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Herodotus, Thucydides, and the Beginnings of Historical Thinking (Ancient Historians, Part I)

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Herodotus, Thucydides, and the Beginnings of Historical Thinking (Ancient Historians, Part I) CLA 66: The Mirror and the Razor Preliminary Syllabus Christopher B. Krebs The Mirror and the Razor: Herodotus, Thucydides, and the beginnings of historical thinking (Ancient Historians, part I) Two curious minds founded a new discipline in the 5th century BCE. One of them was Herodotus. He left his hometown in Caria, a multi-cultural region in ancient Anatolia and intellectual hotbed, to explore the world in years of travel, then sat down to weave his sightings into his account of the Greco-Persian Wars: the showdown between East and West, tyranny and liberty; two worlds and their pasts colliding at the path of Thermopylae. In his Histories he promises “the display of his research” (histories apodexis), thus introducing into the Western tradition the term that would come to designate “the past” as well as “the investigation of the past.” When Herodotus recited pieces of his work in Athens, there was a young man in the audience: Thucydides. He would serve his city during the early phase of the Peloponnesian War that pitted shiny Athens against stern Sparta and contract (and survive) the plague––only to be exiled for alleged military incompetence (or worse). With unwelcome time to spare, he also turned to writing history, but a different kind of history. In composing an incisive account of the causes, some real, others propounded, of “the greatest war,” he revealed the laws of human nature, analyzed the break-down of communication, and cried over the tragedy that was the Sicilian expedition. For all their differences (and they are many), both men founded “history”, and in the course of ten weeks we will read their works in selection, study their methods, follow their influences all the way to the English Patient and the school of political realism, and walk their walk in reconstructing their worlds. Note: this is the first part of a tripartite series on ancient historians from Herodotus to Tacitus. Syllabus 1. Week (09/24): Historiē. A new Method, a new Genre. 1. Assignment: Please read the first “book” of the Histories; pay part. attn. to the story of Croesus and to how Hdt. talks about his work / method. If you have time, read COLLINGWOOD (“Idea,” excerpt); and, for the brave of heart, LURAGHI (“Metahistory,” CCtH). 2. Week (10/01) A Prose Poet: Homer, Tragedy, Herodotus. 2. Assignment: Please read (selections of) Hist. 2 (1-99) + 3 (61-160) and MARINCOLA (“Poets,” CCtH) and GRIFFIN (“Tragedy,” CCtH). 3. Week (10/08): An Intellectual Revolution: Herodotus and the Ionic Enlightenment 3. Assignment: Please read (selections of) Hist. 4 (1-82: the Scythian ‘digression) + all of Histories 5 (though you may skim 55-96, the affairs in Athens) and THOMAS (“Herodotus in CLA 66: The Mirror and the Razor Preliminary Syllabus Christopher B. Krebs Context, introduction”). 4. Week (10/15): Far Away and Foreign: Herodotus, the first Ethnographer 4. Assignment: Please read (selections of) Hist. 6 + 7 and RYLE (“The Thinking of Thoughts”); if you like more food for thought, here we go: LLOYD (on Egypt, BCtH), FLOWER (on Persia, CCtH). 5. Week (10/22): Oh yes, I’m the Great Narrator: Storytelling and Rhetoric in the Histories 5. Assignment: Please read Hist. 8 and GRIFFITHS (“Storytelling,” CCtH). If you’re interested in the afterlife (of course you are), you might want to watch The English Patient (or read the novel by Michael Ondaatje), along with HARRISON (“English Patient”) and EVANS (“father of lies”). 6. Week (10/29): A Work To Last. 6. Assignment: Please read the first ‘book’ of Thucydides’ Histories along with CANFORA’S “Biographical Obscurities and Problems of Composition” and, if you have time, ROOD’S “Objectivity and Authority: Thucydides’ Historical Method.” 7. Week (11/05): The First Man in a ‘Democratic’ ‘Empire.’ 7. Assignment: Please read the second ‘book’ of Thucydides’ Histories along with CHAMBERS, “Thucydides and Pericles.” 8. Week (11/12): Life Upended. The Athenian Plague and the Corcyrean Stasis. 8. Assignment: Please read the third ‘book’ of Thucydides’ Histories along with THOMAS’ “Thucydides’ Intellectual Milieu and the Plague.” 9. Week (11/19): The Melian Dialogue and the Emergence of Political Realism. 9. Assignment: Please read the fourth and (esp.) fifth ‘book’ of Thucydides’ Histories along with OBER’S “Thucydides and the Invention of Political Science.” 10. Week (12/03): The Sicilian Expedition and the Return of Few out of Many 10. Assignment: Please read the sixth and seventh ‘book’ of Thucydides’ Histories; along with Avery, “Themes in Thucydides’ Account of the Sicilian Expedition,” and for glimpses of his afterlife: “Thucydidean Modernities: History between Science and Art,” and Orwin, “Reading Thucydides with Leo Strauss”. CLA 66: The Mirror and the Razor Preliminary Syllabus Christopher B. Krebs Required texts (they can be purchased at the Stanford Bookstore) R. B. Strassler, The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories ISBN-10: 1400031141 R. B. Strassler, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, 1998. ISBN-10: 0684827905 Additional bibliography S. Hornblower, Thucydides, 1987. ISBN-10: 0715622277 J. Romm, Herodotus (Hermes Books Series). ISBN-10: 0300072309 C. Dewald, J. Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus. ISBN-10: 0521536839 R. Thomas, Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion. ISBN-10: 0521662591 .
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