Herodotus And Thucydides Similarities

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Compare and contrast the historical method of Thucydides with EITHER Herodotus OR Polybius. Thucydides and Herodotus are the original fathers of Greek Historiography and are considered the first two historians. Herodotus when compared to Thucydides the other Greek giant of historiography has been considered inferior by comparison. Both Thucydides and Herodotus discuss wars; Herodotus ‘The Histories” covers the Persian War wheresle Thucydides covers the “History of the Peloponnesian War”. This is where the similarities end as both works are significantly different in the topics that are discussed, narrative style and chronology. Similarities and differences between Herodotus and Thucydides’ histories have been the topic of much research,…show more content…
They both share the same subject matter as they deal with causes and wars as well as a fascination with origins and their own idea of civilisation and barbarians. Herodotus however used an eclectic manner when gathering information from selected doctrines from various schools of thought in contrast to Thucydides problem oriented style, they did both however regarded telling the truth mandatory when dealing with a historical…show more content…
Herodotus’s method of inquiry was relying on other people’s testimony, customs and laws to speculate upon through the sincerity and motives of the sources which he included and compiled into his account of history. An example of this is Herodotus’ challenged towards Homer’s assertion that the root of the Trojan War conflict was because of breaking the guest taboo and the abduction of Helen. Though Herodotus does not completely reject Homer’s story but he invokes and calls into question Homer’s story by spinning completely different versions of the story. This speculation about the original story has caused sufficient doubt similarly to Herodotus’ Histories as seemingly small events cause colossal disasters. On the other hand Thucydides offers a rational explanation for the evidence that he uses as a way to reasonably explain later events through the use and basis of earlier evidence. An example of this is Thucydides attempts to justify the importance of the Peloponnesian War through the authoritative claim he had made in the introduction. Claiming that the Peloponnesian War that had just started was more important than all the previous wars. Thucydides investigates the Trojan War and the Persian wars as a starting point but also to collect evidence to support his own views. His method of inquiry consisted on rigorous investigations which was attempting to provide
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