Ancient Greek Histories' Accuracy

[Elheru Aran]

Hello,

I've been pondering for a while and the Old Testament thread brought up the question...

How historically accurate are the accounts written by Herodotus, Xenophenon (sp?), Thucydides et al?

I'm particularly interested in Herodotus; I understand that much of his work was coloured by his pro-Grecian prejudices, and that he does have a huge number of inaccuracies in his work, but were these inaccuracies popular myth about other cultures at the time, or were they just of his making?

I'm also interested in his depiction of Xerxes' army, all the different cultures-- do we know anything about if his portrayals of all the different cultures and such are accurate? Can his numbers and depictions be relied upon?

I may have more questions as the thread progresses, but I look forward to your responses...

Thanks!

[Liberty]

I'm sure others here will have much more information on this topic, but I did study some of this in a historiography class I took two years ago. In fact, I just pulled up a paper I wrote for this class in which I began by summarizing the contributions, etc, of early historians like the ones you mention. Here is the relevant section (again, I am not an expert; the paper, however, did get an A, so I would assume I'm generally correct in what I wrote):

Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century B.C., is considered the “father of history.” Since the composition of the Iliad, the Greeks had developed the polis, their city-state form of government, along with democracy. Because they were very man-centered and proud of what they had accomplished, the Greeks began to write histories of their city-states. Herodotus wrote a prose history of the Persian war, seeing the result as the victory of Greek eleutheria (freedom) over Persian despotism. “These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus,” he wrote, “which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done…” Herodotus also wrote about the peoples around the Greeks, thus satisfying the Greek interest in geography and ethnography. Unlike his predecessors, Herodotus developed his own methodology, stating that he would rely on eye-witness accounts and widely accepted facts. Though an improvement on epic poetry, Herodotus’s writing was still fraught with myth. The gods were not active in Herodotus works, but they were still present. In addition, Herodotus still has an essence of history as entertainment as he sought to keep the attention of his readers.

Thucydides, also a Greek, further developed the methodology of Greek history writing. He was a general in the Peloponnesian War and wrote a history of it while in exile. Thucydides was not writing merely for entertainment; he was a political scientist who was striving to understand the reasons for war between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides had a more strict methodology as he stated that he would only use eyewitnesses. In his writing, the gods declined further as the humans were now the ones doing great deeds and creating change. Yet Thucydides’ methodology was not perfect; he wrote about forty invented speeches into his work as if they were direct quotes.

[Steve]

If I recall Thucydides' opening statements right, he admits he sometimes put words into the mouths of those giving speeches, but only when he had to. He preferred to get recollections of what was said if he was not there himself to hear it.