How to write history (51-55)

The task of the historian is similar: to give a fine arrangement to events and illuminate them as vividly as possible. And when a man who has heard him thinks thereafter that he is actually seeing what is being described and then praises him—then it is that the work of our Phidias of history is perfect and has received its proper praise.

After all his preparations are made he will sometimes begin without a preface, when the subject matter requires no preliminary exposition. But even then he will use a virtual preface to clarify what he is going to say.

Whenever he does use a preface, he will make two points only, not three like the orators. He will omit the appeal for a favourable hearing and give his audience what will interest and instruct them. For they will give him their attention if he shows that what he is going to say will be important, essential, personal, or useful. He will make what is to come easy to understand and quite clear, if he sets forth the causes

The best historians have written prefaces of this sort: Herodotus, writing history to preserve events from time’s decay, great and glorious as they were, telling of Greek victories and barbarian defeat; Thucydides too, with his expectation that the war would be great, more memorable, and more important than any that had gone before; and in fact the sufferings in that war were considerable.

After the preface, long or short in proportion to its subject matter, let the transition to the narrative be gentle and easy. For all the body of the history is simply a long narrative. So let it be adorned with the virtues proper to narrative, progressing smoothly, evenly and consistently, free from humps and hollows. Then let its clarity be limpid, achieved, as I have said, both by diction and the interweaving of the matter. For he will make everything distinct and complete, and when he has finished the first topic he will introduce the second, fastened to it and linked with it like a chain, to avoid breaks and a multiplicity of disjointed narratives; no, always the first and second topics must not merely be neighbours but have common matter and overlap.