54
The best historians have written prefaces of this sort: Herodotus, writing history to preserve events from time’s decay, great and glorious as they were, telling of Greek victories and barbarian defeat; Thucydides too, with his expectation that the war would be great, more memorable, and more important than any that had gone before; and in fact the sufferings in that war were considerable.
55
After the preface, long or short in proportion to its subject matter, let the transition to the narrative be gentle and easy. For all the body of the history is simply a long narrative. So let it be adorned with the virtues proper to narrative, progressing smoothly, evenly and consistently, free from humps and hollows. Then let its clarity be limpid, achieved, as I have said, both by diction and the interweaving of the matter. For he will make everything distinct and complete, and when he has finished the first topic he will introduce the second, fastened to it and linked with it like a chain, to avoid breaks and a multiplicity of disjointed narratives; no, always the first and second topics must not merely be neighbours but have common matter and overlap.
56
Rapidity is everywhere useful, especially if there is no lack of material; and one must look to the subject matter to provide this rather than to the words and phrases—I mean, if you run quickly over small and less essential things, while giving adequate treatment to matters of importance; indeed, a great deal should even be omitted. When you feast your friends and all is ready you do not for that reason in the middle of all your pastries, fowl, oysters, wild boars, hare, and choice fish cutlets, serve up salt fish and peaseporridge because, that, too, is at hand—you will ignore the humbler fare.
