Anyone who has bothered to open the works of ancient Greek and Roman historians will notice marked differences between them and modern historians.  The differences are not trivial.  In how they express themselves, in what they emphasize or ignore, in how they view their responsibilities, and in various other ways, the ancients are simply different.  There is no getting around this fact. I wanted to use this essay to suggest some ways of understanding the ancient historians; and if informed readers wince at my gross generalizations and oversimplifications, I make no apologies.  Judgmental economy has its uses. 

I believe the first point to be made is that ancient historians are, nearly universally, men of reserve.  They are unlike modern men in temperament and outlook.  They were products of societies that valued reserve and restraint.  It was not considered appropriate to whine or emote at length.  We see this reserve and restraint most markedly, I think, in Xenophon’s Hellenica, in the pages of Thucydides, and in the monographs of Sallust.  The ancients were not given to emotional outpourings.  Such excesses were seen as inappropriate for men of affairs. Writers of historical works were men of the educated upper classes; and these men were formed from a very particular mold.  They were trained in the arts of rhetoric and most likely had some background of military service.  In some cases, such as Polybius or Tacitus, they were close to the seats of power in their societies.  I suppose the one exception to this is Herodotus, whom it is difficult to describe as reserved.  He is engaging, chatty, and credulous, often to a fault.  But Herodotus is unlike any other historian.      

What does this reserve mean for the modern reader?  It means, I think, that ancient historians often leave things unsaid.  I found this trait to be most noticeable in Sallust and Xenophon.  We have to learn to read between the lines, and pay particular attention to their language.  In their era, it was not considered seemly or necessary to explain oneself in every detail on every occasion.  As men of the upper classes, many of them felt there was no use in recording the habits or customs of barbarian peoples in any systematic way.  There are exceptions to this, of course, but these only prove the rule.  When Tacitus records the supposed habits of the Germans, he is not so much as acting as an objective ethnographer as he is playing the role of a polemicist denouncing the corrupt Romans whom he so despised.     

The second point to make is related to the first.  We must remember that the ancient historians were writing in an age before the advent of what we would call a “reading public.”  Literacy rates were relatively low, compared to today.  Writing was not a profitable activity.  One had to be independently wealthy to hire copyists or scribes to “publish” a work.  Writers were generally men of the upper classes who were writing for each other, or writing with some political purpose in mind.  This does not, of course, detract from the literary quality of their works, but it does shine some light on the cultural conditions which influenced them.  Ancient historians often assumed, with good reason, that their readers already “came to the table” with a certain amount of knowledge.  They did not feel the need to cite their sources for every opinion or interpretation.  In many cases, the only “sources” available were eyewitnesses. Thucydides, we know, had to rely on the testimonies of witnesses who were present at the events he describes. 

Indexed and well-organized libraries were rare in ancient times, and often not accessible. In these circumstances, ancient historians felt no shame in giving us their own opinions as reliable sources, or in putting their own speeches in the mouths of their protagonists. While these habits can be maddening to modern readers, they were entirely normal for them.  Often what the ancients do not say is just as important as what they do say. Ancient historians omit much. Why is this? I think it is for the same reason we have so few cookbooks from ancient times:  writers felt no need to make a literary record of what they believed everyone already knew. 

A third point is one that is rather underappreciated.  Ancient historians—again, I take care to add “in general”—saw their task differently than do modern historians.  They were writing in an age before the advent of the professional chronicler, and before the imposition of strict academic standards of citation and sourcing.  They saw moral instruction as one of their primary purposes.  In many cases, moral instruction even took precedence over accuracy or strict chronology.  This quality, I think, is what makes ancient historians so special, and what gives the best of their writings such power.  The composition of history was still in its infancy; it was not yet seen as its own separate discipline. It was viewed as almost a branch of rhetoric, or as part of a curriculum of moral instruction. The writing of history was a gentlemanly pastime, as Pliny the Younger’s famous letter (Epistulae V.8) on the subject makes clear. We should not be surprised at this. Readers will be reminded, for example, that what we call “science” today is an outgrowth of what was once known as “natural philosophy.” 

The rhetorician Quintilian provides some additional insight no how the ancients viewed the nature and purpose of historical writing. He tells us:

It [i.e., historical writing] is close to the poets. In a way it is a poem unconstrained by poetic rules, and it is written to recount something, not to prove something. As a whole it is composed not for causing an action or for addressing current disputes, but for the memory of posterity and for the repute of human character. [X.1.31]

I should note that there is some ambiguity in the final phrase of the quote above. I have translated Quintilian’s famam ingenii as “repute of human character,” but the precise meaning is open to interpretation. Both words (fama and ingenium) have very broad definitions. Fama can mean reputation, tradition, fame, or glory; and ingenium can mean character, talent, nature, or disposition. It is thus an open question whether Quintilian means the “repute of character” of the writer of the history, or the “repute of character” of the reader of history. I tend to think that he means both: that is, the writing of history elevates the character of both reader and writer.

But even within these apparent limitations, the best of the ancient historians achieved depths of insight and moral conviction that can only be described as profound. Has any modern historian, with the possible exception of Edward Gibbon, equaled in moral force the stirring opening paragraphs of Sallust’s Catiline and Jugurtha?  Can any modern historian summon the kind of rhetorical and literary brilliance equal to that of Tacitus, as he narrates the careers of one depraved emperor after another?  Does any modern historian posses a patriotic fervor equal to what we find in the first ten books of Livy?  Is not instruction in character and morals Plutarch’s sole purpose?        

I see these as the major points to keep in mind when reading the works of the ancient historians.  Reading them is an altogether different experience from reading the works of modern professional historians.  But this is what gives them their charm and their distinctiveness.  We must see them as products of their environment.  Their societies, their cultural influences, and their motivations are different from those of modern writers.  And if we can appreciate this, we can extract the most benefit from their works.  

.

.

Read the new, annotated translation of Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline and War of Jugurtha. It is ideal for home or self-study.