Brill's Companion to Herodotus
Edited by Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J.F. de Jong and Hans van Wees
BRILL'S COMPANION TO
HERODOTUS EDITED BY
EGBERT J. BAKKER IRENE J. F.DE JONG HANS VAN WEES
BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON - KOLN 2002
This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CLP. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 90 04 12060 2 © Copyright 2002 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
In memory of David Asheri and Heleen Sancisi
CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations
xi
List of Contributors
xiii
List of Maps
xv
Editors' Introduction xvii Egbert J, Bakker, Irene J. K de Jong, Hans van Wees
HERODOTUS AND HIS WORK
1. The Making of History: Herodotus' Histones Apodexis Egbert J. Bakker
3
2. Herodotus and Athens John Moles
33
3. Oral Strategies in the Language of Herodotus Simon R. Slings
53
4. The Histories and Writing Wolfgang Rosier
79
HERODOTUS AND HIS WORLD
5. Epic Heritage and Mythical Patterns in Herodotus Deborah Boedeker 6. Herodotus and Tragedy Suzanne Said 7. Philosophy, Science, Politics: Herodotus and the Intellectual Trends of his Time Kurt A. Raaflaub
97
117
149
viii
CONTENTS
8. Religion in Herodotus Jon D. Mikalson
187
9. Popular Morality in Herodotus Mck Fisher
199
10. Women in Herodotus' Histories Josine Blok
225
THE HISTORIES AS NARRATIVE
11. Narrative Unity and Units Irene J. F, de Jong 12. lI didn't give my own genealogy': Herodotus and the authorial persona Carolyn Dewald 13. Short Stories in Herodotus' Histories Vivienne Gray
245
267
291
THE HISTORICAL METHOD
14. Herodotus and the Past Hans van Wees
321
15. Herodotus as a Critic: Truth, Fiction, Polarity Paul Cartledge and Emily Greenwood
351
16. Herodotus and his Sources of Informarion Simon Homhlower
373
17. The Organization of Time in the Histories Justus Cobet
387
CONTENTS
ix
HISTORY AM) ETHNOGRAPHY
18. Egypt Alan B. Lloyd
415
19. Scythians Stephanie West
437
20. The Ethnography of the Fringes Klaus Karttunen
457
21. Babylon Amilie Knhrt
475
22. Archaic Greek History Robin Osborne
497
23. Greek History, c. 525 480 BC Sara Forsdyke
521
24. The Persian Invasions Tlwmas Harrison
551
25. The Personality of Xerxes, King of Kings Heleen Sancisi-Weetdenburg
579
Bibliography
591
General Index
629
Index of Passages
641
ABBREVIATIONS
AchH'isl D-K FGrll Fornara IG K-A KRS L-P LSJ ML SEG SylL/SIG Tod VS
Achaeinerdd History H. Dicls and W. Kranz, Die Fraginente der Vorsokratiker. 10th ed. (=VS) F. Jacoby, Die Fraginente der griechischen Historiker C. W. Fornara. Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesicin War, 2nd ed. Insaiptiones Graecae R. Kasscl and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, live Pmocratic Philosophers, 2nd. ed. E. Label and D.L Page, Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragrnenta H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edition. R. Mciggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, revised ed. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum VV. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd ed. M, N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 10th ed. (= D-K).
LIST O F C O N T R I B U T O R S
Professor EGBERT J. BARKER, Centre d'Etudes Classiqucs, Universite de Montreal, Canada Professor JOSINE BLOK, Instituut Geschicdenis, RU Utrecht, The Netherlands Professor DEBORAH BOEDEKER, Department of Classics, Brown University, Providence, United States Professor Kingdom
PAUL CARTLEDGE,
Clare College, Cambridge, United
Professor JUSTUS COBET, Fachbercich Geschichte, Gesamthochschule Essen, Germany Professor IRENE J. F. DE JONG, Klassiek Seminarium, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands Professor CAROLYN DEWALD, Classics, University of* Southern California, Los Angeles, United States Professor NICK FISHER, School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University, United Kingdom Professor SARA FORSDYKE, Classical Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States Professor VIVIENNE GRAY, Classics and Ancient History, University of Auckland, New Zealand Dr EMILY Kingdom
GREENWOOD,
St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, United
Dr THOMAS HARRISON, School of Greek, Latin and Ancient Histoiy, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom
xiv
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Professor SIMON HORNBLOWER, History, U C L , London, United Kingdom Professor
KLAUS KARTTUNEN,
Helsingin Yliopisto, Helsinki, Finland
Professor AMELIE KUHRT, History. UCL, London, United Kingdom Professor ALAN B. LLOYD, Classics and Ancient HLstory, University of Wales, Swansea, United Kingdom Professor J O N D. MIKALSON, Classics, University of Virginia, Char lottesville, United States Professor Kingdom Professor Kingdom
J O H N MOLES,
Classics, University of Newcastle, United
R O B I N OSBORNE,
King's College, Cambridge, United
Professor K U R T A. RAAFLAUB, Department of Classics, Brown University, Providence, United States Professor W. ROSLER, Institut fur Klassische Philologie, HumboldtUniversitat zu Berlin, Germany Professor SUZANNE SAKD, Department of Classics, Columbia University, New York, United States Professor HELEEN SANCISI | , Formerly of Instituut voor Oude Geschiedenis, R U Utrecht, The Netherlands Professor SIMON R. SLINGS, Vakgroep Grieks en Latijn, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Dr HANS VAN WEES, History, UCL, London, United Kingdom Professor
STEPHANIE WEST,
Hertford College, Oxford, United Kingdom
LIST OF MAPS
Egypt
416
Scythia
438
The world according to Herodotus
458
Babylon
476
Greece
498
The Persian Empire
552
EDITORS 1 INTRODUCTION Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J, F. de Jong, Hans van Wees
'As one must beware of the beetle in the rosebush, so must one beware of the slander and gossip lurking under its pleasant and gen tle surface', said Plutarch of Herodotus5 Histo?ies (On the Malice of Herodotus 43). Plutarch was not the first or the last to appreciate Herodotus' literary qualities but question his merits as a historian and ethnographer. In a more sympathetic but no less critical spirit, this Companion to Herodotus seeks to illuminate both sides of his work. The following chapters fully reflect the rich, complicated, and some times controversial nature of the Histories. Sometimes they are in dis agreement with one another, testifying to Herodotus' ever enigmatic position at the beginning of historiography, as well as to his own avowed intention not to provide easy solutions, but to let the reader choose from the alternatives he has assembled in his histone. Often, chapters overlap, showing the extent to which many of the issues which Herodoais raises are part of an intricately woven network of themes, reflecting a consistent view of the world and its history'. The opening chapters examine the nature of Herodotus' work and its place within the oral and literary traditions of the late fifth cen tury BC. Egbert Bakker begins by addressing the questions raised by Herodotus' famous opening sentence, in particular the meaning of the terms historie and apodexis. He concludes that rather than refer ring to the publication of the work, the term apodexis presents the work as a lasting achievement and at the same time as a potentially controversial statement, John Moles proceeds to modify the wide spread idea that one purpose of the Histories was to praise Athens. Herodotus acknowledged this city's important role when the free dom of Greece was at stake, but he implicitly and subtly suggested that the Athenian empire of his own day resembled the tyrannical and oriental empires of the past, and in doing so hoped to alert the Athenians to the dangers inherent in their present behaviour. In the next chapter, Simon Slings addresses the problem of the style of the Histories. He argues that Herodotus' language is characterized throughout by 'oral strategies', which can at times also be put to
Xviii
EGBERT J. BARKER, IRENE J. F. DE JONG, HANS VAN WEES
rhetorical effect. The complementary thesis of Wolfgang Rosier is that it was the spread of written texts in the second half of die fifth century BC which inspired Herodotus to write down, at the end of his life, all the material which he had collected. An important sign that the Histories are directed at readers rather than listeners is Herodotus' frequent use of the past tense when referring to his own time, thereby adopting the perspective of future readers of his book. The next six chapters broaden out into an investigation of the range of contemporary influences—literary, intellectual, religious, moral, and social—which helped shape Herodotus' work. Deborah Boedeker reviews the ways in which Herodotus' narrative is shaped by the legacy of the epic past and by general patterns of mythic sto rytelling. Such a shaping, she stresses, is never involuntary, and Herodotus is no less creating a voice for himself than he is follow ing the story patterns from the past. Suzanne Said's contribution critically evaluates the claims made by scholars regarding the tragic nature of the Histories. Working through the verbal echoes, literary techniques, themes, 'tragic5 episodes (such as the stories of Croesus, Polycrates, and Cypselus), and above all the account of the battle of Salamis, she arrives at the conclusion that the differences between the Histories and tragedy are greater and more important than the similarities. Kurt Raaflaub proceeds with an analysis of the intellec tual context in which the Histories were created. The Herodotus that emerges from his discussion not only participates fully in the con temporary debates on politics and science, but is also closer to Thucydides than is commonly supposed. Next, Jon Mikalson dis cusses the religious dimension of the Histories, stressing the impor tance of popular religion and local cult (rather than Olympian religion as presented in Panhellenic poetry) in Herodotus' dealing with the divine. In his chapter, Nick Fisher argues that Herodotus is clearly interested in exploring major moral issues, such as divine punish ment for injustice, excessive revenge or overconfidence in prosper ity, and the contrast between tyrannical and luxurious Eastern Empires and freedom-loving, modestly living Greeks. There is no worked-out system, however, but rather a flexible set of interconnected themes, hints, and explanations, which are delivered in speeches, in narratorial comments, and by the thematic organization of the material. The remarkably central role played by women in the Histories forms the subject of Josine Blok's chapter. Is their importance an echo of historical reality or is it the result of Herodotus' storytelling imagi-
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
XIX
nation? Both views have found their defenders. Blok offers the sug gestion that it might be Herodotus' tendency to view the polis in terms of an oikos which opened his eyes to the mutual dependence of men and women. Herodotus' much-admired skill as a storyteller is analysed in the next three chapters. First, Irene de Jong discusses the many attempts to defend the unity of the Histories, and suggests that the structure of this text is best understood in terms of the narratological concept of 'time': analysing 'digressions' in terms of analepses and prolepses helps to understand their place and function within the stoiy as a whole. Some of the conventional labels for the smaller units within the Histories—Exkurs, novella—are best banned from Herodotean schol arship. Carolyn Dewald continues the survey of Herodotus' narra tive by concentrating on the ways in which Herodotus' authorial voice is expressed and represented; she proposes a distinction between two 'voices5, that of a narrator and of a 'histoid each with a specific function in the text. One kind of smaller unit within the Histoiies, the short story, is the subject of Vivienne Gray's contribution. She shows diat these stories often display the same narrative patterns, and that, even if the link between them and the main story is not always clear at first sight (hence the older idea of Herodotus ran domly inserting 'digressions'), there often is a connection in the form of analogy. llie second half of die volume tackles Herodotus as a researcher— historian, edinographer, geographer, and general critic. Hans van Wees assesses Herodotus in the role for which he is most famous, Father of History, highlighting the ambitious scope of his universal history and the sophistication and originality of his treatment of ori gins, the rise and fall of empires, and the causes of war. Emily Greenwood and Paul Cartledge then invesdgate Herodotus' critical methods and his remarkable self-presentation as a critic, which set him apart from most ancient historians, as well as one of his guid ing principles of interpretation, polarity. Two key aspects of the his torical method are explored by Simon Hornblower, who discusses the nature of Herodotus' sources and his handling of them, long a controversial question, and by Justus Cobet, who investigates the no less vital and controversial issue of Herodotus' interest in, and han dling of, matters of chronology. All these general themes are picked up again in a series of detailed studies of aspects of the Histories, beginning with four chapters on
XX
EGBERT J, BARKER, IRENE J. F. DE JONG, HANS VAN WEES
the history and ethnography of 'barbarian' peoples, Alan B. Lloyd and Stephanie West scrutinize the two major accounts of non-Greek nations, covering Egyptians and Scythians, respectively, while Klaus Karttunen investigates Herodotus' ethnography of the more remote parts of the world, and Amelie Kuhrt presents a particularly in-depth study of Herodotus' account of Babylon, a small but important part of the Histories, Each chapter explains the pattern and rationale of Herodotus' ethnography with the aid of archaeological and other evidence which helps assess the reliability of his often sensational reports. The final four chapters turn to the history of Greece and the Persian Wars. Robin Osborne deals with the earliest material con cerning Greece, from the heroic age to the late sixth century BC, while Sara Forsdyke discusses the increasingly abundant information relating to the period from c. 525 BC to the Persian Wars, a time within living memory when Herodotus began his work. Both pay particular attention to the ways in which the Histories shaped, and were shaped by, their sources. The structure, thematic significance, and historical accuracy of the culminating account of the Persian invasions of Greece is analysed by Thomas Harrison, and just as the section on barbarian nations ends with an especially detailed case-study, so this section concludes with a re-publication of Heleen Sancisi's close investigation of the main actor in Herodotus' story of the Persian Wars, King Xerxes. These last two chapters replace planned contributions by David Asheri on the Persian Wars and by Heleen Sancisi on the Persians. The untimely death of these two great scholars sadly deprives us of their work, and this volume is dedicated to their memory. The editors wish to thank Ms Linda Woodward for her expert work on the editing of the manuscript and Ms Melanie Fortin (Universite de Montreal) for her help in compiling the bibliography. Egbert Bakker gratefully acknowledges support for his part in the project from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation in Athens.
HERODOTUS AND HIS WORK
CHAPTER ONE T H E MAKING O F HISTORY: H E R O D O T U S ' HISTORIES APODEXIS Egbert J. Bakker
Action, in so far as it engages in founding and preserving political bodies, creates the condition for remembrance, that is; for history. Hannah Arend, The Human Condition
Most readers of Herodotus' work call it History, or the Histories. The name is doubly motivated. Not only does it follow Herodotus him self in the way in which he refers to his own literary and intellec tual achievement; it also views Herodotus through the tradition of which we have made him the 'father*. As the term historic (or historie as Herodotus would have pronounced it) comes closer to us on its long way from the fifth century BCE through Greek Antiquity, it becomes more and more closely associated with writing, as appears from its joining with the verbal root graph, to form such composite concepts as historiographos or historiographia. Such 'writing of history', however, is quite alien to Herodotus' understanding of historil 'History' for him is not an object of study, something you write, or write about; it is an intellectual tool and a communicative activity. The essential link for him is not with graph but with another verbal idea, as appears from the most famous mention of historie in history, in the Proem to Herodotus' Histories:1 r
Hpo56xou 'AXiKapvriaaecx; loxopvnc &rc66e£ic tide, a*; u.r\xe xa yevojieva e£ dvGpcoTccov xcp xpovco &%ivi\fax yevritai, ^r|xe epya utyaka X£ ml Bcouaaxd, xot jxev "EAA,T]CI, xa 8e (Jappdpoiai dyroSex&eyTa, aKJtaa yEvrtxai, xd xe akXa ml J 51 TIv aixvnv ertoAijiTiaocv dXkr\koiou This is the afwdexis of the historie of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, put forth to prevent what has been made to happen by men from fading
Translations of passages from Herodotus in this chapter are my own.
4
EGBERT J. BAKKER
with time, and (to prevent) great and marvellous deeds, some accom plished by Greeks, others by barbarians, from losing fame, and in par ticular through what aitie they came to war with each other. There are blanks left in the translation: this chapter, in deeding with Herodotus' historie as the prehistory of our notion of 'history', does not want to take too much for granted. So we will make the mean ing not only of historie, but also of apodexis, the object of investigation. The latter term is the action noun of the verbal idea apo-deik, which will concern us in particular. Our main source of information will be die evidence that Herodotus' Histmies provides itself as it has come down to us through the ages. And the first evidence we have to face is the interpretation of the Proem as the primary context of histories apodexis. Herodotus' first sentence, to begin with, seems to lack precision in the way in which it delimits the work's subject. While Thucydidcs tells us exactly that his subject is the Peloponnesian War, and that he started working on it from its very beginning, Herodotus does not tell us that the subject of his work is the Persian Wars. What he indicates is at the same time much broader dian that subject— erga megala 'great accomplishments', for example, can be understood as including 'monuments', 'architectural achievements'—and nar rower: according to the wording of the Proem, his historie will con cern not so much the war itself as its aide, another term, usually translated as 'cause', whose interpretation is at stake. Nor does the narrative itself seem to do much to remedy the prob lem. Its long 'digressions' and varied subject matter have prompted various hypotheses concerning the unity and publication of die work, each betraying in its own way the preconceptions of the time. The lack of a clear focus on a well-defined subject has been explained as due to genetic factors. The work as we have it was seen as show ing signs of an intellectual development by which Herodotus passed through various stages, from the travelling geographer and ethnog rapher who wrote the Egyptian logos that is now our Book Two, to the historian who left us Books Seven through Nine, and who, it was thought, had made much progress toward the Thucydidean ideal of the objective historian.2 The tension between history and gcog-
2 Most authoritatively Jacoby (1913) 275 fl'.; cf. Dc Sanctis (1926), Powell (1939), Lattc (1958) 7 (lEr hat nicht als Historikcr begonnen, sondern ist es geworden');
THE MAKING OF HISTORY: HERODOTUS' HISTORifiS APOOKUS
5
raphy, between the present and the past, was resolved through the history of the work itself. This 'analytic' standpoint provoked, on the analogy of the Homeric Question, a 'Unitarian' reaction on the part of scholars who viewed Herodotus' work as historical ab ovo: for them, geography and ethnog raphy are part of the overall historiographical conception of the Histories* The ensuing 'unity' was not unproblematic, and often it was necessary to depict Herodotus as somehow incapable, or, rather, 'not yet' capable of making the distinctions and decisions that are normal for historiography as we understand it, or to impose on him self the kind of limitations we associate with purposeful writing. A variant version of this idea presents us a Herodotus who is capable of those things, but who is hampered by the constraints of an 'archaic', paratactic way of expression (Immerwahr (1966) 7). In more recent times, 'archaic style' and its associated concepts has come to be replaced by 'orality V1 and the supposed lack of focus in Herodotus' choice of subject matter is seen as simply due to the fact that the intellectual context in which he wrote was 'predisciplinary', unfa miliar with the modern boundaries between geography, anthropol ogy, and history.5 In all these cases, the implicit question seems to be whether Herodotus was the first historian, a good or bad historian, merely a historian avant In lettre, or a historian at all. Herodotus is set against some modern notion of 'history', a norm to which he either con forms only in the course of his intellectual development, or not (yet) quite, in some way or another. In part, the modern reception of Herodotus has been the search for attenuating circumstances. It is only in the most recent research that the terms 'historian5 or 'history' have come to be charged with cultural weight. The Herodotus that emerges is viewed in a way that entirely suppresses any modern notion of 'history*—not without new controversy, as we shall see.
Fbrnara (1971a); an analytic reading of Herodotus' first sentence itself is offered in Hommcl (1981). * E.g., Regenbogen {1930b); Pohlenz (1937), Immerwahr (1966), Cobct (1971), Drexler (1972). For the problem of unitv in the Histories, see de Jong, this volume (Ch. 11). 1 E.g., Lang (1984); on 'oral strategies' in Herodotus, see also Slings, this volume (Ch. 3). 5 Evans (1991) 3, Thomas (2000) 161 ff. See also the problem of Herodotus* 'reliability1 as discussed by Cartlcdge and Greenwood in this volume (Ch. 15).
6
EGBERT J. BARKER
Interpreting the Proem Any attempt to understand Herodotus5 notion of 'history' must start from Herodotus' own use of the term historie in the Proem, to which we now return. At stake is not only the term's lexical value, but also the way it functions in the syntax of the Proem. Tliis rich sentence is best taken as a tripartite structure, beginning with a phrase char acterizing the work as a whole, and inscribing the name of its author in it (1), followed by two negative purpose clauses of parallel struc ture in which the work's intended achievements are specified (2a and b), and rounded off with an indirect question that has at first sight an unclear relation to what precedes (3). Following the analysis of Tilman Krischer, we can present the construction as follows:6 1. 'HpoSoTOu 'AtaicapvTiooEoq iaxopuiq an66e£i o\|uc TE euri K<XI Tvamn ical iaiopin Tama Aiyouoa eari, TO 8e anb xovde AiyunTiouq epxouai Xoyotx; epECov icaTa Totfiicopovnpoaearai 8e TI avToiai mi TT\q 8e, xr\ ye uoi <paivexai elvai akrfiic,, OI>K e7uaxna(o. (7.139.1) At this point 1 cannot but put forth an opinion which in fact is odi ous to the majority; still, in so far as it seems to me a matter of true fact, I will not withhold it.
17
Other examples: 1.170.1; 1.171.1; 1.207.1 (ueu
