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A Note on ΔΙΚΑΣ ΔΙΔΟΝΑΙ in Herodotus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Donald Lateiner
Donald Lateiner
Affiliation:
Ohio Wesleyan University
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Extract

Herodotus' extension of tisis from a merely ethical principle to an encompassing law of nature is now widely recognized. The unjust expulsion of Demaratus from the Spartan kingship obtains its clear revenge from both Leotychidas and Cleomenes (6.72.1, 84.3). Hipparchus' vision of a giant prophet who announces the universal penalty for human injustice (5.56.1) embodies a statement of the ethical law which Herodotus sees operating in the realm of animals as well as of men: for any act of injustice one must pay the penalty, (3.109.2). Herodotus similarly analyses the Persians' aim at Salamis: they sought to force the Greeks to ‘pay t n e penalty’ for the Greek success at Artemision (8.76.2, ).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , May 1980 , pp. 30 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

1 Pagel, K. A., Die Bedeutung des aetiologischen Moments für Herodots Geschicbts scbreibung (Diss., Berlin 1927)Google Scholar, established the fact.

2 Aesch. Suppl. 733, Prom. 9; Soph. Ant. 228, 303, 459; Elect. 247, 538; Eur. Ion 545, Hec. 1024; Orest. 1597; Elect. 977; Bacch. 847; Cyc. 693; Aristoph. Eq. 710, 923; Vesp. 453, 1332, 1419; Pl. 433,947; fr. 533, etc.; not found in Pindar; Antiph. 1.23 bis, 24, 25; 5.73 bis, 79; 6.38; Andoc. 1.113, 122; 2.17; 3.38; 4.30, 40; Lys. 2.6; 3.1; 12.26, 37, 78, 82; 26.12. Plato, Gorg. 525b.

3 Hdt. 5. 83.1; Thuc. 1.28.2; Is. 7.3; cf. Aesch. Suppl. 703. Lys. 3.42; 12.35; 25.11, 17,32. Many examples (e.g. Lys. 25.35) are difficult to categorize: do they refer to punishment or trial?

4 According to data taken from Powell, J. E., A Lexicon to Herodotus (1938; repr. Hildesheim 1966) s. w. (3. 5b) and (7c).Google Scholar

5 The concept of , is central to the story of Euenius: the root appears seven times in one paragraph, 9. 93–94. See below for the eighth example of oratio obliqua

6 8. 100.2: apparently a reference to the Greeks who died at Thermopylae.7 See Lateiner, Donald, ‘No Laughing Matter: a literary tactic in Herodotus’, TAPA 107 (1977), 173–82.Google Scholar

8 Initial only here in Hdt. and nowhere else Greek prose: Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles (Oxford, 1954 2), p. 566.Google Scholar

9 See recently, Rawlings, H. R. III, ‘Thucydides on the purpose of the Delian League’, Phoenix 31 (1977), 1–8.Google Scholar

10 At 6.87, where Herodotus bluntly asserts that the Aeginetans ‘owed amends’ to the Athenians for their unjust deeds and wanton aggression (), he either blindly repeats the intemperate language of his prejudiced Athenian informants on an event about which he obviously knows very little, or here uniquely he falls into the language and moralizing of everyday Greek speech.

11 Most recently, Solmsen, Fr., ‘Two Crucial Decisions in Herodotus’, Mededelingen d. Koninklijke Nederlandse Ak. 37/6 (1974), 14.Google Scholar

12 One may compare Herodotus' use of the concept of ‘crossing a river’ which becomes symbolic of moral transgression by means of acts of physical and military aggression. See Immerwahr, H. R., Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland, 1966) 84, 293–94.Google Scholar