Contemporary Historiography: Convention Methodology and Innovation

Herodian opens his ab excessu divi Marci with normative historiographic claims, drawn primarily from Thucydides (see Hidber 2006, 72-115; Kemezis 2014, 230-234). His history will focus on the changes of emperor over a period of sixty years; it was written from what Herodian saw, heard and experienced; and it is filled with events within his readers' memories (1.1.3, 1.2.5). Herodian also states that he will focus on the large number of changes in power that occurred in his day, specifically noting the difference between the older and younger emperors.

Like many of his ancient predecessors (Herodotus 1.8, Thucydides 1.22, and Polybius 12.27.1–3; see further Schepens 1975; Marincola 1997, 63-86), Cassius Dio believed that he was best when writing contemporary history (73[72].18.4; trans. Cary, Loeb Classical Library):

It is nothing new to observe that direct speech is rare in Caesar’s commentarii. While direct speech gives the impression of immediacy and vividness, it is also, within a narrative that purports to be factual, inherently implausible as a true record (Laird 131-52). Indirect discourse, by contrast, may give the impression that the author reports no more than what could plausibly be remembered: the content of the original speech but not its specific form (cf. Thuc. 1.22.1: ἡ ξύμπασα γνώμη τῶν ἀληθῶς λεχθέντων).

In the Histories, Polybius insists on the primacy of eye-witness knowledge for history-writing, criticizing other historians throughout (especially Timaeus, who is subject to a self-serving, full-on attack in Book 12 (Baron 2012: 58-88)) for their inexperience, dishonesty, and overreliance on tragic detail. Polybius’s sense of authority comes not only from his vast reading, which (as he explains while criticizing Ephorus) is not enough (12.25f), but also from his own travel and military and political experience.

Since the beginning of the western tradition of historiography, the idea of “eyewitness history” has held a central importance. Herodotus at various points emphasizes his autopsy – not of events, obviously, since those he narrates took place at an earlier time, but of places and objects (Darbo-Peschanski 1987). Thucydides is able to position himself closer to his subject, given the contemporary events he writes about, and he emphasizes this fact in his opening sentence (1.1).