Both Herodotus and Thucydides were ancient Greek historians who invented the writings of history. Herodotus and Thucydides were the first people ever to record information as events occurred. Herodotus wrote about the wars between Greece and Persia, aka the Persian War, while Thucydides wrote about the war between Athens and Sparta, aka the Peloponnesian War. Both historians differ in their to approaches to recording events in history but they have helped us to get some insight on the reasons of war and historic events. Herodotus and Thucydides are the first true western civilization historians to make sense of history.
Herodotus was the worlds first Greek western historian. He is credited with the name, "The Father of History." Herodotus grew up in Halicarnassus and later settled in Athens. There he kept a writing account of the wars between Greece and Persia. Herodotus is a historian whose approach to writing information was by recording the events as they occurred and also asked others for their experiences on what happened. He wrote everything he heard down, including his own narration of both sides, without separating fact and fiction. With this information he created myths, gossip and rumors. He would provide conflicting accounts of the events and let the people decide what to believe. His writings seemed to be more for entertainment purposes than factual evidence. Bearing all this so-called "information," he put it all together and published his work in his book titled, The Histories. Herodotus is known to be the worlds first western historian.
Thucydides is also a greek historian also known as the first "social scientist." Not much is known about the beginning years of his life but in about 430 B.C., he was a Athenian general during the Peloponnesian war. He was exiled from Athens for twenty years and that is when he began to record the occurrences of the war as it happened.
