Look, I know this is supposed to be a series on dynamite fiction books that will pad out your reading list in preparation of the long, dark winter days ahead. I understand that history is not fiction, but I would like to present two reasons why it’s okay for me to violate Tor.com’s prime directive here:
(1) Leslie Hartley’s quote that “the past is a foreign country” is absolutely true, and the further back you go, the more foreign it gets. I’m going to stretch the envelope here and say that, if the past is a foreign country, the ancient past qualifies as a full-blown secondary world—which qualifies it as fantasy. ALSO:
(2) I do what I want.
We’re used to reading history told by our own people, with all of the modern habits, biases and assumptions that seem so natural to people living in 2017 A.D. In the 4th century B.C., many Greek cities considered the Successors (Alexander the Great’s top generals, now kings in their own right) to be gods. Ridiculous, right? Can you imagine thinking of an American President or a UK Prime Minister as an actual god?
But ancient people did believe this, and it isn’t until you hear them talking about it in their own words that it starts to make sense. This is, every bit as much as fantasy, a transporting experience, a chance to interact with something so foreign and wild that it doesn’t feel real.
But it was. And that, more than anything, makes ancient history even more satisfying, on a fictional level, than a lot of fiction. Reading history by modern historians can’t possible capture this. In order to feel this true sense of the weird, you have to read works by writers working at the same time as the events they were describing. Ancients, talking about being ancient. Fortunately, most of these writers are available in translation, online and totally free.
Here’s five of the greats to get you started:
Herodotus – Histories
Herodotus was a 5th C. B.C. Greek historian (he was actually born in modern-day Turkey, in what was then the Persian empire), who is popularly known as “The Father of History.” Did you see the movie 300? Remember all the awesome Spartan one-liners in there? “The Persian Arrows will blot out the sun!” Response: “Then we will fight in the shade,” or “Proud Xerxes does not want your land, only your arms.” Response: “Come and take them.” All of that is lifted straight out of Herodotus, and it gives a great impression of one of the world’s first master prose stylists. He writes mostly about the history of the Greco-Persian Wars, which gave us the story of the famous 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.
Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War
Another 5th C. B.C. Greek. If Herodotus is credited with fathering all of history, Thucydides gets the laurel for “scientific history” (meaning that he pays attention to standards of objectivity and checks his sources). He’s also called the father of realpolitik, a fancy way of saying cruel or immoral politics, mostly for the famous Melian Dialogue section in his history. I quote from this section in my forthcoming book from Tor.com Publishing, The Armored Saint. Thucydides is as close to a “grimdark” history as you’ll get. Rough and practical, he’s been called “devoid of moral sensibility” by scholars. It provides an interesting tint on ancient history that fans of dark works like A Song of Ice and Fire might find satisfying.
Xenophon – The March Upcountry (Anabasis)
Xenophon was a 4th C. B.C. Greek historian and warrior, who was famously involved with the March of the 10,000—a rearguard action fought by 10,000 Greek mercenaries stranded in the middle of Persian territory, trying to make their way across roughly 500 miles of hostile terrain, fighting all the way, to the shores of the Black Sea, and then home. Xenophon’s dramatic retelling of events is matched by a slick and dramatic prose style, making it a really gripping read. Best part—if you like it, there’s lots more. He’s got four other books and a few essays as well.
Polybius – Histories
Polybius was a Greek nobleman and warrior whose family made some bad political calls during the 2nd C. B.C. As a result, he wound up living as a hostage in Rome. Being a hostage back then was a much nicer experience, and you could say Polybius went native, tutoring the kids of one of the leading families and writing one of the most comprehensive and detailed histories of the Roman republic. Polybius isn’t much a dramatist, but the sweeping landscape of his subject matter: wars, intrigues, ambitious kings, marriages, alliance and treachery, more than makes up for it.
Titus Livius (Livy) – From the Founding of the City (ab Urbe Condita)
Livy, a 1st C. B.C. Roman, was also probably a member of the elite, though he never served in the military and was never a hostage. Unlike Polybius, Livy is a dramatist. His narrative is seriously pulse-pounding, with a lot of attention lavished on personal drama, speeches made by commanders on the eve of battle, with dramatic accounts of battlefield dead. Modern historians hotly debate his reliability, but his history provides a huge piece of what we know about Rome and the Mediterranean world.
As a security contractor, government civilian, and military officer, Myke Cole’s career has run the gamut from counterterrorism to cyber warfare to federal law enforcement. He’s done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He recently joined the cast of the TV show Hunted on CBS as part of an elite team of fugitive hunters. All that conflict can wear a guy out. Thank goodness for fantasy novels, comic books, late-night games of Dungeons & Dragons, and lots of angst-fueled writing. Myke is the author of Siege Line, Javelin Rain, and Gemini Cell, prequels to his Shadow Ops series, which includes Breach Zone, Fortress Frontier, and Control Point.
From what I’ve heard, Herodotus is pretty close to outright fantasy.
If you’re looking for a ancient gossip rag, you could try The Secret History by Procopius.
So, by “ancient history,” Mr. Cole really means “an incredibly specific few centuries in the Central Mediterranean”.
Because his absurd focus on only Greco-Roman sources (a) barely qualifies as “ancient” and (b) ignores equally rich “histories” from millenia earlier, not to mention a wider array of cultural backgrounds. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Tale of Sinuhe… these are just as much history as Herodotus is, to the extent that contemporaries believed the stories therein to be factual narratives. And they are glossed over, pretty as you please. And this ignores a much more vast corpus of documents which qualify as historical narrative from a plethora of Akkadian, Assyrian, Sumerian, and Chaldean Babylonian kings. And that ignores Egypt.
@2 “Here’s five of the greats to get you started…”
He’s not saying these are the *only* ones to check out. They are, however, some of the most accessible (both for readability and actual ability to get them). They are *certainly* gateways, leading the reader down a rabbit hole to the other works you mention, and more.
Gilgamesh and Sinhue are stories, they say so right in the titles. They are literature rather than histories. There’s a difference. Some books of the Bible are historical most specifically Kings.
@1 noblehunter: Re Herodotos: Not at all. Yes, he brings in traveler’s tales, but he always says what he’s seen with his own eyes and what he’s been told, and he usually says whether or not he believes it. As an example, we can actually lend a great deal of credence to his tale of pharaoh Necho sending out an expedition to circumnavigate Africa precisely because Herodotos doesn’t believe it due to the report that the sun stood to the north. It also offers a data point to help determine when the idea that the world is round took hold. Herodotos isn’t aware of the idea and Aristotle is, so the idea is from somewhere in the 100+ years between them.
And some of those wild stories turn out to be sort of true. The tale of the very large gold-digging ants is obviously nonsense. But it turns out that in that part of India there are marmots which dig in gold-bearing soil fairly close to the surface and turn up gold nuggets. The name for the marmots in either the local language or Persian (I forget exactly and it could be that the local name sounds like the following in Persian) translates as “mountain ant”.
Probably would benefit from clarifying that this is a list of specifically Greco-Roman greats from the history genre in the ancient Western world, or also including ancient histories from elsewhere than the middle Mediterranean civs, but the works themselves are good springboards (I can’t stand Livy, though, his style is awful even if a lot of the events recounted are dramatically cool).
@2, 4: Gilgamesh and Sinuhe fit into epic poetry, culturally distinct from but in the same rough genre as the Homeric epics, rather than into history as a genre of investigative, written prose narrative. Both of these are separate genre-wise from basic historical records and chronologies like we see going back to Egypt and Sumer. So as far as the history genre goes, Herodotus and Thucydides are certainly ancient because they’re right there when the genre’s coming into being. But Andy’s also right that there are significant works from outside the Greco-Roman world that would well serve this list — it’s my understanding that the Zuo Zhuan predates both H and T by a short bit.
Yes, these do sound fascinating. Are there particular editions or translations that would be recommended?
@6 fullmetalcatalyst: Have you had that problem with Livy over different translations? If not, try another and see if it helps. I had that problem with Tacitus. My first encounter was a turgid 19th century translation that was practically unreadable. Later, I picked up some more modern translations and I enjoyed them quite a lot.
How about Commentarii de Bello Gallico by Julius Caesar?
Re: Herodotus being outright fantasy.
Not really. His History is basically a compilation of stories… some of which happened, others of which are outlandish to our modern sensibilities. Emphasis on OUR MODERN SENSIBILITIES. However, how is this different from Bede telling the story of the slave who was freed when he wrote Jesus’ name on his shackles? The downright soap-opera that is Gregory of Tours or the Secret Histories of Procopius?
Re: His list being greco-roman-ocentric.
Maybe, but to be fair, from a European POV, those are the only real sources he can reference until the Early Medieval period. Everything else is couched in mythology.
A better critique might be his failure to reference India or Chinese sources for the Ancient period. However, even there – the title of his article describes his focus “Five Ancient Histories”. Not only does his limiting it to 5 not mean there are not others (the aforementioned Procopius for example), usually in lay historical terms, Ancient inaccurately refers to the Greco-Roman period.
For the record, if I was going to add to the list, I’d include:
(1) Procopius – especially the Secret Histories – especially for a novel of intrique and corruption.
(2) Tacitus – all of his works but especially his Germania and the Agricola;
My next additions are sources for the end of the Ancient Period and the beginning of the Medieval period (the Successor Kingdoms – a period that is both over-used in fantasy (Generic Germanic and Celtic tinged novels) and under-used (rarely are these novels in the context of being Successor Kingdoms to an Empire (although Harry Turtledove did a decent fantasy series on that topic).
(3) Gregory of Tours – the History of the Franks – sex, violence, intrigue… the Merovingians would put the Lannisters to shame.
(4) Gildas/Nennius/Bede – I put these 3 together because they really form the core of our knowledge and our myths about the coming of the Anglo Saxons to Britain (Gildas gave us Badon Hill; Nennius gave us a fleshed out Arthur; Bede gave us the closest thing to an actual History as we know it).
I think its misrepresenting Thucydides to call him close to “grimdark” history. The violence he discusses is the result of a internal political strife, open conflict between city states and at the bitter end for Athens, desire for empire going beyond reason. The Melian dialogues, the Spartan reasoning for the executions at Plataea, and the treatment of the Athenian prisoners at Syracuse are all rooted in the real world. The connotation of grimdark is cartoonish, over the top violence for its own sake, with a dappling of dystopia . The Peloponnesian War deals with a war and the effects it had on a society. To call it grimdark, or even close to it, is to thoroughly misunderstand the work and to inculcate that misunderstanding in others.
@5, 10 I think I might be conflating Herodotus with other authors of dubious accuracy.
@12
You probably aren’t. Modern scholarship seems to have shown that Herodotus was doing very credible work as a historian, but a lot of older historians doubted him.
It’s ridiculous to claim that Herodotus qualifies as “history” and then turn around and dismiss Gilgamesh or Sinuhe as fiction. We accept that there was probably an ancient king named Gilgamesh; that is about the level of historicity for most of Herodotus.
@@.-@ – Most of the Bible is absolute bunk. Take Kings, for example. Most of the stories of the Assyrian invasion are mutually exclusive and almost none of them match up with contemporary sources, which we have. The Bible is a wonderful work of FICTION which is treated as having redeeming historical facts embedded within; why must the Tale of Sinuhe be any different? A work that is fundamentally fictitious in detail, but with a number of important historical facts contained within the context. If the exact story of Sinuhe is fictitious, but the contextual details of the time and the cultures depicted are historical, then how is that not a historical document? One more accurate than the Bible, to boot.
And in general, there are plenty of other Near Eastern sources that are explicitly historical. Naram-Sin’s Victory Stele, or the account of Sargon’s 8th campaign – these are wonderful stories, fantastic stories, and are themselves explicitly historical in nature.
If I put together a list of the best actors, and only included white men, people would flip out. I don’t think it’s unfair to hold the same standard of multiculturalism to a list like this.
Not surprised to find the multicultural police walking the beat.
“Five Ancient Histories that make the past fantastical” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsenent of the historicity of the works on this list. I didn’t take that as the authors point though. I took him at his word that this was “history” that puts a lot of fiction to shame. It’s a pretty good list.
Does every single thing have to devolve into identity politics? I hope not, but maybe it does.
Insofar as literary categories are useful, I don’t think the classification or ‘history’ or ‘fiction’ is a ranking system–one is not superior to the other. They are just different types of writing with different goals and purposes. The veracity of Herodotus’ accounts is not what distinguishes him as being a historian; his methods and goals are. I wouldn’t consider the Hebrew Bible or the Epic of Gilgamesh to be fiction exactly either–they are myths, which have a distinct purpose and are not much like what we would know as literary fiction. Consider how Americans frequently talk about the “Founding Fathers” in mythological terms; there is a mythology built up around those historical figures which is ahistorical, but also doesn’t really count as ‘fiction’ if we are talking about literary categories.
And I don’t think noting the achievements of the Greek philosophical and literary traditions undermines the accomplishment of Asian cultures; obviously the Greeks and their traditions didn’t spring out of nowhere.
Andy@14:
First off, the Bible is not an ancient book. It is a fairly modern book containing other works from the time period under discussion (I hesitate to use the term ancient to describe things written from 500 to 400 BCE). One of those is I and II Kings. You can’t take the Bible as a whole and classify it as any single type of literature. Its an omnibus with lots of different types of works inside of it spanning nearly 800 years of writings. For the purposes of genre categorization, you need to take the books of the Bible individually.
Second, whether something falls in the genre of fiction or historical prose (which are not the only two categories) has nothing to do with how accurate the narrative is to true historical events. I and II Kings fall in the genre of historical prose because the writers intended them that way. They were transcribing their own earlier oral and written histories into a single narrative. Whether the end result is accurate has nothing to do with how the work is classified as a genre.
And, as others have stated, Gilgamesh and Sinuhe are both epic poems intended to be performed orally, like the Iliad and the Odyssey. This is a separate genre from historical narrative. And, again, whether they are accurate, or reference actual historical events, has nothing to do with their classification.
@13 Perhaps, what studying I did of ancient and classical history was rather after Herodotus’ time. I don’t think I spent any time on the historiography of his work.