Chapter 2 Making Logos
2.6 Herodotus Histore
This chapter began by noting the lack of transparent references to prose writers in Herodotus’ finished work—a point that clearly diminishes in force, however, once Herodotus’ more nuanced relationship with prose traditions begins to unravel. In the earlier books especially, we have uncovered numerous points of contact between Herodotean research and prose writing in terms of intellectual interests. The multitude of passages in
128 For possible Persian sources behind Herodotus’ account, see e.g. Lewis (1985) 116-7, Moggi (2005) 204-5. For similar emphasis on itineraries elsewhere in the Histories, see Harrison (2007) 45f. 129
Purves (2010) 144-5. Branscome (2010) 14f. focuses on the disjunction between the personal agenda of Aristagoras and the impersonal inquiries of Herodotus, cf. Harrison (forthcoming) 22. 130 On Herodotus’ use of ἐγὼ as an indication that it is now he who speaks, see de Jong (1999) 228; cf. Branscome (2010) 33-4 on the egocentrism of this passage.
131
Branscome (2010) 29. 132 Branscome (2010) 9. 133 Grethlein (2010) 149.
which the inquiries of Hecataeus, and a host other early Greek thinkers, are either demonstrably, or very likely, dovetailing with Herodotus’ own investigations ultimately militates against any under-qualified notion that Herodotus was, at least for the most part, an “oral” historian working with primarily oral traditions.134
In fact, the slight references to prose writers or their works in the Histories itself obscures what is clearly a highly nuanced appreciation of earlier prose researches in areas, including, but not limited to, ethnography, philosophy, geography, and the past.
The cross-pollination of others’ methodologies in Herodotus’ work, such as the primacy of
logos; the rejection of foolish stories; the need to establish a persuasive authorial persona; and the consideration of the new—the last of these so well illustrated in the famous fragment of Hippias of Elis which heads this chapter, further demonstrates the connectedness between Herodotus and earlier/contemporary researchers. So while the fragmentary remains of many of the authors surveyed clearly limits our ability to locate all the places in which an earlier thinker’s ideas forms the basis of Herodotus’ knowledge, the complex interplay with other genres and ideas that we find in his work throws into sharp relief the inadequacy of impressionistic interpretations that read his seemingly inconsistent approach to citation as a mendacious attempt at deceiving his audience.135
Thinking about Hecataeus, arguably his most significant prose predecessor, while our investigation has unearthed a much more thorough awareness of Hecataeus’ researches than the paltry citations to the pre-eminent intellectual would suggest, the knowledgeable reader is clearly led to see that Herodotus’ (often oppositional) inquiries include a wide range of topics, a substratum of these by Hecataeus. Herodotus is not attempting to conceal his reliance on Hecataeus, but rather to bolster his own intellectual credentials, since the reader is assumed to understand what is clearly authoritative evidence.136 Nevertheless, as Candaules reminds Gyges at the outset of the Histories (1.8.2), autopsy is the best way to establish the truth—a methodological principle which re-surfaces elsewhere in Herodotus’ work. So even where Herodotus is seemingly reliant on Hecataeus, he will often include some piece of first-hand knowledge, not to obscure the provenance of his information, but rather to extend his own critical acumen. His use of Hecataeus therefore fits into a more general pattern which is constant throughout the Histories, namely: Herodotus, who does not
134 So Clarke (1999) 62: ‘we should not be surprised to find accounts of Herodotus’ debt to Hecataeus…the ground seems to have been cleared for [Herodotus] by his predecessor’.
135 So Fehling (1989). 136
Luraghi (2001b) esp.146-50 makes a number of pertinent remarks concerning Herodotus’ audience, noting that a group or community do not literally “speak” in the Histories, Herodotus merely represents local knowledge in a way that his audience would have been familiar with.
automatically prioritise a written document per se,137 will always appeal to the most knowledgeable source where possible (cf. 2.77.1); and here it has been shown how such a critical pose in fact led him to rely on a disparate array of both written and spoken sources.
Thus we are reminded of Bellow’s aperçu on the prevalence of ideas in human society. Herodotus’ work is littered with thoughts and ideas that, far from emerging in a vacuum, are closely linked—though, importantly, not identical—with a broad range of individuals and their own attempts at understanding the world. The polemical spirit underlying many of Herodotus’ allusions towards such figures (a spirit that will reverberate throughout this study), is one of the chief ways in which Herodotus the historian asserts the authority of his new genre, delineating more clearly for the reader the contours and uniqueness of his own historiographical enterprise. This is not to say that Herodotus rejects toto caelo his prose predecessors’ ideas and their methods; his procedure is an altogether subtler one. For what makes Herodotus’ project so distinctively Herodotean is his self-conscious engagement with the problems of evidence and the need to apply criteria of truth to all that he reports.138 Such a critical spirit is manifestly present in the myriad works that were potentially at his disposal, yet none of them appear to have developed this into the form of inquiry which Herodotean
historiē encapsulates.139
137 Luraghi (2001b) 153; Connor (1993) 22-3. 138 Compare Fowler (2006) 38.
139 For Herodotean historiē and its affinity to scientific forms of ‘inquiry’ in the fifth and early fourth century, see further discussion in Lloyd I 82-4, and Thomas (2000) esp.161-7, 262-74, who reminds the reader that historiē is first found in Herodotus and hence, that the concept of early Ionian historiē is a modern one (167); pace Fowler (1996) 80: ‘he brought the old science of ἱ στορί η, critical inquiry, up to date...and applied ἱ στορί η itself to new subjects.’ In contrast, other scholars have insisted rather on the importance of the archaic (especially Homeric) histōr (‘arbitrator’) vis-à-vis Herodotus’ conception of his work, e.g. Darbo-Peschanski (1987) esp.137-53, Lateiner (1989) 84, Connor (1993), Nagy (1987), (1990) 250-62, 318-22, Munson (2001) 217-31, cf. Dewald (2002), who investigates the histōr as the critical voice in Herodotus’ text, without necessarily connecting this to a Homeric precedent. Bakker (2002) esp.13-19, 29-32, whose analysis I find most persuasive, similarly avoids the scientific overtones of the term, and focuses on how, for Herodotus, historiē revolves around the presentation of conflict and difference. For the transition from historiē to history, see Hornblower (1987) 8-12, Fowler (2006) 33, and a number of elegant observations in Hartog (2000), who rightly broadens the debate in order to show that ‘Herodotus historei but he also semanei’ (395)—a point that brings Herodotus’ work closer to the Oracle who also semanei (e.g. DK 22.A.93) and by extension, to the authority of oracular knowledge (see below ch.7 passim).