The principle criticism of Herodotus is for his reporting what he was told in response to his inquiries, but he generally differentiates what he has seen from what he has been told. For me, his strength is the vividness, the unforgettable nature of his stories--the tyrant throwing his ring into the sea and having it brought back in a fish, Croesus on the pyre, the two Spartan lads trying to explain freedom to a Persian, and of course the fight at Thermopylae. When I was restoring stories to my history of the Petersburg Regiment, my criterion was my inability to forget the incident in question.
The strongest criticism of Thucydides I have seen is that he fabricated the speeches in his book, though he is considered to have written from contemporary accounts and on a relatively scientific basis. His strength is his analysis. But his accounts are less particular than those of Herodotus, and consequently less vivid. I cannot imagine reading Thucydides just before going to sleep, but as a boy I used to read Herodotus before going to sleep.
So while I favor Herodotus, I think Thucydides a very great historian and probably a greater analyst of history than the other father of history, Herodotus. Telling a vivid story is entirely compatible with providing analysis.
The strongest criticism of Thucydides I have seen is that he fabricated the speeches in his book, though he is considered to have written from contemporary accounts and on a relatively scientific basis. His strength is his analysis. But his accounts are less particular than those of Herodotus, and consequently less vivid. I cannot imagine reading Thucydides just before going to sleep, but as a boy I used to read Herodotus before going to sleep.
So while I favor Herodotus, I think Thucydides a very great historian and probably a greater analyst of history than the other father of history, Herodotus. Telling a vivid story is entirely compatible with providing analysis.
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