Bards, Historians And Historiographers Of Ancient Greece
Greece, a modern country found in Southeastern Europe, has for more than a thousand years presented the world with famous battles, fine art, wine, poetry, gods, and tales that at times bewilder the mind. But none of this could have happened had it not been developed by men of various backgrounds and experiences. Men like Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus and Thucydides, wrote the history of Greece as it is known today. These men of poetry and prose brought more to the discussion than just dreary stories.
Symposium scene: banqueters playing the kottabos game while a girl plays the aulos. National Archaeological Museum (CC BY-SA 2.5)
What is often overlooked, and upon closer inspection, is the struggle between men and gods. Ideas were fraught with complications. To break free from the supernatural and embrace the natural elements that surrounded them and to orientate their cognition to "rational thinking" was a struggle to say the least. The Greek historians were able to present to the people of their times, and the people of today, a vast array of thought, whether it be their history, religion, political turmoil, making contact with a foreign nation for the first time, or even going to war. The ancient Greeks who wrote, the reasons they wrote, and how each stood on the shoulders of the previous, to see what they saw, deserve modern recognition.
