Modern historians, excoriating the past evils of e.g. slavery and imperialism are taking the understanding of history back to its roots in the western world, when the past was used as a vehicle for moral lessons.
Cicero said that study of the past ‘casts light on reality and is a guide to life (magistra vitae)’. Ancient historians lived up to this noble agenda. Livy (d. ad 17) said that history provided ‘examples of behaviour from which to choose what to imitate and avoid what is shameful’. The historian Tacitus (d. c. ad 120) said: ‘This I hold to be history’s highest function, to ensure that no worthy actions are passed over in silence, and that crooked words and deeds be feared for the castigation that posterity will visit upon them.’ So, for example, Tacitus praised as the model leader his father-in-law, Agricola, who as governor brought much of Britain under control (ad 77-85), striving for glory through his ‘foresight’, ‘wisdom’, ‘obedience to orders’, ‘modesty’, ‘sense of honour’ and ‘self-control’.
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