The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

102 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

~ 4. His treatment of non-conlteimporar'y histo'ry
Thucydides not only showed Greece how contemporary history should be studied and recorded;
he also gave a specimen of a new way of handling
the history of past ages. He prefixed to his work
a general sketch of the history of Hellas which
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who by no means
appreciated its merits, justly described as equivalent to an independent work. This sketch is
amazing in its power and insight. Wle must remember that it is confined strictly to one side of
the historical development. It is intended to
answer a definite question: how it was that
before quite recent times no large and powerful
state had arisen in Greece; and to explain the
small scale of the military and political enterprises of the past. It does not touch on constitutioinal history at all, and the "period of the
tyrants" is only emphasized because their nonaggressive policy was a relevant point in the
exposition. Within the limits to which it strictly
adheres, this outline is a most closely reasoned
argument and was the revelation of a totally new
way of treating history.. We cannot endorse it
all; and of the Homeric and pre-Homeric civilisation in Greece we have come to know within the
last thirty years more than Thucydides could
discover. But criticism of details is not to the
point; his sketch remains a shining example of