Why is The Histories so fun to read?

Because its true and its not a work of fiction. Works of fiction are great to read but catching up what has and what is now going in in reality is my favourite kind of book

>Thucydides sucking etc.
I don't think classicists themselves are divided up politically in the way it seems youre referring to- most tend to like both. Just so you know..
Xenophon's far less interesting as a writer than either, however. Just a fact, but one that shouldn't dissuade a soul from reading Anabasis.

It's a historiographical argument, so there's always a Herodotus and Thucydides camp. Some people who prefer to read Herodotus would never recommend his method above Thucydides.
Xenophon's more interesting when he's not copying Thucydides. His Symposium is way better than Plato's. I think a lot of people just hate him because Anabasis is the babby's first Attic text, traditionally.

It's a fascinating insight into how people saw the world back then
This post right here might be a joke but it's actually onto something, the more fantastical things like flying snakes and midgits from the Sahara kidnapping people in the night are kind of like elaborate bar stories.
The bar stories of antiquity are far more enjoyable than some boring faggot telling you about X number of troops did this over here or whatever.
It's like a travel guide to the classical world

Anabasis is only babby's first (just as some of Cicero's moral writings are in the other realm) because it is its own historical event, seems designed by medieval scholars as the perfect beginning reader, almost robotic (relatively speaking).
I've read little historiography
Burckhardt, Spengler, Toynbee's pretty much it, and I'm not recollecting any debate, and the foremost wrote a great book on Greek Civilization as well.
Personally I love them both (H & T), but Thucydides' book really is special, its conclusion perhaps as haunting as any book I've ever read.

>haunting as any book I've ever read.
I think this too adds to people's hatred of Xenophon because of his beginning.
All of those are kind of late the argument (and focus on the east) but whether you need primary source material or not to get it right is an age old argument. user makes good points here, because for centuries Heordotus has been dismissed on these points as writing things with no direct experience and being too credulous of his sources. The lost army used be held up by "rigorous" historians as being fanciful and utterly untrue. Then, recently, some archaeologists found the lost army and it was exactly as Herodotus described, despite his account being devoid of sources or any way to acquire sources.
A similar thing happened with Pompeii. Pliny's account of the pyroclastic flows was considered sci-fi shit he made up, despite his claims of direct account from primary sources (following Thucydides). That is, until a pyroclastic flows happened in the modern world and most historians and several volcanologists had to eat their words.

Sorry for typos, doing this on a phone

Xenophon's information is worth absorbing, no doubt- he just doesn't come across as at all interesting as a writer. His Symposium does contain historical detail unavailable in Plato's short piece of the same name, but to call it 'better' is completely wrong-headed- it isn't even remotely on the same level as a literary document.

Most of Plato's is him being butthurt and lying because Aristophanes was a better writer and friend to Socrates than he was. Xenophon's is less sperg and more philosophical debate on love, along with understanding fun better than Plato. Plato writes for the same public that thinks Aeschines was right about Timarchus. He's basically the 500bc version of The Sun.

>of The Sun
And yet Xenophon's like Suetonius' writing is more suited to tabloid journalism than thoughtful literature, or would be in [our] own age.
Hate on Plato all (you) want his influence has been more profound than even Shakespeare's- just a fact. Whereas Xenophon? He's just a name.
I don't necessarily like this fact, but it is one. And Plato's Symposium whatever's read into it remains a little gem.

What do The Histories encompass? Just the wars between Persia and Greece or more than that?

Wayyyyyyyyy more than that

What does it encompass then? Like beginning point to end point? Trojan war to Macedonia's conquest of the peninsula?

I like Livy, am I retarded

It has lots of backstory to each region as well as their lineage before getting into the Persian wars. For example, it gives a little story to each leader of Lydia before even getting to them in the 'modern' day.

Sweet, Im gonna have to pick this up then along with Livy. I don't know how much is factual, but Herodotus is often used as sources in more modern historical works detailing the Hellenistic world

No, he's great. Also what's the point of reading Machiavelli's Discourses without having read a good deal of Livy first? Also the source of Coriolanus.
Favorite Livy character: Quintus Fabius Maximus -Cunctator

>Xenophon's like Suetonius' writing is more suited to tabloid journalism than thoughtful literature, or would be in [our] own
>Thinking this compares to against Timarchus
So you haven't read Aeschines or Demosthenes.
>His Symposium does contain historical detail unavailable in Plato's short piece of the same name, but to call it 'better' is completely wrong-headed- it isn't even remotely on the same level as a literary document
You haven't read Xenophon either. Socrates engages in debate around theatre on the subject of true love in both. Only Xenophon's shows he actually understood the plays.
You're coming across as under read for your arrogance and convictions btw. It's not a good way to get info out of classics freaks. See how you only got one new name of relevance out of me this time, and shit you would find on the Wikipedia summaries of texts from the first Attic period, whereas before you got novel details from across periods and in depth explanation? You'll get frozen out of the elite by pretending you're already in when you're basic, and most won't even tell you that it's happening. Be careful about that if you don't want to hang with casuals for life. Flattering your opponent's potential knowledge is especially vital in classics.

I've read both Demosthenes and Isocrates, user. But I have not read Aeschines.

I've read both Anabasis and Symposium, user. What (you) don't read is Greek.

It basically follows the timeline of the early Achaemenid empire, from it's founding by Cyrus until Xerxes.
However it covers way more than that, going into history/ legends of all the many places that were affected by that empire.
The persian wars are just the way he caps it all off, but the nummbers he gives are total crap

In some ways herodotus has been vindicated over the last 100 years or so, but a lot of the criticism of him is still very valid too

>and Isocrates
That's nice, Polonius, but you know what hubris means in Greek and nobody is listening to you on account of where your mouth has been

Hubris? That's because no one envies someone who speaks his mind without voluminous indifferent 'explanations' quite like (you) do. This is perhaps why youre the only 'one' who cares, moron.
>INVIDIA

>Womanly babble
Yes, dear, kittens and embroidery