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HERODOTUS A ND THE QUESTION W H Y

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The Fordyce W. Mitchel Memorial Lecture Series, sponsored by the Department of History at the University of Missouri–Columbia, began in October 2000. Fordyce Mitchel was Professor of Greek History at the University of Missouri– Columbia until his death in 1986. In addition to his work on fourth-century Greek history and epigraphy, including his much-cited Lykourgan Athens: 338–322, Semple Lectures 2 (Cincinnati: 1970), Mitchel helped to elevate the ancient history program in the Department of History and to build the extensive library resources in that field. The lecture series was made possible by a generous endowment from his widow, Mrs. Marguerite Mitchel. It provides for a biennial series of lectures on original aspects of Greek history and society, given by a scholar of high international standing. The lectures are then revised and are currently published by the University of Texas Press.

PR EV IOUS MITCHEL PUBLIC AT IONS: Carol G. Thomas, Finding People in Early Greece (University of Missouri Press, 2005) Mogens Herman Hansen, The Shotgun Method: The Demography of the Ancient Greek City-State Culture (University of Missouri Press, 2006) Mark Golden, Greek Sport and Social Status (University of Texas Press, 2008) Joseph Roisman, Alexander’s Veterans and the Early Wars of the Successors (University of Texas Press, 2012)

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H E ROD O T US A N D T H E QU E S T ION W H Y Christopher Pelling

U NI V ER SIT Y OF TE X A S PR E SS, AUST IN

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This book has been supported by an endowment dedicated to classics and the ancient world and funded by the Areté Foundation; the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; the Dougherty Foundation; the James R. Dougherty, Jr. Foundation; the Rachael and Ben Vaughan Foundation; and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 2019 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2019 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 utpress.utexas.edu/rp-form The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). L IBR A RY OF CONGR E SS C ATA L OGI NG -I N-PU BL IC AT ION DATA Names: Pelling, C. B. R., author. Title: Herodotus and the question why / Christopher Pelling. Other titles: Fordyce W. Mitchel Memorial Lecture Series. Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2019. | Series: The Fordyce W. Mitchel memorial lecture series | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018044471 ISBN 978-1-4773-1832-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4773-1833-1 (library e-book) ISBN 978-1-4773-1834-8 (nonlibrary e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Herodotus—Criticism and interpretation. | History, Ancient—Historiography. | Greece—Historiography. Classification: LCC PA4004 .P35 2019 | DDC 938.0072/02—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018044471 doi:10.7560/318324

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C ON T E N T S

Abbreviations ix Preface

xiii

CH A P TER 1 Why did it all happen?

(a) “Mother, what did they fight each other for?”

(b) The words 5 (c) Narrative: Show, not tell

(d) Explanation: A game for two 13 (e) Historical consciousness

(f) Reconstructing mentalities 17 CH A P TER 2 To blame and to explain: Narrative complications

(a) The proem

(b) The exchange of abductions (1.1–5)

CH A P TER 3 How can you possibly know?

(a) Putting in the working 40 (b) Scientific and historical explanation 46 (c) Stories in cahoots 55 CH A P TER 4 Adventures in prose

(a) Something diﬀerent? 58 (b) Hecataeus

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CON T EN TS

(d) Rhetorical finger-pointing

(e) Sameness and diﬀerence 75 CH A P TER 5 Hippocratic aﬃnities

(a) Medical science

(b) Harmonious balancing

CH A P TER 6 Explanations in combination

(a) Hippocratics 94 (b) Herodotus 101 CH A P TER 7 Early moves

(a) Croesus and Candaules 106 (b) Croesus: Pride, aggression, downfall

110

CH A P TER 8 Empire

(a) Croesus again 114 (b) From Cyrus to Xerxes 119 (c) Blame? 123 CH A P TER 9 Herodotus’ Persian stories

(a) The world of the court 129 (b) Biography?

133

139

(e) But are we so diﬀerent? 142 CH A P TER 10 The human and the divine

(a) Divine perspectives 146 (b) Enigmatic divinity 149 (c) Historical explanation? 156 CH A P T ER 11 Explaining victory

163

CH A P TER 12 Freedom

(a) Inspiration 174 (b) The unruly free 181 (c) Freedom from and freedom to 184

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CON T EN TS

vii

CH A P TER 13 Democracy

(a) Democracy and freedom?

190

(b) Characterizing the dÄ“mos

192

195

CH A P TER 14 Individuals and collectives

(a) Self-expression? 199 (b) Narrative shape

200

(c) Individuals and communities 201 (d) An Athenian virtue? 204 (e) National characteristics? 210 CH A P TER 15 Then and now: Herodotusâ€™ own day

(a) Shadows of the future 214 (b) Thinking backwards and forwards

223

Notes

232

237

Bibliography

301

Passages in Herodotus 328 Passages in Other Authors 337 General Index

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346

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A BBR E V I AT IONS

Abbreviations of authors and works normally follow the form in Liddell, Scott, and Jones (LSJ) and in the Oxford Latin Dictionary. An author’s name in square brackets, e.g., [Aesch.] or [Longin.], indicates a work attributed to that author but unlikely to be his work. All references to the Hippocratic Corpus give first the relevant Loeb volume and then the volume of Littré’s ten-volume edition (Paris, 1839–1861). BNJ

DK EGM Fornara

FGrH HCT IG LSJ

OCD⁴

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I. Worthington (ed.), Brill’s New Jacoby (2006–): http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/brill-s -new-jacoby. H. Diels and W. Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (12th ed., Dublin and Zürich, 1966). R. L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography i–ii (Oxford, 2001–2013). C. Fornara, Translated Documents of Greece & Rome i: Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1983). F. Jacoby et al., Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Leiden, 1923–). A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford, 1944–1981). Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1873–). H. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed., rev. H. Stuart-Jones, Oxford 1940; revised suppl. by P. G. W. Glare and others, Oxford, 1988). R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC, revised ed. (Oxford, 1988). S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Eidinow (eds.), Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed., Oxford, 2012).

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A BBR E V I AT IONS

PMG J. E. Powell, Lexicon POxy R–E

SVF TGrF Waterfield

D. L. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962). J. E. Powell, A Lexicon to Herodotus (Cambridge, 1938; repr. Hildesheim, 1977). Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1898–). A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1893–1980). H. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1903–1924). A. Nauck et al., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Göttingen, 1889–). Translation in R. Waterfield and C. Dewald, Herodotus: The Histories (Oxford 1998).

A NCIEN T AU T HOR S A ND WOR K S Abbreviated Author Ael.

Full Name of Author Aelian

Aesch.

Aeschylus

Amm. Marc. Ar. Arist.

Ammianus Marcellinus Aristophanes Aristotle

Cic.

Cicero

Clem. Al.

Clemens Alexandrinus Ctesias Demosthenes Diodorus Siculus

Ctes. Dem. Diod.

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Abbreviated Title of Work NA VA Cho. Pers.

Full Title of Work De natura animalium Varia Historia Choephori Persians

Ach. NE Phys. Poet. Pol. Rhet. de Inv. de Or. Fin. Orat. Strom.

Acharnians Nicomachean Ethics Physics Poetics Politics Rhetoric De Inventione De Oratore De Finibus Orator ad M. Brutum Stromateis

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A BBR E V I AT IONS

Abbreviated Author Eur.

Full Name of Author Euripides

Galen

Gorg. Hdt. Hell. Oxy. Hes. Hymn. Hom. Homer

Gorgias Herodotus

Hyp. Isoc.

Hypereides Isocrates

Luc. Lyc. Nic. Dam. Paus. Phot. Pind. Pl.

Lucian Lysias Nicolaus Damascenus Pausanias Photius Pindar Plato

Plb. Plin.

Polybius Pliny (the Elder)

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Hesiod Homeric Hymns

Abbreviated Title of Work Alex. Hel. Hipp. Or. Phoen. Suppl. Comm. on Epid. Prorrhet.

Full Title of Work Alexander Helen Hippolytus Orestes Phoenissae Suppliants Commentary on Epidemics Prorrhetikon

Theog. h.Ap. Il. Od.

Hellenica Oxyrhynchia Theogonia Homeric Hymn to Apollo Iliad Odyssey

Busir. Paneg.

Busiris Panegyricus

Alex.

Alexander

bibl. P. Apol. Euthyd. Gorg. Menex. Phd. Phaedr. Prot. Rpb. Symp. Tim.

bibliotheca Pythian Odes Apology Euthydemus Gorgias Menexenus Phaedo Phaedrus Protagoras Republic Symposium Timaeus

Natural History

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xii

A BBR E V I AT IONS

Abbreviated Author Ptolemaios Chennos Plut.

Full Name of Author

Abbreviated Title of Work ap. Phot.

Full Title of Work As cited by Phot.

Plutarch

Ps.-Xen. Quint. Thuc. Xen.

Pseudo-Xenophon Quintilian Thucydides Xenophon

Apoph. Lac. Arist. Cim. Cor. Them. Ath. Pol.

Apophthegmata Laconica Aristeides Cimon Coriolanus Themistocles AthenaiĹ?n Politeia

Anab. Cyr. Hell. Mem.

Anabasis Cyropaedia Hellenica Memorabilia

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PR E FAC E

The origins of this book lie a long way in the past, in a two-year Leverhulme Fellowship that I gratefully held in the 1990s. Its theme was then envisaged rather diﬀerently, as “Character and Cause in the Greek Historians”: that was prompted by an awareness that the historians had been neglected in a collected volume I had edited on characterization and individuality (Pelling 1990a). Those years allowed some first immersion in the Hippocratic corpus, and that in turn broadened the interest to historical explanation in general. I delivered some ruminations along those lines in the inaugural Christopher Roberts lecture that I had the honor of giving at Dickinson College in 1998, entitled “Causes, Scientific and Other: Hippocratics and Historians.” As is the way with academic life (especially mine), other papers and projects and responsibilities then intervened, but at least—to use a distinction that will often figure in this book—there was by then a “disposition” to get a book written, and one that I hoped might be of interest not just to classicists but also to historiographic theorists and perhaps even to philosophers. That aspiration is still there. The “trigger” then came with the invitation to give the Fordyce Mitchel lectures at Columbia, Missouri, in October 2008. In a delightful week spent there, graciously hosted by Ian Worthington, I duly delivered three lectures under the title “How the Greek Historians Explained History,” with one lecture each on Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius. A book with the same title was envisaged and contracted. I was even rash enough to promise it in print (2013b: 19). That turned out to prefigure two other features discussed in this book: first, the way that a preparatory remark can often mislead the reader (and in this case the writer) about how long there will be to wait (p. 115) and second, the frequent need for “progressive correction” and “revision in stride” (chapter 5[c]). Distractions did not melt away with age; and it also became embarrassingly clear that a book covering all those authors would strain any reader’s patience beyond endurance. A draft chapter on the Homeric back-

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xiv

PR EFACE

ground itself weighed in at more than 10,000 words. (It has been rescued from the cutting-room floor and rewritten as a sister paper, Pelling forthcoming [d].) I was most grateful for agreement with the University of Texas Press to recast the project to focus on Herodotus, though not on him alone: Thucydides and Polybius will appear from time to time as well, with some vestiges of those original Fordyce Mitchel lectures, and anyway it will be argued that we need to investigate more broadly the mindset that Herodotus could assume in his readers and hearers. What do they know of Herodotus who only Herodotus know? Few of those distractions were unpleasant, and some were extremely helpful for this book, particularly my collaboration with Simon Hornblower on our green-and-yellow Cambridge commentary on book 6: I learned a great deal from my coauthor, and a commentator faces a salutary need to test grand generalizations against the awkward detail of the text itself. Some of my papers on Herodotus also developed ideas that surface again in various chapters here: the way in which East and West do and do not contrast, the role of the constitutions debate in its context, the intertextuality with Homer, the complexities of the Croesus-logos, and the interplay of speech and narrative (respectively Pelling 1997c, 2002b, 2006a, 2006b, and 2006c, the last bringing together points more fully argued in other papers). Some reflections on counterfactual history then came in Pelling 2013b. As the book came closer to its final form, some sections were given airings more or less as they appear here. Thus a version of chapter 9 was delivered as the annual Syllecta Classica lecture in Iowa and has been published as Pelling 2016b, and some parts of chapters 5 and especially 6 have overlaps with Pelling 2018. The exceptionally curious would be able to run down echoes of shorter passages in others of my papers and books, including some not on Herodotus at all. In many cases these duplications have allowed an abbreviated or more sharply focused version here, but I still apologize. The cost in trees may be at least partly compensated by the convenience to readers, not all of whom will have access to a well-stocked library or a complete set of online subscriptions. Parts have been shared with other audiences, too, in Charlottesville, Boulder, Leeds, Reading, London, Newcastle, Washington, Cambridge, and (several times) Oxford. I am most grateful to all those hearers and also to Emily Baragwanath, Simon Hornblower, Edith Foster, and Hans Kopp who read the entire manuscript; to Katherine Harloe, Charlie KozenyPelling, Jessica Lightfoot, Judith Mossman, Robin Nicholas, and Rosalind Thomas for help on particular points and chapters; and to several Herodotean and historiographic friends whose conversations have over many years shaped the way I think about these authors: Carolyn Dewald, Mi-

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PR EFACE

chael Flower, John Marincola, Rosaria Munson, Philip Stadter, Tim Rood, Stephanie West, and many more. Another theme of the book is that blameworthiness is invariably a very complex matter; but after so much help and so much stimulating talk, the blame for remaining blemishes rests firmly with me. All translations, unless otherwise stated, are my own. Christopher Pelling Oxford April 2018

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