Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: reading Herodotus, reading Book 5
- Chapter 1 ‘What's in a name?’ and exploring the comparable: onomastics, ethnography, and kratos in Thrace, (5.1–2 and 3–10)
- Chapter 2 The Paeonians (5.11–16)
- Chapter 3 Narrating ambiguity: murder and Macedonian allegiance (5.17–22)
- Chapter 4 Bridging the narrative (5.23–7)
- Chapter 5 The trouble with the Ionians: Herodotus and the beginning of the Ionian Revolt (5.28–38.1)
- Chapter 6 The Dorieus episode and the Ionian Revolt (5.42–8)
- Chapter 7 Aristagoras (5.49–55, 97)
- Chapter 8 Structure and significance (5.55–69)
- Chapter 9 Athens and Aegina (5.82–9)
- Chapter 10 ‘Saving’ Greece from the ‘ignominy’ of tyranny? The ‘famous’ and ‘wonderful’ speech of Socles (5.92)
- Chapter 11 Cyprus and Onesilus: an interlude of freedom (5.104, 108–16)
- Chapter 12 ‘The Fourth Dorian Invasion’ and ‘The Ionian Revolt’ (5.76–126)
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Chapter 1 - ‘What's in a name?’ and exploring the comparable: onomastics, ethnography, and kratos in Thrace, (5.1–2 and 3–10)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: reading Herodotus, reading Book 5
- Chapter 1 ‘What's in a name?’ and exploring the comparable: onomastics, ethnography, and kratos in Thrace, (5.1–2 and 3–10)
- Chapter 2 The Paeonians (5.11–16)
- Chapter 3 Narrating ambiguity: murder and Macedonian allegiance (5.17–22)
- Chapter 4 Bridging the narrative (5.23–7)
- Chapter 5 The trouble with the Ionians: Herodotus and the beginning of the Ionian Revolt (5.28–38.1)
- Chapter 6 The Dorieus episode and the Ionian Revolt (5.42–8)
- Chapter 7 Aristagoras (5.49–55, 97)
- Chapter 8 Structure and significance (5.55–69)
- Chapter 9 Athens and Aegina (5.82–9)
- Chapter 10 ‘Saving’ Greece from the ‘ignominy’ of tyranny? The ‘famous’ and ‘wonderful’ speech of Socles (5.92)
- Chapter 11 Cyprus and Onesilus: an interlude of freedom (5.104, 108–16)
- Chapter 12 ‘The Fourth Dorian Invasion’ and ‘The Ionian Revolt’ (5.76–126)
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
What we now call Herodotus' ‘Book 5’ begins with a historical anecdote about the Paeonian defeat of the Perinthians (5.1–2), followed by a description of Thracian customs (5.3–10). The two logoi are seemingly inconsequential, aside from the fact that they share a focus on Thrace and that they both seem, in the opinion of most people, to make a rather unpromising contribution to their respective genres of history and ethnography. However, this cursory evaluation may prove misleading: the prominent position of these logoi in the wider narrative and the geopolitical significance of the Thracian coast – the location they narrate – in Herodotus' time, recommend a closer look. In the analysis that follows, I will be concerned with four general aspects of the logoi that are at the same time central to Herodotean studies:
the textual and conceptual interplay between these seemingly disparate logoi;
the function of these chapters in the Histories as a transition to a narrative of Persian engagement with mainland Greeks in Books 5–9 and as a prelude to Herodotus' account of the Ionian Revolt;
the possibility that they provide programmatic reading strategies in miniature for the ensuing (and preceding) narrative; and
the implications that interpretation of these logoi has for the meaning of the Histories in their wider contemporary (political) context.
I adopt two premises in what follows: namely that it is meaningful to consider these stories as the beginning of Book 5 and also to discuss them together.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reading HerodotusA Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus' Histories, pp. 41 - 87Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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