0 Apodexis Historia An Aggregate Primary Source Account of Greek History Edited by E. Edward Garvin, 2013 The purpose of a sourcebook is to allow the subjects to speak their own history and to allow the student, the reader, to gain an understanding of Greek literary works through a selective sampling. The key word is ‘selective.’ Contained herein are passages excerpted from their contexts. Without exception, this very process produces a falsehood because both the narrative and meta-narrative are destroyed when the continuity of the composition is interrupted. Nevertheless, this seems the most expedient way to expose students to a wide range of primary source information. I have tried to keep my voice out of it as much as possible and will intervene as editor (in Times New Roman font) only to give background or exegesis to the text. All of the texts contained in frames and in Goudy Old Style font are excerpts from Greek or Latin texts (primary sources) that have been translated into English. These translations were published as print books but have since fallen into Public Domain - which means that the copyright has expired. As editor of this volume, I have copied, edited and partially retranslated these texts to bring the translations up to date. The title of this collection is adapted from the opening line of Herodotus' Histories: "The results of the research (histories) of Herodotus of Halicarnassus are herein presented for public display (apodexis)." The Greek apodexis means a 'display' or 'public presentation': The word historia, when Herodotus used it, referred to a process of rational pragmatic inquiry. With the popularity of Herodotus' publication, the word Historia came first to denote the work itself, and later to denote any literary work composed of a rational inquiry into events of the past. Modern languages, English included, have adopted the term and the word 'history' now refers to the past in general, the study of the past and a literary work about the past. The title of this work is, then, a play on words: What follows is both 'history on display' and the results of various enquiries into the past. EEG 1 Sources Our primary sources rarely come to us directly; that is to say that few copies of any work date to the time of publication or even to the ancient world. Most of these texts were originally written on, and hand-copied to, scrolls of papyrus. These scrolls were held in personal collections or in libraries such as the Library of Alexandria, where scholars and scribes studied them and made further copies. Over the centuries, the task of preserving and copying the manuscripts was taken over by Catholic monasteries and Islamic libraries. Also during this period, scholars developed a system by which the ancient works were divided and numbered; sometimes by 'books' (what we now call chapters), usually by sections and always by lines. The beauty of this system, once it was standardized, is that every text, regardless of format, publication or language, uses a consistent numbering system. For example, one of the excerpts I offer below is cited as Herodotus i. 56-58.1 In every publication of Herodotus’ Histories those same lines can be found in Book I, Section 56 to 58; whether it is a Greek manuscript, an English, German or French translation, just published or five-hundred years old. Below is an example from Homer’s Iliad, Book One, showing the English translation on the left and the Greek original on the right. [1] Sing, goddess, about the wrath of [1] μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος Achilles, son of Peleus, [2] οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, [2] which brought pain upon so many [3] πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προί̈αψεν Achaeans. [4] ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν [3] Many stout souls did it send, too soon, to [5] οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή, meet Hades, [6] ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε [4] while the corpses of the heroes were left [7] Ἀτρεί̈δης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος prey to dogs Ἀχιλλεύς. [5] and vultures, by the will of Zeus, [6] from the moment they were divided in conflict; [7] the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles.2 1 Books are usually indicated by numbers (ie: Book 1, Book 2 etc.) but Roman numerals (i,ii,iii,iv etc.), which is my preference, are also acceptable. 2 Editor's translation. 2 Greek Origins: The Bronze Age The Bronze Age is so named because it is the period in which bronze tools and weapons were prevalent. Bronze was the first metal to be used by humans and its discovery in the fourth millennium BC allowed people to make tools and weapons of greater variety and quality than ever before. Bronze is made by melting copper and mixing it with molten tin to a ratio of 9 to 1. When this alloy cools it produces a metal, bronze, which is much more durable than either copper or tin. The dates of the Bronze Age vary by region. Copper and then bronze were in use in the Near East much earlier but bronze did not arrive in Europe, especially Greece, until about 3000 BC. The Bronze Age ends with the arrival of Iron technology, ca 1100 BC. The challenge for metallurgists of the ancient world was to produce enough heat to melt iron ore so that it could be fashioned into new shapes. Copper melts at 1084 degrees Celsius; Iron melts at 1535 degrees Celsius. The First Greeks Aside from bronze technology, the most important feature of the Bronze Age must certainly be the mass migrations that took place. It is generally agreed that a culture of Indo-European warriors arrived in the Greek peninsula around 1600 BC. Thucydides was an Athenian aristocrat and general who wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War around 400 BC. His introductory chapters give us his view of Greek ancient history: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I [2] …it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior numbers. Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital, never planting their land (for they could not tell when an invader might not come and take it all away, and when he did come they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other form of greatness. The richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to such a height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia. [3] There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan war there is no indication of any common 3 action in Hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary, before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation. It appears therefore that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not only those who first acquired the name, city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the absence of communication from displaying any collective action. The Histories, by Herodotus of Halicarnassus, probably published in 429/8 BC, is the oldest extant historical narrative. The subject of the Histories is the Persian Wars, but Herodotus offers a vast amount of background information.