History as Recorded by Early Greek Writers

Thucydides realizes that it is important to know wherefore these events came to pass and so to look to the era before the war, mayhap some distance back in time. Doing so is much difficult because he was not present for those earlier events, still he states that he has looked into the differentiate to the degree possible and is positive(p) that he knows what was, and was not important (1).

This early section includes a reconstruction of the pre write up of Greece, and this al wizard shows some of the characteristics that Thucydides would ascribe to history and the study of history. The Trojan War has been recorded by mark and is embodied in a wide variety of other sorts of writings, hardly these do not constitute history, being or else literature because they lack the necessary historical analysis. Thucydides says of the historical order that it involves doing something other than what most state do--they take in stories of the previous(prenominal) without testing them. People listen to stories, to the epics, to poetry, to drama, and acce

Tacitus tells the story in the way he wishes, not ever so in a chronological manner, and often detouring into descriptions and analyses of the people or issues he raises. Much of his history is sociological in record as he tries to create a picture of a given people--the Britons, the Gauls, the Germans--always video display how they are superior enough to be good adversaries but inferior still to the Roman people and to Roman civilization. In the Germania, Tacitus seems to be celebrating the advancement of the German people, but inherent in this discussion is his fear that the Germans could become goodly enough to threaten Rome and so that they need to be watched.

He discusses various Germanic tribes and rates their fighting ability, showing that this is one of his primary concerns:

pt these stories as if they were fact, failing to bear witness and test one against the other to ascertain the truth. Such evidence often cannot be tested. There are also biases that kotow into such accounts, as Thucydides notes when stating that people always see the war they are fighting as the greatest one ever (Thucydides 12).

Other tribes may be seen going forth to involution; the Chatti come out for a campaign. They seldom engage in swift rushes or in casual fighting--tactics which properly move to cavalry, with its quick successes and quick retreats (Tacitus 127).

Tacitus writes in a different style form Thucydides. Thucydides tends to write lengthy sentences that go on a long as needed to describe the events taking enthrone and to link related issues and events. Tacitus, on the other hand, tends toward shorter sentences and more direct, revelatory statements, building a picture through the accretion of one sentence after another, one fact after another. This is homely in his description of the Gauls:

Ta
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