Research into the reception of Herodotus’ and Thucydides’ histories since the fifth century BC has continued to gather pace in recent years. The Afterlife of Herodotus and Thucydides, edited by John North and Peter Mack, constitutes a further entry into this body of work, introducing readers to some of the diverse cultural (and mostly intellectual) contexts in which Herodotus or Thucydides have been received. Some chapters focus on either Herodotus or Thucydides in isolation, for instance Luca Iori’s excellent discussion on Thucydides in education during the English Renaissance period, while others look to provide analyses that incorporate both Herodotus and Thucydides.
In their introduction, North and Mack provide a concise overview of each of the individual contributions in the book, which are arranged in a broadly chronological order. The editors also include some general reflections on how both authors have fared since the Renaissance, specifically following the seminal work of Lorenzo Valla, who translated first Thucydides and then Herodotus into Latin. In the first chapter proper, Andrea Ceccarelli examines various humanist scholars’ comparisons of Thucydides’ celebrated account of the plague at Athens and Lucretius’ interpretation of Thucydides’ account. Ceccarelli’s discussion specifically pivots towards the fierce disagreements that arose from how best to Thucydides’ use of the word καρδία, which might be translated either as ‘heart’ or ‘stomach’.
Elizabeth Jeffreys’ contribution is the first of several papers that draw on both Herodotus and Thucydides. Jeffreys makes a spirited case for the important contribution made by Byzantine culture in the preservation and transmission of ancient Greek texts, including Herodotus’ and Thucydides’ histories. She refers to a number of Byzantine authors in order to show that there was some knowledge of both authors amongst the highly educated elite (a rather narrow group), who sometimes drew on phrases, motifs or scenes from Herodotus or Thucydides as part of their own creations. Vasiliki Zali continues this focus on the Byzantine period with her chapter on Herodotean and Thucydidean influences on Procopius and his Wars. Attention is drawn to a plethora of passages that contain elements drawn from both Herodotus and Thucydides, such as Procopius’ preface, which contains quasi-Herodotean sentiments on perpetuating the memory of the wars fought between βαρβάρους (‘foreigners’, 1.1.1) and the west, as well as a quasi-Thucydidean appeal to ‘complete accuracy’ (ἀκριβολογούμϵνος, 1.1.5). Similarly, attention is paid to both Herodotus and Thucydides in Ben Earley’s chapter on Walter Ralegh’s History of the World (1614). Earley argues that Ralegh displays a critical interest in reading both historians and their accounts of the Greek poleis alongside biblical history.
In one of the most impressive contributions in the volume, Luca Iori explores the growing study of Thucydides in English grammar school and universities, and amongst the nation’s nobility, during the Renaissance. Iori persuasively demonstrates the rapid growth of interest in Thucydides during the 1620s and 1630s, a period in which he was appreciated for ‘rhetorical, moral, civil, and historical concerns’ (76). The focus remains on Thucydides in the next chapter, where John Richards touches on a relatively neglected area of Thucydidean scholarship: Thucydides’ reception in Germany during the early Protestant Reformation, notably in the works of Philip Melanchton and Martin Luther. According to Richards, for Thucydides’ German readers ‘there was something very Thucydidean in Protestantism, and even something very Protestant in Thucydides’ (96).
The next few chapters revert to Herodotus. In the first, Mordechai Feingold scrutinizes Isaac Newton’s positive deployment of Herodotus and biblical sources to build up an historical chronology of the ancient world. Next, Reinhold Bichler examines changing approaches to Herodotus in (primarily German) scholarship on Achaemenid Persia during the 19th and earlier 20th century, paying special attention to the East vs. West paradigm. Finally, Gastón J. Basile considers Herodotus’ growing reputation in recent decades, which results not least from a much greater emphasis on the narrative qualities of historical writing. Of special interest here is Basile’s engagement with certain colligatory concepts (or, to use Ankersmit’s terminology, ‘narrative concepts’) that bind together Herodotus’ work, namely, the Greek-barbarian polarity and the very notion of the Graeco-Persian Wars (τὰ Mηδικὰ, 9.64.2).
In the book’s final chapter, which returns once more to Thucydides, Neville Morley builds on his work on Thucydides’ reception in modern western historiography (especially Thucydides and the Idea of History (London 2014)) by considering the enduring appeal of Thucydides amongst successive generations since the mid-18th century. Morley explores how different readers came to view his work as being somehow ‘modern’, speaking to contemporary and universal concerns.
In sum, this collection is a welcome contribution to the field of ancient Greek historiography and its reception. While there is not a consistent juxtaposition of Herodotus and Thucydides throughout the book, with some contributions tending towards a more discrete approach that foregrounds only one author in a given context, all chapters are of sufficient quality and interest that such inconsistency does not detract from the book’s overall significance. Nevertheless, one of the book’s main strengths is precisely those contributions that facilitate readers in developing a more sophisticated appreciation of the ways in which ideas about, and approaches to, the two historians in combination have changed over the longue durée.
