Quomodo historia conscribenda sit

In brief let him be then like Homer’s Zeus, looking now at the land of the horse-rearing Thracians, now at

the Mysians’ country [*](Homer, Il. xiii, 4–5.) —in the same way let him look now at the Roman side in his own way and tell us how he saw it from on high, now at the Persian side, then at both sides, if the battle is joined. In the engagement itself let him not look at a single part or a single cavalryman or foot soldier—unless it be a Brasidas leaping forward or a Demosthenes beating off his attempt to land [*](During the Athenian occupation of Pylos, 425 B.C. (Thuc. IV, 11–12).) ; but first, the generals (and he should have listened to any exhortations of theirs), the plan, method, and purpose of their battle array. When the battle is joined he should look at both sides and weigh the events as it were in a balance, joining in both pursuit and flight. All this should be in moderation, avoiding excess, bad taste, and impetuosity; he should preserve an easy detachment: let him call a halt here and move over there if necessary, then free himself and return if events there summon him; let him hurry everywhere, follow a chronological arrangement as far as he can, and fly from Armenia to Media, from there with a single scurry of wings to Iberia, [*](Georgia, not Spain.) then to Italy, to avoid missing any critical situation.

Above all, let him bring a mind like a mirror, clear, gleaming-bright, accurately centred, displaying the shape of things just as he receives them, free from distortion, false colouring, and misrepresentation. His concern is different from that of the orators—what historians have to relate is fact and will speak for itself, for it has already happened: what is required is arrangement

and exposition. So they must look not for what to say but how to say it. In brief, we must consider that the writer of history should be like Phidias or Praxiteles or Alcamenes or one of the other sculptors—they certainly never manufactured their own gold or silver or ivory or their other material; no, their material was before them, put into their hands by Eleans or Athenians or Argives, and they confined themselves to fashioning it, sawing the ivory, polishing, glueing, aligning it, setting it off with the gold, and their art lay in handling their material properly.