Herodotus' Reputation in Latin Literature from Cicero to the 12Th

CHAPTER 9 Herodotus’ Reputation in Latin Literature from Cicero to the 12th Century

Félix Racine

Introduction

Herodotean scholarship has paid little attention to the reception of the Histories in the Latin West before the Renaissance. Arnaldo Momigliano’s sem- inal article “The Place of Herodotus in the History of Historiography”, to take a celebrated example, considers in turn ancient Greek views on Herodotus and those of Renaissance scholars, but has little to say on Latin opinions save those of Cicero.1 And why should it not be so? Few Western readers of Herodotus are known from the Imperial era, and virtually none from the Middle Ages. A closer look at the evidence reveals a more nuanced picture of the vicis- situdes of Herodotus’ name in the West, and of stories originally found in his Histories. Let us consider the 12th-century French scholar Peter Comestor (“The Voracious”, so named from the many books he avidly read), who wrote an exegetical and historical commentary on the Scriptures, the Historia Scholastica. Comestor’s source material was broad indeed—it included classical and Christian authors (in Latin; he knew very little Greek) and his historical horizon embraced not only Sacred history but also classical Rome, Greece and Persia. Inserted between a discussion of the Book of Habakkuk and the end of the Babylonian Captivity is an account of Cyrus’ life focusing on his birth and childhood, much altered since its first telling by Herodotus. The story came to Peter Comestor through Pompeius Trogus’ Philippic History, abridged by Justin in the 4th century (Just. Epit. 1.4–8), and was further abridged by Comestor, who introduced a number of his own original interpretations. For example, Herodotus and Justin wrote that Cyrus was fed by a she-dog before his res- cue by a shepherd and a nurse. Herodotus called the nurse Cyno in Greek and Spaco in Median (Justin retained the latter term)—all words meaning “dog” (Hdt. 1.110, Just. Epit. 1.4.14). In Peter Comestor’s version it is Cyrus himself who received a canine name: uocauitque puerum Sparticum, id est catulum. Spartos

1 Momigliano (1966a). Cf. the coverage of Asheri et al. (2007) 53.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/9789004299849_011 194 Racine enim Persica canem sonat (“she called the boy Sparticus, that is Puppy, for spartos is the Persian name for dog”, Peter Comestor Hist. Schol. 15.16).2 Herodotus’ Histories recur in a digression on Egypt, but this time with references to Herodotus by name, a rare occurrence in medieval literature. Comestor states on the authority of Herodotus that after Min, the unifier of Egypt, “the kings of Egypt were called Pharaohs, which is the name of those who reign” ( fuisse reges Aegypti dictos Pharaones, quod sonat regnantes, Peter Comestor Hist. Schol. 11.26). Of course, the word ‘pharaoh’ is nowhere to be found in Herodotus; nevertheless, Comestor used the Greek historian’s name as a reliable authority to explain an exotic title found in the Scriptures.3 This chapter explores the enduring reputation of Herodotus among Latin authors, particularly those such as Peter Comestor who had little to no access to the text of the Histories. Knowing Herodotus without reading the Histories was by no means a medieval phenomenon but a time-honored tradition stretching back to the Republican period. As the example above illustrates, Herodotean stories circulated independently of the original text and were modified over time, and Herodotus’ name itself survived as a historical or liter- ary authority, sometimes irrespective of what he actually wrote. Our goal over the following pages is to trace the road leading from Cicero’s critical assess- ment of Herodotus as the “Father of History” to Peter Comestor’s surprising use of the Greek historian as an authority on biblical matters. We will see in turn Herodotus’ changing reputation among Latin authors as a stylist, as an author and as an authority, and identify contexts in which knowledge of the Greek historian was transmitted in the pre-Renaissance West.

Herodotus Read and Unread

The presence of Herodotus in Latin literature is both undeniable and prob- lematic. Cicero’s and Quintilian’s critical assessments of Herodotus (below pp. 199–202) seem to confirm the general scholarly view that he was a house- hold name in Republican and early imperial Rome, and his inclusion in medieval lists of must-know authors suggests the continued importance attached

2 Young (1964) 29–33. 3 Comestor Hist. Schol. 11.30 also names Herodotus in relation to the Egyptian king Sesac who subjugated many nations, a deformation of the story of Sennacherib (Hdt. 2.141), transmitted through biblical exegetes such as Jer. In Isaiam 11.