How to write history (56-60)

Rapidity is everywhere useful, especially if there is no lack of material; and one must look to the subject matter to provide this rather than to the words and phrases—I mean, if you run quickly over small and

You need especial discretion in descriptions of mountains, fortifications, and rivers, to avoid the appearance of a tasteless display of your word-power and of indulging your own interests at the expense of the history; you will touch on them lightly for the sake of expediency or clarity, then change the subject, avoiding the limed twig set there and all temptation of this sort, as you see Homer doing in his greatness of mind: poet though he is he runs by Tantalus, and Ixion and Tityus and the rest. But if Parthenius or Euphorion or Callimachus were the narrator, think how many words he could have used to carry the water to Tantalus’ lips! How many to set Ixion whirling! Take Thucydides himself: he makes little use of this sort of writing, and see how quickly he gets away when he has been describing an engine or explaining a necessary and useful plan of investment, or the plan of Epipolae, or the harbour of Syracuse. When he appears long-winded in his account of the plague just think of the facts and you will realise his rapidity and how the pressure of events holds him as he tries to get away.

If a person has to be introduced to make a speech, above all let his language suit his person and his subject, and next let these also be as clear as possible. It is then, however, that you can play the orator and show your eloquence.

Eulogy and censure will be careful and considered, free from slander, supported by evidence, cursory, and not inopportune, for those involved are not in court, and you will receive the same censure as Theopompus, who impeached nearly everybody in a quarrelsome spirit and made a business of it, to the extent that he was a prosecutor rather than a recorder of events.

Again, if a myth comes along you must tell it but not believe it entirely; no, make it known for your audience to make of it what they will—you run no risk and lean to neither side.