The Invention of History: Herodotus and Thucydides

What is history and how should we approach ancient stories written before its invention? What are the circumstances that led Herodotus and Thucydides to develop the discipline of history in the Western tradition? What made their accounts of events different from previous ancient stories like those found in the Iliad or the Odyssey? Many stories in the Bible and other ancient works may look like history to us, but they were composed before history existed as a discipline. How should modern readers approach these stories and what value, if any, can we find in non-historical narratives?

[@withoutairwithoutwords5382]

I’ve just found this channel and have been binge watching it. ITS WONDERFUL! John Hamer is a great scholar/presenter/teacher.. keep it up 👍

[@ericdecker2914]

Same! I love the concise, contained narratives that are always related to peer much every other one of his lectures. Very helpful for situating the very many things that were going on. If you haven’t gotten it recommended yet, check out The Film Archives, too, for some modern American history.

[@igorstoiljkovic6217]

Fantastic lectures

[@youtubezcy]

It is consistently the best.

[@wade13murphy]

Where have your journeys lead you!?

[@TheSwircle987]

It's SO much better when the questions are saved until the end. I can barely get myself to pay attention for fear of another interruption, uh, I mean question.

[@centre-place]

Thanks for the feedback, these are very old lecture, we no longer allow interruptions.

[@vmhutch]

Great job. Cleared up some timeline issues I've had with both conflicts. The graphic presentation of the timeline was really good. Glad he did not throw Herodotus under the bus. Gave a very balanced view of oligarchy versus democracy.

[@j0nnyism]

The idea of historical writing is really a modern phenomenon.I think it’s a mistake to think that these commentaries or accounts are what we now consider histories

[@ts8538]

What a great lecture! Thank you!

[@jessegalvez6771]

I love that your lectures are interactive, but is it possible to save questions and comments from the audience for the very end?

[@TrollextheTroll]

No.......😒

[@ameliagraceelliott]

They would not be interactive then!

[@TheSwircle987]

Amen! But why is it always about "men?" 😂

[@xepulvedaaldo677]

The combining form histo- is used like a prefix meaning “tissue.” It is often used in medical terms, especially in anatomy and pathology. The form histo- comes from Greek histós, meaning “web (of a loom)” or “tissue.”

[@samnjohnson]

this etymology is unfortunately not correct. ῐ̔στός means tissue, but it is not connected to ῐ̔́στωρ, the source of “history” - this is connected to a Proto-Indo-European root for “know/see” *weyd- with an agent suffix *-or, so “knower” or “witness”. witness, wise, video, and many others also being connected to this root. We know that it must be from this root that started with a /w/ as the Boeotian dialect attests this word as ϝίστωρ with the diagamma reflecting PIE *w. the “tissue” word instead reflects the. PIE for “stand” *steh2-, as in Greek ῐ̔́στημῐ “I stand” and στοᾱ́ “colonnade”

[@xepulvedaaldo677]

@@samnjohnson THank you, i found that "Hysto" means "womb" too, as in "hysterectomy"

[@samnjohnson]

@@xepulvedaaldo677 you’re welcome! yes that hyster- is also interesting, and connected to Latin uterus.

[@alanpennie8013]

Macaulay had an interesting quasi - Thucydidean approach to reconstructing the thinking of the people of the seventeenth century. He gave them Parliamentary - style speeches but always used indirect speech to indicate that this was not what they actually said, but what they were probably thinking.

[@jacknerdlord3244]

Thank you for the amazing lectures

[@thomasvieth6063]

The subsequent remarks of the audience show that they are by far more intelligent than was thought of in the preliminary utterances

[@tbishop4961]

You thought the "his story" remark was intelligent?🤣

[@jtzoltan]

@@tbishop4961 if you read the comment more closely you'll see that Thomas was referring to that as the "preliminary utterance".

[@tbishop4961]

@@jtzoltan I did miss that

[@brendafuss9440]

Excellently presented.

[@MendTheWorld]

42:37 Thucydides concept of history as a representation of a single, external objective reality that we all share (that is to say, a record of the events that actually occurred) is a very important concept that ought to form the foundation of shared belief. Tragically, we are presently living in an era when relativism, rooted in postmodernism, has gained sway. Expertise and knowledge are mocked and derided, and truth has become merely a matter of unsubstantiated opinion.

[@thomasvieth6063]

Humans are not that way. Sorry

[@Harryjay6]

Fuckin A

[@rodgrey1989]

Amen

[@TryToHardForFun]

I think you are skimming just the surface of an incredibly deep topic but you truly don't have a grasp of its depth. The fact that you think relativism and postmodern interpretation does away with the concept of objective truth is evidence enough of that. It adds a new layer to the analysis to show that objective truth is based on the experiences and knowledge that each person has. And each person does have their own objective truth based on their own limited knowledge and experience.

[@maxsonthonax1020]

Yet...

[@americanexile]

Master Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals, compiled around 239 BC, went over 100000 words. It came from a long line of Chinese historians and compliers of encyclopedias. The earliest known written history in China: circa 1250 BC, Shang Dynasty, and well before Herodotus, The "Invention of Western History" would have been a more appropriate title.

[@thomasvieth6063]

I can easily exceed 100000 words with every novel that I write. I am a novelist who knows his limits, but they are not there ;-)

[@willx9352]

Annals are not history. The ancient Egyptians, for example, had similar writings that predate Herodotus.

[@erpthompsonqueen9130]

Thank you.

[@davepayne2024]

Excellent

[@hosseinhess927]

What is the name of the painting in the beginning?

[@SamuliGloersen]

4:14 popular false etymologi of explaining history = his story never had any gender bias for me, since words are all neutral (in Finnish). And my neutral understanding of his story as refering to every man and woman and the story of humans encompassing everyone is correct. And the discussion here is complitely anachronistic and requires misunderstanding meanings of words.

[@glenn-younger]

Although that play on words "his-story" never resonated with me, either, I do understand why it started being used: Women wanted to be included in the history books as something other than an invisible part of the uncounted masses. It's enough to hear a story recounted at a party where a man tells it from his perspective and a woman from hers. The story comes out differently, you know? Plus, although women did make contributions throughout history, you wouldn't know it if you learned history in the American school system up through the 20th century. I remember one teacher my senior year who wanted to spend a quarter (3 months) on Women in History. The school edited her curriculum down to one week, and they thought they were being generous. Still. Even though I understand why the term "his-story" started being coined, I feel it'd be a lot less divisive to just start including women's contributions in the telling. PS: I'm fascinated with the idea of speaking and expressing oneself in Finnish, a gender neutral language. I speak English and Italian, one more gender specific than the other! Italian uses a masculine or feminine article in place of the gender neutral "the" of English. The two languages literally move differently in your psyche, even while trying to express the same idea. So I can only image what a gender neutral language might feel like. I'm putting it on my wish-list to spend a summer in Finland learning the language. :-)

[@rxw5520]

A generalization used by modern feminists to promote their agenda. Of course the reality is the vast majority of men aren’t represented in these stories either. Only a tiny fraction. It’s about power, not the thing between your legs.

[@CharlieUlivarri]

@@glenn-younger Hey, I am not included in history books either . . .

[@annwood6812]

You can review the presenter's correct response to this query at 4:45 It's a "popular folk entomology". You might also notice that history is primarily concerning the actions of males. We don't have to like it, just notice that that is the case.

[@SamuliGloersen]

@@annwood6812 what are you taking about? History is mainly created and written by and about gay men.

[@sherrykreminski4771]

Pretty interesting 🤔

[@maxsonthonax1020]

Hilarious someone actually said in all earnestness "His-story" as if that actually had anything to do with the actual word. "A FUN folk etymology." - well handled.

[@sheablack311]

What an absolute child.

[@chrismayhew4274]

lol, I thought that was both funny and unsettling

[@phinhager6509]

This is how myth is made.

[@scienceexplains302]

She did not say that was the etymology (listen again at about 4:20 in the video). I think she was saying that history has traditionally excluded women’s contributions and conditions, which is true.

[@maxsonthonax1020]

@@phinhager6509 I applaud this comment.

[@ML-rz2hb]

Who is our teacher? This is very good!

[@george-stathopoulos]

That first question was dump

[@MendTheWorld]

34:42 Thucydides may well have been skeptical of fables, myths, and supernatural intervention into secular affairs, but his rational, evidence based approach has never carried much sway in human society. Today, as much as in ancient Greece, our culture is deeply invested in mythology. We have been witness to the widespread embrace of myth even as modern events are unfolding. The entire political history surrounding the Trump presidency represents a modern day mythology among his acolytes, impervious to evidence and reason.

[@rohancooray194]

Sadly, the group that opposes my beliefs in the 'culture war' is completely delusional.

[@richarddelanet]

@@rohancooray194 exactly.

[@patrikisgod]

research into Fomenko's "New Chronology" brought me here, very good lecture, thorough.

[@Will_Aviles]

great job fo real!!

[@StanKindly]

We are all created equal - only some are more equal than others. History in a nutshell

[@bridgetrawlings3743]

Growing up in America, our history lessons about Sparta are very brief and quite negative. We're told they were a simplistic warmongering culture that had the first professional military thanks to having an enormous number of slaves. Thucydides gives the most detailed account of Sparta. He describes the shock and awe he experienced when first entering the capitol city and seeing nothing but women. They were running the city, doing the jobs men should do. This didn't sit well with most Greeks because the worldwide view at the time made women out to be mentally and physically incapable of doing the jobs of men. Some scholars believe the stories of Amazons were created by first time visitors to Sparta. It turns out the Spartans had no more slaves than Athens and their slaves, or helots, were more like tenant farmers than traditional slaves. He also said the Spartans were the best dancers and musicians in Greece. Again, it was appalling that the Spartan women could attend and perform in public performances. 1/3 of Spartan land was owned by women. The fact that our historic account of the Spartans "covers up" these facts goes to show how misogynist our society still is. I believe Sparta was considered bizarre by other city-states and historians over time because of their progressive attitudes toward their women, who had rights some women still don't have today.

[@Silvertestrun]

Ty

[@Pierluigi_Di_Lorenzo]

Please talk about the history of the Trinity.

[@usboxer1]

He talks about the Trinity in other lectures about Christianity found on UTube

[@dimitriradoux]

Aristotle was talking about “the wall of the Achaeans” and both Strabo and Posidonius were of the opinion that Atlantis was a real place 😉 and yes the template/motifs of the story in Homer’s Iliad seems to have older indo European roots.

[@kamaldas1558]

History meant research in the time of Herodotus.

[@charlesonderi8226]

Good

[@MendTheWorld]

1:36:21 Interesting observation regarding the probabilistic nature of history being proportionate to the evidence supporting it. The same can (and must) be said about our knowledge of “natural history” (a.k.a. “science”). No scientific claims can be held up as absolutely true. Everything must be subject to doubt (at least in principle). Our knowledge of the natural universe is always limited in detail and colored by bias. What we _can_ say is what the preponderance of evidence indicates is _most likely_ the case, just as in historical reconstruction. I still argue, nevertheless, that the _same_ foundational assumption underlies both science and history: that there is a single external objective reality we all share, even if our knowledge of it is necessarily limited and flawed. Addendum: 1:38:20 Yes, history is a “narrative discipline”, but so in a way is science. Our knowledge of _both_ relies on a coherent compilation of evidence.

[@richarddelanet]

"...always limited in detail and coloured by bias"... always

[@thiest1205]

Can you tell me why Herodotus never mentioned any Hebrew tribe in his histories

[@ArleynH]

Oh she just haaaaad to make that little asinine remark about "his story"

[@jamesdewane1642]

History refers to the masculine as herbivore refers to the feminine. Hispaniola, Hercules, it's everywhere. The presenter's smooth response shows that he's put in his 10,000 hours dealing with that kind of static.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

He has to pretend to sympathise with the questioner - otherwise he'd be hounded from his job.

[@while.coyote]

some of these folk need to learn how to ask faster questions

[@aaronchowdhury2706]

Great lecture. That one lady in the audience said “History is HIS-story”. Did she expect a formal apology from her male predecessors for writing things down?

[@bbbann8400]

Opened it juicy

[@sebolddaniel]

Love those Roman soldier pleated miniskirt uniforms. We need to catch up. Love Italy with its marble bag beaches. I love pre feminist movies where guys wore Speedos like old Annette Movies and Where The Boys Are.

[@atlasarmstrong7501]

Is oral traditional stories considered history?

[@ribbonkelly]

what about the human waste left?

[@E.OrthodoxMHNIN]

‘My comment is that I remain Absolutely ignorant and/or ideologically blind to the meaning of the word history, despite the fact that it was just explain to me less than a second ago.” “ My my answer is: I’m going to completely cuck to your ideology because I am also blind adherent to your ideology and/or I’m afraid of losing my job by sticking by basic historical etymological facts.”

[@crispycritter9163]

LOL , you made me realize the channel is named 'Center Place' .

[@user-jh4kp9lz4b]

I'm really sorry for English speakers having to deal with gender "folk" ethymology. This is the problem we, the speakers of other languages, don't know. So it's your language bias, nothing universal.

[@kamion53]

Thucydides as an objective unbiased historian would be the great exeption among the historians, almost all have an agenda to fill, Seutonius for instance wrote his gossip rich negative history of th Julian-Claudian dynasty to be it the black mirror for the splendid rule of his emperor Hadrian Much like Shakespeare wrote the black stories about Richard III and the Plantagenets to please the Tudors and Stuarts. So what was Thucydides' agenda? To show the failure of democratia?

[@richarddelanet]

If they wanted to stay alive, or have a better life? So do I write a book about Brexit has not been particularly successful or otherwise??

[@2258rusty]

The explanation of "his" in history was very funny and very wrong. The H is added in the beginning all English words that come from the Greek language and it is a pronunciation tool for all Greek originated words that originally begin with a vowel and have a specific punctuation mark. The same applies for hydraulics, heliocentric, hysteria, Herodotus, holistic and so on. I can't help but wonder though if the explanation the very sympathetic presenter offered, is dictated by the patriarchy hysteria that has taken over the American society and Academia.

[@russello7311]

And Spanish

[@AnastasiosKaragiannidis]

I sometimes wondered whether humanity was marching towards absolute lunacy. Not any more. I now know.

[@stephenkerensky710]

Hilarious, but not exactly Hacademically valid. Cerainly not in Heurope.

[@2258rusty]

@@stephenkerensky710 Academia has a different punctuation mark on A and Europe has no punctuation mark on E. The H rule applies when the first vowel of the Greek word is punctuated with dasia (δασεία In Greek). Academia no, Homer yes. Look it up. It's a cool trivia to know.

[@danielsonlisik534]

He explained that it's a word play seconds after.

[@atlasarmstrong7501]

Pre-literate seems as there as a time when people didn't read and write. Are you teaching straight history? Or history from a particular perspective?

[@mjperfume1523]

Why don’t the just call it a bushel?

[@nemesisproject399]

The Atlantis story goes way farther back than Plato. He was told by his descendents going back to 600BC to Solon who was told the story by the Egyptians.

[@767scarecrow]

That's just what he wrote...

[@neo-pelagian]

Not sure about Achilles but surely Diomedes definitely really existed! 😛

[@MsDuketown]

Pré-histoy is before writing? What about the 3 ages system scale, given your list of involved science? You're comparing 2 scales with different bases, not accounting full history. Btw. Most history is rewritten, after being wtitten by the winners. It's also unclear who is the winner, which is a temp. state anyway. But the written stuff is cool for paternal bloodlines and pretty useless in isotopic dating or dna source research.

[@rogerwilco8146]

So true! Have you ever gone to an automaton articifer to have you robot repaired? Embarrassing right?!! Hephaestus was cool about it though. He told me once he brought his Samsung to an Applestore.

[@viktorbaraga4514]

I've come across the idea well argumanted ,that Greek language derives from Vinca script. Greeks came to the region much later than origin settlers DNA haplogroup Y chromosome, I2a and Ra1.This are not common with modern Greeks.

[@cliffgaither]

You-Tube's "updates" are becoming more and more irritating :: when the viewer goes into the "reply" section to read what commenters have written and to give their opinion ... when they come out of the reply section to go _the next_ comment ---- the system rapidlty _zooms up_ to the beginning where the viewer has already been and must start over again or skip rapidly down to get to the place where they left-off before being jerked "upstairs". YT programmers are some of the dumbest❕️

[@keenansallydworak-fisher7102]

Keenan

[@georgedoolittle7574]

"The Greeks" indeed From Rhetoric begets loss but remembrance. But yes "rhetoric" not writing begets History.

[@richarddelanet]

At about 1:20:00 lady with the statement about England is an expression of the globalist-religion: but it is a fact that civilised democracies tend not to go to war or engage in conflict. And history is not necessarily a smart place to look for instances that will support that argument. The c.15th was a golden age for example, of political liberty, for the northern Italian city-states. Relations were, 'normally conducted by diplomacy rather than by war'. (Dobson 1998 in CNMH Vol.VII). Peace and free trade is entirely feasible even in the medieval era! And of course Tony Blair took the U.K. to war in the c.21st.

[@mahdiali2695]

Macrobians approve this message

[@johnnycashsnightmare]

Ivermectin vs. Covidity

[@tonymessinajr]

I believe history is any information that can be passed on to the following generation and cuneiform is a method of recording history that does that, and cuneiform has existed for thousands of years, easily hundreds of years before the Old Testament was written or the Greeks were around oh, I just don't get it

[@chrispartlow9434]

Do you still not believe in Atlantis with all this new information people like Randall Carlson is sharing?

[@RelivingHistory1]

He's a fraud and has been exposed

[@chrispartlow9434]

Plato, gram hancoc, the clear and precise geography?@@RelivingHistory1

[@kaoseast1]

His /Story

[@stephanielewis712]

The Ancient African Kemetic people had a history that they documented the Greeks were allowed into the mystery schools that had an oral tradition and forbade the writing down of their spiritual system which was part of their history. The Greeks came in and write down what they learned and then brought the teaching back to their country and claimed they invented philosophy.

[@michaelkennedy3372]

Lol..whatever

[@jeremymettler2785]

Talk about Jeremiah was gnostic and returned as Jeremy and last seen with Arc headed west some say and why looking for reeds blowing in the wind . Fools speaking saying nothing impressing others pretend to understand guess know educated guesser pretenders of known to the ALL seen self as the forth in heaven and five stand as one proclaimed three times over before you born hell no deaf ears figured it out deaf when spoke plain question none don't know how to test this moment

[@WorthlessWinner]

How is he giving a speech on a book - a rather short book - and making this many errors? Milieus got invaded in the 3rd year of the war, not during the peace over 10 years into the war. The Athenians originally said they wanted to kill all the adult males, but changed their mind literally the next day and only killed a few leaders (the passage seems along with many others e.g. the criticism of the Spartans for killing POWs) to be a criticism of 'realpolitik' not a defense of it, so this error changes the meaning of the text.

[@mjperfume1523]

What’s a homer

[@douglaidlaw740]

And to Americans, we can attribute the demise of history.

[@tonymessinajr]

So the Greeks existed before the Old Testament was written, or isn't the Old Testament history, why isn't the Old Testament an older version of History than the Greeks that invented history I just don't get it, the Old Testament was written after the Greek

[@bumandy]

i liked this channel n watched many videos. unfortunately, too many historical errors in this video. not sure if this is an outlier or the norm

[@milkmonster9709]

Why was Socrates executed ? Lol

[@jasonberg5460]

If hell is this boring. Please dont let me go.

[@WorthlessWinner]

I wasn't expecting to literally die of cringe 4 minutes into this

[@jeremymettler2785]

Play you know ask see if I right who the hell you pretend to be

[@YinYangDPW]

After 30+ minutes of general blabber mouth, we finally get to the subject as defined in the video title - by then I dozed off to sleep and missed the meat of the meal.

[@michaelmcilrath9466]

Shame…

[@thespartan8476]

I am Hellen, not Greek. There is an intelligent video to be made in English about Herodotus and Thucydides culture, and this isn't it. You shouldn't approach this video as history in the typical sense. Treat it as an interesting speculative documentary with some historical information thrown in. History is way more clear with a Hellenic classical education, and someone who speaks like a native Greek and not as an outsider/foreigner who learned Greek. No other small country can compare with Greece in terms of impact on human benefit. In the beginning... God created the Earth, and in the light blue waters, put a small ship to travel forever, in order not only to give birth but also to transfer great ideas all over the world ... He called that ship...HELLAS! 🐬 The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance. Herodotus.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

@ 16.23. Atlantis didn't exist !!? Graham Hancock 's entire career is founded on a myth..? Surely not..!!

[@thomanderson7981]

He thinks history starts in Greece, when actually it started in Africa. The eurocentric perspective of history distorts it's true beginnings.

[@Scottirulez]

By Africa you mean Egypt right?

[@Drew070476]

What a bunch of bollocks. I’m not Greek but I do not have such a chip on my shoulder that Greek contributions to Western Civilization (of which we are all beneficiaries) and civilization generally offends me.

[@2258rusty]

He means History as a discipline, a description of real events such as the Persian invasion to Greece or the Peloponnesian civil war. There where many important civilizations before the Greeks but none of them wrote History.

[@JamesBond-lj4du]

The Greeks systems of civilization were learned from travel. They took what they learned and organized everything into their culture. However their language and influence has made the ancient Greeks the founders of the system of governance and record adopted by the western world. This does not in anyway remove the societies around the world that developed the knowledge that was introduced to the Greeks or others. Indian, African, Asian, etc have lived and been not only civil but have contributed greatly to the advancement of civilization. The Greek system however has been refined and is become the best form of passive tyranny. So perfect for controlling governments.

[@rtyrnstr3360]

@@2258rusty totally not true there were many civilisation before the greeks who wrote about history thats literally something normal today we don’t do that because we have cameras that can record things up for us, back in the days record things up from society was done in writing.

[@markharris61]

Latin is before Greek. Medical books bird names and animals

[@unitedstatesofavalon6760]

Had to turn off.. Totally uninspired lecture

[@magicpigfpv6989]

Yea? You a guitar player, wasnt inspired to learn the best way to pass along tradition or history was in song? Enjoy living uninspired as Im sure your used to...

[@dove5591]

Have you read the Holy Bible!?!

[@coryfehr1070]

No, I have not. I've heard of it. Is it any good?

[@dove5591]

@@coryfehr1070 History starts from the Holу Bible also the extinct Hellenes are using the letters from the Holy Bible and it is the Hebrews who invented History and the whole human civilization is based only on the Holy Bible.

[@atlasarmstrong7501]

@Corey Fehr LOL!!! I read it instead of a movie... Lol!!!

[@LukeA1223]

Usual nonsense. Written words are taken as truth over the obvious disputing evidence. Rhetoric, not worth wadding through the ping pong match.

[@schwerpunkt7687]

Terrible.

[@Silvertestrun]

Ty