Along with these philosophic studies Schiller found time for much work more closely related to his professorship of history. To say nothing of his minor historical writings, he completed, in 1793, his _History of the Thirty Years' War_. It appeared in successive numbers of Göschen's _Ladies' Calendar_, a fact which in itself indicates that it was not conceived and should not be judged as a monument of research. The aim was to tell the story of the great war in a readable style. And in this Schiller succeeded, especially in the parts relating to his hero, the Swedish king Gustav Adolf. Over Schiller's merit as a historian there has been much debate, and good critics have caviled at his sharp contrasts and his lack of care in matters of detail. But the great fact remains that the _Defection of the Netherlands_ and the _Thirty Years' War_ are the earliest historical classics in the German language. Schiller was the first German to make literature out of history. The year 1794 brought about a closer relation between Schiller and Goethe, an event of prime moment in the lives of both. On Goethe's return from Italy, in the summer of 1788, Schiller was introduced to him, but the meeting had no immediate consequences. In fact, Schiller had quietly made up his mind not to like the man whom, for a whole year, he had heard constantly lauded by the Weimar circle. He thought of Goethe as a proud, self-centred son of fortune, with whom friendship would be impossible. Goethe, on the other hand, was not drawn to the author of _The Robbers_. He looked on the popularity of the detestable play as a shocking evidence of depraved public taste and was not aware how its author had changed since writing it. So it came about that, for some six years, the two men lived as neighbors in space but strangers in the spirit. At last, however, an accidental meeting in Jena led to an interchange of views and prepared the way for the most memorable of literary friendships. By this time Schiller had undertaken the editorship of a new literary magazine to be called _Die Horen_, which was to be financed by the enterprising publisher Cotta in Stuttgart. The plan was that it should eclipse all previous undertakings of its kind. But it was to eschew politics. Germany was just then agitated by the fierce passions of the revolutionary epoch, and this excitement was regarded by Schiller as ominous for the nation. There was need of esthetic education. So he proposed to keep the _Horen_ clear of politics and try to divert the minds of men into the serener regions of letters and art. To Goethe, who also hated the Revolution, this was a highly acceptable program. So he readily undertook to write for the _Horen_, and thus he and Schiller soon became linked together in the public mind as allied champions of a cause. It is for this reason that the Germans are wont to call them the Dioscuri.