Quomodo historia conscribenda sit

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 6. Kilburn, K., translator. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.

I maintain then that the best writer of history comes ready equipped with these two supreme qualities: political understanding and power of expression; the former is an unteachable gift of nature, while power of expression may come through a deal of practice, continual toil, and imitation of the ancients. These then need no guiding rules and I have no need to advise on them; my book does not promise to make people understanding and quick who are not so by nature. It would be worth a good deal—everything rather—if it could remodel and transform things to that extent, or make gold out of lead or silver from tin, or manufacture a Titormus from a Conon or a Milo from a Leotrophides. [*](Conon and Leotrophides were little men, Titormus and Milo of great size and strength.)

Then where is technique and advice helpful? Not for the creation but for the appropriate employment of qualities. For instance, Iccus, Herodicus, Theon, and the other trainers would not promise you to take on Perdiccas—if indeed he and not Antiochus, the

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son of Seleucus, is the one who fell in love with his stepmother and wasted away because of it—and make him an Olympic victor, a rival to Theagenes the Thasian, or Polydamas of Scotussa, but only that if they were given a subject inclined by nature to receive athletic training they would by their technique make him much better. So let me too not suffer this reproach when I make my promise and say that I have discovered a technique in a matter so important and so difficult, for I do not promise to take on anyone you like and make him an historian; no, merely to demonstrate to a man who is intelligent by nature and well trained in expressing himself certain direct routes (if indeed that is what they appear to be) which if he will use them will help him more quickly and more easily to the attainment of his goal.

You would not say that the intelligent man has no need of technique and instruction where he is ignorant—otherwise he would play the lyre, blow the pipe, and understand everything without learning. As it is, he could not do any of this without first learning, and with someone to guide him he will learn most easily and perform them well for himself.