DOCSLIB.ORG

HAPPINESS in HERODOTUS Herodotus Is a Historian of War: The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Symbolae Osloenses 85, 2011 HAPPINESS IN HERODOTUS CAROLYN DEWALD CLASSICAL STUDIES PROGRAM,BARD COLLEGE, NY, USA In conversation with Croesus, Herodotus' Solon makes two important points about human happiness: a) any human life is filled with change, so a person's happiness cannot be evaluated properly until he or she has died; b) the rich and powerful are as subject to change as anyone else. This paper explores, first, how often and in what ways rich and powerful barbarians and Greeks fail to achieve happiness in the Histories and, secondly, the ways in which the conditions of human life for everyone, rich and poor, slave and free, male and female, as H. depicts them, really do fall far short of the seven kinds of happiness achieved, Solon says, by the otherwise unknown Tellus of Athens. Five of these kinds of happiness are ‘Odyssean’ and involve adequate health and prosperity, with surviving descendants, in a flourishing city. Two might rather be called ‘Iliadic,’ because they involve gaining kleos through a glorious death. Herodotus, however, redefines that kleos so that it comes not only from death in battle but from any death when honored and memorialized in community. An important part of Herodotus' own task as an investigator and recorder of erga megala te kai thômasta is to give recognition, and so something of this kleos (Tellus' seventh and most enduring kind of happiness) to all of the many individuals who appear on the wide and generous canvas of his Histories' narrative. [Among the Trausoi] whenever a baby is born, its relatives gather around and grieve for the troubles it is going to have to endure now that it has been born, and they recount all the suffer- ings of human life (ta anthrôpêia panta pathea). When anyone dies, however, they bury him in high spirits and with jubilation, on the grounds that he has been released from so many ills and is now in a perfectly happy state (en pasêi eudaimoniêi). Herodotus 5.41 Herodotus is a historian of war: the nine books of his Histories are structured as a long narrative concerning the growth of the Medo-Persian Empire, by military conquest, from about 650 to the late 480s BCE (Books One through Six), and then the attempt by Xerxes to conquer mainland Greece between 481 and 479 2 (Books Seven through Nine). In the nine-book story of Persian imperial ambi- tion, almost no one is exempt from the effects of war: temples are looted, cities in the path of armies are plundered and fall, families and individuals are dislocated or destroyed. And of course, soldiers kill and die. As Croesus disingenuously tells his captor, Cyrus, a god must have made him initiate the war with Persia, for “no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons” (1.87). The twenty ships that Athens sends to help the http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00397679.2011.631357 52 HAPPINESS IN HERODOTUS Ionian Revolt are “the beginning of evils for both Greeks and barbarians” 3 (5.97.3). This is not a narrative designed to limn a lot of human happiness. Herodotus certainly does not celebrate human happiness, if it is defined as an 4 evanescent feeling of pleasure or Pindaric exaltation. Happiness defined roughly as ‘the good life,’ however, is a concept given some prominence in the Histories because of the programmatic placement of the story of Solon and Croesus 5 (1.29-33). The narrative of Book One begins in earnest with the story of Croesus, king of Lydia, and his defeat by Cyrus the Persian in 546 BCE. Croesus is important because his defeat by Cyrus brings true eastern imperial autocracy to the shores of the Aegean and faces the Greek communities that 6 ring the East Aegean with a serious threat to their values and their way of life. But Herodotus does not start his Croesus narrative with the war between Croesus and Cyrus. After briefly narrating Croesus' earlier conquest of Ionia, he tells a story about a visit by Solon, archon of Athens in 594 BCE, to Croesus' court. In Herodotus's account, Croesus has Solon given a tour of his treasury, and then, when he is brought back up to the throne room, Croesus 7 asks, “So, Solon, who is the happiest man in the world, olbiôtaton pantôn?” Herodotus may implicitly be suggesting a cultural misunderstanding here. Olbios as it occurs later in the Histories often has the conventional meaning 8 ‘wealthy, rich in goods’; perhaps Croesus is asking Solon who is the richest man in the world – or perhaps, as Solon's explanatory speech to him suggests, Croesus does not yet see a difference between the idea of riches and the idea of 9 a more generalized good life. Obviously the polite answer to Croesus' question, the response Croesus expects of his guest, is: “Why YOU are clearly olbiôtatos, Croesus the magnificent!” But Solon does not respond to Croesus' tacit signaling and answers honestly: “Tellus the Athenian.” As Solon describes him, Tellus was an Athenian of moderate means, certainly no match for Croesus in splendor, so Croesus is surprised, and he voices the suspicion that Solon is mocking him (1.32.1). Solon, however, proceeds to explain to Croesus that the merely wealthy man (ho mega plousios,1.32.5) is not necessarily happy, and then he dis- 10 closes the difference between genuine happiness and mere wealth. Solon lectures Croesus at some length (1.32): “When you asked me about men and their affairs, you were putting your question to someone who is well aware of how utterly jealous the divine is, and how it is likely to confound us (epistamenon me to theion pan eon phthoneron te kai tarachôdes epeirôtais anthrôpêiôn prêgmatôn peri). Anyone who lives for a long time is bound to see and endure many things he would rather avoid. I place the limit of a man's life at seventy years . No two days bring events which are exactly the same. It follows, Croesus, that human life is entirely a matter of chance (pan esti anthrôpos sumphorê). You see, someone with vast wealth is no better off than someone who lives from day to day, unless good fortune attends him and sees to it that, when he 53 CAROLYN DEWALD dies, he dies well and with all his advantages intact. Plenty of extremely wealthy people are unfortunate, while plenty of people with moderate means are lucky (eutuchês); and someone with great wealth but bad fortune is better off than a lucky man in only two ways, whereas there are many ways in which a lucky man is better off than someone who is rich and unlucky (ho men dê mega plousios, anolbios de). An unlucky rich man is more capable of satisfying his desires and of riding out disaster when it strikes, but a lucky man is better off in the following respects. (H)is good luck protects him, and he also avoids disfigurement and disease, has no experience of catastrophe, and is blessed with fine children and good looks. If, in addition to all this, he dies a good death (ei de pros toutoisi eti teleutêsei ton bion eu), then he is the one you are after – he is the one who deserves to be described as happy (olbios). But until he is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy (olbion), and just call him fortunate (eutuchea).” The role of the gods in determining human happiness is an issue that at first glance looms large over Solon's speech; it is, after all, the one he begins with. The gods are phthoneroi, jealous, and their jealousy disrupts human lives. But I think that neither Solon nor Herodotus is advancing a metaphysical argument here. Solon is not making an observation about the personality of divinity as much as he is rather reminding Croesus of something all too obvious: we know the gods begrudge human happiness because we see around us the result; very, very few people experience even half the aspects of good fortune that 11 came Tellus' way. 12 Of much more interest to Solon (or certainly to Herodotus' Solon) is the issue Solon concludes with: his own inability to define a human being as happy until he or she has finished being human and is definitely dead, having died ‘a good death’. 13 Solon wants to emphasize the idea of transience and the instability of fortune. On this point he does seem clearly to be Herodotus' mouthpiece, since Herodo- tus as narrator of the whole of the Histories also states, at the conclusion of his proem, “For the things that earlier were great, most of them have become small, and the things that were great in my time were earlier small. Now knowing that human happiness (tên anthrôpêiên eudaimoniên) never remains in the same place I will memorialize both alike” (1.5). At the end of this essay I will revisit the ephemerality of happiness and its relevance to Herodotus' task as a historian; the conviction that human affairs never stay fixed is one of the most important of Herodotus's motivations for writing an account of the great and wonderful deeds of the past and, by doing so, also preserving their memory from becoming worn away by the ravages of time (1.1). But in the context of the Solon/Croesus episode and the narrative of Croesus' later career, more important still is the additional fact that Solon emphasizes: the mutability of everything in ta anthropina is something that the great and powerful men of the text are just as subject to as everyone else.
Recommended publications
  • Salamis in Easy Attic Greek

    Salamis in Easy Attic Greek

    'yJlMLJ. n. C^\- SxJ^bris PROFESSOR J. S.WILL z.'vS" f*^ Cambridge Mkiiuiuary Classics Salamis in easy Attic Greek 13 en O Sal a mis in easy Attic Greek With Introduction, Notes and Vocabulary by G. M. EDWARDS, ^M.A. Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge ' - / Cambridge : at the University Press if J I9'3 S57H CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS ILonUon: FETTER LANE, E.G. C. F. CLAY, Manager GFUinbursb: 100, PRINCES STREET ectlin: A. ASHER AND CO. Efipjig: F. A. BROCKHAUS ip,etoSorfe: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS »otnbag antj Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. All rights reserved WIIHTeO Ih •«i»T ««ITAIII PREFACE rilHIS mlaptation of part of Herodotus, imirli -*- shortened and simplified, is intended for students in their second year of Greek readin<r. The re-written text is mainly Attic ; but a few Ionic touches have been retained for their literary value. The subject-matter is of great and varied interest ; and there is abundance of useful idiom. The excellent editions of Dr Shuckburgh and Messrs How and Wells and Dean Blakesley's admirable Excursus on the battle of Salamis have been found very useful. G. M. E. CAMBRmOK June 1913 CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ...... vii Text ........ 1 Notes 32 Vocabulary ...... 61 Index of Proper Names . .77 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP Map of Salamis .... Frontispiece Athens and the Acropolis {Phot. Frith) To face p. 2 A Greek Trireme Themistocles {Phot. Anderson) . Note.— The illustration of the trireme is re- produced by permission of Mr Cecil Torr. A full explanation of its details will be found in his work on Ancient Ships (p.
  • A Commentary on Solon's Poems a Thesis Submitted for the Degree Of

    A Commentary on Solon's Poems a Thesis Submitted for the Degree Of

    A Commentary on Solon's Poems A Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Maria Noussia University College London February, 1999 BIET, LOIMOI1 ABSTRACT This dissertation is a Commentary on Solon's Poems (elegiacs and tetrameters; the iambic trimeters, though taken into consideration for the examination of the rest of the poems, are not given a detailed commentary). Solon's poetry is studied mainly from a literary point of view; it is compared with the language and vocabulary of his predecessors Homer, Hesiod, and the other lyric poets of his age. The study attests the influence of Solon's language, content, motives, and ethical / political ideas on his lyric successors, on Aristophanes and the tragedians (above all Euripides who specifically appears to share the ideology of the polls and the heightened consciousness about civic affairs which emerged in the Athenian community under Solon) as well as the coincidence between Solon's ethical statements and the topoi of the language of the inscriptions. This is not a historical Commentary; the connections of Solon's poetry with his Laws as well as with the historical situation of his time and the reforms he sponsored are taken into consideration only when they are useful and rewarding in the answers they provide for the interpretation of the Solonian poetry. The emphasis of this work is on Solon's poetry as a work of Literature and on Solon's poetic achievements. The close examination of his poems reveals his creativity, his artistry together with his view of the process of poetic composition as technical making and his focus on his craftsmanship as a tool for his profession as a politician and as a statesman.
  • STRATEGIES of UNITY WITHIN the ACHAEAN LEAGUE By

    STRATEGIES of UNITY WITHIN the ACHAEAN LEAGUE By

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The University of Utah: J. Willard Marriott Digital Library STRATEGIES OF UNITY WITHIN THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE by Andrew James Hillen A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History The University of Utah December 2012 Copyright © Andrew James Hillen 2012 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF THESIS APPROVAL The thesis of Andrew James Hillen has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: W. Lindsay Adams , Chair June 26, 2012 Date Approved Ronald Smelser , Member June 26, 2012 Date Approved Alexis Christensen , Member June 26, 2012 Date Approved and by Isabel Moreira , Chair of the Department of History and by Charles A. Wight, Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT The Achaean League successfully extended its membership to poleis who did not traditionally share any affinity with the Achaean ethnos. This occurred, against the current of traditional Greek political development, due to a fundamental restructuring of political power within the poleis of the Peloponnesus. Due to Hellenistic, and particularly Macedonian intervention, most Peloponnesian poleis were directed by tyrants who could make decisions based on their sole judgments. The Achaean League positioned itself to directly influence those tyrants. The League offered to maintain the tyrants within their poleis so long as they joined the League, or these tyrants faced relentless Achaean attacks and assassination attempts. Through the consent of this small tyrannical elite, the Achaean League grew to encompass most of the Peloponnesus.
  • Landscapes of the Ancient Peloponnese. a Humangeographical Approach Shipley, Graham

    Landscapes of the Ancient Peloponnese. a Humangeographical Approach Shipley, Graham

    Landscapes of the ancient Peloponnese. A humangeographical approach Shipley, Graham Citation Shipley, G. (2006). Landscapes of the ancient Peloponnese. A humangeographical approach. Leidschrift : Cultuur En Natuur, 21(April), 27-44. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/72722 Version: Not Applicable (or Unknown) License: Leiden University Non-exclusive license Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/72722 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). Landscapes of the ancient Peloponnese. A human- geographical approach Graham Shipley Landscape and environment are currently of compelling cultural significance, as fields of scholarly research, sites of artistic creativity and arenas of public concern. As both imaginative representations and material realities, landscape and environment matter as a medium for the expression of complex ideas and feelings, about beauty, belonging, access to resources, relations with nature, the past and the future, making sense of the world and people’s place in it.1 This paper suggests new approaches to the ancient history of the Peloponnese, Greece. It is intended as a spur to discussion rather than the consolidated result of complete work. It proposes that ancient historians could now go further than before in adopting ideas from geographical approaches, which may allow us to investigate – in greater depth than before – aspects such as the meanings and emotions attached to landscapes, the nature of regionalism, and the extent and nature of connections and interactions between regions and smaller units. This suggestion arises from the author’s current work on Macedonian power in the Peloponnese. The period this article deals with approximately runs from the defeat of the southern Greeks by Philip II of Macedonia in 338 BC to the Roman intervention in the Peloponnese during the 190s BC.
  • ATLAS of CLASSICAL HISTORY

    ATLAS of CLASSICAL HISTORY

    ATLAS of CLASSICAL HISTORY EDITED BY RICHARD J.A.TALBERT London and New York First published 1985 by Croom Helm Ltd Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 1985 Richard J.A.Talbert and contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Atlas of classical history. 1. History, Ancient—Maps I. Talbert, Richard J.A. 911.3 G3201.S2 ISBN 0-203-40535-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-71359-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-03463-9 (pbk) Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Also available CONTENTS Preface v Northern Greece, Macedonia and Thrace 32 Contributors vi The Eastern Aegean and the Asia Minor Equivalent Measurements vi Hinterland 33 Attica 34–5, 181 Maps: map and text page reference placed first, Classical Athens 35–6, 181 further reading reference second Roman Athens 35–6, 181 Halicarnassus 36, 181 The Mediterranean World: Physical 1 Miletus 37, 181 The Aegean in the Bronze Age 2–5, 179 Priene 37, 181 Troy 3, 179 Greek Sicily 38–9, 181 Knossos 3, 179 Syracuse 39, 181 Minoan Crete 4–5, 179 Akragas 40, 181 Mycenae 5, 179 Cyrene 40, 182 Mycenaean Greece 4–6, 179 Olympia 41, 182 Mainland Greece in the Homeric Poems 7–8, Greek Dialects c.
  • ATHENS and the CYCLADES This Page Intentionally Left Blank Athens and the Cyclades

    ATHENS and the CYCLADES This Page Intentionally Left Blank Athens and the Cyclades

    ATHENS AND THE CYCLADES This page intentionally left blank Athens and the Cyclades Economic Strategies 540–314 BC BRIAN RUTISHAUSER 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # Brian Rutishauser 2012 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2012 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978–0–19–964635–7 Printed in Great Britain by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn To my parents, Kurt and Eleanor Rutishauser This page intentionally left blank Preface The island group known as the Cyclades offers great potential to historians of Greek antiquity, yet this potential has only been slightly explored.
  • Atlas of Ancient & Classical Geography

    Atlas of Ancient & Classical Geography

    mm '> Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/atlasofancientclOO EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS REFERENCE ATLAS OF ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY this is no. 451 of ere'Rjr&izdstis LIB%tA CRjT. THE PUBLISHERS WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED VOLUMES ARRANGED UNDER THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS! TRAVEL ^ SCIENCE ^ FICTION THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY HISTORY ^ CLASSICAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ESSAYS ^ ORATORY POETRY & DRAMA BIOGRAPHY REFERENCE ' ROMANCE THE ORDINARY EDITION IS BOUND IN CLOTH WITH GILT DESIGN AND COLOURED TOP. THERE IS ALSO A LIBRARY EDITION IN REINFORCED CLOTH J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. ALDINE HOUSE, BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2 E. P. DUTTON & CO. INC. 286-302 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK ATLAS OF>S ANCIENT Jg & CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY (EVERY LONDON &.TORONTO PUBLISHED BYJ M DENT &SONS DP &.IN NEWYORK BY E P DUTTON & CO First Issue of this Edition . 1907 Reprinted .... 1908, 1909, 1910, 1912, 1914, i9*7> 1921, 1925, 1928 1 3"537& Or 1033 A8 All rights reserved PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN INTRODUCTION Dr. Butler's atlas, which for a time filled the place in the series taken by this volume, has only been laid aside in response to a demand for better maps, clearer in detail. The new maps are designed to lighten the search for the place-names and the landmarks they contain by a freer spacing and lettering of the towns, fortresses, harbours, rivers and so forth, likely to be needed by readers of the classical writers and the histories of Greece and Rome.
  • The History of Herodotus in Two Volumes Vol. Ii

    The History of Herodotus in Two Volumes Vol. Ii

    THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS by Herodotus Translated into English by G. C. Macaulay IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II {e Herodotou diathesis en apasin epieikes, kai tois men agathois sunedomene, tois de kakois sunalgousa}. —Dion. Halic. CMG Archives http://campbellmgold.com (2012) (This material was compiled from various sources in the United States public domain) --()-- PREPARER'S NOTE This text was prepared from the third edition, printed in 1914, by MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London. Greek text has been transliterated and marked with brackets, as in the opening citation above. --()-- 1 THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS BOOK V. THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE HISTORIES, CALLED TERPSICHORE 1. In the meantime those of the Persians who had been left behind in Europe by Dareios, of whom Megabazos was the commander, had subdued the people of Perinthos first of the Hellespontians, since they refused to be subject to Dareios. These had in former times also been hardly dealt with by the Paionians: for the Paionians from the Strymon had been commanded by an oracle of their god to march against the Perinthians; and if the Perinthians, when encamped opposite to them, should shout aloud and call to them by their name, they were to attack them; but if they should not shout to them, they were not to attack them: and thus the Paionians proceeded to do. Now when the Perinthians were encamped opposite to them in the suburb of their city, a challenge was made and a single combat took place in three different forms; for they matched a man against a man, and a horse against a horse, and a dog against a dog.
  • Proverbs, Gnômai, and the Reformation of Discourse

    Proverbs, Gnômai, and the Reformation of Discourse

    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Proverbial Plato: Proverbs, Gnômai, and the Reformation of Discourse in Plato’s Republic A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Classics by John Roger Tennant Jr. 2019 © Copyright by John Roger Tennant Jr. 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Proverbial Plato: Proverbs, Gnômai, and the Reformation of Discourse in Plato’s Republic by John Roger Tennant Jr. Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor Kathryn Anne Morgan, Chair This dissertation frames Plato’s Republic as an attempt to reform the state of discourse in a politico-discursive crisis that occurred toward the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth century BCE in Athens, by focusing on the previously unexplored role that proverbs and gnômai play in Plato’s creation of the ideal polis. Plato uses such commonplaces not solely for the purpose of lending his dialogue a more authentic character. Rather, they both elucidate the dynamics of power that inhere in the prevailing modes of Athenian discourse and provide a locus for Plato’s critique of the improper use of language. Plato reveals how discursive reform is inseparable from social and political reform. Proverbs, gnômai, and other rhetorical topoi serve collectively as one of the building blocks of a just society. Put simply, wordcraft is statecraft. Plato’s effort at discursive reform in the context of proverbial expressions that are themselves part of the larger Greek wisdom tradition parallels, in turn, the critique against poetry ii in the Republic. This is because many proverbs can be traced back to a particular poem and its poet.
  • Map 58 Peloponnesus Compiled by J

    Map 58 Peloponnesus Compiled by J

    Map 58 Peloponnesus Compiled by J. McK. Camp II and G. Reger (islands), 1994 Introduction The Peloponnese has been the focus of considerable topographical research for a long time. Virtually every early European traveler to mainland Greece spent time visiting the sites there, and in the twentieth century it has been the subject of numerous excavations and survey projects. Laconia, Messenia, western Achaea, the area around Megalopolis, the southern Argolid, and the Nemea/Phleious valleys have all received notable attention in recent years. Other areas have been studied largely by individuals–among them, Phaklares, Pikoulas, Pritchett, Wiseman– rather than large teams. The resulting picture of occupation, and of numbers of ancient sites known from the various areas, is inevitably uneven. In addition, surface survey all too often cannot distinguish a site’s extent or nature. No sites known solely from survey are marked here, and likewise very few known only from excavation (their ancient names unattested in each instance). Rather, the map’s primary goal is to mark the location of the mass of places and features mentioned in the literary sources and inscriptions. Given the scale, this alone constitutes a major challenge. The thirteen most significant authors for the purpose (Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Livy, Pausanias, Pliny, Plutarch, Polybius, Ptolemy, Scylax, Stephanus, Strabo, Thucydides, Xenophon), together with relevant inscriptions, between them preserve over 1,000 Peloponnesian toponyms; about 450 of these are marked. Among the authors, Pausanias dominates; seven of his ten books are devoted to the Peloponnese, and he preserves some 650 toponyms. The commentary on Pausanias by Papachatzes (1974-81) is a vital starting-point for further information, though more recent work by Phaklares, Pikoulas and the British Laconia survey team (Cavanagh 1996) should also be consulted.
  • Megalopolis in the Achaian Koinon

    Megalopolis in the Achaian Koinon

    This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. MEGALOPOLIS AND THE ACHAIAN KOINON: LOCAL IDENTITY AND THE FEDERAL STATE Elke Close PhD Classics The University of Edinburgh 2017 ii Signed Declaration I declare that is this thesis is the result of my own work and has been composed solely by my own hand except where it is explicitely stated by reference or acknowlegment. This dissertation has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Signature: iii iv Thesis Abstract This dissertation examines the relationship between the Arkadian city of Megalopolis and the Achaian koinon in the Hellenistic period. By arguing that Megalopolis was a polis which used its own local identity to carve out a prominent position for itself within the Achaian federation, this thesis is able to provide new insights into the study of the wider topic of the relationship between federations and their member states.
  • HUMOR and ETHNOGRAPHY in HERODOTUS' HISTORIES Mark Christopher Mash a Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the University

    HUMOR and ETHNOGRAPHY in HERODOTUS' HISTORIES Mark Christopher Mash a Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the University

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository HUMOR AND ETHNOGRAPHY IN HERODOTUS’ HISTORIES Mark Christopher Mash A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics. Chapel Hill 2010 Approved by: Emily Baragwanath, Advisor Peter M. Smith, Reader Owen E. Goslin, Reader Cecil W. Wooten, Reader Fred S. Naiden, Reader ©2010 Mark Christopher Mash ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT MARK CHRISTOPHER MASH: Humor and Ethnography in Herodotus’ Histories (Under the direction of Emily Baragwanath) This dissertation examines the role of humor in Herodotus’ Histories. I argue that Herodotus’ humor is best understood in the context of his ethnography, and base my analyses on the thoughts of ancient and modern writers on humor. In particular, I incorporate anthropological perspectives on humor, and most notably ethnic humor. In chapter one, I establish the groundwork for later discussions by situating my work in the context of previous ancient and modern analyses of humor. In chapter two, I examine derision and witty retorts, starting first with Herodotus’ own ridicule of mapmakers in 4.36.2. In chapter three, I discuss the role of humorous deception in the Histories. In this interplay of humor and deception, I examine three main types: tricks that are reveled in by the instigator, tricks that are uncovered, and tricks that turn deadly. In chapter four, I take up the relationship between didacticism and humor, and show how it appears as an oblique tool by which wise advisors are able to challenge the rigidity of their recipient’s thinking.