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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2014
Chapters 50–2 of Herodotus' first book have been relatively neglected by scholars, presumably because they appear at first glance simply to list Croesus' sacrificial offerings at Delphi, rather than operating as a narrative imbued with the tragic motifs that scholars have long admired and explored in the Lydian logos as a whole. Only H. W. Parke has paid attention to these chapters, and even he considers them only from the perspective of Herodotus' historical veracity. Caroline Dewald, in an article on the misleading power of objects in Herodotus, does not include 1.50–2 in her discussion, while Gregory Crane notes that Herodotus' list is ‘surprisingly detailed’, but can only explain its specificity in terms of the presumed general appeal of such a list to his contemporaries. This note will suggest, however, that, as well as simply documenting Croesus' spectacular offerings, the narrative of these chapters is also shaped by some fundamental themes that run through the whole Croesus story.
I would like to thank the anonymous reader of this piece for patiently helping me to rethink some of my initial assumptions and for greatly improving my arguments. All translations are my own.
1 These have been well documented: see, in particular, Chiasson, C. C., ‘Herodotus' Use of Attic Tragedy in the Lydian Logos’, ClAnt 22 (2003), 5–35Google Scholar; Said, S., ‘Herodotus and Tragedy’ in Bakker, E. J., de Jong, I. J. F., and van Wees, H. (eds.), Brill's Companion to Herodotus (Leiden, Boston, MA, and Cologne, 2002), 117–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stahl, H. P., ‘Learning Through Suffering? Croesus' Conversations in the History of Herodotus’, YClS 24 (1975), 6Google Scholar. Pelling, C. B. R., ‘Educating Croesus: Talking and Learning in Herodotus' Lydian Logos’, ClAnt 25 (2006), 159–60Google Scholar, discusses Homeric influence on Herodotus.
2 Parke, H. W., ‘Croesus and Delphi’, GRBS 25 (1984), 209–32Google Scholar. The same exclusive focus on Herodotus' factual accuracy is true also of commentators such as Asheri in Asheri, D., Lloyd, A., Corcella, A., Murray, O., and Moreno, A., Herodotus. Books I–IV (Oxford, 2007), 110–13Google Scholar.
3 Dewald, C., ‘Reading the World: The Interpretation of Objects in Herodotus' Histories’, in Rosen, R. and Farrell, J. (eds.), Nomodeiktes. Festschrift for Martin Ostwald (Ann Arbor, MI, 1993)Google Scholar, 63 and 65 n. 18.
4 Crane, G. S., ‘The Prosperity of Tyrants: Bacchylides, Herodotus, and the Contest for Legitimacy’, Arethusa 29 (1996), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 All measurements come from Parke (n. 2).
6 Parke (n. 2), 217 n. 14.
7 Herodotus explicitly states that his writings are motivated by his desire that great and amazing deeds, whether of Greeks or barbarians (ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα), should not be forgotten.
8 On the connections between Herodotus' programmatic first sentence and his intentions as a historian, see E. J. Bakker, ‘The Making of History: Herodotus’ Histories Apodexis', in Bakker, de Jong, and van Wees (n. 1), 2–32.
9 Caroline Dewald, ‘I Didn't Give My Own Genealogy: Herodotus and the Authorial Persona’, in Bakker, de Jong, and van Wees (n. 1), 268, characterizes his voice as the ‘expert's persona’. Herodotus' sense of his own expertise is particularly evident in his statement at 1.51.4 that, though he knows the name of the man who carved the Spartan inscription on Croesus' golden bowl, he chooses not to reveal it.
10 See Flower, H., ‘Herodotus and Delphic Traditions about Croesus’, BICS Supplement 58 (1991), 66–9Google Scholar. On the strong connection between autopsy and historical authority, see Marincola, J., Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge, 1997), 63–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 τὰ γὰρ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλα ἦν, τὰ πολλὰ σμικρὰ αὐτῶν γέγονε: τὰ δὲ ἐπ᾽ ἐμεῦ ἦν μεγάλα, πρότερον ἦν σμικρά. τὴν ἀνθρωπηίην ὤν ἐπιστάμενος εὐδαιμονίην οὐδαμὰ ἐν τὠυτῷ μένουσαν, ἐπιμνήσομαι ἀμφοτέρων ὁμοίως (‘For much of what was previously great has become small and things that were great in my time were once small. So, knowing that human prosperity never stays the same, I shall mention both of these in the same way’). Cf. 1.207.2.
12 Material reciprocity is important to Croesus: at 1.41.1–2, he requires Adrastus to repay him for the good he has received, and at 1.90.4, he blames the oracle for being ‘ungrateful’ after everything he has lavished upon it: Croesus' fate shows the dangers of relying on such simplistic materialism. I owe this point to the anonymous reader of this piece.
13 The relationship between Herodotus' Solon's characterization of ‘the divine’ as subject to jealousy (1.32.1) and his editorial comment that Croesus met a bad end because he thought himself to be the luckiest man alive (1.34.1) is complex, perhaps deliberately unclear, and lies outside the scope of this article; see, however, Pelling (n. 1), 148–53. But Shapiro, S. O., ‘Herodotus and Solon’, ClAnt 8 (1996), 355Google Scholar, convincingly argues that Herodotus broadly endorses Solon's famous characterization of the divine as ‘jealous’, because every prediction of disaster after some excess is indeed fulfilled in his narrative; see also Chiasson, C. C., ‘The Herodotean Solon’, GRBS 27 (1986), 261Google Scholar.
14 Of course, he has already experienced suffering of a different kind through having lost his son, but this dreadful event will prove to be just the first stage in his slide from supreme fortune to complete misery.
15 Flory, S., ‘Laughter, Tears and Wisdom In Herodotus’, AJPh 99 (1978), 145–9Google Scholar, discusses the intimate connection in Herodotus between intense joy and subsequent misery; see also Lateiner, D., The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London, 1989), 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 See Christ, M. R., ‘Herodotean Kings and Historical Inquiry’, ClAnt 13 (1994), 189–93Google Scholar, who discusses the Croesus story as an example of the Herodotean motif of testing the divine. Herodotus does not seem to condemn Croesus for his critical attitude to Delphi, but rather for his uncritical acceptance of Delphi's responses once his tests have proved to his satisfaction that the oracle is genuine.
17 On the centrality of this maxim to the Histories, see Baragwanath, E., Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2008), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the extraordinary difficulty of carrying this principle out, see Gould, J., Herodotus (New York, 1989), 79–80Google Scholar.