Classical Histories

I Know they can be inaccurate and over dramatic, but I love a Good Classical history Livy, Tacitus, Xenophon, and Herodotus. Does anyone have a suggestion of a few I might have missed. Whats your Favorite? Polybius, Tacitus, Ceasar, Thucydides

Procopius of Caesarea, The Secret History. You can read about the Empress Theodora and her trained geese.

Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War was fascinating. I liked it much better than Herodotus' Histories, which was rather encyclopedic and dry at times. Xenephon's Anabasis was also quite good.

I don't entirely trust Xenephon's account, though. You can sort-of read between the lines and guess that his fellow soldiers would tell a very different story. But Thucydides has less of a personal connection to the history he writes, and he seems more credible.

In re #2. I suspect you know more classical antiquity than you do about geese. My advice to all: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME (or anywhere else).

By any reasonable standard, the early Christian era must be included, and thus I recommend Eusebius, also Josephus. Personal preference: I think Livy is better than all the Romans put together, and so, apparently did most of the historians of subsequent generations (not that I seek strength in numbers)

I like Procopius' Persian Wars (Books 1 and 2 of his eight-book History of the Wars of Justinian) more than his Secret History, but you'd not want to read one without the other, and ideally the Persian one first. Agathias' maligned continuation of the straight historyis a better read, though.

I like Marcellinus Ammianus, especially those bits where he himself was involved in the events he's describing. Josephus, Caesar, Tacitus are all fantastically vivid and good to read. Thucydides is wonderful as a historian. I love Xenophon's Anabasis.

But of all, I probably like Curtius Rufus' History of Alexander, a dark history, increasingly against its subject. Better even than Arrian's straighter history of the man.

Gotta add Dio. And if you want to read one which is mostly wrong, there's always the Historia Augusta. Ditto Shikari on Ammianus, definitely my favorite from Late Antiquity, though he lacks the animal husbandry methods for feeding geese which Procopius mentions. Another interesting 5th century one, though from a very narrow perspective, is Hydatius' Chronicle in which he pretty much states that the Last Days have come.

In re #7. Must dissent on Dio: endless cataloguing of endless wars, with far less thought or ananlysis than went into the wars themselves. As for Hydatius, haven't read him, but one wonders what a field-day he would have had with our era!

The Later Roman Empire: A.D. 354-378 by Ammianus Marcellinus (great guy!).

A few others should be added:

Velleius (1st c.), Herodian (2nd/3rd c.) and Zosimus (5th-6th c.). Orosius (4th/5th c.) has his moments. Gregory of Tours (6th c.) is, among other things, a lot of fun to read.

The Penguin translation cited in #9 above is abridged somewhat. I don't remember precisely what the translator removed, but I think it was mostly material related to astronomy and portents.

Worth a look Arrian and definitely Sallust

In another class, but worth looking at: Ctesias, Aelian's Varia Historia, Cornelius Nepos.

Ammianus Marcellinus and Gregory of Tours are both excellent. Procopius has just been put on my reading list, thanks. The seems to be a lot of foreshadowing about the geese that seems like it will be fun.

For Dougall: you probably know this, but once you get to Gregory, you're well past what we call "the classical period", not that such categories bothered the people in those days. If you enjoy Gregory, you might want to move forward with the non-Latin, but spirited TALES OF THE ANCIENT FRANKS by Thierry. Tutti auguri!

Always been partial to Tacitus, myself. Thucydides is great in English, but can be rather nightmarish in Greek, especially if you're used to stuff like Xenophon's Anabasis or the parts of Herodotus where "Solon" isn't talking ;-)

Thucydides is terribly hard, I agree. Cramped too, I think.

10> _Obscured: The Penguin Ammianus leaps over the excursus on the Persian Empire too, hugely frustratingly as I'd bought the book for the purpose of reading it, though as James Howard-Johnston points out, it's here he unfortunately becomes 'a learned antiquarian'. A shame, but Hamilton's abridged translation of 1985 is much more readable than Rolfe's older Loeb of 1940, the only other translation I know in English.

Tim, Ctesias is extremely fragmentary, however, isn't he? A shame, I'd love to read more. Isn't there a newish English translation? I've read the Budé, but they're really quite expensive now. Aelian? Hmm, I might just take my copy of the shelves and actually read it!

>17 shikari:

Photius did an abridgment of the Indika which is reasonably full. The Persika is less so. I haven't crawled through the fragments.

I find Aelian a wonderful junk-box.

I've read parts of Memnon of Heraclea, also preserved in Photius, but not all. I'm not sure if it's ever been translated into English.

Oh, and as a good end-point, Kritovoulos' history of Mehmet the Conqueror!

As you can tell, I'm rather fond of the edge stuff.

>4 HarryMacDonald:

Don't worry, just limiting myself to reading about it.

I would suggest John Burrow,s "A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century" which gives an interesting overview of the classical historians

Strange no-one went for Polybius. Weirder still, no Josephus, but the Jewish War has got to be one of the most gripping ancient histories.

I liked the Penguin version of Thucydides. I found it gripping reading. The Athenian invasion of Sicily seemed choked by hubris: "We can go anywhere... do anything...." A cautionary tale for all of us.

>21 shikari: I hope you're right. I'm working through his Antiquities right now and finding it a bit tedious.

#22, when speaking to history majors in my senior year about the utility of history, Henry Steele Commager, pointed out that reading Thucydides and understanding the Sicilian Expedition made it much easier to comprehend our Vietnam debacle.

No one mentioned Diodorus Siculus. Important for history of Macedon. In Loeb, several volumes. Volume VIII for Philip II etc. (XVI and XVII of original.)

Plutarch, though strictly a biographer rather than historian, contains a lot of history and is good reading, though verbose.

23 Cemanuel> I'm not surprised. I found the Antiquities... well, I started it and didn't get very far at all. Perhaps I should try again, though.

26> Plutarch is good, though the Penguin and Oxford Worlds Classics tend to group his biographies into 'Roman' or 'Greek' lives in a way that destroys his careful writing of biographies as complementary pairs, often followed with a comparison. North's Plutarch is a great classic of English prose and the source of many of Shakespeare's history plays. I'm still annoyed I didn't buy a copy for £50 a couple of years ago (not an original, but the English Nonesuch Press edition published in the 1920s).

Xenophon's Retreat by Robin Waterfield, was such a good history that I read Xenophon's ANABASIS with some understanding.
(2012-05-12). Anabasis (Kindle Locations 1-2). . Kindle Edition.

Procopius is an important Byzantine historian, and his take on the actual behavior of Justinian, Belisarius and the Empress Theodora is a hoot. If The Works of Procopius: The Secret History and the Wars of Justinian is correct, Theodora was one of the biggest whores in history.

Procopius (2009-10-15). The Works of Procopius: The Secret History and the Wars of Justinian (Halcyon Classics) (Kindle Location 6). Halcyon Press Ltd.. Kindle Edition.

28> The Modern Library edition of Plutarch's Parallel Lives (currently in print) uses the Dryden translation, which is genteel, and follows the original parallel Greek-Roman presentation. The North translation can be found second-hand at reasonable prices in the handsome Heritage Press edition. IMHO the prose style of either is superior to Plutarch's original.

>27 shikari: The last few Books of Antiquities were better for me for one simple reason - once Jews regularly began to interact with Rome I could recognize some of the players. Up to that point it was a somewhat dizzying list of names and place names which I had no connection to. Another problem may have been that I'm reading the single volume edition published by Hendrickson, not the Loeb so there aren't many good notes and no timeline listed at the top. Then again, it cost me 15 bucks instead of $150. I'm on Book 2 of Wars and it is much easier to follow.

I recently had to read chunks of Josephus in Greek. I agree that it got quite a bit easier once he started talking about people whom I'd actually heard of before ;-D

Plutarch, is probably my favorite. Then, perhaps Livy. Or Arrian.

Other individual fave works:
Tacitus' 'Annals'. Julius Caesar's 'Gallic Wars'. Suetonius, 'Lives of the Caesars' (soap opera).

And yes, Xenophon was huge fun.

I also vote for Sallust. 'The History of the Jurgurthine War' and the 'Catiline Conspiracy', riveting stuff.

Another rec: Appian, 'The Civil Wars'.

I very much enjoy the style of writing in all these men, basically. Terse, matter-of-fact, plain.

The only one I never gravitated towards was Herotodus because of his penchant for the fantastic and uncorroborated; he tosses in a grab-bag of all sorts of gossip and legends.

I recently had to read chunks of Josephus in Greek.

I tried, but his Greek is pretty icky. What were you doing it for?

Taking a class on Greek "Imperial Prose" authors. Sadly, due to the professor's own interests, we tend to skip the bits that I find most interesting. But you can't please everyone, I suppose.

Interesting. Arrian?

Nope. Josephus, Plutarch, and Lucian. But very little historical stuff overall, sadly. We did read Life of Antony, at least.

>37 Feicht: Feicht: I was quite impressed when I read your reading - till I realized you meant Plutarch's Life of Anthony, not Athanasius'... But no Dio Chrysosthom?

No John Chrysostom, for that matter. Or Libanius. Apparently. Either would be a better choice than Josephus. Maybe the teacher wanted an earlier time frame. Dio would fit in with the three.