
(Egypt, Greece, Persia, etc.,) had its own
timing scheme
 Chronology becomes more systematic
when he talks about Ionian revolt and
subsequent events – more recent events
in Greek history – closer to his own days.
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Thucydides
c. 460/55-399/8
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Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian
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Writes about the conflict between Sparta
and her allies and Athens and her Allies;
describes Athens growth from leader of
alliance against Persians after Persian
Wars into tyrannical empire and its final
defeat.
War
Thucydides and Causation
Introduced distinction between immediate
causes (quarrel between Corinth and
Corcyra over Epidamnus) and underlying
causes (Spartan fear of growing Athenian
Power):
 In his view, the Athenians were driven by
the basic human obsession with
dominating others
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Thucydides and causation
Gives as causes a combination of human nature
and chance (idea of right or wrong person at a
particular point in time or event)
 View of human nature: very grim - exposed
under stress, illustrated by his description of the
plague at Athens and the civil war in Corcyra
(cultural veneer such as customs, laws, respect
for gods and fellow human beings falls away)
 Passions such as greed, obsession with power,
vanity, etc –are particularly dangerous in
demagogues (leaders of people)
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The nature of Thucydides’ history
Analytical and narrative history
 Analytical: exploration of (constants)
general patterns (i.e. human nature,
human behaviour)
 Narrative: exploration of interrelationships
between particular events.
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Style
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Herodotus and Thucydides wrote in prose
Herodotus was still entertaining enough to be
successfully recited like the poets (Homer)
Thucydides tells audience that he does not
want to please his audience with entertaining
stories.
Both continue to use speeches –
characteristic of Homeric Epics
Tradition continued in Roman historiography
Purpose
Homer: to tell of the wrath of Achilles and
the consequences,
 Herodotus: to preserve memory of past by
recording the astonishing achievements of
the Greeks and Persians, also to inspire,
inform, entertain. Also includes stories
that teach about proper conduct. Broad
approach to past.
 Thucydides: narrowly focused (polis),
contemporary analytical history
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Public reception
Homer – powerful held influence for centuries,
recited, rhythmic, loved by audiences
 Co-existed with Herodotus and Thucydides as
version of the past
 Herodotus still more traditional narrative –
popular with wider audience – pleasing to be
recited
 Thucydides’ history – like Greek cosmology and
philosophy not popular with wider audiences,
limited to small educated elite.
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