GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHERS

Introduction Greek Scholars made a wonderful contribution in the sphere of Historiography . They made it a very powerful branch of Knowledge like that of literature and Philosophy The Greeks being historical minded produced one of the first historical literature . Besides being interested in the genealogy of their families , the Greeks were having a deep desire to know geography and ethnography . Hence , they were encouraged to produce historical writings which were full of geographical , and ethnography information .

Hesiod , the Greek poet who was very much devoted to theology , had contributed to the writing of history . He has produced a story of the birth of Gods and their behaviour with the people . In his work , he also mentions five ages viz , Golden , Silver , Bronze , Homeric and Iron and points out that we are living in the last age which is the worst age of history . But these works of Hesiod cannot be regarded as history as it was a practical works in which imagination play major role . Actually the real writing of history began in Greece in the Sixth Century B C But , poetry was not the proper medium of writing history , Hence the rise of prose writing in India contributed a lot of the writing of history . They did not copy the established facts so narrated by the historians . On the other hand they evolved the spirit of investigation and criticism which is the real quality of history .

Hecataeus . Hecataeus of Miletus was the first historian who contributed to the writing of history amongst the Greeks . He was born in the sixth century B C in a aristocratic family of Greece . He made extensive tour of Egypt and wrote a monumental works , “ Travels around the World and Book of Local Genealogies . In his first book he described the Persian world and In the second one he condemned and criticised the ancient myths . He laid much stress on two fundamental principles such as the truthfulness and critical view towards the established facts . He has written very clearly “ I write what I deem true ; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and seem to be ridiculous .”

Herodotus . Herodotus has rightly been called as the Father of History because he established link between the Logographers and the historians. He was born 480 B.C at Halicarnassus a Dorian settlement on the sea coast of Asia Minor . He made wonderful contribution to history and anthropology . He chose the Persian Wars as the subject of his history and wrote it in such a stylish way that it looked like the history of the age and not only of the wars . Greeco , Asiatic Ralations from the reign of Croesus of Lydia ( 560 – 546 ) to the defeat of the Persian invaders of Greece in 178 B .C was the first significant work of Herodotus . He had described in this work , the destruction of the forces of Xerxes by Greeks and also given account of the people of Mediterranean and Asiatic world .

The special characteristic of the description of Herodotus is that he had not described anything with a coloured glasses rather he gave a fair account of everything . He praised the Persians for their bravery . But as regards the description of the military events , he is not accurate and lacks precision . There is a touch of supernaturalism in his works here and there . Actually these were not the faults on the part of Herodotus but were the usual feature of the contemporary time . Special Features of the Works of Herodotus . Herodotus holds a supreme place among the writer of history . As a story teller he could be surpassed by any one As the purpose of history is to excite interest , none could excel him in this regard . His style is easy , familiar and graceful .

Characteristics of his writings . Besides writing about the political affairs , he threw light on various social and cultural practices of the time . In order to construct the history he made extensive use of the evidence . The tradition of introducing history of one nation to another was also started by him . Legend writing was changed to history of science by Herodotus . He resorted to rational view and depicted the reason as to what men have done and why he resorted to it . Weakness . In spite of being an efficient writer of history and providing it a scientific view , he had certain Weakness