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7543

Lucian, How To Write History, 7

nan will show you just those which a constant attendance at authors' readings has impressed on me; you have only to keep your ears open at every opportunity. It will be convenient, however, to refer by the way to a few illustrations in recent histories. Here is a serious fault to begin with. It is the fashion to neglect the examination of facts, and give the space gained to eulogies of generals and commanders; those of their own side they exalt to the skies, the other side they disparage intemperately. They forget that between history and panegyric there is a great gulf fixed, barring communication; in musical phrase, the two things are a couple of octaves apart. The panegyrist has only one concern — to commend and gratify his living theme some way or other; if misrepresentation will serve his purpose, he has no objection to that. History, on the other hand, abhors the intrusion of any least scruple of falsehood; it is like the windpipe, which the doctors tell us will not tolerate a morsel of stray food.

Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

17 results
1. Thucydides, The History of The Peloponnesian War, 1.21-1.22 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
2. Cicero, Letters To His Friends, 5.12 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
3. Polybius, Histories, 2.61, 12.15.9 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE) 2.61. 1.  To take another instance, Phylarchus, while narrating with exaggeration and elaboration the calamities of the Mantineans, evidently deeming it a historian's duty to lay stress on criminal acts,,2.  does not even make mention of the noble conduct of the Megalopolitans at nearly the same date, as if it were rather the proper function of history to chronicle the commission of sins than to call attention to right and honourable actions,,3.  or as if readers of his memoirs would be improved less by account of good conduct which we should emulate than by criminal conduct which we should shun.,4.  He tells us how Cleomenes took the city, and before doing any damage to it, sent at once a post to the Megalopolitans at Messene offering to hand back their own native country to them uninjured on condition of their throwing in their lot with him. So much he lets us know, wishing to show the magimity of Cleomenes and his moderation to his enemies,,5.  and he goes on to tell how when the letter was being read out they would not allow the reader to continue until the end, and how they came very near stoning the letter-bearers.,6.  So far he makes everything quite clear to us, but he deprives us of what should follow and what is the special virtue of history, I mean praise and honourable mention of conduct noteworthy for its excellence.,7.  And yet he had an opportunity ready to his hand here. For if we consider those men to be good who by speeches and resolutions only expose themselves to war for the sake of their friends and allies, and if we bestow not only praise but lavish thanks and gifts on those who have suffered their country to be laid waste and their city besieged,,8.  what should we feel for the Megalopolitans? Surely the deepest reverence and the highest regard.,9.  In the first place they left their lands at the mercy of Cleomenes, next they utterly lost their city owing to their support of the Achaeans,,10.  and finally, when quite unexpectedly it was put in their power to get it back undamaged, they preferred to lose their land, their tombs, their temples, their homes, and their possessions, all in fact that is dearest to men, rather than break faith with their allies.,11.  What more noble conduct has there ever been or could there be? To what could an author with more advantage call the attention of his readers, and how could he better stimulate them to loyalty to their engagements and to true and faithful comradeship?,12.  But Phylarchus, blind, as it seems to me, to the most noble actions and those most worthy of an author's attention, has not said a single word on the subject. 12.15.9.  But Timaeus, blinded by his own malice, has chronicled with hostility and exaggeration the defects of Agathocles and has entirely omitted to mention his shining qualities, being unaware that it is just as mendacious for a writer to conceal what did occur as to report what did not occur. I myself, while refraining in order to spare him from giving full expression to my hostility to Timaeus, have omitted nothing less to the object I had in view. . . . .
4. Dionysius of Halycarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 1.8.3 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) 1.8.3.  As to the form I give this work, it does not resemble that which the authors who make wars alone their subject have given to their histories, nor that which others who treat of the several forms of government by themselves have adopted, nor is it like the annalistic accounts which the authors of the Atthides have published (for these are monotonous and soon grow tedious to the reader), but it is a combination of every kind, forensic, speculative and narrative, to the intent that it may afford satisfaction both to those who occupy themselves with political debates and to those who are devoted to philosophical speculations, as well as to any who may desire mere undisturbed entertainment in their reading of history.
5. Dionysius of Halycarnassus, On Thucydides, 41 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
6. Dionysius of Halycarnassus, Letter To Pompeius Geminus, 4-6, 3 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
7. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 1.1-1.2 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) 1.1. 1. Whereas the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations; while some men who were not concerned in the affairs themselves have gotten together vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and have written them down after a sophistical manner; 1.1. For that it was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed it; and that they were the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us, who unwillingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our holy temple; Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a witness, who, during the entire war, pitied the people who were kept under by the seditious, and did often voluntarily delay the taking of the city, and allowed time to the siege, in order to let the authors have opportunity for repentance. 1.1. But still he was not able to exclude Antiochus, for he burnt the towers, and filled up the trenches, and marched on with his army. And as he looked upon taking his revenge on Alexander, for endeavoring to stop him, as a thing of less consequence, he marched directly against the Arabians 1.2. and while those that were there present have given false accounts of things, and this either out of a humor of flattery to the Romans, or of hatred towards the Jews; and while their writings contain sometimes accusations, and sometimes encomiums, but nowhere the accurate truth of the facts 1.2. as also how our people made a sedition upon Herod’s death, while Augustus was the Roman emperor, and Quintilius Varus was in that country; and how the war broke out in the twelfth year of Nero, with what happened to Cestius; and what places the Jews assaulted in a hostile manner in the first sallies of the war. 1.2. These honorary grants Caesar sent orders to have engraved in the Capitol, that they might stand there as indications of his own justice, and of the virtue of Antipater.
8. Plutarch, Alexander The Great, 1.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) 1.2. For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives; and in the most illustrious deeds there is not always a manifestation of virtue or vice, nay, a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of character than battles where thousands fall, or the greatest armaments, or sieges of cities.
9. Plutarch, On The Malice of Herodotus, None (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
10. Plutarch, Dion, 36.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
11. Plutarch, Lycurgus, 1.3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) 1.3. Xenophon, also, Reip. Lac. x. 8. Lycurgus is said to have lived in the times of the Heracleidae. makes an impression of simplicity in the passage where he says that Lycurgus lived in the time of the Heracleidae. For in lineage, of course, the latest of the Spartan kings were also Heracleidae; but Xenophon apparently wishes to use the name Heracleidae of the first and more immediate descendants of Heracles, so famous in story. However, although the history of these times is such a maze, I shall try, in presenting my narrative, to follow those authors who are least contradicted, or who have the most notable witnesses for what they have written about the man.
12. Plutarch, Pericles, 13.16 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
13. Tacitus, Annals, 1.1.2-1.1.3, 4.33.3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
14. Herodian, History of The Empire After Marcus, 2.15.6-2.15.7 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
15. Lucian, How To Write History, 11-13, 2, 38-41, 61, 63, 8-10 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
16. Augustine, Confessions, 6.6 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
17. Papyri, P.Oxy., 71.4808

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
aelius antipater	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
alternatives	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
ancestors	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
asinius quadratus	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
augustus/octavian	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
authority	Burgersdijk and Ross, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (2018) 190
caligula (roman emperor)	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
cassius dio, civil wars and wars, pamphlet on	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
cassius dio	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
character (plutarchs and readers concern with)	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
cicero	Baumann and Liotsakis, Reading History in the Roman Empire (2022) 4
claudius, roman emperor, expulsion of jews from rome by	Feldman, Judaism and Hellenism Reconsidered (2006) 526
claudius (roman emperor)	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
criticism	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
digressions	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
dionysius of halicarnassus	Baumann and Liotsakis, Reading History in the Roman Empire (2022) 4
encomium	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
envy	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
explanations	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
flattery, flatterers	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
flattery	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
fortune, contrasted with virtue	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
fortune, mis-	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
fortune, success/failure as result of	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
herodian, dio, implicit criticism of	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
historiography, bias and	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
historiography, praise and	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
historiography, principate and	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
historiography, tacituss views of	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
historiography	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159; Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
julian	Burgersdijk and Ross, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (2018) 190
justice	Burgersdijk and Ross, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (2018) 190
literary	Burgersdijk and Ross, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (2018) 190
lucian, historiography, criticism of	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
lucian, how to write history	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
lucian	Baumann and Liotsakis, Reading History in the Roman Empire (2022) 4, 123; Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
lucius verus (roman emperor), parthian campaign of	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
memory	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
moderation	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
munatius sulla cerialis, m., nero (roman emperor)	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
narrator	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
omissions	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
panegyric	Burgersdijk and Ross, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (2018) 190
panegyrical	Burgersdijk and Ross, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (2018) 190
pleasure (in historiography)	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
praise'	Burgersdijk and Ross, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (2018) 190
readers, foreknowledge	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
seneca the younger	Baumann and Liotsakis, Reading History in the Roman Empire (2022) 123
septimius severus	Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
strabo	Baumann and Liotsakis, Reading History in the Roman Empire (2022) 4
style/stylistic (interest in)	Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 159
tacitus	Baumann and Liotsakis, Reading History in the Roman Empire (2022) 123
tacitus (p. cornelius tacitus)	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26
thucydides	Baumann and Liotsakis, Reading History in the Roman Empire (2022) 123; Chrysanthou, Reconfiguring the Imperial Past: Narrative Patterns and Historical Interpretation in Herodian’s History of the Empire (2022) 4
tiberius (roman emperor)	Scott, An Age of Iron and Rust: Cassius Dio and the History of His Time (2023) 26