The Historians' History of the World 01

Xenophon’s Anabasis

, detailing the story of Cyrus the Younger and his ten thousand Greek allies, is essentially a history of the same type. It differs radically, to be sure, from Herodotus, in that it holds with the closest consistency to a single narrative, scarcely giving the barest glimpses into any other field than that directly connected with the story of the ten thousand. But it is like Herodotus in the prime essential that its motive is to entertain the reader by the citation of the incidents of a venturesome enterprise. Xenophon does indeed pause at the beginning of the second book long enough to pronounce a eulogy upon the character of Cyrus,—a eulogy that is distinctly the biased estimate of a friend, rather than the calm judgment of a critical historian. But this aside, Xenophon, philosopher though he is, concerns himself not at all with the philosophy of the subject in hand. He quite ignores the immoral features of the rebellion of Cyrus against his brother. Indeed, it seems never to occur to him that this fratricidal enterprise has any reprehensible features, or could be considered in any light other than that of a commendable proceeding of which a throne was the legitimate goal. Doubtless the very fact of this banishment of the philosophical from the work of Xenophon has been one source of its great popularity, for, as every one knows, Xenophon shares with Herodotus the credit of being the most widely read of classical authors. It would be quite aside from the present purpose to emphasise the opinion that the intrinsic merit of Xenophon’s work does not fully justify this popularity. It suffices here to note the fact that this famous work of the successor of Herodotus belongs essentially to the same class with the work of the master himself.

Of the Roman historians doubtless the one most similar to Herodotus in general aim was Livy. The author of the most famous history of Rome does not indeed make any such excursions into the history of outlying nations, as did Herodotus, but he details the history of his own people with an eye always to the literary, rather than to the strictly historical, side; transmitting to us in their best form that series of beautiful legends with which all succeeding generations have been obliged to content themselves in lieu of history proper. There is little of philosophical thought, little of search for motives, in such history-writing as this. It is essentially the art of the story-teller applied to the facts and fables of history.

Returning now to Thucydides, we have illustrated, as has been said, an utterly different plan and motive. Thucydides does indeed tell the story of the Peloponnesian War; tells it, moreover, with such wealth of detail as no other historian of antiquity exceeded, and few approached. But in addition to narrating the plain facts, Thucydides searches always for the motives. He gives us an insight into the causes of events as he conceives them. He is obviously thinking more of this phase of the subject than of the mere recital of the facts themselves. It is the philosophy of history, rather than the story of history, that appeals to him, and that he wishes to make patent to the reader.