Father of History

and Scientific
Historian
To Think!
 2018
 Give an estimate of Sophocles, the ancient Greek playwright. (5)
 Discuss the features of ancient Greek Polis. (10)
 Why the ancient Greek historian Thucydides has been called the “father
of scientific history”? (10)
2019

Previous Year  Write a short note on the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. (5)
 Briefly evaluate philosophical contribution of the ancient Greek

Questions philosopher Plato. (5).

 Discuss the trends of development of tragic drama in ancient Greece.
(10)
 Write an essay on the slave system in ancient Greece. (10)
2020-
 Write a short note on the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. (5)
 Write a short on sophist philosophy. (5) 2

 Discuss the features of Polis in ancient Greece. (10)

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  Human history began to be enacted with the appearance of
the first humans on earth. However, the systematic study of
history did not start with our first ancestors. Many ages
elapsed before humans learned to pay serious attention to

Brief
the recovery and reconstruction of the past. The first attempts
started in the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and the Chinese
worlds, long before the fifth century B.C.E. Nevertheless,

Overview Herodotus and Thucydides of ancient Greece, who undertook

their studies of the past in the fifth century B.C.E. have been
regarded as the founders of the systematic study of the past:
Herodotus as “the Father of History”, and Thucydides as “the
Father of Scientific History”. The credit for the start of the
systematic study of history has been given to these two
ancient Greek historiographers due to the fact that until
Herodotus’ time, history had been confused or mixed with
fables, whereas Thucydides’ achievement lay in his application 4

of the principles of medical science to the reconstruction of

the past.
 1. History, as a body of knowledge, has three parts to it: the
event, or the fact; the account of it, or the story; and the
means by which the account is prepared, or the fashioning of
the account.
2. For instance, if we state that history requires the most
meticulous research, we are referring to history, in this sense,

What is as something intermediate between events of the past and

the final product or the report on the events as yet

Historiograph
incomplete.
3. Historiography, therefore, refers either to the study of the
history or development and methodology of History as a

y discipline, or to the critical examination of a body of historical

work on a specialised topic, such as slavery and the
development of racism, imperialism and colonisation, pre-
colonial African science and technology, the Persian Wars, the
Peloponnesian Wars, etc.
4. Furay and Salevouris define historiography as the study of
the way history has been, and is, written, the history of
historical writing.
5. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (2003: 948–949) defines 5

historiography as the writing of history, especially based on

the critical examination of sources, the selection of particulars
from the authentic materials in those sources, and the
  Butterfield included the evolution of the ideas or principles
and the techniques or methodology associated with the
writing of history and the changing attitudes to the question
of the nature of history itself.
 A.E. Afigbo, in an article entitled “Colonial Historiography”,
advances that historiography involves four different but
closely related kinds of historical activity. The first, he argues,
is the discovery and critical analysis of historical sources; the
second, is the reconstruction and description of the past on
the basis of facts quarried from the discovered sources; the
third is the construction on the basis of the ascertained facts,

Contd. of some general theory which gives meaning and inner logic
to the known past, or to most of it; and the fourth is the
reflection on the trends and patterns of historical writing.

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 Vandiver and Caldwell Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus in
Caria (now Bodrum) in Asia Minor (western Turkey), then part of
the Persian Empire. This area was Greek-speaking and culturally
Greek.
Ancient tradition maintains that he was born in 484 B.C.E. and died
in 425.

Herodotus
 By the sixth century B.C.E., the huge Persian Empire became
interested in the lucrative Greek trade along the western coast
of modern Turkey, threatening the Ionian cities there. After
taking over the smaller nearby kingdom of Lydia in 546 B.C.E.,
Persia soon encroached on Greeks in the region.
Many of the poleis were eventually taken over or were forced
to accept pro-Persian governments. The Ionian cities revolted
against Persia in 499 B.C.E., calling for aid from their Greek

Historical Prelude homeland. This conflict initiated long-term hostilities between

Greece and Persia.

of Persian Wars Persia’s King Darius I invaded Thrace in 490 B.C.E., the Persian
Wars (490–479 B.C.E.) began. Some Greek poleis had
(499-449 BCE) surrendered to the Persians, but others allied in a common
effort to defeat Persian aggression. This brought into existence
what is called the Delian League, a coalition for the common
defence and liberation of any Greek who remained under
Persian control.

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 Cicero referred Herodotus the “Father of History”.
Content - The Histories contain a vast amount of material; their
organisations, however, moves clearly toward a culmination in the
account of Greece’s victory over Persia in their conflicts. As noted,
the Histories have been put into nine “books,” or papyrus rolls. The
earlier books deal with the customs, legends, history, and traditions
of the peoples of the ancient world, including the Lydians,
Scythians, Medians, Persians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and the people
of Thrace. The last three books describe the armed conflicts
Histories between Greece and Persia in the early fifth century B.C.E.
In the Histories, Herodotus provides information about ancient
Greece, North Africa, and the Middle East, based on his
observations of the different peoples he encountered and on his
studying of the military history of the places he visited.
Alagoa and Vandiver argued Herodotus’ information was derived
in part from the works of predecessors, meaning that Herodotus
relied on written accounts for background knowledge. Information
gathered from existing literature was widely supplemented with
knowledge that he had gained from his own extensive travels,
which also means that Herodotus cross-checked the observations
made in written accounts with the accounts of eye-witnesses in oral
form.
 Breisach argued He enriches his work by also collecting a vast
amount of information from other historical sources. This included
physical remains such as art objects, language, ethnographic
information, and geographical accounts which he then joined to
the story of the Persian Wars with its different focus.

Contd.

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 In relation to foreign traditions, Herodotus’ research methodology
was to record the traditions of the various nations just as he heard
them related to him. In dealing with different traditions, he
mentions the problem of accuracy and evidence on a number of
occasions.
Alagoa argued he is sometimes inaccurate, he is eminently fair-
minded and is generally careful to separate plausible reports from
questionable ones.
Adler and Gorman argued He feels it his duty to inquire and then
to report what he learns, whether he himself believes it or not.
Criticism When opinions conflict, he presents them all; for he seems
satisfied to let the reader decide between conflicting accounts.

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 Barzun and Graff concluded that his attempt to draw moral
lessons from the study of great events formed the basis of the
Greek and Roman historiographical tradition, of which
Herodotus is rightly regarded as the founder.
They also added He was a unique story-teller, and the greatest
charm of his book is to be found in the many digressions when
he turns aside to tell a story. And the fact that he was the first
to weave his researches into a continuous and shapely
narrative for readers’ consumption is what justifies his ancient
The Last Remark title of Father of History.

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 Described as an ‘objective’ and ‘scientific’ historian by Rex Warner,
Thucydides was born around 460 B.C.E. and died in 400 B.C.E.
Content - It is believed that Thucydides died while still at work on
his book, and that some author(s) must have continued, or revised,
the work. This is because the last book breaks off in the middle of a
paragraph and contains none of the speeches Thucydides would
have included.
Thucydides The History of the Peloponnesian War, as a whole, is divided into
eight books.
Book I is introductory.
Books II, III, IV, and part of V cover the Archidamian War, which was
concluded by the Peace of Nicias in 421 B.C.E.
The rest of Book V is on the interval of peace. Book VI and VII deal
with the Sicilian expedition.
And the incomplete Book VIII examines the Decelean War.
 Adler and Gorman argued To achieve his ends, Thucydides
painstakingly gathered evidence and interviewed participants.
Like, Herodotus before him, he travelled extensively, and

Scientific readily visited allies of the warring parties. He visited and

studied the scenes of events, talked with eyewitnesses, copied
documents, and used all available evidence to reach
History? conclusions and to be able to state what actually happened.
Thucydides hoped to surpass the contributions of previous
students of Greek history, including Homer and Herodotus. Epic
poets like Homer had waxed eloquent about their subjects, but
had deliberately welded together fable and fact. The Ionian
prose writers or chroniclers, seeking a popular audience, had
uncritically sought to record tales of legend.
Butterfield -Thucydides, however, was influenced by the
science of the time and tried to apply the principles and
methods of Hippocratic medicine to politics, so that everything
could be covered by rational explanation.
Adler and Gorman - In contrast to Herodotus, whom
Thucydides apparently lumped with the Ionian chroniclers, he 14
makes every effort to ascertain the veracity of the materials he
obtained. Of course, he deserves the title “father of scientific
history”, because regarding his factual reporting of the events
 Thucydides clearly draws his own interpretations about the
origins of the conflict and how it unfolded, and expresses his
viewpoint.
The History of the Peloponnesian War seems to many readers
more than an account of a war between two ancient Greek city-
states. Generally, as Rex Warner has argued, the study is an

Conclusion account of war itself, or of all wars where any kind of principles
are involved. Consequently, the work is not only fascinating in
itself but must also be judged useful by all who believe that it is
possible to learn something from the experiences of the past. It
provides and insightful, even modern, interpretation of how
distinctive cultures come into being, showing how human
societies throughout history have formed their own identities
on the basis of environmental factors and contact with other
peoples.

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