' An historian far inferior to Herodotus or Thucydides was Xenophon (c. 430-354 n.c.). His literary ability was of a high order, but his capacity for profound historical analysis was most limited. He was a good memoir writer and his (Anabasis) was one of the most absorbing of Greek memoirs. In his (Hel lenica) he attempted to continue the narrative of Thucydides from 411 to 362 B.C. While this work is most valuable as an historical source for the period, it is superficial and owes what historical merit it possesses primarily to its imitation of the method and arrangement of the work of Thucydides. On the whole, it is safe to agree with Bury that he owes his reputation to the fact that an uncritical genera tion later preserved his writings, while allow ing more meritorious works to perish and that °if he had lived in modern days, he would have been a high-class journalist and pamphleteer and would have made his fortune as a war-correspondent." It would not be fair, however, to overlook the remarkable versatility of Xenophon's literary talents, which were ex hibited in memoirs, biOgraphy, systematic his tory, constitutional analysis and economic theory.
The last of the major Greek historians was Polybius (c. 198-117 Lc.). From the stand point of either productivity or profundity he was superior to Thucydides and was fully equal to him with respect to accuracy of state ment, but his style being labored and diffuse he has been less popular than his two great prede cessors. His (History) was a vast work in 40 books dealing the expansion of the Roman Empire to 146 a.c. As Herodotus had mir rored the interest of early Greek historians in the East, and Thucydides had written of Athens at the height of its civilization, so Polybius testified to the decline of Hellas and the shifting of interest to the new empire of the West. His scholarship was equal to that of the great historian of British expansion, but he lacked the latter's power of compression and lucid statement. In the 12th book of his work is found, as a critique of the antiquarian, Timaeus, the first great treatise on the methodology of scientific history. Conceived independently of Thucydides, this discussion has scarcely been surpassed, and his impartial ity is a model for all historians. Especially noteworthy was his Ritter-like insistence upon the value of a knowledge of topography to the historian. He intended his history to be in tensely pragmatic — to be °philosophy teaching by example," but he never allowed the philos opher in him to overcome the historian. Greatly interested in the problem of causation, he went deeper in his analysis of impersonal causes than Thucydides, though his interpretation was ethical rather than economic and social. The following brief quotation from his 12th book admirably epitomizes his views as to the scope, methods and purpose of history. °The science of history is three-fold: first, the dealing with written documents and the arrangement of the material thus obtained; second, topography, the appearance of cities and localities, the descrip tion of rivers and harbors, and, speaking gen erally, the peculiar features of the seas and countries and their relative distances; thirdly, political affairs. . . . The special province of history is, first, to ascertain what the actual words used were; and secondly, to learn why it was that a particular policy or arrangement failed or succeeded. For a bare statement of an occurrence is interesting indeed, but not in structive; but when this is supplemented by a statement of cause, the study of history be comes fruitful. For it is by applying analogies
to our own circumstances that we get the means and basis for calculating the future; and for learning from the past when to act with caution, and when with greater boldness, in the present." All in all, one may agree with Pro fessor Botsford that °a careful reading of this author is the best possible introduction to the spirit and method of history as we of to-day regard it." 4. Minor Contributions to Greek His toriography.— Polybius was unique in his age as an historian. Long before he composed his great work Hellenic historiography had begun to decline from the standard set by Thucydides and was brought under the influence of rhetoric in the 4th century. With their tendency to in sipid moralizing, the interpolation of florid speeches, and their °passion for panegyrics," the historical works of the rhetorical school, like those of Froissart and Lamartine °ex hibited artistic but not historical genius.* This capitulation to the popular demand for rhetoric Hermann Peter believes to have been the main cause for the decline and stagnation of Greek history and its Roman imitations. Of the °Rhetoricians° of the 4th century the leader was Isocrates and the chief historians of the school were Ephorus and Theopompus. The work of Ephorus was probably the nearest ap in Greek historiography to a °national 'story" of Hellas. Of quite a different char acter was the work of .Timaeus of Tauromenium who devoted a lifetime of labor to the patient compilation of a vast repository of reliable facts concerning the history of Sicily and Italy. He was the first and the greatest of the anti quarians that flourished in the 3d century and he may be regarded as the prototype of Blondus and Mabillon. Two later ambitious compilations — the of Dio dorus of Sicily (c. 90-21 a.c.) and the Roman history of his younger contemporary, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, were of a far inferior order, though, perhaps, superior to the work of the °Rhetoricians." Historical biography among the Greeks was founded by Isocrates, the leader of the °Rhetoricians," and one of the earliest products was the biography of Agesilaus by Xenophon. Subsequent historians devoted considerable space to biography. Plutarch's (c. 50-125 A.D.) polished (Parallel Lives) have remained at the head of the world's biographical product on account of their compelling interest, if not for their entire historical accuracy. Indeed, it must be remembered that Plutarch was a mor alist and wrote his °Lives° not as strictly his torical biographies, but in order to furnish con crete illustrations of his ethical principles for the moral edification of his readers.
In the period of the Hellenic revival in Rome a number of Greek historians made con tributions to historical writing of widely dif ferent merit. Among the less notable produc tions were the (Anabasis of Alexander) by Ar rian (c. 95-175 A.D.) and the