Ch. 2. Being There: Three Examples of Brief Dialogue in Herodotus and Thucydides

Abstract

Though the idea of ‘eyewitness history’ held a central importance from the beginning, Greek historical writing did not typically feature the explicit citation of evidence provided by an eyewitness to an event. Rather, the Greek historians utilised a narrative style which elided any conceptual distance between the reader and the action. This narrative fiction raises the possibility of a different meaning for ‘eyewitness history’, one that shifts emphasis from the sources to the audience. In this essay, I examine three passages containing direct speech found in Herodotus and Thucydides which stand out from their surroundings in various ways. I suggest that the notion of ‘eyewitness history’ in its more reader-orientated sense may help explain the uncommon nature of these brief dialogues. Published in Andrew G. Scott,, ed., Studies in Contemporary Historiography (HISTOS Supplement 15), p. 15-37.