Aristotle on history

Abstract

Aristotle certainly had rich abundance of histories available. First of all, there are the histories of Herodotus (c. 484–425 B.C.) and Thucydides (c. 460–395 B.C.), the 5th-century B.C. classics and models for the later historiography. Historiography was well developed in the 4th century B.C. The collection of the fragments of historians – Carl Müller’s Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum – contains references to and quotations from hundreds of authors. In most cases, their histories have not survived. The rich and many-sided tradition of historiography was certainly known to Aristotle, as knowledge of history in view of the philosopher’s manysided interests is impossible to exclude. Unfortunately, it is difficult to be more specific. We do not know which author or authors Aristotle had in mind when he made his statements about history. [excerpt]