The study of two particular ancient literary works, The Iliad and The Histories, have helped historians study the history of Ancient Greece, and the conflicts that occurred in this area and time period. More importantly, historians must look at these sources to study its legitimacy in reflecting Greek society of this time period and context of which it was written. These works were not produced at the same time, or in the same time period, therefore, each work had its own audience and purpose. The Iliad was written famously by Homer, a Greek poet of the eighth century (estimated by Herodotus), and focuses on the Trojan War as the major conflict of Ancient Greece. The Histories was written by Herodotus, a Greek historian of the fifth century, to explain the events leading up to the Persian War, as well as the war itself, and to explore the reasons for the war in the first place. Knowing this simple background of both works can already create predictions of comparisons and differences in the writing expected from each author in what they wanted to convey to their specific audiences and how different the perspectives can be, as well as influence the purpose of their writing. As an example, simple comparisons from these short descriptions would be both works were written by Greek authors, which can help answer a piece of who this was written for ultimately and what perspective they could potentially have based on their background of being Greek. Another small comparison to make from the description of both writings is how they both discuss the Greek wars; making it a similar topic to make fair contrasts from. The obvious differences in the description (other than different authors and wars) is the time periods. With each work being written in a different century, historians can expect the perspective to change and ultimately affect the interpretation from the audience. One last clear difference is the title/profession of the mentality they each have for writing the work (i.
