The Truth Is in the Telling: Perikopes in Herodotus' Histories
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University of Alberta The Truth is in the Telling: Perikopes in Herodotus' Histories by Erin Edward Garvin A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Department of History and Cla -sics ©Erin Edward Garvin Fall 2011 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta 1 ibranes t<< 'eproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or selenitic rese.r :h purposes only. 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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada Abstract Our earliest extant prose narrative about past events, The Histories of Herodotus, is the foundational text of the historical genre and Herodotus himself is often called the 'Father of History'. But despite being the oldest, this text remains one of the least well understood historical narratives of the Ancient World. After centuries of analysis and interpretation, scholarly debate continues unabated. This dissertation proposes to contribute a directional adjustment to that debate by suggesting that the Histories be looked at outside of the context of the historical genre but within the context of the time and place of composition. When published, the Histories was something of an anomaly and it should, I suggest, be evaluated as such. The Truth is in the Telling offers an analysis of the Histories from the bottom up, so to speak. It begins by suggesting an explanation for Herodotus' inclusion of those apparently irrelevant and almost certainly fictitious stories that have often been called 'digressions', 'novelae' or 'anecdotes'. Having accepted that these elements may indeed have been deliberately placed with purpose, we can then examine both placement (a structural analysis) and content (an analysis of message). The conclusion is that these elements, defined as perikopes, are key to both the structure and the message of Herodotus' composition and reveal the discourse between the author and his intended audience. Contents Chapter One: Approaching Herodotus 1-40 Chapter Two: The Status Quaes tionis 41-76 Chapter Three: The Form of the Content 77 - 124 Chapter Four: Surface and Symbol 125 - 195 Introduction 125- 142 The Gyges Microlog 143- 149 The Arion Perikope 150- 155 Croesus, Atys and Adrastus 156- 160 The Ring of Polycrates 161- 163 The Death of Pheritime 164- 165 The Agariste Perikope 166-• 175 Hermotimus Perikope 176- 187 The Cyrus Epilogue 188--195 Chapter Five: Telos 196 - 210 Bibliography 211-220 Chapter One: Approaching Herodotus ...6 8s [Cyrus] OIKOUGGK; OUTCBV [the Ionians] xd 7rpoicxovxo sA,s^e aqn Xoyov, dvSpa (paq auA,rixf|v iSovxa ixOug sv xfj 8aA.doar| auXeeiv, 8OK£OVTCC a<peac; s^sXeuasaOai s<; yfjv [2] cog 8e \|/sua6fjvai xfjc; ehddoq, XaPeTv d|j,(pipA,r|axpov Kai 7ispiPaA£Tv xe 7rA,fj9oc; noXkbv xcov ixOnov Kai s^sipuaai, ISovxa 8s naXkoiisvovq straw dpa auxov 7rpd<; xovq ixQuc; «7ransa9£ |j,oi opxsoasvoi, S7ist ot>S' s|a.so auXsovxot; fiGsA^xs SKPaivsiv 6pxs6u£voi.» [3] Ki3po<; |j,sv xouxov xov A,6yov... (Herodotus i. 141.1-3) The passage from Herodotus reproduced above is purported to be part of a conversation between Cyrus of Persia and unnamed Ionian and Aeolian envoys after the fall of Lydia to Cyrus in 547 BC.1 It is almost certainly a fiction. It is a blatant plagiarism of a fable by Aesop and it is highly likely that most members of Herodotus' intended audience would have known that fact.2 It poses some important questions: What is the likelihood that Cyrus would relate a Greek fable to these envoys? Had Cyrus said these things it does seem plausible that the account would have been repeated and that Herodotus would have known it or had access to someone who did. But if Cyrus did not say such a thing and Herodotus has invented the scene, why did Herodotus feel it was necessary? What has any of this got to do with the invasions of Hellas by Darius and Xerxes in 490 and 480 BC, or with the context of the publication of the Histories ca. 430 BC? Most importantly, what, if anything, does this narrative section and others like it tell us about Herodotus the author and the Histories as an artefact of his time and as the genesis text of the historical genre? 1 The date is controversial and I agree with the minority of scholars who adhere to 547 as the date of the Lydo-Persian War. Dates as late as 540 have been suggested. There was, for a time, more revisionist history than historical debate. The main players were Balcer (1994, 1991); Cargill (1977); But Young (1988) sees no reason to reject 547. 2 Aesop Fabulae 1 It. Chapter One: Approaching Herodotus - 2 The study of Herodotus brings us to the very origins of historical narrative, of history itself in many ways, and at this place we meet an expatriate Halicarnassian who says simply, iaxopinc; a;t68e^t<; f|8s. Those three words are the historiographical Big Bang. There exists, now, a cosmology of historical texts and constellations of historical writers but any who wish to understand history itself must return here to the beginning of historical time and to Herodotus. Not because Herodotus was the first to write a text that could be called, in current terms, historical and not because Herodotus defined or even exemplified what that word has come to mean today, but because people liked it. Popularity spawned imitation; imitation, refinement; refinement, definition and eventually a new literary genre called History. The epithet was never Herodotus' idea, nor even his title: it was a word plucked from the opening line of the opus by later interpreters.4 Nevertheless, it was because of Herodotus' text that the word iaiopia came to denote both the activity of writing about the past and the product of that activity.5 Over the centuries the meaning of 'history' has come to include the object as well: a lamentable linguistic situation, an historian writes a history about history.6 This seems to beg three questions. What is an historian? What is a history (text)? And, what is history (the past)? The last question is most troublesome because the logical conclusion is that history, the past, isn't.7 Nevertheless, it has a noun and anything signified by a noun can be materialised in the imagination - we give 3 "The results of [my] inquiry are herein made public" Proem. 4 As was the case with manuscripts of the time. The "title" was usually a word or phrase from the opening line. 5 The earliest use of historia in the sense of historical writing is Aristotle {Poetics 1451a36ff.). "...Aristotle was indeed coining a term, not describing established usage" Hornblower(1991: 9-10 & 12). 6 Linda Orr (1986:12). Stanford's solution (1994) is to apply sub-category labels: 'history (e)' and 'history (n)' ('e' for event and 'n' for narrative) or 'history (1)' and '(2).' But this solution is even more awkward than the problem. 7 Zeno of Elea, Plato, Aristotle and others all grappled with the ontology of time and found no satisfactory exit from the logical conundrum that the past does not exist. See for example Aristotle, Contemplations on Time (217b 333ff) and St. Augustine, Confessions XI.26. The Truth is in the Telling - 3 shape and substance, ontology, to anything we can name and on that substance we o apply ownership.