The History Thread

[EBH 283]

I fucking hate Herodotus. He's not a historian, he is nothing more than a glorified storyteller, and yet here I sit, desperately attempting to find something, anything he said about Alexander the Great. He should have been discredited and struck from the historical record a long time ago, but I suppose all ancient history is essentially based on stuff that's only a little bit thicker in substance than the word 'speculation'.

Having said that, it's only wankers like Herodotus, who are so quick to turn to the supernatural to explain everything, that give ancient history that reputation. Many of his contemporaries (very broadly using the term here, meaning every historian who lived between about 800 BC - 476 AD) were however genuine, top lads that went out of their way to present opposing views, to find explanations other than 'it happened because Zeus was Alexander's real father!' like Livy or Tacitus, and they get marginalised in favour of chancers of the highest degree such as Herodotus .