Thucydides, Father of Scientific History -- ONE-MINUTE LECTURE -- Brett Robbins
2 Video Views·Jan 15, 2025
In one minute I consider how Thucydides, historian of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, distinguishes himself from his predecessor Herodotus, historian of the Persian Wars between Greece and the Persian Empire, primarily with respect to the way in which each writer interprets the material at their disposal, i.e., the frequent resort to mythical and magical interpretation by the latter and the more rational, analytical approach of the former.
Thucydides is never referred to as the father of history,
but he's quite often referred to as the father of modern history,
to distinguish him from Herodotus.
Now, he's more concerned with aspects of what happened in the past
that historians today tend to focus on.
If you read a history of the U.S.,
you're not going to get very much biographical stuff,
maybe thumbnail sketches of who the people are.
Thucydides is the beginning of an analytical history,
a history that some refer to as
partaking in a kind of proto-scientific method,
an analytical approach to history,
looking at the evidence, sifting it out
in a way that serves as a model for historians today
way more than Herodotus does.
I love Herodotus the way I love Homer.
I love Thucydides the way I love some of my favorite modern historians.
So whereas Herodotus is talking about the people
who the Greeks encountered in the Persian Wars,
almost like an epic,
Thucydides gets into the politics involved
in the alliance-making of Athens and Sparta,
and then the fighting of the war
and the events going on during the war.