Antique historiography

Antique historiography consists of ancient Greek historiography and ancient Roman (Latin) historiography, determined mainly by the languages ​​of historical monuments.

Ancient Greek historiography

European historiography owes its origin to the Greeks. The beginnings of Hellenic historiography present, in addition to the records of the legendary poetic traditions, lists of Olympic athletes from 776 BC. e., the annals of the priests Simon and Argos, the Spartan kings and Corinth princes, records of important local events, treaties, unions, etc.

Greek historiography at the so-called logographers, most of whom were Ionians, became at the highest level. Logographers initially stated in the poetic prose theogony and cosmogony, the genealogy of heroes and prominent figures, but then they began to tell also Hellenic and foreign events. Cadmus of Miletus is considered the first of the logographers. He traveled a lot, knew modernity very well, a little skeptic and euhemerist in relation to myths Hekatei of Miletus - the most significant of them, and Gellanic represents already a transition to pure history.

The brilliant era of Hellenic historiography begins with Herodotus , the “father of history”, striving for truthfulness, but in many ways still childishly naive historian of Hellas and barbarians. He is the ancestor and one of the most prominent representatives of the antique, written for the people, and not for the few chosen ones of art history, with its excellent presentation, picturesque paintings, dramatic episodes and conversations inserted into the story. The later Greek historians complicated Herodotus' naive worldview and gave way to political tendentiousness, but the way of presentation remained the same even for Thucydides , a thoughtful politician and one of the most true historians. His "Peloponnesian War", in good faith in the collection of materials, fidelity of judgments, the height of thought and distinct characteristics, is still an exemplary work. This is the first pragmatic story in which psychological analysis replaces the fate (Nemesis) of Herodotus. The versatile Xenophon continued the work of Thucydides, setting out his material easily and clearly, but not without partiality. He is more Spartan than Athenian, more didactic than historian, less politician than strategist.

Of the subsequent historians, the school of Herodotus belonged to Ctesias , Efor, and partly Theopomp , and the school of Thucydides - the Syracusan Philist . These historians are already affected by the influence of the rhetorical school, mainly Isocrates . They try to impress with a skillful grouping of events and a rhetorical brilliance at the same time they left the national soil and were replaced by a general historical one.

The epoch of Alexander the Great and the great conquests in the East brought revival to historiography, on the one hand, by expanding the circle of knowledge, mainly geographical, and, on the other, by arousing interest in local antiquities. The mass of writers began to develop the traditions of individual peoples and countries, others took up the historical processing of the events experienced by them, within the narrow limits of their homeland, others took up the story of the exploits of the Hellenes in the far East. Finally, attempts were made to process all the historical material that had piled up. The influence of rhetoric and recitation spoils most of these works, especially the exploits of Alexander, seemed too romantic: in the history of contemporaries, direct inconsistencies and fictions were conveyed, along with jokes and gossip.

Researchers of local antiquity are given the so-called atphidographs engaged in chronological research (the main ones are Clidem , Dimon , Filochor and Istres ). According to the history of Alexander and the Hellenistic states - Anaximenes , Kallisfen and Klitarch , as well as general writers Ptolemy Lag and Nearch . Of the general historians, they are remarkable: Timaeus , subjective, sometimes tendentious and slightly critical, but a very learned author of the history of the Greeks, mainly Western, brought to 264 BC. e., and Philarch , with a mass of derogations outlined the history of events until the death of Cleomenes in 220 BC. e. For the first time at this time, the field of more scientific history and the "barbarians" - Beros and Manetho appeared . Both of them, according to temple records, outlined in Greek the history of their homelands.

Polybius , perhaps the greatest Greek historian, writing in graceful language, devoid of artistic talent, but truthful, conscientious, accurate and determined, a pragmatist, always having in mind cause and effect, with great critical talent and completely free from the time of the fall of Greek independence, empty rhetoric. He is well acquainted with the literature of the subject, where possible - draws his information from documentary sources and uses the observations of a politician accumulated over many years in the discussion of facts. Polybius is the first of the Greek historians whose main interest is the fate of Rome.

After some stagnation in Greek historiography, during which only the continuer Polybius, the versatile Posidonius , was issued, historiography again revives in the first century of the empire. The learned geographer-historian Strabo , Diodorus of Sicily , appears in his compilation, who wanted to acquaint the Romans with the history of the world under his control, Nicholas of Damascus and the tendentious extoller of ancient Rome - Dionysius of Halicarnassus . The best times of Hellenic historiography were recalled by Plutarch , who had resurrected in his biographies the poetic spirit of ancient Hellas. Around the same time, the learned Jew Josephus Flavius left works in Greek about antiquities and the fall of his people. A little later, the versatile and thorough Arrian , the conscientious imitator of Xenophon , Appian , who set out the ethnographic history of the Roman Empire, Dion Cassius , in the enormous general history of Rome, wanted to imitate Thucydides and Polybius, who submitted, especially for his close time, almost one story of wars and court scandals, finally, Pausanias , who compiled an antique description of contemporary Hellas. Herodian is the last worthy representative of pre-Christian Greek historiography from the time of Marcus Aurelius to Gordian III.

Ancient Roman historiography

The rudiments of historiography among the Romans were the annals of pontiffs, city and family chronicles, magistrate lists and other initial records of historical facts. All these monuments gave only dry lists of remarkable events and phenomena, without internal communication and literary processing. Only from the time of the Punic Wars did attempts to independently process historical material began to appear, primarily in the form of annals (annals) and notes. The first of the annalists knew Greek historians. Fabius Pictor and other authors even wrote in Greek, but their presentation method is still very imperfect, they do not know critics of the news, the only connection between the facts is chronological. Above all of them is Mark Portius Cato Sr .. In his work , setting out the history of the city from its foundation to the time of the author, the method in the study was already affected, and the presentation was coherent. Literature of historical notes developed simultaneously with the annals. And here, initially, many, due to the lack of development of the Latin language, wrote in Greek. These autobiographies are mostly written awkwardly, dryly, without literary talent. Only the memoirs of Lucius Cornelius Sulla , completed by the scholarly freedman of the dictator Epicad, are noteworthy .

The 7th century from the founding of Rome was the heyday of Roman historiography. The method and art of exposition mastered by the Greeks were used by Titus Pomponius Atticus and Cornelius Nepot . Gaius Julius Caesar reached the highest level of perfection in his Commentaries, in which the artless simplicity of presentation is combined with plastic clarity. Drawing a completely impartial (with very few exceptions) picture of the events in which he participated himself, Caesar was able, thanks to a subtle psychological analysis, to give his notes a logical completeness. The psychological pragmatism of Guy Sallust Crispus resembles that of Thucydides. With his slightly archaic language, Sallust, with extraordinary contraction, conveys the inner meaning of events, gives brilliant characteristics, clearly and vividly draws cultural pictures. Some resemblance to him is represented by Guy Asinius Pollion , a historian of Roman civil wars.

With the advent of the monarchy, freedom of expression in Roman historiography was greatly constrained, but enormous general works began to appear, such as the Roman history of Titus Livius - the work of a cabinet scholar in which there is no common connecting thought, there is no uniformity and independence in the preliminary processing of the material, but the presentation is smooth , harmoniously, eloquently and imbued with great humanity. Next to this brilliant work of Roman Herodotus is the enormous story of Pompey Trog , who contributed to his work all that he knew about the former fate of peoples subject to Rome.

The increasing despotism of emperors gradually destroyed the possibility of a serious treatment of history, especially modern. The historiography of this time begins to present only trinkets, collections of jokes, biographies, tales of wars, large and small manuals for schools, etc. The most famous of its representatives are Velley Patulkur , Valery Maxim , Quintus Curtius Ruf and others. external constraint time wrote Tacitus , one of the greatest historians of antiquity, which, at its extraordinary his ability to grasp the inner connection of the events portrayed, as in-depth knowledge of people and the rare gift of fine and label the characteristics of g ryachey love of truth and presentation skills, compressed and energetic, is not inferior to Thucydides, differing from it only in the greater subjectivity.

Its harsh, revealing, pessimistic tone is in complete contrast with the calm and clear worldview of another writer of the same era, Guy Suetonius Tranquilla , who wrote, under Adrian, among other works, a biography of several emperors. After Suetonius, Roman historiography is again in decline: general works, such as the history of Flora , are for the most part tasteless recitation, while the biographies of emperors degenerate either in collections of scandalous anecdotes or in panegyrics. Compilation biographies of the so-called Scriptores Historiae Augustae are very important as sources, but have no literary value. In the IV century, masses of small compendiums and manuals for schooling appeared - Aurelius Victor and Eutropius .

For the last time in Roman historiography, an outstanding talent appears in the person of the Greek writer Ammianus Marcellinus , who writes barbaric Latin, a true, impartial and intelligent historian of his time. Sulpicius Severus , who wrote a weak history of Jews and Christianity, and Pavel Oroziy , who, on the advice of Augustine, wrote world history, in which he tried to prove that Christianity was not the fault of the fall of the empire, can also be called as writers standing between the Middle Ages.

While the West of the empire plunged into barbarism, in the East, antique historiography, gradually degenerating, lived out its Byzantine era. As far back as the 3rd century, Publius Gerennius Dexippus was influenced by the characteristic features of Byzantine historiography, which combined the notes with the chronicle of the world.

• Antique historians
• Early Byzantine historiography
• Medieval historiography

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