Herodotus and Thucydides
According to Roy T. Matthews and F. Dewitt Platt the study of history started in the fifth century B.C., when they began questioning and articulating Greeks. They started to analyze the meaning of their immediate past and to write down the results of their research. Before the classical period, the Greeks only had a slight idea of their past. Therefore, I will compare and contrast Herodotus and Thucydides, who were the first two ancient Greek historians known to us. They have not just given us a different prospective of certain events but, they have also shaped the future in their own way. Not much is known about Herodotus' life. Herodotus was born in 484 B.C. in a town called Halicarnassus modern Bodrum in southwestern Turkey. This is not far from Herodotus' native city, which is on the Island of Samos. As much as we know about Herodotus's life, is that he was exiled from Halicarnassus after his involvement in an unsuccessful takeover against the ruling dynasty, and he withdrew to the Island of Samos. He seems never to have returned to Halicarnassus, but he appears to be proud of his native city and its queen, Artemisia. It must have been during his exile that he embarked on the journeys. These journeys took him to Egyp
He was determined by belief that the present had its causes in the past and could be a guide for the future. In his desire to be on both sides, he traveled to Persia and recorded what he learned there. Thucydides did not approve of the radical democracy Pericles ushered in, but thought that it was acceptable when it is in the hands of a good leader. Thucydides would have been taught by them not to accept things at face value and to question things. (Wikipedia Encyclopedia) Thucydides would have been schooled by a Sophists. But the Athenians did not accept foreigners as citizens. I talked about Herodotus about is life, about is journey and the battle and for Thucydides I talked about is life and his battle. He saw the weaknesses of his beloved polis and realized the baleful effects of imperialism. Thucydides was connected through family to Miltiades and Cimon, leaders of the old aristocracy supplanted by the Radical Democrats. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, he even wrote objectively of his own role as the losing admiral in a naval battle. Herodotus mentions an interview with an informant in Sparta, and it is almost certain he lived for a period in Athens.
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