Herodotus Flashcards
Presentation of Works
Homeric tradition meant that Herodotus’ works were given orally to the public as not everybody could read, and the price of reproducing works would have been prohibitive.
Early Life
Personal Context
Greek historian (Father of History)
Son of Lyxes and Dryo → upper class Halicamassian (born in Halicarnassus)
- The fact that Herodotus was literate suggests a family of some affluence and education
- No evidence of any marriage or children
Later Life
Personal Context
- Travelled throughout Asia Monor, Babylonia, Egypt and Greece, but the direction and extent of his travels are not precisely known → valuable firsthand knowledge
- About 447BCE: Went to Athens, then the centre and focus of culture in the Greek world, where he won the admiration of the most illustrious men of Greece, including the great Athenian statesman Pericles.
- Suidas says he died and was buried in Thurii in c. 418 BCE, but also may have died in the plague of Athens in 413-430 BCE
Social Context
(How Context Affects his Beliefs)
- He believed that the universe is ruled by fate and chance → nothing is stable in human affairs
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Moral choice is still important since the gods punish the arrogant (Xerxes)
- This attempt to draw moral lessons from the study of great events formed the basis of the Greek and Roman historiographical tradition
- Herodotus, as an elite, saw and wrote about the events of the upper class and significant individuals
Events Recorded
Temporal Context
- The 5th century saw conflict between the Persian Empire and the Greek states between 490-478BCE (a time of potential invasion and conquest by the Persian Empire)
- The next four years saw the growth of Athenian power and Democracy
- The final years saw Athens and Sparta engage in the Peloponnesian Wars with Sparta as the victor
Herodotus recognised these military confrontations not only as conflicts but as clash of civilisations that can shape history.
Herodotus’ Purpose
- Herodotus’ purpose is at one level ‘commemorative’, that is he wants those who fought and died for Greece to be properly remembered.
- Herodotus sees the conflict as one: between Europe and Asia, between civilisation and barbarism between freedom and slavery.
- He believes this conflict has deep roots and so he seeks to trace back the conflict’s origins to its mythical past.
The Histories
Works of Herodotus
The Italian classicist Silvana Cagnazzi suggests that each book can be subdivided into three ‘logoi. Cagnazzi says it would have taken 3-4 hours to recite Herodotus.
The Histories has been divided into nine parts by later authors:
- The earlier books deal with customs, legends, history and traditions of the peoples of the ancient worlds (Lydians, Scythians, Medes, Persians, Assyrians, Egyptians etc.)
- The last three books describe the armed conflicts between Greece and Persia in the early 5th century BCE
The work can also be divided into:
- Part 1: The Rise of the Persian Empire (Books 1-5)
- Part 2: Greece and the Persian Wars (Books 5-9)
“There is a story that the Priestess also revealed to him the systems of government which obtains at Sparta today but the Lacedemonians themselves say that Lycurgus brought it from Crete.”
The Words of Herodotus
Mythological content construction
- Reveals that Herodotus used sources considered unreliable in our current times
“The following are certain Persian customs which I can describe from personal knowledge.”
The Words of Herodotus
Reveals the Herodotus used his own travels and experiences as sources.
“Persian fleet on its way to Greece —they were caught by a violent northerly gale…a great many of them were driven ashore and wrecked on Athos— indeed reports say that something like three hundred were lost with over 20,000 men. The sea in the neighbourhood of Athos is full of monsters…were seized and devoured.”
The Words of Herodotus
Herodotus used mythology to explain occurences that he wrote, evidence of the impact of hs context.
This is not a reason to invalidate his entire works.
“So much for the Argive account…there is however another story current in Greece.”
The Words of Herodotus
Herodotus used different perspectives in an attempt to gain a fuller portrayal.
“For my own part I cannot positively say that Xerxes either did or did not send messengers to Argos.”
Herodotus attempts to be honest and transparent of his doubts in his works.
Content of Works
(Concepts and Ideas, NOT Events)
Herodotus’ understood the causes of the war between Greece and Persia to be deeper than the traditional ‘action and reaction’ idea which the epic poets of the time went in for. He recognised that the roots cause of the conflict is imperialism, which is ably shown as he relates the expansion of the Persian Empire.
He is providing an abstract cause for a complex historical development; the tradition had been to blame everything on the gods.
- In Herodotus, the gods do not directly determine events, but it would take another generation before a Greek historian completely removed divine control of the affairs of men.
Anna Curthoy’s ‘Is History Fiction?”
‘Father of History’ or ‘Father of Lies’
“Herodotus constructs the Histories in terms of a freewheeling multiplicity of genres, which like the many stories he tells, play off against each other, sometime tragic, ironic, comic.”
“What characterises The Histories as a project of historical writing and so what launches Western historical writing is its doubleness; the concern for history as a field, a discipline, an enquiry, with associated research protocols, combined with the interest in storytelling…Herodotus does not confine history to an area of field of focus, rather establishing historical writing as freely economic, political, diplomatic, social, sexual, religious, military or naval.”
Father of History
‘Father of History’ or ‘Father of Lies’?
In the 16th century, European explorers returned with bizarre stories about other peoples, yet nobody doubts their major discoveries.
Herodotus may not be perfect, but there is much evidence to suggest that he got a lot of his history right, including:
- His description of Darius’ coup is supported by the inscription found in the town, Behistun.
- Details about Persian administration are supported in Persian documents such as the Daiva inscription.
Father of Lies
‘Father of History’ or ‘Father of Lies’?
- There are inaccuracies and instances where he did not really visit a place and claims to have.
- He does get some of his topography quite wrong. He is not perfect, and readers of Herodotus have to make their own judgement.
- He is mocked because of his credulity (the tendency to be too ready to believe something is true)
- Herodotus is the epitome of tolerance and hates intolerance
- Some of the customs that he described seem quite simply unbelievable, yet Herodotus relates what he has heard or seen and does so in a very non-judgemental manner
- Some of his contemporary critics attacked him for being too even-handed and accused him of being philobarbaros or pro-barbarian
- However, there is a danger of being anachronistic in criticising Herodotus’ techniques
- Herodotus’ audience expected recited tales, which in combination with his aim to memorialise heroes’ great deeds, surely explains the fantastic in his work, but does not lessen that work as history.
Methodologies
Herodotus’ information was derived in part from the work of predecessors, but it was widely supplemented with knowledge that he had gained from his own extensive travels. His research and his efforts reveal his attempts to find the truth.
Herodotus consulted witnesses and examined monuments whenever possible but introduced an extraneous element into his historical thinking in relying also on dreams, oracles and portents (undermines historical work).
- Herodotus only displays thoroughness and impartiality but a willingness to reveal his own doubts. This critical attitude to sources is quite a departure for Greek writers of the time.
- Although he was sometime inaccurate, he was generally careful to separate plausible reports from implausible ones.
