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“BALEFUL SIGNS”: LETTERS and DECEIT in HERODOTUS Angus

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“BALEFUL SIGNS”: LETTERS AND DECEIT IN HERODOTUS Angus Bowie The rst reference to writing in Western literature is Proetus’ missive to the king of Lycia designed to encompass the death of its bearer, Bellerophon (Il. 6.168–169): πόρεν δ’ ὅ γε σήµατα λυγρά, γράψας ἐν πίνακι πτυκτῶι θυµοφθόρα πο ά he gave him baleful signs, writing them in a folded tablet, life-destroying, many. Homer, perhaps to maintain the mythical avour of the tale, is imprecise about what form the ‘signs’ took, but clearly written communication is involved, ideographic or alphabetical. This rst instance of a written com- munication is, signi cantly for our study of Herodotus, associated with deception and (intended) death. The epithet θυµοφθόρος is elsewhere used of poisonous drugs (φάρµακα, Od. 2.329) and crippling distress (Od. 4.716, cf. 19.323). From the very start writing is presented as something sinister and disruptive, and this will be a predominant feature of the letter in Herodotus. We nd something similar in tragedy. Not all writing there is necessarily deceptive, but there are notable examples. Phaedra’s letter is designed to bring about the death of Hippolytus (Eur. Hipp. 856), and Odysseus’ that of Palamedes (Eur. Palamedes);1 Oiax’s stratagem of informing Palamedes’ father of his death by writing on oar-blades encompasses the destruction of the Greek eet (Eur. Palamedes fr. 588a). Agamemnon writes to his wife a deceitful letter about marrying Iphigeneia to Achilles, to get Iphigeneia to come to Aulis so that he can sacri ce her to Artemis (Eur. IA 98–103). In Thucydides too “it is remarkable how much the letters … are instruments of death, betrayal, and deceit”.2 1 This letter is not mentioned in the few fragments of the play, but is found in schol. Eur. Or. 432 and Hyginus Fab. 105. There is a more positive assessment of letters in the remark of Palamedes: “a writing-tablet settles troubles that bring disputes among men, and does not permit falsehoods” (Palamedes fr. 578.8–9). For the negative associations of letters in epic and tragedy, see also Rosenmeyer 2001, 39–44, 61–97, and this volume; on Palamedes speci cally, see Gera (p. 92), Rosenmeyer (pp. 60–66), and Bär (pp. 230–232). 2 Harris 1989: 88. 72 angus bowie When one surveys the use of letters in Herodotus, the material could at rst sight seem rather unpromising. Counting the number of letters referred to is slightly problematic, given Herodotus’ penchant for blurring the nature of the communication process, so that it is unclear whether a letter or an oral message is involved, and uncertainties about what one might count as a let- ter. Useful here therefore is the idea of ‘epistolary colour’,de ned by Morello and Morrison as ‘anything which suggests to us we are indeed reading letters in any given instance’.3 There are references to at most fourteen speci c let- ters,4 but only in six cases is there verbatim quotation, often slight: Bagaeus reads two letters of no more than one line each; Nitetis’ second inscription is of one line; Oroetes has some 70 words; Harpagus and Amasis some 130. This apparently paltry amount of material however does contain a good deal of interest for the study of letters, especially when it is combined with other passages involving communication. Since the formal aspects of letters and other forms of written and spoken communication are not kept distinct, the dividing line between letters and other forms of communication is not a sharp one in Herodotus. I. Letters and Major Events There may be few actual letters, but they are associated with some of the most important events in the history: Herodotus, to quote van den Hout, “does not mention the writing of a letter for the simple historic reason that at a certain moment some person of the story writes a letter, but on account of the interesting way in which it is written or delivered”:5 one would add ‘and the signi cance of the historical moment involved’. Letters are associated with the inception of three major historical events, the founding of the Achaemenid empire (letters by Harpagus and Cyrus), the start of the Ionian Revolt (Histiaeus) and the beginning of the inva- sion of Greece by Xerxes (Demaratus). That is, they mark what are essen- 3 Morello and Morrison (2007) vi. 4 1.123 Harpagus to Cyrus;*1.125 Cyrus to Persians; 1.187 Nitetis inscription to kings who open her tomb without cause;*3.40 Amasis to Polycrates;*3.42 Polycrates to Amasis; 3.122 Oroetes to Polycrates (but see on this below);*3.128 Bagaeus to Oroetes’ men (two);*5.14 Darius to Megabyzus; 5.35 Histiaeus to Aristagoras; 6.4 Histiaeus to Persians; 7.239 Demaratus to Spartans; 8.22 Themistocles to Ionians;*8.128 Artabazus and Timoxenus (* = quoted verbatim). 5 Van den Hout 1949: 28. He contrasts this with Thucydides who “presents his letters because they are important for the history itself, without paying attention to the historically unimportant way of delivering”..
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