COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE HISTORICAL METHODS      2300w

“Compare and contrast the historical methods, interests, and objectives of Herodotus and Thucydides”. He said you “might consider the sort of writing(narrative, description, authorial analysis, interest in accuracy, etc.) and the author’s objectives in writing the history.”

Herodotus and Thucydides – the original fathers of Greek Historiography – are regarded as the first two historians.

Writing hundreds of years after Homer, Herodotus compiled his History (1) based on oral accounts and myth. A genial storyteller, Herodotus did not regard his writing as epic poetry. The History, which explores centuries of dramatic interaction between the ancient Greeks and the Persian Empire, culminating with the Persian Wars in the early fifth century BC, is a vast compilation of the history, customs and beliefs of the Greeks and “barbarians”. Herodotus’ historical reliability depends on that of his predecessors, as his historical account is a composition that includes their notions of history, geography, natural history and anthropology, in a political and literary context.

A generation after Herodotus, Thucydides, who strove for objectivity, wrote about political and military events that occurred during his lifetime, with a close account of the war between Athens and Sparta in