Compare The Ways That Herodotus And Thucydides Approached The Writing Of History

Cicero, a Roman politician and lawyer, regarded Herodotus as the 'Father of History', a title that has remained with him for centuries (Luce). However, this title has come with some controversy, as Herodotus relied on a mixture of orally passed down accounts, m yths, and rumors. On top of this, Herodotus was also known for being quite subjective, as he added his own thoughts and views of events to his writings. On the other hand, Thucydides, another prominent historian of the time, was coined the 'scientific historian' for his focus on facts, dates, and eyewitness accounts of events in his own lifetime (Korab-Karpowicz). To objectively measure the difference in methods between the two of them, I used a software that recognizes topics discussed in texts called Topic Modeling, to compare Herodotus' The Histories and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War . Using digital tools such a topic modeling, we can see that contemporary historians and their methods have been influenced more by Thucydides rather than Herodotus.

At a glance, both Herodotus' The Histories and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War look similarly written. However, with the use of digital tools, I can run these two books through a topic modeling software to read the entirety of the books while identifying the topics discussed. Firstly, I downloaded both books as text files, combined them into one folder, and input the folder into the software. Then, it proceeds to analyze the text, identifies 'topics' (clusters of words that frequently occur together), and exports it into a separate folder. Also, a percentage that demonstrates the amount of text allocated to the topic is shown through the software. For Herodotus' The Histories , there are 11,783 words assigned to the topic "king son persians men thou man time greeks thee cyrus city part oracle place account give death croesus ionians till…" (Herodotus). By analyzing the topic, it can be inferred that a great deal of importance is placed on an 'oracle' (a priest or priestess acting as a medium through whom advice or prophecy was sought from the gods in classical antiquity), as the word is one of the most commonly used in The Histories . Additionally, "God, Gods, Jupiter, and Apollo" (who are all religious figures) are included in 22% of the topics included in the writings. This goes to show that although Herodotus regarded his "inquiries" as knowledge, he allowed there to be entertaining aspects of myths (Wardman 408). Herodotus believed that the Gods had some part to play, as he stated, "many things prove to me that the gods take part in the affairs of man" (100; bk. 9). The use of digital tools can demonstrate how Herodotus' way of recording history is different than contemporary historians in its subjectivity.

screenshot of topic modeling — A screenshot of the topic modeling software.

Thucydides, the "scientific historian", was known for having a strict code of being impartial, carefully gathering evidence, and not considering deities in his history (Korab-Karpowicz). This can be seen by an analysis of the topic modeling results of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War . The largest topic discussed in Thucydides' work is "athenians war men made country enemy athenian infantry put heavy lacedaemon part fleet peloponnese wall argives brasidas corinthians troops present…" (Thucydides). From this topic we can infer that there is no reference to any mythological element, inline with contemporary standards of recording history. In the entirety of the text, less than 4% is allocated to a topic including 'Jupiter' and 'Apollo', who are both deities. However, through deeper analysis, the context of some of these antiquitous words do not pertain to belief or reverence of any gods, but rather titles, such as "Delian Apollo". It is important to realize that it is not only text pertaining to myths and superstition that make Thucydides more similar to contemporary historians, but the specific way he recorded history, which can't be analyzed by Topic Modeling. Thucydides looked at history as a factual narrative with causes and effects, attempting to be as correct as possible by gathering data from a multitude of reliable sources (Grant); His scholarly and professional method is one of his most impactful contributions to how we look at history today.

With these generated-topics, I would've compared them to modern accounts of the same events, such as John Wiley and Sons'A New History of the Peloponnesian War, and Peter Green's Greco-Persian Wars; These books are however unavailable as text files online, so an error in my project is the absence of an unbiased control to compare my generated topics to.With these generated-topics, I would've compared them to modern accounts of the same events, such as John Wiley and Sons'A New History of the Peloponnesian War, and Peter Green's Greco-Persian Wars; These books are however unavailable as text files online, so an error in my project is the absence of an unbiased control to compare my generated topics to. However straightforward of an answer digital tools can provide, it will never be perfectly clear who gets to claim the title 'the father of history'. Herodotus has provided his systematic methods and vivid narratives, while Thucydides has contributed his objectivity and cautiousness to how western civilization interprets history. As digital tools have demonstrated the data to infer the differences between both historians, their impact on the subject of history is unquestionable.