How to Write History is the title of a study by the classical Syrian^[1] writer Lucian, which may be considered the only work on the theory of history-writing to survive from antiquity.^[2]

The first part of Lucian’s essay involved a critical attack on contemporary historians. Lucian maintained that they confused history with panegyric, overloaded it with irrelevant details, and weighed it down with overblown rhetoric.^[3]

Lucian recommended instead the virtues of clear narration, and the valorisation of truth.^[4] He argued that the historian should write for all times, as “a free man, fearless, incorruptible, the friend of truth”;^[5] and held up the work of Thucydides as the legislative template for all subsequent historians.^[6] He argued that the "historian's sole task is to tell the tale as it happened" which is latter reflected in works of von Ranke among others.

• The early Renaissance saw the essay taken up by figures like Guarino da Verona and Giovanni Pontano.^[7]

• Edward Gibbon, who wrote of “the inimitable Lucian”, owned the 1776 edition of Quomodo Historia Conscribenda Sit (Oxford)^[8]

• Anneus Florus
• A True History
• Polybius