Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T19:31:45.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Speech and narrative in the Histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2007

Carolyn Dewald
Affiliation:
Bard College, New York
John Marincola
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Get access

Summary

Logos is reason; logos is speech. There are of course good reasons why the same word captures what in English are distinct concepts. Internalised 'reasoning' is often figured in a way parallel to external conversation and debate; and if an idea or a projected course of action 'has logos', echei logon, it is 'reasonable' in that it is capable of being presented in convincing argument.

Yet in Herodotus these two 'senses' of logos - or, better, these two English ways of capturing different aspects of the concept - often stand in a problematic relation to one another. How 'reasonable' is a 'speech'? Speakers are struggling to make sense of events, to gauge what is happening - and also (not necessarily the same thing) to gauge what they should wisely say about those events. The text's readers and listeners are doing something similar, constantly measuring a speaker's words against the narrative which the text has given or will go on to give. And there is another reason too not to divorce speech from action, for in an important sense speeches are action. They play their part - often initiating, often responsive - in a chain of events; and they also build up a behavioural pattern of how deliberation works, often differently in different parts of the world or in different political systems. That is especially important in Herodotus, where the dynamics of logos operate in different ways in the autocratic courts of the East and in the diverse political systems of Greece, especially in the fragile alliance of states which confronts the invader.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×