Chapter 42. On the first writers of history.
1. Moses was the first among us to write a history of the beginning of the world. Among the nations Dares Phrygius was the first to publish a history of the Greeks and Trojans, which they say was written by him on palm-leaves.
2. And after Dares, Herodotus is considered the first historian in Greece. After whom Pherecydes was famous, at the time when Esdras wrote the law.
Chapter 43. On the usefulness of history.
1. Histories of the heathen do no harm to their readers where they tell what is useful. For many wise men have put past deeds into their histories for the instruction of the present.
2. Besides, in history the total reckoning of past times and years is embraced and many necessary matters are examined in the light of the succession of consuls and kings.
1. There are three sorts of history. The doings of one day are called _ephemeris_. Among us this name is _diarium_....
2. What is arranged according to separate months is called _kalendaria_.
3. _Annales_ are the deeds of the years, one by one. For whatever was related in the commentaries from year to year as worthy of memory, in peace and war, by sea and land, they named annals from the deeds of a year.
4. But history is a thing of many years or times, and through diligence in it the yearly commentaries are put into books. Between history and annals there is this difference, that history belongs to the times which we see, and annals belong to years which our age does not know. Whence Sallust is made up of history; Livy, Eusebius and Hieronymus of annals and history.
Rhetoric held a position in the ancient world that the modern reader has difficulty in understanding. Democratic government, including the popular administration of justice, at a time when all discussion was necessarily oral, created an ideal condition in Athens and the other Greek states for the development of oratory. In the life of the Roman republic, too, there was enough of the popular element to make public speaking of the greatest importance. The art of rhetoric was therefore in close touch with the real interests of life. It was not merely a school discipline, but a preparation for a definite activity that held a high place in the esteem of the people, and it embodied a set of sensible ideas on public speaking in which the tendency to over-elaboration and artificiality characteristic of scholastic disciplines was kept in check by the wholesome influences that came from practical application.