How to write history (1-5)

They say, my dear Philo, that in the reign of King Lysimachus the people of Abdera were smitten by an epidemic. These were its symptoms: at first every one of them fell ill of a fever, violent and obstinate right from the start; about the seventh day it was broken, in some cases by a copious flow of blood from the nostrils, in others by heavy sweating; but their minds were left in a ridiculous state; they all went mad with tragedy, shouting iambics and creating a din; and they mostly sang solos from Euripides’ “Andromeda,” [*] rendering Perseus’ speech in song; the city was full of these seventh-day tragedians, all pale and thin, roaring,

“Love, you tyrant of gods and men”

To make as they say a comparison, that Abderite complaint has now taken hold of most of the literary world. They don’t act tragedy—they would be less out of their wits if they were in the grip of other men’s verses, not shoddy ones at that. No, ever since the present situation arose—the war against the barbarians, the disaster in Armenia and the run of victories—every single person is writing history; nay more, they are all Thucydideses, Herodotuses and Xenophons to us, and very true, it seems, is the saying that “War is the father of all things” [*] since at one stroke it has begotten so many historians.

As I saw and heard all this, friend, I was reminded of the story of the man of Sinope. When Philip was said to be already on the march, all the Corinthians were astir and busy, preparing weapons, bringing up stones, underpinning the wall, shoring up a battlement and doing various other useful jobs. Diogenes saw this, and as he had nothing to do—nobody made any use of him—he belted up his philosopher’s cloak and very busily by himself rolled the crock in which, as it happens, he was living up and down Cornel Hill. When one of his friends asked: “Why are you doing that, Diogenes?” he replied: “I’m rolling the crock so as not to be thought the one idle man in the midst of all these workers.”

So in my own case, Philo, to avoid being the only mute in such a polyphonic time, pushed about open-mouthed without a word like an extra in a comedy, I thought it a good idea to roll my barrel as best I could; not to produce a history or even merely chronicle the events—I’m not so bold as that: don’t be afraid that I should go that far. I know the danger of rolling it over rocks, particularly a poorly baked little barrel like mine. Just as soon as it hits against a tiny piece of stone we shall have to pick up the pieces.

I shall tell you then what I have decided to do and how I shall take part in the war in safety, keeping well out of range myself. “From your spray and surge’’ [*] and all the cares that attend the writer of history I shall keep myself aloof and rightly so. In fact, I shall offer a little advice and these few precepts to historians, so that I may share in the erection of their building, if not the inscription on it, by putting at any rate my finger-tip on the mortar.

Yet most of them think they don’t even need advice for the job any more than they need a set of rules for walking or seeing or eating; no, they think it is perfectly simple and easy to write history and that anyone can do it if only he can put what comes to him into words. As to that, I’m sure you know as well as I do, my dear friend, that history is not one of those things that can be put in hand without effort and can be put together lazily, but is something which needs, if anything does in literature, a great deal of thought