EARLY GREEK, ROMAN, AND CHRISTRIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY
Charles Rasmussen
Grand Canyon University
HIS 247
EARLY GREEK, ROMAN, AND CHRISTRIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY
The historical inquiry for the Greek world changed a great deal after 800 B.C. as did the way of life, this intellectual revolution opened a new wave of energy. This revolution in the sixth century B.C. with Thales of Miletus was noted and continued on with a wave of other philosophers. The new breed of Greek philosopher sought out the basic substances from which the known universe was made of. They begin to record historical writings as traditional poems. The poetic approach to history had them looking into the cosmos instead of the common problems affecting human existence. This is what they chose to write about. It was not until the fourth century that the Sophists discovered the connecting phenomena dealing with everyday human life. The life in a polis became the center of their world. As the Greeks gained confidence they begin to intellectually master their world and ways to record it.
War seemed to be the shaping idea used by Herodotus and Thucydides to put forth their views on cultural history. Although the two men differed in their approach to the accounts of the wars, they both had a historical aim in writing history using war. Herodotus ended his cultural history by celebrating the Greek city-states, mainly his favorite, Athens. Herodotus differed from other historians and mythologists of previous eras in several ways. First, he did not banish the supernatural completely from his Histories, his account of the Persian Wars, he attributed most past events to natural causes. (Richard, 2003, p. 83) Thucydides concentrated only on the Peloponnesian War and died before he could really finish the complete and accurate history. These men both wrote about war as an approach to history to show the force it had in the shaping of Greek destiny, not as a glorious tribute. Once the wars...