How to Write History
{{italic title}}
How to Write History ({{langx|grc|Πῶς δεῖ ἱστορίαν συγγράφειν}}) is the title of a study by the classical Syrian{{cite book|last=Richter|first=Daniel S.|date=2017|chapter=Chapter 21: Lucian of Samosata|title=The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic|volume=1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bZ47DwAAQBAJ&q=In+the+case+of+Lucian%2C+earlier+generations+of+readers|editor1-last=Richter|editor1-first=Daniel S.|editor2-last=Johnson|editor2-first=William A.|location=Oxford, England|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199837472.013.26|isbn=978-0-19-983747-2|page=328-329}} writer Lucian, which may be considered the only work on the theory of history-writing to survive from antiquity.[http://people.duke.edu/~wj25/UC_Web_Site/Lucian/Syllabus.htm Lucian and Historiography]
Themes
The first part of Lucian’s essay involved a critical attack on contemporary historians. Lucian maintained that they confused history with panegyric, overloaded it with irrelevant details, and weighed it down with overblown rhetoric.{{cite book |first=S. H. |last= Butcher |author-link= Samuel_Butcher_(classicist)|title= Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects |place= London |publisher= Macmillan and Co., Ltd. |year= 1904 |url= https://archive.org/details/harvardlectureso00butciala/page/n8/mode/2up |page=[https://archive.org/details/harvardlectureso00butciala/page/248/mode/2up 249] |access-date= 18 March 2020|via= Internet Archive}}
Lucian recommended instead the virtues of clear narration, and the valorisation of truth.M Winkler, Fall of the Roman Empire (2012) p. 181-2 He argued that the historian should write for all times, as “a free man, fearless, incorruptible, the friend of truth”;{{cite book |first=S. H. |last= Butcher |author-link= Samuel_Butcher_(classicist)|title= Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects |place= London |publisher= Macmillan and Co., Ltd. |year= 1904 |url= https://archive.org/details/harvardlectureso00butciala/page/n8/mode/2up |page=[https://archive.org/details/harvardlectureso00butciala/page/250/mode/2up 250] |access-date= 18 March 2020|via= Internet Archive}} and held up the work of Thucydides as the legislative template for all subsequent historians.P J Rhodes, Intro, Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War (OUP 2009) p. l He argued that the "historian's sole task is to tell the tale as it happened" which is latter reflected in works of von Ranke among others.
Later influence
- The early Renaissance saw the essay taken up by figures like Guarino da Verona and Giovanni Pontano.D Marsh, Lucian and the Latins (1998) p. 29
- Edward Gibbon, who wrote of “the inimitable Lucian”, owned the 1776 edition of Quomodo Historia Conscribenda Sit (Oxford)E Gibbon, Abridged Decline and Fall (Penguin 2005) p. 63 and p. 782
See also
References
{{Reflist|2|}}
External links
{{wikisourcelang|el|Πώς δει ιστορίαν συγγράφειν}}
- {{cite book |translator1= Fowler, H. W. |translator1-link= Henry Watson Fowler |translator2-link= Francis George Fowler |translator2= Fowler, F. G. |chapter= The Way to Write History |title= The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Complete with exceptions specified in the preface | place=Oxford |publisher= Clarendon Press |year= 1905 |volume=II |url=https://archive.org/details/worksoflucianofs02luci/page/n4 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/worksoflucianofs02luci/page/108/mode/2up 109]-136 |via= Internet Archive |access-date= 23 March 2020}}
- {{cite book |title= LUCIAN |chapter= How to Write History|translator= K. Kilburn |volume= VI |year= 1959 |publisher=William Heinemann Ltd. and Harvard University Press|place= London and Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages= 1–73 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/L430LucianVIDipsadsSaturnaliaHerodotusOrAetionZeuxisOrAntiochusHarmonidesHesiod/page/n15/mode/2up |access-date=18 March 2020 |via= Internet Archive}}
- [https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl2/wl210.htm The Way to Write History]
{{Lucian}}