Saturday, March 14, 2020

Herodotus and Thucydides essays

Herodotus and Thucydides essays According to Roy T. Matthews and F. Dewitt Platt the study of history started in the fifth century B.C., when they began questioning and articulating Greeks. They started to analyze the meaning of their immediate past and to write down the results of their research. Before the classical period, the Greeks only had a slight idea of their past. Therefore, I will compare and contrast Herodotus and Thucydides, who were the first two ancient Greek historians known to us. They have not just given us a different prospective of certain events but, they have also shaped the future in their own way. Not much is known about Herodotus' life. Herodotus was born in 484 B.C. in a town called Halicarnassus modern Bodrum in southwestern Turkey. This is not far from Herodotus' native city, which is on the Island of Samos. As much as we know about Herodotus's life, is that he was exiled from Halicarnassus after his involvement in an unsuccessful takeover against the ruling dynasty, and he withdrew to the Island of Samos. He seems never to have returned to Halicarnassus, but he appears to be proud of his native city and its queen, Artemisia. It must have been during his exile that he embarked on the journeys. These journeys took him to Egypt, as far south as the first cataract of the Nile, to Babylon, Ukraine, and to Italy and Sicily. Herodotus mentions an interview with an informant in Sparta, and it is almost certain he lived for a period in Athens. In Athens, he taped the oral traditions of the prominent families, in particular the Alkmaeonidai, to which Pericles belonged on his m aternal side. But the Athenians did not accept foreigners as citizens. When Athens sponsored the colony of Thurii in 444 BC, Herodotus became a colonist. (Wikipedia Encyclopedia) He made visits of the Greek cities, the major religious and athletic festivals, where he offered performances for which he expected payment. In 431 BC, the Peloponnesian War broke ...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.