Compare And Contrast Herodotus And Thucydides

Herodotus and Thucydides are the first Greek historians credited for documenting history. Not only are Herodotus and Thucydides credited for writing the first accounts of ancient Greek history, but they each shaped the future of historical writing in their own unique ways. The Peloponnesian and Persian wars were both important conflicts that focused on independence. Herodotus earned the designation “The Father of History” because before his writings, the Greeks had no word for history in terms of writing a narration of past events in prose. He has been anointed as the world’s first Western historian. Herodotus’s book The Histories, a record of his inquiries into the events of the conflict between the Persian Empire and Ancient Greeks; is …show more content…
However, they both differed in the way they wrote history. An example of this is Thucydides made a focused effort to giving us an un-biased account of events. By this he contrasts himself to Herodotus. Although Herodotus made an effort to get exact information, he ultimately mixed historical events with mythology, fables, gossip and events he could not have known about. Herodotus was focused more on telling an “interesting” story. Thucydides on the other hand used factual reports of contemporary political and military events, based on unambiguous, first-hand, eyewitness accounts. Herodotus viewed history as a source of moral lessons, with conflicts and wars as misfortunes flowing from initial acts of injustice sustained through cycles of revenge. In contrast, Thucydides viewed history in terms of political history. Unlike Herodotus, moral lessons played no role in Thucydides analysis of political events. They also differed in the way they revealed their sources. Herodotus was open to revealing his sources, while Thucydides was not. One similarity between both historians is that they both quoted long speeches in their writings. However, the speeches Thucydides quoted he actually heard first hand, or got as close as possible to the general sense of what was said. This contrasts with Herodotus whose speeches were often made up. Thucydides style of recording history was focused more on the Greek world and political power. Herodotus’ style of writing was focused on preserving the memory by recording the achievements and portraying how the Greeks and Persians came into conflict. Herodotus’ The Histories, was more of a history of the events during Persian War, as opposed to Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War which, was more of a contemporary record of the events of the Peloponnesian