Evolution of Historiography in Greek Civilization



Evolution of Historiography in Greek Civilization

Introduction

Several Greek authors find vivid descriptions of hard class struggle between rich and poor, the exploiters and the exploited, between those who had all the rights and to those who had none. In the course of historical development in Greece, several forms of slavery occurred in different states. The Greeks stretched cultural influence in almost all areas of the Mediterranean. Greek colonies were founded in Italy, Sicily, and in the current territory of France and Egypt. Greek historiography generally exceeds the limits of local history and even that of Herodotus, who spanned almost the entire known world by the Greeks. The central issue was the war, although there were constitutional subjects, tragedies, biographies and even ethnography. The choice of topic was based on the value of the events and information available. For example, for Herodotus was a historical fact that if it was not be left forgotten. Thucydides chose the Peloponnesian War as a central theme of his work for the obvious reason to consider the high point of the story he lived. However, within this great subject had to choose constantly between minor issues with complete arbitrariness. As pointed out by Roussel in the Greek historians, Thucydides arbitrariness is sometimes forced to reload characters with telling details which false in part.

Thesis Statement

Greek historiography is not interested solely by isolated incidents but by the course of events in their entirety. 

Basic Components of Greek Historiography

The study of the history of ancient Greece began even in ancient times. Today the science of history has a fairly large number that we inherited from antiquity and can be regarded as sources for the study of the history of ancient Greece. These sources are diverse, but we can rank them in the following categories: materials monuments, the study of Greek, oral traditions, written monuments, and literary works.

Contemporary history

 The most reliable historians themselves considered works that dealt with the contemporary Greeks. Also, the story seemed very scanty from the Egyptian side. In any case, what the historian lived regarded him as a unique moment in the history, whether the Peloponnesian War or the Roman expansion. There was more information on topics close in time; especially given the fact that other witnesses had oral (preferably written) sources. Thucydides and Polybius, in their zeal for historical accuracy, reflect their personal experience in their writings.

The study of the causes of war

Within the contemporary Greek history, the preferred issues were political and military affairs. Thucydides believed that the only real story was the one that was politics and wars.This approach persisted in the stories depicted by Xenophon, Theopompus and Polybius. However, the Greek historians were more interested in constitutional changes, although Herodotus placed the war as the center of historiography. Arnaldo Momigliano, an expert on historiography, suggests that this declining interest in military confrontation was common in the Greek world. Momigliano highlights the importance of studying the causes of each war. Herodotus went back to the earliest times to explain the Medicare wars, falling in the myth. Thucydides was a step forward to put aside mythical interpretations and differentiate between superficial and deep causes of wars. This scheme was extended by Polybius, who distinguishes between the initial act that ...