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Herodotus1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

G. E. M. De Ste. Croix
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Extract

History as we know it (I mean historiography, the writing of history) may in a very real sense be said to have been invented by the Greeks, and it was a creation of the fifth century B.c. The earliest historian whose works we possess–indeed, the earliest of all historians in the proper sense–is Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who wrote during the third quarter of the fifth century; and the greatest of all Greek historians, Thucydides the Athenian, wrote in the next generation, roughly in the last thirty years of the fifth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , October 1977 , pp. 130 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

NOTES

2. Euripides, fr. 910 (in Nauck, A.'s standard Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 2, 1889, repr. 1964).Google Scholar

3. See Pritchard, J. B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament 3 (Princeton, 1969), pp. 278–9.Google Scholar

4. Gen. An. 3. 5. 756b 6–7.Google Scholar

5. Hdt. 3. 101. 2 and Arist. Gen. An. 2. 2. 736a10–13 etc.Google Scholar

6. Hdt. 2. 143. 1 ff. ; 5. 36. 2 ff. and 125; 6. 137. 1 ff.

7. Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D. M., A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1969 and repr.), no. 32, with the commentary (pp. 71–2).Google Scholar

8. See Andrewes, A., The Greek Tyrants (London, 1956).Google Scholar

9. 7. 101–4, esp. 102. 1; 103. 4; 104. 4–5.

10. 1. 13.2 (cf. 91. 1); 34. 1 (cf. 45. 2); 86. 6; 127. 2; 2. 120.5; 3. 126. 1 and 128. 5; 4. 205; 6. 72; 84. 3; 7. 133–7 (esp. 134. 1;137. 1–2); 8. 106. 3–4; 129. 3; 9. 64. 1; 65. 2; cf. 6. 91. 1.

11. 3. 108. 2; also 1. 126. 6; 3. 77. 1; 153. 2; 4. 8. 3; 152. 2; 5. 92γ. 3; 7. 18. 3; 139. 5; 8. 13; 94. 2.

12. Od. 5. 118ff.Google Scholar;cf. 4. 181–2; 8. 564–71; 13. 172–7; 23. 210–12. For Iliad 17. 71 etc.Google Scholar, see Dodds, E. R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951), pp. 30 and 51 n.9.Google Scholar

13. Contrast 1. 91. 1 (with 7–13, esp. 13. 2).

14. 1. 32. 1 (with Plut. Mor. 857f–8aGoogle Scholar = De Malign. Herod. 15)Google Scholar; cf. 3. 40. 2–3 (with 42. 4 and 43. 1); 7. 10 ∈; also 1. 207. 2; 7. 46. 4; 203. 2. (In 8. 109. 3 Themistocles is supposed to be speaking deceitfully; see 109. 5; 110. 1.)

15. See the first passage in n.14 above.

16. 1. 8. 2; 91. 1; 121; 2. 161. 3; 3. 43. 1; 64. 4–5; 65. 3–4; 142. 5; 4.79. 1; 164. 4; 5. 33. 2; 92δ. 1;6. 64; 135. 3; 8. 53. 1; 9. 109.2.

17. 1. 90–1, esp. 91. 1–3. (For the oracle, see 1. 53, esp. § 3. For Croesus' essentially defensive purpose, see 46. 1.) For ‘Moirai’ in the plural in Homer, see Il. 24. 49.Google Scholar

18. 1. 91. 1, with 1. 7–13 (esp. 13. 2).

19. Xerxes, ' Dream: 7. 5 ff.Google Scholar, esp. 8–19. For the Dreams, see 12. 1–13. 1; 14. 1; 15. 1 ff. (esp. 17. 1–18. 1. 3–4).

20. (a) Vengeance, on Athens in particular: 7. 5. 2; 8 β. 1–3; 9. 2; 11. 2–4. (b) Get reputation and glory: 5. 2; 8α. 2. (c) Increase Persian empire: 5. 3; 8γ. 1–2. (d) Ambition of Mardonius to be satrap: 5. 1 ff., esp. 6. 1. (e) Pressure from Aleuads: 6. 2 and 5. (f) Pressure from Peisistratids: 6. 2 and 5. (g) Onomacritus and his oracles: 6. 3–5. (h) Underestimation of Greeks: 9α. 1–2; β. 1–2, γ; 11. 4.

21. 7. 6. 3–5 (the oracles); 8α. 1 (Xerxes claims divine guidance); 10∈ (Artabanus speaks in a very Herodotean way of divine jealousy).

22. 3. 39–43 (esp. 43); contrast 44. 1 ff.

23. For Achan (who took some of the forbidden spoil of Jericho), see Josh. 7, esp. verses 24–5 . For Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, see Num. 16, esp. verses 23–33, 41–50. For Ahab and his descendants, see 1 Kings, 21: 21–9 (esp. 28–9)Google Scholar, with 2 Kings, 9: 7–10 and 24–37.Google Scholar

24. See Deut. Series 2 24:16 ; 2 Kings 14:6; Jerem. 31: 29–30 ; and in particular Ezek. 18, esp. verses 2–3, 19–20.