Do ancient historians tell us more about myth than real events?

This long-read article was written by lower-sixth former Mattie Sutton. The following provides a short abstract to his full essay, which can be found at the bottom.

Estimated read time of abstract: < 1 minute
Estimated read time of essay: 7 minutes

We’ve all heard of Greek and Roman myths – The Cyclops, Icarus, etc. – they’re one of the most appealing parts of Classics. Another area full of interest is Ancient History, home to defining battles, decisions and speeches that are still studied today. However, sometimes these areas collide, meaning Ancient History isn’t always like the “History” of today. This naturally leads to the question, how useful is Ancient History? Does it tell us more about myth or real events?

In this short essay we’ll examine four titans of historical world: Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius and Livy. We’ll examine what they wrote and why they wrote it, examining how much myth was used, and to what effect. Overall however, we’ll see that it’s not as easy as it first seems to separate myth from fact, and actually myth had its own role to play in Ancient History.

To view Mattie’s full article, follow this link below.