A Comparison of Two Books

Similarities appear from the beginning in the opening sections in which the two writers state their reasons for writing and ratify the grounds of their reliability. At the same eon, of course, they ascribe high here and now to the events active which they write and, by extension, to the political entities and leading figures knotted in these events. Thucydides announced that he had decided to write about the state of war from its very beginning because, with the two nations at the height of their powers, it was likely to be "the greatest disturbance in the report of the Hellenes," affecting perhaps "the whole of mankind" (13). Thucydides noted that it was unmanageable to "acquire a really precise knowledge" of antediluvian patriarch and recent history (13). But, based on the evidence he could assemble, he did not recollect that there had been an earlier war that could equal the scope of this one. Thucydides summarized the history of the Hellenes and referred to the authority of Homer, "if we can believe [his] evidence," to estimate the descale of the conflict recounted in the Iliad. He conclude that the fifth-century war was the greater struggle and used this procedure as an example of the manner in which he drew conclusions from the uncommitted evidence. He outlined his method and asserted that he had any witnessed the events he reported or had cargonfully sifted the accounts of other eyewitnesses. Thucydides claimed to fetch to the facts and to leave out "the romantic ele ment" (24). His

Both authors establish their reliability at the outset. The scale of the wars and the valor of the soldiers are carefully shown to surpass the events of the past by careful examination of the available evidence. The conclusions the historians draw, being based on such rational, disinterested analyses of the evidence, are meant to assure the reader that their accounts leave be impartial, factual, and utterly reliable. And this attitude is reflected in the plague episodes when, unusually, they are not describing the operations of war or politics plainly a phenomenon that has just as many consequences as any of these human activities.

Thucydides did not use chapters and the number of chapters added in side editions varies considerably from one translation to another.

Warner divided the text into more than chapters than most translators.

Procopius followed Thucydides on every point. He said that, having been an consultant to the general Belisarius, he was "an eyewitness of practically all the events" he depict (5). Procopius argued that his account of the empire's wars would be "most helpful to men of the present time, and to future generations as well, in case time should ever again place men under a similar stress" (3). But he also state that his purpose in writing was to avoid having these great events blotted out by the passage of time since, echoing Thucydides again, "it will be evident that no more important or mightier kit and caboodle are to be found in history than those which keep up been enacted in these wars" (5). Procopius even echoed Thucydides' reference to Homer. But where Thucydides concerned himself with the carnal knowledge sizes of the armies in the Homeric and contemporary conflicts, Procopius was concerned to show that the fighters of his twenty-four hours were every bit as heroic as those described by the ancient poet.

purpose in writing was not to entertain but to provide an account that would be " usable [to] those who want to understand clearly the events wh
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