Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
1. Empires Ascendant, 400 BC-AD 200. Amsterdam: Time-Life, 1988. Print.
2. Boissier, Gaston, Emanuele Narducci, and Carlo Saggio. Cicerone E I Suoi Amici: Studio Sulla Società Romana Del Tempo Di Cesare. Milano: Rizzoli, 1988. Print.
3. Mehl, Andreas. Roman Historiography: An Introduction to Its Basic Aspects and Development. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Print.
4."Formatia Trans Sicere Educatorum." Formatia Trans Sicere Educatorum. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013
In Rome, historiography went through many different periods. There isn't an exact date for its birth and authors have not always maintained the same style, because of the political changes. We can notice three different main styles:
Have you ever heard of historiography? It's the study and the analysis of history, based on true facts and certain dates.
The Annals were book written year by year that collected the most important facts of the year. They were very popular during the period in which Rome was a kingdom and during the early republic.
They aren't considered historiography, but they are the first form of recording history in Rome.
Historiography as we know it nowadays was born right after the big success of the Commentarii, and the earliest historian whose works are known today is Sallust, a man who lived in the same period as Cesar did, from 100 BCE to 44 BCE.
Take a look at our textbook: it's historiography!
Commentarii were born as notes to help one's memory for important facts or important events. With Julius Cesar, who wrote several of them, they became a genre and some of the most important works in the Latin literature's world.
They were memories and annotations put together to form a story, a description or a politic debate.
History is just a description of the facts that happened, historiography involves the analysis and the study of those events as well.
When republic was about to become an empire, the highest classes didn't have control on the lower ones. The high classes couldn't do anything so they only thought about arts and literature started to become a "hobby". People were free to write and to tell their own opinion, without quoting the others'.
Commentarii are works made by people who have the power. They write their point of view and people know they are right because they are emperors, consuls, or generals. They don't include their opinion because they only want to describe what they experienced and not what they think about it.
During the kingdom period, authors weren't free, they were influenced by the king's opinion and will and couldn't write whatever thy wanted. That's why literature wasn't seen as a nice thing and the writers could only write things like annals that were controlled by the king.
In Rome and in Greece, historiography was born in two different time periods, and its development had been visibly influenced by the different political situations of the two countries.
Herodotus' method was based on asking questions to people, looking for witnesses and for different points of view.
The first Greek historian was Herodotus, born in Halicarnassus, Turkey, in 484 BCE.
He traveled all across Greek and Turkey during his life to write his most famous work: The Histories (in Greek Historiai).
The Histories is a collection of books that tell the facts of different time periods and different places. The most important topic the work is about is the Greco-Persian war.
Historiography in Greece was born in the 5th century BCE.
Afterward, he chose the ones he thought to be most plausible and quoted them in his books. He often didn't just explain and analyze facts, but he commented them as well.
Every city-state in Greece was democratic. Herodotus method, apart from giving birth to historiography, reflects the freedom of speech of the people in Greece. He expresses his own opinion and uses other's points of view too, so that everybody can cooperate.
This method was so effective in Greece that it has been used for many years even after Herodotus' death!