How to write history (7-9)

But as to faults in historical writing, you will probably find by observation that they are of the same sort as I have noticed in many attendances at readings, especially if you open your ears to everyone. But it will not be out of place in the meantime to recall by way of example some of the histories already written in this faulty manner.

To begin with, let us look at this for a serious fault: most of them neglect to record the events and spend their time lauding rulers and generals, extolling their own to the skies and slandering the enemy’s beyond all reserve; they do not realise that the dividing line and frontier between history and panegyric is not a narrow isthmus but rather a mighty wall; as musicians say, they are two diapasons apart, since the encomiast’s sole concern is to praise and please in any way he can the one he praises, and if he can achieve his aim by lying, little will he care; but history cannot admit a lie, even a tiny one, any more than the windpipe, as sons of doctors say, can tolerate anything entering it in swallowing.

Again, such writers seem unaware that history has

aims and rules different from poetry and poems. In the case of the latter, liberty is absolute and there is one law—the will of the poet. Inspired and possessed by the Muses as he is, even if he wants to harness winged horses to a chariot, even if he sets others to run over water or the top of the corn, [*] nobody gets annoyed; not even when their Zeus swings land and sea together suspended from a single cord [*] are they afraid it will break and everything fall and smash. If they want to praise Agamemnon there is no one to prevent his having a head and eyes like Zeus, a chest like Zeus’ brother Poseidon, and a belt like Ares, [*] and in general the son of Atreus and Aerope must be a compound of all the gods for not Zeus nor Poseidon nor Ares alone is adequate to give the fullness of his beauty. But if history introduces flattery of that sort, what else does it become but a sort of prose-poetry, lacking indeed the high style of poetry, but showing the rest of poetry’s sorcery without metre, and for that reason in a more conspicuous way? So it is a great deal—all too great a fault—not to know how to keep the attributes of history and poetry separate, and to bring poetry’s embellishments into history—myth and eulogy and the exaggeration of both: it is as if you were to dress one of our tough, rugged athletes in a purple dress and the rest of the paraphernalia of a pretty light-o’-love and daub and paint his face. Heavens! how ridiculous you would make him look, shaming him with all that decoration.

I do not say that there is no room for occasional praise in history. But it must be given at the proper time and kept within reasonable limits to avoid displeasing future readers. In general such matters should be controlled with a view to what posterity demands; I shall treat of them a little later.

Now some think they can make a satisfactory distinction in history between what gives pleasure and what is useful, and for this reason work eulogy into it as giving pleasure and enjoyment to its readers; but do you see how far they are from the truth? In the first place, the distinction they draw is false: history has one task and one end—what is useful—, and that comes from truth alone. As for what gives pleasure, it is certainly better if it is there incidentally—like good looks in an athlete; but if it isn’t there, there is still nothing to prevent Nicostratus, the son of Isidotus, a true blue and a stouter fellow than either of his rivals, from becoming “a successor of Heracles [*] though he be ugly to look at, while his opponent is Alcaeus of Miletus, the handsome fellow who, they say, was loved by Nicostratus. So it is with history—if she were to make the mistake of dealing in pleasure as well she would attract a host of lovers, but as long as she keeps only what is hers alone in all its fullness—I mean the publication of the truth—she will give little thought to beauty.