Josephus, Antiquities XIV, 1-3: Josephus’ Philosophy of History

Josephus tells us that he sought to present a historically accurate work even while using literary techniques to create an enjoyable book.

(1) We have related the affairs of Queen Alexandra and her death in the foregoing book, and will now speak of what followed immediately thereafter, declaring, before we proceed, that we have nothing so much at heart as this, that we may omit no facts either through ignorance or laziness.

(2) For we are dealing with the history and explication of such things as most people are unacquainted with because of their distance from our times. We aim to do it with a proper beauty of style, so far as that is derived from proper words harmonically arranged, and also from such ornaments of speech as may contribute to the pleasure of our readers,

(3) so that they may receive the knowledge of what we write with some agreeable satisfaction and pleasure. But the principal goal that authors ought to aim at, above all the rest, is to speak accurately and to speak truly for the satisfaction of those who are otherwise unacquainted with such matters and who are obliged to believe what these
writers inform them of.