How to write history (16-20)

Another of them has compiled a bare record of the events and set it down on paper, completely prosaic and ordinary, such as a soldier or artisan or pedlar following the army might have put together as a diary

If I have to mention a philosopher let his name remain unknown. I shall speak only of his general views and his recent writings in Corinth. They went beyond all expectation. Right at the beginning in the first sentence of his introduction he used dialectic on his readers in his eagerness to show off a very clever argument. This was to the effect that only the philosopher was fit to write history. Then a little later came one syllogism, then another. In short his introduction was sheer dialectic in every figure of the syllogism. His flattery was nauseating: his eulogies were vulgar and downright low; even they were syllogistic and dialectical in form. I certainly thought it in poor taste and not at all

Again it would not be right to omit the one who began as follows: “I come to speak of Romans and Persians,” and a little later said: “The Persians were foredoomed to come to grief,” and again: “It was Osroes, whom the Greeks call Oxyrhoes” and many more things of this sort, all in Ionic. Do you see? He was like Crepereius, only Crepereius was a wonderful copy of Thucydides, this man of Herodotus.

Another, renowned for his powerful eloquence, was also like Thucydides or a little better. He described all cities, mountains, plains, and rivers in the most detailed and striking way, as he thought. May the Averter of Evil turn his detail and vigour against the enemy, so much frigidity was there in it, worse than Caspian snow and Celtic ice! For example, he only just got through his description of the emperor’s shield in a whole book, with its Gorgon on the boss, her eyes of blue, white, and black, her girdle like the rainbow, the ringlets and curls of her serpents. The trousers of Vologesus and the bit of his horse—Heavens! how many thousands of words on each, and his descriptions of Osroes’ hair as he swam across the Tigris, and the cave where he fled for safety, with its jungle of ivy, myrrh, and laurel making it completely

Because of weakness in matters of importance or ignorance of what to say, they turn to this sort of description of scenery and caves; when they chance on a host of great doings they are like a newly-rich servant who has just inherited his master’s fortune: he knows neither how to dress nor how to take his meal in the proper way: no, he plunges in, when for instance birds and pork and hares are put before him, stuffing himself with a soup or kippers until he bursts from eating. Well, this man I mentioned described incredible wounds and monstrous deaths, how one man was wounded in the big toe and died on the spot, and how Priscus the general just gave a shout and twenty-seven of the enemy fell dead. And in the number slain he even contradicted the officers’ despatches with his false figures: at Europus, he said, the enemy lost 70,236 killed, while the Romans lost just two and had nine wounded. I do not think anyone in his senses would accept that.