HERODOTUS ON HUMAN NATURE Studies in Herodotean Thought, Method and Exposition. by SIMON UBSDELL *~ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................ Ch.I: Herodotus on Human Nature. Part i: Herodotus on Human Nature Part ii: Cleomenes Ch.II: Freedom. ................................. iv xvii 2 47 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Part i .A. l : The Psychology of Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 i.A.2: The Case of Sparta 98 Part i .8: Freedom from Imperial Domination i . B. 1 : Medi a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 i .B.2: Persia .................................. i.B.3: Conclusion Part ii: Freedom from Political Domination: Athens ii.A: Peisistratus ii .B: The Liberation ii .C.: Cleisthenes ii.D: Persia and Sparta ii.E: Boeotia and Chalcis 127 135 141 142 153 167 174 181 ii .F: Aegina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 ii.G: The Ionian Revolt ....................... 194 ii .1-l: Conclusion Part iii: The Liberation of Greece iii.A: Introduction iii.B: The Ionian Revolt iii.C; Marathon iii.D: The Persian Preparations for War 198 202 211 219 226 -iiiii.E: The Greek Preparations for War iii.F: Tempe to Thermopylae iii .G: Artemisium iii.H: Salamis iii.I: Between Salamis and Plataea iii.J: Plataea ............................... iii.K: Ionia ................................ iii.L: Conclusion ........................... 233 258 270 276 293 308 329 333 Ch.III: Herodotus and the Sophistic Movement. Introduction ........... "' ................... . A: Hippias B: Human Origins, Early Society and the 339 345 Inventive Mind ................. 350 C: Ethnography and the Idea of Culture D: Nature and Convention E: The Use and Abuse of Logos F: Religion and the Supernatural G: Psychology and Human Nature H: The Political Debate Conclusion ................................... 359 374 378 387 l94 396 399 APPENDICES NOTES I: Milesian Politics 401 II: Esoteric sources and polis-traditions in Herodotus I Greek hi story . . . . . . 423 I[I: The ta!e for •source-fictions' IV: The 'composition-problem' To Ch.I To Ch.II, To Ch.II, To Ch.II, To Ch.III Introduction and Part i Part ii ............... . Part iii .............. . ........................ To Appendices ....... , ............ . 438 447 454 478 494 512 540 557 -iii- -ivHerodotus on Human Nature: INTRODUCTION. The broad aim of this inquiry is to explore Herodotus• interest in 'human nature• ( to anthropinon ), in other words to measure him by the standard offered us by the contemoporary sophistic movement and by his immediate successor, Thucydides, whose chief preoccupation this is. I . take 'human nature', in the sense which Thucydides and the sophists seem to have given it, to include human psychology at all levels from individuals, through the polis, to nations and empires. I shall be asking to what extent Herodotus is sensitive to the psychological complexities of individuals, in particular to the contradictions and paradoxes in their behaviour, to what extent he is interested in the mechanisms of human social and political li , and whether in his interest in the phenomenon of empire he shares with Thucydides a concern with its psychological motivation. I suggest that in asking these questions we are doing no more than Herodotus' contemporaries would have been inclined to do ( cf. Ch.III, Introd. )9 so that the exercise would be instructive even if the results turned out to be entirely negative. In looking at Herodotus from this angle, I deliberately avoid two traditional lines of inquiry. I do not attend to the question of metaphysical causation in Herodotus not because it is a question that can be left out of any complete picture of the work, but because it seems to me that undue emphasis on this issue has obscured much of importance. There is a great deal to be gained from exploring naturalistic explanation in Herodotus, even if the only result were that we were driven back again to metaphysics. I believe however that the result need not be so negative, and that it may well be possible to account for the basic conception of the work in I~ -vnaturalistic terms and accept that metaphysical explanation works on a different level, not fundamentally interfering with human choice and the workings of human psychology, while nevertheless forming an indispensable part of the work's background. The other approach I intend to avoid is that of asking to what extent and in what manner Herodotus is or is not a historian a question appropriate enough for students of the history of historiography but one that must be asked with extreme circumspection by those attempting to explain what makes Herodotus work precisely what it is and no different. That Herodotus did not call himself a historian, that he could hardly even have thought of doing so, is self-evident: we may easily be applying false standards if we try to uriderstand his intentions in those terms even if we are agreed, as many are not, as to what exactly makes a historian anyway! I would not deny that the work does possess certain characteristics which may cautiously be called I historical', notably its appreciation of the problems of evidence, reconstruction, verification; but I would argue that if we content ourselves with identifying them as the first blooms of a new 'historical sensibility' we are foresaking the chance of understanding their true nature. I suggest that Herodotus' appreciation of these methods is something he owes to his contact with the sophistic movement, which is the first known context for the more or less systematic discussion of the use of evidence. It is important to note, moreover, that Herodotus' grasp of the problems of evidence and reconstruction is not confined to the historical past, but may be equally impressively evidenced in his treatment of problems of ethnography or even geography which may well indicate that it was not his concern with the historical past alone, or even in the first place, which gave Herodotus these 'historian's skills', as is usually supposed. That Herodotus' history is to some extent sophistic in inspiration is another hypothesis I shall explore in what follows. -viAlthough my main theme is Herodotus 1 study of human nature, the inquiry breaks down into a number of smaller discussions. Ch.I.i offers an exploration of what I ta to be Herodotus 1 interest in instructive paradox. It has often been thou9l'1t that there are 'inconsistericies 1 in Herodotus' presentation of character which show the influence of his sources: it is argued that in the case of many of his protagonists he has not adequately synthesized discrepant reports and that this has left his accounts uneven and contradictory. I argue that this is to misunderstand Herodotus' methods and interests. There are clear cases where he to have introduced a 'contradi ion' on his own initiative, when there was very likely none in his source(s), and others where the contradictions offered by his material have played up by him for particular effect. This suggests a keen interest in paradoxes of motivation and behaviour, as well as an insight into tbi~tjf~tivity:of our judgements of men1 s actions and characters. There begins to emerge a picture of a subtle and sophistlcated Herodotus with a taste for paradox and equivocation and an interest in the complexities of human psychology and the uncertainties of moral. judgement. Ch.I.ii shows how such an understanding of Herodotus can illuminate the extended and seemingly confused narrative of a complex character like Cleomenes. Ch.II, which forms the central core of this study, is devoted to the theme of freedom in its various aspects within the work. I should emphasize that I have not principally set out to show that freedom is a central theme for Herodotus; rather I have taken as a focus for the study of Herodotus' interests and methods a motif which, whether deliberately or not, Herodotus has recurred to throughout the work. I believe it will emerge that Herodotus 1 thinking on the subject of freedom is consistent wherever it is introduced, that in a number of places the them~ dominat~~ the narrative and that those places ire usually moments of key importance in the work's design; it is of no great consequence for my argument, however, whether we decide that -viithis makes freedom a central theme of the whole work. Ch.II.i argues that the histories of Median and Persian liberation cf. (B).1 and 2 and empi~e are constructed in accordance with a historical model ( cf. (A).1 ): this ,happens in these two cases, as in that of Athens ( cf. Ch.II.ii.A, etc. ), to involve freedom liberation), but in its simplest form, as illustrated by the case of post-Lycurgan Sparta ( cf. (A).2 ), it is merely irn observation of the psychology of any form of political success. In applying the term 'model I to Herodotus' accounts here I am indicating what I take to be the source of his method, namely the political and sociological theorizing of the sophists ( cf. (A).1 ). The Spartan 1 case ( cf. (A).2 ) offers an opportunity for detecting Herodotus in a wilful distortion of the evidence to illustrate a particular historical process. Ch.II.ii illustrates the application of the same model in the case of Athens' liberation from the tyranny of the Peisistratids. The main emphasis of this section, however, shifts to the discussion of Herodotus I attitude to the Athenian democracy as revealed in the narrative of the liberation and its consequences. I deal here in some detail with the problem of Herodotus' supposed 'Alcmeonid source' ( cf. ii.B-C ), which I take to be a hindrance to a proper understanding of this narrative. I also examine what Herodotus' narrative of the early years of the democracy implies about his attitude to the democracy of his own day, and whether it is meant to imply anything to the reader ( cf. ii.D-H ). Ch.II.iii. treats the narrative of the Persian Wars ( the liberation of Greece), exploring what seems to be Herodõus1 equivocal attitude to Greek heroism and idealism in the pursuit of freedom. Here again particular attentioh is given to the question of Herodotus' sources in an attempt both to understand the originality of his interpretation of those events -viiiand to question traditional assumptions as to his dependence on the prejudices of his informants. I look at the possible importance of Herodotus 1 J::ontemporary> perspective, that is, how and to what extent his account is written in the light of the experience of the Pentekontaetia and the outbreak of war between Athens and Sparta. Important here too is his attitude to Athens as revealed in the narrative and his brief comments on it ( cf. 7.139 and 8.3 ): is the narrative an objective, dispassionate account, or an apology for and/or encomium of Athens, or a critique of the city's record or something between any of these? Ch.III re-examines the question of Herodotus 1 relation to the sophistic movement and argues that his dependence on Ionian intellectual traditions has been exaggerated and his nearness to the sophists unrealistically minimized. I argue that the influence of the sophists is one of the most important * ingredients in the conception of the work, in terms both of its interests and its methods. The appendices deal with problems of Milesian political history arising from the argument of Ch.II.i.A; with the relative importance of priestly and family traditions and of polis-traditions in Herodotus' source material; with the case for Herodotus' source-fiction5 ( see below); and with the 'composition problem' ( see below). The brunt of this inquiry is the detailed analysis of extended contexts, .especially in the long central chapter ( II ). I would suggest that if Herodotean criticism is to progress, more and more attention needs to be given to exploring how large sections of text are put together, with consideration not merely of the structure and literary presentation but also Herodotus 1 use of his sources; how, if at all, he wants the reader to interpret the implications of particular passages; and whether those interpretations -ix;;.. link them with other passages. We need to emrloya regular questionnaire in dealing with any passage or context. Why did Herodotus s~y it this way? Could he have said it any differently? Does he have reasons of his own for putting it this way, i.e. can we understand the passage with reference to some method we have found him employing elsewhere or some theme he explores elsewhere? To what extent are we forced to explain what he has said in terms of his sources, i.e. is he speaking or interpreting for himself, or has he, whether voluntarily or not, reproduced what his sources ,told him? It is not always clear how to answer such questions and in many cases there may be no way of knowing any more than the fact that we do not know the answers. Nevertheless by this method we may often be able at the very least to rule out certain possibilities and clear ãay false assumptions. For example, if we consistently discover that Herodotus does not seem constrained by his sources, as I shall argue we discover even in those places where such a view has previously been most strongly advocated, we may at the very least require that 1 source-explanations 1 be invoked only where all other options have been ruled out. It is my contention, however, that it is occasionally possible to return much more positive answers, and to see quite clearly what options were available to Herodot~s, how he chose between them, what use he made of his chosen material and why he should have chosen to shape that material in the way that he has. Even if complete certainty is not possible we may well find that certain types of hypothesis fit the evidence comfortably time after time, and it is from these that we can begin to build up a clearer picture of Herodotus• methods and interests. I have not, of course, conducted this inquiry without critical preconceptions, and to some degree I have used the analysis of contexts to argue for a new hypothesis of Herodotus• methods and interests. My fundãental hypothesis is that Herodotus shows a sophisticated literary technique ( esp. e.g. in his taste for paradox, or his manner of involving the reader in the inquiry and a reasonable critical acumen in his use of sources, so that he uses -----***--*----- ------------ --- ----***--**-- -:x:his material much more than his material uses him. Both these claims have been defended throughout eh.s I and II. The additional assumption that Herodotus owes his sophistication in part at least to the sophists is argued for in eh.III. I trust that I have kept a satisfactory balance between using the evidence to show the correctness of these assumptions and using the assumptions to explain the evidence; the latter procedure, though of less obvious heuristic value to begin with, acquires greater justification the more it is discovered that the hypothesis successfully accounts ,for the evidence and the more the various supposed objections to the hypothesis are shown to be unfounded. I have left out of account the supposed 'composition problem', which might be thought to have a major bearing on any attempt at contextual analysis: if the work is not a si~le original conception but a composite of several different layers conceived at different times and for different purposes, are we not in continual danger of bringing together contexts which were never conceived as belonging together? The simple answer to this is that it is hardly possible to use with any profit a hypothesis over whose reality there is such serious doubt and within which so much disagreement over detail is possible ( cf. App.IV). If, however, having ignored the 'developmental' hypothesis, we discover that detailed and extended analysis offers positive signs of a unified conception, we have gone a long way towards proving that we were right to ignore it. At any rate, I would suggest that eh.II provides clear evidence that the Median and Persian histories of Book One, the Athenian and Spartan histories of Books One and Five, and the Greek narrative of Books Six to Nine all share the same basic assumptions and have every appearance of having been conceived as organic parts of the work they now occupy. As I shall argue in App.IV, however, I believe more positive arguments against the deve 1 opmenta l hypothesis wi 11 ~merge once Herodotus' position in relation to the sophists and his Ionian 1 predecessors 1 has been re-assessed, as I shall begin to do in eh.III. ----------------- • -xiIt may be useful briefly to set out where my assessment of Herodotus stands in relation to the modern literature, both where it overlaps with what others have said and where I have fundamental disagreements with certain other major critical approaches. In assessing Herodotus' techniques of equivocation and allusive exposition, as well ~s his attitudes.to the Alcmeonids and Periclean Athens, I owe most to a remarkable article by H. Strasburger (1965) ( cf. Bibliography for the works cited here ), which from a narrow starting-point contrives to say a great deal of fundamental importance for the reading of Herodotus. Strasburger himself borrowed much from an excellent monograph by F. Focke (1927), at least in relation to things Athenian in Herodotus; and both these authors were followed by C.W. Fornara (1971) in an impressively argued essay, which further illuminated the way in which Herodotus' historical narrative could be said to offer a commentary on the events of his own lifetime. The theme of Herodotean equivocation, which all these writers share, is most amply documented by T. Spath (1968) in a dissertation devoted to 'double illumination 1 in Herodotus, which has much in common with the argument of my Ch.I though it came to my notice too late for me to discuss adequijtely there ( cf. Ch.I, Endnote ). This work is, to my mind, vitiated considerably by its failure to treat contexts in any detail, merely listing passages rather than explaining how they are meant to be read. Another study which owes much to Strasburger's approach, that of H.-F. Bornitz (1968), avoids this failing and shows well the value of close contextual analysis ( one of the few systematic attempts at this approach! ), as well as offering some acute arguments on the issue of Herodotus' sources ( esp. the supposed influence of Philaids and Alcmeonids in the Athenian history). I should add here that I believe there is much to be gained for an understanding of the character of Herodotus' literary judgements, both explicit and implied, from a little regarded ancient critical work, namely Plutarch's De Malignitate Herodoti ( cf. now G.B. Philipp, Gymnasium 89 (1982) 67ff, for a new estimate of the value of this work as -xiihistorical criticism)~. Plutarch, I would suggest, is an invaluable test of how Herodotus' work sounds to a Greek ear not a contemporary ear, to be sure, but one much better attuned to Greek literature and culture than ours can hope to be; in addition, Plutarch is often a shrewd critic of Herodotean distortion and bias. Plutarth 1 s opinion that Herodotus is frequently malicious, and malicious on his own initiative, is one that it is well worth taking seriously, as I hope to show. The importance of naturalistic explanation in Herodotus is well explored in a dissertation of L. Huber (1963), who rightly stresses that divine causation is not such as to preclude a developed interestin human choice or in the political interpretation of history. Huber does not, however, make anything of the sophistic connexion, any more than does V. Hunter (1982), in a lengthy comparison of the historical methods of Herodotus and Thucydides. Hunter rightly stresses the many things these two have in common but scarcely, if at all, hints at a sophistic common denominator. The theme of Herodotus' relationship to the sophists is very poorly served in the modern literature and even the treatments of the question by W. Nestle (1908), W. Aly (1921) and A. Dihle (1962) fall far short of what I take to be the correct balance. By far the most exciting contribution to the study of Herodotus' methods is D. Fehling 1 s controversial discussion (1971) of his use of source-citations ( contrast H. Verdin (1971), for a pedestrian traditional treatment). Fehling 1 s work is in my view of such importance for the understanding of Herodotus that it requires rather more detailed discussion here ( cf. also App.III, for an illustration of the strength of Fehling's case ). It is not surprising that his radical thesis has not been readily accepted, but I see no indication that its almost complete neglect in the literature has been warranted by anything approaching a satisfactory counter-argument ( see Bibliography for reviews.). Fehling argues that Herodotus' source- -xiiicitations are from first to last a conscious fiction, that is an affectation of methods and principles, and teat this fiction follows certain regular and clearly observable rules. I doubt whether the fiction is as generalizable as Fehling suggests, but it seems to me that he has proved beyond doubt its widespread occurrence and tts 1 regularity 1 • Fehling himself concludes that his discovery shows Herodotus not to be the historian he is traditionally supposed to be, but rather an ancient equivalent of a Boccaccio or a Chaucer, an accomplished story-teller, with a stock repertoire of devices to give his narratives circumstantial authority, to distance the teller from the incredible tale, and the like. I would suggest a different interpretation of the phenomenon: Herodotus 1 affectation of method is meant as an advertisement of his intellectual rigour, his appreciation of the problems of evidence and oral reporting, the same affirmation of method that we find in Thucydides ( at 1.20-2 ). I would argue that this interest in method is a facet of both authors• involvement with t~e sophistic movement { cf. Ch.III ), which could be said to have pioneered the systematic assessment of evidence and the uses to which it could be put althpugh it should be conceded that Pindar, fp~ example, shows more than a rudimentary appreciation of the problems of oral tradition in the First Olympian! However this may be, Fehling 1 s d~monstratjoncould lead us to a new estimate of Herodotus• use of oral traditions: if he is as aware as Fehling has shown him to be of the problems of using such material { cf. e.g. 2.3.1, for the technique of cross-checking independent witnesses; with App.III ), and, in particular in his construction of source-fictions, of how it is that partisan bias operates ( cf. e.g. the fictional bias introduced intõforeign versions of Greek stories at 1.1-5 and 2.112-20, etc. ), it makes much less sense to follow the traditional critics in supposing that Herodotus is habitually the puppet of transparently prejudiced informants. In other words, Fehling's arguments can be used to show that Herodotus has a sophisticated awareness of the pitfalls of oral reporting, so that we should be mufh more cautious -xivthan critics have been in the past about explaining any and every 'aberration' or 'contradiction' in the work as being due to his inadequate defence against the distortions of his sources. Moreover, Fehling's picture of a wilfully dissimulating Herodotus need by no means be confined to the source-citations though it may be felt that Fehling himself has allowed himself too free a rein in generalizing the hypothesis. At any rate, we need no longer be constrained in the interpretation of Herodotus' text by the dogma that he never wrote anything he did ñt himself believe to be true or at least nothing he ~ad not heard someone represent to him as being true. I shall be arguing that there are places, besides the source-fictions, where Herodotus indulges in wilful dissimulation, i.e. where he tries to persuade the reader of the truth of something he knows to be false ( cf. esp. Ch.I.ii.4; II.i.A.2; II.ii.A; and App.I ). It remains true, however, that this is not a type of explanation that one should have recourse to lightly and without sound argument~ Herodotus is clearly aware that the truth is in principle something that deserves to be told, even if it is not always convenient to him to tell it. It will be apparent that I am out of sympathy on several counts with those interpretations of Herod6tus whi~h pre-suppose that he must be judged I as a historian: such an assumption leads, I believe, to a misund~rstanding of the design of the work ( more than half the content is not history at all! ), of Herodotus' methods and the inspiration for those methods ( i.e. their possible sophistic origin: see above), of his attachment to historical truth. It is not that I consider the label entirely inappropriate, merely that many important discussions seem to me to have been led into error by taking that label as their starting-point, without being sufficiently aware of the ways in which it may be misleading. Chief among such studies is that of F. Jacoby (1913), which purports to concern itself with the whole -xvof Herodotus, but which shows a negligent impatience with all those many aspects of the work which cannot be thought deserving of the name history. The same criticism applies to a lesser extent to the otherwise illuminating discussions of e.g. 0. Regenbogen (1930), M. Pohlenz (1937) and K. von Fritz (1967), to name only the main adherents of this approach, the first two 2 'unitarians' and the last an 'analyst',. Even less do I sympathize with those critics who insist that Herodotus can only be understood as an 'archaic' writer, a naive Ionian story-teller with an incurable weakness for digressions. Such critics ( e.g. Fr#nkel (1960),Howald (1923) and (1944), and more recently Drexler (1972); and to some extent also Focke ) argue that the work is essentially without unity, and tbat its digressive style, which allows any 'main thread' to become temporarily quite forgotten, can only be interpreted as primitive and archaic, and far removed from the 'classical I standards of a writer like Thucydides ( but cf. e.g. Thucyd.1.128-38; 2.96-7; 6.1-5; 6.54-9 ). Not only does such a view fail to do justice to the complexity of Herodotus' writing as revealed by almost any close analysis of contexts, it also greatly overplays the largely chimerical notion of 'Ionian naivete': there is almost no evidence that earlier Ionian prose literature had the qualiti~s which this theory presupposes for it, and there is good evidence to suppose that the very qualities that have been classed as Ionian in Herodotus may in fact be sophistic ( cf. Ch.III }! A more recent extension of FrMnkel 's observations on the style of Herodotus is to be found in the work of H. Immerwahr (1966), which argues the importance of 'structure' for the understanding of Herodotus ( cf. also, in a different way, the eccentric theories of Myres (1953) ). It is suggested that we need to"anatomize the work into its supposedly constituent logoi ( rigidly marked off, we are told, by the device of ring-composition; for which cf. van Otterlo (1944) and now Beck (1971) ), in order in some obscure way to -xviappreciate its thought. I can only say that I find such emphasis on structural division at the expense of the continuum of sense to obscure a great deal more than the little, if anything, that it illuminates. There seems to me little evidence that we need to gain access to any kind of alien aesthetic before being able to read Herodotus. * I have not thought it necessary in what follows to cite exhaustively from the massive secondary literature on Herodotus, nor to engage in detailed discussion of approaches radically different from my own, except insofar as such discussion helps to focus my own argument. Apart from this I have merely indicated where I am in general agreement with others, leaving room to discuss the ancient evidence, and above all the text of Herodotus, as fully as possible. * NOTES. (1) Cf. also J.W. Boake, Plutarch's historical judgement, with special reference to the De Herodoti Malignitate, Diss. Toronto (1975). (2) For the dangers of this anachronistic assumption, cf. the polemical Forschungsbericht of F. Hampl, Grazer Beitrage 4 (1975) 97-136~ who finds fault witn most modern approaches for failing to beware of them. * ----------*******---- ----*****----*******------------ -xviiSELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY. In the text and notes I have tended, for economy and clarity, to cite books and articles by author's name only, and where necessary date of publication ( e.g. Aly (1921) = w. Aly, Volksmarohan, etc. ); some books frequently cited have, inconsistently but for clarity, been abbreviated with the initial letters of the titles ( e.g. Meiggs, AE = R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire, etc. ). This select bibliography is intended chiefly as a guide to these various abbreviated references, but also in part as an indication of what I have found to be the most relevant and/ or stimulating literature on the areas I have covered. Periodicals are abbreviated as in Annee Philologique. W. Aly, Volksm~rchen, Sage und Novelle bei Herodot und seinen Zeitgenossen. Eine Untersuchung uber die volksttlmlichen Elementen der altgr. Prosaerz~hlung ( G6ttingen 1921; repr. 1969, with II epilogue and bibliography by L. Huber). , Formprobleme der fr~hen griechischen Prosa, Philol.Suppl.21, 3 (1929). A. Andrewes, see A.W. Gomme ( 1945ff ). " , The Greek Tyrants ( London 1956 ) • W. Backhaus, Der Hellenen-Barbaren-Gegensatz und die hippokratische Schrift Peri aeron hydaton topon, Historia 25 (1976) 170-85. J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, vol.II: Empedocles to Democritus ( London 1979 ). A. Bauer, Die Entstehung des herodotischen Geschichtswerkes. Eine kritische Untersuchung ( Wien 1878 ) .. I. Beck, Die Ringk:omposition bei Herodot und ihre Bedeutung fUr die Beweistechnik, Spudasmata ( Hildesheim &c. 1971 ). K.J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, vol.I.2: Die Zeit der Perserkriege, 2nd ed. ( Berlin &c. 1926 ) • H.F.C. Berve, IHltiades, Hermes Einzelschriften 2 (1937) .. " , Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen, 2 vols. ( Mtlnchen 1967 ). H. Bischoff, Der Warner bei Herodot, Diss. Marburg (1932). J. Boarman, Athenian Red Figure Vases: Archaic Period ( London 1975 ). " , Greek Sculpture: Archaic Period ( London 1978 ). tr , The Greeks Overseas, their early colonies and trade, New enlarged ed. ( London 1980 ). W. Den Boer, Laconia.n Studies ( Amsterdam 1954 ) • 11 , Progress in the Greece of Thuoydides ( Amsterdam 1977 ). H.-F. Bornitz, Herodot-Studien. Beitr~ge zum Verst~ndnis der Einheit * des Geschichtswerkes ( Berlin 1968 ) • D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art, Oxf.monogr. on class. arch.5 ( Oxford 1957 ). -xvi iiC.M. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry from Aleman to Simonides, 2nd ed. ( Oxford 1961 ). I. Bruns, Das literarische Portr~t der Griechen im 5. und 4.Jhdt. vor Chr. ( Berlin 1896; repr. Darmstadt 1961 ). *A.R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks. The defence of the West, c.546478 BC ( London 1962 ). G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte bis zur Schlacht bei Chaeronea, vols. I and II, 2nd ed. ( Gotha 1893-5 ). 11 , Griechische Staatskunde, 2: wols., 3rd ed. ( vol. II, ed. by H. Swoboda ) , Handb.d.Altertumswiss.IV.l.i ( MUnchen 1920-6 ) ; cit'ed as Busolt/Swoboda. P. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia. A regional history 1300-363 BC ( London &c. 1979 ). C.J. Classen (ed.), Sophistik, Wege der Forschung 187 ( Darmstadt 1976 ). J. Cobet, Herodots Exkurse und die Frage der Einheit seines Werkes, Historia Einzelschriften 17 (1971). T. Cole, Democritus and the sources of Greek anthropology, Amer.Philol. Assoc.Monogr.15 (1967). W.R. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-century Athens ( Princeton 1971 ) • R. Grahay, La litt~rature oraculaire chez Herodote, Bibl.Fac. de Philos. et Lettres de l'Univ. de Liege 138 ( Paris 1956 ). G.C.J. Daniels, Religieus-historische studie over Herodotus ( Antwerp 1946 ). A. Daskalakis, Problemes historiques auteur de la bataille des Thermopyles ( Paris 1962 ). J .K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, 600-300 BC ( Oxford 1971 ) ; cited as APF. A. Debrunner, see E. Schwyzer. A. Deffner, Die Rede bei Herodot und ihre Weiterbildung bei Thukydides, Diss.MUnchen (1933). A. Demandt, Metaphern fur Gaschichte. Spraohbilde:r und Gleichnisse im historisch-politisahen Denken ( MUnchen 1978 ). J.D. Denniston, The Greek Particles, 2nd ed. revised by K.J. Dover ( Oxford 1954 ) .. E. Der~nne, Les proces d'impiete intentes aux philosophes a Athenes au 5e et au 4e siecles av. J.-c., Bibl.Fac. de Philos. et Lettres de l'Univ. de Liege ( Liege &c. 1930 ). ---------------*---------------- ~------~----- -xixA. Dihle, Aus Herodots Gedankenwelt, Gymnasium 69 (1962) 22-32. 11 , Herodot und die Sophistik, Philol.106 (1962) 207-20. H. Diller, Wanderartzt und Aitiologe. Studien zur hippokratischen Schrift Peri aeron bydaton topon, Philol.Suppl.26, 3 (1934). n , Zwei Erzl:thlungen des Lyders Xanthos, in Navicula Chiloniensis. II Studia Philologica. Felici .Jacobi octogenario oblata ( Leiden 1956) 66-78. , Die Hellenen-Barbaren-Antithese im Zeita.lter der Perserkriege, in Entretiens Hardt VIII ( Geneva 1962) 37-82. H. Dittmar, Aischines von Sphettos. Studien zur literaturgeschiohte der Sokratiker, Philol. Untersuchungen 21 ( Berlin 1912 ) • E.R. Dodds, 'I1he Greeks and the Irrational, Sather Class.Leot.27 ( Berkeley 1951 ) • " , The Ancient Concept of' Progress and other essays on Greek lit,erature and belief ( Oxford 1973 ). F. Dornseiff, Die archaische Mythenerzl!p,lung ( Berlin 1933 ); Anhang 2 pp.82-7: Sophisth,ohe paignia bei Herodot. K.J. tt II Dover, see A.W. Gomme (1945ff). , Aristophanic Comedy ( Berkeley 1972 ). , Greek popular morality in the time of Plato and Aristotle 1 Berkeley 1974 ); cited as GPM. R. Drews, The Greek Accounts of Eastern History ( Harvard 1973 ). H. Drexler, Herodot-Studien ( Hildesheim 1972 ). A.G. Dunham, The History of' Miletus, down to the Anabasis of Alexander ( London 1915 ). L. Edelstein, The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity ( Baltimore 1967 ). v. Ehrenberg, NeugrUnder des Staates .. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte n Spartas und Athens im 6 • .Jhdt. ( MUnchen 1925 ). , The People of Aristophanes. A sociology of old Attic comedy, 2nd ed. ( Oxford 1951 ). H. Erbse, Vier Bemerkungen zu Herodot, Rh.Mus. 98 ( 1955) 99-120. n , 'rradi tion und Form im Werke Herodots, Gymnasium 68 ( 1961) 239-57. D. Fehling, Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot. Studien zur Erz1thlkunst Herodots ( Berlin 1971 ). With reviews by e.g. Froidef'ond, Bibliotheca Orientalis 29 (1972) 347-8; Orsini, REA 74 (1972) 261-3; Cobet, Gnomon 46 (1974) 737-46; Gaggero, Maia 27 (1975) 159-60; H. Verdin, L 1Ant.Class.44 (1975) 683~4; Will, RPh 49 (1975) 119-21. J. Feix, Herodot. Historian. Griech.-deutsch. Hrsg. von J.F. ( MUnchen 1963 ). M~ I; Finley, Myth, Memory and History, in The Use and Abuse of History ( London 1975) 11-33. R. Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa, Oxford libr. of Afr. lit. ( Oxford 1970; repr. Nairobi 1976 ). -xxIi'. F'ocke, Herodot als Historiker, 'rUbinger .Beitr!!ge 1 ( Stuttgart 1927 ) • C.W. Forna.ra, Herodotus. An interpretative essay ( Oxford 1971 ). W.G. Forrest, The Emergence of Greek Democracy., *rhe character of Greek politics, 800-400 BC ( London 1966 ) • ' 11 , A of Sparta, BC ( London 196.3 ). E. J11 raenkel, 1\eschylus Agamemnon, ed. with comm. by E.F., 3 vols. l Oxford 1950 ) • H • .B'rtlnkel, Eine Stileigenheit der frUhgriechiscnen Literatur, in Wege und F'ormen frlihgr. Denkens. Literarhmhe u. philoso:9hiegeschic11tliche :) tudien, 2nd ed. ( MUnchen 1960 ) 40-96; originally in NGG (1924) 63-127; and the section on Hdt repr. in Hdt WdF 7 37-47. K. von Fritz, Die griechh1che Eleutheria bei Herodot, \\S 78 (1965) 5ff. " , Die griechinohe Geschicbtsschreibung, vol. I: Vor, den Anftl.nGen bis Thukydidei:J ( Berlin 1967 ) ; cited as GG:3 I ( "' 'Pext ) and ....,,,c II ( ~ • .i. ' ~G0 = no0es J. C. }~.roi.defond, .:Se mirae!e 0g:;'{ptien dans la litt8rature grecqtte d'Hom0re a Aristote, P;1bl.Univ.des Lettres et Sc.Hum. d'Aix-en-Provence ( Faris 1971 ) • l!'. flj ller von Ga.ertringen, Miletos, RE XV. 2 ( 1932) 15t36-1622. B. Gerth, see R. Klihnar. Wade-Gery, in Greek Efatory ( Oxford 195a ) • " , see B. Meritt. M. G , Nomos Basileus Napoli 1956 ); the chapter on Hdt repr. in Hdt Yid.II' 259-81. A.D. Godley, Herodotus, with an English transl. by ÃD.G., Loeb Class. Lib.117-20 ( London 1921-46 ). A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 5•.:vols'...',:* -volih IV and V completed by A. AndreweR and K. ,J. Dover ( Oxford. 1945-81 ) ; I! cited a.G }IC11 • , Moi:*o Ecsays in ,Jreek Eistory and Literature, ed. D.A. Campbell ( Oxford 1962 ) • G. Gottlieb, Das Varhaltnis der ausserberodoteisc.hen 1'berlieferung zu Herodot, untersucht an historischen Staffen aus der griechischen Geschicnte ( Bonn A"'T. Graham, Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece ( Manchester 1964 ) • A. Griffin, Sikyon Oxford 1 ) . J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death Oxford 1980 ). M. Griffith, 'I'he lL1thent,icity of I Frometheus Bound' ( Cambridge 1977 ) • -xxi2W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vols. I-III ( Cambridge 1962-9 ); cited as HGP I-III. W.R. Halliday, The Greek Questions of Plutarch ( Oxford 1928 ). A. Hauvette, Herodote, historian des guerres mediques ( Paris 1894 ). W.A. Heidel, Hecataeus and the Egyptian Priests in Herodotus Book 2, Memoirs of the Amer.Acad. of Arts and Scie,nces 18.2 ( Boston 1935 ). F. Heinimann, Nomos und Pbysis, Schweizer Beitrftge z-;;*Altertumswiss. 1 ( Basel 1945 ) F. Hellmann, Herodots Kroisos-Logos, Neue Philol.Unters. 9 ( Berlin 1934 ); partly repr. in Hdt Wd.F. R. Heni, Die Gespr~cha bei Herodot ( Heilbronn 1977) H. Herter (ed.), Thukydides, Wege der Forschung 98 ( Darmstadt 1968 ). C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution ( Oxford 1952 ). 11 , Xerxes' Irivasion of Greece ( Oxford 1963 ); cited as XIG. £. Hohti, The interrelation of speech and action in the Histories of Herodotus, Soc.sc.;Fennica Comment.Hum.Litt.57 ( Helsinki 1976 ). W.W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, with an introd. and app.s, 2 vols., 2nd ed. ( Oxford 1928 ). E. Rowald, Ionische Geschichtsschreibung, Hermes 58 (1923) 113-46. " , Vom Geist antiker Geschichtsschreibung. Sieben Monographien ( MUnchen 1944J repr. 1964 ); on Herodotus at pp.11-45* P. Huart, Le vocabulaire de l'analyse psychologique dans 1 1 oeuvre de Thucydide, Etudes et Commentaires 59 ( Paris 1968 ). " , Gnome chez Thucydide et ses contemporains, Etudes et Commentaires 81 ( Paris 1973 ). L. Huber, Religrnse und politische Beweggrtl.nde des Handelns in der Geschichtsschreibung des Herodot, Diss.TUbingen (1963). C. Rude, Herodoti historiae, Recogn. C.H., 3rd ed. ( Oxford 1927 ); cited as OCT. V. Hunter, Past and Process in Herodotus and Thucydides ( Princeton 1982 ). H. Immerwahr, Forro and Thought in Herodotus ( Cleveland 1966 ). F. Jacoby, Herodotos, RE Suppl.2 (1913) 205-520; repr. in Griechischer Historiker ( Stuttgart 1956) 7-164; cited as RE art. " , Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker ( Berlin &c. 1923-58 ); cited as FGH. " , A tthis. The local chronicles of ancient Athens ( Oxford 1949 ) • L.H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece. The city-states, c.700-500 BC ( London 1976 ). C.J. Emlyn-Jones, The Ionia.ns and Hellenism. A study of the cultural achievements of the earl7 Greek inhabitants of Asia Minor ( London &c. 1980 ). -xxiiK. Jost, Das Beispiel und Vorbild der Vorfahren bei den attisohen Rednern und Gesohichtsschreibern bis Demosthenes, Rhetor.Stud.19 ( Paderborn 1936 ). G. Sohmitz-Kahlmann, Das Beispiel der Geschichte im politischen Denken des Isokrates, Philol.Suppl.31, 4 (1939). G.B. Kerferd, rrhe Sophistic Movement ( Cambridge 1981 ) • E. Kienzle, Der Lobpreis von.St~dtern und L~ndern in der ~lteren griechischen Diohtung ( Kallmlinz 1936 ). W. Kierdorf, Erlehnis und Darstellung der Perserkriege. Studien zu Simonides, Pindar, Aisohylos und den attischen Rednern, Hypornnemata 11 ( G6ttingen 1966 ). H. Klees, Die Eigenart des grieohisohen Glaubens an Orakel und Seher. Ein Vergleich zwischen griechischer und niohtgriechischer Mantik bei Herodot, TUbinger Beitr~ge 43 ( Stuttgart 1965 ) • A. KleingUnt,n.er, Protas Heuretes. Untersuohungen zur Geschichte einer Fragestellung, Philol.Suppl. 26, 1 ( 1933). H. Kleinknecht, Herodot und Athan, Hermes 75 (1940) 241-64; repr. in Hdt Wd.F 541-73; oited from Hdt Wd.F. R. Ktthner, Ausffthrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, II Teil: Satzlehre, 3rd ed. revised by B. Gerth ( Hannover &c. 1898-1904 ); cited as Ktthner/Gerth. R. Lattimore, 'J"he wise adviser in Herodotus, CPh 34 (1939) 24-35* " II , Herodotus and the names of the Egyptian gods, CPh 34 (1939) 357-65. , The composition of the history of Herodotus, CPh 53 (1958) M.R. Lefkowitz, The Lives of the Greek Poets ( London 1981 ). 9-21. P.-E. Legrand, Herodote. Histoires. Text etabli et trad. par P.-E.L. ( Paris 1932-58 ). D.M. Lewis, Sparta and Persia, Cincinnati Class.Stud. 1 ( Leiden 1977 ). " , see R. Meiggs (1969). A.B. Lloyd, Herodotus Book II, Introduction ( Leiden 1975 ). " Herodotus Book II, Commentary 1-98 ( Leiden 1976 ). G.E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience. Studies in the origin and development of Greek science ( Cambridge 1979 ). D.D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon, 2 vols. ( Chicago 1926 ). E. Ltiddeckens, Herodot und lgypten, ZDMG 29 (1954) 330-46; repr. in Hdt WdF 434-54* R.W. " Ma.can, Herodotus .. \'rhefourth, fifth and sixth books, with introd. &o., 2 vols. ( London &c. 1895 ). , Herodotus. The 7th, 8t-h and 9th books, with introd. &:c., 2 vol~. ( .London &c. 1,08 ). ------------------------------- ----------------------- -xxiiiG.C. Macaulay, The History of Herodotus, transl. into English by G.C.M., 2 vols. ( London &c. 1890 ). W. Marg (ed.), Herodot. Eine Auswahl aus der neueren Forschung, Wege der Forschung 25, 2nd ed. ( Darmstadt 1965 ); cited as Hdt WdF. N. Marinatos, Thucydid~s and Religion, Beitr~ge zur klass.Philol. 129 ( K6nigstein 1981 ). A. Masaracchia, Studi erodotei, Bibl. di Helikon Testi e studi 10 ( Roma 1976 ). S. Mazzarino, Fra Oriente ed Occidente. Richerohe di storia greca arcaica ( Firenze 1947 ). R. Meiggs and D.M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the end of the 5thc ( Oxford 1969 ); cited as Meiggs/Lewis. R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire ( Oxford 1972; repr. 1975 ) ; cited as AE. B.D. Meritt, H.T. Wade-Gery, M.F. McGregor, The Athenian Tribute Lists, vol.III ( Baltimore 1950 ); cited as ATL. A. Momigliano, Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography ( Oxford 1977 ). O. Murray, Early Greece, Fontana history of the ancient world ( Brighton 1980 ). J.L. Myres, Herodotus, the father of history ( Oxford 1953 ). D. Nestle, Eleutheria. Studien zum Wesen der Freiheit bei den Griechen und im Neuen Testament, vol. I ( Tlfoingen 1967 ) • W. Nestle, Herodots Verh~ltnis zur Philosophie und Sophistik, II II Sch6ntal (1908); cited as Progr.1908. , Vom Mythos zum Logos, 2nd ed. ( Stuttgart 1942 ). , Griechische Studien ( Stuttgart 1948 ). Progr. E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI Jhdt. v.Chr. bis in die Zei t der Renaissance, vol. I, Jrd ed. ( Leipzig 1915; repr. Darmstadt 1958 ). F. Oertel, Herodots 9.gyptischer Logos und die Glaubwtl:tdigkeit Herodots, Antiquitas R.l Bd.18 ( Bonn 1970 ). J.C. Opstelten, Sophocles and Greek Pessimism, transl. by J.A. Ross ( Amsterdam 1952 ). M. Ostwald, Nomos and the beginnil:'l.gs of the Athenian democ:Facy ( Oxford 1969 ). W.A.A. van Otterlo, Untersuchungen Uber Begriff, Anwendung und Entstehung der griechischen Ringkomposition ( .Amsterdam 1944 2* I)• L. II Page, Actors' Interpolations in Greek Tragedy ( Oxford 1934 ). , Further Greek Epigrams, rev. and prepared by R.D. Dawe and J. Diggle ( Cambridge 1981 ) • * -xxivH.W. Parke and D.E.M. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, 2 vols. ( Oxford 1956 ). L. Piccirilli, Gli arbitrati interstatali greci, Intr., ed.critica &c. a cura di L.P., vol.I, Relazioni interstatali nel rnondo antico 1 ( Pisa 1973 ). A.J. Podlecki, rrhe Life of Themistocles, a critical survey of the literary and archaeological evidence ( Montreal &c. 1975 ). M. Pohlenz, Herodot. Der erste Geschichtsschreiber des Abendlandes, II II tl Neue Wege zur Antike 1.7-8 ( Leipzig 1937; repr. Darmstadt 1961 ). , Freedom in Greek Life and Thought. 'rhe history of an idea, transl. by C. Lofmark ( Dordrecht 1966 ). Powell, A Lexicon to Herodotus ( Cambridge 1938, repr. Hildesheim 1977 ). , The History of Herodotus, Cambr. Class.Stud.4 ( Cambridge 1939 ). , Herodotus, transl. by J.E.P. ( Oxford 1949 ) • G. Prestel, Die antidemokratische Strtlmung im Athan des 5. Jhdts bis zum Tod des Perikles, Breslauer historische Forschungen 12 ( Breslau 1939 ). J.B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern 1rexts relating to the New Testament, 3rd ed., ( Prince ton 1969 ) ; cited as ANET. W.K. Pritchett, Ancient Greek Military Practices/ rrhe Greek State at War, 3 vols. ( Berkeley &c. 1971-9 ) • G. Rawlinson, Herodotus. The Persian Wars, transl. by G.R., ed. E.H. Blakeney ( London &c. 1964 ). 0. Regenbogen, Herodot und sein Werk, in Kleine Schriften ( Mtlnchen 1961) 57-100; originally in Die Antike 6 (1930) 202-48; repr. in Hdt WdF 57-108. K. Reinhardt, Herodots Persergeschichten, in Verm~chtnis der Antike ( Gtlttingen 1960) 133-74; originally in Geistige ttberlieferung. Bin Jahrbuch ( Berlin 1940) 138-84; repr. in Hdt Wd.F 320-69. P.J. Rhodes, A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia ( Oxford 1981 ). K.A. Riemann, Das herodoteische Geschiehtswerk in der Antike, Diss. Mtlnohen (1967). C. Roebuck, Ionian Trade and Colonization, Monogr. on arch. and fine arts 9 ( New York 1959 ). T. Roffler, Vtllker-Bios und Komplex-Personifikation bei den Griechen bis zu Aristoteles, Diss. Ztlrich (1920). J. de Romilly, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, transl. by P. Thody ( Ne_w York 1963 ) • " , La loi dans la penseie greoque des origines & Aristote ( Paris 1971 ). II 11 , Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece, C.N. Jackson Lect.s ( Cambridge Mass. 1975 ). , The Rise and Fall of States according to Greek authors, Jerome Lect.s 11 ( Ann Arbor 1977 ). ..:.xzvH. Ryffel, Metabole Politeion. Der Wandel der Staatsverfassungen, Noctes Romanae 2, Diss. Bern (1949). G.E.M. de Ste Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War ( London &c. 1972 ); cited as OPW. " , The Class Struggle in the Ancient World, from the Archaic age to the Arab oong_uests ( London &c. 1981 ) • G. Soarpat, Parrhesia. Storia del termine e delle,sue tradizioni in latino ( Brescia 1964 ). F~ Schachermeyer, Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in ancient history and prehistory. Studies presented to F.S., ed. K~i. Kinsl ( Berlin &c. 1977 ). W. Schmid, O. Stt!hlin, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, I,*Handb. d.Al tertumswiss. VII. i ( MUnchen 1934 ) ; cited as Schmid/Stt!hlin C. Schneider, Information und Absicht oei Thukydides. Untersuchung zur Motivation des Handelns, Hypomnemata 41 ( GHttingen 1974 ). J. Schwarze, Die Beurteilung des Perikles durch die attische Kom5die und ihre historische und historiogrci:phische Bedeutung, Zetemata 51 ( Mttnchen 1971 ). E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik, auf der Grundlage von K. Brugmanns Griechischer Grarnmatik, 2 vols., vol.II revised by A. Debrunner, Handb. d.Altertumswiss.II.i ( MUnchen 1950-3 ); cited as Schwyzer/Debrunner. A. de Selincourt, Herodotus. The Histories, transl. by A.d.S., Penguin Classics L 34 ( Harmondsworth 1954 ). F.M. Snowden (Jr.), Blacks in Antiquity. Ethi9pians in the Greco-Roman experience ( Cambridge, Mass. 1970 ). F. Solmsen, Antiphonstudien, Neue Philol.Unters.8 ( Berlin 1931 ). " , Intellectual Experiments of the Greek Enlightenment ( Princeton 1975 ). L. Solmsen, Speeches in Herodotus' account of the Ionian revolt, AJPh 64 (1943) 194-207; repr. in Hdt WdF 629-44; cited from Hdt WdF. , Speeches in Herodotus* account of the battle of Plataea, CPh 39 (1944) 241-53; repr. in Hdt WdF 645-67; cited from Hdt WdF as Plat~!!. T. Spath, Das Motiv der doppelten Beleuchtung bei Herodot, Diss. Wien (1968). w. Spiegelberg, Die GlaubwUrdigkeit von Herodots Bericht uber lgypten im Lichte der tlgyptischen Denkmtller, Orient und Antike 3 ( Heidelberg 1926 ); also transl. by A.M. Blackman, The Credibility, etc. ( Oxford 1927 ) • o. Stahlin, see w. Sohmid. H. Stein, Herodotos, erkltlrt von H.S. ( Berlin 1856-1908 ). -x:x:viH. Strasburger, Herodot und das perikleische Athen, Historia 4 (1955) 1-25; repr. in Hdt WdF 574-608; oited from Hdt Wd.F as Strasburger n (1965) .. , Thukydides und die politisohe Selbstdarstellung der Athener, Hermes 86 (1958) 17-40; repr. in Herter (1968) 498-530. R. Stuppe:rioh, StaatsbegrM.b.nis und Priva.tgrabmal irn klassichen Athen, Diss. Mttnster (1977). H. Swoboda, see G. Busolt (1926). M.N. Tod, International Arbitration amongst the Greeks ( Oxford 1913 ). 11 , A selection of Greek historical inscriptions, vol. I, 2nd ed. ( Oxford 1946 ), vol.II ( Oxford 1948 ); cited as GHI. P. Tozzi, La rivolta ionica, Bibl. di studi antichi ( Pisa 1978 ). K. Trttdinger, Studien zur Gesohichte der gr.-r~mischen Ethnographie, Diss. Basel ( 1918). M.J. Vansina, Oral Tradition, a study in historical methodology, transl. by H.M. Wright ( Harmondsworth 1973 ). H. Verdin, De historich-kritisohe methode van Herodotus ( Brussels 1971 ). J. Vogt, Herodot in Jlgypten, in Orbis. Ausgew11hlte Schriften zur Gesch. des Altertums ( Freiburg 1960) 1-46; repr. in Hdt WdF 412-33. K.H. Waters, Herodotus on Tyrants and Despots. A study in objectivity, Historia Einzelschriften 15 (1971). R. Weil, L'"Archeologieu de Platon, Etudes et Commentaires 32 ( Paris 1959 ). J. Wells, see W.W. How. 11 , Studies in Herodotus ( Oxford 1923 ). M.L. West, Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus ( Berlin &c. 1974 ). 11 , Phocylides, JHS 98 (1978) 164-7* H.D. Westlake, Individuals in Thuoydides ( Cambridge 1968 ). U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Aristoteles und Athen, 2 vols. ( Berlin 1693 ). '' , Euripides Herakles, 2 vols. 2nd ed. ( :Berlin 1895; repr. Darmstadt 1969 ). 11 , Aristophanes Lirsistrate ( Berlin 1927 ) • E. Wolff, Das Weib des Masistes, Hermes 92 (1964) 51-8; repr. in Hdt WdF 66:3-78 .. " , Das geschichtliche Verstehen in Taoitus 1 Germania, Hermes 69 (1934) 121-66; the section on Herodotus repr. in Hdt Wd.F 404-11. H. Wood, The Histories of Herodotus. An analysis of the formal structure, De proprietatibus litt., ser.practica 21 ( The Hague &c. 1972 ) • D.E.W. Wormell, see H.W. Parke. ABBREVIA'rIONS The following may need further clarification: AE .A.NET APF - .ATL FGH Qill1 GHI GPM HCT Hdt WdF HGP OCT OPW Platlt~ RE art. XIG cf. Meiggs (1972). of. Pritchard (1969) • cf. navies (1971). of. Meritt, Wade-Gery, MacGregor.(1950) • cf. Jacoby (1923-58). cf. von Fritz (1967). of. Tod (1946-8). cf. Dover (1974). of. Gomme (1945-81). cf. Marg (1965). cf. Guthrie (1962-9). cf. Hude (1927). of. de Ste Croix (1972). cf. L. Solmsen in Marg (1965). of. Jacoby (1913). of. Hignett (1963). Plutarch's De Malig_nitate Herodoti is abbreviated as MH. * -x.xviiCHAPTER ONE HERODOTUS ON HUMAN NATURE -2on Human Nature Part i 1. The dedications made by Croesus to sanctuaries other than Delphi and the shrine of Amphiaraos were made, says Herodotus, from the property of an enemy of the Lydian king, who before Croesus1 accession plotted to secure the kingdom for Pantaleon ( l.92.2f ). When finally Croesus secured the kingdom through his father's gift, he took revenge on the anonymous agitator by torturing him to death: the instrument of torture was a knaphos, a sort of wheel with spikes 1 Even before that, adds Herodotus, Croesus had appropri.ated the man's property and dedicated it. And that, he says, concludes the account of Croesus' dedications: we pass immediately to the Lydian ethnography ( 1.93.lff ). The story has a remarkable impact: to hear so casually and as it were parenthetically of this incident from Croesus' past gives the reader a most unexpected jolt. How are we to understand that the man whose piety to the gods has just been so painstakingly described, whose piety indeed Apollo himself appears to have rewarded, not only by saving him from the pyre, but also by delaying as far as he could the year of Croesus' doom how are we to understand that this man could indulge in an act of such horrifying cruelty? Herodotus may indeed have known or might have been able to discover an alternative version of this story. Nicolaus of Damascus seems to preserve for us, presumably from _X_anthus2, a parallel version of this episode ( Nic.Dam.FGH 90F65, with Jacoby, Komm. ), in which Croesus, while not yet king, tries without alerting his father's suspicions to raise a large sum of money, and approaches a wealthy merchant by the name of Sadyattes. This latter hesitates to provide the loan and points out that Alyattes has many sons from whom Croesus might obtain -3money if he asked. There and then Croesus makes a vow to Artemis that, if he becomes king, he will appropriate Sadyattes property and dedicate it to the goddess; and this in time he duly does, in fulfilment of his vow. The story looks outwardly so different that it might well be unconnected with Herodotus I own; but if the stories are the same, and we could assume that Herodotus has access to the alternative version, he has chosen the version far less creditable to Croesus and less obviously in harmony with his own portrait elsewhere. There is rather more of piety in the Croesus who confiscates the man1 s property in fulfilment of a vow, however petty the cause, than there is in the Croesus who for revenge on a political enemy not merely confiscates his property but tortllres him to death in barbaric fashion. We cannot do more than guess here; but if we are right, Herpdotust inconsistency seems perverse indeed. The story has attracted surprisingly little critical attention 3, but liow and Wells offer a fairly predictable view of the matter, and one with which most traditional commentators would be likely to agree: 11This chapter shows Croesus in a new light, as a cruel Oriental prince ... It clearly comes from another source. As it is not likely to be a later addition, it is probably a fragment of Herodotus' original material, which he has not worked in harmony with his narrative 11 • If How and Wells are right, then Herodotus has not been at all careful in assembling his material, and he has very little desire to make coherent sense of it: he merely records what was told him, without discrimination, without selection, without manipulation 4 Can we infer from this story that this is so? Is Herodotus impervious to the inconsistency which the reader senses so strongly between the Croesus of this story and the Croesus of all that has gone before? Or -4should we not believe that the opposite is true, that so far from being an unfortunate accident, the episode has a carefully calculated purpose? Consider again its position: Herodotus is bringing to a close the first major narrative section of the work and is about to begin his brief Lydian ethnography, non-narrative and cooling the emotional temperature. The catalogue of Croesus1 dedications seems to be winding down the narrative interest, so that the Sadyattes-story) coming right at the close, has the effect of a dramatic and unexpected climax. Followed by nothing further of narrative interest for a while, it stays in our mindsj working its disturbing effect. If this is an inept parenthesis, it is very inept; if it is calculated, it is very finely calculated. We have seen Croesus in success ( e.g. the Solon conversation at 1.30-3 ) and disaster { e.g. the death of Atys at 1.34-45; and defe~t by Cyrus at 1.86-91 ) , and we have observed closely his reactions to both. We think we know Croesus' character: brashly self-confident { 1.34.1 ambitious for empire, and at times cynically ambitious ( 1.26.3 but able to moderate his ambition in response to good advice ( 1.27.5 ); immoderate in his grief for his son { 1.46.1 ), but stoically philosophical at his own fate ( 1.86.3 ); incautiously testing the oracles and provoking disaster ( 1.46.2ff 1 53.lff, and 85.lff ); unable to comprehend what he sees as Apollo's ungratefulness ( l.90.4 ), but, when the god explains, prepared to admit his error ( 1.91.6 ); a man who learns from his disaster and offers far-sighted advice to his recent adversary, solicitous to the last for his country 1 s welfare ( l .88.2ff ) . i.Jith the exception of his somewhat sudden access of wisdom5, there is nothing in the character of Croesus up to this point that we cannot readily understand; the righteous Croesus of Bacchylides and ?indar 6 has become a character of some depth and complexity, while remaining essentially sympathetic. The -5ambition and folly we have seen him display do not as yet alienate our sympathy7. In the debacle between Croesus and the unfamiliar Cyrus, our affections are with the man we already know and in whose fall we are made to share. It has served Herodotust purpose to present an* attractive* Croesus8 with whose tragedy we can identify .but he will not leave it at that. Into an apparently dry and impassive catalogue of Croesus1 offerings, Herodotus insinuates a narrative detail which abruptly undercuts the idea we have formed of his character so far. Herodotus reminds us that this mah is as typical as any of .the type of implacable Oriental despot: we are not talking here about Greeks, he implies, but about barbarians. The surface appearance ( in which the Greekness of Croesus has seemed to be emphasized) hides that horrific propensity to cruelty which all barbarian autocrats seem to share. Suddenly and unexpectedly his immoderation comes into sharp focus: his cyni'cal ambition, his boastful self-confidence, even his excessive grief, and later perhaps the barbarity of the plan he suggests to Cyrus in the war with Tomyris ( 1.207.6: even as sage adviser his barbarian cruelty intrudes itself ) , The horror of ori.ental barbarity, which is one of the work 1's most insistent themes9, surfaces here with disturbing effect: and the shock has been most carefully engineered. The effect of the passage can be compared to that which Herodotus contrives for the end of the work, when he brings to an end the narrative of Xerxes I doings with the gruesome stprYof Amestri s' revenge ( 9 .108-13 ) , which some commentators have felt to be in disharmony with the substantially sympathetic treatment of Xerxes in the rest of the work10 although it should be added that Xerxes here merely connives at Amestris' barbarity, so,*th~t the story does show him to be characteristically weak. This final reminder of the alien character of oriental manners achieves on 11 a larger scale what the story of Pantaleon does here . -6This story is a useful test-case: either we are meant to be shocked by it or it is an accidental oversight. If it is an accident, then Herodotus is a mere co 11 a tor of stories with no very s-erious pretensions: he will have formed no clear conception for himself of Croesust character and will have simply b-een guided by the t:iias of his sources, as he moves from anecdote to anecdote. If we have been satisfied with the portrait so far, then we have been satisfied with an illusion. We can be thQnkful for this uncritical reporting of conflicting traditions regardless of consistency, because this will --------- 'Confirm for us the reality of Herodotus' historie: the existence of discrepant, inconsistent accounts could be taken as evidence that he did indeed seek out the oral traditions he claims to have consulted 12. What we cannot admire however is his intelligence as a reporter and we cannot be happy to call the result history. We are told to expect of a historian that he will gather facts in support of a coherent model, modifying the model as he goes along in the light of new facts, but always with coherence as a touchstone 13 This is something that, on the traditional view, Herodotus will have signally failed to manage. If however we take the other option, a number of important results follow. If the supposed inconsistencies in Herodotus' reporting turn out to be deliberate and designed effects, we no longer have the same justification for supposing that he is capable of being muddled by conflicting stories. Indeed this traditional view of Herodotus should seem a lot less tempting, if we accept the arguments of Fehling14 on his use of source-citations: if Herodotus knõs as much about bias and distortion as he can be seen to do in the construction of his source-fictions ( see Introduction), he must have been alert to the -7distortions in genuine oral traditions and is less likely to have been their unwitting dupe. What is involved here is the question of the kind of reporter we want to suppose him to be: how dependent is he on the limitations and distortions of his evidence, and how much editorial control is he capable of imposing? This chapter examines the ways in which Herodotus manipulates inconsistencies in human behaviour in the interests of instructive paradox. We will see that he uses paradox to teach us about human nature, about the way we judge motives and actions, about the relativity of moral judgements. To a certain extent this aspect of the work has been touched on by other commentators. Strasburger, in his important article on Herodotus and Peri clean Athens 15, argL1es against thE:! view ttlp.t he shows partisans:hip,1 for any particular individual or state ( in particular neither to the Alcmeonids nor to Athens), pointing out that he is careful to take a balanced view of human life, setting the good against the bad and giving equal weight to them both16 In another direction, studies of characterization in Herodotus have noticed that there are certain figures in whom contradictory qualities are consciously combined. For example, Reinhardt saw Xerxes as actually characterized by weakness and vacillation: the inconsistencies of his behaviour show us the sort of king he is meant to be17 . The case to be argued here, however, differs from both these approaches: it will be suggested that Herodotus is neither interested irr distributing praise and blame even-handedly' indeed~ it is wrong to think he is at all anxious to be 1 fairi nor concerned only with particular problems of characterization, and only a few cases at that. Rather, he establishes certain general rules about human nature, some of which I - ! I -8apply to all men, others only to men who are prosperous and successful above the common rank~ notably kings and tyrants. Human nature, he suggests, is itself paradoxical as a general rule and people behave in ways which seem and sometimes are contradictory. Matters are complicated still further, however;, by the nature of human judgement: we judge the behaviour of our fellow men differently at different times, according to the ~perspectivet we ourselves adopt. What follows is the discussion of a number of passages which in different ways throw light on this problem. I will treat first of all some passages which have a lprogrammaticl' character for this question, to establish that there is indeed a case to answer. These are followed by three further extended examples, the narratives of Maiandrios. Deioces, and the Spartan heralds at the court of Xerxes, and the first part of the chapter ends by applying the conclusions reached to the treatments of Miltiades and Themistocles ~ with an attempt to assess the traditions avail able to Herodotus here; and finally the second part of the chapter does the same service for Cleomenes. -92. Consider first Herodotus' treatment of the bravery of Telines, a distant ancestor of the tyrant Gelon ( 7.153 ). This man was reported to have resorted to Gela a displaced faction, relying on no human agency, but on nothing more tban a collection of sacred objects. Herodotus expresses surprise ( &@μd μoL ~v xat To0To ylyovE ) 18, not least because, he says, one would have expected such an action to be the work of a stout heart and courageous disposition ( 153.4 ): ~E,uxlvaL &nAu8pCns TE xat μaAax~TEpos &v~P- ~ Herodotus seems to be making surprisingly heavy weather of this until we realize that human nature and its paradoxical manifestations are an abiding interest of the work. Telines' behaviour in this instance seems to belie his nature as otherwise observed by the Sicilians. Herodotus draws our attention to the paradox, but offers no solution of it. But the implicit moral is clear: we should be cautious about assuming we can predict with any accuracy what a particular individual is and is not capable of, merely by reference to his perceived character. Human beings have resources for good and bad, strong and weak actions 19, which in our usual hasty judgements of character we are inclined to ignore. Human nature is such that it can always surprise us both favourably and unfavourably. We cannot confidently decide which actions in a man1 s life are truly 'characteristict of him, nor indeed whether we have always understood the real nature of his actions. Herodotus is however infuriatingly undogmatic about the reasons -10for the paradoxes of human nature. It is left quite unclear how he would want to interpret the conduct of Telines here, whether we are to understand that the Sicilians had misjudged his true nature, or whether there is some mysterious reason ( e.g. divine assistance?) for his otherwise unaccountable bravery. He leaves us to judge the paradox for ourselves. Herodotus likes to affect 'dispassionate observation', apparently leaving the record to speak for itself without commentary from him. It is significant that he never goes in for the detailed descriptions of character that we find in, for example, Thucydides' character-analyses of Themistocles or Pericles 20. His relative reticence is likely to be a borrowing from Homer, who avoids extended authorial commentary and allows character to emerge through speech d t . 21 an ac ion *. The few scant judgements on character that we do find in Herodotus, moreover, seldom turn out to be as simple or naive as they at first appear. We can be told that a man 'behaves justly' or that he 'has a reputation for just behaviour•, only to discover on the very next page some action that f1 atly contradicts that assessment. Herodotus is virtually never tempted to comment explicitly on the resulting paradox; Telines is only a partial exception since the author offers no 'solution' to the paradox. Often he will obstinately comment instead on some detail which seems to us to require least attention, affecting unconcern with the problem that seems to us most to cry out for attention 22. We look next at an episode which revolves intricately around the paradox that a man can behave 'justly' one moment and 'unjustly' the next 5 without necessarily changing his character in anything but a superficial sense. After the death of Cleomenes ( 6:85.lff ), an embassy of the Aeginetans comes to Sparta to tax Leotychidas with his failure to return the hostages held in Athens. A Spartan jury decides that Leotychidas has done wrong and allows him to be taken away by the -11Aeginetans as surety against the return of the hostages. Before they leave, however, a Spartan named Theasides speaks up to warn them that the Spartans have acted in the heat of the moment ( orgef ), and the Aeginetans must be on their guard lest they change their minds at some later time and decide to visit dire destruction on the islanders. The Aeginetans see the logic of this and agree on a compromise: Leotychidas is to come with them to Athens and try to arrange the release of the hostages. The Athenians, however, put forward excuses why they should not give them up: the hostages were entrusted to them by both Spartan kings, and they cannot be returned at the request of only one of them. Accordingly Leotychidas sets about persuading them of the injustice of their refusal .. and he does so by means of an anecdote apparently 23 current at Sparta, . The story runs as follows ( 6.86a.2ff ) : a Sparti;in named Glaucus, son of Epikydes; three generations before Leotychidas' time, had a great reputation for virtue: -rd Ts &ua. nivrct n:ff1.f~(.v r~ n:ftJTa. toDTov Tiv xp6vov oC~sov* It chanced that a man from Miletus, hearing of his reputation, decided to deposit half his fortune with him for safe-keeping. Time went by and the children of the Milesian came and presented their tokens and asked that the money be returned. Glaucus now. however, denied all knowledge of the deposit, and, feigning fairness, sent them away with the promise that he would give the matter thought and if he remembered return the money; if not, he would observe the custom among the Greeks in such matters 24 . He then approached the Pythia and asked whether he might perjure himself and keep the money; predictably the oracle warned him against setting short-term advantage above longterm consequences: the sin would be visited on his children. When he asked the god1 s pardon, he was told that to seek his approval of a sin t th th . . tt. . t 25 Al th h Gl t d came o e same 1ng as comm1 1ng, oug aucus re urne the money, the consequences of his action speak for themselves: Sparta :.,.12now knows no descendants of Glaucus, no hearth that bears his name, he and his family have been wiped out root and branch. The moral, says Leotychidas, is that one should return what is entrusted to one for safe-keeping, and not to hesitate, even in thought, to make a proper restitution. The Athenians listen to his story, but send him away empty-handed. Herodotus' use of this story has not appealed to the critics ( e.g. How and Wells ad loc. ): 11the beautiful tale of Glaucus, with its high moral, is strangely placed in the mouth of a man who had reached the throne by corruption of the Pythia ( cf.6.66.2f ), and who was himself corrupt ( cf.72.lf ). Neither this nor the inexactitude of the parallel between Glaucus and the Athenians induces Herodotus to sacrifice so good a story 1126• On the contrary it is hard to believe that the story does not ideally suit its context27: it is re 1 evant to more than just the Athenian case. The miscalculation of putting the narrative into the mouth of Leotychidas is in fact a significant irony: unexpectedly we discover a man whose almost every action so far has involved deception and fraud delivering a sermon on the virtues of honesty. It is by a false oath ( cf.6.65.3) that Leotychidas hopes to oust his rival Demaratus from the kingship; the bribery of the Pythia which secures his claim is undertaken by Cleomenes ( 66.2 ), but is ?B connived at by Leotychidas himself- . Moreover his deception does him no good: Herodotus goes---out of his way to tell us the fate of Leotychidas and his family, and doe.s so in pointed terms ( 71. lf ) . His son, Zeuxidamus, never came to be king of Sparta: he died before his father did though he left a son, Archidamus. Leothychidas then took a second wife who bore him no male offspring, but only a daughter, Lampito, whom Leotychidas married off to Archidamus. This is perhaps not quite the complete extinction of his family that Glaucus suffered, but no first -13generation male hetf survives to take over the kingship from his father. Herodotus could not deny that Archidamus succeeded his grandfather but he does not mention the fact~ Indeed, says Herodotus ( 72.1 ), not even Leotychidas was to live out his life in Sparta, but he payed the retribution that was owing to Demaratus: caught accepting bribes from the Thessalians, he was exiled from Sparta and his house raised to the ground ( 6.72.2) -a familiar enough punishment for such offenders2\ but one distinctly reminiscent of the fate of Glaucusi: hearth at Sparta. The unexpectedness of the ers~while villain delivering a moral lecture which so closely applies to his own case is itself paralleled in an unexpected twist in the narrative itself. We are introduced to Glaucus as a man with a reputation ( the narrator vouches for no more than his reputation) for honesty ( dikaiosyne ), an honesty indeed that not only distinguishes him among his fellow-Spartans but which attracts the notice of a man as far away as Ionia. Such pronounced emphasis on Glaucus1 virtue is not altogether dramatically necessary: the story works just as well without our needing to know so very much about his moral probity. Clearly the shock of discovering that Glaucus1 deception so belies what has been expected of his character must be something that Herodotus considers important. There is obviously a sense in which the Athenians, like Glaucus, have tarnished the reputation they seem to have won, when in the name of Greek freedom / they denounced the medi sm of Aegi na to the Spartans ( 6. 49. 2, 1ta!,;nyopsov -rwv ): their present ' conduct is quite without honour. But the Spartans too are here suspected of a preparedness to renege on an agreement~ which is much closer to that of Glaucus. Certainly they respond with what seems like complete fairness, when they bring Leotychidas before their courts and find him guilty of hybris: but Theasides comes forward to remind us -14that the decision has been taken in the heat of the moment and the time may come when Sparta will decide differently and bring down destruction on Aegina.' It is a hazardous business to argue from past behaviour to future behaviour: people after all change, and, like Glaucus, can in time come to make a nonsense of their reputation for virtue. Change is clearly a leitmotiv of Herodotus' entire work. 11Cities once great have become small and the small great, and human fortune never continues always in one stay 11 ( 1.5.4 ). So too, 11every human affair should be judged for the way it turns out in the end11 ( 1.32.9: , ' ' . .. /. ' ' ' - ., Q , } crxo1tE:E:t,V Bs XPll 1eo:vTog \XP"!JJ<noi; nw TE:AE:UTllV ,<rJt,. ctltOμllCTE:Tat, • Hasty judgements of a man's life, Solon reminds us, can always be confounded in time. The Athenians make a similar point in their speech claiming priority over the Tegeans at Plataea ( 9.27.4 }. "There is no point in bringing up ancient history 11 , they say: xo:t yap &v xpncr-rot TOTE: €0VT£!; *~tJTOL vuv ctv d:e:v !plto:t.lpon:pot, }{(l.L, TOTE: tOVTE:!:; qiAa.upot, vov av ele:v &μe:Cvove:/ 0 These words, with their similar antithetical phrasing, clearly echo the sentiment at 1.5.4, and are surely a reminder of Herodotus1 programme: not only does history bring about reversals in the fates of men and cities, but time itself also causes their characters to change, both for the worse and the better, and the work is full of examples of such change, as we shall see. And yet as far as character is concerned Herodotus is cautious about invoking change as a regular explanation of paradox and inconsistency: to a great degree men behave differently at different times because they have always had it in them to do so, and they merely allow certain of their natural attributes to influence them at the expense of others. 3. So far we have examined the importance of paradox as it is related to the generality of men. There is however a further programmatic -15passage we must consider, which shows us how we are to take the paradoxical behaviour of men in power, the tyrants and the despots. Such men are for Herodotus in a sense merely ordinary humanity writ large, beings in whom the peculiarities of huma.i:i nature can be the more easily discerned because of their eminence31. However as Artabanus observes to Xerxes ( 7.16a.1 ) the king is subject to unusual pressures which cause him to behave in ways that he might otherwise not. Artabanus likens the king to the sea, which~ though it is thought to be the most providential to men ( khresimotaten ), when a squa 11 b 1 ows up is caused to forget its own nature ( TCvsuμ~Ta ,aaL &vlμwv ~μKCITOVTa Õ 1£pLopav ,uaL Tnt~twuTñ xpaa6aL ) 32. Artabanus is warning against the unthinking acceptance of bad advice: the king who is badly advised is as dangerous as the sea in storms, he implies. But the image also suggests other things about the way Herodotus understands the characters of monarchs. Like the sea they have as great a potential for good as for harm, indeed, like the sea, their very greatness means that the good and the harm they do is capable of being equally extreme. Like the sea, too, not only are their moods unpredictable, but in either extreme unrecognizable as manifestations of the same nature. True, this is to extrapolate far beyond what Artabanus intends, but we may justifiably use the image as a key to Herodotus1 way of thinking. A few pages after this, we are presented with a most vivid and alarming demonstration of the unpredictability implied by the seãimage. When Xerxes is encamped at Kelainai in Phrygia, he and all his army are entertained by a Lydian named Pythios ( 7.27.lff ), who offers his entire fortune to the king33 Xerxes is pleased ( ~stheis, 7.28.3 ), and instead of accepting the gift, offers Pythios enough money to bring his fortune up to a round total. 11Neither now nor in the future will you 34 regret what you have done11 , he says A few pages later, however, we come across Pythios again ( 7.38.lff ), this time frightened at the -16portents for the expedition, and asking Xerxes a favour, a small favour to the king but great to him. The king promises him he will help; but when Pythios reveals that he wants to withdraw the eldest of his five sons from the expedition, Xerxes is incensed ( ethymothe, 7. 39.1 ). 11 When I myself am taking part in the expedition against Greece together with my own sons and brother and relatives and friends, how dare you, my slave s speak to me of your son? Know that a man's thymos is lodged in his ears, and that when it hears things it likes it fills his whole body with de 1 i ght, but when it does not it becomes i nfl amed 35 • When you did good and promised more, then you could not boast yourself more generous than me; now you have turned to shameful thoughts, even so you will suffer less than you deserve. 11 Xerxes orders that Pythi os t e 1 dest son be cut in half: through the two halves of bii body the army is to h 't 36 mare on, s way . The barbarity of Xerxes' anger is the diametric opposite of his generosity and goodwill. Not only are the two balanced halves of Herodotus' narrative designed to bring this out, but the king 1 s own speech ( 39.lf) draws attention to the contrast, Xerxes of course affects to see his punishment of Pythios as magnanimously lenient, but that is the irony of his position: the reader is left in no doubt that his anger was as immoderate as his benevolence. Clearly there is no contradiction here37: Herodotus has deliberately confronted us with these two extremes of Xerxes' character and invited us to make of them what we may. If we know how to look, we can indeed see them as manifestations of the same essential nature. Like the sea, the king may be as bountiful as he may be destructive, and the greater and more powerful he is, the more overwhelming will be both his generosity and his anger 38. The observation of these extremes of autocratic behaviour takes a number of different forms. Xerxes in particular exhibits a curious and unsettling combination of piety and impiety in his attitude to the divine. Having, for example, destroyed the Athenian Acropolis ( 8.53.2 ), he orders a sacrifice 1 after the Athenian custom 1 on the -17same spot on the very next day ( 8.54 ). Herodotus speculates whether Xerxes had been commanded to do this in a dream or whether his conscience pricked him for having destroyed the shrine ( EELE �at lv�uμLov al lylvELo lμnpncravLL LO tpov ). Herodotus offers us the same dubitatio -"''� in describing the offering Xerxes made when he crossed the Hellespont ( 7.54.2f ), when he dedicated the cup, krater and sword to the sea: he cannot say for certain whether this was a dedication made to the sun, or whether Xerxes repented of his action in whipping the Hellespont Herodotus typically is frustratingly vague about how he wants to interpret both these actions, whether or not he wants to invoke 1 conscience 1 to explain the paradoxical behaviour which they seem to involve. The tyrant 1 s change of heart is something we keep meeting in Herodotus 39 the most elaborate and impressive example is Cyrus' decision to rescue Croesus from the pyre ( 1.86.6 ), on realising 11that he was destroying another man like himself, a man who had but recently been blessed with good fortune like his own, and also fearing retribution for his act and calling to mind that nothing in human affairs is secure against change 11 40 . Cyrus' change of heart is symptomatic of the tyrant 1 s condition. Whatever his reasons for the ori gi na l decision to burn Croes us -* and Herodotus offers us severa1 41 , his change of heart implies that what he has done is wrong and ill-considered. The cruelty of the tyrant presupposes that he is somehow set apart from other men and that the ordinary rules do not apply to him: accordingly he acts on whim rather than on principle. Only sometimes do conscience and scruple set in and -18he remembers that he is indeed a man like other men42, that maybe he wi 11 suffer at some other hands what his victims suffer at his. It is clear from this passage that Herodotus is indeed interested in the psychology of tyrannical excess, although he is sufficiently cautious about the hazards of judging human nature to avoid being dogmatic about the reasons for particular actions. The same is likely to be true about the passages above: the reasons Herodotus is really interested in are the psychological ones, the promptings of conscience, but for caution 1 s sake he hedges his bets. In both cases his very hesitation is meant to suggest to us something about human nature and our appreciation of it: he invites us to consider whether we can tell if the apparent change in Xerxes was a matter of externals, or a real change of heart, prompted by conscience. Like the case of Telines, the behaviour of Xerxes on these two occi;l.sions may or may not be a paradox of character: the solution is left to the readerls own judgement. 4. Whether or not men like Xerxes and his fellow~-t.rrants and despots can change for the better is a question that Herodotus leaves undecided43. What he does want us to observe, however, is the corrupting influence of absolute power itself. Otanes, in the constitution-debate 44, is made to utter another programmatic commentary on the 1 inconsistencies 1 of autocrats, or at least a democratts reflexions on the matter. Otanes argues that tyranny is such that even the most virtuous man finding h irnse l f there wi 11 no longer behave as he used to 45 ( 3 .80. 3 ) : , *Jtt!Y.L yap cfo ~ !t ,, , ' , -, , ' ' l ~'. ' -,. ' , TOV apLOTOV etV6pwV JtetVTWV OTaVTCt E:S: TOUTnV TnV OPXIIV E:XTOS: TWV E:W.\10TWV You would expect*a man who had everything to behave ungrudgingly, but he does not. The tyrant is envious towards the good and delights in the bad: he i.s impossible to strike the right note with ( &vapμooTo,a,ov 6t 1tavTwv, -1980.5) in that if you praise him in moderation, he grudges that it is not enough, but if you praise him too fulsomely, he grudges that he is being flattered. Otanes1 analysis is subtle and well-observed: it is in the nature of tyranny to induce irrational, contradictory behaviour, and it will corrupt even those whose habitual disposition is to respect virtue; but at the same time this irrationality has its roots in a passion which is common to all men by nature, namely phthonos, the .~envy which inspires the doubt that one is not respected by other men as one would like to be. In other words, tyranny itself is an institution which if properly studied can actually tell us something about the general human condition, inasmuch as it contributes to an aggravation of the passions which we all in different degrees share. On th'is interpretation Herodotus• interest in tyrants and despots takes on a new importance: they become exemplars of the extremes of behaviour of which all human beings are ultimately capable, extremes of cruelty and injustice as we11 as of magnanimity and virtue 46. *certainly tyrants by the nature of their positions come to think differently, to conceive themselves elevated above the common rank of humanity; but this psychological change only exacerbates in them the contradictory impulses to whi eh a 11 human nature is prey .. The corruption of success, the way power, prosperity, even freedom, can affect human nature for the worse these are themes which give Herodotus• work an essential unity, as we shall see in the central chapter, We may turn next to two striking examples of the pattern of corruption outlined by Otanes, in which Herodotus is careful to keep before us the paradoxes involved in and occasioned by the pursuit and acquisition of abso.Jute power. On the death of Polycrates ( 3.142. lff ) , the rule of Samos devolved upon Maiandrios, who had been put in charge during the tyrant's absence. What Maiandrios did on finding himself in this position, Herodotus wants us to note carefully, as is clear from his striking introduction. 11When he learned of Polycrates' death, tie would have -20liked, had he been allowed, to behave with exemplary regard for justice and the public interest 11 ( ,wt., 6t.,Ma.L,o,a,wL, &v6pwv Sou>..oμlvwL, yEvlcr.\Ja.L, ovn lE;qevErn ) 47. Mai andri os attempts without *success to resign the tyranny. His first action was to set up an altar of Zeus Eleutherios; and he then assembled all the people of Samas, and reminded them that Polycrates 1 power had devolved upon him and that he was now in a position to rule over them. 11But I will do my best not to do what I find fault with in another ( cf.n.66 ). It did not please me when Polycrates lorded it over men who were his equals 48, nor could I approve such behaviour in any man. He has now played out the fate appointed for him, but I now hand over the rule of Samas to the people49 and declare the rule of equality ( isonomie50). All I claim for myself is the sum of six talents from Polycrates 1 treasury and the priesthood of Zeus Eleutherios 11 ( 3.14.2.4 ). The speech leaves us with an impression of a man attached to the ideals of equality, restraint, piety, and prepared to give up a golden opportunity for private advantage in order to uphold~these~fdea1s. But at once a Samian named Telesarchus stood up, and accused him of not being worthy to rule over them anyway,. and demanded that he give an account of the money he had already appropriated. Maiandrios' response is recorded by Herodotus without any hint of surprise. He realizes that if he lets go of power, someone else will set himself up as a tyrant in his stead; and, deciding not to abdicate, he summons the Samians one by one on the pretext of giving an account of his financial dealings, and forthwith arrests and imprisons them., From that point on things go from bad to worse51 , and when Maiandrios falls ill his brother Lykaretos, ambitious himself for power, puts all the -21prisoners to death ( 3.143.2 ): OU y~p 6~, ~S ofxaoL, sBooAoVTO ElVaL lAEõEpoL, comments Herodotus laconically. When Syloson comes with the Persians, Maiandrios and his party agree to hand over the island and withdraw into exile. He is then, however, persuadep by his mad brother Charileos 52 to change his mind and allow Charileos to take revenge on the Persians, while he escapes to safety. Maiandrios agrees, says Herodotus ( 3.146.l ), not because he was so foolish ( oox ss ToDTo &,pooovns ãLxoμEvos) as to believe his forces could get the better of the King's: aAÃ ,~ov~oas μaAAov EuAooravTL Et By provoking the Persians he wished to render Samas as weak as possible and in that condition give it over to Syloson, well aware that if the Persians suffered harm they would become more hostile ( ~pooEμ~LxpavlEõaL towards the Samians, and confident that he had for himself a safe escape-route from the island, by way of a secret tunnel he had had built from the citadel to the sea. There follow scenes of destruction as terrible as anything in Herodotus; Otanes deliberately forgets Darius' instructions and orders his troopi to kill both man and child ( 3.147.lf ), and half the army lays siege to the citadel, while the other half slaughters anyone that comes in its way, both inside and outside sacred places ( an emphatic way of underlining the horror). The Persians finally destroy the island and hand it over ta* Syloson without inhabitants, a terrible fate for a Greek city. The gods however take note ( or seem to): for, later, Otanes populates the island again, when apparently prompted to it by heaven ( 3.149 ). Herodotus proceeds by implication only, but it is clear enough what he intends; Maiandrios' decision to renounce his democratic intentions and keep the tyranny in his own hands may have been reasonably motivated in the first place, but once the decision had been made, -22even Maiandrios, 11who wanted to become the most just.of men11 , found himself involved in betrayal and injustice just as Otanes predicted such a man would end up. First we see him deceiving the first citizens of Samos into g*i vi ng themselves into his hands a typi ea l tyranni ea l deception 53 then handing over Sames to Syloson and the Persians, the very tyranny from which he had attempted to free the island when he took over power from Syloson's brother, Polycrates. Finally, on bad advice, he decides to allow Charileos to incite the Persians to retaliation in the full knowledge that this would be disastrous for the island, so that it should be left an empty prize for his rival. It might be argued that Maiandrios' 'double character' is a result of Herodotus cobbling together, whether consciously or not, a tradition favourable to the tyrant with one hostile to him. This approach has not, however, been favoured by commentators; indeed a recent. . 54 study of Herodotus1 Samian sources seems unaware of any problem here, when it concludes that "Herodotus aristocratic source must have been favourable to Maiandrios or we cannot explain the attribution of high motives to him11 • But such a view is both discouraged by the evi de nee the greater part of the account, from the denunciation by Telesarchos onwards, is in material detail most unflattering to Maiandrios and methodologically flawed, since we must surely allow for the possibility that Herodotus has a free hand in the attribution of motive. The more natural explanation is that his source was hostile to the tyrannical usurper, Maiandrios, and that Herodotus himself has supplied the motive ( TWl, Ql,)(Cl.l,OT<lTWt, av6pwv {3olJAOμEVWl, yevfo{}a.l, Qt)}[ ~~e:ysvern ) whi eh causes his account to be paradoxical. Certainly there may have been at Samos a sanctuary of Zeus Eleutherios, and it may conceivably have been set up by Maiandrios; but even this need not imply that the historical Maiandrios actually intended resigning the tyranny, but merely that he meant to contrast his own administration with that of Polycrates 55• At any rate we cannot conclude from the existence of such a cult that the Samians in Herodotus• day continued to think kindly towards its initiator. We can more easily imagine that Herodotus• Samian (?) informants represented Maiandrios 1 attempted resignation as a mere pretence a reasonable inference from his subsequent atrocious behaviour and that Herodotus decided on his own initiative that matters were ( or ought to be! ) more complicated. Moreover for him the Samians are not coerced by an aggressive tyrant, but rather pathetically throw away the chance of 1 freedom156, a point which he underlines in another authorial inference ( 3.143.2 ): ou yctp 6n, w~ oCxacrL, e8ouAovTo EtvaL eAEÕEpoL. In other words, by the use of -23inferences as to motives, Herodotus steers an independent course through the currents of his source-material. He accepts the facts which the Samian polis tradition, with its anti-tyrannical bias, offers him, but interprets them in his own way: Maiandrios1 freedom speech and his motives are Herodotean free invention; and at the same time he inserts a counterweight to the bias of his source: the Samians were wrong to denounce Maiandrios, having failed as they did to recognize freedom when it was offered them. It is reasonable then to suppose that this is yet another example of the model we are studying and that the 1 paradox1 of Maiandrios1 -24behaviour has been deliberately contrived. Herodotus characteristically leaves the inconsistency to speak for itself, but comments at some length on an aspect of Maiandrios' motivation which does not immediately strike us as requiring detailed explanation. What we most expect some comment on is Maiandrios1 spite, his determination to do Samas the most harm h~ can, which strikes us so forcibly after Herodotus' explicit observation that he wanted to behave most justly. Herodotus, however, avoids this topic and remarks instead on the practical reasoning behind his betrayal of the Samians, even to the bathos of explaining in detail about his escape tunnel. The words õx t, ToDTo &~poauvñ &xLxoμEvõ at first sight seem to be about to introduce a comment on Maiandrios' lack of sophrosyne, but instead turn into an observation about his level-headed and cynical calculation of the chances of escape; there seems to be a deliberate play on the ambiguity of the word aphrosyne here57. There is something of a parallel to the behaviour of Maiandrios in the story of Deioces ( l.96-101 ), a story generally agreed to be the product of literary imagination rather than oral tradition, at the very least in its detailed design58; and certainly its essential coherence can hardly be doubted, so that here we have an example of Herodotean paradox which cannot easily be argued away in terms of the influence of conflicting sources. Indeed in tnis case the paradox is indisputably an integral part of the story. Deioces was a clever mañ begins Herodotus ( 1.96.lff ), who conceived a desire for tyranny over the Medes, and devised the following plan. Even before, he had been highly regarded in his village, but now he began to practise justice with even greater zeal and applicatioñ and this he did although there was much lawlessness throughout Media, -25and knowing that injustice is a foe to justice ( OTL TwL oLxaCwL To ,, , , , ) 59 aOLXOV no>..eμLOV £0TL • We then trace the rise of Deioces through his magistracies, in which he is upright and just 11since he is wooing absolute power11 ( 96.2, oLa μvwμevõ apxnv ), through his abdication of responsibility at the moment when he sees his victims are properly ensnared ( 97.lf ), through the resumption of anomia_ ( 97.2 ), to the assembly of the Medes at which, as Herodotus guesses, it is the frieads of Deioces who are the loudest in their denunciation of the times and their clamour for a king ( 97.3 ). Deioces is put forward and praised by many ( 98. l ) and finally chosen king. Then Herodotus describes at some length ( 98.2-99.1 ) how Deioces had built for himself the city of Ecbatana and the further precautions by whi eh he kept himse 1 f at a distance from his subjects 60, so that his contemporaries, those who had been brought up with him and came from no less distinguished families and were not inferior to him in nobility, should not see him, envy him and plot against him, but so that he should appear to them different. Maiandriost observation on the injustice of tyranny which presumes to elevate the tyrant artificially above men who are his equals ( 3.142.3, above), offers a striking commentary on the significance of these details for Herodotus. Once in power Deioces was severe in the administration of justice ( 100.1, 7iv Tb oCxaLov qiu>..cfoawv xa>..enõ ) , dealing with suits by means of written petitions and replies; amd if he found anyone guilty of wrongdoing, he would punish him according to his spies and informers through the length and breadth of his kingdom. Deioces1 case is similar to that of Maiandrios in that both make an effort to behave justly and both end up behaving tyrani ea lly; but Deioces' practice of justice is self-interested and directed almost from the start, paradoxically, to the pursuit of absolute power, and -26hence it seems no more than a pretence. Yet though Herodotus stresses that Deioces behaves throughout with ulterior motives, the matter is not as simple as that. Even before the awakening of his ambition Deioces had had a good reputation ( 96.2, t~v xat ~p6T£pov 66x~μos ), so that his behaviour poses a tricky conundrum: he is apparently a just man who decides to make use of justice for an unjust purpose. Deioces practises justice "knowing that injustice is its foe 11 , which, difficult though it is to interpret ( cf.n.59 ), must imply that he actually believes in the importance of justice for its own sake. Once in power, he becomes even more meticulous than ever in the administration of justice: normally autocrats are found to 'take justice into their own hands I and hence pervert it ( cf.3.80.3-5 ), but Deioces surprisingly avoids doing so. Instead of the usual arbitrary despotic punishments, which bear no relation to the gravity of the crime61, he imposes penalties 'precisely in accordance with guilt'. His administration of justice may seem iñufferable and a denial of freedom ( especially his 'secret police' ) , but it is still justice fairly dealt. There are two clear paradoxes here: the paradox of Deioces' just behaviour for.unjust ends, and the paradox of a tyrant meticulously devoted to the preservation of justice 62. We think we know what Deioces is like, when Herodotus tells us so explicitly that all he does is undertaken with absolute power in view; and yet there are elements in his behaviour which confuse and provoke. Herodotus seems to be letting us in on Deioces' motivation, but when we look closet we see much that still calls for explanation Herodotus keeps his character at a certain distance and challenges us to make sense of him, if we can63 The man who has the ambition to gain the tyranny of the Meders is al so the man who is strong enough to be able to impose justice in the interests of social order ( see further Ch.II.i.B below). -275. We should turn next to a slightly different type of paradox, the paradox brought about through 1 perspective 1 or the manipulation of context. A particular individual, or a particular quality or action of an individual, can be made to take on a quite different appearance according to its context. By this means Herodotus can illustrate the 1 relativity' of our judgements of human nature itself. The embassy of the heralds Sperchias and Bulis to the court of Xerxes ( 7.134ff) well exemplifies these confusing changes of aspect. The daring 64 of the two heralds ( says Herodotus ) was something to wonder at ( 7.135.1,, .owμa:ros; &,en ), as were their words. For on their way to Susa they were met by Hydarnes, the satrap of the Asian seaboard; Hydarnes offered them his hospitality and asked them why they did not become friends of the king. 11Consider how the king rewards good men: look at me and my position. You too if you gave yourselves to the king's service ( for he holds you to be good men) might each rule over Greece with the king 1 s dispensation 11 • The heralds reply that Hydarnes1 advice does not take account of their conditiõ, which is so different from his: he has full knowledge of what it is to be a slave, but no experience of freedom, and cannot tell whether it is sweet or not65. If he did know freedom he would recommend they fight to defend it not with spears but with axes (i.e. to the last gasp). At Susa and before the king they refuse to be cajoled or pushed into the required proskynesis: it is not customary ( tv voμwL ) for them as Greeks to offer obeisance to a mere mortal and that is not why they have come. They exp 1 ai n to Xerxes ( 136 ! 2 ) that they have been sent by the Spartans to pay the penalty for the Persian heralds killed as Sparta. To which Xerxes replies that he will not behave like the Spartans: they confounded the laws ( nomina) which are binding for all men, when they murdered the heralds; but he himself will not do what he has blamed them for -28doing66, nor1 by killing them in return, free the Spartans from their guilt. The story affects us unexpectedly~ and it does so by a manipulation of perspective. The device of refl exi on ( cf. Ch. I II n .l05 ) is used three times in succession: the Spartans point out to Hydarnes that, not being free, he cannot appreciate what freedom means to them; and; at Susa they reflect on how proskynesi s looks to them as Greeks a matter of Greek nomos.; Xerxes reflects back to the Spartans how their murder of the Persian heralds looks to him once more a matter of nomos, but a more compelling and serious one this time, in that the nomos in question is binding for all men equally. The Spartans may have scored two points, but Xerxes scores the last one, and it seems to count at least double, if not more. The moral advantage is all his: men have a moral duty to behave justly, but they have no moral duty to be free. Freedom is something that is morally neutral in Herodotus: fine as it may be, it is in essence no more than an expression of self-interest ( see Ch.II.passim }. It is the brash and selfish arrogance of free men that the Spartans for all their daring stand for, when made to face the just reproof of Xerxes. Unexpectedly Xerxes here stands for wisdom and justice: for all his own barbarous injustices, he can justly throw the wrongdoing of the Greeks in their faces. This is not however some puppet Xerxes, dressed up to serve a purely dramatic purpose. We must ask.what is meant by his megalophrosyne? The only other place where Herodotus uses this d67 * . th d . t' f X 1 . t' f th Ath wor ,s ,n e escr1p ,on o erxes excava ,on o e * os for Herodotus an act of the same symbolic significance as the bridging of Hellespont. Arrogant, hybristic pride and self-glorification are the faults of Xerxes at the one extreme; but the same word may express the same characteristics in completely different guise68. What is excessive -29and immoderate in his behaviour over Athas becomes restrained and sober in conversation with the Spartan heralds: in the same man is the capacity for both extremes of behaviour and by a startling pun Herodotus contrives to express them both with the same worct69. That this is a reasonable intetpretation of the passage is shown both by Critias' use of the word megalophrosYne as an admirable quality of Cimon ( DK 8888.1 ), illustrating that the word is inherently ambiguous, and by a story told of the younger Cyrus in Xenophon ( Anab.1.4.8 ). Cyrus allows two men who have wronged him to go free, even though their families are in h • II L t th l1 h II ' , V . ' ' ' , s power: e . em go , e says, E:L,ooTi::s; OTL, MaML,ous; i::L,OL, 1ti::pL, T)μct.s n T)μe:t.s; 1te:pt kxe:-Cvous: 11 • Obviously here Cyrus' magnanimity is a paradigm of upright behaviour, and this confirms our interpretation of Xerxes' megalophrosyne in the case of the heralds as magnanimity rather than boastfulness. Needless to say, what is in Xenophon the virtuous clemency of a uniformly 'good king', is not such a simple matter in the case of Herodotus• Xerxes, whose barbarous and despotic side is otherwise much more prominent. The passage as a whole then offers a characteristic inversion through tperspectivet. Our appreciation of the Greek attitude to freedom changes. from admiration to something more qualified, when it is brought up against the ( itself unexpected ) 'justice' of Xerxes. Or ir\ other words, we see Greek freedom 'in perspective' through seeing it in a different, unusual context 70• As for Xerxes himself, the paradox of his megalophrosyne has to do with another sort of perspective: in different contexts we see different aspects of the same qualities in his nature. -306. This latter type; of paradox is one we also meet in our last two examples in this section, Miltiades. and Themistocles. On these two heroes of the Persian wars success confers something like the same exaggerated pre-eminence as attaches to Herodotus' tyrants and despots~ and there is clearly a sense in which their good fortune tgoes to their heads' and turns them from heroes into scoundrels. But here toõ especially in the case of Themistocles, change is in some ways not really change at all, but the emergence of the same qualities in a different guise. M-iltiades, the hero of the hour at Marathon, is suddenly seen in quite a different light in the aftermath of the Greek victory 71. We have approved, or thought we approved, his appeal to Callimachus on Athenian freedom ( 6.109 ), but our sympathies are at once alientated, when, after the battle, he turns his attention to the reduction of Paras ( 6. 132 / 2. Herodotus here underlines the ambiguity of Miltiades' position, when he says that "even before, Miltiades ' was highly regarded, and now he went from strength to strength': ( J{O'. l, RpoTepov euoo'){Lμewv ... TOTE μaAAov auseTo ), The word"auxanestttai has consistently ambiguous overtones in Herodotus, since when an individual rises to a certain eminence, or when a people grows to a certain strength, almost invariably he or it start to overstep the 1 imits of moderatfon. Empires grow at the expense of the 1 i b-ertfes of others, and when individuals rise to positions of power and influence they abuse the trust of others~ just as we saw Defaces, for example. do in Media ( cf. Ch.lI.irB ]. There is an instructive parallel here with the ris*e of Peisistratus to the tyranny ( l .59.4f ] : naving formerly won acclaim ( Rp()TEPOV EUoonμnaas; l for nis generalship in the war witn Megara,*h~ managed to deceive the people into giving -31him the bodyguard with which he eventua11y came to power ( cf. Ch.II. ii.A ). In the same way Miltiades uses this opportunity to tdeceive' the Athenian peop1e ( see be1ow ). whose acc1aim he has won for his past record and for his recent achievement at Marathon. Thus paradoxica11y he wins th~ir trust through an admirable~Õrgesia, and at once shameful1y abuses that trust in pursuit of his own interests. The words t6tE_~!lloy ati~~To encapsulate the essence of this paradox. And yet Herodotus is a1so concerned to point out that the Athenians are content with being deceived, and this stretch of narrative is an interesting reflexion on their aspirations in the aftermath of Marathon, quite as much as those of Mi1tiades. He to1d them that he wou1d lead them to a place where they cou1d without effort procure gold in abundance. The process of persuasion and the nature of the expedition clearly have something in common with the episode of Aristagoras 1 embassy at the time of the Ionian revolt ( 5.97 ). The Athenians, for a 11 that they are '1 overs of freedom l, are most interested in easy profit for themselves: they withdraw from the Ionian revolt, as soon as they see Ari stagoras l promises wi 11 not come true so easi1y; and they soon turn their freedom-fight at Marathon into an excuse for private gain. The expedition against Paras has indeed an ostensible justification 73, that the Pari.ans had sent a trireme in the service of the Persians to Marathon ( 6.133.T ); but when Herodotus tells us 1ater that Miltiades on his return was prosecuted for •*apa:te:1 '( 136.1 ) ~ the reason we naturally infer is that he failed either to bring back any money or to capture the island ( 135.1, otitE xpnμcm:x.'A.(J11vr.1Cõ~}.h~aywv ou-rE IIapov 1rpou1t-r11oapE\:>o!; ). Moreover we are also told that Miltiades failed to tell the people where he meant to sail to ( 6.132, ou <ppaoã O(f)L e1t' tv €ltLOtpaTEUOETaL xwpnv, &lla <pã aUTOU~ JtaTaltAOUTLEtv nv ot hwvtcn * ) 74, and moreover that he had a private grievance* against ---- ---------------------------------------- -32one of the Parians who had slandered him to Hydarnes ( 6t,~Sa.>,6vrn ) . It is significant that Herodotus has here dredged up a grievance from Miltiades' past 75 which reminds us that the champion of Athenian freedom at Marathon had previously been tyrant in the Chersonese and in league with Persia, at least until the incident at the Danube bridge, and probably even after ( see below ) . Herodotus has not chosen to dfsglJise the ambiguities in the character of the historical Miltiades, but presents them in their most disturbing form. He has moreover framed76 the heroism of Miltiades at Marathon with his treason trials at Athens~ the first ( 6.104.2 ) in which he is called to account for his tyranny in the Chersonese77, and the second ( 6..136.lf brought by Xanthippus after the Parian expedition, for betraying the Athenian people ( ~pate ). The first trial brings home the paradox of his flight from the Chersonese to become the hero of Athenian freedom ~fter his tyranny, and reminds us that if Miltiades' enemies had had their way, Athens would have lost her champion9 and herself succumbed to the 'tyranny' of Persian rule. Earlier Herodotus had told us how Miltiades was sent to the Chersonese by the Peisistratids, by whom he was wel 1 treated, despite what they ~ad done to his father ( 6.39.1 ), reflecting the fact that he and his family were indeed at this stage hand-in-glove with 78 the tyrants The irony of the second trial is underlined by Herodotus in his 'report' of the apology spoken for Miltiades by his friends ( 136.2 ), who appealed to his services at Marathon ( 11:0.H& snμBμvf:l11sv0.i:.; ), and also to his capture of Lemnos and punishment of the P_e1asgia*ns. Herodotus' reconstruction of the trictl here is as likely to be his own work as that of a source: there is nothing unusual or particularly memorable about such a defence by appeal to past services~ indeed we would have been surprised if sud, a elref@fl-c@ lilatil Mt li>l@itm iflv.@ik@d. TM [i)i(l)int of Ulis recoA- -struction is, however, easy to appreciate: to contrast the two sides of Miltiadesl life 9 his services to the Athenian people and his deception of them over the affair of Paros79. The Parian affair reflects no credit on either Miltiades or the Athenians; both show a decidedly unattractive appetite for profit -33- ( pleonexia ), which distinctly upsets the glorious effect of Marathon. And yet it is clear that Herodotus means to prefigure this development in Mil ti ades' brave words to Ca 11 imachus even before the battle. If we turn back to this speech ( 6.109.3ff ), we can see, in retrospect at least, that fine a thing though freedom is, it has nothing very much to do with morality and a great deal to do with self-interest and the appeal of profit. nrf you do what I say'!, says Miltiades ( 6.109.3 }, ll'and Athens survives, it is possible for her to become the leading city in Greece11 ( oin TE fon Tt:pthn Twv 'EHnvLowv Tt:o>.i:wv ysvfo.\JaL ) • And it is the same message with which the speech closes C 6.109.5 ) : '1 if you do what I say, your fatherland will be both free and the first city in Greece ( a prediction now, merely a possibility~ .... ,); but if you do what the otherssay, you will have the opposite of all the good things ( agatha ) which I have mentionedtl'* Miltiades" ambition for the future of Athens is what dominates the speech, and that ambition i"s something that the reader of Herodotus can only view with alarm: he cannot forget how Milt i a des' prophecy came true and by what proces*s tne De 1 i an League was transformed into theAthenian empire?0• Thepromise of becoming the 'first city in Greecet is only comprehensible as a promise about power, just as the 'good thingst mentioned by Miltiades are clearly the prizes of empfra. Thus the future of Athens after Marathon is a mirror of what happens. to Miltiades: the power and influence* they win from their heroic fight for freedom leads them to a much more ominous and sinister role, .and from the freedom.,.fighters they turn into imperialists. The Parian affair is just the tne beginning of this much greater development. Miltiades is at once the spokesman for the admirable determination of the Athenians to resist enslavement and for their -34ambition for power and profit; and in a sense both he and the Athenians are paradoxically fighting for both things at the same time. It is no mistake that this is Miltiades the tyrant speaking: the ambiguity of his character is the same ambiguity that attaches to the Athenians with their democracy-tyranny ( see Ch.II passim). The question of what source-materials Herodotus used for his Miltiades-narrative, is more complicated than it has sometimes been made to seem. Certainly the hypothesis that Herodotus follows a Philaid source for whatever in the story is complimentary to Miltiades, is wholly unnecessary81. We know f~om the Attic comedy, for example, that in Herodotust day Miltiades was popularly remembered as one of the old, illustrious, but dependable, democratic heroes, as evidenced in particular in his resurrection• along with Aristides, Pericles and others, in Eupolis': Demoi, to help restore the city to rights 82. Thus we need invoke no esoteric family source to explain the parts of Herodotus' narrative which are complimentary to him: there can have been few to question that he was indeed the hero of Marathon and Athenian freedom. In particular there is no reason to accept the traditional view that Herodotus' account 6f Miltiades 1 speech at the Danube bridge in favour of liberating Ionia by withdrawing the support of the Ionian tyrants from Darius, is in any sense Philaid fiction; designed to provide an apology for Miltiades 1 tyrannical past 83 He is depicted by Herodotus as merely lending his voice to the plan presented by the Scythians, not, as we would expect if this were indeed an apologetic fiction, calling for the liberation of Ionia on his own initiative. -35Miltiades remains for Herodotus a tyrant who owes his position to Persian support84. Thus Darius later takes no reprisals against his son, Metiochus, when the Phoenicians capture him and bring him to court, but rather treats him with honour ( 6.41,1: cf. his equally misguided treatment of the twofold traitor, to Greece and to the king, Histiaos: 6.30.2 ). Though Miltiades is indeed hounded out of the Chersonese by the Phoenician fleet ( 6.41.lff and 104.1 ), we are not told the reason. On the contrary HerodotUS9 as some commentators have found curious 85, surprisingly fails to mention any involvement of Miltiades with the Ionian revolt, which he may well in reality have assisted. Indeed, as we saw, Herodotus seems to want to imply by his mention of the grievance of Miltiades against Lysagoras of Paras~ for having 1 denounced1 him to Hydarnes, that he had until recently kept up 'friendship' with Persia, even if only duplicitously 86. It follows from this that we cannot expect to be able to extract a Philaid apology for Miltiades out of Herodotus1' narrati.ve of his life. We should not however pretend on the other hand that the tcontradictions' of his career are an original insight of Herodotus~ Miltiades was indisputably a tyrant in the Chersoneset and he was indisputably prosecuted in the Athenian courts after the Parian expedition, and those things are likely to have been well known87. What is important here however is Herodotus 1*' emphasis: he need not have so sharply juxtaposed the shadier sides of Miltiades 1' life with his glorious achievement at Marathon. Nor, more particularly, did he need in describing the Parian expedition to inSist on Miltiades .... 'deteptton < ~. :""""' of the demos ( Le. not explaining the target of the expedition ) ~ or oh his squalid appeal to their instinct for quick and easy profit. These are interpretative details supported by Herodotus on his own initiative. The story of Lysagoras on the other hand is* unlikely to -36have been 1 imagined' by Herodotus. although the malicious interpretation of it here may be his own work. By making this a secret grudge, Herodotus implies that Miltiades had reason to feel guilty about his relations with Persia: moreover the story transmitted to him may have made more of the service to Greece involved in his treachery to the Great King, which Herodotus' version has entirely disguised. Herodotus' Miltiades is clearly not the straightforward, old-fashioned Athenian hero, whom Aristophanes and Eupolis bracket with Aristides, whose statue stood at Delphi beside Apollo and Athene together with the heroes of the Athenian tribes 88 , or with Themistocles in the Theatre at Athens 89 , or who was seen leading the Athenians to victory in the Stoa Poikile. Herodotus was, like Aristophanes and Eupolis, sufficiently distant from the events of 490 and before, to be able to see Miltiades' career in simple heroic terms; but it is just this simple picture that he has gone outof his way to complicate with shadow and perspective. The material was no doubt there to assist him in this but he surely had to work to uncover it. 7. The case of Themistocles is similar, if somewhat more complicated 90 In both cases Herodotus shows no concern to play down the contrast between the glamour of their defence of Greek freedom and the squalor of the ambitions to which their success encourages them. Insofar as we can recover it, the popular memory of Themistocles in Herodotus 1 day resembled somewhat that of Miltiades, although the negative sides of his life had not been forgotten, neither his cupidity nor his eventual flight to Persia. Although Themistocles does not merit resurrection in Eupolis' Demoi along with the other worthies of old, perhaps because 'though a wise man, his fingers were too itchy forgold 1 91 , he receives a remarkable laudation from the sausage-seller in Aristophanes' -37Knights92. The Paphlagonian has just tried to claim that he has done more for the city than ever Themistocles did, at which his opponent protests that Themistocles filled the city full of good things, 1 kneading it into one with the Peiraeus 1 , that is building the Long Walls93. 11You dare to compare yourself to Themistocles 11 , he ends up:. 1tcbtdvos; JJE:\I Themistocles 1 1 bad end1 ought not to be perjorative if the contrast between the old hero of the democracy and the new grasping demagogue is to be consistent; and this may indicate the beginnings of an apologetic tradition for Themistocles 1 career, in which his disgrace came to be blamed on the phthonos of the democracy. In Plato's Gorgias94, Socrates argues (unexpectedly) against the 1 popular' view advanced by Gorgias and the Callicles that men like Thernist6cles were indeed heroes of the democracy ( e.g. 503C: Callicles speaking): • , a . ' , ., ' I " 6 ' ' , " , Tl, 61::; uE:JJl,CTTOXAE:et oux am;,ve.~s av pa aya.(}ov yEyovoTa xal, Kl,JJW\la cru &xnxoas;; Lysias lists Solon, Themistocles and Pericles as men whom the ancients chose as lawgivers, in the belief that their laws would match their characters 95. In the philosophical schools indeed Thernistocles came to be adopted as a paradigm of the wise statesman96. All this certainly, does not imply anything like a univocal tradition favourable to Themistocles in the late 5th and early 4th centuries1 nor would it be reasonable to expect such a tradition for any historical figure of the Persian Wars generation, least of all one whose career was as obviously flawed as that of Themistocles. It.does however suggest that by Herodotus1 day Themistocles had become sufficiently remote in the popular memory to be remembered with more indulgence than animosity. Indeed there was an obvious and simple reason why this should have been: the Athens of the radical democracy, with its abrasive, ambitious demagogues, clearly came to be contrasted with the Athens -38of the ~eneration that won the war against Persia and achieved the earliest successes of the empire, the contrast, in short, which we observe in the passage of Aristophanes discussed above. The Herodotean picture of Themistocles however has received varied and somewhat contradictory critical comment. Podlecki( p.68) speaks the majority opinion when he treats Herodotus1 portrait as essentially unsympathetic: "Where Herodotus ( or his informants ) stood emerges ... from the insinuation and damaging innuendowith which he tells his version of the story. He lines up squarely on the side of those97 ... who, although they could not ignore Themistocles in the events of 480, nevertheless did all they could to belittle his contribution and besmirch his name1198. Podlecki argues that it was this Herodotean malice that Thucydides' study of Themistocles was meant to answer99. On the other hand, Fornara argues the opposite view that there is nothing malicious about Herodotus' treatment of the hero of Salamis, but that it is rather uniformly balanced and sympathetic ( p.69 ): "The chall~~ge to his skill was to create a believable character who was capable of being at once the saviour of the Greeks in Xerxest War and the presumed traitor of not very long after". The present discussion shares the opinion of Fornara that the portrait is complex and coherently conceived, while differing on some details and on a general principle~ for me the measured polarities of Herodotus• account of Themistocles are a part of a much wider picture, the picture of the contradictions in all human behaviour, which find their most exaggerated express ion in the lives of great i nfl uenti a 1 men. Before we illustrate this aspect of Herodotus' portrait, it will be worth examining two well-known problems of the account, which have led many commentators to the conclusion that he has been confused by a -39source hostile to Themistocles. The problem of his introduction of Thernjstocle.s. at 7 .143. l as a man ' , " , i~ UpWTOUS VEWDTL napLWV calls for some comment here. It is traditionally supposed that this 'understatement', the absence of a fanfare for the hero of Salamis, shows the influence of a tradition hostile to Themistocles100. Certainly it contradicts somewhat Herodotus• own notice shortly after to the effect that Themistocles had already initiated an important policy decision in having the silver of Laurium used to build up the fleet for the war against Aegina ( 7.144.lf ), as well as the external evidence which suggests he held the archonship in 493-2101, and the unequivocal testimony of the ostraka, which show that he was already a 1 candidate 1 for ostracism in the same year as Megacles ( i.e. 487-6 ), as well as in the year of Aristides 1 ostracism ( 484-3 or better 483-2 )102. Indeed Herodotus' own narrative later also shows us that he knew the confrontation between Themistocles and Aristides which resulted in the latter 1 s ostracism, to be an important element in Athenian politics of before the wa:r ( 8. 79. lff ) . Attempts to resolve the difficulty by arguing for example that the archonship was at this stage an office of youth103, whether or not they are historically sound, hardly counterbalance. the e~idence of the osttaka and Herodotus I own evi de nee for the confl i et with Ari sti des. We can however provide an account of Herodotus' literary intentions here which will resolve the difficulty. In the first place, we should remember that Herodotus• general rule, borrowed from Homer ( see above), is to avoid character judgements, except where they are to* serve a precise narrative function 104. Hence he is deliberately reticent here, perhaps even provocatively so. The paradoxes of Themistocles 1 character and life are to emerge through action. On the other hand, we should ask if Herodotus has a particular purpose in disguising the extent of -40Themistocles' earlier political career at this point, when other references show that he is not ignorant of it. The answer seems to be that we are invited to note the fortuitousness of Themistocles 1 akme coinciding with the moment of Athens' and Greece's greatest need. In the same sort of way, Herodotus seems. to remind us of the lucky chance of Miltiades' emergence as the hero of Marathon, when he might have succumbed to the plotting of his political enemies ( see above); so too he will later point out the good fortune of Leonidas' emergence as the hero ofThermopylae ( 7.204-205.l ), when he might never have been king at all ( XTnaaμ£VOS Tnv SaOl,AnCnv £V EnapTnl, £~ &npoa6ox~Tou }. In other words, Herodotus has knowingly distorted the shape of Themistocles' career to make a particular dramatic effect. At any rate, even if this line of interpretation is rejected, it does not mean the 1 source-explanation 1 is the right one. It is hard to see that there is anything malicious about this introduction ( cf. n.100 L nor has Herodotus glossed over Themistocles' earlier ( fortuitous! political triumph over the fleet for Aegina ( 7.144.1, eTepn TE 9£μl,OTOkAS~ yvwμn Eμnpocr~£ TaUTnS is Xal,pOV npCaT£U0£ ), so that he is clear in his own mind that Themistocles had already made at least one valuable contribution to the political welfare of Athens before the crisis of 480. We cannot be happy to argue that in one and the same passage Herodotus is both misled and not misled by a source hostile to Themi stocles. The other controversial problem of Herodotus' account of Themistocles is the part played by Mhesiphilos, the man who gives the advice that battle must be joined at Salamis or Greece will be lost, advice which the Athenian general appropriates without a word ( 8.58.1, ou6sv itpos mum &μuq,aμE:vos ) and proceeds to put before Euribiadas as his. own, though with many additions ( 58.2, swurnu nol,£,Jμ£vos,. -41nat aua EoJ.la. upt!lo-TL.S£Ls; ) • This episode, and Herodotus 1* treatment of it, have been thought to represent a deliberate slur on Themistocles, an attempt to deprive him of the glory of having saved the day at Salamis105. As we shall see later, Herodotus does intend the story to qualify the part played by Themistocles here, but it is quite clear that qualification is the most it can achieve. Even if the story detracts from the originality of Themistocles' planning, Herodotus by his subsequent elaborate dramatization leaves us in no doubt as to the remarkable abilities of Themistocles in carrying through his intentions in the assembly of the allies at Salamis, and in decisive action when the time came when words alone would no longer suffice. Thus if he lacks the same quality of foresight, in its widest sense, which Thucydides so much admires in him ( 1.138.3 ), he nonetheless possesses through Herodotus' explicit characterization, we must observe the ability which Thucydides is most emphatic about commending: xat TQ t;6μ11:av £L1C£LV, Ql'lJOtw<;; μfV 6uvaμ£L, μ£At:Tns; 0£ $pa)('U'ri~~l, npchLcr;os; On This summation of his character could well describe the brilliant intellectual manoeuvring by which, with every twist and turn of events, Themistocles in Herodotust account finds a new way of carrying with him the fearful and indecisive assembly at Salamis ( see Ch.II.iii, for a detailed analysis ). For this side of Themistocles 1 character we are wholly dependent on the elaborate speeches which Herodotus has improvised to illustrate the vacillations of the Greeks before Salamis. Only on the unrealistic view that these speeches were dictated to him by some*source favourable to Themistocles, can we avoid the conclusion that Herodotus' ambivalence towards the hero of Salamis involves an element of paradox. (And see especially on 8.110.1 below). -42This element of paradox emerges most clearly from the narrative of the immediate sequel to Salamis. On the day after the battle, the Greeks pursue the Persian fleet as far as Andros, where they pause to debate their strategy. Themistocles ( 8.108.2) argues at first that they should sail by way of the islands and pursue the fleet to the Hellespont, where they should destroy the bridges. Eurybiadas argues the opposite, and points to the danger of trapping the Persian army in Europe ( 108. 2ff ) , and the rest of the Pel oponnes i an genera 1 s agree. Themistocles however then does a complete volte-face ( 109.lff) and, turning to the Athenians, starts arguing Eurybiadas 1 case to them. 11In addition 11 , he says, 11our victory was a lucky chance: let us not pursue the Persians further. It is not we who have defeated them but the gods and heroes who begrudged that one man should rule both Asia and Europe, a man both impious and wicked, who treated holy things and profane with the same contempt, burning and overturning the images of the gods~ who even whipped the sea and sent d6wn shackles into its depths. Let us stay in Greece and restore our homes and our crops, and when the spring comes, let us sail to Ionia and the Hellespont''. And this Themistocles argued, says Herodotus ( 109.5 ), because he wished to 1 ay up credit with the Mede, so that should any misfortune befall him at Athens, he might have a refuge: 1which indeed came to pass'. In saying this, Themistocles deceived the Athenians ( 110.l }, having i.n the past had a reputation for wisdom106 and having been shown to be truly wise and of good counsel ( xat xp6rEpov 6s6oyplvos slvã O"O(flOS E:q>avn E:WV ClAT)-Etcws; O"O(fl~S E XO:L EUSpuA-os; ) ' so that they were now prepared to listen to what he had to say. Herodotus then describes how he sent Sikinnos and others secretly to the king to explain that he had done him a service ( 110.3) by preventing the Greeks from destroying the bridges. -43There is a very obvious structural parallelism in the story here: the original mission to Xerxes before the battle, in which Themistocles had feigned treason towards the Greeks ( 8 .75. lff ) , is balanced by a second mission ( with the same messenger, cf. 8.110.2, Twv xa.t ECxLvvõ o otxETñ a.OTL~ £ylv£To ) after the battle, in which he claims both to have acted in the interests of the king ( and has not) and to be acting treasonably towards the Greeks ( and is ). Moreover the second embassy clearly cannot be historical: Themistocles can hardly have hoped to deceive the Great King again so soon, to mention not the least of the possible objections 1°7. How much of this contrasting parallelism is due to Herodotus and how much to the tradition before him? Clearly we cannot talk of outright Herodotean invention, since Thucydides, Ktesias and ( more obviously independent) Aeschines of Sphettos provide us with early testimonies to the prevalence of the .tradition outside Herodotus 108. And yet we should not be too hasty here. For Ktesias, the second embassy is only a device of Themistocles' ( with Aristides! ) to secure Xerxes' flight from Europe ( xa.t ~£Uy£L ) . In Aeschines the Socratic, Themistocles is said to have been unable to persuade the Athenians (sic) to dismantle the bridges, but then to have sent the message to Xerxes pretending he had saved him. Similarly in Thucydides ( 1.137.4 ), Themistocles writes to Artaxerxes that he has done I most harm to the kingts house of all the Hellenes, but also sti 11 greater good'~ a cl aim he supports with reference possibly to the mission to Xerxes at Salamis ( ~podyy£AOLV Tñ &v~xwpncrew~ ) and clearly to the second mission ( Tnv ,wv yqiupwv, Hv ,μ:c,,v.uui'.;i_,_ ~pOOEUOLJlOO.tÕ TOT£ $1.,1 «&:rlv of;' 6LaAU0h\) ).Are we obliged to conclude that the Ktesias-versi.on is the apologetic answer to an invention of the tradition hostile to Themistocles, the latter independently finding its•way into Herodotus, Thucydides and Aeshines? Or could we not say -44that Herodotus initiated the malicious interpretation of an originally favourable story ( as preserved by Ktesias ) and that his account influenced ( directly or indirectly) those of Thucydides and Aeschines1091 Even if we do not accept that it was Herodotus' idea to make of the second mission not a bland doublet of the first but a pointed contrast, we are obliged to note the extraordinarily detailed dramatization of this episode. We are given a full account of this debate at Andros, with a lengthy report of Eurybiadas 1 speech against the proposal of Themistocles ( 8.108.2-4 ); a description of the state of mind of the Athenians ( 109.l), followed by Themistocles 1 speech to them, again at length ( 109.2-4 ); an account of their reasons for trusting hts advice ( 110.l ); and finally a paragraph on the mission to Xerxes ( 110.2-3 ), together with the speech of Sikinnos ( cf. 8.75.2 ). All this dramatization, speeches, inferences as to motive and disposition, is surely free invention by Herodotus; the fullness of the account indeed lends support to the view that it ha.d sufficient authority to influence the tradition followed by Thucydides and Aeschines. On any explanation of the origins of this version of the story, however, Herodotus is clearly concerned to point up in the greatest detail the twists and turns of Themistoclest career. For Herodotus, no less than for Thucydfdes, Themistocles is the man who both saved the Greeks at Salamis and betrayed them when he subsequently went over to Artaxerxes: this story, with its explicit reminder of Themistocles 1' medism ( Tc! 1H:::p Ziv 1t~t &-ytv£To ) , forms the bridge between these two sides of his life. Moreover it underlines that Themistocles is indeed the same man all through: on both occasions that he uses the diplomacy of Sikinnos ( and indeed on a third as well, cf. 8.112. l ) he is exhibiting the same opport1.mJsm .. The same quality that won the victory for the Greeks at Salamis is used wtith equal foresight to provide himself with a -45retreat from the disfavour of his countrymen. Those who argue that Herodotus has been blinkered here against an appreciation of Themistocles 1 virtues by a hostile source, must face the paradox that at the very moment of describing his deception of the Athenians he goes out of his , way to remind us of, and commend in his own person,that genuine wisdom and foresight which had won him their trust ( 8.110.l, &~dvn &~v Herodotus moreover offers us an impressive and characteristic irony here, when he puts into Themistocles' speech to deceive the Athenians an interpretation of the Greek victory whi eh shows"iht1mJJit*y, insight, piety and restraint. The Greeks, he argues~ should see their achievemnt in perspective; the lesson is clearly a Herodotean one110: Needless to say, however, Themistocles is one of the people least appropriate as the mouthpiece of such sentiments, and least of all Herodotust Themistocles. The immediate context, the second mission of Sikinnos to Xerxes, forcibly reminds us that this Themistocles is duplicitous, ambitious, rash and treacherous: even these very words of piety are meant to deceive. We have in short little choice but to accept the irony of this speech as Herodotean. His source at the most can have told him no more than that Themistocles d . d h A h . . f ~ . f d . th b *-d l ll ece1ve t e t enians lnto re rarnlng rom estroyrng e ri ges : the rest, with its lesson of piety and restraint, is surely Herodotus• own elaboration. 8. We are now in a position to see that this sort of paradox is a deliberate and characteristic device. Herodotus makes a habit of having the 1wrong1 people say the 1 right 1 things. A character can be made to deliver an opinion that is penetratingly true or strikingly upright, whose b~haviour otherwise speaks only of blind misjudgement or a complete disregard for truth. We have already met two examples of this, in Leotychidas1 lesson on honesty delivered to the Athenians 6.86 ), and in Xerxes1 lesson on justice to the Spartan heralds -46- ( 7.136 ). Indeed the work1 s final chapter is a variation of the same device ( 9.122 ): Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire, the man who initiated the nomos of Persian expansion ( cf. 7.8a.l ), himself th P . . th d f th . 112 Th warns e ersians against e angers o at expansion e particular examples which most closely parallel this speech of Themistocles~ are the various anecdotes of Pausanias 1 conduct after Plataea, whose ironies were well observed by Fornara113. In the story of the concubine of Pharandates ( 9.76 ), of the interview with Lampon of Aegina ( 9.78-9 ), and of the luxury of Mardonius ( 9.82 ), Pausanias is made to speak for Hellenic piety and restraint i,n opposition to Persian excess the same man, who, as all Herodotus1 generation will have known, so soon after succumbed to all the temptations of Oriental despotism ( cf. Thucydides 1.130.lf, with Herodotus 5.32; see further Ch.II.iii )113a. Before drawing conclusions about the nature and variety of the paradoxes used by Herodotus i:n his treatment of character and action, I wish to look at one more example, on a larger scale, which will show the techniques operating on a broader canvas, that is between episodes rather more than within them. Herodotus on Human Nature, Part ii: Cleomenes. 1. Herodotus• narrative of the doings of Cleomenes is commonly criticized as being the confused synthesis of discrepant materials. Jeffery, for example, has this to say of Cleomenes114: "Nearly all our knowledge of his reign comes from Herodotus, and ( inevitably in a non-consecutive narrative covering so wide a range in space and time ) the account is disjointed, one piece apparently from a favourable source, another from an unfavourable. The most hostile sources would be the true queen's Agid next-of-kin, and the family of the Eurypontid king Damaratos11~ ••• the most favourable, his mother's family and the Eurypontid next-of-kin of Latychidas ... 11 • -47At first $ight this is a reasonable attempt to explain Herodotus' text, but it is a kind of interpretation which offers little credit to his intelligence. It assumes that despite the importance, both literary and historical, which he clearly attaches to Cleomenes, he has been unable to form any coherent model for his character to help him in selecting and presenting his material, and'instead has botched it together in desperation at the complexity of the task. It is true that the sci ssors-and-paste*:tl'lecrry:*does na:'\f:e a;::supe-rftcta l attraction in this case, because of the apparently confusing way Herodotus has laid out the story, scattered about in some disorder and without a simple connecting narrative chain. To say that the presentation of Cleomenes is 1 disjointed 1 , however, will not do if it means anything more than that chronological order is disturbed and that the narrative comes in the form of episodes 116. Styli sti ea lly and aestheti ea lly the Cleomenes stories do have a considerable coherence; indeed it is clear that Herodotus has gone out of his way to elaboriite the part played by Cleomenes to give a ::-focus to long stretches of Greek history ( 5.39-76 117 and 6. 50-84 ) ., -48In this respect Cleomenes can be said to do for Herodotus1•Greek history what his Persian or Lydian kings do for his oriental history 118. The story of Cleomenes indeed uses certain themes from the narratives of Herodotus' oriental kings. As we shall see, for example) Cleomenes' encounter with the river Erasinos ( 6.76. lf ) has an obvious similarity with the irreverent treatment of rivers by eastern imperialists, and in particular there are important correspondences with Cambyses. Both are suspected of madness ( Herodotus uses the same word hypomargoteros of each: 3.29.l, with 6.75.l ), both die from self-inflicted wourids119, and the madness of both, as well as their violent and premature deaths are traceable to acts of sacrilege ( see below). These correspondences of detail suggest strongly that it was indeed Herodotus I intention to make a coherent unity of the Cleomenes story, to be comparable with the tragedies of his oriental dynasts. In Books Five and Six, the various strands of Greek history in the two or three decades before the Persian Wars have been worked into a complex and impressionistic embroidery. The narrative is discontinuous, selective, chronologically disjointed but we e1n=rge knowing all we really need to know. The danger of this whole fabric falling apart is, in part at least, avoided by Herodotus' deployment of the figure of Cleomenes. The one character bestrides several key areas of Greek history at this period: the emergence of Athens from tyranny and her growing dominance over her neighbours, the medizing of Aegina, the crushing defeat of Argos, and :less specifically, thecontinuing and growing tension between Sparta and the rest of the Greek world, both her enemies and her allies, as well as Sparta 1 s changed position in internationa 1 affairs, as reflected in her response to overtures from Ionia ( Maiandrios, Aristagoras ). All this is essentiil for ou~ understanding of the background to the events of the Persian Wars -49themselves and the dispositions of the protagonists on the Greek side. In this Cleomenes is made to stand for the Spartan body politic: the inscrutable machinery of the Spartan state has deliberately been given a human face by Herodotus to simplify and clarify the exposition. 2. Moreover the narrative of Cleomenes1 doings is itself held together by a strong element of patterning. The main pattern is the recurrence of the motif of 1 intervention 1 , diplomatic and military interference in the affairs of other states by Cleomenes and the Spartans: (a) the two expeditions to remove the Peisistratids at Athens ( 5.62.2ff ); (b) the intervention at the instigation of Isagoras to remove Cleisthenes and his party from Athens ( 5.70.lff ); (c) the abortive invasion mounted by Cleomenes to punish the Athenians for their treatment of him on his previous 1 visit 1 ( 5.74.lff ); (d) a further abortive mission against a free Athens which interrupts the war with Aegina, an attempt to restore Hippias ( 5.90. lff: not explicitly described as being led by Cleomenes ); (e) then Cleomenes' ftrst abortive expedition to Aegina 6.50 ); (f) the second successful mission with Leotychidc1,s, ( 6.73.lff ); (g) and finally the invasion of the Argolid ( 6.76.lff ). Herodotus shows us that he is indeed thinking in terms of patterns here, when he says of Cleomenes' unsuccessful expedition against Athens ( 5.76 = (c) above) that bhis was the fourth time that the Dorians had come to Attii:.a, twice in war ( otg ht 1toAsμooL ) and twice with friendly purposes ( 1tat ots; h' &ya.\JwL ): the settlement of Megara in the time of Codrus, the two times that they came to-drive out the Peisistratids ( the first under Ankhimolios had been a failure; 5.62.2ff ), and now Cleomenes I invasion of Eleusis 120.. Wf' are ent'itled to infer that he sees the same contrasts and comparisons in the rest of the sequence. Herodotus uses the theme of intervention as the basis for variations: success and failure, goodwill and aggression, just and unjust causes, -50pure and impure motive. The expedition to remove the Peisistratids is in outward appearance commendably motivated and carried off without abuse. The Spartans could be justly proud of their reputation for ridding the Greek states of tyranny ( cf. 5.92a.1 ), and, as we have just seen, Herodotus himself describes the expedition ( in contrast with the later full-3cale invasion) as undertaken for the good of the Athenians ( eE' &y~~wL, 5.76 ). But Herodotus has of course let it be known that the Spartans had been encouraged by a .false oracle from Delphi121, and that in marching on Athens they were disregarding their ties of guest-friendship with the Peisistratids ( 5.63.2 ). In other words, even at this stage Herodotus has introduced disturbing cross-currents into the narrative of the liberation ( see further Ch.II.ii ). The superficial impression however is that Cleomenes is indeed acting here in the best interests of Ut.e Athenians 122. And yet the very same Cleomenes responds but a few chapters later to a call from Isagoras to help expel Cleisthenes and set up a narrow oligarchy ( 5.70.lff ). Herodotus introduces this episode by mentioning two seemingly gratuitous details, which however turn out to have particular point for the interpretation of the narrative: (i) that Isagoras had become friends with Cleomenes from the siege of the Peisistratids, and (ii) that rumour had it that Cleomenes slept with Isagoras 1 wife. By mentioning the circumstances under which Cleomenes and Isagoras had bec:bme friends, Herodotus means to draw our attention to the way that the present enterprise contrasts with the liberation of Athens from tyranny, in which both of them had played a part. By mentioning the rumour of Cleomenes1 adultery., Herodotus casts a smear over both the adulterer and the cuckold, and we are invited to connect private with public morality: ------- --**-~--------- -51just as Isagoras lets another man into his bed, so he gives another man responsibility in the private affairs of his city 123. Further Cleomenes' conduct of the mission, especially by comparison with the previous one, is excessive and harsh. Having secured the removal of Cleisthenes and his family by dredging up the Cylonian curse, as instructed by Isagoras ( 5.70.2 ), he nonetheless ( ouoh nacrov ) makes his way to Athens ( 72.1 ), and drives out 700 other families as guilty of the curse, under instructions from Isagoras. He then sets about removing the bouli and putting the constitution into the hands of 300 of Isagoras' stasiotai. But the attempt is resisted and Cleomenes and Isagoras having siezed the Acropolis are besieged and then forced to surrender 124. Cleomenes' third expedition to Attica ( 5.74.lff) is motivated, so Herodotus tells us, by nothing more than private enmity: snLcrTaμEvos We are told indeed that he did not explain to the Peloponnesians why he was assembling them ( ou qip&~wv ss To cruAAEYEL ), but that his intention was to punish the Athenian demos and set up Isagoras as tyrant. There is an instructive parallel here with the behavi6ur of Miltiades after Marathon, where Herodotus again showrus a general with a private grudge who witholds his true intentions from the army ( cf. 6. 132, ou qip&cras crqiL h' nv , * , , . ) 125 EnLcrTpaTEUCTETaL xwpnv • The same Cleomenes who in the first expedition had freed Athens from the tyrants, in the second had supported an oligarchic, anti-democratic faction, in this third attempt at intervention plans to restore the very condition of tyranny he had; with such apparent justice, helped to remove. As it happens Cleomenes is faced with a revolt at Eleusis, when the Corinthians change their minds and decide that what they are doing is wrong ( ws 06 1r0Lotev Ta a Cua La ) ; and they are followed by Demaratus ( 75.1 ) , whom we judge also to be acting on right principle, since Herodotus goes out of his way to tell -52us that he had previously held no grudge against Cleomenes ( ou1< lwv ). The alienation of sympathy for Cleomenes is something that Herodotus is careful to chart: in the first expedition he had acted with the support of both the Spartans ( crTpaTnyov ... &rro6ssavTE~) and the majority of the Athenian people; in the second he appears to be acting unofficially ( ou ãv μEy&A"L XELpC ) and without the support of the body of the Athenians; in the third ( Oll (f)pai;;wv £~ To cruAAiyEL ) he loses the support even of the Peloponnesian allies and of his fellow-king, Demaratus. He is no longer a disinterested champion of freedom but rather a self-willed and despotic leader, acting on nothing better than private animosity. The parallel with Miltiades is clear: both men are paradoxically inconsistent in their championship of the ideal of freedom, both seem to deteriorate in the same way. That Herodotus is sensitive to the paradox of Cleomenes first championing Athenian freedom, then plotting to re-impose the tyranny, can be inferred from what he has Socles of Corinth say when the Spartans as a whole try to undo the work of the liberation ( 5.92a.l ). usurely the he1wens wi 11 change places.with the earth, and men take to 1 i vi ng in the sea and fishes on the land, now that the Spartans, of all people, are destroying 1 isocracies 1 and preparing to set up tyrannies 11 ( see Ch.II.ii ). It may be true that the Spartans were cheated by the Alcmeonids into betraying their friends the Peisistratids ( see above), but Herodotus does not let us forget that they claimed credit for their action, and thus fully deservedthe charge of i neons istency. The same kind of reversal marks Cleomenes1 behaviour over Aegina: in the first expedition to the island Cleomenes appears to be actir.g in the best interests of Greece in attempting to punish the medizers among the Aeginetans ( 6.50 ), and indeed Herodotus explicitly says later that -53his action is commendable at this moment ( 6.61.1 ): sov-ra. sv 'I'fit, Ah'.lvnt, 126 He is indeed accused by Krios of acting on bribery ( 50.2 ) : 11he is acting without the authority of the Spartan assembly, bribed by Athenian money; if not, he would have come-to arrest them in company with the other king11 • But (adds Herodotus) Krios said all this on instructions from Demaratus127 who was plotting meanwhile against Cleomenes at Sparta, as we are told soon after ( 6.51; cf. 6.61.1 ). On a first impression the accusation of bribery seems unfounded~ and Cleomenes seems indeed to be acting on good principle for the safety of Greecej but neither Cleomenes nor Herodotus attempts to refute the charge, and nothing that is otherwise said implies that it is not true. Though we do not perhaps suspect duplicity of motive on a first reading, we might well reconsider when we are told later about Cleomenes1 bribery of the Pythia. Herodotus has merely planted the doubt: he puts the burden of interpretation on the reader. Cleomenes1 settlement of the Aegina question is then interrupted by his own plot to depose Demaratus ( 6.51-72 ), in the course of which narrative we come to change our minds about his motives towards Aegina. At 6.51 we hear that Demaratus was plotting against Cleomenes at Sparta while the latter was in Aegina; at which point we are inclined, since we have not yet heard enough about Oemaratus' grievance 128, to sympathize with Cleomenes~ who after all seems to be acting altruistically and in a good cause. After a digression on the origins of the Spartan dual kingship, we hear again ( 6.61.1 )129 that Demaratus was plotting against his fellow-king while the latter was in Aegina: only this time we are told explicitly what we had suspected before: that Cleomenes was occupied with the common interests of Greece ( see above ) and that Demaratus was motivated not so much by sympathy for the Aeginetans as by -54n , )130 ayñ XP£wμ£võ • It is interesting however that Herodotus should put it this way, allowing that perhaps the Aeginetans did deserve sympathy. No doubt Cleomenes was acting in the common interest of Greece, but his action was certainly an infringement of the 1 i berti es. of another Greek state, and perhaps not even a Spartan satellite ( cf. n.133 ). We are beginning to see that Cleomenes1 action is less simple than it at first appeared. Indeed it is from this point that things start to change, as we find out that, on his return from Aegina, Cleomenes sets about trying to depose Demaratus ( in turn as it were): there is no explanation here of his motives, and we plunge straight into a discussion of his pretext,. with a digression on the amours of Ariston ( 6.61-4 ). When that is over, Herodotus tells us ( 6.64) that it seemed fated for Ariston's indiscretion to come to light and deprive Demaratus of the kingship~ and that Demaratus had on this account violently fallen out with Cleomenes ( K)..rnμi::vti: 6~£$)..n-&n: μqa)w~ ) even before, when he had led the army back from Eleusis ( cf. 5.75.1 above), and especially now that Cleomenes had sailed against the Aeginetans. We cannot tell whether this connexion between Demaratus• behaviour at Eleusis and the beginni.ngs of his quarrel was actually made by Herodotus' source or whether it was his own inference 131. Either way he has ~refully chosen his moment to bring it to our attention, since it now clearly makes a difference to our appreciation of the quarrel between the two kings. At Eleusis Demaratus had gone against Cleomenes "not from any previous grudge11, as Herodotus had made clear at the time, but following the lead of the Corinthians who realised that "what they were doing was not just". By making this connexion here and not earlier as he might have done, Herodotus makes us begin to see Demaratus' quarrel with Cleomenes in a different light: opposing Cleomenes at Eleusis had been a just thing for him to do and did not deserve the hostility of Cleomenes. There is ---********-******* -55then a symmetry in Herodotus' juxtaposition here: Demaratus' good deed at Eleusis is balanced by Cleomenes1 good deed at Aegina, so that just as Demaratus seems to be wrong to use the occasion of Aegina to plot against Cleomenes, so Cleomenes seems to be wrong when he dates his hostility to Demaratus from the occasion of Eleusis. Herodotus goes on to say next that it was Cleomenes' desire to pay back Demaratus ( 65.1, opμñets ) that decided him to band together with Leotychidas; and he does so on the understanding that Leotychidas will follow him against the Aeginetans ( eu' iliL TE ••• E~e,aC ol eu' ACyLvn,as ). By now this sounds much more sinister than it did a couple of pages before ( 6.61.l ). It is not only that the means ( the treacherous deposition of Demaratus } affect our approval of the end ( the 'deserved 1 punishment of the Aeginetans ), but the end itself begins to seem not quite the same. This suspicion is confirmed when we learn next ( 6.73.l ) that when Cleomenes had succeeded against Demaratus, he at once took Leotychidas to Aegina, smarting with anger at the insl:Jlt he had received from the . 1 d ' ' " ' ' ' ' " 1s an ers: oeLvov ,Lva cr~L eyxo,ov oLa ,ov upounAaXLcrμovexwv 132 Cleomenes is either not after all or not any more acting on principle, but on private animosity. There is an obvious parallel with his expedh -tions to Athens: in both cases he starts with an apparently good cause ( freedom at Athens, the common good of Greece at Aegina} and ends doing no more than settling a private score; in both cases he feels he has been personally insulted ( perihybristhai at Athens, propilakismos at Aegina ). Once the Aeginetans have been forced into handing over tne hostages 73.2 }133, Herodotus tells us that Cleomenes and Leotychidas deposited them with the Athenians, or rather 11with the people most hostile to the In other words, this was no true paratheke, but one which had the interests of the 1 deposit 1 least at heart: the Spartans hoped ( Herodotus surely implies) that the hostages would get a rough time. If we have not already guessed that this was a vicious act, we realize as much when ( 6.85. lf ) after the death of Cleomenes the Spartans put Leotychidas -56on trial, at the instigation of the Aeginetans, and find him guilty of criminal brutality ( perihybristhai ). And this is where for the Spartans at least Cleomenes' intervention in Aegina "in the common interest of Greece" has its ignominious end, with Leotychidas forced to argue for what is effectively a reversal of the whole enterprise. If this is the right way to read Herodotus1 portrait of Cleomenes, then we have much less reason to look for contradictions in his account as evidence for the influence of rival sources. When at 6.61.1 Herodotus delivers an obviously favourable commentary on Cleomenes' action in Aegina, when he was "acting in the common interests of Greece11 ( JWl,Vc:t TT)l, 'EncU)l, cryãa lCpOEpyai;QμEVOV ) ' he is clearly exercising his own editorial voice, rather than borrowing the judgement of a source. If indeed a source had supplied him with such a judgement, and he felt it to be inconsistent with his own model of Cleomenes' character, he could just as easily have left it out altogether, and at the most have said nothing more than he did at 6.51, a passage which the present one recapitulates in amplified form ( cf. n.129 ) . Indeed the judgement at 6.61 is structurally quite independent of the two narrative panels of Cleomenes1 activities in Aegina ( at 6.50 and 6.73 ), and itself*merely forms a part of a link-passage, bringing Cleomenes back to Sparta for his contest with Demaratus, after the digression of the Spartan dual kingship ( 6.51-60 ). We can hardly go so far in source-analysis as to postulate that even Herodotus1 link-passages depend for their sentiments on the prejudices of his informants. The conclusion that Herodotus himself has intruded this surprising commendation of Cleomenes action is irresistible. This passage can help to explain the other favourable impressions of Cleomenes. Its principal effect is one of perspective, of contrast between the ignobility of Demaratus1 plotting and the desirability ( to put it no stronger) of Cleomenes1 action on behalf of Greece: -57seen against the background of the threat from Demaratus, Cleomenes' action appears admirable and uncomplicated. But the effect is certainly one of perspective only: it is not that Cleomenes becomes a different sort of person, but that in the right context his actions can take on a surprising aspect; indeed it is Herodotus' point that an unexpected variety of betiaviour can come from the same character, without his necessarily ever changing. 3. Herodotus adopts the same sort of trick of presentation for his first introduction of Cleomenes. When Maiandrios flees from Samas and the Persians, he comes to Sparta to get help ( 3.148.lf ). He has his gold and silver goblets polished and displayed, and invites C1eomenes son of Anaxandridas, king of Sparta, to his house. Cleomenes wonders at the goblets ( &~£~wμas£ TE xã £~£~Ancrcr£TO ) and Maiandrios tells him to take as many as he would like. But though Maiandrios twice and three times repeated his invitation, Cleomenes behaved most justly ( 3.148.2, 6t,xaL<haTDs &v6pi7r'.l ytv£rnl, ), in that he did not think it right ( oux to uxaCqy ) to take what was offered him134. Rea 1 i zing that if Maiandrios approached others of the Spartans, he wou.ld succeed in getting help against the Persians, he went to the ephors and said that it would be best if the Samian stranger left the Peloponneses lest he persuade e1.ther himself ( Cl eomenes ) or any other of the Spartans to do wrong ( xaxt>v y£vfõal, ) • The ephors agree to his request and order Maiandrios out of Sparta. -58Clearly much of the force of this story is in the contrast between Maiandrios and the Spartan king. Cleomenes' behaviour elicits from Herodotus the comment that he acted most justly { 6LxaL6,a,õ &vopwv yCve,aL ), and the words remind us of what he said of Maiandrios himself only a few pages before { 3.142.l ), that Maiandrios wanted to behave most justly but was prevented from doing so ( ,wL oLxaLo,a,wL &vopwv $ouAoμlvwL yevtcr~aL oux E~eylveio; cf. Ch.I.i ). There is an unmistakable irony here which the echo ( guaranteed by the proximity of the two passages ) underlines: we are encouraged to reflect how far Maiandrios has come from his starting-point and to wonder whether Cleomenes is not going to go the same way. The irony for Cleomenes is that though he rejects bribery here, he ends up using bribery himself in the most shameful of circumstances ( 6.66.2 ), corrupting the promantis at Delphi to secure the removal of Demaratus. Herodotus possibly knew that he could count on his reader's familiarity, at least in vague terms, with the corruptibility of Cleomenes, so that there is meant to be a surprise effect in this first introduction. -594. We next meet Cleomenes when Herodotus reports the arrival of another ambassador to Sparta ( 5.39.lff )135. It is clear that the interview with Aristagoras ( 5.49.lff) is in narrative terms an elaboration or amplification of the interview with Maiandrios: the same ingredients are common to both scenes the Ionian ambassador with shady motives, suing for Spartan assistance against Persia, but with an ambition to restore himself to power in his own city; the offering of temptation, in Maiandrios1 case gold and silver, in Aristagoras 1 case the riches of all Asia, which despite the insistence of the ambassador is resisted by the Spartan king136. As an elaboration, however, the Aristagoras scene is both more involved and more closely observed than its model. Herodotus at first delays the report of the interview itself, so that it comes a number of pages after the first mention of Aristagoras 1 arrival ( 5.39.1 with 49.1, a sort of ring). In the course of these pages Herodotus has been building up a negative picture of Cleomenes: he becomes thereby the unworthy successor to Anaxandridas, who by contrast with the relatively uncomplicated hero Dorieus cuts a poor figure. Again the t~tck of perspective is characteristically Herodotean: the :oeject of our attention changes before our eyes as the field of vision shifts to take in a different set of relations. Thus Cleomenes is re-introduced at 5.39.1 as the successor to Anaxandridas, õ xaT' Herodotus then plunges straight into the digression on Anaxandridast bigamy -60- ( 5.39.2-41.3 ), with its bizarre consequences for Cleomenes' parentage. The king's second wife is the first to bear child ( Cleomenes ), while the first wife, hitherto barren, immediately after, 'as it so happened', bears three children in succession, Dorieus, Leonidas and Kleombrotos, and the second wife bears no more children after Cleomenes. Herodotus strains after paradox and irony here. He tells us that Anaxandridas' bigamywas'whollyun-Spartan' ( cf. 5.40.2 ), so that although Cleomenes succeeded by right of primogeniture, as was the custom ( cf. 5.4-1-2, with 6.52.3 ), Herodotus seems to imply that if his father had observed Spartan custom he would never have been born in the first place and Dorieus would have been king instead. Herodotus is particularly interested in the confusions and contradictions of royal succession, and especially at Sparta 137: such confusions suggest to him that kingship itself is arbitrary and that it is by no natural right that one man becomes king rather than any other. This is especially evident in the case of Dorieus and Cleomenes. Herodotus returns to the subject of Anaxandridas' successor ( 5.42.1 ) by observing that "Cleomenes, as they say, was half-mad" ( see below), while "Dorieus was the best of his contemporaries and knew that by rights he should have SacrLAnLnv; cf. 5.39.1 ). In other words, despite his natural advantage Dorieus is overlooked in favour of Cleomenes, who is by contrast an th t th k. h. 138 unwor y successor o e 1ngs 1p . After a digression oti the adventures of Dorieus after leaving Sparta ( 5.42.2-47.2 ), Herodotus returns to Cleomenes yet again, once more contrasting him with his lialf-brother ( 5.48 ) : "if Dorieus had put up with being ruled by Cleomenes and had remained at home, he would have been king of Sparta; for Cleomenes ruled no great length of time, but died childle~s except for one daughter, Gorgo'' ( 06 y~p -61μo.uvnv h11wv ). These words have caused considerable difficulty: it has seemed that Herodotus has been misled by the hostility of his source(s) towards Cleomenes into saying something not only historically inaccurate 139 but which seems even to overlook the importance of Cleomenes in his own narrative 140. There are however clear objections to this interpretation, besides the obvious one that it credits Herodotus with the most extreme short;,.sightedness. First an ad hominem argument: the inaccuracy of Herodotus• historical claim may not on his terms be as glaring as it seems to us. We cannot know how long he actually believed Cleomenes• reign to have been, and he may have been relying here on an imprecise calculation of the chronology of the reign 141. Accordingly he may have been influenced into believing the reign to have been a short one by the consideration that when Cleomenes died, his brother Leonidas was still young enough to succeed him and even in the prime of life, to judge from Thermopylae just as Dorieus might have done142. Clearly however th . t . t h th t th . h t * t f * 143 e porn 1s no so muc a e reign was s or ,n erms o years . , and Herodotus does not attempt to give the length of it in years. Indeed this absence of a precise measurement may well be the clue to the understanding of what Herodotus is doing here. If he had actually been told by his source that Cleomenes1 reign was short, but without a figure, we should have expected him to have tried to test the statememt against his own facts and supply the length of the reign from his own calculations. It is hard to see how he can have been happy to accept such a report without question, when on his own evidence Cleomenes1 reign covers such a wide range. The answer seems rather to be that he avoids giving a precise figure, because he is aware that to do so would spoil the effect he is trying to produce. Indeed we may infer that he is being deliberately evasive from the form of words he has chosen at this point: ou yap n va 1t0Hov xpovov 1 ooks very much 1 i ke hedging. The effect of the t is 144 L -62is to intensify the adjective, so that we should translate 11not a very long time'', with a stress on the 1 very 1 • In other words Herodotus seems to be admitting that the reign was indeed relatively long ( for his purposes! ), though not of the longest; but for the enclitic. however, he would be saying something much less defensible! What effects Herodotus means to secure by this slei~ht of hand can be seen if we compare how he reports the death:of Cambyses ( 3.66.2 ), "who ruled in all for 7 years and 5 months, and died childless, with neither male nor female issue" ( BaoLAEdoavTa μtv T~ ndvTa lnT~ ~TEa The similarity with Cleomenes is ,obvious except that in Cambyses' case Herodotus is not constrained to glnss over th~ exact length of the reign in years. *Both kings reign for only a short,time and die without male issue: Herodotus could n.ot of course dispose of Gorgo. although he pointedly emphasizes that she is his only child, and female at that ( cf. 5.48, with 51.1 ). Cambyses and Cleomenes, as we said earlier, complement each other in Herodotus' account and we can now see that that includes the significance of their premature and childless deaths, both paying a fitting retribution for their crimes against gods and men. We can compare also the fate of Leotychidas, Cleomenes' partner in crime: as we have seen, Herodotus goes out of his way to report how Leotychidas failed to live out his life as king at Sparta ( 6.72.1, OU μev ou6t AEUTUXL6QS XaTEynpa £V EnapTnL ) and how he left no male heir, ( 6.71.l, .Leotychidas 1 second wife bore him no male heir: lx Tns ot ~poEv μtv ). There is .an obvious parallelism in the falls of Cleomenes and Leotychidas in Herodotus' account; and of cõrse both suffer for the same2 crimes, both in Herodotus' judgement -63paying retribution for the wrong they did Demaratus145. Herodotus 1 11 surpri s fog i naccuracf 1 is thus not surprising, if we appreciate his use of perspective here 146, both in the anticipation of Cleomenes' crimes and the appropriateness of his violent and premature death, and in the contrast between Cleomenes, the man who is king by virtue of his birth but deserves not to be, and Dorieus, the man who was never king but deserved to be by merit. Herodotus invites us to compare the reign of Cleomenes with what Oorieus might have achieved had he been king, indeed with what his true brother, Leonidas, actually did achieve when Cleomenes died ( cf. 7.205.1 ). From this point of view the reign of Cleomenes was no more than an inglorious interlude: the glamorous adventures of Dorieus in Libya and Sicily ( disastrous though they are: 5.42-7) serve in part at least to elaborate this comparison. 5. When, immediately after, we turn back again to Cleomenes, resuming the story of his reception of Aristagoras ( 5.49.1 with 39.l ), we are disposed to him quite differently from but a few pages before. We are no longer in a position to accept him as the uncomplicated hero of the Maiandrios-story: we have been reminded of the tradition of his madness, and that in point of virtue ( andragathie) he is deficient in the qualities of the good king. The comparison with Dorieus has made us see him as weak. Aristagoras• temptati~n speech turns out to be a test of that weakness although not altogether straightforwardly. The speech itself ( 5.f:J.2-8) introduces into the Greek history an opportunity for comparing the different attitudes of Greeks and orientals to conquest. It is a clear variation on the familiar pattern of the warning speech as delivered to eastern kings147 but a temptation to territorial ambition rather than a warning against it. As many -641warners 1 do ( cf. esp. Sandanis at l.71.2ff ), Aristagoras supports his argument with a sort of Hecataean ethnographic description of the enemy. He observes that the Persians are an ,eqsyprey ( 49.3 ) , since they fight with bows and short spears and go into battle wearing trousers ( anaxyridas; cf. 1.71.2: a detail also highlighted by Sandanis ) and oriental headdresses: He goes on to describe in some detail the riches of all the different peoples of the Persian empire, and uses his map as an aid to exposition ( 49.5 ): 6sLxv~, 6~ IAsys TaUTa ks Co6o\J. We are obviously reminded at this point of Hecataeus, and not only Hecataeus the author. Only a few chapters earlier, Herodotus reported how the great geographer had addressed the Ionian confederates to argue the folly of revolt from Persia ( 5.36.2 ): xaTaAsywv Ta TE It is clear that Herodotus wants to show Aristagoras turning Hecataeus 1 warning on its head: both use the same evidence to argue quite opposite points of view. Men like Aristagoras, implies Herodotus, see only what they want to see and more dangerous sti 11 try to persuade others to see things the same way. There is of course something a little artificial in Herodotus' putting Cleomenes here in the position of an oriental king, tempted to engage in territorial ambition on this scale 148. To envisage a Spartan king at this moment in history as a potential conqueror of the entire kingdom of Asia is an improbable conceit, even for an Aristagoras, and especially when we realize that all Aristagoras can really be asking for is that Sparta help liberate Ionia 149. But the work as Herodotus has. conceived it invites such comparisons; and besides we are here also looking beyond Cleomenes and Sparta at the Athenians and Athenian democracy, which the comparison much better suits ( cf. Ch. I I.ii ) . The first thing Cleomenes does on hearing Aristagoras' speech is to put him off for three days ( 49.9 )150, rather than rejecting or accepting -65the proposition at once. When the time comes for him to give his decision, he asks Aristagoras how far Susa is from the sea ( 50.l ): and Aristagoras makes a surprising blunder ( T!lla l~v aoq>os xat 6LaS!llwv lxetvõ~~ ): he should not have told the truth if. he wished to lead the Spartans into Asia, but he did, explaining that the journey took three months. Before Aristagoras could describe the journey, Cleomenes ordered him to leave Sparta before sunset: 11you are saying something the Spartans wi 11 not h f . ( ' *i:: ' . ' ' ' • , ear o _ouug:_va yap 1.tO)'~VJ,:DnEa L£s J\.axCoawovLoLdL ) , asking to lead them three months1 journey from the sea 11• The abruptness of Cleomenes' interruption ( u1tapm:foas Tov ••• loyov ) and the firmness of his dismissal ( 1tpo 6uvTos nlLou ) show not that he is doubtful whether the Spartans will agree151 but that he himself as a Spartan will not hear of it, any more than any Spartan would. What Herodotus appears to be making him say is that there is a Spartan tradition which nothing wi 11 make them break, which would hold them back from any enterprise of this kind. Aristagoras should have known, 11if he .wanted to lead the Spartans into Asia11 , that he should have made the expedition sound no different from a march into Tegea of Messenia152. The same attitude of mind causes the Spartans to delay at the time Oif Marathon ( 6.106.3, &6uvaTa M. aq>L ~v TC 1tapaUTLxa 1t0Le£LV JauTa ou Bouloμ[voLcrL luELV Tov v6μov ). rt is also the attitude of mind which distinguishes the Spartans from the Athenians, for whom Susa is not too distant a goal even now, even ff only in their imagination ( cf. eh.II.ii, on 5.97.1-3 ). rt is also the attitude of mind which distinguishes the Spartans from the Persians, for whom it is the never-,"elenting drive to extend their empire which has the force of tradition, as Xerxes reminds them at 7.8a.l: out'., mhds xaTnynaoμaL The natural drive of successful people to extend themselves is not absent in Sparta by any means 153, nor indeed in Cleomenes of all people. But the Spartans a re not the peop 1 e to overreach themse 1 ves in the way the. Persians of the Athenians seem to be. After Cleomenes1 rejection of Aristagoras 1 proposition, the Athenians' acceptance comes to seem all the more . .f. tl54 s, gn, , can • Cleomenes thus far stands for the Spartans as a whole: the picture -66of the limitations of Spartan ambition that emerges from this scene is clearly of importance for our understanding of their conduct during the Persian l>Jars. We see the Spartan character from a different aspect from that afforded us in Book One, where they seemed prepared to assist Croesus against the Persians. So far then we have seen Cleomenes tempted, and tempted all but successfully by the promise of an easy conquest of the Persian empire; but we have seen him hold back, as he remembers that he is after all a Spartan, bound by Spartan tradition. But Herodotus does not leave it at that. The second interview closes with Cleomenes retiring to his house, but Aristagoras follows him there, and asks to be heard as a suppliant, and tries to get Cleomenes to send away his daughter, Gorgo ( 11his only child and aged between eight and nine 11 , Herodotus reminds us). Cleomenes, however, bids him speak as he wants and not to hold back on the child I s account. Ari stagoras then offers the king money if he wi 11 oblige him,, starting at 10 talents; and as Cleomenes repeatedly nods his refusal, he keeps raising the sum, until at the moment when he promises 50 talents 155, the little girl cries out, "Father, the stranger will ruin you, unless you get up and 90~11 • Cleomenes is pleased with her advice and retires to another room, while Aristagoras leaves Sparta for good156• We need to approach this scene with careful attention to the tone: after the hyperbole of Aristagoras' proposition ( nothing short of the conquest of all Asia), the bathos of Gorgo's childish interruption. That -67it takes a warning from his eight year old daughter ( not even a son) to make Cleomenes realize the danger of his position, is an effect both piquant and a little humorous: it is amusingly incongruous that so momentous a decision should be taken on the advice of a child. And yet it is also ominous. Herodotus, to be sure, does not say of Cleomenes that he was ready to accept Aristagoras 1 50 talents; yet that he does not retire. until warned by Gorgo, clearly tells us something about his character. Fascinated by the temptation of so much money, he loses sight of what it is he should be doing. In this scene we detect something we did not notice in the interview with Maiandrios, where we saw only the positive side of Cleomenes' choice: his resistance to temptation seemed the action of an upright man, and Herodotus told us so; we were not encouraged to dwell on the possibility of his dishonesty. In the present scene the negative side predominates: here we see the resistance to temptation not so much as an act of virtue, but as a decision which very nearly turned out otherwise. After this scene we are much hetter prepared to see Cleomenes faltering and making the wrong decisions. Thus the final interview, by contrast with the previous two, tells us somethingabout Cleomenes himself as a man, rather than merely as a Spartan157. The episode as a whole involves a near paradox: Cleomenes very nearly goes back on his previous decision, whi eh seemed so firm and reso 1 ute. Herodotus here invites us to observe the contrast between Cleomenes as king of Sparta with public responsibilities and Cleomenes the private individual with ambitions of his own. Just as in the Athenian and Aeginetan episodes discussed above, here too we see a conflict between Cleomenes as a responsible monarch, acting in the best interests of others ( the Athenians, the Greeks as a whole, the Spartans ), and Cleomenes as a man with all too obvious weaknesses, The blood runs to his head and he -68ends up thinking only of himself, of private revenge or private profit 158 Cleomenes' decision will later be seen in the perspective of the Athenian decision to succumb to Aristagoras. When Herodotus comes to report that decision ( 5.97.2 ). he comments that it appears to be easier to deceive the many than to deceive one man ( noAAous yap oLxE ElvaL E~KETiaTEpov 6La8dAAELV fl lva ), inasmuch as Aristagoras was unable to deceive Cleomenes, but was successful with the 30,000 Athenians. Herodotus implies here that kingship may possess an advantage over democracy: it may happen that a king is more proof against deception or temptation than a democratic assembly. Darius observes ( 3.82.2 ), in similarly apologetic terms, that:if the monarch is the best man, his judgement will be best and he will be blameless in his control of the people ( yv~μnL y&p TOLadTnL C sc.&pCoTnL ) XPE~μEVO$ 1-~,poJedoL &v &μwμ~Tws ToU nÃ&Eos }; while under such a man secret plans would have the best chance of keeping out of the reach of public enemies ( OLyiLT6 Ti &v BoUAEdμaTa lnt 6uaμEvias &v6pas ÕTW μdALOTa ). Cleomenesl action appears to fit Darius' general description, exemplifying the 'efficiencyl of,monarchy as a form of administration ( it is an advantage of sorts that the 'secret' negotiations with Aristagoras go no further than the king; cf. Maiandrios, 3.148.2) and ~erodotus acutely observes its apologetic potential: if you want to justify kingship against democracy, here is a good opportunity, he implies. And yet when we pause for thought his example starts to look curiously unsatisfactory: we have seen CleomenesLdeci§ion at clbse-quarters, and from that standpoint the taking of it had seemed much less straightforward -indeed it might easily have gone the other way. What Dari us' arguments ignore is the question Of what happens if the king is not the best man. Although the Cleomenes eptsode seems to show that even a king not renowned for excellence can come to the right decisions, it also makes us see that it 159 wi11 not a1ways be so . 6. We turn fi na 11y to the episode in C1 eomenes 1 1 ife whi eh Herodotus 160 p1aces 1ast in sequence and out of chrono1ogica1 order , the Argosexpedition ( 6.76.1-84.1 ). Herodotus is not of course principa11y concerned to give an account of C1eomenes; his main task is to out1ine -69the course of Spartan and Athenian history in the years before the Persian Wars, and from that point of view C1eomenes is on1y of incidenta1 interest. And yet, as we have seen, the cha:racter of C1eomenes does a1so seem to be a focus of interest in *it! awn r:i ght, so that the Argosepi sode deserves its importance because C1eomenes has become intrinsica11y interesting, and it deserves to stand where it does because it forms a fitting c1imax to the 1 C1eomenes-storyl. The narrative has the character of a miniature oriental campaign-narrative of the unsuccessfu1 kind ( cf. e.g. Croesus' campaign against the Persians, Cyrus' against the Massagetai, Cambyses against the Aethiopians~ etc. ). For example the expedition is undertaken because of an orac1e which promises Cleomenes the capture of Argos ( 6.76.1 ), an orac1e which however proves misleading in that the grove not the city was meant ( 6.80 and 82.1f ). We may compare, for examp1e, the great expedition of Croesus against Persia with its famous mis1eading oracle ( 1.53.3 ), that to march against Persia 161 would mean the destruction of a great empire ( cf. 1.91.4) * . Herodotus thus rounds offhis account of Cleomenes with a story which brings together elements of the tragic stories of the oriental kings. This"is not the p1ace to give a detai1ed account of the Argive episode, except insofar as it i11ustrates the paradoxical oppositions of C1eomenes1 character. Another motif of the oriental campaign-narratives crops up in Cleomenes1 encounter with the Erasinos ( 6.76.lf ). Reaching the river with his army, he sacrifices to it; but when the omens wi11 not allow him -10to cross, he dec1ares that he respects the Erasinos for not betraying its people, but that the Argives will even so not escape him: &yaa&at,1.μ~v ( cf. 1.128.1, the threat to Cyrus of the impious Astyages ) . Cleomenes' address to the river parallels, in particular, Xerxes' address to the Hel1espont, when it destroys his bridge in a storm ( 7.35.2 ). Though Cleomenes commits no outrage against the Erasinos to compare with Xerxes' flogging of the Hellespont, and though he respects the sanctity of the river even to the extent of marching round it ( 76.2) rather than . . . t 162 1 . k h. . 1 h f t cross mg 1 , even so 1 e 1 s or, enta counterparts e re uses o observe the spirit of the game. As has often been recognized Herodotus treats rivers as limits of spheres of authority and the crossing of rivers for aggressive reasbns as having symbolic importance: those who disobey the rules and encroach into areas where they do not belong are playing a dangerous game 163. In speaking to the Erasin os as he does, Cleomenes reveals that he will let nothing stand in his way; and yet, unlike Xerxes, he tempers his arrogance with superstition and will not actually cross the river at a 11 . The difference is revealing: Cl eomenes I character ( far more than Xerxes' own: see above) is a paradoxical mixture of the blasphemous and the superstitious. Consider his behaviour at the Argive Heraion ( 6.81 ): informed by the priest that he may not as a stranger sacrifice there ( o6H oat,ov ), he gets his helots to lead the priest from the altar and flog him, before entering the temple and performing the sacrifice. The action seems at first sight to be that of a Cambyses: we remember that the Persian king had forced entry into the temple of the Kabeiroi ( 3.37.3 ):h TO OU ~E:μl,T()\) EO't'l, SOl,t\)al, &:u.ov yen 1:0V lprta But whereas Cambyses entered the temple to burn the images and revile what he found there ( uoAAa Ha1:aaHw4ã ), Cleomenes at least appears to have -71entered the Heraion for devotional reasons 164. Defending himself in the Spartan courts shortly after, he gives his own account of this episode, which Herodotus is in doubt as to how to interpret ( 82.1 ): õTE el He believed that by taking iile grove he had fulfilled the oracle, and did not think fit to make an attempt on the city until he had sacrificed and learnt whether the god meant to deliver the city to him or stand in his way. The omen he received in the Heraion, a flame shooting from the breast of the goddess, he interpreted as meaning the god was against him: had the flame come from the head it would have meant that he should take the city citadel and all, but the omen from the breast meant that all the god wished had already been accomplished. So saying, he pe'rsuaded the ., -.'* 61.,WXO\l"[CI.~. Cleomenes1 defence ( Herodotus implies ) mayjfor all we know, have been mere sophistry and his enemies' charge of bribery ( cf. Krios at Aegina, 6.50.2) may have been the real reason why he did not take the city ( 82.1 ): Herodotus affects to leave the matter open. Yet, as so often, the slant of his nafrative suggests that he has a particular interpretation in mind165. The unexplained entry into the Heraion becomes comprehensible only when supplemented by Cleomenes' account of its purpose: by mentioning it at all ( he could easily have left it out in the first place) and by explicitly telling us in the narrative that his purpose was to perform a sacrifice Herodotus has predisposed us to accept Cleomenes' explanation. Moreover his elaborately pious obser'.lanc~.$ here seem to accord with what we have been told of his behaviour at the Erasinos: his superstitious exactitude is brought out in his precision of detail over the interpretation of the portent. Moreover by drawing our attention to.the possibility that Cleomenes' defence was not the whole story, Herodotus in fact contrives to draw our attention to something else, the irony that Cleomenes should invoke -72the will of the gods in relatton to his horrendous impiety at the grove ( 6.80 ), which he had set alight with the Argives trapped inside in full knowledge of its sanctity, and the irony that his pious desire to discover the will of the god should involve him in an outrage against the priest of Hera. It may have been that the historical Cleomenes was a man of such contradictions, with a superstitious nature, but given to acts of senseless outrage against god~ and men; but Herodotus has his own purpose in so depicting him166. He has after all gone out of his way in recounting Cleomenes~defence to the Spartan courts in such .detail ( can we credit his sources with such elaboration? ) and we are entitled to ask why that detail is so important especially when the trial came to nothing! The best explanation is that it illustrates not Cleomenes1 ready duplicity, but rather the complexity of his superstitious nature. Herodotus is interested to show us something of Cleomenes' psychology if only darkly and by implication. For us the omen he witnesses in the Heraion seems to have an ominous and sjntstermeaning ( e.g. the displeasure of the god at the burning of the grove), but for Cleomenes, blind as he is to his own inconsistency, it seems something quite different. All the same, Herodotus is careful not to force this explanation on the reader: he cannot say for certain whether Cleomenes1 account of his behaviour at the Heraion was truthful or not. As so often, the paradox may have either a simple or a complicated explanation: Cleomenes may after all be nothing but a rogue, but it remains possible that the apparenf contradictions of his character have a deep psychological cause. 7, Does this mean that Herodotus does not really know how he wants to understand Cleomenes? It has been thought, for example that he has in particular not firmly decided on whether Cleomenes was in all respects -73and at all times mentally deranged 167. At 5.42.1, for the purposes of contrasting him with Dorieus ( see above), he reports the view that Cleomenes was indeed insane ( o μev on KA£Oμevns, ws AEY£TO.L, nv TE but he is obviously wary of committing himself to that view. In* reporting the way in which Cleomenes 'went mad' on his return to Sparta just before his death, he admits that the king had already shown signs of insanity ( 6.75.1 ): xa.T£Ã6v,a oe au,Cxa UReAa.$£ μavCn voOoos, s6v,:a MC1L. Rpo,:epov UROμapyoT£POV ( cf. 3.29.l and 145.1 ). However it is clear that here too Herodotus is concerned to avoid saying that Cleomenes was wholly mad from the beginning: the word hypomargoteros means only 1 half-insane 1 , and Herodotus is not going to tell us which of the actions we have seen Cleomenes perform showed him to be mad and which not168. There is no question of Herodotus being unsure about how to judge Cleomenes and so dodging the responsibility of deciding; he is rather indulging in his customaty evasiveness in such matters, and refraining from a simple, all-inclusive character judgement. 'Madness' is no more a complete explanation of Cleomenes1 character than was the dikaiosyne which he showed in the interview with Maiandrios. iJe should draw a distinction between Herodotus' not having been able or sharp enough to make up his mind on the issue of Cleomenes1 madness, or any other aspect of his character, and his deliberate reticence. The preceding analysis has made it clear that he is unlikely to have been intellectually incompetent in this regard. Rather, as we observed in the first part of this chapter ( cf. e.g. Telines ), he seems deliberately to cultivate the impression that he is not the sort of person to commit himself unwarily to such judgements about character. Possibly he is even sceptical as to whether it is sensible to talk in such terms. Hence it is not that he is unclear about how to interpret his own characters, -74but rather that he deliberately avoids simplifying. It is his conscious choice to offer us only the external evidence, a man's actions at any one time, and to show how difficult it is to make simple inferences about what is hidden. * s. The paradoxes treated in this chapter have been of various kinds, but not so various that they cannot be subsumed under a common formula. They all in different ways explain themselves in terms of an interest in human nature or our appreciation of it ..., a formo1a which is in fact less open-ended that it sounds. The image of the sea, which we saw Artananus apply specifically to Xerxes and to other tyrants, is appropriate in different degrees to all men: a man's nature ( physis) is often prevented from showing through, sometimes for the better, usually for the worse, by external influences" and his behaviour, like that of the sea, is frequently inconstant and unpredictable as a result. It follows that a man's actions ( and a king's par excellence ) taken individually are not always a sure guide to his nature: we need to take a long view of human life, to see individual actions in the widest possible perspective, not to judge until we know all. Often however, such broad knowledge is inaccessible to our intelli- . gence, and the contradictions and paradoxes are all we have. At other times we do begin to see behind the paradoxes and discover that apparently contradictory actions are merely manifestations of the same essential nature. We saw moreover that Herodotus often seemed to be creating paradoxes on his own initiative( cf. esp. Maiandrios, Cleomenes ), and often also -75doing his best to bring them out where they already existed in the tradition ( cf. e.g. Miltiades, Themistocles ), whether through the imputation of motive or.the interpretation of action. In other words the perplexity is not his but rather one he is trying to instil in the reader. Moreover his inferences and interpretations almost always involved either surprising charity or distinct malice, and in neither case is it enough to argue that his brief is to be even-handed. Indeed as far as malicious inferences are concerned there is much more to be said for the view advanced by Plutarch in De Malignitate Herodoti that he uncharitably makes the most of faults and weaknesses by any device he can; and indeed we shall have a number of further occasions to appeal to this judgement of Plutarch's. It is clear, however, that Herodotus makes an equal effort in the opposite direction, to bring out as sharply as possible whatever he can that is admirable even in such evident rogues as Cleomenes. In thus accentuating with equal determination both light and shade, and often in contriving to set them in the most glaring opposition, Herodotus is not indulging a taste for balance, but rather striving after paradox and surprise. It is also clear that Herodotus is l~ss concerned with explaining the reasons for these paradoxes than with showing that they are everywhere in human experience. Certainly he does occasionally offer or suggest reasons, change of heart, psychological deterioration or improvement, the pressure of individual circumstances; but more often he simply challenges us with the inadequacy of our own appreciation of. human nature. We should conclude, however, by observing that Herodotus is only really interested in paradoxes of a certain kind, not all the trivial inconsistencies of human behaviour. They have to do with moral and political problems, problems of an ethical nature, in particular problems of power and success, and the contrary pull of justice and profit. This observation leads us conveniently to the next chapter, a discussion of Herodotus• equivocal attitudes to freedom and its consequences. -76It may be useful, finally, to set out some of the critical principles which have emerged from this chapter. {1) Herodotus has in principle a free hand in the composition of speeches169, and even more important in the ascription of motive170 and the judgement of character and action. {2) Accordingly, apparent 1 inconsistencies 1 between a person's words, ascribed motives, or Herodotus• judgement of his actions or character and the actions reported of him ought in principle to be paradoxes of Herodotus' own devising, and are unlikely to reflect merely if at allcontradictions in his source material. {3) The same principle should further be applied to passages which are thought to reflect the prejudices of Herodotus• informants but which do not* show 'contradictions'. We should hesitate before assuming that Herodotus is reproducing the prejudices of a source in those places where the only evidence for that assumption is a speech or an ascribed motive or a Herodotean judgement of action or character. This application of the principle will become important in what follows, especially in the argument of Ch.II.iii. {4) ~le should be wary of mistaking Herodotean irony and understatement for confusion on his part 171. Herodotus deliberately involves the reader in the interpretation of character and action by leaving or introducing contradictions or paradoxes unresolved, by expressing uncertainty as to the understanding of motive172, by limiting commentary to externals or superficial details and thus provoking the reader to question what he has left out. -77- (5) We have also seen that Herodotus is often concerned with 1dramatic 1 effects, effects which depend on the manipulation of context, on an appreciation of how the reader is likely to react to hearing certain things at certain moments and not others. We have chiefly been occupied with surpr.jses or paradoxes in this chapter, but we have also noticed the influence of 'perspective' in the setting of contextagainstcontext. A consequence of this 'dramatic' technique is that the critic must be careful not to disturb contexts, not to invoke sharp structural divisions at the expense of the continuum of sense, and not to bring together at random elements which Herodotus has presented in a car~fully chosen order and at carefully chosen moments. It is this principle of attending to contexts and the order of exposition whtch justifies. the extended and somewhat minute contextual analyses which follow in Ch.II. The temptation to extrapolate 'Herodotus' thought' by merely collating passages is considerable and I have succumbed to it in some degree in Ch.III; but it is important to bear in mind the limitations, and even the hazards of such an approach. * CHAPTER TvJO FREEDOM -79Freedom: Introduction Herodotus' work takes as its starting-point ( 1.5.3) the moment when the Greeks were first 1 enslaved' ( 1.6.3 ): np; 6~ Tns KpoCaou &pxñ n&vrE~ •EAAnvE~ ~aav lAEd6Epõ, and reaches its climax in the 'liberation' of Greece in the Persian Wars. Eleutherie thus forms the basis on the narrative arch which spans from Croesus to the defeat of Xerxes, and indeed it is eleutherie which at least on one level defines the limits of Herodotus' narrative. All that came before Croesus falls outside Herodotus' sphere of interest, as he himself tells us, because until his reign the freedom of the Greeks r:~mained untouched, while from that moment on the work plots in an unbroken series the successful and attempted enslavements, liberations, re-enslaNements, not only of the Greeks but of almost all the peoples of the known world. From this point of view, a notorious problem of the Croesus-narrative comes to seem less acute, namely why it is that Croesus is explicitly singled out as the first man to wrong the Greeks'' 1.5.3, on to recount acts of aggression against the Ionians by all his predecessors after Gyges ( 1.14-25 )1. The problem disappears if we appreciate that Croesus' adikia, in which he is distinguished from his predecessors, is that he enslaved the Greeks, while the others merely fought against them in an unsystematic way, without the determination to enslave them, or at least without that consequence. What Herodottis is interested in is not mere aggression but rather systematic subjugation ( katastrephesthai ), involving the removal of liberty, often symbolised in the imposition of tribute on the vanquished. The adikia of 1.5.3 is explained in Herodotus' amplification at 1.6.2-3: ODTOS o Kpotaõ SapS&pwv npwTOS TWV nμE'Cs ,, ,. ~ , 'E''' ~6μEV TOU~ μEV xaTEOTPE~aTo : AAnvwv , ' ' ' 6' -~opou anaywynv ..• npo E Tns ~*******--- *---- *---- -80Indeed the work might crudely be described as a catalogue of enslavements and liberations both successful and unsuccessful. We are continually reminded of how the catalogue is proceeding by the use of explicit sign-posts: e.g. 1.169.2, OUTW on TO OEUTE;pov 'IwvCn E6diOUAWTO; 1.191.6, MctL Ba$UAWV μ~v 5.116, Kun;pt,Ol, ... £Vl,CX.UTOV £AElJB-EpOl, yc:vuμEVOl, aoñ OEOOUAWVTO ; 6.32, OUTW on TO TPCTOV UIWVE~ MCX.TEbOUÃB-ncrav; 7.7 ( Xerxes ), ,, - , , • • *• ' ' • ' -r 9 105 " a*n' At,yun:,ov n:acrav 1tOAAOV 6ou>,.o,£pnv n:ot,ncrã n £1tl, DCX.pEl,oU nv; . , QUTw TO 6£UT£POV 'IwvCn cha 11£pcr[wv &1recrTn;andcompare 2.182.2 ( Amasis ), an action which is significant in the same way that Croesus' subjugation of the Greeks of Ionia is significant, that is as an act of imperialism, involving the denial of liberty. We may consider briefly an entry in the catalogue which receives the most frequent and insistent mention, namely Ionia. By drawing such explicit attention to the progress of the series Herodotus invites us to take note of a pattern, and to read as a coherent sequence the enslavement of Ionia by Croesus, its re-enslavement by Cyrus, its attempted liberation in the Ionian revolt, its re-enslavement byDarius, and its liberation after Mykale2. The itmotiv of an ens]aved Ionia provides Herodotus with one of the subsidiary themes of the expedition of Xerxes: how do these Ionians, whom we have followed from their first enslavement by Croesus. think and act when, as 'slaves' of the Persian khig 3, they are called upon to join in the enslavement of their fellow-Greeks ( cf. e.g. Artabanus at 7.51.2 )? Already in the Scythian expedition of Darius Herodotus has considered at length ( 4.133-42) how the same Ionians reacted when offered their freedom by the Scythians l cf. esp. the Scyths~ derisive estimate of their will to freedom at 4.142 ); while in Book One he again concentrate~ on the Tack of resolve of the Ionians when faced with the threats and promises of Cyrus ( cf. e.g. 1.141.lff and 170.lff ). -81As we can see from this example eletherie is much more than a mere connecting thread in the narrative: it is a theme for discussion and reflexion. Why is it, Herodotus asks, that for some people freedom is more important than for others? Why do some people value freedom differently at different times? What does the pursuit of freedom involve and where does it lead? What is the mentality which distinguished the free from the enslaved and how is it produced? It would be wrong to suggest that these interests dominate everywhere, or that they assume an equal importance wherever they do appear; but J~ could be claimed that in some small degree it is the issue of freedom which links Herodotus' narrative with his ethnographic interests. In some notable cases Herodotus seems to suggest that the answer to why certain peoples are more strongly motivated to secure or preserve their freedom 4 lies in their culture. Thus, for example, he has the Scyths resist enslavement by Darius in the name of their culture ( 4.127.4 ): 6Ecrn6Tas 6E lμõs ly~ EZvaL, Their success in resisting Darius is ascribed by Herodotu~ explicitly to their primitive nomadic life, which -a possible pun -:-he calls their aporie ( cf. 4.46.3, }tWS oth &v ECncrav oOTOL &μaxoC TE }tat &11:opoL 11:poaμCayELv; cf. 4.83.1 and 134.2 )5. In a different way, Croesus advises Cyrus to turn the Lydians into musicians and shopkeepers ( 1.155.4 ) : Mat rnxsws cr(flfos, ru SaO'LAEU, yuvaLMas avT' av6pwv ÕEaL yEyov6Tas, WO'TE OU6€V 6ELVOL TOL EcrovtaL μn &nocrTEwaL. With a change in their culture they will put aside thoughts of trying to recapture their freedom and become docile and submissive. If we read the ~thnographies exclusively as a catalogue of the growth of Persian rnight6, we will not fully explain their purpose; indeed the Massagetai and the Scyths, for example, do not in fact become subjects of Persia at all, so that on this explanation their respective ethnographies are out of place. A better general description of the ethnographies might thus be a catalogue of which nations respond in which ways to threats to their freedom. There -82are indications that this is inde~d the way Herodotus is thinking from his occasional asides. Thus we hear of the Carians ( 1.174.1 ) that 11they submitted to Harpagus without performing any brilliant exploits, nor did any of the Greeks who dwelt in Caria behave with any greater gallantry 11 • The Perinthians ( 5.2.1 ) succumbed to J1egabazus 11after a brave struggle for freedom11 ; but the Thracian Satrai, "so far as pur knowledge goes, have never yet been brought under by anyone, but continue to this day a free and unconquered people, unlike the other Thracians 11 ( 7.111.1 ). I have no wish to exaggerate here; there are~many other themes in Herodotus besides freedom, and even in places where it is at issue, it may often be only of subsidiary interest. There is, however, no other theme which so clearly dominates the major narrative episodes of the work, which is the subject of so many debates and speeches in all parts of the wõk7. From the enslavement of Ionia in Book One to the liberation of Greece in the last three books, the issue of imperial subjugation and domination is the work's central narrative concern ( cf. Ch.II.i.B and iii ); while the related theme of the internal domination of a people by a group or individual ( that i_s tyranny ) contribute:;"'to,.,themajor narrative role given to Athens' emergence from tyranny to democracy in Books Five and Six ( cf. Ch.II.ii ), balancing the interest of the eastern narratives in the phenomenon of despotism ( cf. Ch.II.i.B }. The present chapter is devoted not so much to an illustration of the thematic importance of freedom, however, though.this will emerge from the range of examples discussed. I shall concentrate rather on showing the complexity of Herodotus' handli[lg of the theme, both in his analysis of the psychological, social and political effects of freedom, and in his ethical evaluation of the means to liberation and its consequences. In the latter case we shall see that he exploits the same techniques of paradox and equivocation as we found in his treatment of character in -83Chapter One~ The relevance of this discussion to our central theme of Herodotus• study of human nature is this: having observed Herodotus' inquiries into the psychology of individuals, it is now necessary for us to see him at work in analysing the psychology of groups, of states and of nations. To ask why Herodotus should have given the them of freedom such a prominent place in his work might be thought superfluous: the 1 theme1 is after all given him by his choice of subjects(s),-"the Persian ,empire and its antecedents, and its attempts to enslave the Greeks. As we have suggested, however, he is perhaps more than incidentally interested in freedom, so that it might well be that an interest in the theme helped guide his choice of subject(s) in the first place. Thus it is worth inquiring whether in this interest he was influenced by the experiences of his ovm lifetime. To judge from Thucydides, the Peloponnesian War was fought above all, at least in terms of propaganda, over the issue of freedom, the Spartans and their allies claiming that they were 1 liberating 1 the Greeks from 1enslavement1 to the imperial power of Athens, the tyrannos that was threatening to subject the whole of Greece to itself. Thus, for example, the Corinthians stir up the Spartans in just these terms ( Thucyd.1.124.3 ): xat Tnv xa&€CTTnxu[av EV TnL 'EAAaOL TUpavvov nynaaμ€VOL E'ltG i&aLV 6μoCws xa&EaTdvaL, ~GT€ Trav μ~v '6rl &PXELV, Trav 6~ OLaVOEta&aL, 1tapaa-rna1~,vg~a s1tsAMv-re:s, xat aihoC TE a.xLvouvws 82> AOL1t6v ot'..xfilμEv xat TÕS vOv 6t6o0Awμ~vous uEAAnvas EAEU&Ep~awμEv . We may thus suggest that Herodotus' interest in the growth of eastern empires is in some measure to be explained in terms of his experience of the Athenian empire9 It is as though he is trying to understand the phenomenon of empire, which so influenced the affairs of Greece in his lifetime, through an analysis of these eastern models ( cf. Ch.II.i.B.3 )~ 0 . Reflexion on what freedom had come to mean in his own lifetime may also have led Herodotus to an ironic disenchantment. On.the one hand there was the Athenian empire-democracy ( cf. Ch.II.i.B.3 ), paradoxically -84at the same time the embodiment of political freedom and the tyrant that was enslaving the rest of the Greek world. On the other hand there was Sparta with her Peloponnesian allies who professed themselves liberators, committed to freeing the Greek states from the tyranny of Atbens .(.cf. n.8 above), but at the same time enemies of political freedom and supporters of oligarchy ( cf. e.g. Thucyd.1.19 ). It may be these factors that contributed to Herodotus' disenchantment, but whethe~or not this was so, his equivocal attitude to freedom is clear: he is aware that the word eleutheii~ will have a strongly emotive sound, one to which his audience would be expected to respond wholly favourablylOa; but his brief, as we shall see, is not to give unthinking praise to every expression of the will to freedom, but rather to explore on the one hand the weaknesses of certain forms of freedom and on the other the ominous strengths of other varieties, and in both cases to lay stress on the undesirable consequences of the condition. The traditional view that Herodotus is in all things a passionate devotee of 'the ideal of freedom111 will not at any rate stand close examination: it will emerge that he is much more concerned that people should conduct themselves 'justly' than that they should chase freedom and its consequences at any cost. Freedom turns out to be an expression of self-interest ( cf. esp. 5.78, with Ch.II.ii.E, below), and self-interest and ~justice' often enough run counter to one another 12. To allow one's appetites free,rein. which is what freedom for Herodotus usually leads to, is to involve oneself in ambitions which wrong others, and if only for that reason Herodotus' enthusiasm for freedom is significantly qualified. The present chapter falls into four parts: the first ( II.i.A) discussing (1) the theories of society, politics and psychology which are the basis for Herodotus' analysis of the workings of freedom, with (2) a detailed treatment of his narrative of the Lycurgan reforms at Sparta; the second part ( J.i.B ) treats the examples of (1) Media and (2) Persia to illustrate -85Herodotus• model of liberation from imperial domination; the third analyses the model of liberation from political domination ( II.ii ), with reference to the example of the liberation of Athens from the tyranny of the Peisistratids, illustrating the equivocation of Herodotus' account and questioning the case for the Alcmeonid source in relation to these events; the final part ( II.iii ) treats the narrative of the liberation of Greece, with particular attention to the shortcomings of Greek freedom. * -86Freedom, Part i.A: The Psychology of Success. (1) The Model. In the closing chapter of the work Herodotus has Artembares urge the Persians to expand and to claim for themselves a new homeland to suit thetr new destiny ( 9.122.2 ): OGXOS OE avopas apxovTas TOLaUTa nOLEELV* XOTE TE Tns 'AoLns. Herodotus has here taken us back to the moment when the Persians have elevated themselves from poverty and enslavement to power and riches ( cf. 1.89.2 ): the change has inspired in them confidence, ambition, presumption. They now think themselves superior enough to spread themselves yet further, beyond the confines of Persia: it is reasonable ( oikos ) that they should do so, now that they have reached this plateau of success. Artembares' words recall Atossa's incitement to Darius to extend the empire ( 3.134.2f ): o[xos OE £0TL avopa xat VEOV xat xpnμ&TwV μEydAwV 6Ean6Tnv ~~LVEÕaL TL &no6SLXVUμsvov ... vuv yap av TL xat anooEsaLO cpyov, £WS V£0S sls nALXLnv0 ausavoμEVWL yap TWL awμaTL auvausOVTCTL xat al ~P£V£S, 13 ynp&axOVTL OE auyynp&axouaL, xat ls ,a rrpnyμa,a n&vTa arraμSAUVOVTaL • There is an obvious and most likely intentional parallelism here between the respective c_onditionsof Darius at this moment and Persia at the stage when Artembares gave his advice: both have reached their akme~ the moment when their powers are at the full, and it follows, seemingly by a natural law, that such moments can be expected to be turning-points. We may assume that cities and peoples, like men, at the moment when their growth is assured will feel the encouragement of ambition, the encouragement to throw their weigbt about and to encroach on the liberties of others. These two passages are a useful introduction to a pervasive Herodotean -87pattern, a pattern we must explore before turning to our main theme of freedom. As we shall see, Herodotus• narrative seems to observe that freedom under the right circumstances will bring about an access of confidence, a presumption of superiority, which leads peoples and states to throw off old limitations and to begin to encroach on the freedom of others. This is however to look at the problem too narnowly: the same psychological change can also be induced by different kinds of stabilizing political or social success, and indeed, as we sball see, freedom on its own is not always sufficient to set these consequences in train, although it is often an essential contributory cause. So, for example, in the case of Media, freedom on its own does not at ;once stimulate growth; it needs first the stability engendered by a major political change brought about by the tyranny of Deioces ( cf. Ch.II.i.8.1 ). Herodotus thus looks out for moments of change which induce political or social well-being after periods of disorder, oppression, poverty or weakness, changes which lead to a new psychological disposition, to growth, expansion, ambition, aggression. The acquisition of freedom is merely a special case of this more general rule, a particular type of successful change, which in the right combination with other factors produces the same results of a growth in confidence and ambition. We need to understand the general rule before the special case. The existence of such a pattern in Herodotus has been recognized often enough before 14, but only as a sort of metaphysical process, something divinely ordered, to do with the cycle koros-hybris-ate, with the envy of the gods towards those who are outstandingly prosperous. I believe however, that this is to misconceive Herodotus' thoughtquite seriously; I would suggest rather that his primary concern in the pattern under discussion is with its implications for human nature. In the first place Herodotus hardly ever, if at all, explains historical processes in terms of metaphysical 14a patterns . Certainly there is talk, significantly confined to speeches~ -88of the envy of the gods which cuts short human prosperity ( cf. e.g. 1.32.1; 3.40.3; 7.lOe, 46.4 ), of the incontrovertible necessity of the fate* ordered by the gods ( cf. 9.16.4 ), and even of the 1cycle of human affairs 1 which will not allow the same men to prosper indefinitely ( cf. 1.207.2 ). Herodotus indeed echoes this last sentiment in his preface ( cf. 1.5.4, Tnv av0pwnnCnv ~v snLOTaμEVÕ £UOaLμov~nv ouoaμa £V TWUTWL μEvoucrav .•. ), though without explicitly claiming a metaphysical validity for it and only advancing it as a personal intuition of the way the world is. Certainly he does voice in his own person views about divine causationi but they are limited to observations about particular acts of intervention in particular situations: the gods arrange that particular impieties shall be punished ( cf. e.g. 1.34.1; 2.120.5; 6.84.3; 7.137.1 and 2; cf. 9.65.2 ), they give notice of how some particular event is to turn out ( cf. e.g. 1.210.1; 6.27.3, 98.1; 9.100.2 ), or, as in their destruction of the Persian fleet by storm off Euboea ( cf. 8.13 ), they assist human endeavours by levelling the odds as particular crisis points this last a clear sign that divine intervention is in many respects merely partial, leaving room for freedom of choice in, men ( see below). In addition he may speak of how 1 such and such a man was destined to end badly 1 , or the like ( cf. e.g. 1.8.2; 2.161.3; 4.79.1; 9.109.2; cf. 5.92d.l; 6.64; 8.53,l; with e.g. 5.33.2, a passage which suggests that the formula may be to some extent merely a fãon de parler 11Naxos was not after all to be destroyed" rather than a revelation about the workings of fate ): but in such cases he offers no explanation of the logic of fate, merely stating that this was ~ow things were, or seemedl~b. Thus it is wrong to assume of any pattern in Herodotus that it is necessarily metaphysical: moreover, even the 1 cycle of human affairs', which is not, however, a pattern that Herodotus advances in his own voice, is a decidedly vague process, at best an observation of the instability of human prosperity not an explanation of that instability 15. Nowhere does Herodotus give any clear suggestion that he believes in metaphysical -89laws determining the course of human history; on the contrary, he confines divine intervention to particulars, never allowing it to explain patterns or processes ( cf. further Ch.III.F ). Returning to the pattern under discussion, it is clear that if any divine intervention is involved, it operates only at a late stage in the process, if at all: the gods will perhaps punish those who become too prosperous. as Herodotus 1 speakers explain ( not necessarily on his behalf), through envy of their prosperity. Thus there are some signs that the gods mean the Persians to learn a lesson at the hands of the Greeks: they have been t f l t b •t. t . . d . t 16 oo success u , oo am 1 1ous, oo 1rnp1ous an unJus . Herodotus' pattern, however, is not so much concerned with the catastrophe which sometimes brings such prosperity to an end, and indeed two of the main .illustrations of thepattern,Athens and Sparta {below), suffer no such reversal, at least within Herodotus' narrative: he is rather concerned with how states achieve prosperity and what are the immediate psychological consequences of that prosperity, areas in which he observes no metaphysical pattern but only the workings of human nature. Only once is it suggested that the gods have anything to do with the ambition attendant on prosperity, and the suggestion comes from Xerxes, talking of the nomos of Persian ' , , ' "" \ ,, E~E~OUGL cruμ~EPETaL EEL TO aμELVOV, It is surprising, if Herodotus assumes this divine elment to be of primary importance for the understanding of his pattern,that he leaves it until now to mention it, and that he merely gives it to one of his characters to speak. More important~ however, is that even this formulation allows that divine guidance is only part of the explanation, and that the Persians 'have themselves had to attend to many things to assist the process', a clear indication that if there is a divine element in Herodotus 1 understanding of the process of Persian growth, it operates at the level of 1over-determination 117, with the result -90that men are free to choose, and it is human nature which regulates how they choose ( cf. 7.139~5 ). It may then be that Herodotus' pattern interlocks to some extent with the old pattern of koros-hybris-ate; perhaps indeed he is, in part at least, exploring the psychological implications of that pattern, long familiar in Greek thought but not until this period treated systematically and reductively for what it could show about human nature ( see below). But, as we shall see, the pattern is wholly comprehensible without the divine and without metaphysics, and in every case that is how Herodotus sets it out: a wholly naturalistic explanation of the historical process. Accordingly in describing this Herodotean explanation I propose not to use the word pattern, which sometimes has metaphysical overtones, but rather the expression 'historical model 1 , which has what I think are much more appropriate overtones, appropriate because of the influence on Herodotus of sophistic thought ( cf. Ch.III.B, for a full defence of this position). The sophists, I would argue, were the first Greek thinkers to approach systematically the study of human nature, heretofore left largely to the poets, and hence the first to inquire seriously into the nature of human society, the political and social life of man. A new confidence in handling ideas of human psychology and the laws of probability led the sophists to attempt constructs of the way human societ~ worked, 1models1 of the mechanics of social change, from experiments in reconstructing the early social life and development of man to abstract .. _~he_ories of political change ( cf. the metabole politeion; with Ch.III.H ). It is appropriate to speak of 1 models1 heref in the sense in which social scientists and historians nowadays use the term, to ciescribe provisional theoi:-eti.cal constructs which reduce and simplify complex processes and systems and so assist in the ordering and interpreting of otherwise intractable data 18 Before considering how this applies to Herodotus, let us make a comparison with Thucydides1 Archaeology, which both has clear points of contact with Herodotus• thought -91and where it is reasonable to suppose that sophistic influence is at work19• The idea that stability is a necessary precondition of growth is the principal Leitmotiv of the Archaeology. The theme is stated at the outset { 1.2.1 ): ,aCveTaL yap n vOv tAAas xaAouμtvn õ n&AaL SEBaCws olxouμtvn, &AAa , T , , " t 6 , t1 '1 t ...... μETavaaTaCTSLS TE ouaaL Ta TipOTEpa xaL paL LWS EXaOTOL Tnv EaUTWV &noAECnoVTES SLal;;oμEVOL UTIO TLVWV ald, TIA£i6:vwv. ' The shape -0f the excursus depends on the idea that Greece advanced from its primitive beginnings through successive stages of political and social consolidation to ever-increasing prosperity and military capacity, or put another way, that various political and social hindrances had to be overcome before each advance could be achieved. First comes Minos ( 1.4ff ), like Herodotus' Polycrates an imperialist thalassocrat, whose achievement is the suppression of piracy, which had prevented the growth of stable communities; then comes the growth of maritime cities ( 1.7ff ), which build themselves walled towns, and like Agamemnon ( l.9ff) take it upon themselves to assert their hegemony over the weaker states ( cf. 1.8.3 ): or TE 6uvaT~Tc:poL TIEpLouaCas EXOVTES KpOOETIOLEUVTO unnxoous Tas SA&aaous noAEL~. But even after !_he Jro,ian Wars there were sti'l l disturbances ( stasei harmful to growth ( l .12 .1, ~OT£ μn flOU)((foaam.1 aotr,.\J~VaL. }; but Wne*n-****~*.-these died down ( 1.12.4, μOALS TE ev noAA@L XPOVWL ncrux&aaaa n 'EAAas xat õxiTL &vLaTaμlvn; cf. 1.2.1, above), there came colonies; and then with the advent of greater wealth ( 1 . 13. l, 6uvaTwTtpas 6e: yLyvoμtvns Tns 'EAA&6os xat Tfilv xpnμaTwv tnv xTnaLv ITL μBAXov H. npo,E:pov noLouμlvns:; } began the age of tyrannies. Cities 1 ike Corinth began to acquire fleets in the true sense ( 1.13.2ff) and there occurred the first sea-battles ( 1.13.4 }; Corinth too became powerful and rich through trade ( 1.13.5 ). Cities with fleets began to extend their sway over ~thers ( 1.15.1, [ax~v 6~ K£PLEKOL~aavTo ~μws oux sAaxCaTnv ot npoaaxovTes aDTots xpnμaTwV T£ npoa66wL xat &AAWV &pxnL ), but still there were few important confrontations by land ( 1.15.Zf ). Moreover there were further hindrances to growth ( 1.16 1 t1sy~vsTo 6~ &AXoLs TE &AA06L xwAdμaTa μ~ ãE;n.\J"vaL ), in Ionia the Persian conquest, elsewhere the repressive and unambitious character of tyrannies ( 1.17 ), although Sparta exceptionally was always free from tyrants, despite an early period of stasis, and helped to remove them in other cities ( 1.18.1 } . The Pers.ian Wars saw the two greatest powers of Greece come together on the same side ( 1,18.2 ); but the sequel saw them draw apart and grow independently greater. until they came to confront one another, with Athens developing through her allied fleet and her tribute the greatest military capability yet seen ( 1.19, ' , , , ' ' , ' ., 6, ' 'r , :,\ xaG syiVETO ãTO[S ES TOV6£ TOV IOAEμOV n1L La napaaxsun μ 2 s 0 L~WV n ' ; " ' t N. ¥\ l:" , ,, D.. ws Ta xpaTLOTa noT£ μsTa axpaLqivov~ T,,s ..,uμμaxLns nv~naav • The Archaeology is something of a maze, with a number of different routes leading through it, and a greater number of blind alleys; but the -92central pattern of change bringing stability and so inducing growth and ambition is clear enough to follow 21 Clear too is that Thucydides is here indulging in theoretical construction: his 1model I tells him how the historical process ought to work and he sets about assembling the right material to illustrate it, and indeed interpreting the available material to accomodate it. Hence, for example, because the process of development ought to be rec,til inear according to his model, without major events duplicating themselves ( see below.), he is compelled to argue away the evidence of Homer for the scale of the Trojan expedition, and even to reduce the importance of the Persian Wars. Such a model is unmistakably sophistic by influence: the curious assumption that important events in human history tend to occur once and for all is one that clearly dominates sophistic reconstructions of the early history pf man, which oddly presuppose that cultural inventions are by and large made in only one place and at only one time. The simplification of human history involved here, which reduces the random stuff of human experience to processes which are readily comprehensible, if somewhat at the expense of truth, clearly reflects a perception of the usefulness of theoretical constructsi My contention is that Thucydides' Archaeology shares with Herodotus the stimulus of this new way of thinking. What both have in common is the perception that the social and political life of man is something that lends itself to rational analysis, that certain critical events in the life-cycles of states and nations precipitate certai~ other predictable consequences, that there can be such a thing as an elementary science of social change, built on the study of probability arid human nature. In addition Thucydides 1 model here clearly corresponds quite closely with our Herodotean model, notably in its appreciation of the psychology of social and political stability. That Thucydides is not, for example, 'borrowing• from Herodotus here, can be inferred from a comparison of the ***---------**--**----***--***---- ---------- -93Anonymus lamblichi, a sophistic text of the late 5thc, which incorporates an analysis. s~mplistic it may be, of the positive social effects of eunomia and the ill-effects of anomia (Anon.lamb.?= DK II.403-4 ), displaying obvious points of contact with the Herodotean model, though clearly independent. No doubt there is a danger of exaggerating th~ amount of system and intellectual discipline involved in these texts, but it is surely right to insist on the extent to which Herod9tus, in company with Thucydides and the sophists, has progressed in the rational analysis of human nature and human institutions. and the extent to which they all conduct their inquir,ies along parallel lines, exploring the same themes and constructing similar models for the purposes of interpretation ( cf. Ch.III.B, for the argument of this paragraph ). The overlaps between the Archaeology and the Herodotean model are not hard to detect; in particular, besides a common interest in how societies evolve and grow through processes of successful change, both see the same result to the expansion of cities and states, namely aggression against I others. This appears in a number of places in the Archaeology ( cf. e.g. 1.8.3 and 1.15.1, above }. where the states which are the most successful in achieving stability and prosperity are the first to dominate athers 22, but it also emerges from the final direction taken by the excursus. Thucydides concludes by setting out the process by which, at the end of his sequence of the advance of the Greek states, Athens and Sparta emerged as the two most powerful forces and came to confront one another in the greatest of all wars23. As he says later ( the arcanum of his history of the war it is Athenian growth which at last inevitably forces Sparta into war ( 1.23.6 ): TOU~ 'ÃnvaCou~ nyoOμaL μeyaAOUS yeyevnμsvou~ xat ~oSov This is precisely the pattern which Herodotus observes in the case of both Persia and Athens in the work. Croesus is roused from his mourning over Atys by the threat of Persian expañion, inasmuch as it is a threat to I I his own empire which he must if possible stifle ( 1.46.1 ): e~ xws oovaLTo, -946uvaμLv. So too the Spartans have reason to fear the rise of Athens ( 5.91.1 ): TOUS 'A.\Jnvatous wpwv au~avoμsvous xat ou6aμws ETOLμous ( see Ch.II.ii.D, below )24. Or again Nitocris faced with the threat of Media realizes that its empire is at once 1 great 1 and restless ( 1.185.1 ): Tnv Mn6wv 6pwcra &pxnv μeycl'>..nv T£ xat oux &Tp£μL~oucrav. Herodotus almost invariably associates the process of megas ginesthai or auxanesthai with aggressive expansion. A state or nation may be or become megale or eudai.mon in a more or less neutral sense, that is in terms of its material prosperity alone ( cf. e.g. 1.5.3? ), but this simple connotation is surprisingly rare in Herodotus25.* Bias promises the Ionians that removed to Sardinia they will have the.chance to prosper ( 1.170.2 ): &na>..>..ax.\JsvTas cr~sas 6ou>..ocruvns EU6aLμovncrELV, The Ionians are to escape slavery and achieve prosperity in a material sense, as owning a vast territory, but also in an 'imperial' sense, by extending their _authority over others. Typically the 1 prosperity 1 or 1 greatness 1 of a state is seen as a threat to the security of others. The equation is particularly clear in the case of Polycrates, whose 1 growth 1 is measured in terms of his aggression and imperialism ( 3.39.3 ): XPOVWL 6s OALYWL aUTLHa TOO rro>..uxpaTEOS Ta npnyμaTa nu~ETO MaL nv S£Swμ£va &v& TE 'IwvCnv xaL Tnv aUnv 'E>..>..cl'6a• OMOU yap l.\J1.fous crTpaTEUEcr0aL, navTa ol lx~PEE EUTUxsws26, Growth, prosperity, success of any kind, almost invariably for Herodotus involve people in ambition, in the desire for gain ( leonexia }, or at the very least the desire to interfere with or impose upon neighbouring ., states. This is an observation of the psychology of success, as emerges clearly from the example of the Aeginetans who are encouraged by their prosperity to wrong the Athenians ( 5.81.2 ): AlyLV"TaL 6l eu6aLμovCnL There is an analogy here between the psychology of groups and the psy;hology -95of individuals 28. Having arrived in his narrative at the climax of Cyrus' imperial career, just before his final, fateful expedition against the Massagetai ( 1.201.ff ), Herodotus pauses to consider the psychology of his ambition ( 1.204.2 ): no>->-& TE yap μ1..,v xaL μEya>-a Td snaELpOVTa xat £EOTPDVOVTa nv ' ' ' ' 6 ' , ' ..,. ' • 29 • μEV n YEV£0LS, TO OXEEl..,V EAEOV TI., ELVCTL av&pwnou '6EUTEpa n EUTUXGn xaTa TOUS no>-sμous yEvoμsvn* ~xnL yap l&UOEL,E OTpaTEDEO&at.., o Kupps, aμnxavov nv EXELVO TO E&vos 61..,ãuysCv Polycrates at 3.39.3, above). 'EpWTOV 0€ ( cf. Among the many reasons inciting him to further conquest ( and note that Herodotus is aware here that motivation is apt to be complex: cf. Ch.I.i and ii ), Herodotus singles out (a) Cyrus' presumption that he is a man above other men, and (b) the encouragement of eutykhia. These two reasons are to some extent parallel: the presumption of superiority is, as we have seen ( Ch.I.i ), for Herodotus characteristic of all tyrants and men of outstanding eminence, who presume or pretend that they are different from other~ although, df course, the peculiar circumstances of Cyrus' birth and childhood encourage this presumption in him more than in most others of his kind ( cf. 1.126.6, with 122.3 ). The second explanation is thus in part a corollary of the first: Cyrus assumes that his good fortune will never leave him, in that he is ( so he thinks ) a man specially favoured by heaven or fate, and this encourages him ( as it does the Aeginetans, above) to 'push his luck' even further. Herodotus supports his own psychological analysis here with the speech he gives the barbarian queen Tomyris shortly after ( 1.206.lff ). Tomyris calls upon Cyrus to 11stop pursuing your present course, for you cannot know whether it will turn out favourably for you. Stop and rule what you have and be content to let us rule what we have". But she knows her advice will not prevail: 61..,' • , 'J' noux1..,ns ELva1.., 30 Herodotus suggests that Cyrus is so blinded by his own success that he will no* longer reflect on whether his ambition is prudent, will no longer listen to cautionary advice: he is not content -96to let his neighbours live in peace, and nothing will stop him in his restless pursuit qf further gain. The aggressive confidence inspired by success is almost inevitable, human nature being what it is 31 This idea of the cumulative effect of eutykhia is something which much concerns Thucydides, as for example in his comments on the Athenian ambition in Sicily ( 4.65.4 ): u r~ , , OUTW TnL Jtapouont.. E:UTUXLCTL xpwμe:voL nl;Couv oqiCot.. μn6e:v evavno\Jok}al, ( cf. Hdt 1.204.2, above) ... alTCa 6' f)V Y) 11:apct Aoyov TWV 1tAE:6~~YI) e:unpayCa mhots; U1l:OTL6doa laxuv Ti'\s; ehCoos;. Thucydides could almost be describing the Persian appetite for ,conquest as represented by Herodotus! What Thucydides describes here is the same process that the Spartans bad earlier warned the Athenians against in urging them to make peace at the time of Pylos ( 4.17.4 ): uμtv yap £\Ji1JXLCTV TT]'V napouaav ~t;E:OH )iaAWS: B:ea.frat..' •.•• xat μtj 1ra&£tV 51t£p ol &~6ws Tl.. &ya&ov AaμSdvoVTE:S TfilV &v&pwnwv• ~l£t y&p TOD JtAtovos; £A11:C6t.. optyOVTal.. ol..d TO Tct napOVTa £UTUXi'\Oal... Again there is a clear similarity with the advice given by Tomyris to Cyrus: in both cases the advice goes unheeded because of that quality in human nature which causes one to be carried away by any initial success "-<:; - -and to hope that one 1 s winning streak will continue indefinitely. It is the same warning again as Artabanus voice~ to Xerxes at 7.49.4: e:61rpnl;Cns 11for who is ever sated with success? 11 )32. This further correspondence between Herodotus and Thucydides suggests that we have to do here with a modern psychological rationalization of a traditional idea. There is no doubt that both authors were long anticipated by the poets ( cf. e.g. Solon Fl3.]2f West: or yap vuv nμlwv who well knew that the ambition for profit, once set in motion, gathered an inexorable momentum which carried its victim on to disaster. But there is surely something new in the precise observation of the psychology of the process, of the nature of the connnexion between eutykhia and el is. If Herodotus and Thucydides are in a sense only making explicit something -91that the Greek poets had long understood, that is still surely a significant advance. Herodotus' account of Cyrus' motivation at 1.204.2 and 206.lff above shows the sort of psychological precision which was not usual until the sophistic movement brought its techniques of reductive analysis to the study of human nature. If this seems exaggerated it is worth reflecting that such analysis is still evidently something of a novelty for Thucydides and Euripides: to be explicit about the workings of human nature, even if the insights themselves are such as the poets had sensed as far back as Homer, had just now become an excitingly new intellectual challenge. Phaedra's ruminations on the psychology of aid6s in Euripides' Hippolytos ( 373ff' ), to take an extreme example, could hardly have been written by any earlier poet ( cf. Ch.III.G, for the argument of this paragraph ). This brings us back to an earlier point: in some degree Herodotus' and Thucydides' model of the-psychology of prosperity is merely a restatement of the koros-hybris-ate cycle, making explicit what had always been felt but never quite so ~1early expressed about the role of human nature in that scheme. In the clear articulation of such things lies the novelty of their thought. * -98- (2) The case of Sparta. The clearest and most elaborate example of Herodotus' model of the tendency C:ifi successful change, not: linked to freedom, to lead to prosperity and stability and thence to expansion and aggression is the case of 'postLycurgan Sparta'. It is clearly intended to have a programmatic quality: it forms part of a sequence of examples which are set out early in the work to introduce the reader to the model in its various possible applications. The Spartan example belongs together with the case of Peisistratid Athens which precedes it, as we can see from Herodotus' linking of the two at 1.65.1 ( see below), where Croesus' envoy discovers ''the Athenians repressed and divided by the tyranny of Peisistratus ( cf. 1.59.1 ), whereas the Spartans had just escaped from great evils, in the form of extreme political division". In other words Herodotus sets out first the negative side of his model, showing the way in which a repressive political regime will inhibit growth and stifle ambition: Peisistratid Athens is no fit candidate for an alliance with Lydia ( cf. Ch.II.ii.A ); in Sparta by contrast we are offered the positive side of the model in its clearest form. Later in Book One Herodotus is to set out the joint model, with the added factor ,' of successful change stimulated or accompanied by the acquisition of freedom: again he unfolds the theme in a twofold exposition, first Media, then Persia, with the advantage that he can explore both the example of the joint model ( success-plus-freedom) which has the most important consequences for the ensuing course of the work ( Persia: liberation leading to empire ), and the complications of the joint model which show up the weaknesses of unqualified freedom { Media: before and after Deioces. ). I shall offer a brief discussion of these two examples in the secpnd part of this section ( Ch.II.i.B ), since both are important for Herodotus as analogues of Greek aff~irs later, most particularly of democratic Athens. The case of Sparta deserves detailed attention here, since it is Herodotus' own introduction to the full version of the basic model of successful change .. ------------**~--~--***--**--------------- -99leading to prosperity and thence to aggression. I believe it can be shown that Herodotus has in this instance been over-enthusiftstic in his application of the model and is distinctly more concerned to accomodate the facts to his theoretical construct than to modify or jettison the model in the interest of the facts. If such a hypothesis is correct, it would suggest that for the purposes of his exposition Herodotus has press-ganged Sparta into serving as an example of the model, despite a certain unsuitability for the role. I suggest also that Herodotus 1 consciously cavalier proceeding here is responsible for a notorious chronological puzzle in the account. He begins by contrasting Sparta with the Athens of the tyranny which he has been describing immediately before ( 1.65.1 ): Tou<;; μc:v vuv 'A&nvaCou<;; Tot..atha -rov xp6vov -rou-rov }!a-rc:xov-rã 'rOUG 6e Aa}!£6Cll,]JOVCou<;; £1{ }!(l,t[i.\\) μqaAW\) 11:E:q)£llychas; }!{;ll, l6v.a<;; n6n TWL, 11:0AS]JWL. xa-runsprspou<;; Tsysn-rswv. The parallelism seems to suggest that the great evils which the Spartans have escaped are similar to those which are still besetting Athens, that is political troubles. It might be objected that Herodotus is thinking mgrelyof the tribulations following the defeat by Tegea ( 1.66.4 ) and xaTU11:£PT€POll<;; ( cf. 1.67.1, xa-ra ]JS\) 6n TQ\) npOTEpOV n6AE]J0\) OUV£X€Ws; alst- }!axras &s&Asov npo<;; -rou<;; Teye~Tas; ); but Herodotus does not seem otherwise to think the 'disaster• quite so serious: it is after all only. a 1 defeat away from home' and more of an injury to Spartan pride than a danger to the state. The next sentence seems to confirm this: Ent, yap Afovrn<;; (3aot..A£UOVTO<;; }!(ll, \Hynot..XAE:Os; £\) Z:n:dp-rnt.. TOμ<;; &uou<;; ~ ' ., tA , 'T, , noAeμou<;; eu-ruxeovT£<;; ot.. axe6at..μovt..ot.. n:pos; eyenTa<;; μouvous; n:pooln:-rat..ov ( n.b. note the imperfect here).* * It does not seem consistent with a condition of kaka roemtl?-that the Spartans should be at the same time ( as the imperfect shows ) successful ( eutykheontes in all their other wars and only unable to make headway in one war of aggression. In other words we should accept that Herodotus' programmatic opening somewhat confusingly proposes two separate things about the Sparta -----**-*---** ----*---- -100of the mid-6thc: (i) that she had (recently?) escaped some unspecified trouble ( the parallel with Athens suggests political trouble ); and (ii) that she had subsequently after a brief series of setbacks achieved success in her war with Tegea. As we read on, the words fxt y~p AsovTos ... and the rest turn out to be an explanatory parenthesis clarifying, briefly for the moment, the sense of TwL noAsμwL xaTVK£pTspous, while Herodotus first of all sets himself to expanq on the first limb of his programme i.e. ix xaxwv μsy&Awv xs~suy6Tas ) at 1.65.2: TO 6s ~TL KpOTEpov TOUTWV HaL xaxovoμwTDTOL ~crav crxs6ov KdVTWV 'EAAnvwv HaTa TE cr~sas aUTOUS HaL s£LVOLGL aKppcrμELHTOL. μeTsSaAOV 6s ~6£ ES £UVOμLnv. It is most natural to assume that the xaxovoμwTaToL HTA, picks up the xax& μey&Aa of the opening sentence. The complex interlacing of this paragraph is clearly not best designed to help the reader find his feet, something to which the disagreements of modern commentators bear witness. On the other hand Herodotus himself is demonstrably not confused, and, . ' as we shall see, it seems likely that he has deliberately engineered this effect to prevent the reader asking awkward question .. The precise relation between the two escapes ( from anomia and from the Tegean troubles ) is easy to miss. The manner of this first es~ape ( μsTsSaAov 6i ~6e is then described. 'There was a man called Lycurgus, who enjoyed high repute among the Spartans' ( 1.65.2, ,wv EKapTLnTswv 6oxLμou &v6pds ) we are told here nothing more than this about him, neither when he lived, nor whether he* held any prominent position in the state. Lycurgus went to Delphi ( we are not told why), where he was addressed in extravagant terms by the Pythia ( 65.3 ) as beloved of the gods and almost a god himself: Herodotus quotes a full four lines ( or possibly all ) of the oracle 34. Only then, and then only indirectly, does he explain the connexion between Lycurgus and the 'change' at Sparta ( 65.4 ): -101some say that besides this the Pythia gave Lycurgus the 'constitution' which the Spartans now observe, but the Spartans themselves say: AvxoDpyov ETILJponEdoavTa AEwB~TEW, &6EA,L6lou μEv lwuToD, BaoLAEdOVTOS 6€ InapTLnTEWV, EX KpnTnS ayayEo&aL TaDTa35. And he concludes ( 1.65.5-66.1 ): ws yap ETIETPOTIEUOE TaXLOTa36 , μETEOTnOE Ta voμLμa navTa xaL E,dAãE TaDTa μ~ napaBaLVELv37 { ... ]. OUTW μEV μETaB~AOVTES EUVoμn&noav. ( with which he finally picks up the allusive μETEBaAov 6E ~6E ES EuvoμCnv of the opening. Herodotus' reluctance to identify Lycurgus or to explain outright that he was the author of Spartan eunomia ( this last is almost hidden behind the citation of sources ) is not the least of the curiosities of this elusive exposition. It is clear, however, that Herodotus wants principally to create the impression that Lycurgus' reforms, through which ' Sparta achieved eunomia, took place at some time unspecified but not too distant before Sparta's conflict with Tegea, an intention which finally becomes clear ( or seems to ) as he now at last draws the threads together 1. 66 .1 ) : OUTW μEV μETaBaAoVTES EUVoμn&naa*v, TWL 6t AuxodpywL TEAEUTnoaVTL Lp~V ~ELOaVEVOL OEBOVTaL μEyaAws. ola 6t EV TE X~PnL &ya&~L xaL nAn&E~~oux 6A(ywv &v6pwv, &va TE s6paμov aUTLXa xaL EU&Evn&noav. xaL 6n a,L OUXETL anExpa noux(nv ayELV, &AAa xaTa,povnõVTES 'Apxa6wv xpfooovEs ELvaL*** ; and there follows the Tegean narrative. Soon autika ) after the reforms, we understand, Sparta shot up and flourished and no longer as before ( ouketi abstained from aggression towards her neighbours. The pattern, and in particular the rapidity of this Spartan growth, is a familiar one ( cf. Polycrates at 3.39.3, xpovwL 6E 6A(ywL aVTLXa ... Ta npnyμaTa nu~ETO, XTA*; and with the wording of the present passage cf. esp. Gelon's Syracuse at 7.156, at 6E napauT(xa &va TE sopaμov xaL EBAaoTov ). It is clear tHat this element of rapid growth after the consolidation is important to Herodotus' model, almost certainly on the analogy of the growth of plants and animals. The metaphor in anadramein is clearly that of plant growth, a metaphor assisted ~y the 38 hint of "good soil II in khorei agathei : thus the thought behind the model is presumably that we .may conmare societies which have just undergone -102important change to young plants and animals, whose most extensive growth occurs in their earliest years ( cf. Pl.Legg.7880, w~ n npwTn SActOTn the same principle as Atossa's observation to Darius at 3.134 ( above }: Herodotus infers that just as a man has his most ambitious thoughts when his physical body is young and strong, so too a society can be expected to be most ambitious at a stage when it has only recently undergone a successful change, as it were recreating a new life itself. However, it is Herodotus' very insistence on rapid growth here which seems to be responsible for the passage's apparent chronological contradiction. The trouble over Tegea with which Herodotus began ( 1.65.1 } was meant to occupy the reigns of Leon and Agasikles, that is the generation before Anaxandrias and Ariston and the embassy of Croesus ( c.55d }, which is Herodotus' point of entry into Spartan history. And yet Herodotus' date for Lycurgus is on his own evidence elsewhere by no means shortly before Leon and Agasikles: Leobotes, his ward, belongs on the evidence of Herodotus' own list of Agid kings { 7.204} to the 8th generation after Heracles and the lOth generation before Leon39. Andrewes40 tries to solve the problem by explaining it as a false combination of two discrepant stories: "When he asked the cause of the existing eunomia of Sparta, the Spartans replied in all sincerity that it was due to the workings of the Lycurgan system. They did not insist on the fact that this system had not always worked harmoniously and it is likely that he heard elsewhere the story of the ?the troubles of Sparta. In Sparta he could find no other news of their cure than that the Spartan eunomia was due to lycurgus. So he jumped to the conclusion that these disorders had preceded Lycurgus, and that it was the institution of the Lycurgan system that had put down the kakonomia". While this ingenious answer is the only one that comes near to both accepting the intentions of Herodotus' Greek and reconciling it with possible historical fact, it will not do. Herodotus' own list of Agid kings shows us that he knew when Leobotes lived; and even if he had forgotten the fact at this point, or had not yet learnt it, we are forced to assume on this -103view that he here parrotted the name of Leobotes from his (Spartan?) source without once stopping to think what it meant for his chronology, let alone trying to check the datum. In principle we would expect Herodotus to have further identified Leobotes, for example as the son of Ekhestratos, or somehow to have placed him in time. If he did not know anything about him, his lack of inquisitiveness is surely reprehensible and certainly surprising; but if he did know { and it seems he did ), his reticence, as we shall see, becomes quite understandable. Moreover Herodotus gives no indication that he is thinking of a ?the stasis such as this theory supposes his non-Spartan sources must have described to him41. It seems on balance that we must face the paradox that he is aware of what he is saying. From what we have said so far it should already be clear where the answer lies: Herodotus is in fact smoothing over an unavoidable complication of chronology in the interests of his theoretical model of Spartan growth. He must make it seem as though the interval between Lycurgus and Tegea is not as large as he knows ( or rather believes ) it to be, because he wants to make Sparta's Arcadian imperialism appear the result of her rapid growth, a growth brought about by the change to political stability ( from kakonomotatoi to eunomia ). Faced with what he evidently takes to be the unescapable 1 fact 1 that Lycurgus, the regent of Leobotes, belongs some 400 years before his point of departure { the reigns of Leon and Agasikles ), he must minimize the interval. He is guilty of contriving the impression of a close relation in time, and hence a cause-and-effect relation, between Lycurgus and Tegea. As we have noticed, he omits any explicit mention of when Lycurgus lived in relation to his starting-point and delays the mention of Leobotes as long as possible. Indeed given that the rapidity of Spartan growth consequent on her acquisition of eunomia is obviously so important to Herodotus' model, the absence of any explicit mention of how long this process took in terms of years is -104surely significant. His uneasiness is evidently betrayed in the words ( 1.65.2 ): TO On the present analysis, Sparta's change of constitution is dragged into Herodotus• account by the scruff of its neck, since its relation in time to the early 6thc can be for him no excuse for its inclusion: the only reason for its mention, given Herodotus• knowledge of the date of Leobotes, is the illustration of his theoretical model. 11Ev:en before this 11 is a distinctly cagey introduction, and surely calculatedly inexplicit, even though the reader requires to know what precise relation in time exists between Lycurgus1 reforms and the reigns of Leon and Agasikles in order to be able to assess the relevance of the excursus. Herodotuscanby contrast get away with the wbrd autika later on ( 1.66.1 ), where the range of meaning of 1 soon1 can be much freer, where indeed the word can be excused as a 'relative' measurement of time: how quickly do we expect states to grow? At this earlier pdint however any.more precise detail as to the degree of the interval ( e.g. xpovwL oACywL / ou ~oAAotcrL sTscrL ~poTspov TouTwv) would be an outrageous deception, and perhaps specific enough to give away the sleight-of-hand. It is a necessary corollary of this interpretation that Herodotus cannot know anything of a 7thc ( or even a 6thc ) Spartan constitutional re-organization. If he had known (say) that Sparta escaped political disaster sometime before 650 under the auspites of Theopompus and Polydorus through constitutional reforms preserved for us in Plutarch's Great Rhetra and reflected in the poetry of Tyrtaeus ( cf. n.41, above) if he had known all this, he would most certainly have made use of it; but as it is he surely knows nothing of the kind. Obviously such a report would have suited his purposes ideally, providing him with a delightfully short interval between a successful constitutional change and the Tegean conflict and he need never have bothered with Lycurgus and Leobotes. -105This interpretation of the crux at least does justice to Herodotus• common sense, whereas any other approach inevitably ends up accusing him of faulty joinery and a confused inability to make coherent sense of his source material. Moreover we can understand precisely why the exposition unfolds as it does: the obscurity of the passage is calculated rather than accidental. It seems likely that Herodotus' decision to break into Spartan history at the time of Croesus' embassy ( i.e. c.550) has involved him in difficulties. His model of Spartan growth will not comfortably fit the facts he has. Most surprising indeeed is that he does not here mention either of the Messenian Wars ( of the 8thc and ?the) nor Sparta 1 s imperialism in the creation and subjugation ~f the Helot serf population. Herodotus, interested as he is in enslavement and serfdom, ought, we would think, to have treated this most striking example and taken some side in what was surely a current debate among those concerned with the problems of slavery 42. His silence here is certainly not due to ignorance ( cf. e.g. 3.47.1, the Samian exiles claim the Spartans owe them a favour: on cr(l)L. 11;,p0Hpo1,; ~u'toL vnucrL With his date for Lycurgus we might have expected to have heard of the successful conquest of Messenia instead of the considerably less notable success over Tegea ( see below). Indeed it is possible that the words Tous &AAous noAsμous suTuxsovTss at 1.65.1 44 are a desultory acknowledgement of this greatest feat of Spartan militarism ( and cf. below on the use of the word katestrammene at 1. 68. 6 ) . Herodotus evidently does not feel at liberty to stretch himself thus far: Lycurgus and Tegea must be telescoped and the remarkable events of the Messenian conquest squeezed out of the picture. The reason for this reticence may well be that he suspects his readers will be more certain that they know when the Messenian Wars took place qnd how long a period that conflict lasted, than they would be of the antiquity of Lycurgus; so that had he -106mentioned Messenia in its proper relation to Lycurgus as he saw it, he would have risked showing them that his interval between the reforms and the reigns of Leon and Agasikles was much greater than he is trying to pretend. His choice of Tegea in particular as the turning-point in Sparta 1 s imperial destiny may have been based on a number of consid€rations: he may, for example, have been attracted by the element of peripeteia in the story, which the Messenian Wars lacked. There is also the parallel with Athens to be considered: the Athenians have the confidence to accept the overtures of Aristagoras and commit themselves to an eastern adventure partly as a result of a political change ( the democracy of Cleisthenes ) and partly as a result of a recent victory in a local war, that against the Boeotians and the Euboeans ( cf. 5.78, in Ch.II.ii.E ); Herodotus may have chosen Tegea as similarly a recent local war, which the Messenian Wars could not have been. He may also have wanted to show the impetuosity of the new Spartans, suddenly embarking on an ambitious project, which initially turns against them, but which before long they conclude in their favour; again the long drawn out war of attrition against the Messenians fits this psychological model less well. Messenia is a lost o�portunity in another sense. Herodotus' model requires Sparta to have grown into an imperialist power with aggressive designs: Messenia was the best possible example of such a development, but Herodotus has had to abandon it and make do with the Tegean Wars, 45 which are far less satisfactory for his purposes . The climax of the Spartan history here is nonetheless a picture of Spartan imperialism, with Tegea in the foreground ( 1.68.6 ): 1-{0:L&n:o TOUTO\l TOU XPOVO\J' OXW$ napWGC.TO &n T)AW\)' 1tOAAWI., J,{ctTUnlpTEpo1., TWL no:>-tμw1.,46 &yCvovTo ol Aax£6a1.,μ&v1.,01.,* ~6n 6( a,1., }(().(, T) noHn TT)$ ITd.onovvricrou ?iv }(C.T£0Tpaμμlvn. -107This last sentence provides the appropriate climax for Herodotus' account: Sparta has conquered herself an empire in the Peloponnese. But as a historical fact, and even perhaps as a summary of what he has told us, this is a dishonest exaggeration. It would be proper no doubt to describe the Messenians as katestrammenoi ( but Herodotus has failed to mention them ) , but not Sparta's other Peloponnesian neighbours and allies, and least of all, even on Herodotus 1 own evidence, the Tegeans. The word can only mean 1 reduced by conquest to subject status 1 , scarcely limited even to 'defeated in war', and most emphatically not 'subsumed into their alliancer, as modern historian have hoped it might. It is the word to describe the imperial conquests of Lydia ( e.g. Croesusr empire at 1.28, xa,scrTpaμμevwv crxs5ov ndvTwv ,rnv fvTos "AAuos noTaμoO olxnμevwv ) or Persia ( e.g. the Perinthians reduced by Megabazos at 5.1.1, ou SouAoμevous Dnnxooug slvaL ~apsCou xaTscr,pe~avTo ); and indeed at 6.44.1 Herodotus varies the verb katestrepsanto with the periphrasis npog Tol'.:crL DndpxoucrL 6ouAour;; npocrsx,ncravTo. It is what Athens did to her allies in revolt ( cf. Thucyd. 1.75.4, xaC TLVWV xat n6n CTROOTaVTWV xaTscr,paμμevwv but it could not describe merely Athenian or Spartan hegemony in their respective Leagues. But in the case of Tegea47 it seems clear that Sparta's victory was in historical fact more negotiated than imposed48 Whatever we are to make of Herodotus' account of the Bones of Orestes, it seems probable that what lies behind it is a shift in Spartan policy "from aggression to peaceful co-existence, and from 1 Helotization 1 to diplomatic subordination" ( cf. Cartledge p.139 ), with a new appreciation of the need for propaganda to replace coercion 99. -For Sparta 1 s other main neighbours rsubjugation 1 seems equally improbable at this time. Corinth is pethaps brought into an alliance; but the defeat of Argos in the b~itle for the Thyreatis is on Herodotus 1 own evidence later 50; while the deposition of Aeschines of Sicyon is possibly not so early 51,and only by a strenuous effort of the imagination can it be considered an act of 1 conquest 1 • Indeed there -108is general agreement that the Peloponnesian League was the creation of diplomacy rather than military subordination 52 its members were 1 allies 1 of Sparta, even though they may after a certain date ( but not perhaps as early as this?) have promised to 1 follow wherever the Spartans led them153• In short it seems that Herodotus has chosen his vocabulary to suggest the growth of a Spartan imperialism which in the terms envisaged and for the time in question was, as he himself surely knew,~ plain travesty of the truth. Indeed the very absence from his ãcount of any realistic supporting evidence for such an ambitious claim is the best proof of its d "t 54 au ac1 y . Sparta's change from anomia to eunomia brings an access of confidence, which l~ad her to prosperity, to a new openness towards the outside world, and to an ambition for conquest. Previously the Spartans had been ~£CvoLcrL &npocrμ£Lx,oL, that is internally divided and hostile or wary towards the outside world. Whether or not this model of change is either historically accurate or authentically reported, we are har.d~y in a position to judge54a. The suspicion that Herodotus is not telling the whole truth, or at least not the Spartan version of the truth, is encouraged by the consideration that his model evidently owes much to contemporary political theory. Ryffel has well observed the appearance of metabol~-theory in this account of a transition from anomia to nomia , with Lycurgus as the benevolent epitropos who restores the essential components.of a stable social life, the same theoretical pattern that inspires Herodotus' narrative of Deioces in Media ( cf. Ch.II.i.B.l ), and which he shares with the Anonymus Iamblichi.( Anon.Iamb.Y.14 ). Comparison with Thucydides, moreover, reveals a possible theoretical background to Herodotus I conjunction of kakonomia56 and am~ixia. Thucydides -109describes the early weakness of the Greek world as both caused by and manifested in its inability first to form stable communities, through the aggregation of neighbours with common interests of security gr profit, and later to contract alliances with other states, and consequently its inabi1lity to mount 'international enterprises', especially wars of any 1 ( f 1 2 2 '6' ' ' '6 - ''' ,, t see above ) 5 7. sea e c . e.g. . . ' OU £1tLμE:Ly\!U\iTE:s; a. E:Ws; CX./\/\n/\OL[, e c.; Herodotus' Sparta clearly follows the same pattern: her early ameixia ( what evidence did he have for it?) contrasts with her disposition after the reforms, in her readiness both to exert her authority in the Peloponnese and to contract an alliance with Croesus and Lydia58 ( 1.69.3 ): ncr{Jncrav ( cf. e.g. Thucyd.1.18.2; with Agamemuon'cssymmachy which he led against Troy at 1.9.lff ). Sparta J1~s begun to have the self-confidence, the belief in her own importance in the world, which was the inevitable result of her political consolidation, and which led her to become the foremost state in the Greek world. Herodotus 1 ae&,Ql.ll'Jj: of early Sparta then is in large part constructed in accordance with a particular theory of social change, and it is meant to stand as an exemplum for that theory, a key instance of the historical model which influences much of importance in the rest of the work. In an appendix I shall be considering how the same model has radically influenced the narrative of Milesian politics in the years leading up to the Ionian revolt ( 5.28ff ), involving Herodotus in the same kind of distortion as we observed in his treatment of Lycurgus here ( cf. Appendix J ). If my interpretation of these two passages is right, it has important consequences for Herodotus as 1 historian 1 • He appear;;:;, in these instances to be more interested in offering models of human behaviour than in diligently and faithfully recording 1 the facts' as near as he can divine them. This is not, of course, to say that he has no antiquarian interests, no desire -110to get at the facts for their own sake, only that in a contest between historical reporting and his desire to 'make sense 1 of human nature it is historical reporting that will lose out. There is a sort of 1 truth 1 in both activities, to be sure, but Herodotus' making sense of human nature, to judge from these examples, is not historical truth, an essential honesty to what actually happened. There is perhaps an analogy with, say, Plato's reading of Greek and Persian history in Laws III, where the facts are of distinctly less importance than the lessons to be drawn from them, lessons about society and human nature 58a; but the c}os~stanalogy, as we have seen, is undoubtedly with Thucydides1 Archaeology, which uses and to some extent abuses the materials of history in pursuit of a theory of growth and power. We turn now to a consideration of hew Herodotus' model works in the cases of Media and Persia, where an added ingredient is the acquisition of freedom. We should add that the absence of freedom from the Spartan exemplum is not a significant absence: the model in its basic form merely concerns itself with the psychology of success, and includes any form of successful political change. The addition of freedom is an embellishment of this basic model: a successful liberation is itself a form of successful change which, with the right political advantages ( eunomia ), produces an even more dramatic restlessness and ambition, given the confident psychological disposition of free men. * -111Freedom, Part i.B: Imperial Dominatiõ. (1) Media. The 1 iberation of the PersiansJrom servitude to the Medes marks a turning-point not only in their own fortunes but also of all the other peoples of the known world. To explain the process of Persian growth requires Herodotus to go back a long way, not merely to the beginnings of their empire, but back beyond that to the time when the Persians were subject to Media, and even earlier. Having concluded his description of Cyrus1 conquest of Lydia ( cf. 1.94.7, Au6ot μEV 6n uno IlepcrnLcrL e6e6oulwvTo ), Herodotus tells us that we have up to now been looking at the phenomenon of Persian empire too narrowly ( 1.95.lff ): enL6L~nTaL OE on TO EV~eDTeV nμtv 6 16yos T6v Te KDpov 5crTLS E~V TnV KpoLOOU &pxnv xaTeLle, xat TÕS Ilepcras 5TewL Tp6nwL nyncraVTO TnS 'AcrCns ... ( Herodotus' version of the Cyrus-story is one which avoids excessive glorification ) ... 'AcrcrupCwv &pxovTwv TnS &vw 'AcrCns en' £Tea eCxocrL xat nevTnx6vLa, npraToL &n' auT@V M"60L npsaVTO &nLGTacr~aL* xaL xws ODTOL nepL Cns μaxecraμevoL TOLGL 'AcrcrupLOLGL EY£VOVTO avopes &yãOL xat &nwcr&μevoL Tnv 6oulocruvnv EAEU~Epw~ncrav. μeTa OE TOUTOUf xat Ta ~AAa £~Vea £ROLEE TWUTO TOLGL Mn6oLGL, EOVTWV 6t aUTOVOμwv naVTWV &v& Tnv nneLpov @6e aOTLS ES TUpavvC6as nepLnl~ov. &vnp EV TOLCTL Mn6oLOL EYEVETO cro,os ( and Herodotus plunges straight into the narrative of Deioces ). This passage is surprisingly compressed and elliptical: we have scarcely adjusted to one programme before another establishes itself, and then another ( see below). Initially we expect simply to be retracing the story of the Persian empire and its origins under Cyrus; but that story is deferred until later, and emerges only out of the narrative of the Median empire ( l.117ff ). We do not, of course, know that this will happen as we read the present passage. Possibly, if Aeschylus knew or believed in a continuity between the empires of Media and Persia ( cf. Pers.765ff ), Herodotus is not asking too much of bis readers to appreciate the logic of this step; he does not, however, assist that connexion of thought by any very obvious -112means here. Instead we are suddenly plunged back to the time of the Assyrian empire and the liberation of the Medes from that empire: in other words Herodotus begins not with the beginnings of the Median empir~which are deferred until after the narrative of Deioces ( cf. 1.lOlff ), but with a moment of liberation. The asyndeton 'Aaauplwv &px6vTwv xTA. is made perplexingly abrupt by the absence of any clear anticipation that this is to be Herodotus' direction. I would suggest that Herodotus is doing more here than simply 'telling the story from the beginning', retracing his steps to a more or less arbitrary starting-point: rather by carrying us back in this enormous stride to the Median liberation he is compel1ing us to take note of a continuously recurring process, inviting us to see that empires grow out of other empires, the new growth precipitated by moments of liberation. We go back not~ as we had expected, to the origins of Cyrus and the Persian empire but to a much earlier point in the sequence that led to that moment: to understand the continuity of the process of imperial growth we need to see how it originates, where the turning-points come that decide which people will give the process new direction and these turning-points are marked by successful liberations, by the choice of eleutheria on the part of a formerly subject people. In reality the liberation of Media was clearly a long drawn out process, to judge from the Assyrian records, and was undoubtedly accompanied rather than followed by the revolts of p;ther subject peoples: there was a sequence of risings by various peoples over many generation; risings frequently quelled and reviving 59. The simplification may be that of Herodotus' sources 60 rather than his own, but it clearly serves the purposes of his 'model' here to have a Median liberation taking place once and for all and to have the Medes take the initiative in freeing themselves, the first of all the subject peoples of Assyria to do so. Nor can we mistake his h * h th t ' ' ' 61 ,*s both a redundant emp as1s ere: e sen ence xaL xw~-elsu~spw~ncrav elaboration of np~avTo anCcrTaãaL in the previous*sentence and redundantly --------******--- ----------------------* -----* ----------- -113emphatic in itself, making absolutely c~ear by gratuitous repetition that 62 the revolt involved the Medes 1 fighting for their freedom' , 'fighting bravely for that freedom163, 'throwing off their enslavement', and 4 achieving their freedom'. It is true that beyond this opening paragraph Herodotus never again uses the word el theria in connexion with the Medes; but I find it hard to believe that he should have laid such heavy stress on a motif which was to have no further significance in their story. In a sense it is self-evident that the story of Median empire cannot begin while the Medes are still enslaved to Assyria 63a; but for that purpose the colourless istasthai would presumably have been enough. Herodotus' emphasis here surely implies that their freedom is more than a mere precondition of that future growth. I suggest we are meant to see something of a causal connexion between the Medes' heroic initiative and their future empire, which is after all the focal point of Herodotus' narrative here, the reason for his having come back this far. The logic of that connexion is presumably this: in being the first to see freedom as their goal and showing the fortitude to achieve it the Medes displayed the beginnings of a psychological disposition which marked them out from the other subjects of Assyria, a presumption of their own worth which stamped them as empire-builders in their • own right. As we shall see, this connexion between tne disposition to freedom and toempire emerges much more clearly in the case of Persia, which Herodotus is surely in some sense anticipating here. It is worth noting that for Herodotus to lay such stress 2n the freedom of the Medes here as of the Persians later is not an immediately obvious thing for him to have dome. There is no indication that the Greeks were at all conscious of the freedom of these peoples, at J~ast not before Herodotus~ although the freedom of Persia does figure in philosophical texts later ( see (B).2, below). For Hippocrates, for example, Asia is clearly the archetype of a land without freedom, where the inhabitant~ -114- ( with the exception of the Ionian Greeks ) are all tyranneuomenoi ( cf. Airs 16.16ff, etc. ). It is a common Greek presumption reflected, for example, in Herodotus' account of what the Spartan heralds said to Hydarnes ( 7.135.3 ): unlike themselves he has no experience of freedom, whether or not it is sweet. Euripides has Iphigeneia give the sentiment an outrageously chauvinistic expression at IA 1400-1: BapB&pwv 6' *EAAnvas &pxELV ctxds, &AA' 06 BapB&pous,/ μ~Tep, 'EAÃvwv* T~ μ~v y;p 6oOAov, It is worth noting too that in Aeschylus' potted history of these two peoples there is no suggestion that either one of them was ever in any sense free ( Pers.765ff ). Indeed it is hard to imagine in what context the Greeks might have been moved to express such an idea before Herodotus, In other words his model of Median and Persian empire by no means takes the line of least resistance, but rather involves a surprising insistence on the element of freedom. That Herodotus has laid such stress on Median freedom here makes the interpretation of the sentence f'.:dvTwv 6e miTovoμwv-1te.pL11Ak}ov all the more difficult. If we look back at this sentence from the immediately ensuing narrative of Deioces, it seems reasonable to suppose that the 1 tyranny 1 which is 'returned to 1 is his tyranny over the Medes, and for this reason Stein emended the NSS text tyrannidas to tyrannida here: in other words Herodotus is turning from the Asians-11 0 sa whole to the Medes who alone are the subject of peri!lthon. However if we read merely the sequence that Herodotus has set out, the most natural Jnter.pretation of this sentence is rather different: the immediate context encourages us to understand here some programmatic statement about empire. The Assyrian em~ire is disintegrating, there is 1 autonomy1 throughout Asia, and this is how they ( sc. the peoples of Asia ) returned to tyrannies, lost their freedom again through empire: the peoples of Asia came to be ruled once more by 1 tyrannies 1 we may keep the plural of the MSS) in the sense that Herodotus is about to explain, that there ãose in Media a dynasty of tyrants who -115led the Medes to re-enslave the former subjects of Assyria. The genitive absolute which becomes the subject of the main verb is a common enough idiom64; the subject of the plural verb perielthon is simply hoi ana ten iron. However we read the sentence it involves a certain sleight-ofhand: this is obviously a transition to the narrative of Deioces 1 tyrannis, the internal domination of the Medes by a man who did not himself build an empire ( cf. 1.101 ); but that tyranny is not wholly equivalent to the condition which it is supposed to replicate, the external imperial domination of the peoples of Asia by the Assyrians, which is only a tyrannis in an extended sense. The logic of Herodotus' proceeding here takes some time to become apparent, but it is clear that what he is doing is once again re-adjusting his immediate programme: instead of hearing at once how the peoples of Asia lost their freedom to the Median empire we hear how the Median tyranny which was to produce that empire itself originates. Herodotus expects us to see that eastern empire is a function of eastern despotism, the ambitions and appetites of the imperial people finding their expression through the person of their nnos. It might nevertheless be objected that Deioces does establish a tyranny first of all over the Medes themselves, and that in that sense he must be depriving them of the freedom they earlier won in their fight against Assyria. That being so there would be no question of their empire being in any sense a function of their freedom, as I suggested earlier that it was meant to be. I believe, however, that Herodotus positively discourages such a reductive extrapolation. In the first place we would still be left with his forceful emphasis on the element of freedom in the Median revolt, where no such emphasis was necessary in purely narrative terms; the only way round this would be to suggest that there is an irony in the Medes once again losing their freedom so promptly, but Herodotus does anything but encourage us to see such an irony. As we saw, the natural implication of the sentence sovTwv os auTovoμwv-nEpGnÃov is that the .--*** -*----------****------------*------*----------------******--*---***-- -116peoples of Asia as a whole came to be ruled by tyrants through the establishment of a Median dynasty under Deioces: this does not exclude the idea that the Medes lost their own freedom in the process. but it certainly does not invite us to focus on that idea. In the narrative that follows we hear how by various means Deioces compelled the Medes to achieve unity, to respect justice, and indeed to show deference to him as a tyrannos but nowhere is there the slightest reminder that this meant the loss of their freedom; this is logically entailed, to be sure, but Herodotus in no way brings it out. That silence is not, I think, accidental: the theme of the Deioces-episode is how the Medes achieved political stability, the stability that gave them a {irm base for empire ( see below), and Herodotus would like if possible to leave us with the impression that they achieved this on top of their freedom from Assyria, not at the expense of that freedom. Where the Medes as a people stand under the dynasty founded by Deioces is shown by \~hat P:erodottis r:1akes the magi say to Astyages about the consequences for the Medes if Cyrus were to emerge as king. They have, they say, a vested interest in ensuring the preservation of Astyages 1 rule ( 1.120.5 ): xECvws μlv y~p &lloTpL00TaL ts TOV Kat6a T00Tov K£pLLoDcra.lovTa Ile:panv, XCiL rwet~ £0VTE~ MMoL 60VAOUjJ£00 TE XCtL loyov ou6evõ yLvoμe~a Kpos IIepas{,J.lv, c6vn:~ ~d:voL 0 afo 6' £VEOTEWTOS SaaLleõ, 80\JTÕ KOALnTew, xat &pxoμev TO μe:pos xaG T~μd~ KPÕ 0€0 μEyaAas " £XOJJEV, To be sure, Herodotus does not have them claim that the Medes enjoy freedom: to be able to do that he would have needed a hard struggle against the evidence and the prejudices of his Greek readers ( see above ). But he has them be wholly explicit about the participation of the Medes in the arkhe of their own tyrannos: they enjoy a position quite different from that which would be imposed upon them by a Persian king ( but cf. (B).2, below), when they would indeed be slaves rather than masters ( doulosyne -117as opposed to arkhe ). If we may accept what the magi say as a rational analysis of the Medes1 status ( cf. also Astyages 1 rebuke to Harpagus at 1.129.4, vDv 6s Mn6ous μsv ••• 60UAOUS CTVTL 6scrnOT£WV ysyovsvaL, Ilspcras 6s 60UAOUS s6vTas TO npLV Mn6wv vDv ysyovsvaL 6scrn6Tã ), rather than merely flattery of a king who was hated and feared ( contrast 1.123.2 and 130.1 ), it is clear that Herodotus means to differentiate the condition * of the Medes under the Median empire from the condition of its subjects proper. They are not enslaved in the same way: they have as much interest as the king in the prizes of empire. Thus if pressed as to his meaning in 1.96ff Herodotus would presumably say that whereas the Medes did in one respect lose their freedom under Deioces, they retained their freedom in another respect; they lost their internal freedom but retained their freedom from imperial domination, a freedom which meant they shared in the arkhe established by the Median tyrants. It may well be, however, that Herodotus is not happy to be so pressed, but would rather like us to take without too much question the conjunction of freedom from Assyrian domination and political stability as pro\!ided by Deioces and not observe too closely that Deioces I tyranny took away the political freedom of the Medes. If on the other hand Herodotus would like us to understand that the Medes lost their freedom to a certain degree, that would not be inconsistent with a pattern he observes elsewhere, and although it is not an interpretation he seems to encourage, it does give an added point to what he goes on to tell us. We may invoke here the analogy of Athenian freedom: as Herodotus is to show, the immediate consequence of liberation form the Peisistratid tyranny is for the Athenians .to return to the condition of stasis ( Isagoras, Cleisthenes ) which had likewise prevailed ( Megakles, Lykurgus, Peisistratus ) before Peisistratus deprived them of their freedom ( cf. 1.62.1 ). The Athenians do not achieve the necessary stimulus to grow until they acquire ------***---*---** -118a new form of constitution under Cleisthenes ( isegorie ), which enables each citizen to identify the common interest of the state with his own, if we may so extrapolate from Herodotus' commentary at 5.78 ( cf. further in Ch.II.ii.E ). It is isegorie which is apparently the cause of Athens• new-found confidence, which has her defeat the Boeotians and Chalcidians and soon leads her on to more ambitious projects. It seems, despite our earlier reservations, that there may be a sense in which in Media too freedom on its own is insufficient to promote growth but is rather a cause of her anomiã just as Athenian freedom led initially to stasis and only after a political settlement to growth. The idea that an excess of freedom can lead to anarkhia ( cf. Pl.Rep.560E, on democratic freedom; .and Legg.694A, for Persia's 'moderated freedom•, below) may perhaps be in Herodotus' mind here. It is not, however, necessary to force this connexion of thought 64a. Whether or not we take the view that Deioces' tyranny represents a limitation of the anarchic freedom of the Medes, it remains of interest here to follow the further course of Herodotus' narrative, since it so clearly offers another illustration of the model of the psychology of political stability which Herodotus was at such pains to set out in his Spartan narrative earlier cf. (A).2 ). The tyranny of Deioces arises out of the anomia which exists throughout Media, apparently in the aftermath of the liberation ( 1.96.2 ): ~o6an, As is clear from the nature of Oeioces 1 solution, this anomia is reflected in two different problems. Deioces first of all brings a stab1e system of dikai to replace the adikiai ( a pun here?) of the Medes towards one another ( cf. Ch.l.i.4 ), that is he combats the lawlessness of the Medes which is destructive of social life. Let us appoint a king, say the Medes ( 1.97.3 ): xat OUTW n &v~oTaTõ to6μs6a . The other aspect of Deioces 1 solution is the unification -119of the Medes ( cf. 1.101, synestrepse: below), a sort of synoecism which replaces the fragmented community ltfe of the Medes up to this point. Herodotus has made it clear thã the Medes live in villages, apparently with no common organization ( 96.2, xa,01.,xnμlvwv xcna xwμã ; cf. 97 .2, In reconstructing the problems of Media before Deioces, Herodotus is clearly drawing on ideas generated in the later 5thc by sophistic speculation, ideas of how human society looked before the advent of social and pol itJ.c:al order 65. Media I s anarchic autonomy has obvious points of contact with the disordered and self-destructive life of primitive man as conceived in these sophistic reconstruction, in the fragmentation of the community into small, disunited settlements ( cf. 1.96.2, xa,01.,xnμlvwv xa,a xwμas )66, in the instability caused by mutual distrust ( cf. 1.97.3, bx' &voμCñ &vdcr,aToL )67, and in the threat to prosperity ( ibid., 06 ' ; , 6 , 6 , ,, ' ; ' , ) 68 yap TpOXWL TWL xaps VTL ~pswμ~VOL UVaTOL SLμsv OL}(SSLV ,nv xwpnv . Again too the disadvantages of anomia here are the same as those listed by the Anonymus Iamblichi ( cf. Ch.II.i.A ), in particular the debilitating effects of mutual distrust within the community ( cf. Anon.Iambl. 7.8, with .7.2 ). It is obvious that Deioces performs the same service for Media in saving her from lawlessness and rapine as Minos, in Thucydides 1 Archaeology, does for early Greece in ridding the seas of pirates, both promoting stability and strength for future growth: the common theoretical preconceptions are hard to miss ( cf. (A).1, on the Archaeology). It is not, of course, clear whether Herodotus invites us to make a connexion between Media's liberation from Assyria and a return to the social conditions of primitive times 69, or whether we rrust suppose the Medes had been subject to such lawlessness and disunity even before that liberation. Given that a crisis develops ( cf. 1.97.2 ) which precipitates ~*******-------------- -120the solution of Oeioces, it seems more acceptable to suppose the former, that the complete freedom of the Medes following the.liberation is what provoked the condition of anomia; but it must be admitted that this is at best an elliptical suggestion on Herodotus' part. It is, however, instructive for our purposes, whether or not we continue to invoke the motif of freedom, that Herodotus is working here with ideas from contemporary theoretical reconstructions of the origins of human society: this is clear confirmation that his model is indeed a construct derived from reflexion on modern theories of the mechanisms of human society ( cf. (B).3, below). He is also drawing here on the theory of the metabole politeion, whose influence we detected less clearly in his narrative of the reforms of Lycurgus ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.2 ), and which is further reflected in the Anonymus Iamblich/ 0. Deioces, like Lycurgus, and even more like Peisistratus, as we shall see ( Ch.II.ii.A ), takes power into his own hands an.d rescues his people from the perils of anomia all three in different degrees manage to bring about the desirable condition of eunomia ( cf. 1.97.3 ), the condition of the society in which the people obey the laws71, and which brings with it the consequences of mutual trust and peaceful and profitable co-existence. As the Anonymvs sets out the theory, the emergence of a tyrannos or epitropos is the only possible release from the condition of anomia, in which there is no respect for the laws or 5 TE ~6μos xat ~ 6Cxñ T6TE fi6n Els Iva &noxw~Etv T~V &nLTponECav -ro1hwv }(Cl,l, <pUACt}(nv 72 11Men cannot live without nomoi and dike", says this writer 73; and Herodotus' account of Median anomia makes the same point, describing as it does the breakdown of all social order prior to the tyranny, and for Herodotus too tyranny is paradoxically a satisfactory solutiori. Yet it is clear that he does not mean to approve it unequivocally for that. The debate on the evils of anomia ( 1.97.2f ), in which, as -121Herodotus surmises, the friends of Deioces were the principal speakers, leads to the Medes 1persuading themselves to be ruled by a king' ( TaOT~ ). But Herodotus does not say that they arrived at the only possible solution and indeed they do not get what they expect, for although they speak of basileus, it is clear from Herodotus' vocabulary throughout the passage that what they get is a tyrannos. 1 Protagoras 1 , in Plato's myth of the origins of human society, saw men escaping their early asocial lawlessness through the 1 discovery 1 of dike and aidos, in other words ( if we may so interpret the parable ) through an understanding of the need for a social contract or consensus, with the citizens respecting each other and the community ( cf. Pl.Protag. 322BE )74. Herodotus' model as applied to Median anomia offers a much less optimistic solution: the soci~ contract is bypassed by the ambitions of one strong and determined individual, who may after all assist the common good, but who does so for the wrong reasons ( cf. Ch. I. i. 4, for the paradox of Deioces' euergesia ). Herodotus would clearly not rule out the Protagorean solution as a possible variant of his model: at Sparta, for example, the abuse of tyranny is avoided through the benevolent actions of an epitropos, who is, however, a man preternaturally upright, who is even honoured like a god for his disinterested safe-guarding of the state ( cf. 1.65.3 and 66.1; with (A).2 ). In general, however, Herodotus seems to believe, with Thucydides and certain of the sophists, that human nature being what it is there will almost always be strong individuals within states and powerful states in the wider world who will aspire to rule for themselves, in despite of justice, wherever and whenever they are given the opportunity 75. Again it is instructive that we can interpret Herodotus' model with reference to contemporary theories of the political process and of human nature. -----***---- ----~------------- -122Deioces 1 unification of Media ( cf. 1.101, auvlaTpt$E )76 both seems to involve another contemporary political theory,and clearly ties in with other observations in the work on the importance of unity as an ingredient of political strength contributory to prosperity, and indeed prosperous freedom. Thucydides 1 account of Theseus' synoecism of Attica has very striking points of contact with Herodotus in these passages ( 2.15.2 ): EEELon OE SnaEUS ESaaCAEUOE, ysvOμEVOS μET& TOU ~UVETOU xat OUVaTQS Ta TE &ua OL£XOaμna£ TT)\) xwpav xat xaTaAuaas TWV &uwv EOAEWV TI), T£ SovA£UT~pLa xat T&s &px~s ls TTJV vav noALV o3aavf iv BoVA£VT~pLov &noosC~as xat npu-rav£Cov, ~uvwLxLa£ nav-ras, xat v£μoμtvous -r& ã-rwv lx&a-rous an£p xat npo TOU nv&yxaa£ μLfiL EOA£L -rau-rnL xpaãaL, A &n&v-rwv ~on ~UVTEAOU~TWV a0tnv μ£yaAn y£voμlvn napEoõn tñ @natws TOLS £1[£LTa. Both Theseus and Deioces, like Minos (above), are wise and powerful dictators: both contrive to produce a unified state with a new potential for growth. It is tempting to suppose that though Theseus' synoecism was an old story, it was given a new the_oretical currency in sophistic speculation of the later 5thc, presumably in discussions of the political strengths of monarchy77. Deioces compels. the Medes to build a singleIn other words the Medes are to give up their dispersed villages and focus all their attention of Ecbatana, with its many concentric walls a graphic symbol of unity and strenth. We may compare especially the advice of Bias to the Ionians that they should sail to Sardinia ( 1.170.2) and found 'one city of all the Ionians 1 ( nohv μCm> x-rCz:;ELv n:&vrwv '[wvwv), and closer still the advice of Thales to the Ionians to set up a single council-chamber ( 1.170.3, iv 77a BoVAEVt~pLov ) at Teosi,t&s !AAas noALas olxEoμlvas μnõv ~aaov xa.a 1r£p d, onμoL £L£V* The Ionians were searching for the best way of coping with their 'freedom', that is trying to avoid disunity in the hope of resisting enslavement by Persia. We may perhaps invoke this analogy to suggest that unification in Media too was a solution to the problems of freedom: the Medes are required to sacrifice their regional independence78• -123which had apparently been a contributory cause of their anarchy ( above ). At any rate it is again striking that Herodotus1 nrt0del can be found drawing on what seems like a current political theory: the importance of geographical unity as providing political unity and the strength needed for the state to grow and prosper. The clearest commentary on the present passage is, however, Herodotus 1 remark on the disunity of the Thracians ( 5.3.1 ): €l, 0€ 1)11:' .svos; apxot..TO ( SC. T,O E&Vos; ) n QJPOVE:OL XaTa TWUTO, &μaxov Ti &v srn xat 11:oAAfilt.. xpdTLOTOV 11:dVTWV s&VEWV xaTa yvwμnv T~V sμnv, &AA& yap T00TO a,opov crept.. xat &μnxavov μn XOTE: syyfvnTaL" st'..ot 0€ xaTa TOUTO &cr&t:VEE:s;. What the Thracians lack is unity, either the unity that comes from autocratic rule, the rule of one man like Deioces, or the unity that comes from consensus; accordingly they end up weak and are overwhelmed by the Persians, whereas if unified they might have been stronger than any other nation on earth. Theoretical speculation about the Thracians illustrates what happens to the Medes in practice: originally weakened by disunity ( whether or not that was a function of their 'excessive freedom' ) they had a choice of finding a consensus or appointing a king; and once Deioces had brought them unity, they began to emerge as an imperial power, 1 inviñible and by far the strongest nation' at least in Asia. The next stage in Media's growth is the ambition for empire, where the correspondence with the Spartan version of the model is particularly evident. When Deioces is succeeded, as Herodotus has it ( in defiance of hi story? /Ba, by his son Phraortes, the Median ar,khe is pushed forward, ironically claiming as its first victims the Per~ians, who will themselves later bring about the overthrow of the Medes ( 1.102.1 ): 11:apaos~dμsvos; OE ( SC. T~V &pxnv 2 o0x &TIE:XPaTo μouvwv Mnowv UPXE:LV, &Ala OTpaTE:Uo&μsvos; €11:L TOUs; IT[pcras; 11:PWTOLOL TE: TOUTOLOL ETis&nxaTO xat 11:pWTOUs; Mnowv urrnx6ous; sno(ncrE:. Phraortes is 11not satisfied with ruling over only the Medes11 and so begins -124his imperial expansion. The expression is of course closely paralleled in the words which we saw Herodotus use earlier of the Spartans, after the reforms of Lycurgus had brought them prosperity ( 1. 66.1 ) : xa.t 6n describing the restlessness which led them to attempt the conquest of Tegea, which stood in Herodotus' account for the 1 imperialism 1 by which they came to subdue 'the greater part of the Peloponnese 1 ( cf. 1.68.6, with Ch.II.i.A.2 ). In both cases Herodotus observes that same psychology: the confidence inspired by a political success bringing stability and unity, leads to the ambition for territorial expansion, the presumption of superiority over neighbours ( cf. Nitocris 1 perception at 1.185.1, Tf)V Mnowv opwaa apxnv μqaAnv TE: xa.t OUM F th . b . . 79 Ph t t d th . rom 1s eg1nn1ng raortes goes on o ex en e empire over the whole of Asia ( 1.102.2 ): &n' &J\Aou tn' &J\J\o t~v levos~ 3 aTpaTe:uaaμe:vos t.t Tots ' , ' ' ,. , t"\ , .,. ~ 'l" , AaaupLOUS }{Cl,L AaaupLWV TOUTOUS *OL NLVOV E:LXOV }{C(L npxov RpOTEPOV RaVTWV~ T6TE: Õ ~CJUV μe:μouvwμiVOL μ~V CJUμμaxwv &Te: URE:CJTEJTWV, &J\Aws μ[VTOL lwuTrav e:i ~MOVTE:S ••. In the generation after Deioces, Media has become confident, powerful and ambitious enough to march against its erstwhile master, Assyria, a fact which Herodotus' fulness here is calculated to emphasize. Phraortes himself is killed in trying to capture Nineveh, but his son, Kyaxares, who was "said to have been more warlike than his predecessors" ( 1.103.1; i.e. the ambition for empire gaining momentum from generation to generation; cf. 7.8a.1, on Persian expansion ), is successful after an interruption from the Scyths ( cf. 1.104.2 ). Media's attack on the ancient empire of Assyria is clearly an important turning-point in Herodotus' narative. His model of imperial growth ( cf. 1.95.lff, above ) seems to require that new empires grow at the expense of those which had formerly infringed upon their liberties. The thought --~--**----------***-------- -125behind this seems to be ~at the energetic liberation of the future imperial power encourages the disintegration of the old empire through the secession of its subjects and allies, who, seeing it weakened by the original act of liberation, no longer see the same reason for loyalty ( cf. e.g. Aesch. Pers.584ff ); meanwhile, the new power grows at the expense of the old and lays claim to the empire which has been there for the taking since its liberation. If it is right to see freedom ( the result of liberation) as an important ingredient in Median growth, we should observe a parallel with the analysis of the psychological advantages of free men in the Hippocratic 'Airs. Waters, Places' and assuming that Herodotus does also intend the tyranny of Deioces to be seen as a qualification of Median freedom, we may point to an important contrast. Hippocrates supposes that freedom alone ( besides climate and environment, of course) is what contributes to the strength of the peoples of Europe and tyranny to the weakness of those of Asia ( cf. Airs 16.16ff, 23.30ff; with 24.19ff ), and sees no need to qualify his remarks. In this entirely positive estimate of the potential of freedom Hippocrates is surely nearer to the beliefs of most ordinary Greeks80. Herodotus by contrast, though clearJy accepting the premiss that free men are psychologically better disposed to be warlike than men demoralized by enslavement ( perhaps a 'sophistic theory' in this clearly articulated form? cf. Ch.III.C ), as shown by his remarks of the freedom of the Athenians ( cf. esp. 5.78, with Ch.II.ii.E ), is nevertheless concerned to observe ( if we may so extrapolate) that men who are free without qualification ( cf. Xerxes' expression at 7.103.4: &vcLμivoL l~ ,o EAEU~Epov, below) are weaker still than those who, though they are free in one respect, have accepted a limitation of their freedom. As we shall see, this perception of the weakness of a people who will make no concessions in their freedom is one of the main themes of the -126last three books, the narrative of the Greek defence against Persia: Xerxes' criticism of Greek freedom in the Demaratus-dialogue ( cf. Ch.II. ii i. D ) turns out to. be n9t who 11 y without point. * -127- (2) Persia. If Herodotus was less than explicit about the importance of freedom to his model of Median growth" it plays a much more prominent role in his account of the Persian empire and its origins. Let us consider first an anecdote ( a Herodotean invention?) which offers an important insight into what it is the Persians are doing when they choose freedom. Cyrus stimulates their appetite for rebellion by an experiment ( 1.125-6 ): on oñ day he has them labour at cleating a large piece of scrubland, and on the next entertains them to a lav.ish banquet. He then puts a choice to them ( l.126.5f ): SouAoμ{voLCTL μev cμ{o neC6ecr6a.L £CTTL TaOE TE xa.t &AA.et μupCa. , , , , ,. , ,, , '- ,. o' • , a.ya6a., ou6£va. novov 6ouA01tp£n£a. £XOUCTL" μn Sou11.oμevoLcrL £ £μ£0 TC£L6£Gk1Ci.L dcrt uμtv TCOVOL TWL Xk1Li;WL na.pa.n:AncrLOL. &va.p(k}μmoL.. vDv ~v lμ{o TC£L60μ8VOL. )'~V8Gk1£ £Aed3£pOL.. On the one hand Cyrus excites their sense of the ignominy of their 1enslavement 1 to the Medes: they, the Persian nobility ( cf. 1.125.3 ), are suffering the indignities of slaves metaphorically, at least. On the other hand, and much more obviously, he is tempting them with thepromise of 1 good things'. If all Cyrus is doing is 'persuading the Persians to revolt' { cf. 1.124.2 and 125.1 ), it is sufficient that he should point out to them the undesirability of their present condition Mnowv &px£cr3aL ); he could have observed merely that they would be better off not being ruled by the Medes. Instead he makes a point of designating that condition as eleutheria, and in addition interpr~ting eleutheria in terms of material profit. In Herodotus. the neuter plural adjective agatha consistently denotes the rewards of empire or of tyranny, the incitement of profit which leads men to aspire to rule over others 81 In othe.r words in choosing freedom the Persians choose to pursue the prizes of arkh~: there is no talk of the heroism of fighting for one's -128freedom here, and even the suggestion that their enslavement to Medes is a disgrace to them82 is distinctly muted. Thus the Persian liberation means the beginnings of Persian empire: the Persians choose freedom because it promises them the luxuries of empire. As Harpagus had promised Cyrus only just before, in words which clearly anticipate this passage ( 1.124.2 ): It may perhaps be that the Persian model necessarily differs from the Median example because Herodotus is unable to suggest that the Persians first freed themselves and then only gradually came round to becoming an imperial power: he was saddled with the fact, already well enough known to Aeschylus ( Pers.765ff ), that in defeating Astyages Cyrus at once became the heir. to the Median empire. But it is clear that Herodotus does want to suggest how in making the choice for freedom the Persians are showing the beginnings of a psychological disposition which will carry them steadily on to a much bigger empire, and an empire which is truly of their own making. In the first place it is repeatedly stressed that the original moment of their liberation marked the beginning of their imperial aspirations, even if the element of freedom is not always explicitly btought out. Croesus is the first to see the consequences of Persia's overthrow of Astyages ( 1.46.1 ): n 'AaTuayEÕ ... nyEμovCn ~aTaLpE~Etaa •.• ~at Ta Tfiiv 11£pai::wv rcp1,yμaTa m'.i~av611£va. He is concerned as to how he might "stop the growth of Persian power before it becomes (too) great". Herodotus clearly po{ntsout here that Persian empire grew by a process which began with the moment of liberation rather than being an instantaneous acquisition: the absence of any mention of freedom here is not an important omission, for this is too earlyfor that idea to make any sense to us. The same -129sense of process js brought out much later by Xerxes, again with reference to the same point of departure ( 7.8a.l ): * &v6p£s II{pcra.L,, OUT' CI.\JTOS MCI.TTJYDOOμa.L, voμov TOV6£ E:V uμtv n-&Et.S 1CCl.p<l0£~<lμEVO!; TE Cl.llTWL, xpncroμa.L,. ws yap E:yW 1rnvMvoμa.L, TWV 1CpEcrBUT8PWV, ouoaμa MW nTp£μCcraμEV lneCTE nap£AaBoμEV Tnv nyEμOVLTjV nivoE napa Mn6wv, Kupou MCI.T£AOVTOS 'AcrTuayEct( cf. 1.46.1 ). Significantly perhaps, as we shall suggest, Xerxes too does not mention* the word 1 freedom' here, but the perception that the Persians have seen themselves as empire-builders, driiven on by.a restless ambition, ever since the defeat of Astyages by Cyrus is an important ingredient in Herodotus' account of the rise of Persia. It was that moment which gave the Persians. their empire: Xerxes has forgotten, perhaps, that that moment also have the Persians their freedom. Finally Herodotus reiterates the significance of this moment at the very end of the work, which returns us to an early but unspecified stage in Persia 1.s imperial history. Artembares ar~ues that the same moment of the overthrow of Astyages ( 9.122.2, EnEt ZEDS the Persians on the path to empire: they must now change their place of habitation to one better suited to their imperial destiny as masters of all Asia; Cyrus, however, warns that to do so would be for the Persians to abandon the role of master and accept subject status <t~ceagain ( 122.3 ): The Persians app<:>~ar to accept his advice ( 122.4 ): &pxEL,V TE srAovTo ••• μBAAõ A ••• aAAOLOL, 6ouA£U£Lv. They see their future as either a return to subject status or mastery over others: there is no middle course, and as a 1 free 1 people not subject they will be an imperial people. In the three examples just quoted Herodotus does not talk explicitly of freedom, although in the last example it is natural enough to understand that the condition of 'not being ruled' entails.being free. But these passages establish that here as much as in the case of Media Herodotus is thinking of empire as a process which has its beginning at a moment of successful change. That we are meant to think of freedom as an essential ingredient of that -130change is clear enough, and it is clear too that as in the Median case there is also an internal political ingredient to the success of that change. Unlike the Medes, of course, the Persians acquire freedom and the poHtical advantage of monarchy in reverse 0order, Cyrus already being their king before the liberation. Herodotus, however, actually seems to want to lessen that difference in that he has the Persians choose Cyrus .as their prostates in order to gain their freedom, while we hear nothing of Cyrus 1 former kingship over them; so that we see them acquiring freedom and the key to political stability almost simultaneously ( 1.127.1 ): 83 There is no mistaking the nature of Cyrus1 service to the Persians: he both gives them their freedom and puts in their hands the prizes ,of empire. This fact is not lost on the Persjans; on the eve of Cyrus' fateful attack on the Massagetai, Hystaspes hails him as the champion not only of Persian liberation but of Persian empire as well ( 1.210.2 )~ Bs avTt μ~v 60~AWV enoCnoas EAEU6epous Hystaspes the Persian knows that the Persians are masters because they are free, and that they are free because they acknowledge the rule of one man ( ibid. ): μn EGn &vnp Ilepons ysyovws OOTLS: TOl, ERLSOUAEUOELE, a man who could think otherwise is no Persian ( cf. 7.2.3, Xerxes' claim to succeed Darius is supported by the consideration that he is the grandson of Cyrus: ,mt on KiJpos; ECn o ,nnoaμEvos; TotaL ITeponwL .?iv elEu6spCnv ) • Darius, Hystaspes' son, makes the point rather more sharply in his defence of monarchy in the constitution-debate ( 3.82.5 ): H66£v ~μtv ~ EAEU6EpCn lylvETO Mat TED 6dvTos;; lxw ToCvuv yvwμnv nμeas; EU6EpW6EVTas; 6La eva &v6pa TD TOLOiJTO KEPLOTCAAEl,V. -131Herodotus has particularly contrived that we reflect on the merits and demerits of Persian monarchy in this debate, which is made to focus around Otanes' proposal that they now abandon that constitution and give the people some form of political freedom ( cf. 3.80.2, es μeaov ITtpanLaL XaTãEtVaL Ta npnyμaTa; for the meaning Of the expression, cf. Maiandrios at 3.142.3 ); Otanes does not, however, ,spe.a!<. of eleutheria, only of isonomia, perhaps because the trump card of freedom is being saved for Darius to play. Darius' reminder that the Persians acquired their freedom through 'one man1 , Cyrus, possibly has a certain paradoxical flavour in the context of the debate 84: Otanes seems to be arguing that the Persians might be more genuinely free if they were to do away with the rule of one man. As we have seen, however. there is clearly more to Darius' claim than this: the Persians would indeed never have been free without Cyrus, and they have surely become great through~the political strength given thenJ;iymonarchy. Implicit in Darius' argument, and perhaps also in Herodotu.s:'narrative, is the thought expressed by Isocrates in his defence of monarchy ( Nicocl.23 ): TODTO μ~v y&p Tnv TfilV ITEparav 6dvaμLV &naVTES Ccrμev TnALxadTnv T~ μtyeDos yeyevnμlvnv 06 6L& T~v T~v &v6pwv ,p6vnaLv~ &AA' ~TL μaAAov TWV aAAwv Tnv SaaLAeCav TLμWGL. It is one of Darius' themes that monarchy is the strongest and most efficient form of government ( cf. 3.82.2 and 4 ), a contention apparently borne out in some degree by Herodotus' narrative of Deioces, whose monarchy resolved the problems of Median anarchy (freedom?) and clearly gave them the strength necessary for empire. Thus it may __ be that we are meant to understand that the success of Persian freedom too depended on its being moderated by the monarchy of Cyrus, who jointly gave the Persians freedom and the prizes of empire. It may wel 1 be that Herodotus is here influenced in some degree by reflexions on the role of Cyrus the liberator in contemporary justifications -132of monarchy. Certainly Cyrus is familiar in this guise in the 4thc85: for example, Antisthenes ( F19 Caizzi ) compares him to Heracles as a euergetes of his people, clearly as a bringer of freedom to them as Heracles was in a diffferent way to the Greeks; and closer still, Plato in the Laws commends the regime in Persi~ in the days of Cyrus ( Legg.694A ): Plato's sequence here, which very probably shows sophistic influence, could well help to explain Herodotus' account of Persian freedom and empire, if,. as we suggested, the monarchy of Cyrus is meant to provide the Persians with a means for moderating and directing their freedom to a successful end, as indeed we a 1 so suggested pefoces I tyranny may have been for the Medes. It is not clear whether Herodotus wants.the reader to observe that though.Cyrus did give the Persians their freedom in the sense that they were no longer subject to the Medes, this did not give them freedom in a political sense, so that their liberation meant only that they were now ruled by a Persian not by a Median king. It may rather be, as Plato has it (above), that we are meant to think that the Persians under Cyrus did enjoy some measure of political freedom, as for example the Athenians possibly do under the first tyranny of Peisistratus ( d. 1.59.6, with Ch.II.ii.A ). But Cyrus, the 'father' of his people { cf. 3.89.3, he was so called, ()Tl, n1ILO<; TS (~v) xat ayaB-a cr<pu :rtavrn. sμnxavncrarn; cf. 1.126.5, above ), was succeeded by Cambyses, a monarch who had a very different idea of his political role, and was truly a despotes ( cf. 3.89.3, he was so called, oTL xaAsnos TE ~v xat 6ACywpoc; ). Thus in the constitution-debate, while Darius appeals to the example of Cyrus who gave the Persians their freedom as a reason for continuing . th th . h ( 3 8" 5 ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Wl e monarc y .. i. ' XWPLS TE TOUTOU KaTpLOUS voμous μn AUELV ~xovTas E~ ), he is offering no satisfactory answer to Otanes, who had -133appealed to their more recent experience of monarchy as a reason for putting an end to the institution ( 3.80.2, El6E:TE μcv yap Tf]V Ko.μSuaEw This suggests that after Cyrus 1 death the Persians came to be ruled by a despot~s rather than a basileus, and were thus robbed of any political freedom they might ori gi na 11 y have had. This, then, might explain the difference between Darius 1 respect for freedom and Xerxes 1 contempt for it. The conspirators are still near enough in time to Cyrus to appreciate that the Persians enjoyed a certain degree of political freedom under his rule; Xerxes is that much further away, and the monarchy has progressed that much further in the direction of despotism. In his conversation with Demaratus ( cf. Ch.II.iii.D ), he cannot appreciate that the freedom of the Greeks would not make them weak and degenerate ( 7.103.4 ): uno μEV yap svos &pxoμEVOL ( cf. 3.82.2 and 5; and 5.3.1, in (B}.l, above) xaTa Tponov Tov ~μETEpov yevo(aT~ !v &ELμafvovTES TOUTOV xaL napa Tnv SWUTWV ~UaLV &μe(voves xaL toLEV &vayxasoμEVOl μaanyL s:s TIAEDvas S:Acfoaoves E:OVTES" &vuμsVOL 6s s:s TO SAEU.\JEpOV OUK av TIOLEOLEV TOUTWV ou6sTEpa. Even Demaratus' account of Spartan freedpm limited by nomos, which th~ Spartans fear even more than Xerxes' subjects do him ( 7.104.4 ), reduces the king to the same disbelieving laughter ( cf.7.105 ). like Darius, Xerxes identifies the 'rule of one man1 as a Persian nomos ( cf. Tpdnov T~v ~μsTepov ), which in Darius 1 words 1 has served them well in the past' ( cf. 3.82.5, above); but Xerxes1 way of looking at the institution has a very important difference. Darius, as we saw, argued that as monarchy had given the Persians their freedom it deserved their continued respect; but Xerxes argues almost the opposite: monarchy alone can produce strength and it does so because it ~bes away with freedom. The freedom which Darius remembered as the great bounty bestowed on the Persians by Cyrus, and which Hystaspes reco;1pized as the root of their imperial greatness, has -134become for Xerxes a dangerous cancer, inducing nothing but a debilitating feebleness. * -135- (3) Conclusion. We must finally consider whether Herodotus had any contemporary inspiration to assist him in evolving this model of the consequences of freedom. It seems likely, in particular, that the example of the Athenian democracy came to give a new focus to the connexion between eleutheria and arkhe. The paradox that the democracy, the embodiment of political freedom, was at the same time through its empire a tyrannis was one that appears to have gained a strong hold86 We can see from Thucydides that Athens was at the time of the war commonly accused of being a tyrannos by her enemies cf. e.g. 1.122.3 and 124.3 ), a charge admitted in the famous words of Pericles ( 2.63.2 ) that the empire was a tyrannis which she could no longer safely give up, and also echoed by Clean in the Mytilene debate ( 3.37.2 ). In Aristophanes, moreover, the demos is a tyrannos both in relation to the outside world and within the state itself; thus the chorus of the Knights plays on the role of Demos as tyrannos ( Eq.llllff. ): ~ lflμE, xaÃv y' ~XELS/ &px~v, and Bdelycleon in the agon of the Wasps ( 546ff ) sets out to show tha.tthis father 1 s claim that as a dikast he enjoys the powers and privileges of a king is misconceived both in relation to the influence he enjoys within the state and the profit he derives.from the empire. There are less obvious parallels 87 from Thucydides which perhaps point ifil the same direction Alcibiades ( in words which could almost be an echo of Darius at 3.80.5 ) justifies to the Spartans his earlier support of the Athenian democracy ( 6.89.6 ): ooaa xat onEp s6e~aT6 TLS, TOUTO ~uv6La0WL~ELV. The same conjunction is perhaps made by Thucydides hims~l.f in his discussion of the difficulty experienced by Theramenes and his supporters, a hundred years after the fall of the tyrants, in abolishing the democracy ( 8.68.4 ): OU μovov μn OnnMoov 5v,a, aAAa Mat 0n£p nμLcrU TOU XPOVOU aUTOV aAAwV apXELV stw~o,a88. -136Thucydides seems to mean that it was the more difficult to separate the Athenians from their freedom because while free they had controlled an empire, which might entail the view that empire is an expected corollary of freedom. It may be, however. that there is little more here than a rhetorical play on the eleutheria-arkhe contrast, as also, for example, in e~0Xenoph.Athpol. I.8: & yap 6ftμos SodAsTaL OUM suvoμouμ{vns T~S Whatever the value of this latter group of examples, it seems probable thatthe model of the Athenian empire-democracy assisted the clearer articulation of the idea that it was in some sense a law of nature for free men to rule others and to want to rule others, as well as the related idea that arkhe was the supreme form of freedom89. There is afso some indication that the idea acquired currency in sophistic circles in discussion of society's restraints on individual liberty. In Plato 1 s Gorgias, forexample the sophist is made to assert that the value of a rhetorical education such as he provides" is that it both gives a man freedom and enables him ( through the power of oratory to rule over others in the state ( Pl.Gorg.4520 ): aC,Lov &μa μ£v au,ou noAsL. Gorgias here introduces into the dialogue the theme of power.which will become the central issue in the second part: Callicles is to argue later that it is both natural and just that those who are in a position to do so should exercise, and even abu~e their authority over others ( cf. e.g. 491Dff ). Callicles, it is true, does not, like Gorgias, explicitly speak of such people as 1 free 1 , but he comes very near to it in his simile likening the natural ruler to a lion ( 483E-484A ), whomthesociety tries to bind with laws but who is able to break his bonds and show his true nature: lnavacr,&s &vs~dvn 6scrno,ns ~μ{Tspos -137The man who is by nature eleutheros will not put up with being ruled by others and will instead exert his right to rule over them90. Clearly the evidence does not go far enough to allow us to .argue, what would seem plausible a priori, that Herodotus was in some degree assisted in the formulation of his joint model by contemporary discussions of the role of eleutheria in promoting a pre-disposition to arkhe. If this were so, however, it would be rrerely another indication of influences we have detected throughout in Herodotus' construction of his model and its various transformations .• We notice that in treating both Lycurgan Sparta and the Media of Deioces Herodotus showed the influence of contemporary thinking on the social and political value of eunomia ( cf. e.g. Anon. Iambl. ), as well as some points of contact with the metabole litei6n theory, with regard to the means by which societies may escape the vicious effects of anomia. We also saw that Herodotus' reconstruction of the condition of Media before the tyranny of Deioces appeared to use an idea from sophistic discussions of the social life of early man. If we are right in detecting these influences, thjs hi:l,~ important consequences for out understanding of Herodotus' historical method, and we may use that evidence as justification for our use of the term 'model I to describe the patterns we have been analysing. It seems likely that reflexion. on ideas of how societies function and evolve, which were very much in the air while Herodotus' work was in gestation, led him to approach the reconstruction of past events with a degree of system which he would not otherwise have attained. Apprised of the possibility that there were such things as laws of social evolution which could be learnt from the study of human nature, he could look at the diverse histories of Media, Persia, Athens, Sparta and the rest with a professional eye, conscious that there might be similar processes at work in those histories, underlying tendencies, sequences, that would roughly duplicate themselves ---- ----*------*----- ------ -*-----******* ------- -138at different times and in djfferent p1aces, given the constant of human nature { cf.Thucyd.1.22.4 and 3.82.2 ). However, his evidence wi11 have been diffuse, confusing, contradictory and lacunose, given the remoteness in time, and often p1ace, of the events he was studying. According1y, we may conjecture, he evolved an adaptable model with variants, which would help him in selecting, organizing, simplifying and interpreting, a model inspired by ref1exion in part perhaps on his historica1 materi~l for the rise of Persia ( freedom from Media leading to empire }, in part on his familiarity with theories of social evo1ution, and in part, sure1y, on his contemporary experience of how the state of Athens, having ear1ier undergone a liberation and successful political change ( cf. Ch.II.ii ), and having led the Greeks in a successful fight of liberation against Persia ( cf. Ch.II.iii ), had emerged in a remarkab1y short time as an imperial power. Having established the outlines of his model, he could use it to reconstruct such events as he had little or no evidence for, as he surely does with the Media of Deioces ( see {B).l, above), and finally when he came to assemble his work to make sense to a reading public, he could, where necessary to his exposition, re-interpret certain historical sequences to turn them into better illustrations of the model itself, as he surely does with Sparta ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.2 ), and also very probably Miletus ( cf. Appendix I ). We can imagine that Herodotus started out using hi~model as an aid to interpretation, and, having seen the attraction of bringing order to the confusion of the historical past, was soon carried away into wanting to prove the correctness of the model, even where this did violence to the facts at his disposa1¥ 1. If we have correctlydtvined the origin of the model for Herodotus as being in part reflexion on the rise of the Athenian empire, we may have uncovered part of the reason for the equivocation in his evaluation of the theme of freedom ( cf. Ch.II.ii and iii ). In other words, having -139seen that Athens owed her rise both to a successful liberation from tyranny and to her role in the liberation of Greece from Persia, and that that rise had led seeming]y inevitably to empire, he was encouraged to reflect that while attachment to the ideal of freedom was in some respects admirable, it could all too easily involve a pre-disposition to seek dominion over others, a paradox which could only logically be resolved on the assumption that the will to freedom is little more than an expression of self-interest, which was likely to lead soo11e,r or later to injustice against others ( cf. Ch.II.iii, for a fuller treatment of this tn relation to the Persian Wars narrative ). We also tentatively suggested that Herodotus laid some stress in the cases of both Media and Persia on th~ equ~Jjpn 11freedom-plus-tyranny *,, ',-equals empire", though comparison with what he says of the Thracians does reveal that he can accept an alternative route to ( imperial?) strength through conse,nsus ( see (B).I, above). It may be that in the parallel between Athenian and eastern empire Herodotus would want to draw a distinction in the political sphere between the heavily qualified freedom of the latter and the complete or near complete freedom of the former. If, however, his model was indeed partly inspired by the history of Athens itself, might it not be that he saw the Athenian empire as itself the work of a 'tyranny' in some sense or other? There are indeed two possible ways in whichhemight have thought this, not necessarily unrelated. He may have accepted the view ( a common one surely?) parodied in Aristophanes, as we saw above, that the demos itself was a tyrannos, wielding a form of corporate 'absolute power' through the assembly and the law-courts. We may note that the analogy between extreme democracy and tyranny is well established by the 4thc, as for example in Aristotle's Politic~ ( esp. e.g.1313B32ff, et saepe ). On the other hand, Herodotus may have felt, with Thucydides, that Pericles, working through and on -140behalf of the demos, was himself approaching the status of tyrant cf. Thucyd.2.65.9, EYLYV€TO T€ loyw~ μEV 6nμoxpaTCa, Epyw~ 0€ uno TOU xproTOU avopõ apxn ), as indeed the Comic poets exaggeratedly pictured him on occasion ( cf. e.g. Cratinus F240K; with Ch.III, n.139 ); and clearly Pericles, in the second half of the 5thc at l~ast, was to a great extent personally r~sponsible for having turned the Del ian League into an empire. Herodotus obviously tells us too0little of his views on the empire-democracy to enable us to decide this question, and he may after all believe the Athenian version of freedom with empire was achieved through consensus not tyranny ( cf. 5.78? ): but does not his remark on the impressionability of the demos at 5.97.2, where parado,xically the assembly is made to seem more a creature of whim even than an autocrat ( cf. eh.II.ii ), perhaps suggest that he accepts the demos-tyrannos analogue? Finally, as we shall suggest ( cf. Ch.II.iii.K ), when Herodotus shows the sequence of empire succeeding empire ,to depend on moments of energetic liberation by the future imperial power, as in the way in which the Median empire succeeded the Assyrian empire, he may in some respect be influenced by his view that the liberation of Greece from Persian imperialism by the Athenians led to Athens herself 1 succeeding 1 to Persian empire, seeking to exercise her hegemony over states once ruled or claimed by the Persian king. Of *course, the influence may have worked in the opposite direction, but either way it is hard to feel we are pressing an analogy to which Herodotus himself was not sensitive. It is hardly likely that he would not have used his and every Greek's experience of the Athenian empire as a 'model 1 ( in a less specialized sense ) to help explain the empires of the east, or equally that stddy of those more distant examples would not have helped him to a better understanding of the disturbing and dramatic phenomenon of Athenian empire itself. -141Freedom, Part ii: Political Domination ( Athens ). Herodotus' treatment of the liberation of Athens from the tyranny of the Peisistratids, the work's central illustration of the theme of free~om from political domination, is prepared at some length in Book One ( 1.59-64) and spans a fair ,space at the centre of the work ( 5. 55-97 ) , including a paragraph of unusually explicit commentary on the significance of Athenian freedom ( 5. ), and culminating in ~n action which Herodotus singles out as a turning-point of great importance from the point of view of the \-vork1,s design ( 5.97.3 ): CXD"Cal., 6s al vfrs; apxn }t(X"){WV EYEVO\JT:O "EnnaC TE Mat Sap8apo1.,cr1.,. The Homeric echo here suggests that these ships have the grandest possible consequences, like the ships built for Paris by Meriones1, which caused the most momentous of wars and thereby changed the world. Herodotus surely offers us here a pointer back to his original programme f p ) , ,, ' ' ' ' .. , , ' , • ' ' ,, ' l roem : T:a T:E CXAAO Mat.. 6L nv aLT:Lnv eno>..Eμncrav CXAAnAoLcrL •• Moreover as the sending of the ships is shown by Herodotus to be directly linked to Athens' acquisition of freedom from tyranny, we are obliged to conclude that without the liberation there would have been no incitement of Persia, no Marathon, no Salamis, none of the consequences immediate and remote of the Persian Wars. Thus the liberation of Athens, like the liberations of Media and Persia ( cf. Ch.II.i.B ), is a turning-point which produces important and disturbing consequences; and once again there is no question of Herodotus expressing or even implying anything like unequivocal enthusiasm for this glorious event and its concequences. As we shall see, there is no warrant for the orthodox view of the narrative of the liberation and its sequel as expressed for example by von Fritz 2: "ein gewaltiges Crescendo . des Preises der Freiheit und der Verurteilung jeder Unterdd.lckung11• This view is encouraged by the hypothesis that Herodotus is an outright admirer -142of Athenian freedom and democracy, which does not square with this narrative and turns out to be too hasty an inference from 5.78 ( cf. (E) below) and 7.139 ( cf. Ch.II.iii.E ). There is nothing new in questioning Herodotus' attachment to the democracy3 , but the liberation-narrative has not yet been systematically analysed for the light it throws on his equivocation. This chapter analyses the tyranny itself, the liberation and the rise of the democracy until the Ionian revolt, attending to (a) Herodotus' attitude to the democracy and (b) the problems of the supposed 1Alcmeonid-source 1 for the account. (A) Peisistratus. Our first encounter with Athens takes place early in the work, as befits the city which is to precipitate the confrontation between the Greeks of the mainland and the Persian empire which is the work's climax. Athens is introduced here ( 1.59.1 ) as a state important enough to be ranked alongside Sparta, as the foremost city of the Ionikon genos ( cf. 1.56.2, with 1.143.2 ), although at the time of this first encounter we find her temporarily weakened by the tyranny of Peisistratus. It is worth looking at this episode more closely, since it appears to combine two contrasting theories of tyranny in a surprisingly original interpretation of Peisistratus. Croesus' envoys learn that, in contrast to the Spartans who had recently escaped from political difficulties and had begun to expand dramatically ( 1.66.1, with Ch.II.i.A. 2 ), the Athenians were being prevented from growing by the oppression of the Peisistratid tyranny ( cf. 1.65.1 ): ,ou~ μtv vuv 'ASnva(ou~ ,oLaD,a ,ov xpovov ,oD,ov .•. xa,txov,a, TOU~ OE AaH€OaLμOVLOU~ EH HaHWV μEyaAWV TI€~€Uyo,ã ( cf. 1.59.1, Ha,txoμ€VOVT€Hat OLECTnaaμtvov ... ~no Il€LCTLCTTpd,ou ... TOUTOV ,õ x~ovov ,upavvEdov,õ 'Aanva(wv:). This picture of the Athenian tyranny has an obvious parallel in Thucydides' description of the age of tyranny in Greece in the Arcaheology ( 1.17 ): -143In the states that were governed by tyrants, the tyrant's first thought was always for himself, for his own personal safety, and for the advancement of his own family. Consequently security was the chief political principle in these governments, and no great action ever came out of them except perhaps against their nearest neighbours .~. õTw ,. navTax66EV ~ 'E\\&s snt ROÃV XP6vov HaTELXETO μ~TE HOLVnL ~aVEpov μn6ev HaTEpyãEcr6aL, HaTa n6AELS TE aToAμOTEpa EGVaL. Both accounts picture tyranny as a form of repression ( katekhomenon/kateikheto )4, which shows itself in a lack of adventurousness in military matters 5. Herodotus implies here that it was due to the repression of the Peisistratid tyranny that Athens was unable or unwilling to assist Croesus, while later at 5.78 he describes how under the tyranny the Ath~nians had been ''no better in war than any of their neighbours 11 , but how, freed from the tyranny, 11they became by far the foremost of them11 ; and indeed the sequence started there leads them first to seek friendship with Persia ( 5.73.lf) and finally to end up its enemy ( 5.96.2, see below). But Herodotus charact~ristically has a surprise in store. Having begun the section by telling us of the harm done to Athens by the tyranny of Peisistratus ( 1.59.1, xaTEX6μEv6v TE xat 6LEcrnacrμ(vov ), a sombre effect heightened by the ominous story of the prophecy of Chilon, warning Hippocrates against bringing up a son ( 1.59~1-3 )6, and having described the devious and then violent means by which he secured power for himself ( 1.59.4-6 ), Herodotus suddenly changes tack with an unexpected piece of commentary ( 1. 59. 6 ) : ~V6a 6n O IlELCTLCTTpaTOS ~PXE 'ÃnvaLWV, ÕTE TLμas TctS EOUcras crUVTapaEas ÕTE e(crμLa μETa\AaEas, ERL TE TotcrL HaTECTTE~crL ~VEμE\l TnV n6ALV HOCTμEWV xa\ras TE xat Ei. The effect is clearly one of deliberate paradox, of a kind with those we considered in Chapter One. Despitewhat we have heard-to far, nothing of which has led us to expect anything of the sort, this first tyranny of Peisistratus turns out to be not only mild and constitutional, but even 'admirable' ( cf. xoaμlwv xa\ills Te xat E~ ). Not to change any of the established ordinances of the city, a point which Herodotus so firmly emphasizes, is contrary to all we expect of tyrants ( cf. esp. 3.80.5, with e.g. 5.67-8 and 6.127.3, etc. ). -144Peisistratus emerges here as a guardian of the constitution, an upholder I of order, even a saviour of Athens from the perils of anomia7 In this last detail it becomes clear that Herodotus is applying to his reconstruction of Peisistratus' first tyranny the same theory of political change that we discovered in his treatment of Deioces in Media8. Like the latter tyranny that of Peisistratus emerges as a solution to the problem of anomia, or rather, as it is in this case, stasis. The word stasis runs like a Leitmotiv through the account of the rise of Peisistratus 9 ( 1.59.3 ): ~YELPE Tp(Tnv oTdoLv ... Both this tyranny and that of Deioces later conform to the pattern set out by the Anonymus Iamblichi ( 7.12ff ): y(VETaL 6€ xaL n TUpavv(~ •.• oux Es &AAOU TLV6S n &voμCas. Some men think, wrongly, that tyranny arises in some other way, and that men are deprived of their liberty through no fault of their own, but because the tyrant forces himself upon them, but they are mistaken For when these two things depart from the citizen body, namely 1 law1 and 'justice':( 5 TE v6μõ xat n 6Cxn ), then the guardianship of these will revert to one man. Society cannot long survive without these safeguards, the aijthorargues, and the inevitable solution to the disaster of lawlessness is 'tyranny' or the rule of one man. Thus though tyranny is an indubitable evil, at the same time, paradoxically, it can serve a vital purpose in safeguarding social justice when all else has failed. Both Deioces and Peisistratus clearly perform this function, Deioces in his precise attention to the administration of Justice ( cf. e.g. 1.100.1, ~v TO 6(xaLov ,uA&crcroov xaAEn6s, with Ch.I.i ), Peisistratus in ensuring the stability of the constitution in a time of grave political unrest. Both tyrants, however, share other characteristics; both begin with good reputations ( cf. 1.59.4, np6TEPOV EUOOXLμncras EV TnL TipOs MEyapcas yEVOμcvnL OTpaTny(nL ••• ; With 1.96.2, EV 66xLμos ), and both make unscrupulous use of their reputations to win the -145people's trust, employing deceitful stratagems to secure power. Peisistratus persuades the people that he has been atfocked and wounded by his enemies, and on the basis of his reputation they are deceived ( s~anaTn&ECs ) into giving him a bodyguard ( 1.59.4-5 ), while, as we saw earlier, .Deioces persuades the Medes that they cannot do without him as a guardian of justice. In both cases the aspiring tyrant finds a way to bring home to the people . I the perils of anomia/stasis; but in both cases too, though the people bring tyranny on themselves py showing particular favour to one man, they get more than they had bargained for, inasmuch as the tyrant is a man with a burning ambition for personal power ( cf. 1.59.3, xam(j)povncras TrJV TUpavvC6a; with 1.96.2, spacr&Ets TupavvC6os ), a man who will do anything to win his prize. In both cases Herodotus carefully balances the paradox that though the 'tyrant' solves the problems of anarchy, he is at the same time a 1 tyrant 1 , with all the unscrupulous ambition that that implies. Herodotus' treatment of Peisistratus, however, differs from that.of Deioces in that there is more than one tyranny involved; and this enables him to oppose the two sides of the problem more sharply 10 The first stage of the tyranny is the one which draws the favourable judgement, but this comes to an end when the stasiotai of Megakles and Lykourgos join together IlELOLOTpaTO\J aOTLS sx vlns sn' aAAT)AOLOL ScrTacrCacrav. It appears from this that the golden age of Peisistratus' tyranny was nothing but a brief interlude, a period when the tyranny had not yet taken root, a period which Herodotus contrasts sharply with the third and final stage ( 1.64.1 ): ouTw 6n ITELOGOTpUTOS TO TpLTO\J crx~v 'A&nvas sppC~wcrE Tnv TUpavvC6a ..• 11 . The unrooted tyranny was a desirable condition for Athens, we infer, since it brought a temporary respite from stasis 12, but also just because it was 1 unrooted', not yet a real threat to freedom, as it later became. It thus seems that Herodotus applauds the first stage of tyranny as a compromise between the anarchy of stasis ( unqualified freedom) and the repression of full autocracy. After an account of the second tyranny, whose main interest in Herodotus• narrative is to show the pattern of shifting allegiances and enmities between Peisistratus and the other two parties to Athenian stasis ( cf. n.12 ), we come to the third tyranny, and we are left in no doubt how things have changed for the worse. Whereas Peisistratus seized power the first time by means of an internal coup, supported by one faction from within the city and with a bodyguard of the citizens, the third attempt is an act of military aggression mounted from outside with foreign troops ( mercenaries, and allies from Thebes and elsewhere), a calculated attempt to deprive the Athenians of their freedom. Indeed Herodotus seems to observe a distinction between the first and third tyrannies which Aristotle in the Politics was to draw between the good an? bad forms of monarchy, namely that a 'king' 13 has a bodyguard of the citizens but a tyrant a bodyguard of foreign troops . "Kings rule according to law and over a willing people, but tyrants over unwilling subjects; and so the former are protected by their subjects, the latter against them11 • The first tyranny of Peisistratus was supported by a bodyguard of Athenians chosen from the citizen body and willingly conferred by them ( cf. 1.59.5, o 6s 6nμos ••• [6wxl ot TWV aCTTWV xaTaAEgas av6pa;; ), but the third tyranny is both established and maintained by assistance from foreign mercenaries ( cf. 1.61.4 and 64.1 )14. The distinction is n*ot made in Aristotle's account of Peisistratus in the Athenaion Politeia, so that the Politics passage may well not be meant to refer to Peisistratus at all: it is thus possible that Herodotus is here drawing on a sophistic theory of tyranny-kingship which also influenced Aristotle in the Politics. Herodotus differs from the Athenai~n Politeia in other details of ----**--**--**---- ---- -147Peisistratus' administration. For Herodotus the~ tyranny was set on a firm footing ( rooted ) both by the use of mercenary troops and by the organization of revenues ( 1.64.1 ): eppC~woe ,nv ,upavvCoa EnLXODpOLOL 11:0,aμo\J ouVLov,wv. The local source of revenue here ( -rwv μE:v av-ro-e-ev ,, . • ) seems to be the land tax of 10 per-cent mentioned in the Athpol. ( 16.4-5) in an anecdote to illustrate the mildness of Peisistratus' rule 15• Herodotus, however, must intend quite the opposite effect when he mentions taxation alongside mercenaries as a bulwark of the tyranny, without any hint of the 'mildness' of Peisistratus' exactions. Similarly where the Athpol. concentrates on the creative achievements of the reign, Herodotus has nothing of the kind. We are told instead how Peisistratus took hostages from among the children of the Athenians who 16 remained rather than going into exile at once ; and Herodotus ends the episode with the striking summation ( 1.64.3 ): xaL Ilucrlcnpa-ros μh -rfis olxnlñThere is a deliberate variation on his summary of the first tyranny here ( cf. L59.6, ~vkta ) : this is no l anger a 'reign' ( as * of a basileus ) but a 'tyranny' proper, with all the pejorative overtones 17 of the word . Moreover the last words on the tyranny are 'death and exile 118 , an unnecessarily melodramatic conclusion ( as if all the Athenians suffered death or exile! ) but unmistakable in its effect. We could have inferred without Herodotus' help that some Athenians must have fallen at Pallene, but his reminder of this and of the exile of the remaihder is a determined effort to bring home to us the cost of the tyranny. Now, finally, we see what he had meant by describing Athens under the tyranny as xa-rex6μi;:vov -re xaL 6Leo11:acrμlvov at the time of Croesus' embassy: the words apply only to the third tyranny, when Athens was held down by mercenary troops and -148repressive taxation, and torn apart by a murderous civil war that brought death to some, for others exile, for others the capture of their families for hostages. The shape of Herodotus' account of the Peisistratid tyranny as a whole, however, differs in an important respect both from what our other two main witnesses, Thucydides and Aristotle, describe, and from what our other evidence suggests was the shape of the tradition accessible to him. While it shares the common view that the tyranny degenerated from good beginnings, it disagrees significantly as to the moment of change. Thucydides and Aristotle are in no doubt that the change took place with the murder of Hipparchus19, not before; on the contrary they appear to agree that the entire reign of Peisistratus, as well as the early part of Hippias' tyranny, had been a •golden age'. And though there is some disagreement in the other sources as to whether the murder of Hipparchus or the death of Peisistratus was the more important turning-point, there is no version which follows Herodotus in putting the moment of change as early as the lifetime of Peisist~tus and between .his first and third tyrannies. Indeed there is good reason to suppose that Herodotus' account of Peisist~tus is quite idiosyncratic in this respect, and the other evidence seems to be unanimous in its favourable estimate of the founder of the dynasty, if not so uniformly well-disposed towards his sons. Two pieces of evidence call for special attention here; the first is that Peisistratus appears among the ancient worthies of Athens recalled from the dead in Eupolis 1 Demoi20, an unequivocal testimony to the affection with which his reign was regarded in the second half of the 5thc; and the second is Aristotle's observation that the tyranny of Peisistratus was proverbially a golden age ( Athpol.16.7 ): 6~~ xat noAAdK{~s l]tp[dAAo]uv ~s [~] ITE~ãaTpdTou TUpavvts 6 tnt Kp6vou BCos sfn ( Thalheim's text ). The -149same judgement is to be found in the Ps.-Platonic Hipparchus, where however it is applied to the years before the murder of Hipparchus ( 2298 ) : n&v,wv av TWV naAaLWV nMouoas OTL TaUTa μovov TO ETn ( SC. the three years after the murder) TUpavvts lylvc,o iv 'A&~v~LS, .~v 6' &AAOV xpovov syyds TL EsWV 'A&nvaLOL woncp EnL Kpovou 8aOLAEUOVTOS. Wilamowitz argued21 that while the discrepancy between these two texts shows their independence, they nonetheless have a common source: Aristotle remembered, or rather misremembered, the phrase from the teachin,gs of the Academy, where the memory of the Peisistratids was re-established in discussions 22 of the ideal monarchy* . But this seems not to be justified by either passage. Despite the dilapidation of the text of Aristotle at this point ( cf. Rhodes (1981), ad loc. ), it remains clear that he is referring to a popular memory of the Athenians, an old proverbial saying of the people23; and in this he is supported by Ps.-Plato, who has Socrates speak of the golden age of Hipparchus 1 reign as a tradition he has heard from ancient authorities. Unless both authors are dressing up a scholarly fiction as a popular tra:lition, we are justified in claiming that there was an early, proverbial tradition that the reign of Peisistratus was an 'age of Kronos', which Ps.-Plato has ( for his own purposes ) consciously misapplied to his idealised Hipparchus. Accordingly there is nothing new or artificial in the enthusiasm of the 4thc sources for the reign of Peisist.ratus, and it is not the product merely of a scholarly re-habilitation 24 Peisistratys 1 name is never mentioned in Aristophanes, who only ever uses the name of Hippias to express his character 1 s proper democratic horror of tyranny 25. In the orators too, with only one exception, attacks. on the tyrants are directed exclusively at the 'Peisistratids', that is the sons of Peisistratus, rather than Peisistratus himself 26. Thus the extra-Herodotean tradition offers a surprisingly unanimous verdict on Peisistratus, and nowhere is there any indication that any other cource made the distinctton between the tyranhies of Peisistratus himself that Herodotus makes here 26a. -150It is unlikely that Herodotus is following a source unfavourable to the tyrant, and indeed, as we have seen, he allows himself an ungrudgingly favourable judgement of Peisistratus, which almost outdoes Aristotles in its enthusiasm except that he restricts its application to the first tyranny only. Moreover the way he differentiates the third tyranny is not so much by reporting different facts from those in Aristotle, but for the most part simply by the use of different emphases and.his own inference. Thus he highlights the sinister after-effects of Pallene, drawing out the details which are not excluded by Aristotle's account but which are not there brought to the fore: the taking of hostages, the flight and exile of the *defeated party, even the lasses in battle ( see above ) . Similarly, as we saw, where Aristotle and Thucydides mention taxation to illustr~te the mildness of the regime, Herodotus uses the same fact to illustrate its repressive character as a means -0f consolidating the tyranny. The contrast between eeisistratus' original citizen-bodyguard and his later mercenary bodyguard may, as we suggested, be imported by Herodotus not from the tradition it is absent in the Athpol. but from sophistic theory: a theoretical notion of the difference between tyranny and monarchy contributing to Herodotus' reconstruction. What makes Herodotus' account different is 'interpretation'; indeed the subtlety of what he has done seems to have eluded both Thucydides and Aristotle, who thrugh both to some extent dependent on his account, seem unaware that they are diverging from it, or rather simplifying it although Thucydides may perhaps bec.cmsciously eschewing that part of Herodotus' account which he knew to be divergent from the prevailing tradition, which he himself found no reason to doubt. A good deal depends on whether Herodotus has re-interpreted the tradition here: if it were not that he described the third tyranny as repressive, there would be no ground for introducing the Athenian excursus in the way that he does. If he had accepted in full what seems to have been the unanimous ------**------**--**--- -151judgement of the tradition, namely that the entire reign of Peisistratus was a golden age, he would have had no occasion to describe Athens at the time of Croesus 1 embassy ( c.550) as oppressed, weakened and divided, nor to contrast its condition with that of Sparta, a state that was weak and divided with one that had but recently found eunomia and strength. Herodotus clearly wanted to contrast an Athens under the tyrants which was weak and oppressed with an Athens liberated from the tyrants which was suddenly strong and flourishing. Since, however, he had chosen to introduce his first Greek narrative, and hence his first account of Athens, as early as the fall of Croesus, he was faced with a problem. His first excursus on Athens would have to deal with the reign of Peisistratus, who unlike his sons, especially Hippias, was credited in the tradition with an almost unassailable reputation for mildness and openness. How was he then to elaborate the contrast he wished to make? The answer appears to be that he modified his account of Peisistratus accordingly, retaining the tradition 1 s favourable judgement, but restricting its application to the first tyranny only, and then describing the final stage of the tyranny in such a way as to make it seem truly repressive and debilitating. Only by this means could he retain his model and accomodate the main demands of his evidence. Having done this, he need no longer concern himself with the ill-effects of the tyranny when he returns to it in Book Five; and indeed his description of the last years of Hippias is confined to a word or two, and he makes no use of the contrast between Peisistratus and his sons which so much occupies the attentions of the other sources. We hear that the murder of Hipparchus did nothing towards ending the tyranny ( 5.55 ): μc:,a mum £T\)pa:vveuov,o 'A-lJnvaCOt, ST[, £TW ,ecrcrepet OUOE\J ~crcrov &Ha Hett μciHov "~P~ ,oo; and we hear that it was the Alcmeonids who initi~ted the real liberation ( 5.62.2 ): 'InnCew ,upetvveoov,õ Hett &μnt,Hpat,voμevou • A-&nva.Cot,crt,. And that is a 11: Herodotus is here concerned to get on with -152the task of describing the liberation, not the evils of the tyranny, which he has already worked out in Book One27. This interpretation depends on whether or not it seems likely that the difference between the first and third tyrannies is Herodotus• own contrivance. If we assume that his information comes from a non-esoteric source, that it merely reflects the prevailing Athenian polis-tradition of the late 5thc ( cf. Appendix II ), such a Herodotean re-interpretation seems plausible, given the evidence for that tradition. It could, however, be objected that Herodotus is reproducing the interpretation of an esoteric source, that is a family whose ancestors co-operated with Peisistratus in the first and/or second tyrannies and not the third. If such were the case, however, we would rather expect to see the family in question figure in the narrative, unless we believe that Herodotus borrowed such a family 1 s apology but happened to discard any mention of the members of the family it was designed to vindicate. Unless we do adopt this somewhat improbable alternative, there remains only one suitable candidate here, namely the Alcmeonids, who indeed collaborated in the second tyranny, and, as Herodotus explicitly mentions ( cf. 1.64.3, above; with 6.123.1 ), 27a were in exile during at least the third tyranny ,. There are,, however, clear objections to this identification of Herodotus• source: the tyranny whose mildness Herodotus commends is the first, set up in opposition to Megakles and Lycurgus, not the second in which Megakles collaborates; Megakles1 collaboration is distinctly unattractive ( cf. n.12 ), and it is hard to detect any note of apology in Herodotus' account of his dealings with Peisistratus; finally, it seems curious that Herodotus should have relied exclusively on one source, and one so obviously likely to be partisan, for a narrative of such central importance to the work1 s design. As we shall see later ( cf. (B) and (C) below}, the hypothesis of an Alcmeonid source for Herodotus• Athenian history is very hard to reconcile with -153his narrative as it stands. Thus the baJance of probability favours the view that Herodotus• account of Peisisrtatus is idiosyncratic in relation to the prevailing Athenian polis-tradition because it has been 'reconstructed' by him out of that tradition for the purposes of accomodating his mddel of Athens under the tyranny to the demands of chronology28. (B) The Liberation. The account of the liberation with which Herodotus resumes his Athenian history in Book Five ( 5.55ff) is a lengthy and involved piece of exposition, which moreover studiously avoids any straightforward glorification. This reticence is not usually noticed for what it is, but it both poses considerable difficulties for some of the main critical orthodoxies and suggests that what we said about Herodotus' attitude to freedom and liberation in the last section ( Ch.II.i.B) applies here too, namely that he is very far from evincing the uncomplicated enthusiasm with which he is so often credited. The first unusual thing about Herodotus 1 account is that his treatment of the tyrannicides, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, is clea:t:i1y in some sense a polemic against a popularly held view, in much the same way that Thucydides' treatment of the same question undoubtedly is. although the latter does not quite address itself to the same misconceptions. Thucydides observes ( cf. 1.20.2, and 6.54.1 ) that "even the Athenians do not have reliable traditions about their own tyrants~ ( õTE ãtoi~ 'AenvaCous nEpt Tfuv ), which Dover and Andrewes are surely right to take as meaning not that they mistakenly supposed the tyrannicides to have actually ended the tyranny at once by their murder of Hipparchus, but rather that Thucydides has certain points -------- ----------* «*--*-** .. ***------------ -------*************- -154of disagreement about the precise details and circumstances of the murder of Hipparchus29. Indeed that the memory of the liberation by Cleomenes and the Spartans was alive in some form in the Athens of the late 5thc, is clear from Aristophanes who refers allusively to those events in the 30 Lysistrata ( 1150-6) as a matter of common knowledge . On the other hand it is apparent that the tyrannicide 1myth1 , the belief that it was the heroism of Harmodios and Aristogeiton which, if not immediately, then at Jeast eventually 'liberated' Athens, was assiduously nourished by the democracy, almost as it were as a 'charter myth', a story told and retold to perpetuate the democracy's sense of its own corporate identity. Indeed the state puts public money into sustaining the 'myth'; the statuegroup of the tyrannicides sculpted by Antenor, possibly as early as 50931, replaced by the work of Kritios and Nesiotes in 477-6 ( Marm.Par. ), bears an inscription recording that Harmodios and Aristogeiton 11brought a great 1 ight to the Athenians, when they killed Hipparchus ... and set their fatherland [free] 1132; an inscription of the 430's records a decree for the maintenance in the prytaneion at public expense of the descendants of the tyrannicides 33. In addition the heroism of the tyrannicides was remembered in a series of skolia, which, despite the aristocratic associations of the genre, had by the end of the 5thc clearly become the property of the democracy, as we can see, for example, from the way Aristophanes in the Lysistrata has his chorus of tyrant-fearing gerontes ( good democrats all, fearful of rev-olution and Sparta) echo them ( 632f, 11.at q,opncrw TO t;Lq,os; ., , , , ) 34 lÕlOLS £f;ns; ApLO'TOY£LTOVL • Herodotus is aware of the power of the 'myth' at Athens, as we can see from his having Miltiades promise Callimachus at Marathon that if he follows his advice, he can win for himself a memory "more glorious than ever Harmodios and Aristogeiton left behind them11 ( 6.109.3 }35. We shall have more to say on the history of the 'myth' in a moment; -155we must look first at Herodotus' treatment of it. He begins with a nicely contrived surprise ( 5.55 ): When Harmodios and Aristogeiton killed Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, μET~ Ta0Ta ETUpavvedovTo 'A3nvatoL s~* lTEa , ' ' :r • ''\' \ -, ' . .. ' "' TEOOEpa OU6EV 11aaov aAAa xaL μaAAOV n ~po TOu. The structure of the sentence with its opening epei-cJause leads us to expect that Herodotus is going to go stramght on to the liberation: after μETO TaDTa we anticipate for example EAEU3Epw3naav 'A3nvatoL to answer yevoμevas Tup&vvwv ©6E EAEU3epas in the previou9 sentence, and the continuation sTupavvEdovTo ouoev naaov falls on the ear with distinct bathos. Then after briefly describing the dream of Hipparchus and his murder ( 5.56.1-2 ) and digressing on the origins of the Gephyraioi ( see below), Herodotus recurs to his original subject with the dismissive resumption ( 5.62.1 ): 6Et 6E ~p~s TodTOLOL ~TL &valaBEtv T~v xaT' &px&s Emphati ea ll y he points out to us that the business of Hipparchus 1 murder and murderers has been a red-herring: these questions bear no relation to the real business of the liberation, indeed the murder only aggravated the tyranny of Hippias without bringing its end any nearer ( cf. 5. 62. 2, abo.ve )36. In the light of the importance attached by the democracy to the 'myth' of the tyrannicides, and the belief that it was their action which 1 really 1 brought down the tyranny, Herodotus' dismissive attitude to the whole question is surely deliberately deflationary. Moreover not only does he deny all importance to the action of the tyrannicides, he also appears to be making a pointed observation about their family in the accompanying digression ( 5.57~61 ). Though the Gephyraioi themselves ( 5.57.1, ws μev auToL lsyouaL ) claim to come from Eretria originally, Herodotus tells us that his independent research has shown him that they are in fact Pheenicians who came over with Cadmus, were twice expelled from Boeotia ( 57.2 ), first by the Argives and then -156by the Boeotians, and only then settled in Athens. The Athenians accepted After digressing further on the Phoenicians' introduction of the alphabet to Greece ( 58.1-61.2 ), Herodotus returns to the Gephyraioi ( 61.2 ): 11and they have temples set apart for their own special use in Athens, which the other Athenians are forbidden to enter, including a temple of Demeter Achaia, in which secret rites are performed". Why should Herodotus be concerned to make so much of the Phoenician origin of the Gephyraioi and their alien, or non-Athenian status? Whether or not it is as he says, he at least claims to have done independent research ( Ws 6E eyw avanuv~avoμEVOs EUPLMW) with the purpose of correcting the family's own account of its origins 38, and evidently he wants the information he has 'unearthed' to seem more than incidentally significant. The explanation that most readily occurs is that he is further discounting the claims of the tyrannicides to be Athenian national heroes: the Athenians, he implies, have in their folly elevated, to this rank two men whose heroism was merely a wasted effort, and who are scarcely even citizens of Athens in the first place, not even Greeks but Phoenicians, immigrants ( epelydes with no settled home, least of all .in Athens. The malicious implication of the passage is well n6ticed by Plutarch ( MH 23.860DE ): 'Ap~aToyELTova e~EAaOvE~, fE~upatov yEyovevã avtMãEv. Plutarch's sensitivity as a Greek to this slight on an Athenian hero of the first rank is instructive 39. But is Herodotus thinking for himself, or does he rather have the * story of Harmodios and Aristogeiton from a source determined to discredit the tyrannicide 1myth1 and advance a different interpretation? The orthodox answer to this question is unequivocal: his source is the AJcmeonid family, who had their own reasons to want to depreciate the claims of the tyrannicides and to establish their own claim to have been, with the help of Delphi and Sparta, the saviours of Athens40. This explanation, so ~idely and -157unquestioningly credited, deserves close examination, since it implies a view of Herodot~s quite opposed to the one advanced here. Whether or not we hold that he was a puppet of the Alcmeonids, that he should have depended as uncritically on the information they fed him as the theory demands, presupposes the lack of any guiding intelligence: he is merely concerned to present the facts, or rather some facts, without any serious attempt to accomodate them to his own interpretative moiels. The Alcmeonidsource theory is a hindrance to a proper understanding of what Herodotus is doing in his account of the liberation. The theory involves some quite surprising and unnecessary contradictions, and it is clear that it is not because of its value for explaining Herodotus 1 text that it has remained so widely held. Even external considerations tell emphatically against it. Certainly there is a superficial plausibility in the Alcmeonids having had an interest in reminding the world through Herodotus of their part in the liberation, since the family is clearly in pronounced political decline throughout the 5thc from the Persian Wars onwards, with no member of the main branch holding any major office in th . d41 e per10 And yet the theory is clearly not held in relation to the Alcmeonids in general, but really only one member ~f the family, and only a member on the distaff side at that, namely Pericles 42. The attraction of the theory, apart from the supposed evidence of the Alcmeonid excursus ( cf. Ch.III.E ), is the view that Herodotus had some kind of contact with the 'Periclean circle 1 and perhaps with Pericles himself, and hence contact with Alcmeonid traditions. Since however the question facing the critic of Herodotus then becomes 1 what traditions is Pericles, who is incidentally an Alcmeonid, likely to have sponsored?', the problem takes on quite adifferent aspect. While it is comprehensible that a disenchanted, politically impoyerished Alcmeonid might have had an interest in undermining the tyrannictde 'myth' and asserting the dubious claims -158of his own family to have liberated Athens, the same cannot be true of Pericles, who throughout his political career is without doubt a democrat, hated and feared by the aristocrats ,and oligarchs ( like Thucydides, son of Melesias, of course), who could see that it was his influence which was systematically destroying their traditional power and pres.tige within the state. Trl!e, Thucydides suggests that Pericles was rather more the leader of the demos than he was led by it ( cf. 2.65.8-9 ), but he does so in the same breath ftS observing that his leadershJp was extraordinarily altruistic; we need only turn to the two great speeches of Pericles in Thucydides 1 Book Two ( 2.35-46 and 60-4) to see that the essential characteristic of the man for Thucydides was his attachment to the democracy above all interest of private profit ( cf. also 2.13.1 ), an attitude he hoped all Athenians would share with him. Indeed it is surely significant for his lack of interest in bolstering the claims of his Alcmeonid cousins that, ' " , I as we have saiq,, no other Alcmeonid appears in any prominent political position in the period of his ascendancy. In other words if we merely confine qur attention to the Alcmeonids as disgruntled aristocrats, it seems natural for our 1Alcmeonid source' to be hostile to the traditions of the democracy and the tyrannicides in partic.ular; but when we realize that the theory of the .1,Alcmeonid source 1 is held in the first place largely because of Herodotus 1 supposed relations with Pericles, we are faced with the dilemma that Herodotus 1 a,ccount attacks one_ofthe central traditions of Pericles 1 own democracy. Thus we may conclude that the 1Alcmeonid source 1 theory can only stand satisfactorily if we treat the Alcmeonids as separate from Pericles himself, and there will be many who will feel that that leaves the thepry unacceptably impoverished. We are perhaps not entitled to bring into the argument the problem -159of the tyrannicide skolia ( PMG 893 and 896) which hail the tyrannicides as bringers of isonomia to Athens ( Tov Tupavvov x,avtTnv I Lcrovpμous T' ). An attractive theory of Ehrenberg ( with help from Vlastos ) argues that the songs ori~inated in the propaganda of Cleisthenes, who coined the .word isonomia as the watchword of the new democracy of 50743; the theory, if correct, would lead to the conclusion that the tyrannicide 'myth' was originally at least assisted by the Alcmeonids themselves, something which may be reflected in the early erection of 44 the Antenor statue-group . Even if this is right, however, it remains possible that the Alcmeonids came to regret their championship of the tyrannicides, at a time when their own political decline had set in after the disgrace of Marathon45 . On the other hand if that did lead them to argue the line adopted by Herodotus,we still surely need to assume that they did so .in opposition to Pericles, both in rejecting the tyrannicide 'myth' and also in insisting on a version of the liberation which gave a prominent part to both Sparta and Delphi, two parties with whom Pericles was little in sympathy46 . Allowing that an 'Alcmeonid source' for the narrative of the liberation is still possible on external grounds, with the limitation that it would almost certainly have to be anti-Periclean, we may proceed to Herodotus' treatment of the liberation itself, before attempting a final resolution f th t . 47 o e ques 10n After the murder of Hipparchus the tyranny of Hippias continued as before ( 5.62.2 ): 'In:n:CEw rupavvsuovros xat tμn:LxpaLvoμfvou 'AenvaCoLcrL 6La TOV 'Inndpxou edvaTov 'AAxμBwvC6aL y[vos &6vTES 'A&nvatoL xat qiEuyovTES IlELOLOTpaTC6as, ' '1 ,, , ,. ; , '- ' EKEGTE aqiL aμa TO'GOL aAAOLOL A&nvaLwv qiuyacrL 11:ELpwμEVOLcrL xaTa TO ' ' ' , ' ' , ,, ; , LOXUPOV OU 11:pOEXWPEE, aAAa 11:pocrEnTaLO\l μEyaAWS 11:E:LpWμEVOL xaTLEVctL TE xaL EAEU&Epovv TCXS 'A&nvas, Auq,u6pLO\l TO Un:Ep IIa.LovCns TELXLOaVTES, EV&aOTa oL 'AAXμE:W\>LOa.L nav &n:t TO'GOL IlE:LOLOTpa.TC6nLOL μnxa.vwμEVOL n:a.p' 'AμqiLXTU6vwv ~~v vnov JLO&oOvTa.L TO\> EV 6E:A(JlO[aL, TOV vov &6vTa., ' ,, ' - "r ~""' , "r tt ' T6TE OE OUXW, T00TOV EEOLX06oμncra.L, OLC1. uE XPnμaTW\l EU ñOVTES XctL &6vTES &v6pEs 66xLμoL &vixa&Ev [TL, Tov vnov EEEPidcravTo TOO 11:apaoE:CyμaTos -160xdAALOV, Ta TE aAAa xat cruyxELμ€VOU O<pL 1ewpCvou ACeou 1COL€ELV TOV vnov, IlapCou Ta sμnpocreE aUTOU £~E1C0Cncrav. ws ©V 6n OL 'AenvatoL Alyoucr1,, oOTOL ot av6pEs sv L'iEA<po'Ccr1, xanfoe::vo1, &vl1eueov TTJV nueCnv xpnμacr1,, 5xws ~AeOLEV ~1CapTLnTEWV av6pE' ECTE l6Cw1, OTOAWL dTE 6nμocr(w1, CTT6AWL XPncroμE\IOL, 1CpO<p€pELV CT<pL TtY.S 'Aenvas £AEUeEpouv. It is important to see this passage as a single whole to be able to unravel its train of thought, orer which there i~ no little disagreement. The structure of the long first sentence of this paragraph ( 'lltlCLEW s~o1,xo6oμncra1, ) gives some important clues as to how Herodotus wants to be understood. The Alcemonids first of all attempt, in concert with the other exiles 48, to return to Athens by means of force ( xaTa To l~xupov ); but this combined military effort meets with disaster, at which point the Alcmeonids, keeping up the struggle on thejr own by any means they can, accept the contract to build the temple at Delphi49. The run of the sentence suggests that in taking on the contract the Alcmeonids are acting alone and using guile ( mekhanomenoi )50. There are several possible antitheses here: the Alcmeonids working (a) in concert with the other exiles, and (b) on their own, to secure their return (a) by force and (b) by guile; possibly too we should contrast their efforts (a) as 'liberators' ( 1es1,pwμEvo1, xaTLlva1, TE xat eAeueEpouv Tas 'Aenvas ) and (b) as mere rivals of the Peisistratids, trying to gain a political advantage by whatever means they can ( 1ea.v he - , , )51 To 1,cr1, TisurLcrTpa:r 1,6n1,cr1, μnxavwμsvo1, • It is not absolutely clear what precise function Herodotus ascribes to the temple-building, although there can be no doubt, as we have just said, that it does form some part pf the 'plot' of the Alcmeonids to get the better of the Peisistratids 52. Herodotus' reference back to this passage in the Alcmeonid excursus ( as also at 5.66.1°) 53 tells us that the family's claim to have liberated Athens depends on their having been the ones who 'persuaded' the Pythia ( 6.123.2 ): EG 6n o0TOL ye aAnesws does not take us much further, although it leaves us in no doubt that Herodotus believes he has proved that the Alcmeonids achieved their end -161by some form of persuasion of the Pythia, which resulted in her giving an artificial or contrived response to the Spartans. Indeed Herodotus 1 own narrative later has the Spartans discover that they had been tricked or cheated by the Alcmeonids into betraying their friends the Peisistratids ( cf. 5.90.1, Ta EX TWV 'AAxμewVLOSWV €~ Tnv rru~Cnv μeμnxavwμsva ), and his form of words there shows that he understands that there was in fact something for the Spartans to find out,something which gave them legitimate cause for their grievance. It has been felt, howe~er, that Herodotus is here offering us two alternative versions of how the Alcmeonid~ brought their influence to bear at Delphi. It is argued that he presents first the version that it was by their lavish temple-building, the fact that they completed t 1 he work with Parian marble rather than tufa as arranged, that secured them the support they wanted, and secondly a contrasting 'Athenian version' which has them brJbe the Pythia with money. The first version is thus that of the Alcmeonid source itself, and the second the malicious rejoinder of the Athenians 54. Even if this were correct, it would still leave us with a wholly unsatisfactory case for the Alcmeonid source, as we shall see in a moment; but there are good reasons for rejecting this interpretation. The most conclusive objection is a linguistic one: the connexion at 5.63.1, w~ 'Y ' ' ' • • d t. 55 d . wv on ÃnvatoL AqouoL is progressive, not a versa .ive , an a progressive connector of this sort could not introduce a variant version, especially in view of Herodotus' taste for marking variants by pronounced oppositions 55a -The source-citation is used here only for emphasis, to mark the climax; the Athenians are cited as the source because this is an Athenian narrative 56, and the one source is surely meant to cover the whole narrative, not merely this one detail 57. Powell ( s.v. itiv II.2 ) classes the present example of the particle group under the heading "resuming after a digression••, and this is no doubt right; the digression concerned is the information ( 5.62.3) that the Alcmeonids built the temple more magnificently than -162was required of them, and the iv 6n picks up the μnxav~μsvoL of the previous sentence. On this view Herodotus' account implies that the Alcmeonids' acceptance of the temple-contract was part of a plan to get a foothold at Delphi, but only part.: it was while they were at Delphi engaged in . { r this work ( cf. sv 6sÃotcrL xaTnμEvoL ) that they had the opportunity to bribe the. Pythia, something that they had hoped to be able to do from the first. The alternative interpretation mentioned above is on the other hand open to further objections than simply its failure to make sense of Herodotus' Greek. It also requires us to make a connexion which Herodotus in no way assists, namely that it was sufficient for the Alcmeonids to make a charitable display of their wealth in order for the Delphic administration to take the hint and arrange for the Pythia to give a certain response to the Spartans. This l~ap of the imagination passes over far too much: did the Alcemonids intimate what they would like Delphi to do for them, or did the official divine the best way of helping them of their own accord? If there is really an 'Alcmeonid self-j~stification' here, it is absurdly mealy-mouthed. As we said, however, it actually makes no great difference if we do accept this supposed 'Alcmeonid version' or not; t~e case against the 'Alcmeonid source' thereby loses no great force. On either view that theory offers us the unpalatable conclusion that the way the Alcmeonids of Herodotus' day chose to reassert their claim as the true liberators of Athens was by bringing down on their own heads the charge of having corrupted the Pythia, whether straightforwardly by money of indirectly through the templs-building, either way a μnx&vnμa resulting in 'persuasion' ( &vaus(cravTss ). Plutarch ( MH 23.680CD ), commenting on 5.66.1, is quick to notice the unflattering implication of Herodotus' narrative: xaAALcrTwL μsv ~pywL xaL 6LxaLoTctTwL ( sc. the liberation) upocr&uTwv ~------ ------~----*---- .. *------- .. *-----**------ -163Herodotus himself to remind us that the merest attempt to corrupt the Pythia was the most serious of religious crimes: for example, it was thought by many Greeks ( 6.75.3) that Cleomenes met his gruesome end because \ of his corruption of the Pythia to secure the deposi~ion of Demaratus 58 ( cf. 6.66.2f) . Whatever form of persuasion the Alcmeonids are to be thought of as having used, Plutarch's observation still stands; indeed, on the analogy of Glaucus ( cf. 6.869.2, with Ch.I.i~ ), the very act of thinking of trying to influence the Pythia, whether by money or not, was enough to incur divine displeasure. It is worth remembering that there was another way for the Alcmeonids to have lodged their claim without bringing this charge of 1 impiety' on their own heads. It is probable that the 4thc witnesses to the tradition of the liberation preserve nothing of the historical trμth and much anachrpnistic cons:t,r9ction59, but it is instructive to note how it is handled in Isocrates and Demosthenes, both of whom are genuinely protective of the Alcmeonids to the extent of elevating them to the rank of heroes of the democracy. In the Antidosis (232) Isocrates.has Cleisthenes borrow money from Delphi to effect the triumphant return of the exiles ( A6ywL nECcras Tõs 'Aμ,Lx~~ovas ), and the story is the same in Demosthenes ( 21.144 ). It may well have been an anachronism for a 6thc political faction to secure its return to power by hiring mercenaries 60, but we can readily imagine that this story, fi~tion or not, was in circulation at the time of Herodotus' inquiries and such a story was very probably initiated by the Alcmeonids themselves ( in self-justification? ), if in the 4thc it was the version told in their favou~. 1f we need to ask what the Alcmeonids might have told Herodotus if he had spoken to them, it is surely more likely to have been this story of borrowed money thqn any of the shady dealings of Herodotus' own account. As for the templebuilding, moreover, we have t~e evidence of Pindar's encomium of the -164Alcmeonids in his epinikion for Megakles ( Py.7.7ff )61: For in all the cities of Greece the fame is bruited of those citizens of Erechtheus, who in divine Pytho made thy temple, Apollo, a marvel to behold. Pindar, prompted by considerations of what his dedicatee would like to hear, makes no attempt to confuse this act of magnificent charity of the Alcmeonids with any corruption of the Pythia or with an effort at securing the removal of the tyranny at Athens. It could be that he is observing a judicious silence on a delicate matter but even that is surely a reflexion of the wishes of the commissioning family. Are we to believe that in Herodotus' day the Alcmeonids were happy to complicate the magnificence of this act of charity by an admission that it was not disinterested and was directed at trying to influence the Pythia? It is possible indeed that Herodotus 1 tradition represents a slander of the Alcmeonids, possibly not yet current in Pindar's day, to which the 4thc version preserved in Isocrates and Demosthenes might be an apologetic answer. However, I can see no means of arriving at the truth of how historically the Alcmeonids actually liberated Athens ( if they did at all?) or of what they originally said of their part in those events. All that is clear is that they can hardly have claimed at any stage the role Herodotus ascribes to them here. Significantly the part played by the Alcmeonids is restricted almost ~ntirely to th~ir act of corruption although Herodotus perhaps characteris~ tically plays up the paradox that this corruption also inVblVed an act of magnificent 'piety• 62 At any rate there is no celebratioñ of anything approaching br&very or heroism on their part. Leipshydrion is mentioned only as the scene of repeated military disasters, and Herodotus offers no commentary on the heroic sacrifices of the liberators. By contrast the Alcmeonids and the other exiles made much of their own heroism, to judge from two famous skolia, the one celebrating the sacrifice at Leipshydrion -165- " ) 63 Eoav , the other the particular bravery of a certain Kedon who may or may not have been an Alcmeonid ( cf. Ar.Athpol.20.5 = PMG 906: ~YXEL oGvoxodv ) 64. What Herodotus adverti zes instead are the A lcmeonids I machinations, intrigues, deceptions and there is nothing that is intrinsically glamorous in the role of agent provocateur. They merely set in train the events which lead to the liberation: ~heir participation is important as a beginning, but the liberation itself is the work of Sparta ( see below). Indeed after the bribery of the Pythia they disappear from the scene until after the liberation: Cleomenes enters the city at 5.64.2, an expression which does not explicitly exclude the Alcmeonids, though it hardly includes them with any emphasis. It has been worth labouring this discussion at such length, since it has important consequences for the way we think about Herodotus. The 'Alcmeonid source' theory has had considerable influence on the orthodox reading of Herodotus: he has been thoughtwhether wittingly or unwittingly to be repr9ducing substantially the judgements and .interpretations of a source, without making any serious effort at interpreting the material for himself, let alone getting clear in his mind why the version he has chosen is preferable to any other which he might have known or been able to discover. However since this key passage for the 'Alcmeonid source' has turned out so positively against its influence, we may begin to doubt whether it is ever likely to be a satisfactory hypothesis. ( cf. Appendix II, against the widespread use of esoteric sources in Herodotus ). What his actual sõrces may be and what exactly they told him are in my view problems* which do not lend themsEl.>J:ves. to such simple resolution: Herodotus 1 freedom of choice and interpretation, both factors ignored to a large -166extent by the traditional source-criticism, makes it hard to identify any consistent bias, let alone determine where it derives from. I take it, however, that Herodotus derives his information, though not, of course his interpretation, from the 1 source 1 he in fact names, that is the 'Athenians', the aggregate of Athenian opinion ( Cf. also Appendix II, on Athenian polis-traditions ): there are no facts here that an Aristophãic audience or a typical jury would not have known in some form, to judge from the historical knowledge presupposed in comedy and oratory. We have seen Herodotus deflate the 1 myth1 of the tyrannicides and then adopt a thoroughly equivocal line towards the part the Alcmeonids had to play in the affair; and what of Sparta 1 s role in the liberation? The first we hear is that the Spartans decided to obey the repeated instructions of the Pythia and send an army against the Peisistratids ( 5.63.2 ): oμwf " ' - ' i:: 65 H d t d t h dd d th l t t * 1 n Ta Twv avupwv . era o us nee no ave a e e exp ana ory a1 to this sentence, but he does so to underline an unfortunate irony. The '"',' Spartans' treachery to their friends seems to them necessary because the god wills it and yet, of course, we know theirmistake, that they have been deceived into doing wrong by the s<;:heming of the Alcmeonids. In other words Herodotus here too insists on the negative side of a positive action: the Spartans do not consciously do a right action in liberating Athens, except insofar as they grudgingly obey the will of the god as they see it indeed he is far from suggesting that they are motivated by any sort of idealism, or even altruism but rather they are seen as unconsciously doing a wrong action in betraying their friends 66. I Nor is the liberation itself described as a glamorous victory. Indeed we hear first of all at some length ( 5.63.3~4) of the disastrous failure of Anchimolius, and even 'the successful expedition of Cleomenes -167is treated with reserve. The siege of the Peisistratids proves an unforeseen setback ( 5.65.1 ): 11and the Spartans might not have.removed the tyrants at all, but would have perservered with the siege for only a few days and then retired home". Only a chance occurrence ( syntykhie; cf. Ch.I, n.122 ) gives them the opportunity to enforce submissipn: the children of the Peisistratids, who were being sent outside the city for safe-keeping, fell into the hands of the besiegers. Herodotus is not prepared to describe the triumph of freedom as a glorious victory: the whole business ends in a miserable and undignified capitulation. By contrast the Spartan liberation is an affair for much tub-thumping in Aristophanes' Lysistrata ( 1150ff. ), the same events acquiring a completely different emphasis. On any account we miss any clear note of celebration in Herodotus' exposition, however restrained. What more than anything undercuts the glory of Sparta 1 s achievement, however, is her almost immediate, and by degrees increasingly aggressive renunciation of it. We have already said something about this in connexion with Cleomenes ( cf. Ch.I.ii.2 ), and we shall consider this change of heart in more detail in a moment. We may observe here that nowhere in the whole account of the liberation itself does Herodotus show any clear enthusiasm for the means by which the 'glorious end' of Athenian democracy was achieved. No single party involved emerges with straightforward honour from this narrative, not the tyrannicides, not the Alcmeonid, not the Spartans. (C) Cleisthenes. First we must look at the immediate consequences of the liberation ( 5 6.6 1 ) ' ' - ' ' '1 , ' 1 1 " -. . : A6fivaL, EOUOaL MaL •PLV μEyaAaL, TOTE anaAAax~ELOaL TUpdvvwv lyivovTo μt~ovEs* Quite how Herodotus wants us to understand -168this programmatic opening remains for a long while obscure. Indeed the immediately ensuing narrative of the political troubles ( stasis ) which followed the liberation does little to confirm the view of Athens' greatness, however that is to be interpreted 67. Herodotus in fact seems to be playing a trick on the reader: alerted to expect signs of growing prosperity or strength, we hear of nothing but civil strife, plots, factions, exiles, coups, the very opposite of prosperity. Freedom is no immediate solution to Athens' problems, indeed it looks at first sight distinctly like a retrograde step. We are introduced first of all ( 5.66.1 ) to the warring of two new dynasts, Cleisthenes and Isagoras, Cleisthenes, the Alcmeonid, whom we are told was the one who bribed the ). The reminder68 is well-timed and most unflattering: this man whose contribution to the liberation of Athens was decisive turns out after all not to have been a liberator through altruism 68a, but in order thathe'might win power for himself. He and Isagoras are linked in a struggle for power ( 5.66.2 ): , ,. , 69 TOV 6~μov npocrETãpL~ETaL . With these words we find ourselves as it were back in the time before the tyranny, when again there was stasis, between Megakles ( the unscrupulous Alcmeonid! ) and Lykurgus, and a third party, Peisistratus, who like Cleisthenes now was not content to play the game by the rules ( cf. 1.59.3 ): crUAAf~ã ot cr,acrLwTã xat ,wL AoywL ,wv unEpaxp(wv npocr,&~. Cleisthenes and Peisistratus have in common that in championing their respective 1 factions 1 both are making use of an expedient to suit their private ends. Herodotus unmistakably makes Cleisthenes 1 championship of the demos an afterthought, a stratagem to get the better of his aristocratic opponent~ So far as the comparison with Peisistratus extends it is hardly flattering to Cleisthenes, the. democrat. -169Whatever we think of the historical importance of Cleisthenes 1 champioñ ship of the demos70, there is]ittle pe\Jbtthat Herodotus 1 reporting of it is decidedly uncharitable. It is perhaps the most outstanding weakness of the 1 Alcmeonid source' theory that it cannot hope to explain this attitude of Herodotus to the joint hero of the Alcmeonid house and the Athenian democracy, whose claims the family must have been concerned to advance with all the persuasiveness at their disposal. Indeed this is surely a powerful argument against the theory:if the Alcmeonids could not influence Herodotus in this, they could not influence him in anything. This is not, however, an argument against Herodotus 1 use of the traditions of the Athenian d.emos ( cf. Appendix II ), for his maliaious;interpretation of Cleisthenes is, as we shall seei clearly his own work. The facts are surely such as any Athenian might have been able to remember, but they have been transformed by Herodotus'. jaundiced inferences as to the motives of Cleisthenes and his avowedly personal interpretation of the 1 true character 1 of the reforms ( cf. 5.67.1 and 69.1, below). Logically, it is true, Herodotus could have applied such techniques to a version of the story told him by the Alcmeonids, but it is surely perverse to press that logic: if he had heard an Alcmeonid version he did not like, he would surely have turned to another source to correct it; but there is clearly no good reason to invoke any esoteric source here. Not only does Herodotus advance a malicious interpretation of Cleisthenes 1 struggle with Isagoras, he is also unwilling to give due credit to the reforms. Although he has singled out the central work of the reforms in the re-organization of the tribes, he has done so for reasons not wholly connected with historical truth, as we shall see; and at the same time he has failed either to mention anything else ( 5.66.2 and 69.2 ) or -170in any way to interpretthe re-organization politically. The reader is given no assistance in working out the rel~tion between Cleisthenes 1 championship of the demos and his re-organization of the tribesl although Herodotus offers a great deal of help in interpreting the 1 character 1 of the reforms ( see below). We may advance various trivial explanations for this reticence, such as that the complexity of the constitutional details baffled him, or that their sertousness had been misrepresented to him by a source hostile to Cleisthenes. And yet Herodotus is clearly in no real doubt that the reforms did represent the beginnings of the democracy, as he makes clear, for example, at 6.131.1: ( KAELo-B-lvns: ) 70a Indeed the narrative makes it clear that it is Cleisthenes 1 activity which sets th~ democracy in motion, whether by conscious design or not. The answer lies in Herodotus' own interpretation and the deliberate idiosyncracy of his exposition. As we saw, the championship of the demos is made to seem nothing but a stratagem to outstrip his rival, Isagoras ), and it may even be that Herodotus' decision to record the reforms as taking place before the exile of Cleisthenes, rather than after, as Aristotle has it 71, may be influenced by a desire to interpret them as nothing but a weapon 72 in the struggle against Isagoras . The most remarkable indication of Herodotus 1 intentions, however, is his lengthy comparison between Cleisthenes and his homonymous maternal grandfather, the tyrant of Sicyon ( 5.67.1 ): ,aU-rn 6t OOXEE:L,V sμoL e:μLμEETO o KAELO-B-8\lns; oO,os; ,OV twu,ou μn,poTI:ch:opa KAuo.\tEvrn ,ov I1..,xuwvos; ,upavvov; and cf. 5. 69 .1, o 6t 6n 'A-envafos; KAEL0-8-EVQS: ••• 60JtEEl,\) eμoG ,{Cl,(, 00,os; lJTI:EpLOWV "Iwvas:, ~Va μt] oq,Co1.., ed .. aurnt EW(Jl, <pUAaG JtaG "Iwol.' ,CV tiμwvuμov KA£t..,O'(}£VEa eμL.μnoa-ro, In both the introduction and the conclusion to the excursus Herodotus makes clear that he is advancing hi~ own i~terpretation, namely that the Athenian Cleisthenes had the same motives as his grandfather and that he consciously copied him in his reforms. However while both 1 reformers 1 -171can at a pinch be seen to have the racial motives Herodotus ascribes to them, the tyrant is anti-Dorian but the grandson anti-Ionian, so that the resemblance or imitation is only superficial at best. True, Herodotus seems to be elaborating in the Athenian case a point he made in dealing with the Ionians in the excursus of Book One ( 143.3 ): The other Ionians, besides those in the twelve cities, including the Athenians took a dislike to the name 1 Ionian 1 and even to this day I believe that most of them are ashamed of it. The reasons why he should want to raise this point here is perhaps the paradox that though the Athenians now despise the Ionians .they are ready almost at once to conclude an alliance with them on the basis of consanguinity 73 ( cf. 5.97.2 ) . The general improbability of the imitation is, however, perhaps a 1 t H d t 1 • t t. 74 h . f . th . f th cue o ero o us 1n en ions : e 1s orc1ng e comparison or e light it throws on the 1 character 1 of the Athenian reforms and the 1motives 1 of the Athenian reformer, or rather the light that it can be made to throw by association. He does not in any way stress the paradox of being able to compare the Athenian democratic reformer with his tyrant grandfather: on the contrary, the tyrant's arrogant behaviour is set on a level with his grandson's, to the discredit of the latter. Indeed it is the very machinery of the democracy, the tribe reforms ( cf. 6.131.1 ) , which Herodotus singles out as the 'imitation 175, so that we might almost say that he concentrates on this detail of the Athenian reforms at the expense of all others in order to focus the comparison as sharply as possible. The result is atrivialization of whatever it was that Cleisthenes did: he sh~res the same blood with the tyrant who gave the Sicyonians the abusive tribe-names, Hyatai, Oneatai and Khoireatai ( 5.68.1 / 6. Herodotus does not perhaps find the same -~r~gant disregard of things human and divine in the Athenian as in the tyrant ( cf. e.g. the Pythia 1 s judgement at 5.67.2 ),.though it may be significant that he is shortly to recount the affair of Cylon in such a way as to suggest the same characteristics -172of high-handedness in his Alcmeonid family ( 5.71 )77; he has, however, thrown enough mud merely by inviting the comparison, and Cleisthenes does not escape unbesmirched78. It is thus surely probable that Herodotus ~as deliberately avoided any detailed discussion of how the democracy came about ( see above ), anything about the politics of the demes, the powers of the new boule, the dissolution of the old aristocratic monopoly of the state. This is perhaps to expect too modern an awareness from him, but it remains that he misses out much that he might, even on his own terms, have said, given his interest in such matters elsewhere ( cf. e.g. 1.65, Lycurgus at Sparta; 4.161, Demonax at Cyrene; or the Parians at Miletus, 5.28~9 ). Instead he approaches his subject from an unexpected angle. Cleisthenes on Herodotus' eccentric interpretation was not a disinterested reformer, but a selfinterested dynast playing at reform in the interests of factional advantage. He arrives at this interpretation, moreover, by avoiding narrative exposition as far as possible: he wants to avoid allowing the facts to tell their own story. Instead of hearing what it was that Cleisthenes actually did to establish democracy and political freedom at Athens79, we are told that ( 5. 69. 2 } , ,ov 'A.\JnvãlllV 6fjμov 11:pon:pov &rcwcrμsvov 1:01:£ m:&v-rws: ;Tlip)OS: , , , 80 ,nv Ewu,oa μotpav 11:poaEDnHa,o Cleisthenes was a haughty aristocrat, who previously had scorned all contact with the common man, but was prepared to admit the demos into his faction when he could see no other path to advancement ( cf. n.69, above ). Herodotus' loaded inferences are designed to point the paradox of the aristocrat turning democrat. Ihe'piquancy of the account would have been lost if he had descended to mere narrative! Indeed it is perhaps this same desire to avoid heroizing Cleisthenes which leads Herodotus to drop his name so suddenly from his narrative as soon as this eccentric account of the reforms is over. His responsibility for the democracy is made to seem largely accidental and unintentional (hereat least; contrast 6.131.1, above), whereas any reasonably objective -173account of the reforms would have to admit that their complexity and elaboration shows long-term constitutional planning, and even perhaps a genuine desire to promote greater political equality, whether or not minor advantages for the Alcmeonids were built into the tribal re-organization ( cf. n.70, above ). Looking back over the narrative of the liberation and of Cleisthenes 1 setting up of the democracy it is possible to see a consistent line of interpretation: Herodotus, w1th his insistent talk of Athenian eleutheria ( cf. 5.55, 62.1, 62.2, 63.1, 64.2, 65.5; and also 5.78, 91.1 and 91.2 ), is not concerned to paint a straightforward picture of heroic liberators or the glorious effects of freedom; rather there is a certain paradoxical tension between the abstract desirability of freedom as a goal and the complications in the way in which this particular case it is actually achieved and in what it leads-to. As we saw ( in (~)above), Herodotus' interpretation leads us to a picture in which none of the candidates for the title of liberator emerges wholly attractively either in their motives or their actions. Similarly the immediate effect of freedom for Athens is a recurrence of factional struggle ( cf. stasis at 5.66.2, 69.2, etc. ), which it apparently takes the political reforms of Cleisthenes to quell. In this role Cleisthenes performs a similar function to that of Peisistratus in his original tyranny ( cf. (A) above), or that of Oeioces in Media ( cf. Ch.II.i.B.1 ); and he is no different from these two in providing Athens with political stability for motives of personal advantage Herodotus is unable to show what advantage Cleisthenes actually secured in the longterm, but that does not prevent him denying any altruism to his championship of the demos. To the extent that this is meant to be a narrative about eleutheria ( and that claim could, of course, be contested, given Herodotus' lack of explicit commentary}, Herodotus 1 message is this: the motives of liberators are not necessarily altruistic and much more likely to be -174those of self-interest; and the mere fact of liberation, given such considerations, is more likely to pose new problems than to effect an immediate recovery in the state concerned. (D) Persia and Sparta. The first action of the new democracy is its resistance to the attempts of Cleomenes and Isagoras to take away its freedom ( cf; 5.72.2 ): It is surely right to understand that, whether mistakenly 9rnot 81, Herodotus sees the boul, here as the organ set up anew by Cleisthenes, although he does not bring this out. There may even be a pun here in Boulfis/Bouloμivns, the boule standing for the determination to resist re-enslavement. Like the Milesians faced with the return of Histiaos after the fall of Aristagoras ( cf. 6.5.1 ), the Athenians are unwilling to resign what they have won, The recall of the exiles coihcides with the decision to send ambasssadors to Sardis ( 5.73.1 ) llin the hope of concluding an alliance with Persia, since they well knew that they had incurred the settled enmity ( h1i:e1t0Ae:μwcr-&at, ) of Cl eomenes and Sparta 11 • Artaphrenes, however, responds to these overtures with the same aloofness ( and almõt the same words ) that Cyrus had used to the Spartans in Book One, when they had sent an embassy to him to demand that the king harm no city of the Greeks .on pain of their displeasure. Artaphrenes demands ( 5.73.2) 11who these Athenians are that they seek an alliance with Persia, and where in the world they live 11 ; Cyrus had asked ( 1.153.1 ) "who these Spartans were, and what their numbers were that they were sending him such a command1182• The parallelism is very likely deliberate: the presumption of the Athenians ------ -175here following their successful liberation .directly cprresponds to that of the Spartans after the political settlement which had given them the I leadership of the Peloponnese and led them to contract an alliance with Croesus ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.2 ). In both cases, however, this presumption is abruptly put into perspective by Persia. Artaphrenes, moreover, demands earth and water of the Athenian envoys, who are rash enough to agree and who suffer disgrace for this mistake when they arrive back in Athens ( 5.73.3, alT(as μsy&Aas slxov )83 . This is not the end of the matter, however, for just before reporting the arrival of Aristagoras at Athens. Herodotus tells us of another embassy to Sardis, in which the Athenians demand of Artaphrenes that he pay no attention to Hippias and the Athenian exiles cf. 5.96.lf, o6x tmvTss )84. This time Artaphrenes is even less receptive and tells them that 11if they want to be safe, they should receive Hippias back11 • The Athenians are not prepared to accept IT{pcrnLcrL noAsμ(oos slvaL. We have arrived in these words at the decision on which the whole of the rest of the work turns: the conflict with Persia has at last been set in train. Herodotus is clearly concerñd to emphasize here that the conflict between Athens and Persia is precipitated by the democracy: it is the democracy which first provokes the attenti-0n of Persia ( cf. 5.73.lff ), and it now finds that it has woken its natural enemy, the natural ally of the exiled tyrants. The picture of the Athenian democracy which emerges from these two episodes is a somewhat disquieting one: Herodotus does nothing to encourage us to take its provocation of Persia as an act of admirable self~confidence; and from what he does tell us we could as well interpret it as m1:;re folly. **--**----***--***---~***--***------- -176Indeed we are later told that the democracy was responsible in sending ships to Asia for bringing great misfortune to Greece, if we may so unravel the implications of 5.97.3 (below). We should not indeed. exaggerate the effect of this account it is at most a matter of emphasis and omission but in showing the democracy perform such a complete volteface towards Persia Herodotus is surely aiming at a disconcerting irony. We do not expect the same emphasis on Athens1 preparedness to ally herself with Persia { against Sparta?) as on her decision to make an enemy of the barbarian: indeed an account truly synpathetic to Athens might have taken care to pass over the -Original embassy, with its possible implications of treachery to Greece. The inconsistency of Athens 1 attitude to Persia thus highlighted does not rectO.llfld to her credit. Athens' new identity also brings her into conflict with other states in the Greek world, and most notably with Sparta. The conflict with Sparta was singled out as the reason for her turning in the first place to Persia: n•Lcr,sa,o yap cr~GCTL Aa11:s6aLμovCous TE 11:aL 10.soμsvsa £MREnOAEμwcr6aL ( see above). The Peisistratids had been close frieeds of Sparta { cf. 5.63.2, 90.l and 91.2, above ), and besides the new democracy had already made an enemy of Cleomenes by cezpelling him from Attica. Herodotus is at pains throughout this episode to show that the hostility between Sparta and Athens which was to dominate the affairs of Greece in his own day had its origins in the establishment of the democracy, whose growth the Spartans had paradoxically assisted by helping to overthrow the tyranny. Herodotus observes in detail how the Spartans gradually realize the folly of their original intervention at Athens ( cf. e.g. 5.91.2, cruyyLvwcr11:0μ1::v a0toCaL hμtv õ noL~cracrL 6pews and how their mood changes from anger and injured pride to fear and open hostility. Almost immediately before the arrival of Aristagoras, Herodotus -177introduces an episode directed in part at least at showing us the implications of Athenian freedom and growth through Spartan eyes. The Athenians are interrupted in their cold war with Aegina by the news that the Spartans are about to act against them ( 5.90.1 ). The Spartans, Herodotus explains, have discovered that they have been tricked by the Alcmeonids and the Pythia, and they now regret what they have done: iTL TE &~6pas (ECvous ' , ' , ' 'A , ( OU6EμLa E~aLVETO npos envaLWV Tnv no>..Lv). In addition they are encouraged to act by the oracles brought from Athens by Cleomenes ( 5.90.2 ): >..EyovTES no>..>..& TE xat &vdpaLa ~aea6aL auTotaL ft 'AenvaCwv ( cf. (H) below). Herodotus then continues ( 5.91.1 ): then, when they saw that the Athenians were growing in strength ( auE;avowfoous ) and were no 1 onger minded to be subservient to Sparta ( xat ou6aμws boCμous lovTas nEC6Jw6aL ãCcn ), and realizing that a free Athens would be likely to.become equal in power to them ( ws i>..Ed6epov μ~v iov .•. iaopponov TffiL lwuTfilv ~v yCvoLTO ), but that in the grip of a tyranny it would be weak and ready to submit to their authority ( xaTEXOμevov 6~ ~ñ TUpavvC6os &a6Ev~s xat nEL6apxeea6aL eToLμov ), they sent for Hippias. The speech to the assembly of the allies which follows immediately puts a rather different complexion on the matter ( 5.91.2 ): 6nμWL &xapCOTWL nape6wxaμEV T~V TIOALV, 8s E:TIECTE 6L' ~μeas E:AEU6Epw6Ets1vexu4E~~μeas μev xat T~V BaaL>..ta ~μewv TIEpLUSpCaas E:;lBa>..s; 66E;av 6e ~daas autaVETaL, WOTE E:XμEμa6nxaaL μahem μsv ot nEp~oLxoL auTwv BoLwTot xat Xa>..xL6tss, Tdxa 6e TLS xat &>..>..os E:XμaenaETaL &μapTWV, The Spartans pretend to the allies that they have acted throughout in the best interests of the Athenians, and that in return they have met with nothing but ungrateful and contumacious obstinacy: the demos is incapable of mani{esting , kharis, in this the Spartans are in accord with Gelon of Syracuse ( cf. 7.156.3, voμCaas 6flμov ElvaL ouvoCxnμa &xapLTW,aTov )85. And yet of course Herodotus' own narrative shows the Spartan account to be in some measure a misrepresentation of the facts: they exaggerate their responsibility for the democracy ( 6nμwL napE6wxaμEv Tnv nohv ), which even Herodotus admits was the work of Cleisthenes, and -178their assistance of its growth ( oL' nμtã &vtxu~c ), which Cleomenes did his best to prevent, while passing over the true circumstances of Cleomenes1 intervention, which was moreof a wrong done by the Spartans to Athens than the other way around ( cf. Ch.I.ii.2 ). Thus Herodotus here contrasts their public and private reasoning: in reality they fear the growth of Athens as a threat to their own power, but in public they speak only of wrongs done them by the democracy. This contrast tells us something about the Spartans and their role as 1 liberators 1 • They presume the right to hegemony over the Greeks without regard for the autgnomy of other states, and they are cynically prepared to use any means available to maintain or regain influence over an independent state. Most serious of a 11, they are here prepared to restore a tyranny to Athens, the very tyranny they had helped to remove, something which the speech of Socles reminds us is not only wroñ in principle 86 but which involves the Spartans in the betrayal of an ideal they have always stood for in the past ( cf. 5.92a.l ). "The heavens will change places with the earth", says SocJes, 11 if the Spartans are now going to dissolve free constitutions and set up tyrannies, than which man has devised nothing more unjust or bloody". The Spartans' attachment to the ideal of freedom, so Herodotus is at pains to underline,jsnot all it seems. Though they pride themselves on having liberated Athens, we see now that they did so involuntarily and against their better interests, and that they repented of it as soon as they realised that a free Athens was much more of a threat to them than an Athens under tyranny. The passage also contributes to the story of tne Athenian liberation. The Spartans reveal, through the motivation ascribed to them by Herodotus, that they have hitherto regarded Athens as something of a dependent state, whose destiny they themselves could control through the P~isistratids. The outcome of the debate is that they now lose all such power over the Athenians, and Athenian freedom becomes that much more complete. If we -------* -----*-*--------*****------------ .. ----* ----* ----* ----- -179compare here Herodotus' model of the growth of the eastern empires ( cf. Ch.II.i.B ), the consequences of such a 'liberation' become clear: just as Media started to pose a threat to Assyria after having thrown off her vassalage to the old empire, so Athens becomes a threat to Sparta once she is no longer dependent upon her ( cf. Aegina and Epidaurus at 5.83.lf, below) and, though Herodotus does not follow through that conclusion here ( see below), like Media, Athens goes on to win an empire of her own at the expense of Sparta and her hegemony. Herodotus does not draw out the full implications of the model here and cf. 5.78, below), and even the interpretation of Athenian growth which he gives here to the Spartans, while it stresses the ominous consequences of the liberation of Athens, stops short of looking forward to an Athenian empire; it does, however, have obvious points of contact with the eastern model. The Spartans confirm what Herodotus had promised when introducing this section ( 5.66.1 ), that 11Athens freed from the tyrants grew greater". Under the tyranny the Athenians were repressed ( katekhein) and submissive ( rrEL*apx{sa%aL EToLμov ), and thus no threat to Sparta or anyone else; but the liberation and the democracy changed all that. Athens' 'greatness', like the 'greatness' of any state or nation in Herodotus ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.1 ), involves a threat of expansion, of encroachment on the liberties of neighbouring states or nations. The Athenians, so the Spartans have it, are putting on airs and throwing their weight around ( 66tav 6~ ,daas ãt&vETaL ), that is they are acquiring the presumption, natural in free men, that they are better than their neighbours and deserve to dictate to them. The Spartans give particular weight to the example ,of what has just happened to the Boeotians and Chalcidians, an example which should be a warning to others. There is no reason to suppose that Herodotus means this observation to be an empty and meaningless attempt by the Spartans to rouse the allies to panic. Although Herodotus' narrative clearly -180-condemns what the Spartans claim about their own behaviour, *it by no means contradicts their interpretation of the character of the Athenian democracy. Is Herodotus aware of the psychological impact this will have on the reader, and does he consciously avoid offering any corrective to these Spartan criticisms of Athens? I would suggest that Herodotus' proceeding here is complicated by a desire to avoid direct commentary on the vices and virtues of the Athenian democracy, something which he sensitively avoids throughout the work for reasons I shall be advancing later ( cf. Ch.II.iii.L ). This whole passage on the rise of the democracy ( 5.66-97 ) does in some respects contain elements which suggest a positive estimate of the new Athens: an inattentive Athenian reader, convinced of the rightness of his city's destiny from this period to the present, might well have seen nothing wrong here; but there are enough hints to alert one less partisan: the courage and decisiveness of the new democracy is merely the positive side of a character whose darker aspects are the aggressiveness and presumption of superfority which turned the city into an empire. These hints are, to be sure, given only indirectly -.through such things as oracles ( cf. 5.90.2 and 93.1-2 in (H) below; with e.g. 8.141.1, in Ch.II.iii.I ), through .speeches such as that of the Spartans here, through analogies ( the model of freedom leading to empire; and Aegina, see (F) below ), through omissions ( cf. esp. on 5.78, below). These things taken together leave little doubt that a close reading of the text is meant to reveal a critique of Athenian democracy, its aggressiveness and presumption bot~ that critique is far from forthright. In cettain respects and from a certain perspective indeed Herodotus is conceding positive qualities to the democracy: judged merely from the Athenian point of view, freedom is a thing to be prized beyond measure but Herodotus is not content with that point of view only, but is concerned rather to reflect how -181that freedom looks for the rest of Greece and that yields a very different answer. He is thus applying here the same techniques of ~erspective and equivocation that we discovered in Chapter One. (E) Boeotia and Chalcis. This element of equivocation is clearly seen in his treatment of the Athenian double victory over Boeotia and Chalcis which so worries Sparta in this debate, a narrative sequence on which Herodotus hangs his own commentary on the significance of Athenian isegorie at 5.78. Cleomenes, in his campaign of revenge against the dmeos, has the Boeotians attack Oenoe and Hysiae and the Chalcidians ravage Attica, while the Spartans themselves march on Eleusis ( 5.74.2 ). The Athenians are not overawed by the acute danger that faces them ( xaCnEp &μ,LBoACnL &x6μEvoL )87, and instead of losing their heads they act decisively and, as events prove, successfully; moreover even in this hour of danger they show a strong determination for revenge on their enemies ( BoLwTwv μEv xat XaAxL6lwv fouaTe:pov E!ite:Hov μvnμnv no1;;ern-ltaL ) . As soon a.s the Spartan expedition is ignominiously broken up ( 5.77.1 ), the Athenians do indeed turn to thought.s of revenge ( ,Cvuo.\J:aL Bou1,.6μEVOL ), and they march against the Chalcidians. When the Boeotians rally against them, they are ready to change their plan and attack the Boeotians instead; and they win a notable victory, slaughtering many of the enemy ( ,ove:dcravTES ) and taking 700 hostages. And not content with that, they cross the same day to Euboea88 and join battle with the Chalcidians "with the like success; whereupon they left four thousand cleruchs upon the lands of the Hippobotai" 89 ( cf. 6.100.1 ) . Herodotus ends his account of.the two battles by describing how the prisoners were ransomed ( 77.3 ), how their fetters were dedicated on -----*-«--**-------------- *--*-----------~--- ----------- -182the acropolis and how a tenth of the ransom went towards the dedication of a bronze chariot ( 77.4 ),* whose proud inscription he records. We happen to have fragments of the base Herodotus must have seen ( Meiggs/ Lewis no.158 ), as well as part of a much earlier base ( Meiggs/Lewis no.15A ) which it is clear must have been destroyed or removed by the Persians in 480. Evidently a replica was set up later at a time when the earlier victory seemed once more topical, either after the crushing of the Euboean revolt, or more probably after Oinophyta ( c.457 ), that is before Coronea could take the lustre off a victory over the Boeotians. 90 At any rate we can assume that this double-victory was a glorious memory retold as an early anticipation of the illustrious successes of the Pentekontaetia. In recording these dedicatidns then Herodotus would seem to be echoing Athenian propaganda, with the Athenians, as the i nscri pt ion has it, 11quenchi ng the hybris of their proud enemies". Certainly he comes here very close to an opposite estimate of these events to that which he gives the Spartans, and it is widely thought that the remarkable paragraph which follows at 5.78 reinforces this interpretation. Herodotus chooses just this moment to introduce his most explicit commentary on the consequences of Athens' new-found freedom, and to explain the significance of the victories over Boeotia and Chalcis ( 5.78 ): 'A{}nvc:t"Cot.. μev vuv nJ~nvTO• 6n:>tot 6E: ou xcn' ~v μouvov &n& n:avm.xr\L A lcrnyop~n ~s tcrTt xpr\μa cr1tou6atov, El xat 'A&nvatot.. TUpavvEuoμEvot.. μev ou6aμwv TWV cr~eas 1tEpt..OGXEOVTWV ~crav Ta 1tOA€μt..a aμEGVOU~, &n:a:>t:>tax&evTES 6e TUpavvwv μaxpwt.. 1tPWTOL, €YEVOVTO. 6n:>tot ~v TO:.UTa " ' ',,' '6 6'' OTL, XO:.TEXOμEVOL, μEV E&EAOXO:.XEOV w~ E01t Tnt.. EpyãoμEVOt.., E:AEU.\JEpw&evTwv 6e auTos; e:xacrTõ lwuTwt.. npoE.\JuμtETO xcnEpyãEcr&at... Herodotus is rarely so forthcoming in his appraisal of action, and he picks his moments carefully; moreover he is above all very precise about what -183he wants to say and not to say. Most commentators, however, assume without argument that he is here expressing enthusiasm for democracy whatever he may be given to say or imply elsewhere 91. But without doubt such an interpretation rests on a misunderstanding of the Greek: in saying that not saying that it is 11a good thing 11 , whatever complexion we give to that expression. Certainly the word spoudaios can in certain contexts mean •excellent', though not clearly 1 excellent 1 in a moral sense. Thus Xerxes is pleased with Artemisia 1 s advice and deems her spoudai~, that is a good or useful adviser ( 8.69.2 ); the bald Scyths live in a place where the pastures are not spoudaiai, that is fertile for crops 4.23.4, with 4.198.1 ); the most expensive and prized method of mummification is described as the most spoudaios ( 2.86.2; cf. 86.3, ~6E Ta onou6aL6~aTãTaPLXEdouaL ). The reference in all these cases is clearly to values quite distinct from moral ones, although 'prized' would perhaps suit all the contexts. There is however, another sense of spoudaios to refer to something of importance or moment: thus Candaules entrusts Gyges with his confidence in Ta anou6aLSOTEpa TWV npnyμaTWV ( 1.8.1 ); the Persians debate Ta onou6aLSOTCTTa Twv npnyμ&Twv whilst drunk ( 1.133.3 ). In both cases Herodotus means "matters of importance or moment", and in neither case does excellence of any sort enter into it.* The present example ( 5.78) moreover clearly belongs to this second class: khr~ma I pr~gma spoudaion is an expression for 11a thing that deserves careful and serious attention 11 , 11sobriety 11 , oñ*might almost say, hence the paradox of 1.133.3. The expression can be paralleled in the tonic of Theognis' elegies, where its character as a formula of popular speech emerges clearly: e.g. Theog. 64-5, xpnμa 6E ouμμEC~nL~ μn6evt μn6' oTLoov I anou6atov; 69 70 , , - , o ,, , , . $:* , I -r ' or - , μnnoTE, KupvE, 1WXWL TILOU\!Õ μDU11.EUE OU\! m;~pL, EUT &v onou6atov npnyμ' l0eA.nL$ TEA.soaL ; and cf. 642-3 and 644-5, noA.AOL nap npnT'r)pL qJLADl, yL\!O\!Tal, ha'Cpot,,/ E:\! 6E anou6aLWl, 11:pnyμan nciup6Tepot, ( with which cf. again Hdt 1.133.3, for the contrast of sobriety and drunkenness ). Democracy then is 11a thing to be taken seriously 11 ; so far from expressing -184enthusiasm, Herodotus is showing palpable reserve 92. His proof that democracy is to be taken seriously consists in the events just narrated, the victory of the Athenians over their 1 neighbours', the very same evidence the Spartans are later to advance to illustrate the danger that Athens now poses for the rest of Greece ( 5.91.2, above). Under the tyrants the Athenians were no better than their neighbours in war, but once freed from the tyranny they became by far the foremost among them ( μcotpw1., '[pwTo 1., ) • Becoming protos is no doubt a des i.rab le condition for the Athenians, but it is a matter of grave concern to others. It may be instructive here to contrast Herodotus' equivocal account of the liberation and its consequences with a parallel account from Isocrates ( De Bigis 27 ). The context is a panegyric of the Alcmeonids, who were responsible, Isocrates says, for expelling the tyrants: 11and they set up that famous democracy, which trained the citizens to such a pitch of bravery that they defeated single-handed the barbarians who came to enslave the whole of Greece, which enabled them to win such a reputation for justice that the Greeks willingly put into their hands the hegemony of the sea; in short they made the city so great both in military might and in other respects that those who called Athens the 1 capital of Hell~s' and who were accustomed to make other such extravagant claims seemed to be telling no less than the truth 11 • We cannot, of course, directly compare Isocrates and Herodotus, the effusive flourishes of an orator and the reserved manner natural to the 'historian 1 ; but a number of important questions suggest themselves. Why does Herodotus not take the obvious course and illustrate the 'bravery' of the democracy, like Isocrates, with reference to the Persian Wars? Why does he choose rather the example of a double-victory gained over fellow-Greeks? There was nothing to stop him delaying this exceptional commentary until his account of the Persian Wars he might, for instance, have incorporated it at 7.139 ( cf. Ch.II.iii.E.2) and nothing to stop him looking forward to Athens' role in those events in the present commentary. Why, finally, ~-***-~-****--****---**---*-------**--**--**--** -185if he is genuinely enthusiastic about the democracy can he find no word to say, here or anywhere, of its qualities of 1 bravery 1 ( not even in 7.139! ), 1 justice 1 , and ~evotion to the cause of freedom on behalf of others 92a? Herodotus is arguing an almost identical case to that of but in his version everything is distinctly cool and dispassionate. The contrast between Herodotus and Isocrates is of more than incidental interest, since it is ci~arthat Isocrates' speech contains elements of an epainos of Athens and her constitution which must have been familiar to many 5thc Greeks93. Thucydides' Periclean Funeral Oration, for example, sets itself the task of describing ( 2.36.4 ): &no 6e orã sc. theempire ) xat. μe-\3' ot'.ã oCwv μeydAa syl~eTo . Pericles is made to extol the freedom enshrined in the democratic constitution and pervading all aspects of Athenian life, the freedom that entitles the city to be called the paideusis Hellados 94. There is certainly much in this speech that 95 is Thucydidean and much that we might think ought to belong is excluded ; and yet in historical reality Pericles, as one of the ftiunders of the radiral democracy, must have had an i~terest in keeping before the demos the virtues, advantages and successes of the Athenian constitution ( cf. Aristoph.Hipp.732ff and 1340ff, with Thucyd.2.43.1 ). Plato's Menexenus ( 238Bff) illusttates that the praise of the politeia was indeed a traditional 1 t f th F l O t . t Ah 96 I 1 » e emen o e unera ra 1on a tens : oL Twv6e npuyovoL ooLxouv even though in this 'parody' the democracy is unexpectedly praised as an aristokratia. Aspasia, like Isocrates, also makes a connexion between the freedom enjoyed by the Athenians intheir constitution ( cf. Thucyd. 2.37.2 ) and the city's defence of Greek freedom in the mythical and historical past ( 239AB ): SV nacrnL EA€.U.\3epCaL T€.-l3paμμevoL ••• otoμE:.VOL -18697 These texts suggest that the Athenians, and others accustomed to their state rhetoric, were familiar with hearing the praises of their free democratic constitution, which gave their political life a noble liberality ( cf. esp. Thucydides, above )98, and which encouraged them to champion freedoms of others wherever they were threatened. At any rate we may reasonably assume that Herodotus will have been familiar with such panegyrics of the Athenian democracy, and more important that he could have assumed an even better acquaintance in an Athenian audience99. What he leaves out is likely to have been observed: it will have been seen by the attentive reader that he singles out as the sole achievement of Athenian democracy its brute power100. All the attractive associations of Athenian eleutheria as celebrated in Athenian oratory have been purposely discarded: Herodotus tells us nothing of the nobility and justice of a free constitution. And not only does he avoid this in the present passage: nowhere in the work either in narrative or speeches does he allow himself to break silence, beyond perhaps Otanes1 lonely words of praise for jsonomia in the abstract ( 3.80.6; but cf. n.134, below). On the contrary, as we have seen, we are soon to be presented in a speech of the Spartans ( 5.91 with a.* harsh denunciation of Athenian democracy, its arrogance, pride and aggression, and shortly after that ( 5.97.2 ) with an explicit reservation expressed in Herodotus' own person ( see below ) . The second half of Herodotus' pronouncement in 5.78 ( onAoL ~v mum ••• ) concerns the psychology of freedom: "under the tyranny the Athenians played the coward101, since they were labouring on behalf of a master, but once free each man was eager to prosecute his own interests 11 • The argument implied here corresponds closely, as has been widely recognized, *****----------------- -187with the account of the psychology of freedom given in the Hippocratic 1 Airs, Waters, Places 1 ( 23.34ff ) : c:,.L yap q,uxat ( SC. TW\) TUpCl\)\)EUoμ{vwv ) OEOODAWVT<XL J{C(l, OU SoQAOVTClL napaJtLVOUVEQELV ~Jt6VTES e:lxnt ~R~p &AAOTp{ns ouv&μLOS. ~OOL 6~ aUT&VoμOL - ~ñp lwUTWV yap TÕS JtLVOdVOUS alpEDVTClL JtaL OUM c'xHwv npo.\}uyiOvwL s,xQVTES JtaL ES TO OEL*';;)~~ lpxovrnL. What the author of that treatise is really referring to is unmistakable if not stated, as his pointed opposition of Europeans and Asiatics makes clear: this is an argument about the Persian Wars102. The Greeks defeated the Persians at Salamis, Plataea, Eurymedon and the rest, because they 103 were free ( autonomoi ) , while the Persians were ruled by despots Indeed it is clear that wherever and whenever the theory precisely originates ( cf. Ch.III.C ) its original inspiration must have been this victory of Greek freedanover Persian despotism, and it is reasonable to assume that Herodotus' readers will have been familiar with it in some form. Herodotus, however, hastransferred it out of its original context to apply not to the freedom of the Greeks as a whole which gave them victory over Persia, but to the particular freedom of Athens liberated from tyranny. Once,more we must observe that Herodotus has palpably 1misplaced 1 this paragraph: the argument would have fitted naturally into the narrative of Marathon or Salamis, but instead he has made the surprising choice of introducing it here, and here only, to apply to the narrative of a Greek civil war. In Airs, Waters, Places, of course, we can readily approve what it is that free men strive so heroically to achieve, since it is clear that what they are fighting for is either the defence or.the attainment of liberty, liberty from Persian domination. In Herodotus, however, things are quite different: what the Athenians now labour to achieve ( katergazesthai: used absolutely, but implying some object?) is not freedom, for he has deliberately avoided all connexion with the struggleagainstPersia, but something it is much less easy to admire objectively. The context is, .---- -188of course, a victory of the Athenians in a war against fellow-Greeks and there is no indication that any 'enthusiasm' for Athenian democracy on Herodotus' part overrides his distaste for such wars. The work as a whole shows him to consider the enmities of the Greek states to be a great evil, productive of the most foul hatreds, the most shameful injustices, the most horrifying cruelties { cf. e.g. 8.27-33, with Ch.II.iii.A.1 ). His view of Greek civil war appears to be given in the generalization at 8.3.1, if we may so render it: "for civil war is worse that concerted war in the same degree that war itself is worse than peace 11 ( oTaoLs yap ~μ~UA0$ ~OAEμou 6μõpOV£0VT0$ TOOOUTWL xaxLOV £0TG OOWL ~OAsμos slpnvns; with Ch.II.iii.G.1, and Pl.Rep.4708 )103a. We must not, however, exaggerate here: the Athenian victory is after all a question of selfdefence not unprovoked aggression ( although the Spartans Jate~ affect to see it rather differently at 5.91.1 ), even though it is a war carried into Boeotia and Chalcis, and in the latter case involving a somewhat 'imperialist' act in the imposition of a cleruchy on the defeated enemy ( cf. n.89 above ). From that point of view at l~ast it is perhaps not a matter for censure; on the other hand it is not a matter for praise, unless we are meant to see things exclusively through Athenian eyes and Herodotus does not encourage that. His perspective is rather that of to Hell~nikon cf. 7.139.5, 145.2 and 8.144.2; with 7.9b.lf, in Ch.II. iii.D.1 ), which shows any hostility between Greek and Greek to be a misfortune ( cf. e.g. 6.98.2, with Ch.II.iii.C.l ). It remains to be said, however, that this 'message' is hardly made explicit here: indeed it seems that Herodotus almost comes close to accepting the Athenians' own view of the victory over Boeotia and Chalcis. It is only by the 'misplacement' of his commentary and the omission of any clear moral approval for the Athenian action that we can be expected to see anything wrong here. As we shall see later ( cf. Ch.II~iii.L ), this -189reticence is not 'a historian's objectivity', but rather a subtle calculation of his audience's responses: the true balance of his account is only meant to become clear to the attentive reader, who takes the trouble to reflect on his emphases and omissions. (F) Aegina. The episode which immediately follows this commentary and which leads right up to the account of Sparta's planned intervention ( 5.90.1, above }. describes how Athens came to be involved in hostilities with Aegina ( 5.79-89 )104. The Thebans want revenge on Athens for their humiliation, and on advice from Delphi they send for help from Aegina. The Aeginetans are ready to help ( 5.81.2 ): suoaLμov~nL TE μsyaAnL lnap~SVTE~ xaL . and they launch an akirytos polemos105 against the Athenians, making raids along the coast of Attica to coincide with Boeotian offensives by land { 5.81.3 ). The remainder of the episode is not, however, taken up with a narrative of these present hostilities, and any Athenian reaction is forestalled first by an oracle fran Delphi ( cf. 5.89,2f )106 and then the threat of a Spartan offensive against them ( 5.90.lff )107; Herodotus rather embarks on a piece of ancient history, the origins of the ekhthre palaie between Athens and Aegina ( 5.82.lff, with 89.1 )108. The story of hostilities between Aegina and the Athenian democracy, however, is to be resumed later in Book Six, with the affair of Aegina's medism, Cleomenes' intervention, the issue of the hostages ( cf. Ch.I.ii.2 ), Aeginetan reprisals against Athens ( 6.87 ), Athens' unsuccessful attempt to stage a democratic coup in Aegina through the exile Nikodromos ( 6.88ff ), and the beginnings of outright war . .-*---****------------- ------*---------- --- --------*--- -190The significance of this war between the Athenian democracy and Aegina is explained in part at least by Herodotus himself at the beginning of his narrative of the Greek defence .against Xerxes ( 7.144.lff ). On the one hand it stands for the dissensions of the Greek states which the allies patch up hastily but uneasily in the face of the Persian threat ( cf. 7.145.1, ~aav 6£ xp6s TLvas xat 5llous syxsxpnμ[voL, 6 6£ ~v μlyLcrTos 'A.envaC01,cfCi;sxat AlyLvrhnwL ); in other words, it is one of the stories of Greek division and mutual hostility whose shadow hangs ominously over the narrative of the Greek defence ( see Ch.II.iii ). On the other hand, paradoxically, it is just this war between two Greek states which somewhat accidentally 'saves Greece in her hour of need 1 • Herodotus has just comrnmended ThemiS.tocles1 suggestion that the silver from the mines of Laurium should be put to use to build ships for the war against Aegina, a policy which has a*providential but unforeseen 109 For the ships were not used for the purpose which caused them to be built, ss 6tov 6£ ouTw Tf\L 'EA.Aa6L sylvovTo.It was the crisis of war with Aegina which turned Athens into a sea-power and thip in turn saved Greece in the war with Persia. At Salamis, for example. the two fleets which combined to inflict most harm on the Persians were those of Aegina and Athens, which also by common consent won the prize for valour in the battle ( cf. 8.86 and 91-3, esp. 93.1 ). However, the significance of the Aeginetan war in rmJdng a sea-power of Athens is perhaps not something that simply came to Herodotus as an afterthought when writing his narrative of the Greek defence against Persia but rather an idea that helps to give shape and purpose to the Aeginetan narrative from the beginning. ******-----*****----***--- -191We learn for instance that when they were called in by Thebes against the Athenians, the Aegine 1 tans managed to inflict much harm on the seaboard of Attica ( 5.81.3 and 89.2 ), thereby causing greattrouble to the Athenians. Similarly in the narrative in Book Six, Aeginetan reprisals for the affair of the hostages take the form of maritime terrorism~ the seizure of an Athenian theoric ship sailing off Cape Sunium ( 6.87 ). The attempted coup against the ruling oligarchy in Aegina com~s to nothing when the Athenians fail to turn up on the appointed day with the necessary cruμBaAstv. Indeed the Athenians have to negotiate the purchase of 20 ships from Corinth before they can take the offensive. Even a,fter the initial success against the islanders their inexperience in naval matters again catches them out ( 6.93 ): ALYLVnTaL 6e toucrL aTdxToLcrL ÃnvaCoLcrL cruμBaAOVTSS TnLaL vnucrt tvCxncrav 110. In other words, the narrative of the war shows the Aeginetans giving the Athenians a lesson in the value of naval power. Herodotus presents his material in such a way as to bring out this issue. focussing on the deficiency of Athenian naval power at this period, a state of affairs so different from that which was later to obtain. The episode is perhaps also meant to show us something about the nature of sea-power and what it does to the Aeginetans and the Athenians. The theme of sea-power in particular gives point to the parenthesis on the ekhthr~ palai~, with its account of how Aegina herself emerged as a thalassocracy atan earlier time. In the distant past the Aeginetans were•subject to Epidaurus !AAa xat 6Cxas 6LaBaCvovTss ES 'EiC6ctupov l6C6oadv TS xat £AdμBavov nap &AÃAwv ot AlyLvnTã 111. But the Aeginetans decided to revolt: T~ 6~ Twv 'E11:1,.,6avpCwv. Their fleet moreover gives them an advantage over the ----- -----****---*** -192112 ) ., , '.! , 'i::: , , , , Epidaurians ( 5.83.2 : a1T 08 8U\lT8~ OLatpopoL 8vT]A80\lTO aUTOU~, The words thalassokrate~, thalassokratia, and the rest do not appear in any writers before Herodotus ( cf. 3.122.2, with n.117 ), and the 'idea' of thalassocracy first receives clear expression towards the end of the 5thc 113. It obsesses the Old Oligarch in his account of the Athenian empire-democracy ( cf. Ps.-Xenoph.II.1-16, e.g. II.2, and it occupies an important place in ,Thucydides' Archaeology, as well as providing him with a major theme of the narrative of the Peloponnesian 114 War itself cf. e.g. Thucyd.2.60-4) . As both these examples show and as all later discusisons appear to confirm115, the idea of thalassocracy clearly took shape in direct response to the rise of the Athenian empire, a model which finally made sense of Minos, Polycrates, the Phoenicians and the rest 116. Although Herodotus nowhere uses the words of the Athenians ( contrast 7.144.2, thalassious not lassokratoras ), it is hardly likely that he can attend to the growth of Athenian naval power in the way that he does in the Aeginetan episode and not be interested, as the Old Oligarch and Thucydides are, in 1 the significance of that naval power for the future rise of the empire117 Accordingly it seems probable that in discussing Aeginetan sea-power in the ekhthr~ palai~ episode he js offering us a. model for Athens' own development through sea-power: there is an analogy between Aegina freed from the imperial tyranny cif1Eptdatirus ( cf. n.111 ) and Athen.s freed from the tyranny of the Pei s i strati ds, and perhaps Sparta ( see above), both states aggressively asserting their independence. ln other words, Herodotus has found another way of commenting indirectly on the implications of Athenian freedom. If this is so, it becomes significant that what the Aeginetan fleet enables them to do it to inflict harm on other states with impunity ( cf. 5.81.3 and 89.2 ), and the independence which their fleet gives them leads -193them to behave in. a way that is arrogant and overweening. Their seizure of the statues of Damia and Auxesia from Epidaurus ( cf. 5.83.2, with 6.87) and their rejection of the Athenian overtures to them are acts of arrogant provocati-0n ( cf. 5.84.2, l,aaav a,cã TE xat 'AenvaCõã slvã ou6sv npi'\yμa; cf. Athens 1 own behaviour over the Aeginetan hostages at 6.86.1 and 86d ). It is the same self-confidence that leads them to respond to Theban invitations and attack Athens ( 5.81.2 ): su6ãμovCñ Perhaps it is this quality of arrogance that is meant by Herodotus 1 curious use of the word agnomosyne to describe their attitude when, having built their fleet, they seceded from Epidaurus ( 5.83.2, above), the opposite ,of sophrosyne, with all that implies of self-willed disregard for others 118. If it is right to see the Aeginetan. story as a p~radigm ( in miniature of the rise of Athens after the liberation, we may be meant to mark the lesson that an independent thalassocracy feels at liberty to do what it pleases and is no respecter of the rights of • others. In other words, Herodotus has in mind that Athenian thalassocracy was not merely something that saved Greece in the Persian Wars, but also what gave the democracy both the power and the presumption to impose its will on others. It,is worth noting that Herodotus' paradox at 7.144.2 is clearly something he has strained to achieve: it is hard to believe that Themistocles' advice to build up the fleet had in reality nothing to do with the threat of Persia, which can hardly have been thought to have receded for good after Marathon. But Herodotus wants to suggest that the only object of building the fleet was to gain an advantage over a Greek neighbour, an inference which has an unattractive resonance for anyone aware of the advantage the fleet was to the empire as an instrument of repression ( cf. also Ch.II.iii.H.1, on 8.61.2 ). • -194- (G) The Ionian Revolt. For Herodotus, Athens' participation in the Ionian revolt is a rather different illustration of the consequences of the liberation, but one which is no less equivocal. Plutarch was certainly right to object to the somewhat uncharitable tone of Herodotus' account, which is a far cry 119 from Athenian propaganda , though clearly rather m~re subtly.critical than Plutarch makes it ( MH 24.861AB ): 11He does all he can to misrepresent and disparage the exploit; he has the impertinence to sai,that the ships which the Athenians sent to support the Ionians we're 'the beginning of disaster• ( apxi::Mchwu!; ToAμ1foa.!; rcpoaun:i::C\> ) , because they attempted to free a 11 those great Greek cities from the barbarian 11120. 121 This reserve should not be put down to mere kakoetheia We have seen that democracy brought an astonishing access of confidence to the Athenians, without which they would never have responded to the overtures of Aristagoras as they did; but it is a confidence which has the direct result of end;l.ngering Greece. Admittedly Herodotus does not explicitly l~ve] such a criticism at the Athenians and I would suggest that to do so would be to go ag~inst a principle he has set himself ( cf. Ch.II.iii.L ) but by association at least their involvement in the revolt can be seen as a reprehensible folly. The ships they sent were the arkh~ kak6n for the Greeks and the barbarians ( 5.97.3 ): that could be taken purely objectively as a statement of historical fact, but it is also possible, with Plutarch, to extrapolate an accusation of criminal responsibility. Moreover, we saw that Athens' original decision to make an enemy of Persia ( cf. 5.96.2 ) had been preceded by an attempt to make an ally of her for protection against Sparta cf. 5.73.1 ): and if we follow through the implications ~f that, it is not possible to see Athens' involvement in the revolt as a heroic defence of Greek liberties, but only as a further act of selfish opportunism ( see below) . -195What Plutarch should even more have bridled at is Herodotus' account of Athens' withdrawal from the alliance ( 5.103.1 ): μsTa o} 'ÃnvatoL Athens' participation in the revolt is clearly devalued by this uncomfortably close scrutiny of her desertion of it. The Athenians simply get cold feet: they realize at last that their ambition has led them too far. No ties of blood,.no claims of loyalty, no lure of profit even { cf. 5.97.1-2 ), can get them to stay now. Herodotus offers no explanation or exoneration of their behaviour, but his language is too forceful ( T~ xapdnav &xoALn6vTES ••• fnLHaAsoμtvou a,tas noAAd ) to count as detached and objective narrative. The completeness of their abandonment of the Ionian cause can only be assessed subjectively and they may after all have had an acceptable reason for their 'desertion', which Herodotus does not have the patience to record. His words serve to sharpen our doubts about the expedition: what sort of decision was it in th~ first place that led the Athenians to send 20 ships to Asia, if they could so soon so completely abandon the enterprise, at the first sign of trouble? Herodotus 1 commentary on th~ decision itself 122 shows that he considers it ill-considered and far from creditably motivated. Aristagoras' appeal succeeds at Athens, even though it failed at Sparta ( 5.97.2 ): ' ' '1' '.I' ' , D '" ' " It ' K' , KOAAOU<; yap OL'liE £LVQ.l, EUKETEOTEPOV OLQμQ/\1\ELV n sva, EL. AEOμ£VEa μtv T6V AaMEOaLμOVLOV j):Oij'VO\l ou:x otrk TE. EYEVETO ow(3aUuv, TPELS: ot μup La6as 'ÃnvaCwv ho Gnas ToD,o ( cf. Ch. I.ii . 5 ) • The 'corruptibility' of the multitude is a theme we encounter also in Megabyxos I attack on democracy ( 3. 81. 2 ) : Hws yap av yLvwcrnoL 8s 01.h' &v£u v6ou, XELμdppwL xoTaμraL Cxs).os; The demos which forces all before it like a stream in torrent might almost be a description of the Athenian democracy here see below). An intsructive parallel can be made here with Aristotle ( Pol .1286A3lff ) , who uses alme)~t exactly the same terms -196to contrast the merits of constitutional 1 democratic 1 government with the deficie,ncies of monarchy: 11a large body of men is less easily corrupted than the few; in this respect it resembles a large volume of water, which is not so easily fouled as a small quantity. Whereas the judgement of a man in the throes of anger or some other passion is bound tobe obscured, a great number of persons are most unlikely to be simultaneously led astray in this manner11 .123 Aristotle argues from common sense, and an imprecise analogy, that the judgement of one man is less reliable than that of a large assembly.• Herodotus, by contrast, argues a less obvious position by appeal to 'history': the Athenians were persuaded where Cleomenes was not. It is possible that Herodotus is here offering a paradoxical reply to some such defence of democracy or criticism of monarchy as that voiced by Aristotle here. To some extent his 1 criticism 1 of democracy here may be meant to substantiate the stern denunciation of Megabyxos, a view which laid stress of the irrational • • b * 1 • t f th I l • t f 1 • t • 1 • • 124 b t 1mpress1ona 1 1 yo e mass in momen so. po 1 1ca crisis ; u the passage could as well pass as a mere paradox, a lightly ironic observation that the way things turned out here seemed to go against common sense expectation. It is easy enough to extrapolate a criticism of the institution of democracy, and of the Athenian version in particular, and Herodotus is surely content that this should be so; but he has clearly held back from makfng such a criticism explicit. Athenian propaganda wil 1 surely have made out that her participation in the Ionian revolt was a high-minded decision to defend Greek freedom, eclipsed only by her heroism in the Persian Wars125. And yet Herodotus distinctly avoids any such suggestion, and he even.leaves any mention of freedom out of Aristagoras 1 speech contrast 5.49.2-3 ). As we have seen earlier, it seems to have been a staple theme of Athenian oratory that the democracy was so attached to the ideal of freedom that she made allies of the weaker rather than the stronger, in despite of her ,own advantage, because of her hatred of oppression ( cf. e.g. Isocr.Paneg.52-3, with -197Pl.Menex.239AB ). Thus an Athenian audience would not have been entirely happy to hear that the democracy was 1 deceived 1 into the decision to help the Ionians against her better interests by the unscrupulous Aristagoras. His 1 de~eption 1 of the Athenians is almost certainly a Herodotean inference rather than a reported fact, especially if his sources are Athenian here. Moreover it is on this inference that his commentary depends: the democracy is susceptible to gilded promises. Herodotus suggests that it is indeed profit rather than idealism which sways the assembly behind Aristagoras . • Of the arguments he puts forward ( 5.97.lf ), profit ( nEpi rrav &ya&rav ,wv sv -rnt.. 'AcrCnt..) and the ties of blood ( wg ol Mt..Aricrt..oL rwv 'A.e-nvaCwv ) , it is cleatly the promise of profit which is the deciding factor: xat ouotv o,L oux , ,. 1' ,. ,. , , " , , , 126 UKLO'XETO OLa xapra vEOμEvos;, ES O avETIELO'E O'~Eag • Herodotus 1 account of Athens' involvement in the revolt is the nearest he comes to showing his hand in relation to the Athenian democracy. His obvious reserve here shows th~t it was right to doubt that the real purpose of 5.78 was to express enthusiasm for Athenian democratic freedom; in particular 5.97.2 is a striking counter to what~ver was conce~ed in that earlier passage. If democracy meant that 11each man was eager to prosecute what he saw as his own interest 11 ( 5.78 ), the real implication of thi3.t becomes clear when we set Athens' activities in mainland Greece alongside her behaviour over the Ionian reovlt: the appetites of the democracy are in no sense admirable, and the Athenians are not motivated by a new love of freedom ( except their own! ) but rather by the ambition for power and profit. Indeed Herodotus surelyintendsa distaiteful contrast between the enthusiasm and decisiveness with which they set about dominating their neighbours and the ignominious half-heartedness they show in helping their fellow-Ionians achieve freedom. At any rate, the present passaQe is surely an almost unsuperable obstacle for those who wish to see in Herodotus an out-and-out admieer of Athenian 4emocracy although here again we -198should be cautious about trying to see an explicit, full-fron:tal'attack, and concede that whatever there is of criticism is only indirectly conveyed. * (H) Conclusion. On a close reading of this account of the rise of the democracy it is tlear that Herodotus is throyghout looking beyond the end of his own narrative to the experiences of his own lifetime. The democracy 'set up by Cleisthenes' is surely for him the same politeia which came to • have such an influence on the rest of the Greek worl~ in the period after the Persian Wars; for there is no indication that he wants us to remember that in historical reality the democracy was not created with a bang in 508-7 but evolved gradually õer many years 127: the constitution of Kleisthenes is n 6nμonpa.Cn ( 6.131.1 ), the democracy which the reader would know from his own day128 This sense of continuity is brought home by the two oracular pronouncements which frame the narrative of the Peloponnesian Congress. The Spartans are encouraged to act against the democracy by the oracles brought back from Athens by Cleomenes { 5.90.2 ): AlyoVTES ~OAAct TE xat &v&pcr~a It is not Herodotus' way, as a rule, to report oracles which will not be fulfilled, and H is clear in this instance that the reference must be to the events of the Pentekontaetia and Athens' attempts after the Persian Wars to wrest the hegemony of 129 the Greeks from Sparta . Herodotus allows the reader to infer that the Spartans were justified in anticipating that it would be the new democracy which would cause these oracles to come true. Clearer still -199is the effect of the prediction ascribed to Hippias at the end of the debate. Failing in his attempt to persuade the allies of Sparta to overthrow th~ democracy and restore his tyranny, he turns abruptly on Socles th~ Corinthian, whose denunciation of tyranny has just swayed the assembly Hippias • knew what he was talking about, adds Herodotus, 11inasmuch as he had unrivalled knowl~dge of the oracles 11 ( 5.93.2 ). This final observation shows that Herodotus means the prophecy to have come true 130, and intends the reader to recognize as much; it is a peculiar rider if the application of.the oracle is uncertain. Moreover it had clearly 'come true 1 by the time Herodotus was writing, to the extent that th~ affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, both of them clashes between Corinth and Athens, precipitated the Peloponnesi~n War. That Hippias is said to call on the same gods as Socles here .is surely more than circumstantial realism. Socles had just called on the gods of the Gree~s ( 5.92e.5 ): cnLμap,upoμs~a TE , , , , ~ , ~ , , , , 131 , , , , snLxaAsoμevõ uμLv %eous ,ous EAAnVLous μn xa,Lo,avã ,upavvL6as ls Tas n611.Ls. And to call on the theoi Hellenioi is to invoke the unity of Hell~s 132: Socles is speaking in the ~ame of the common Greek interest, the right of each state to its own freedom and independence. In calling the same gods to witness, however~ Hippias counters with a rnnve urgent appeal to the common interest of the Greeks: the course advised by Socles, that the Spartan should respect Athenian sovereignty~ will in time come 133 to endanger the whole of Greece The reference is obvious: the Athenian empire was a threat to the independence of all Greeks: Corinth will regret the loss of the Peisistratids 11most of al1 11 , but that means that the rest will regret it too. In other words, we are made to see Athenian freedom ( cf. Media and Persia, with Ch.II.i.B ) as a threat to the freedom of others. The drama of the Congress illustrates a characteristic Herodotean -200dilemma: if we agree that freedom is a most desirable thing, then surely it is right to let Athens retain her independence; but if the.consequences of Athenian freedom are unacceptable, as Herodotus clearly means to remind us they are, what then? Surely there is a sense in which Socles' fine words are seriously misguided? Certainly tyranny is a great evil, though perhaps for Herodotus not quite the unmitigated evil that it is for Socles ( 5.92a.1 ): ,ou Moreover the abhorrence of tyranny is no sound argument in itself for democracy, which Megabyxos could argue was every bit as bad ( 3.81.1 ) : OμLAOU yap &xpn(ou ou6E:v £(1"(l, ãuvn6,e:pov ou6t vSpLcr.6,e:pov: xa(,ot, ,updvvou uf3pt,v ~e:uyov,as av6pas ES onμou &xoAacr,ou u$pt,V ne:cre:tv icr,L ou6aμws &vacrxe:,ov. Of course Megabyxos' denunciation of the akolasia of the demos is no more a guide to Herodotus' own views of democracy than is Sparta's denunciation of the hybris of the Athenian demos ( cf. 5.91.2, above ). He can indeed make Otanes speak with equal vigour in favour of democracy, in.that it bears 11the finest name of all, isonomia11134 ( cf. 3.80.6 ). There are a number of ways of dealing with this apparent conflict of views, although trying to decide whether Herodotus himself was a democrat or an oligarch is not the best course. In particular we have noticed that he is capable of distinguishing different forms of the same constitution, at least in the case of tyranny ( cf. (A) above, on Peisistratus ). Accordingly if he shows reservations about;. particular forms of democracy, that shows nothing about his attitude to the principle of democratic isonomia. Thus we may suggest that Herodotus would distinguish between an ideal form of democratic isonomia135 and the form that democracy tends to take in the real world. In the same way there is an ideal fo.rm of monarchy which has the interests of the state most at heart ( cf. Peisis!ratus' first tyranny at 1.59.6; and the monarchy of Darius' description in 3.82 ), J • -201while in real life this tends to take the form of tyranny, which puts the interests of the ruler,above all else ( cf. Ar.Pol.1310B40ff, etc. ). It may be that this Aristotelian type of classification is somewhat alien to Herodotus' thinking, although it could be suggested that the constitutiondebate can argue for three different constitutions with equal force because each speaker is commending the ideal form of constitution and condemning • its bad transformation. Herodotus' attitude to the Athenian democracy is complicated by his appreciation that,though itself the embodiment of political freedom, it was responsible for tee enslavement of other states ( cf. Ch.II.i.B.3 ), that the democracy was itself a tyranny. There is, moreover, a characteristic . equivocation in his treatment of the freedom represented by Athenian democracy. There is a certain attractiveness in the qualities of courage, confidence and self-assurance which seem to accrue to the Athenians after the liberation: their actions have a dignity which those of men ruled by tyrants could not have. It could be argued that this picture of the democracy is the. dominant imp:ression of the narrative of the affair of Boeot i a and Cha 1 c is ( cf. ( E), above ) up to 5. 77, and indeed Herodotus is there clearly conceding something at least to Athenian propaganda. But those same qualities have their darker sides, arrogance, presumption and aggressiveness, which Herodotus allows the Spartans to denounce without thereafter reminding us how the Athenian had earlier looked. Herodotus has left enough hints in this passage that the Athens which we now see liberated from tyranny is itself soon to become a tyrannos and he offers no signs that he approves of that transformation. * -202Freedom, Part iii: The Liberation of Greece. (A) Introduction. 1. In the period between Artemisium and Salamis ( 8.27.1 ) Herodotus describes an embassy of the Thessalians to the Phocians, the former now enthusiastic medizers, the latter as yet still loyal to Greece. The motive of Thessalians, says Herodotus, is a hostile one: ~Te cr~L tvexovTeS This latest defeat is then forcefully described: the Thessalians had invaded Phocis with their whole army but had suffered a severe setback ( e,oowenoav ' • . • xaL ). The details of this grim internecine struggle are here set out at length ( 8.27. 29.l ). Herodotus then records the speech of the Thessalian envoys to Phocis in oratio recta { 29.lf ): 'rn m , ";;. -, ~ , ' T " • - , ~* ~wxees, nun TL μaAAOV yvwoLμaxeeTe μn SLVaL oμOLOL nμLv. Rpocr~e Te y&p EV TO[OL ~E:\:\noL, 5oov XP6VOV EXeCVa nμ[~ ~Voave, uleov alel XOTe uμewv e~epoμe6a, vuv Te nap& TOOL SapSapwL TOOODTOV 6uvaμe6a ~OTe eu' nμ[v EOTL TTlS rns eGTeprjo6aL xaL npos .nv6pauo6Coao6aL uμeas,. ~-, ,...,.,, ' , nμeLS μ£VTOL TO nav eXOVTeS OU μvnOLXaXeOμeV .•. What the Thessalians require in return for this 'kindness' is a gi from the Phocians of 50 talents, for which they will undertake to divert the Medes from Phocis. The Phocians, explains Herodotus, were alone of the f)eoples in this part of Greece not to medize l 3&.lf ) : ,n , ,, , ,, '\'\, ~, "J::.", xaT al)..o μev ou6ev, ws eyw ouμSa/\/\Oμevos eUpLoxw, xaTa ve TO EX60S TWV 9eooal@v. el OE 8eooalot TO 'Et..t..nvwv nD~ov, ws eμot OOX£eLV, eμn6Ltõ &v oL IWX£eS, And the Phocians refuse to hand over any money: 11:apexeLV TE cr~L Oeaoa)..o[crL oμoCws μn6C1;;uv, el &uws SouloCaTO; &t..l' õx loecr6aL ~xovTeS elvaL npo6oTaL Tr\s 'Elld6ps. • -203At this self-righteous reply the Thessalians in anger lead the barbarian into Phocis ( 31 and 32. 2 ) , so that the land is quite overrun, 11for that was hew the Thessalians led the army. Where~er' they occupied, everything was put to fire and the sword, and they burnt both the cities and the shrines ... and some women were raped so many times that they died 11 • Herodotus' fullness of detail leaves the reader in no doubt as to the ruthlessness, barbarity and horror of the Thessalians' revenge on their neighbour~ and fellow-Greeks. • Certainly it is necessary to the story of Xerxes' expedition to know that Phocis was overrun because of the Thessalians 1 hostility towards their neighbours, and-the pre-history of their enmity is a helpful supplemenl. But what an extraordinary parable Herodotus has made of this isode! Not only does he embellish the narrative with two highly charged speeches, but he also does a quite rare thing for him in contributing his own commentary on the episode. We have suggested earlier that Herodotus' judgements are in principle unlikely to be supp1iad him by his sources, and that. 1r1here he intrudes them he is breaking a general rule of 'objectivity', presumably borrowed from the narrative styJ of epic which has no need for such devices. Indeed Herodotus is quite explicit in claiming the malicious interpretation for his own here, which indicates that the rule applies here too2. So what does he want us to understand from this episode? Thessaly and Phocis are each je~lous of the Othef's position ( see 7.237.2, below) to the point of fanatical and obsessive hatred. Phocis' loyalty to the Greek cause, according to Herodotus' malicious interpretation, is motivated by nothing more than the perverse desire to do the opposite of her rival. When they speak of their unwillingness to betray the Greeks ( , • • II • , 7 6 , ,.,; • E' ' '6 ~AA oux ecrecr~aL exovTes e~vaL ~po OTaL T,,s AAa os ), Herodotus has made sure that we know their fine words reflect nothing more noble than the desire to score points off the Thessalians. It is simply a sham -204idealism. The Thessalians, needless to say, with their hope of turning their medism ( cf. 7.172.lff) to private profit, and then their atrocities against the Phocians, come off even worse. In the midst of an account of the liberation of Greece from ff~F~ian servitude 3 this story of Greek rivalry and the cynical motives of the loyalist state is not a little disturbing 4. Not merely the inclusion of the episode, but its considerable length and elaboration, show clearl~ that Herodotus' narrative of the liberation is far from simply panegyric in intent. The loyalists may say they are fighting for the common interest of He 11 as but how often can we believe them? The s imp 1 e fact of 'loyalty' * to the Greek cause, Herodotus seems to imply, can disguise motives not remotely admirable: we should not be deceived by the glamorous sound of the word 1 freedom1 into thinking that its adherents will inevitably be spotless heroes. The analysis of freedom in Herodotus thus far has shown thatwe should not be surprised at this unsettling equivocation. The message of this episode is that the Greeks not only do not forget their mutual enmities in the face of the Persian invasion, but can even use the occasion to further those enmities and inflict as much harm as they know how on their fellow-Greeks. Perhaps the most prominent theme of the narrative of the liberation ( after, if not actually alongside, the theme of Greek heroism! ) is that of the rivalry between Greek and Greek. No doubt the antagonism of Thessaly and Phocis is an extreme example of this though Herodotus has certainly made it seem as extreme as possible by the use of speeches and commentary; but, as we shall see, Herodotus misses few opportunities to illustrate the theme, even in dealing with the most heroic defenders of Greek liberty, the Spartans and the Athenians. Whatever evidence offers itself of Greek rivalry and disunity before, during or even after the invasion of Xerxes, Herodotus does his best to bring~ to the fore. ~--****--****---*-------- ****---------~---------- ---*---------- -2052. The reason for this jaundiced harping on a theme that runs so counter to the spirit of the liberation, is not far to seek. Herodotus was planning and writing his work at a time when the rivalries endemic to the Greek nation of city-states had blown up into the most suicidal confrontation that the Greeks had yet seen. Moreover some observers clearly felt that it was the very outcome of the heroic fight against Persia which had laid the foundations for that confrontation. The Athenians proudly defended their empire with the tale of their services to Greece in that earlier • time, and themselves admitted, what their critics reflected most ruefully, that their inheritance of the hegemony after Mykale and their energetic campaigns of revenge on the Mede had put them in the position of power they now enjoyed ( see below). With thoughts like these in the air, a man of Herodotus• thoughtfuldisposition could not have approached the subject of the Persian Wars with impartial equanimity, concerned merely to catalogue the heroic achievements of the defenders of Greek liberty, as it had much earlier been possible for Simonides and even Aeschylus to do. His perspective makes such a proceeding hardly credible: he is simply too far removed in time for such an uncomplicated attitude 5. The Persian Wars and their consequences had become such powerful weapons of rhetoric and propaganda that scarcely any writer of the time, of whatever persuasion, could have resisted the desire to draw from those events some lesson either of justification or of censure; and there is no reason to s!)gpose that Herodotus was any different. Fornara has well shown that~ the traditional view of the matter, as argued most influentially by Jacoby, that the narrative of the Persian Wars is Herodotus• apology for Athens, the democracy and the empire, is most unsatisfactory. He suggests instead, as Focke and Strasburger had earlier agreed, that the narrative embodies a subtle and elusive criticism of Athens, and indeed of the Greeks as a whole, a criticism which took account of the divisions and enmities of that earlier period which - -206had such disastrous consequences in the intervening years. Fornara does not, as we shall be doing, consider the part that Herodotus• habitual taste for paradox and equivocation has to play in all this 6, nor does he illustrate the way in which Herodotus is here bringing to a climax the theme of freedom which has played such an important part in the rest of the work. The importance of this theme in the last three books is, however, well discussed by von Fritz both in his article 11Die gr:Eleutheria bei Herodot117 and less happily in his 11Griechische Geschichtsschreibun9 11 • However his ideas about the development of Herodotus• thought and method and the various stages of this which he supposes have left their mark on the book we have, prevent him from seeing that the theme of freedom unites this climax of the work with all that has gone before. Furthermore I cannot wholly agree with van Fritz about how Herodotus actually came to treat the story of the liberation as he did. He rightly observes that the narrative is full of stories illustrating the limitations of Greek freedom, but he concludes that the character of Herodotus' account is simply a reflexion of the character of his material and the stories he was told ( cf. art.cit.p.24 ): 11ein Produkt kollektiver Selbsterkenntnis in dem Sinne, dass die Griechen nicht direkt, sondern vermittelst der Geschichten, welche sie van einander erzMhlten, sich ihre SchwMchen gegenseltig vor Augen f~hrten und dann in Gegengeschichten wiederum ihre eigenen Vorzllge herausstellten und den vermeintlichen oder wirklichen SchwMchen gegenllberstellten 11• Herodotus• part in all this is confined to gathering, selecting and imaginative arrangement: his theme, in other words, is entirely made frir him by the character of his source-material. There is certainly a prima facie case for supposing that the memory of the Persian Wars in the later 6thc was indeed in some circumstances coloured by the efforts at mutual recrimination and self-justification of the participants. Thucydides reminds us of what could be done. There is, for example, the defence of the Thebans against the charge of treachery levelled at them by the Plataeans ( 3.62.lff }: £UEL6n 0£ Mat 6 SapSapos ~ÃEV tut Tnv 'EAAaoa, ~acrt μovoL BOLWTWV 00 μn6LcraL, Mat TOUTWL μaALcrTa aOTOL TE &yaAAOVTaL, Mat nμli£ AOL6opo0crLV ... 6f\AOV TE EUOLncran 006£ TOTE TWV 'EHnvwv μovoL OU μn6LcraVTES, aAA' OTL 006' 'ÃnvatoL, UμEts 6£ TOLS μev TaUTO aouA0μ£VOL nõELv, Tot~ 6£ T&vav~La8. " EVEJta -207The propaganda of the Persian Wars is, moreover, particularly prominent in discussions of Athens' position ( see esp. 1.72ff, with 1.86.1, discussed below), as when Athenian speakers refer to the subject as a stock justification of the empire, with which they will not tax their audiences ( cf. 5.89, from the Melian dialogue ): nμELS TOLVUV o0TE ao,ot μET' 6voμaTwV KriJ.;:.iv Such passages indeed suggest that we might know more of the propaganda. of the Persian Wars in the debates of the period, if we did not have to rely so much on the wayward and eclectic reporting of Thucydides9 Herodotus, however, is drawing on a much wider range of memories than those so contentiously evoked in the jaundiced political rhetoric of his day; though, as we shall see, he sometimes chooses to recall the uses to which the Persian Wars were put in contemporary debate. There is indeed some reason to suppose that the dominant popular memory of the Persian Wars was of a glorious struggle of national unity, in which the .* Greeks rivalled one another only to see who could do the most good for Hellas ( cf. Hdt 8.79.3, below; with Isocr.Paneg.85, uEpt μtv ,ns xoLvns ,od,ou uoLEdμEvoL Tnv &μLAAav ). It is worth, for instance, remembering the phrases that ring through the epigrams of the Persian Wars ( see Page, Epigr.Gr~ Simonides, no.s V-XXIV; and now Further Greek Epigrams, for full commentary). There it is the proud claim of each state that its sacrifice was undertaken 'on behalf of Hellas 1 ( e.g. ): VIII.3f: 'EAAUOL yap 01t£UOOVT£S EAEU&epCnv 1t£pL8£tVaL HELμE&' aynpaVTWL xpwμEVOL £U1oyCnL. XI.3f: lv&do£ ~oLvCacras vaas xat Tilpaas ~1ovT£& xat Mnoous lapav 1 E11doa ~ucrdμE&a ( cf. Meiggs/Lewis no.24 ). XVI.lf: 1 E11doL xat M£yap£UOLV EA£V8£pov nμap &tt£LV l£μ£VOL &avaTOU μotpav EO£~aμ£&a. XX(a).4: 'E11aoa μn nacrav OOUALOV nμap lo£tV ( cf. Meiggs/Lewis no. 26 ). XXI.1: 'E1Anvwv npoμaxouvTES 'A&nvatoL Mapa&wvL XXIII.1: ... ~&Lμlvous unep 'E11aoos •.. -208Aeschylus' version of the exhortatory shout of the Greeks at Salamis in the Persae has an even more pronounc~d appeal to national unity ( 402ff ): ., J:; • E'' , ,, ... w 1taLv£S AAnvwv, LT£ e1£u&EpouT£ naTpCo', EA£U8£pout£ oe natoas yuvatxas &Ewv TE 1taTpWLWV [on &nxas TE npoyovwv. vuv U1t&p 1t<lVTWV aywv. The shrines of the ancestral gods and the graves of the ancestors are meant as a reminder that all the Greeks are fighting together as one peopl~ united by common interests, common religion, history and culture 10. In Aristophanes, besides the numerous references to Athens 1 unique achievement 11 at Marathon , there are two revealing passages in the Lysistrata, which clearly appeal to the idea of Greek unity in and through the Persian Wars. The chorus of Spartan men celebrates the achievement of peace in the play and the union of Sparta and Athens by appeal to the old story ( 1247ff ): ., opμaov ' , T ,I TWS 1!UpO'ctVLWS w Mvaμouva TUV T' eμctv Mwav, aTLS OLOEV aμe TWS T' ''AaavaCws, oxa TOL μeven' 'ApTaμLTLOL npw~poov OLOELHEAOL 1tOTTa xa!a TWS Mnows T' EVLHWV, aμt o' ao AewvCoas !yev !~nep ,~s xdnpws &dyov,as olw T6v oo6v,a The memory is appropriate because it represents a glorious common achievement: the community of purpose shown then, it is hoped, will now be revived, so that Spartans and Athenians may again live and work with one another as in those golden days. The expressed in a slightly different form earlier by Lysistrata, the reference being rather to war with Persia than to the Persian Wars thems~ves*t 1128ff ): ActSoDcra 6 1 uμas AOLoopnaaL Sod!oμaL xoLvliL oLxaCws, ,o'C μLas h XEPVLSos *~----****~~-*****-- (3wμous; lCE:pi.;ppaLVOVTE:$; WOlCE:P tuyyzvzt:s; 'OAuμicCaoLv, tv IluAaLs;, Ilu&wL, icooous zCicoLμ' mv &AAOUS, zC μE: μnxuVE:LV 6EOL, h&pwv icapovTwv (3ap(3dpwL cnpa.TE:Uμa.n .ElAnvas &v6pa.s xat 1COAE:L$; &icollUTE:. -209Lysistrata stresses the shaming contrast between the battles Sparta and Athens are now fighting against fellow-Greeks and the battles they might t f . ht . t d th . t th p * 12 ye 19 , un, e , as ey once were, aga1ns e common enemy, ers1a . The implication here, as in the previous passage, is that the war with Persia was a triumph of the spirit of national unity, which all honest Greeks would wish might be retrieved today. The message is the same as that of, say, Isocrates' Panegyricus, only ~ithout the carping at Sparta's contribution which occasionally infiltrates 4thc Athenian rhetoric in its recreation of the Persian Wars. We need not, however, rely solely on literary evidence. We may remember the dedications of the Greeks after the Wars ( cf. Page, .$i_111on1des XV ): IT[poas E~E:ACiOaVTE:S slE:u&[paL 'EAACi6L XOLVOV t6puoavTe;~LO$; (3wμov 1 EAE:U&zpCou, and tnparticular the famous Serpent-Column at Delphi, with its proud record of the names of all those who had fought in the war13• We ,shõld remember , 14 too, if it is historical, Pericles 1 so-called 'Congress Decree'*( Plut.Per.17) , in which the Greeks are called together to join in a programme of national unity, to disc~ss the problem of the Greek temples which the barbarians had burnt, the sacrifices which they still owed on behalf of Greece in fulfilment of the vows made to the gods when they fought the barbarians, and the sea, that all should sail in security and maintain the peace. perhaps the authenticity of the decree is too doubtful, but if we are to trust it, then we need not be too cynical about its interpretation: if it was to make any political sense and was not merely an empty gesture, its appeal to the Hellenic unity established in the war with Persia cannot have sounded impossibly anachronistic, even after peace had been concluded -210with the barbarian. The decree envisages that the Greeks are to pledge their unity in the same terms that they had used during the war15, though presumably this time acknowledging the hegemony of Athens rather than 16 Sparta . In short the evidence could be taken to point to the existence of a myth of national unity in the war with Persia, which even the cynical politics of the later 5thc did not wholly eradicate 17. Naturally generalization is foolhardy, but it seems reasonable to suggest that the popular memory of the Persian Wars in the late 5thc was still predominantly positive rather than negative. Indeed a view diametrically opposed to that of von Fritz is advanced by Murray ( 1980 ), whom it may be useful to quote, as much as a warning against over-simplification as a corrective to the opposite extreme ( p.268 ): 11The subject in Greek eyes was the most important event of their past, the vindication of the freedom of the city-state against oreintal despotism. Oral tradition preserved an account typical for successful war: it rightly glorified the protagonists, and emphasized the great odds against which they had fought; it presented a unified picture of an event which symbolized Greek unity; although Athenian, Spartan and Corinthian stories have their differ.ent slants, they do not seem to have contradicted each other, and there is no sign that Herodotus was forced to distort their versions in order to create a coherent account. Indeed there was every reason to remember the great event, for the participation of individual states in it became the basis of inter-Greek diplomacy for the next two centuries; constant reiteration might improve a city's record, but in the competitive world of Greek politics it cou]d not seriously distort it: the 1 record is in its essentials accurate" ( my underlining ) .. Clearly the truth shares both these aspects, as we shall see in what follows 18. Herodotus' account of the liberation of Greece is then a complex mixture, equivocal and ambivalent, consciously selecting from the recriminatfons and self-glorifications of the Greeks, and ungenerous towards Greek heroism, idealism and love of liberty. There are to be sure glorious events and heroes, the Ath~nians at Marathon, the Spartans at Thermopylae but Herodotus is as much interested in the psychology of the medizers as of the loyalists, as much in what led up to and followed the moments of heroism as in the moments -211themselves, and he is much concerned to qualify both his praise { cf. e.g. 7.139, below) and his blame ( cf. e.g. 7.152, below). This is not to say that he is concerned merely to be even-handed; indeed the example of Thessaly and Phocis which we considered at the start shows him to be quite capable of the most malicious inferences even about the Greek loyalists. Rather he is interested in pointing up as sharply as possible the ironies and paradoxes that surround the story of the liberation, in bringing home the moral uncertainties that underlie the contemporary Greeks' arguments about their own and each other 1 s actions in that drama. * (B) The Ionian Revolt. Herodotus' narrative of the Persian Wars has often been thought to be something of a separate entity, largely detachable from the rest of 19 the work . But this view misses much of importance, not least since the theme of freedom, here broughtto a climax, has been prepared at length in the rest of the work, but also because there is clear prefiguring of the narrative in two major episodes of the previous books, namely Darius' S th . d. t . . 20 d th I . R 1 t Th S th . h . th cy 1an expe 1 ,on an e on1an evo • e cy ,ans s are w, the mainland Greeks the distinction of being the only major people ( with the exception of the Massagetai, who are smaller meat) successfully to resist Persian enslavement, and th~ parallelism of the two 1 liberations 1 is clearly brought out by Herodotus, through the construction of parallel episodes and motifs ( cf. n.71 and 169 below). We will concentrate here on the Ionian Revolt, which raises problems of interpretation similar to those we shall encounter in the narrative of the liberation itself 21. It is widely argued that Herodotus shows no signs of approving of the Ionian Revolt, that the entire account is essentially negative and unflattering. In particular it is claimed that he has been influenced " -212by sources concerned to devalue the revolt as far as possible, for example, the Athenians, who supposedly wanted to excuse their own part in the proceedings and to argue that the Ionians were cqnstitutionally weak and needed the protection of their empire, or the Samians, who for the most part betrayed the Ionian cause at Lade ( see below} and wanted an excuse for their own treachery. I would suggest rather that Herodotus 1 account is equivocal, appreciating that it was at least potentially admirable for the Ionians to have tried to liberate themselves from Persia, but insisting that the weaknesses and vices of the individual participants led rather to a shameful exhibition of cowardice, self-interest, treachery, and above all disunity. I would also suggest that this interpretation reflects an attempt to fit the narrative of the revolt into the jig-saw of the work as a whole, and the narrative of Greek affairs in particular, thereby, of course, anticipating certain themes of the liberation of Greece itself: it is thus an interpretation arrived at in despite of the sources not imposed by them. The self-interested motives of the instigators of the revolt, Aristagoras and Histiaios, do not need much illustration. Histiaios is for Herodotus so little a champion of Ionian freedom that he appears first of all among the Ionian tyrants at the Danube bridge arguing against accepting the Scythian invitation to liberate Ionia from Darius ( 4.137.2 }: 11We tyrants owe our positions to Darius and his power; if it is destroyed, none of us will be able to retain his throne 11 • It is by a talculated irony that Herodotus shows his decision to stir up the revolt to be motivated by the same self-interest ( 5.35.4 }: detained by Darius at Susa, he had high hopes of being sent home if a revolt were started¥,μn os vEw1:Epov n noLEdan, ,:ftf 'Ell&oõ õ6aμ; ls ã,:nv ~tELV 11:L lAoy(~ETo. In Aristagoras 1 case it is the failure of the Naxi~n campaign, in which he has seen it as his interest to interfere on behalf of the Naxian exiles and to secure -213the assistance of Persia ( 5.30.},)6 6~ lnLAE~dμEvos &s, Av 6L' ãToO ' ' ' ' " - ' )22 h" h d t . h" HaTEÃWOL ES Tnv ~oALV, ap~EL TnS Nãou , W 1C e ermines ,m to end his agreement with Artaphrenes and start the revolt ( 5.35.lf ): he was finding it hard to fulfil his promise to Artaphrenes and resented the experlditure to which he was committed over the expedition, and, having fallen out with Megabates, feared he might lose his position in Miletus; a.ppw6lwv TE TOihwv exacrTCt lsouAEUE:TO a.mforn<JLV. Hence the man. whom Artaphrenes had warmly praised as a benefactor to the Persian king 5. 3L.4, cru e:s olxov TOV SacrLAlos tcrnynrns yuvfoL ~pnyμchwv &yãwv ) ' changes his mind completely and becomes a traitor to Persia. Herodotus observes the same irony in both his and Histiaios 1 positions: both are loyal to ttt@ ft1rsi1cfl k.ift'§ <lPld eli$ibEtyal out of tfile Sall~ metivct of s@lf-iPrterest. Moreover just as there is no virtue in their service to the Mede ( Darius is pathetically mistaken at 6.30.lf; cf. Xerxes at 7.52.1 ), so there is nothing to admire in their decision to liberate lonia. It is not hard to see the similarity with Herodotus' treatment of the Thessalians and Phocians, discussed above ( cf. (A).1 ): in both cases, though more transparently so here, the choice for 1 freedom1 is made for entirely the wrong reasons. However, that Herodotus at least potentially sees the revolt as an admirable expression of the will to freedom is suggested by his use of speeches, speech~s wh ieh speak in 1 ofty terms of the desirability of freedom, but are nevertheless undercut by the narrative which shows either that the speaker himself does not mean what he says or that the participants are unable to live up to the role for which they are cast. One such speech is that of Aristagoras to Cleomenes at Sparta, which opens with an impressive and emotive appeal to the twin causes of freedom and Hellenic brotherhood ( 5.49.2f ): -214aUTOtOL nμtv, STL 0€ TWV AOLJtWV uμtv, COWL ltp0€0TUT€ Tns 'EAAaoog• vuv Ziv Jtpog %swv TWV 'EUnVLWV puoao.\Js "Iwvag CJ{ OOUAOODvng, But we know already that Aristagoras is not hims~lf committed to those ideals but is acting merely in his own interests ( above ). Another such speech is that of Dionysios of Phocaea to the assembly of the Ionians before Lade, which appeals, with a grand Homeric echo ( cf. Hom. Il.10.173f ), to the Ionians to make themselves equal to this test of their freedom ( 6 11 2 ) ' ' t' - \ ' - ,, ( - ' , " .,.,. • • : €JtL <,,Upou yap (ll:(JlnSS £X€TUL nμLv TO. JtpnyμaTa ••• n €LVUL The speech encourages the Ionians to undertake naval training, which they do only to abandon their efforts after a week, finding themselves unused to such hard work in the heat of the sun. Dionysios' speech is balanced by the grumblings of the Ionians here * ( 6.12.3 ): KpO T€ TOUTWV TWV 1:(0,J:(WV nμtv Y£ xpeooov xat o TL Ziv &AAO The irony of this reversal is clear; these are the Ionians to whom, according to Aristagoras, it was an 8v£Loos xat &Ayos μlyLo,ov to be sl~ves rather than free! Herodotus has contrived to illustrate the inconstancy of the Ionians 1 devotion to freedom as vividly as possible 23. The speeches of Aristagoras and Dionysios both in their way suggest that, for all the cynicism of its initiators, we are to see the revolt as something potentially admirable. Both, of course, also show, given the narrative context, that the Ionians as a whole fall short of what is expected of them; but even so Herodotus' point is not simply that all the Ionians are equally inadequate and unheroic. Rather though the enterprise taken as a whole appears to be flawed both through the selfinterest of the individuals and the failure of the Ionians 1 corporate commitment to the cause, there are nonetheless individual acts of heroism which can be admired for themselves, futile as they appear in the wider context. This ambivalence is most clear in the narrative of Lade itself, -215prepared somewhat ingloriously in the episode described above, a narrative which brings us up against the question of Herodotus' sources and his reactions to them. He goes out of his way to mention that the participants' mutual recriminations make it impossible to form a clear impression of who fought bravely and who did not ( 6.14.1, ,o sv.\)£0,£v oux lxw &v ,fit, vauμaxCnL ,au,nL" a.J..J..nJ..ous yap m:na.LnwvxaL ) • The claim serves to illustrate a theme of the.revolt in particular and of Herodotus' account of Greek affairs in general, both in Ionia and elsewhere: it is important here not as an indication of the difficulties he experienced in ascertaining the truth of what happened in the battle, but rather as an indication of the weakness of Greek relations, then as now. The mutual recriminations of his 'Ionian sources' are presented to us as a mirror of the divisions which helped the revolt itself to fail. His account indeed does not at all suggest that he was really unable to decide who were the heroes and who the traitors, as we shall now see. The Samians come out as the representatives of those disloyal to the Greek cause, and the Chians of those who fought heroically despite impossible* odds and the treachery of their comrades-in-arms, Herodotus has already told us that the Samians were ready to tes_pond to the overtures which the other Ionians had disregarded ( 6.10 ): a.yvwμocruvnL T£ 6 L£XP EWVTO xa. t OU 'll:pocrLEVTO TT}V 1l:po6ocrC nv, £WUTO 'CaC TE ~XCI.CTTO l,, L &66 XEOV μouvo Lcr L Persians ( 6.9.2f} the Samian generals take it upon themselves to accept ( 6.13.lf) 6pwVTES &μa. μ~v &ouaa.v dTa.tCnv EoJ..J..ñ &x Twv 'l~vwv ... s6txov,o Tobs , " ' , , 7 '6' 'Q .,. , J..oyous, a.μa. 6E XCLTE(flC/.l,VETO 0-(fll, EvVUl, a. UVCI.TCL TC/. μCi.CTLAEOS 'll:pnyu~TCL U1tEpBa.J..[cr.\)at,25,, EU yf;. e:narnμg:_yot,26 w~ f:l, xai lO-[ n:~pd>~'Jvciia:rtt:Kb\) U'll:£pf3ctAO La.TO' &no 0-(fll, 1tCLp8aT<ll, 'll:EVTU1tAT1CTLOV. 'll:po<pcfoLOS ~\) snLJ..a.BoμEvoL, snECTE ,&xLcr,a EG6ov ,obs •twvas dpv£uμlvous EGVa.L , ', •• , - - , t'\", xpncrTOUS, EV MEp6EL E'll:Ol,EUVJO 1l:EpL1l:OLncral, TC/. TE t,pa TC/. O(flET£pa xat T!l r6t,Ci.. It is worth looking at this passage closely since it is widelj b~liev~d -216that a Samian source has coloured Herodotus' whole narrative of the battle of Lade, and even his entire account of the Ionian revolt, from which source it is thought to draw its unsympathetic character 27. Vet an elementary consideration tells against this view: that Herodotus can say ( whether or not he really means it! ) that a reliable account was hard to produce, since all the Ionians indulge in recri~i~ations against one another, clearly ought to show at the very least that he is alert to the ptoblem of prejudice and, moreover, that he has cross-checked his account in using more than one source. That he should then have been happy to derive his account of the battle more or less exclusively from Samian sources, and those Samians whose one contribution to the battle was the treacherous betrayal of their fellow-Greeks, is hardly credible. Moreover the Samian traitors get an almost uniformly bad press. Certainly in the passage quoted above Herodotus gives a sympathetic ( or rather empathetic) account of their motives for treachery, but this is certainly not meant as an apology for their actions. He goes out of his way to state that their military reasoning, the ataxia of the Ionians and the overwhelming superiority of the Persians, was no more than an excuse ;ip6;ãLi ), implying ,,-,,ef", ,,"--'._ *.- • that their real reason was one of profit to themselves kerdos ), the preservation of their own shrines and property 28• The true balance of Herodotus• narrative of Samian treachery is revealed in his treatment of the battle itself. The first action he records after the disclaimer is the withdrawal of the Samians ( 6.14.2 ): AfyovTaL 6l TT}V Edμov, 11:lnv £V6£)m \)£WV. Th.e word l egonta i does not in any sense indicate a reluctance on Herodotus' part to credit this malicicous account of the Samian treachery, as emerges from what follows 29. The eleven trierarchs who remain behind, do so in disobedience to their commanders ( &vnxoua-diaavTES ), and Herodotus knows them to have been honoured in Samas for their loyalty ( 6.14.3 ): Hã a;L To HoLvov -217- ( i.e. for all to see: there can be no doubt, Herodotus implies, that the story of their disobedient loyalty and the others' treachery is the true one). The story as Herodotus tells it throws an invidious light on the treachery of those Samians who saw their best interests to lie in the betrayal of thefr fellows. Herodotus 1 attitude to this Greek fight of liberation is equivocal: even though the 'loyal I Samians were fighting for a lost cause, and the traitors• abandonment of that cause was occasioned by reasons of sound strategic sense, there is no getting away from admiration for the heroism of the former, disobedient in their loyalty and loyal despite their appreciation of the unequal odds. That this is the right way of looking at the narrative of Lade is confirmed still further by Herodotus• treatment of the Chians. The rest of the Iontans, starting with the Lesbians, having seen the flight of the Samian traitors, take to their heels ( 6.14.3 ). But there remain others loyal to the last ( 6.15.lf ): TWV OE napaμeLVaVTWV £V TnL vauμaxCnL nepLE~~noav TPnXUTaTa XtoL w~ anooeLxvoμevoC TE cpya Aaμnpa xat OUM £~eAoxaXEOVTe~ OpEOVTE~ OE TOU€ noAAou~ TWV ouμμaxwv npooLOOVTã OUM EOLxaCeuv yevlcr~aL TOLOL xaxotoL au.wv oμOLOL, aAAa μeT' oACywv ouμμaxwv μeμouvwμSVOL OLexnAEOVTe~ evauμ&xeov. It is important to notice Herodotus' admiration for this action of the Chians, and in particular the form of words he chooses to express it: "they did not think fit to do as the traitors did ••. but left to fight on their own •.• 11 The action anticipates what happens to the most loyal of the Greeks in the Persian Wars later, in particular the Spartans at Thermophylae ( 7.220.lf ), and even more what Herodotus anticipates they might have done had the Athenians not remained loyal to Greece ( 7.139.3 ): cf. (E).2, below.). Herodotus' admiration for Chian heroism here is unmistakable, whatever he may think of the Ionian revolt as a whole. *----*****----~------------ -21&Finally, we should look at Herodotus' description of the provisions of Artaphrenes for Ionia after the revolt ( 6.42.lf ): &AA& T&6£ μEv xpdoLμa xdpTa TOCOL "IwcrL lycV£TO ... ouv&dxas a,CaL ãTOCOL TÕS •twv~s nvayxa0£ TCOLCEO&aL, ~Va 6wcrC6LHOL £i£v xat μn &AAn.Aous ,cpOLCV TE xat ayoL£V ( cf. 43.1, xaC crq,L ,-aurn μEv dpnvata ~v ). The irony of this formulation is palpable: the Persian regulations, the provisions of the conquering empire, were helpful to the Ionians and contrived to bring peace to them. If it took a strong Persian hand to legislate for common justice among the Ionians, their earlier dealings, certainly during the years of the revolt and probably also before, must have been marked by an absence of common agreements, by mutual hostility and injustice. It is possible to see in this something of a retrospective comment on the revolt itself and the reasons for its failure, the inability of the Ionians effectively to make common cause ( cf. i:tlso 1.170 ), their mutual suspicions ( cf. e.g. 6.13.1, above), their treachery towards one another ( cf. esp. Histiaios and the Lesbians at Chios: 6.27.3 ). The reader of Herodotus' narrative of the revolt may well be left with the impression that the weaknesses and vices of the Ionians are specific to them, and that this episode will be a foil to the glorious climax of the liberation of Greece; and no doubt Herodotus intends such a reaction. But the differences between the two account are less obvious than the similarities. Herodotus takes a cynical view of the Ionian revolt as a fight for freedom, which is not to deny that he treats it as potentially, and in some few cases actually, something deserving our admiration. There is an uneasy ( and perhaps uneven:) balance between the squalid motives which brought it about and the shameful behaviour of many of the participants on the one hand, and on the other the admirable and heroic qualities which it evoked in some fewothers. The balance is not entirely the same as that which Herodotus aims at in the narrative of the liberation of Greece and clearly there was more to be cynical about in the unsuccessful revolt than in the successful liberation but both narratives have in common -219that the Ionians 1 and Greeks' love of freedom emerges far less straightforwardly than does the universal Greek failing of mutual distrust, recrimination, and hostility, as we,11 as no small amount of self-seeking by individuals and groups; in both cases there are clear acts of heroism and self-sacrifice by individuals and groups, but these are set against a picture of the Ionian and Greek actions as a whole which emphasizes the inability of the cities to make common cause, their disunity and inconstancy. It seems to me that we should hesitate before ascribing the negative colour of Herodotus' account of the revolt simply to a dependence on sources interested to belittle and condemn the enterprise: no doubt such sources did play some part in shaping Herodotus' view of those events, but the major influence on his account is likely to have been his own interpretative imagination, working through inferences as to motive, through speeches, through emphasis and irony. These are points to bear in mind as we turn next to a consideration of the narrative of the Persian Wars themselves. * (C) Marathon. 1. The first we hear of the threat to mainland Greece, after the disastrous expedition of Mardonius ( 6.43ff ), is Darius• embassy demanding earth and water ( 6.49.lf ): 11many of the mainlanders responded as the Persian demanded, and all the islanders gave earth and water to Darius, including the Aeginetans 11 • Any expectation that the resistance and will to freedom of the mainland Greeks would be substantially differeht to that of their Ionian compatriots is abruptly deflated here. The Aeginetans' medism moreover illustrates a familiar theme: KoLncraaL 6{ acpL TaDTa l~tw~ 'ÃnvaloL h£xfoTo, ooxfovTl~ TE: ht acpLaL hovTã TOU~ '.AlyLvnTa.~ 6t:6wxevaL, w~ aμa TWL Il{panL £KL acpEã aTpaTE:UW\!TaL, }(UL aaμE:\!OL KpocpaaLÕ The Athenians denouce the Aeginetans to Sparta, and there follows the long narrative of Cleomenes' intervention, Leotychidas' attempted -220retrieval of the hostages, and the resumption of hostilities between Athens and Aegina ( cf. Ch.I.ii.2 and Ch.II.ii.F ). The emphasis is unmistakable: Herodotus pursues at such length the theme of Aeginetan-Athe~ian rivalry less because it is essential to his narrative of the Persian invasion, than for the light it throws on the background of Greek relations. The Athenians believe that the medism of the Aeginetans is directed against themselves, not, for example, that it is merely a response to obviously unfavourable odds; and what Herodotus in fact tells us about the behaviou_r of Aegina towards Athens confirms that they have grounds for their suspicions. But he adds that the Athenians eagerly seized upon their medism as an axcuse ( &crμE:vo1., upo,&01.,os; hE:Aaf3oV'ro ) : in oti"ler worts tMy too saw this as an opportunity to do,,some harm to their bitten enemy. Again Hero<lotus stressQS the fai,Mticai.l s11,11sJicions clfilild h}as,@ lllatr@lil£ of tMse two nei111h:Ñrs, and shows that in a context where the interests of all Greece are at stake, they seem to be thinking only of their private quarrels. The example has an obvious resembl~nce to the Thessaly-Ph6cis quarrel discussed above, and undoubtedly Herodotus has written up this passage with the same cynical intent. In a sense Athens 1 denunciation of the Aeginetans is a service to Greece, if we are to infer from Herodotus' remarkable statement later that Cleomenes' first action against Aegina was in the interests of all the Greeks ( 6.61.1, cf. Ch.I.ii.2 ); but Herodotus has made it qui clear that the Athenians are not motivated here by ideals of national unity or by their love of freedom, but by something entirely less admirable. In describing the earthquake which followed Oatis' departure from Delos and the beginning of the first attempt on mainland Greece after the disastrous expedition of Mardonios ( 6.43ff ), Herodotus indy}ges in a remarkable reflection, and the major events of his lifetime are brought into clear focus for the first and only time in the work ( 6.98.2 ): --------- -~----- ---- -221- , Ta μsv &no TWV IlEp0EWV au,ñ YEVOμEva, nEpt ,ñ apxñ noAEμEov,wv3o. ,d. 6c a:n:' xopucpãwv HQro4otus invites us to tak@ th~ pttrhxd fro111 Da,r:_ju~ to A-rtaxQrx11u; a,s a single unity: the conflicts of the Pentekoritaetia between Greek and Greek, culminating in the war during ~hich Herodotus was completing his book, are in some recognizable sense an extension of those earlier troubles. Here again Herodotus makes us see the harms inflicted by Greeks on each other as of at least the same order of gravity as the harms suffered at the hands of the Persians. No sooner did the Greeks ward off the threat of Persia than they turned once more to the task of fighting one another. The insight of the present passage is given a peculiar and disturbing dramatic prominence, coming as it does before we have yet been afforded any glimpse of the glorious aspects of the Greek defence of Hellenic liberty. There is no reason to suppose that this divination owes anything to anyone but Herodotus himself; hence we must ask why he should not interpret the portent much more simply, as heralding merely disaster for the Persians. The choice of referring it to Greeks only is surely a perverse one; the further choice of overlooking what most Greeks would have seen as the greatest good, namely the victory over Persia, is more provocative still. Herodotus' view, we can only conclude, is that though the gods did mean the Greeks to win against Persia ( cf. e.g. 8.13 ), the victory was objectively not an agathon, since it led inexorably and directly to this greatest of all wars between Greeks31. 2. Euboea succumbs to Oatis without much resistance. Carystus alone stands The objection to being le:<l i111 war .•inst t~eir fell~r•ts is IM'@llifillt Mt itJ *roootwi,. ,~,,-t!>ly because it provides him with a striking foil to the major theme of the Greeks I wi 11 i ngnes s to harm one another, whether forced to it by -222Persia or not. But the Carystians eventually succumb to force majeure. Not so the Eretrians, however, in Herodotus 1 account ( 6.100.lf ): Tillv 6£ 'EpETPLEwv ~v &pa ou6£v ~YL£s; BodlEuμa, ;ot μETsxlμxovTo μ£v 'A{)nvaCous;, E:QJPOVEOV 6£ 6LqiaoCas; tMas;. oi.. μ£V yap aUTWV eBoulEdoVTO £MlLxdv TTJV xolLv es TU &kpa TT)f; EuBoCns:, alloL 6£ m'.JTillv f6La ME66Ea xpoo6EXOμEVOL Kapa TOO IlEpOEW ~~~Ea6aL xpo6ooCnv €0MEUai';OVTO. Herodotus ascribes to the best of the Eretrians an unwillingness to stand and face the Mede, to the worst of them a positive desire to profit by betrayal of their comrades: we remember how the Phocians ( rightly or wrongly) charged the Thessalians with just such self-interested treachery Again we are faced not with the judgement of a source, but with Herodotus 1 cynical inference ( n.b. inferential ara, above), designed to point up his theme. The Persian invasion of Attica is so described as to invite contrast and comparison with the account of affairs in Eretria 32• The Persians ( so Herodotus infers ) expect to find things much the same here ( 6.102 ): So too Phitippides' speech at Sparta, with great elevation, urges Athens 1 ally ( 6.106.2 ): μ~ KEPLL6EtV KOlLV apxaLOTaTnV eV TOtOL •EllnoL 6ouloodvnL KEPLKEOOUoav xpos; &v6pwv BapBapwv• xat yap vt\v Epl~p;La TE That being so we may note Herodotus 1 distinct emphasis on Athenian indecision before Marathon ( cf. 6.109.lf, and esp. Miltiades 1 warning to Callimachus at 6.109.5 ): nv μ{v vuv μn ouμBalwμEv, £lxoμaC TLVa OTaOLV μEyalnv 6LO.OECOELV tμxrnouoav Ta 'A{)nva.Cwv qipovnμarn WOTE μn6Coav; nv 6£ ouμBalwμEV xpCv TL }{(1.L oa{)pov 'A{)nva.Cwv μETE,ETEPOLOL eyyEvfo{)aL The sathron ti which Miltiades here sees as threatening the Athenians surely reca 11 s the ouden hygi es boul euma ,of the Eretri ans: the presence of the Mede, suggests Herodotus repeatedly, exposes not only the divisions between Greek states, but also the political weaknesses within them33. -223In addition to his disturbing emphasis on Miltiades 1 suspicions, Herodotus. makes a great deal of fuss over the display of the shield at Marathon, defending the Alcmeonids against the charge ( 6.124.2 ): avE6lxen μEv yap J , ' ,..., ' " '1'\ '\ ' ~ ' I I ~\ ~ :r t acrKLS, HaL TOUTO OUK EDTL aAAWS ELRELV" EYEVETO yap~ os μEVTOL [JV O &va6ttas, oox lxw RpocrwTEpw elnetv TodTwv. This curious insistence, and inde~d the very inclusion of the Alcmeonid excursus, contrives to stress that an element in Athens did indeed see its interests as lying in a Persian victory: SouAoμtvous ~ei 'B!ilp~~poLcrL TE Elva.L 'AenvaCous xat uno 'InnCnL ( 6.121.1 ). This insistence, though it acts as a fo1l to the heroism of Marathon itself, nonetheless casts a disquieting shadow over the whole episode 34• AH this puts a particular emphasis on the part played by Miltiades: if it had not been for him, the medizing party in Athens, like its Eretrian counterpart, might have prevailed against the faint-hearted loyalists, and the Persian Wars would have taken a very different course. This is not to say that Herodotus witholds his admiration from the victors of Marathon, the ordinary hoplites who fought with such inspired determination, when the time came for them to show their mettle. Thus the Persians are said to have shown amazement ( Herodotus 1 inference) at the headlong rush of the Athenian hoplites 6.112.2, μavCnv TE TotcrL 'AenvaCoLcrL ), 11seeing. them, few as they were, advancing at a run, without cover from either cavalry or archers 1135• Herodotus himself insists that the Athenians fought axi,q's.\logou ( 112.3 ), a claim he reinforces in a rhetorical anaphora: KPWTOL μEV yap 'EUnvwv K<lVTWV TWV nμEts C6μEv 6poμwL ES 1l:OAEμCous expncravTo, KPWTOL 6£ &vecrxovTO ecr~nTa TE Mn6Lxnv opwVTES xat TOUS &v6pas TadTnv ecr9nμevous* TEWS 6£ ~~ TotcrL .EAAncrL xat TO õvoμa TO Mn6wv ,oBos &xoacrã And finally the Spartans arriving late desire to see the battlefield and offer their own words of praise ( 6.120 ): alveoVTES 'ÃnvaCous xat TO Epyov aoTwv36. Thus there is no doubt that Marathon viewed merely as a battle, a display of courage and determination when they were needed, ~********---- --------------~- -224evokes a distinctly enthusiastic response; in the account of Marathon Herodotus comes his nearest to all-out admiration for Greek heroism in the defence of liberty. And yet Marathon is rather different from all the other battles of the Persian Wars, in that it is a battle fought almost exclusively by Athenians ( with heroic assistance from Plataea, but nowhere else ) in defence of Athenian liberty, not, as all the others are, a battle in which the Greek alliance is fighting together for the common interests of all Greece; and in that sense Herodotus is inviting us to note the contrast. It is a much e~ster thing for a Greek state to do to fight heroically in its own interests than to make common cause with other states in defence of the higher ideals of Hellenic freedom and unity. There is, for example, something of a deliberate contrast between Miltiades 1 simple persuasion of Callimachus to help prosecute the interests of Athenian freedom and Athenian greatness, and Themistocles' much less happy attempts at persuading Eurybiadas and the allies of the common interests of the Greeks at Salamis ( see (H) below). The part played by Miltiades at Marathon is most revealing. We have commented earlier ( cf. Ch.l.i.9 ) on the equivocal aspect of Miltiades, the hero of Athenian freedom. We can recall briefly here that his heroism i in this cause is framed in Herodotus' account by the r~ports of his two trials for treason at Athens, the first ( 6.104.2 ) in which h.e is called to account for his tyranny in the Chersonese, the second ( 6.136.lf ), brought by Xanthippus after the Parian expedition, for betraying the Athenian people. Though at the Danube-bridge Miltiades had alone suggested to his fellow-tyrants that they might accept the offer made by the Scyths and liberate Ionia, the man who urges Callimachus to win himself greater honour even than the tyrannicides in liberating Athens from the Mede ( 6.109.3 ) all too clearly has tyrannical ambitions of his own, not to mention a tyrannical past. We have commented too on the implications of Miltiades 1 promtseto Callimachus about the results of victory at Marathon j -225- 'E'' 'r:. '' ,,,_ d f 109 6. ,, ' ' ' - ' -AAnVLuuJ\1 11:0ALW\1 YEVE:<JvaL ; an C • . • , nv yap (J\) yvwμnL TnL eμnL These words can only be meant to ring ominously true to the attentive reader: as we saw above, it was widely recognized ( positively by the Athenians, negatively by her critics ) that Athens• success in the Persian Wars had indeed laid the foundations of her later empire. It was men like Miltiades ( and Themistocles, and later,, of course, Pericles himself), whose private ambitions often overlapped with those of the city, whose ambitious foresight carried Athens through the Persian Wars and on into empire. The battle account is followed by a long treatment of the Parian expedition, whose motives of gain and imperialism Herodotus highlights at the expense of the ostensible justification ( 6.133.1, the Parians had sent a trireme to Marathon in the service of Persia ), in order to show the familiar pattern of success leading to ambition ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.1 ). In other words, especially through the part played by Miltiades on the one hand, and the disturbing activities of the medizing party on the other, Herodotus contrives to put Marathon in a disillusioning perspective, while the battle itself, as we saw, is allowed to make an entirely favourable impression. And this is the paradox that runs through the entire narrative of the defence of Greece: there is no denying that each of the battles is conceived at least in some respects as a glorious achievement of Greek heroism, but throughout Herodotus exploits the contexts in which the battles are placed to undermine the simplicity of the interpretation. * -226- (D) The Persian Preparations for War 1. The narrative of the Persian Wars proper follows on seamlessly from all that has gone before: wtthout Herodotus' careful preparation the climax would come over quite differently 37• This is particularly true of the light and shade of the narrative of Greek affairs, as we shall see. The theme of despotism and slavery ( the reverse side of freedom) is also brought to a climax in the narrative of Xerxes• invasion; but this is a separate theme with its own complexities, and it deserves to be treated not merely en passant. Hence we will concentrate principally on Greek freedom, and comment on the theme of despotism only in those places where Herodotus himself explicitly draws the contrast for what it shows about the Greeks. There are in the course of the last three books a number of examples of Persian 1 reflexion 1 on Greek freedom ( cf. Ch.III, n.105 ), in which certainly we are made to see the barbarian, unaccustomed to anything but despotism, showing incomprehension of the character of free people: But we know Herodotus better by now than to suppose that things are ever quite as simple as that. The most striking example of such equivocation is to be found early in the great Persian debate at the start of Book Seven. Mardonios, whose judgement is possibly even more fallible than that of Xerxes, and who is constitutionally incapable of seeing his own faults, advances a remarkably trenchant critique of the Greek enemy ( 7.9a.lff ): the paradox is a familiar one ( cf. Ch.I.i.tt-).In its first part this speech argues that the enemy is weak and easily overpowered, a misjudgement typical in Herodotus and reflecting of course on the character of the person who formulates it 38• But Mardonios goes on to say something rather different about the Greeks, which deserves our particular attention because it is not really necessary for his argument ( 7.9b.lf )3~: -227UEO TE ayvwμocrdvns xat crxaLOTnTOS, £EEav y&p aAAnAOLCTL EOAEμov KpoE(KwcrL, lEEupoVTES0 T; xdAALCTTov xwp(ov xat AELOTaTov, ls TODTo xatL0VT£S μ&xovtaL, Watt aDv xaxWL μsy&AwL al VLxWvtc~ &naAA&oooVtaL. EEpt 6~ Trav taaouμtvwv õ6l AEyw apxnv, lE~AlEs yap 6~ y(vovTaL. TOUS xpnv, £0VTas oμoyAW000US, xnpuE( TE 6LaxpEwμsvous xat &yysAOLCTL xaTa.AaμSdVELV Tas 6La.~opas xa.t na.vTL μaAAOV n μ&xnLCTL' El 6€ ndvtws £6EE EOAEμEELV npos aAAnAous, £sEUp(crxELV xpnv TnL EXaTEpo( El0L 6ucrxsLpoTaToL xat TadTnL KELpav. TponwL To(vuv 06 xpncrTfilL 6LctXPEWμEvoL • , •, , , ;:_ , • :r, • , ', v EμEO EAct0ãTOS μEXPL Ma.XEvOVLnS oux (JAaov ES TOUTOU AOYOV WOTE μaxEcraa.L, This part of the speech is hardly invented to show Persian misjudgement, or to foreshadow anything that actually happens or even to recall anything that has happened except in the last sentence quoted, which shows by its very lack of consequence how far we have strayed in the course of the paragraph. Herodotus has included this part of the speech simply in order to show us something about the Greeks; and the message is quite familiar by now. The Greeks d,espite their common interests as one nation ( eontas homoglossous; cf. esp. 8.144.2 below) make no attempt to resolve their differences by agreement and compromise, but instead resort to a form of war between each other whose express purpose seems to be to inflict the greatest possible damage on both sides! The folly of Greek civil wars is sharply spelt out by an observer who stands aloof from the petty details of those internal squabbles. With compatriots such as they have, the Greeks have no need of foreign enemies: they are quite well enough skilled in their own bizarre rituals of self-destruction 40. Mardonios• point may be dramatically merely a military one; but behind this is clearly Herodotus1 voice making a moral point about the senselessness of Greek civil wars, no doubt inspired by the imminence of the greatest of all such conflicts. The forcefulness of Mardonios• rhetoric is no doubt il;lll4Br0f)riate to him, bt.tt it is also afi>li)ro.pri1.t@ to H((1m)citlt!ils1 IN,Ssionati conviction about the folly of his countrymen. A further remarkable example of Persian reflexion from this debate is Xerxes1 apparently fanciful justification of his own initiative in attacking Athens ( 7.ll.2f ): -228T , , v , t = t , ,, , , , , EU E1tLcr1aμEVOL OTL EL nμEL$ ncruxLnv ãOμEv, aAA OUM EliELVOL, aAAa Mat μaAa cr1paTEUOOVTaL E1CL Tnv nμET£pnv, El XPn OTa0μ~cracr6aL TO'COL u11apyμ£VOLOL EMECvwv, ot I:ap6L$ TE EV£1tpncrav MaL nAacrav E$ 1nv 'AcrCnv. OUM ~v E~avaxwp£ELV OU6ET£POLO"L 6uvaTW$ EXEL, aAAU 1COL£ELV ff na6Etv np6MEL,aL &y~v, tv~ ff 1d6E ndvTa uñ •EAAncrL ff EMEtva ndvTa ' ' II' , , , , t " - ,, , , 01[0 EPO"nLcrl, YEVnTaL0 TO yap μEcrov @U,6EV Tn$ EX6Pn$ EO"Tl,, Quite obviously Herodotus knows better than Xerxes about the condition of Athens at this period: he would surely insist that the Athenians after the burning of Sardis would have been happy never to have heard of the Persians again ( 5.103.1, with Ch.II.ii.G ), and he gives no indication that the Athenians intended to take any repvtsals against Persia after Marathon ( only against their fellow-Greeks! }. Thus we are meant to take note of Xerxes• absurd misjudgement of his enemy. But it is hard to leave it at that. Xerxes has surely touched, in ignorance, on the characteristic of the Athenians that was most talRed about in Herodotus' own day: their polypragmosyñ, their constitutional inability to keep themselves to themselves, or ever to live in peace ( ncruxCnv ctyELV }41. This is precisely the argument which the Corinthians in Thucydides advance so forcibly to persuade the Spartans to go to war with Athens { 1.70.2ff; av EC110L. Indeed Xerxes' words would apply much better to Sparta's decision to go to war with Athens than they do to his own plans for the conquest of Greece ( e.g. Thucyd.1.23.6 ): TOU~ 'AenvaCOU$ nyoOμaL μEyaAOU$ T~ noAEμEtv. Herodotus wants tha reader to bear in mind throughout the narrative of the liberation that the Athenians do indeed have plans for the future ( cf. 8.3.2, below}, in which their polypragmosyñ will affect not so much Persia, as Xerxes fears, but rather the Greeks themselves. * -2292. The first major commentary on Greek freedom in Book Seven, the Demaratus dialogue { 7.lOlff ), is introduced before we have yet seen anything of the Greek preparations to resist Xerxes. This anticipation of the theme allows Herodotus to set the presuppositions of Xerxes and the presumptions of Demaratus in contrast with what the narrative itself is to tell us42 Asked whether the Greeks as a whole will be able to resist Xerxes' army, supposing them to be at odds with one another 7.101.2, oux &~LoμaxoC ELDL fμ£ lnLoVTa ~noμEtvaL, μ~ eovTES &p~μLoL )43, Demaratus at first replies, not a"little obscurely gi~en the question, ( 7.102.l ): TnL 'EAAQOL IlEvCn μsv aLEC XOTE DUVTpo,6s EOTL, apETn ~IlaXTOS EOTL, &no TE ao,Cns xaTEpyacrμlvn xat v6μou taxupoO* TnL oLaXpEwμlvñ n 'EAAas Tnv TE •Ev(nv &naμDVETaL xat Tnv oEcrnoauvnv. This all sounds very admirable, and expressed as it is expressed, in such highly general and allusive terms, a lot of it seems to be true: all the Greeks could feel smug about their virtuous poverty and the hardihood it induced in them ( cf. e.g. Aristoph.Plut.557ff ); the Athenians could pride themselves on their sophie, pointing in particular to the part played by Themistocles in the Persian Wars ( see e.g. 8.124.2; also 9.62.3? ); while the mention of nomos, as the ensuing discussion makes clear, is specifically a reference to Spartan valour ( see below). But it is clear that all this needs qualifying; and Demaratus goes on at once to limit his answer 102.2 ): 111 have respect for all those Greeks who live in the Dorian parts 44, but what I am abouttosay will not apply to all of them, but only to the Spartans. First then, theywlll not under any circumstances accept terms from you which would bring slavery to Greece; secondly, they wil~ resist you in battle even if all the other Greeks submit to you11 • This limitation has a curious effect, for besides focussing the encomium of Spartan virtue more precisely, it incidentally suggests doubts about the other Greeks, their virtue, bravery and determination to resist enslavement. Certainly it is important that this speech is in character. This is after all a Spartan talking, a Spartan who despite his explicitly avowed hatred of his countrymen ( cf. 7.104.1, xaCrnL ws eyili nlyxcl:vw n£ *~ , ), is yet obviously vuv TdoE taTopyrus EXE~vous, aDTOS μaALDTa E~EULOTEaL -230proud of the untarnished reputation of Spartan virtue. Moreover, we are being prepared before all else for the encounter at Thermop,Ylqe,. and hence it is on the Spartans that we are reasonably enough concentrating. But these dramatic grounds are not really enough by themselves to justify the qualification. Accordingly we are left with the implication that the rest of the Greeks will not prove to have the same determination to fight to the death as Demaratus claims for the Spartans: and indeed, as events prove, only to the Athenians does this seem to have been manifestly unfair. Xerxes partly takes Demaratus1 point about limiting his remarks to the Spartans ( 103.1, as YE Tov x£Cvwv SacrLAea ) and partly not ( he ends by speaking indiscriminately of the Hellenes, cf 103.4f ), so that when he makes the objection that free men have less chance of fighting resolutely than those ruled by despots ( 7.103.3f ), he can be taken as referring not merely to the Spartans but to the Greeks as a whole: xms &v 6uvaCaTo xCALOL ~ μdpLo( ~ Il£VTaxLoμdpLoL, t6vT£S y£ SA£d&£poL mlVT£S oμoCros;; xal. μn i'.rn' £VOS &px6μ£VOL, OTpaTWL ToomL6£ &-,vTt.cr"fnvao; t ' '\ " t ' ' ; '\ _., ' t , , -, , •• UilO μE:v yap £VOS apxoμE:VOL xaTa t'~llt9V TOV T]μE:T£POV YE:VOLaT &v 6E:LμaLVOVT£S TOUTOV xat Rapa ,nv E:WUT~V ~dOLV aμ£LVOVE:S xat GOL£V avayxã6μE:VOL μaOTLYL SS IlAE:UVaS cAaOOOVE:S c6VT£S 0 aVE:Lμ£VOL 6€ SS TO €A£U&£pov OUK av IlOLSOLE:V TOUTWV OU6£T£pa. Obviously Xerxes again speaks in ignorance: he only has experience of despotism. And of course he has completely failed to uriderstand the principles of 'political determinism' ( cf. esp. Hippocrates, Airs.Waters Places, with Ch.IJ.i.B.l, and Ch.III.C) according to which it is despotism that saps the will to fight manfully and autonomy which makes the fiercest warriors~ But again there is surely meant to be some truth in his denunciation of freedom and free men: it is clear that, whatever is the case with Sparta, Herodotus means to show that the rest of Greece is indeed open to the charge laid against it by Xerxes here. With only a few but important exceptionsi the Greeks behave in a way that shows their disunity: they behave as the Ionians did in Herodotus1 account of the Ionian revolt. That the discussion here concerns principally military rather than political matters is no -231hindrance to this interpretation, since Xerxes1 objection clearly anticipates the political answer of Oemaratus, invoking Spartan nomos, which has at Sparta the force of despotism in Asia. This answer of Oemaratus• reminds the king once*more that he meant only th~ Spartans, to whom special considerations apply ( 7.104.1 ) and he goes on to explain, as we have seen, that he has little enough reason to be unthinkingly loyal to them. He admits the force of the king's reductionism ( 104.3 ): ly~ 6~ ou~ &v 6lKa &v6pdoL onCoxoμaL ol6s TE ' '\ ' , ' :>\ , ' ' , ' ' " ELVaL μaxe:o{}aL ••. e:L 6e: avayKaLn, n . μe:yas TLS o e:noTpovwv aywv e:Ln, , ,, μaxoLμnv av ••• Spartan valour then is not an automatic response to any situation, but only to those where the Spartan feels his self-preservation is directly at stake, or where the prize is sufficiently alluring another explicit limitation. And he concludes by revealing what it is that distinguishes the Spartans ( 104.4 ): @s 6s Kat Aaxe:6aLμ6VLOL Ka.Ta μsv ~va μaxoμe:voL ou6aμwv e:LOL xaxCove:s civOpWv~ &.AEEs 6€: cipLOTOL &:vOpWv ~atlI~'WTo.rv. £AE0-8cpo.L--y&.p EOvTES oO nctvTa l>..e:ute:poC E:LOL' £RE:OTL yap O(pL 6e:crmhns voμos, TbV ono6e:LμaCvoooL no>..>..wL £TL μa>..>..ov ft ot oot al. •oLe:OcrL ywv T& &v EKe:tvos &vwynL' &vwye:L OE TWUT(l ate:C, OUK ewv <pe:uye:LV ou6sv n>..nSos &v~pwnwv EK μaxns, &>..>..a μEVOVTUS ev TnL Td~L enLxpaTEE:LV ft ctROAAocr{}aL. One of the most remarkable things about this paragraph, so pregnant with allusions, is its failure to say anything about an instinctive defence of freedom: all we are told is that, faced with the challenge of proving their valour, the Spartans will rise to it. But this is really only an argument about how the Spartans behave on the battlefield, not about their moral resolution to fight for things they believe to be right, nothing about championing the common interest of the Greeks ( contrast w~at Herodotus says about the Athenians, below), nothing even about defending the Spartan state. Even speaking for himself, as we saw, Demaratus was noticeably vague about the circumstances under which he would be prepared to show his valour: certainly the defence of freedom could be an agon that would stir the heart of a Spartan 46, but the whole passage is c:lear]j lacking -232in anything approaching explicit idealism. The omission should be put down to more than understatement. In addition there is an unmistakable harsh sound to Demaratus1 claim for Spartan nomos. The explicit analogy with the rule of the despot is very striking, in particular the statement that the Spartans fear the compulsion of nomos even more than Xerxes• subjects fear him. This is not an attractive characteristic: it surely suggests what most Greeks felt about Sparta 47, that the strictly regimented agoge, rigidly codified by law along with every aspect of the life of the Spartan citizen, was something harsh, oppressive and profoundly alien to the way most Greeks lived. There is nothing to suggest that Herodotus found this totalitarianism attractive in the way that Xenophon and many others later do48• This Spartan 1 fear 1 is something quite other than the 'fear' which Athena in Aeschylus' Eumenides ( 681ff) proclaims that the Areopagus will guard, a 1 fear 1 which guarantees that the citizens will live justly cf. e.g. Eum.699: ,C~ yap 6s6ot.xwfi μn6tv tv6t.xõ 8po,wv; ) • There is a great difference between a fear which instils a respect for justice in a city, and the Spartan fear which, in Herodotus• formulation, does no more than command absolute and unquestioning obedience to the most harsh dictates, a fear that can be compared to that exercised by an oriental despot over his subjects. This paragraph is a typically Herodotean mixture of admiration and distaste 49• What Demaratus has to say here is clearly provisional: both he and Xerxes advance arguments which Herodotus' narrative shows to be only partly true. Their preconceptions, the 1 imitations of which are already partly visible, are to be put to the test in what follows 50. We are left with a number of disturbing questions: if what Demaratus says is true about Sparta only, where does that leave the other Greeks? Do they behave more as Xerxes expects free people to behave? What about the Athenians, whose part in the defence of .Greece we know to be at least comparable to that of Sparta? What about Spartan arete itself? Does it not seem limited -233and limiting, lacking both idealism and indeed the true spirit of freedom? None of these questi~ns receives an entirely positive answer. Greek freedom is in fact much more complicated than Demaratus makes out, and Xerxes• criticisms, ignorant as they are, strike at the roots of the problem. Indeed his origitial question is left unanswered by Demaratus: to what extent will the Greeks be able to mount an effective resistance if they are disunited ( μn €0VTeS &p~μLOL )? * (E) The Greek Preparations for War 1. While Xerxes is halted in Pieria, messengers are sent to the Greek states demanding earth and water ( 7.131f ), but not to Athens or to Sparta, on account of the treatment which Darius• heralds had formerly received there, when they were thrown into the barathon and down a well respectively, and told to fetch earth and water from there ( 133.1 ). Herodotus strikingly does not see this action of Sparta and Athens as an admirable expression of the will to freedom, but rather as a crime against the gods that demands punishment, for he raises a most curious question ( 7.133.2 ): 11what unwishedfor consequence befell the Athenians for this treatment of the heralds, I cannot say, except that their lands and city were ravaged; but I do not believe it was for this fault that that happened11 • The retribution that the Athenians pay by having their lands and city ravaged is presumably for their impiety in having desecrated the Perisan shrines at Sardis ( cf. e.g. 5.102.1 ); but wijatever Herodotus imagines they may have suffered or may be about to suffer for this latest crime51, his dubitatio is clearly meant to draw our attention to the disconcerting idea that, at least in some degree, their own wrong-doings brought Persianretribution down upon 52 them . -234As for the Spartans, Herodotus narrates at length the story of the embassy of Sperchias and Bulfs to the court of Xerxes, which is however merely a parenthesis before the disclosure of the fate of Nicolaos and Aneristos. We have already treated the former story ( cf. Ch.I.i .. 5) and shown that the Spartan heralds' arrogant presumption of superiority before ouxw ER£Lpn%ñ. OUT' El ~CTTL YAUXU omT' et μn ), and their lofty vaunting of their experience of freedom there, is sharply qualified by the narrative of their interview with Xerxes, in which the irresponsibility and indeed criminality of their behaviour ( or rather their state's behaviour) as free men is brought into clear focus ( 7.136.2 ): xeLvou~ μtv y&p cruyxeaL EILRAncrcreL TaUTa OU ~oLncreLV, We should not forget that though the story of the embassy may have been given him by the tradition, the essential interpretative ingredient, the ~~ntent of the speeches and reported speeches must surely be something in which Herodotus has a free hand. While theHydarnes-section of this episode is much cited for the light it is supposed to shed on the Greek will to freedom, little attention is ever paid to Xerxes' disturbing incrimination of the heralds 53; but we can imagine that it is precisely this pendant which is the Herodotean el~boration. He may comment here more fully on what in dramatic terms seems a mere appendix, but is arguably the focal point of the narrative, namely the embassy of Nicolaos and Aneristos, which Herodotus reveals to be the moment when the wrath of Talthybios, aroused by Sparta's treatment of the Persian heralds, finally worked itself out ( 7.137.1 ): xpov~L 6t μ£Te1eLTa A£youcrL Aaxe6aLμOVLOL* The two latter-day ambassadors were sent on quite a different mission from that entrusted to theirfilth~~Si for Nicolaos and Aneristos, as we know from Thucydides, and as Herodotus' readers would certainly have known, given the freshness of the news, were sent to Asia -235to secure an alliance with the Great King for the war against Athens ( Thucyd.2.67.lff ): uops1Jo].ls\loL h -rn\l 'AaLa\l w£; 8aaLA.set, sL nw£: uCasuw Herodotus of course mentions nothing about the purpose of their visit ( 7.]37.3 ); he says merely that 11they were sent by the Spartans as ambassadors to Asia, but were betrayed by Sitalkes and Nymphodorus, captured and taken back to Attica, where they were put to death by the Athenians, along with the Corinthian, Aristeas son of Adeimantos1154. By introducing the perspective of the later war Herodotus achieves a distancing effect similar to that produced at e.g. 6.98.2 above. Most important here is the contrast between the two embassies, the first one arrogantly informing the Great King that the Spartans bid him dd his worst, they will not give up their freedom to him, and the second deviously seeking the King's money and arms to help in a war against their fellow-Greeks 55. Herodotus' silence as to the purpose of the second embassy is clearly a deafening one: no contemporary reader would be in any doubt as to what he had left out, and even if we had to guess we would see at once from his hint that it took place 11during the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians 11 , that it was indeed an attempt to secure Persian help against the Athenian enemy. This is an irony that we are to meet again: the Greeks who fought so heroically in the Persian Wars to resist enslavement by the Great King and who claimed they would never submit to him, only a generation or two later were openly courting his support to help them in enslaving each other ( cf. esp. on 7.151, in (E).3 below; with 8.141.1 and 144.1 in (I).1 ). * 2. After the narrative of these two embassies Herodotus returns to the subject of the Greek resistance ( 7 .137 .3, ,;at'.ha \lE\l \)\}\) uoUotaL lTE:oL ~cr-rspov eylvs-ro -rou 8aaLA.EO£: 01:0)..ou ). The Greeks, he says, perceived that the king's expedition, directed in name against the Athenians alone, I -236was in fact a threat to them all ( 7.138.1 ). 11And though they discovered this in good time, they did not all act in concert~§. Those that had given earth and water were confident that they would suffer nothing untoward from the barbarian; but the rest were greatly afeared, seeing that there were not enough battle-worthy ships in Greece to ward off the aggressor, and that besides most of the Greeks were unwilling to take part in the war, and were medizing with a will". Such is the forceful lead-in to the 'Encomium of Athenst ( 7.139 ): the question of who is to provide the ships, who is to make the stand that will unite the Greeks, is raised anxiously at this critical juncture to be emphatically answered in the ensuing 57 paragraph Certainly the prima facie reasons for thinking that what follows is an unequivocally enthusiastic expression of approval for Athens' 58 contribution to the saving of Greece are hard to deny The other Greeks ( and Herodotus does not exclude the Spartans ) thought only of their own survival, the Athenians alone could see beyond the danger that threatened them privately to the desirability of a common effort ( 7.139.5 ): Surely this is unstinting praise for Athenian self-sacrifice and idealism? But if all is as simple as that, then there is something seriously wrong, as we may* credit Plutarch with having seen ( MH 42.872A ): ud11.t.v ~~ - , , ' ,, ., , , " ,, ,. $:." Q ,, '\ TOt.S Ãnvat.Ot.S OU11. £XWV O Tt. XPnOctt.TO, UOT£ μE:V ctt.J)£t. TI:OT£ u£ 11.UTctμct11.11.£t., 1:nv 11:0At.V &vw xat 11.UTW μ£,ãspwv . 59 For it is clear that elsewhere, as we shall discover, Herodotus is far from keeping up any such simple admiration, and at l$ast on one occasion speaks ( in his own voice again) with quite exceptional cynicism about Athens' motives for 'virtuous behaviour in the common interest 1 ( cf. 8.3.2, below). Only the most blinkered devotee of the Athenian source can seriously claim that Herodotus 1 apparent enthusiasm here is entirely consistent with everything else he -237has to say about Athens. On the other hand, if what Herodotus says here is indeed unqualified, then this is a serious objection to the view of a thoughtfully equivocal account of the Persian Wars. The traditional view of this passage has been assisted by a slight but significant misreading of Herodotus' Greek. The opening sentence has rightly been much discussed as indicating the standpoint from which Herodotus is to deliver his 1encomium1 , but its careful precision has been masked in most translations and paraphrases ( 7.139.1 ): EV~aOTa avayxaCnL Es£pyoμaL yvwμnv &uoottacrSaL c~~ovov μev npos TWV EAEOVWV av~pwnwv, iμws 6£, TnL YE μOL ~aCvsTaL ELVaL ãñts,oux EltLcrxncrw. The words underlined are invariably rendered 11since I believe it to be tr~"\ Or the like ( cf. @.!i). l~Jr&A@, 11COIIIH @llt (!) @St a lilll@S Jel;IX C@,lllfOnl@ A la verit6 11 ; de Selincourt, 11as I believe it to be true 11 ): Herodotus is taken to mean that 1 the truth must be told'. that the truth in such matters is not to be witheld by an honest man. But it is quite wrong to translate thle • ..-. Tr\L ys 11s l!flti'tllliffll lik@ 1 Nc&1.1,se, sililc~, i-rn!!ls:wcm as', f@r tfllre1 could never mean that. The usage can be. paralleled, for example, in Herbd6tus1 signing-off to his discussion of the tradition about Helen in Egypt at 2.120.5, XaL TaUTa μev TnL EμOL OOX£EL eepn,aL ( cf. Soph.El.338-9, ; ' '\ !:.' # ' 3:' ' '\ ; , ' g xaLTOL ,o μev vLXaLov oux 11L yw Aeyw., aAA riL cro xpCw::Ls Trach .1135, oELvoo Aoyou xa,iipsas• due o' h voet:s ) , where the sense is clearly 'as I think the truth to be160. In the present passage Herodotus has added the word which may be either limitative ( 'at least what seems true to me' ), or simply emphatic ( 'precisely what seems true to me' )61. Needless to say, the subject of phainetai is not, as many translators think, the word gñm~: the neuter adjective al~thes shows the verb to be impersonal. Thus Herodotus is not here vindicating the importance of the truth, as he is usually made to do ( something which would indeed be a significant addition to the encomi&~tic tone of the passage ), but rather inviting the reader to note that h~ is not speaking loosely in such a delicate area -238as this: he will speak the truth as it seems to him, no more and no less; what he is about to say will incur the phthonos of many, but we a re to observe that his claim will not be extravagant or excessive but only the precise truth. It is widely recognized that Herodotus' reference to the phthonos of his potential audience here has to do with the context of his writing, with an awareness that any expression of approval for Athens must face the hostility of critics of the empire and its abuses of Greek liberty. Hence we should compare the opinion expressed by the Athenian speaker in Thucyd.l.72ff. The speaker defends Athens against the charge of unjustly building her empire ( 1.73.1, &s õTE &1ELM6Tws lxoμEv a HEMT~μE6a. He rehearses as a well-known theme the tale of Athens• services to Greece npoSa:\:\oμtvoLs, &vay1tn :\[ynv }, of Marathon and Salamis 1.73.4, ), and how the ' ~ , - '\ - " ,, 6 ' , . " , apk~μov TE VEWV IAELOTOV xaL av pa OTpaTnyov tUVETWTaTOV MaL 1po6UμLav Like Herodotus the Athenian speaker offers an argument ( the same one! ) about what might have happened had the Athenians not done as they did ( 1.74.4 ): And he ends with the question to which all this has been leading ( 1.75.1 ): ~p' &tLoC loμev, fu AaMEoaLμ6vLoL, xat 1po6uμCas lvexa Tns TOTE xat yv~μns ~uvtoEws &pxns YE ~s lxoμEv Tots uE:\:\noL μ~ õTws ayav EIL~66vws 6LaHEto6aL; A number of details ( esp. the use of the word epiphthonos ) do suggest that Thucydides had been reading his Herodotus before writing this speech, but it would be wrong to suggest that these words are only comprehensible -239to a reader of Herodotus' narrative of the Persian Wars. Kierdorf has . suggested plausibly that this catalogue of Athens 1 services to Greece 62 was a standard feature of Athenian diplomatic rhetoric from a time only shortly after the P�rsian Wars themselves. Hence the view that the Athenian empire could be justified in terms of her heroism in saving Greece in the Persian Wars would have been almost tiresomely familiar to Herodotus 1 ( ' ' ' ,, " ' ' , readers cf. EL xaL oL oxAou μaAAOV zaTaL aLeL KpoSaAAoμevoL� , above; with Thucyd.5.89 and 6.83. 2 ). Consequently Herodotus must surely be contributing his own voice to the debate in some way here. Jacoby, following Meyer, gave authority to the view that Herodotus is here, like the speaker in Thucydides, delivering an apology for the Athenian emoire and all its works63. This simple answer has long been challenged, originally by Focke and later by Strasburger 64 , but without complete conviction. It is clear that Herodotus is aware that the opinion he is to express in this paragraph, that the Athenians were the saviours of Greece, will sound to anyone hostile to the empire.; just like the view expressed so frequently by the Athenians themselves in justification of that empire and for that reason it i� likely to sound distasteful. I would suggest that this At�enian justification was so familiar to the Gr-Mls of Mtweeotui' Un tllit hii fiihtr• to � ffWI •�t/!llli*H•;• the claim of Athens to have been the saviour of Greece to the claim that therefore she deserved her empire will have been recognizable as a significant silence. In other words, Herodotus is�attempting a daring equivocation: he comes to the very brink of conceding the Athenians' own propaganda for their empire ( cf. (L) below); but he resolutely avoids making the connexion whid1 taey th�*tlv�s •• in thi, ntwr, �IINil <Ufl&Ct-' tha attefttive reiHiliin* to observe his omission. The Athenians may indeed have saved Greece in the Persian Wars, and 11the man who says as much will be telling no less than the truth 11 , and perhaps indeed in some respect they deserve praise for that achievement; but preen thems�lves over that achievement as they -240may, the justification they draw from it is not one that Herodotus will concede. Significantly Herodotus nowhere in this whole paragraph praises Athenian virtue jn this action, only ( by somewhat indirect means ) the simple fact that they performed it: they 11chose that Greece should survive a free country 11 ( cf. 7.139.5 ), but we are told nothing of their motives in making that choice, nothing of the kind of choice that actually was, nothing about their bravery ( contrast their 'fearlessness' at 139.6 ), their self-sacrifice, their sense of honour, or idealism. Certainly these motives could be inferred from the actions Herodotus does actually record and even the way he records them, but his fai 1 ure to make any of:.;them explicit amounts to more than understatement ( contrast the orators cited in n.185 ). I would suggest indeed that to some extent Herodotus has advertised his silence in the opening sentence of this paragraph discussed above: the words ,nL yt μoL ~aCvETaL EGvaL aAn.S-ss, as we said, indicate a determination to speak precisely the truth as it St11lfi t@ hi•, 11to ll(l)r@ a,n.(d fit@ leu. Mtt*rOMilotwg' v~ri:iOffl @f tkie trwth does not include claims for Athenian virtue)> and least of all any justification of Athens 1' behaviour since the date of this service to Greece. To see further what is behind Herodotus here, we may compare another speecn.of Thucydides, namely Sthenelaidast reply to the Athenian defence quoted b (. 1 86 1 ) ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' 6 ' a ove . . • : xavroL EL l[POS TOUS Mnoous EYEVOVTO aya.S-oL TOTE, l[pos yqevnv-ret.L. It is surely the case that Herodotus shares the cynicism of the Spartan ephor towards the* Athenian defence~* and that he does so will become obvious 1 ater. Even though, he seems to say~ the Athenians may .have been heroes then, apparently full of idealism for Greek freedom and Greek unity, that in no way excuses what they have done since. Indeed Herodotus seems to ask, on what view of human nature can we begin to explain such an abandonment 6f principles once apparently so firmly held? -241It will clearly not do to argue that Herodotus is interested here only in the dispassionate statement of a historical fact 65, since he cannot but be aware that whatever he says on this subject will appear to have a moral colour. The comparison with Thucydides shows clearly that the issues concerned here were indeed emotive ones at the time of Herodotus' writing, and Herodotus' own observation that his claim will ( by association, at least) arouse phthonos is a clear acknowledgement that more is at stake here than considerations of military history: he is well aware that any comment on this issue will be taken as a contribution to an ethical debate on the rights and wrongs of Athenian empire. And yet apart from the sentence already quoted at 7.139.5 ( vuv 6~ 'AenvaCou, &v TL£ leywv ••• ), which whether deliberately or not66 shifts the encomiastic responsibility to an imaginary second person, the burden of the paragraph is merely strategic argument, in particular as to the decisive importance of the fleet ( 7. 139.2, ... xaTa e&iacrcrav ou6aμoG &v SUELPWVTO aVTLEUand 139.3, • . . xaTa uohs; &.hcrnoμevwv UUb TOU vaunxou OTpaTOU TOU jt3apSapou ) . Herodotus indeed avoids in his own person giving v6ice to a single word of explicit praise for the Athenian achievement; and this is in surprising contrast to what he says of the Spartans. Despite. the I.sthmus walls, tne Spartans would have been betrayed by their a 11 i es, not wi 11 ing ly but of necessity, as each of them was cornered by the Persian fleet, and they would nave been left alone ( 7.139.4f }: Valorous deeds and noble deaths are envisaged for tne Spartans here clearly as a generous concession to their heroic qualities, clearly too, to some degree, in anticipation of their admirable actions at ThermopyJae; and it is striking that while these hypothetical actions are warmly described, the Athenians' real achievement merits no comparably enthusiastic tribute: all Herodotus has to commend in their case is the fact* that they * acted as they did,. not the way that they acted, as, for example, bravely, virtuously, selflessly. But even this -242apparent concession to Spartan valour is not so simple. For Herodotus immediately adds the possibility that his heroic scenario might after all have come to nothing, and the Spartans might have capitulated without honour but through necessity like the others. Plutarch 1 s indignation is instructive here of how this sounds to a Greek ear ( MH 29. 8648 } : a1hous; oe: Aaxe:om,μovloos; The equivocation is one of the most stamtling in Herodotus: in one and the same moment he puts forward two wholly different impressions of Spartan valour. Only on the understanding that heroism is a mutable quality, subject to time and circumstance, can this disturbing volte-face make sense. Kleinknecht., moreover, points out plausibly that there is even a certain limitation in the wording of the first alternative: "for l that the Spartans would have performed deeds of valour, they would still have died, albeit nobly"67 ~aving w.ritten kai apodexamenoi, Herodotus must surely intend the participle to be concessive: * glamorous as. s*uch Spartan sacrifice might have been, it would still have resulted only in death, a negative and pathetic conclusion. Herodotus can see that Spartan bravery has limitations*: the Spartans have elevated selfsacrifice to the status of a despotic law ( cf: Demaratus, above), which demands obedience whatever th.e cost. * In the event the sacrifice Herodotus envisages would have done notnfng for Greece:the Athenians at least saw what they were fighting for, but the Spartans lack constructive imaginationJ lack idealism ever}, except in the very narrow, almost fut'ile sense here suggested. No less than in the Demaratus-dialogue the discussion of Spartan military arete raises political and moral issues. * Herodotus fol*lows this analysis with the narrative of the Athenians' decision to adopt the advice of Thenistocles and not be dismayed by the oracles from Delphi ( cf. 7.139.6 ); and he adds here.a mention of an earlier inspired -243suggestion of Themistocles, which had encouraged the Athenians to spend the surplus silver from Laurium on building snips for the war against Aegina ( 7.144.2 }. 11a war which as it happened saved Greece ib i:tts__hour 0£"nee9 by turning.<the Athenians into sea-farers; for the ships were not used for the purpose for which they were made, but came to the service of Hellas when they were needed1168• We need here only recall our earlier discussion of this passage ( cf. Ch.II.ii.F ), where we observed Herodotus1 paradox that Athens only accidentally acquired the means to save Greece through her prosecution of a war against a neighbouring Greek stat~, the theme of Greek mutual hostility again. This is a somewhat sour reminder of an unattractive episode in the recent hi story of the democracy ( cf. ( C). 1 above } , coming uncomfortably soon after the seemingly generous concessions of 7. 139. * 3. Herodotus' transition to the next section, the embassies to Argos, Syracu~e Corcyra and Crete., is by way of recapitulation of how the loyal Greeks are situated ( 7.145.1 ): 11those who were loy:al to Greece ( ,wv 1tept ,nv 'EUa6a. ,a &μe6vw qJpove:chnwv ) 69 met for a conference and exchanged guarantees; and they decided that the first thing that should be done was to patch up their own quarrels and stop any wars that happened to be going on between them. And there were a number of such disputes at the time, but the most serious was that between Athens and Aegina11 • We have already commented ( Ch.II.ii.F) on Herodotus' elaborate treatment of the conflict between Athens and Aegina as representatives of the warring Greeks of this period~ and his reminder here is undoubtedly pointed. Moreover it makes a good introduction to the section that t:ollows, the lengthy narrative of the embassies sent to Argos, *sicily, Corcyra and Crete., the net result of which is to bring not a single further ally into the cause. The gesture of unity i.n formally ending all internal wars is set against the discovery that the conflict of interests continues: rather than discus,$ing how the loyalists themselves were gathered together, -244Herodotus prefers to give only an analysis of how four potential allies are not brought in. In other words he chooses to elaborate the theme of division, rather than the more obvious and natural theme of uni ty70 Was there not a good story to be had here of heroic sacrifices, noble rhetoric and above all Hellenic solidarity? Herodotus does indeed set out as though the latter subject is to be his message. The allies send the embassies in the name of Hellenic unity ( 7 .145.2 ) : This is a typical piece of Herodotean * personation, which could easily go unnoticed it is not of course a report of something told him by his source. The sentiments of Helle.nic unity ascribed to the allies here undoubtedly sound most elevated: but of course they are merely, in the context given them by Herodotus, a foil to the account of the failure of those sentiments to produce a material result 71. On the contrary the Greeks seem to be justifying Xerxes' cri ti ci sms as to their lack of unity { cf. 7.101.2, above). Herodotus' account of the mission to Argos depends on a manipulation of sources. The main account is prefixed with the warning that it comes from the Argives themselves { 7 .148.2, 'Apye::toL oe 1tlyoucrL ,& xa.,' lwu,oos; ), and the whole account is carefully kept in reported speech down to 7.149.3 ( a.uToG ~cv 'ApyetoL ,ocra.~,a ,ov,wv uepl ilyoucrL), According to their version of the matter, they had earlier sent to Delphi to discover what answer they should give to the Greeks when they came to ask for help { 148.2 ) : "for they had just had 6000 of the army kil1e'd by the Spartans under Cleomenesu. The Pythia advises them ta lie low, but when the ambassadors come the Argives reply ( 148.4) that they are ready to join the alliance, on condition that the Spartans conclude a 30-year peace with them, and that they are given the command of half the allied forces, 11though by rights the hegemony should fall to them outright~ And the council gave this reply, say the Argives, -245despite the discouragement of the oracle ( 149.1 ), their reasoning being that they very much wanted the 30-years' peace, "in order that their chiidren might have a chance to grow to manhood", but if that did not work, E1tLAtyEcr.eaL Iltpcrnv, μn TO AOL1tOV EWOL AaMEOaLμOVLWV uunxooL. Herodotus clearly reports this as the reasoning claimed for themseJves by the Argives, but we should remember that in principle Herodotus ( like Thucydides ) uses a free hand in the description of motive ( cf. Ch.I.ii.8 ); and in this case it i~ surely impossible to believe that the Argives would really have given voice to the cynical motives they claim here, in which the hatred of Sparta ( cf. 7.149.3 and 152.3 below ) triumphs over all other considerations, e,itb~r of honour or of freedom itself. It is hard to resist the conclusion that Herodotus has let the mask slip here, in ~ogged pursuit of his theme, especially since otherwise the tone of the Argive account is so deliberately apologetic. The Spartan envoys replied that they would refer a decision on the peace to the assembly, but that as for the hegemony, they had authority to say that neither of the two Spartan kings could be relieved of his command, buLthatthe Atgive lking 1 could by all means have an equal vote with them. The Argives bridle at this answer ( 149.3 ): oihw ot ol 'Apy~t:oC <pacrL OUM &vacrxtcr.!JaL Tfiiv E1tapTLn-dwv TYlV 1tA€0V€~Lnv. aAAa €A€cr.eaL μaAAOV U1t~ TWV SapSapwv apxEcr.!JaL n TL U1t€L~aL AaMEOaLμOVLOLOL, 1tp0€L1t€LV TE TOt:OL &yyeAOLOL 1tpo OUVTOS nALOU a1taAAacrEcr~aL SM TnS 'ApyECwv xwpns, el 0€ μn 1t€pLE4Ecr~aL ~s 1tbAeμCou~. Clearly we are supposed to sense the intransigence and obstructiveness of the Argive position even though the present narrative is supposed to be an Argive apology~ The leonexia of the Spartans seems merely a pretext of the Argives although since the theme of the grasping cupidity of the self-appointed hegemones is central to the embassy to Gelon ( see below), Herodotus is clearly sowing the seeds of doubt here.* Herodotus then goes on to give a rival version ( 7.150.1, £OTL 6€ dAAos AOYOS Aeyoμevõ &va Tnv 'EAAOOa ), namely that an envoy from Xerxes tempted -246the Argives ( on the basis of their consanguinity with the Persians! ) to remain at peace and do nothing, and that at first they made no promise or demands, but later when the Greeks tried to obtain their support, ovTw on There can be little doubt what Herodotus wants us to understand: the rival version is not a true alternative to the Argive account but an elaboration and substantiation of it, giving as it does the real reason why the Argives behaved so strangely on their own report of the matter. The two stories are mutually complementary, the second exposing the distortions of the first 72: the first is meant to be demonstrabJy.unsatisfactory, and its special pleading transparently weak. And there is a pendant ( 7.151 ): auμn:EaEtv ot TouToLaL xat T6voE TOV This is the story that at the time when a certain Athenian embassy, led by Callias, son of Hipponikos, was visiting Susa on other business, there was also there an embassy of the Argives sent to enquire of Artaxerxes, ,, ,, ' , ' l - , 1:* ' , , . .. , EL O<pL ETL q1μEV£L Tnv n:pos; .':'.£p.,,l'.)V q>L1\l:..nv O'l;)VEXEpaaaVTO i n voμLl;;Ol.aTO n:pos; auTo'O ElvaL n:oAeμLõ. The king replied that the agreement certainly still stood and that he held no city higher in friendship than Argos. But at once Herodotus makes a tactical withdrawal ( 7.152.1 ): ' # _, ' , ~ ' ; " '\ ' ; ' EL μev vuv .':'.Epi;ns; T£ an:En:Eμ{jJE ••• xaL ApyELWV ayyEAOL aval3aVTEs; ES "' - ' , 'A .L I: ' , ' ,, • , • • ~ouaa ETI:ELpWTWV pTOi;~p.,,nv n:EpL qlLALns;, oux EXW aTpEXEws; £Ln:£'Cv, ouoe TLVa yvwμnv &n:oqia(voμaL 1t£pG mhwv &unv ri T]1V n:ep aotot. 'ApyELOL A£yoUCTL, This elaborate disclaimer is clearly meant to be read as a rhetorical foil to what follows ( 152.2f }: en:LO'TaμaL 08 TOCTOVTOV TL EL n:&VTES av6pwn:oL T& olxnLa xax& ts μeaov auve:vdxaLEV &>.Adi;aa6aL l3ouAoμsvoL To'CaL 1tAnaC0LcrL, &yxu(JJaVT£S ~v h 'T& Twv n:tAas; Km-1& &.crn:acrCws; ~xaaTOL mhfiiv * &,coqiEpoLaTo on:Cow *'ta fonvdxavTo • ., ' s:. ' 'A , ,, , • ' ""' 2- .. , ' .L ' OUTW OUu P"(ELOLO'L aLCTXLOTa TI:EIOLnTaL, EYW uE oq>ELAW Ã"(ELV Ta ' .L , c.. , ' ' , ' .. , .. "' ' ,, AEyoμEva, K£Lv£a6aL YE μEV OU n:avTan:aOLV O(jlELAW, xaL μOL TOuTO TO en:os; ht<rw ss; n:&v*ra AOyov, het xat *rauTa A£YETaL, tils; &pa • ApyEtoL naav ol en:Lxa>.ecr&μEVOL TOV Tisponv sn:t 'TnV 'EA>.doa, 81tEL6n O'qlL n:pog TOUs; AaXEOaLμovCous xaxms; ~ alxμ~ lcrTnXEE, n:av on 13oUAOμEVOL OqlLO'L ,. ' - , ,, EGVaL n:po Tns; n:apeouans; Au1tns;. And s-0 the section ends on a slander more damning than any Herodotus has -247yet paraded before us~ And yet does he not mean to reject it, given a 11 that he has just said about his own objectivity? That Herodotus does not in any way really want to exonerate the Argives is clear from the consistently malicious implications of all that he has reported of them here, even what they say about themselves. Herodotus1 own narrative later shows clearly how he really conceives the Argive position. At the moment when the Spartans are reported as marching to Boeotia ( 9.12.lf ), Herodotus reports that the Argives sent their best runner to Mardonios in E~l,£V<Xl,, The messenger delivers the following message ( in direct speech for maximum impact'. ): Why should Herodotus go out of his way to devote not merely a mention but even a speech to this minor piece of Argive treachery, which has otherwise no significant effect except to speed Mardonios1 departure from Attica ( 9.13.1 )? It is highly improbable, whatever answer we giveJ that Herodotus is here merely parrotting his source, without realizing that he had earlier 1 deniedt the possibility of Argive treachery: the mere fact of his elaborating the present episode in a piece of direct speech surely rules this out, showing as it does that he has exercised more than a moment I s thought on the matter. The conclusion can only be that we were right to doubt the truth of Herodotus• disclaimer in the earlier passage73 But how then are we to explain his most curious proceeding here? The effect of the earlier passage as a piece of reporting is not lost on any critic: all are convinced that they can see through Herodotus' 1 naive defence of Argos' to the self-evident truth of the matter, that the Argives did indeed engage in some form of treasonable dealing with Persia7 4. But as we have decided, the malicious implications of the whole report must be the -248work of Herodotus himself: all the details fit together to give a coherent picture of Argi ve treachery, in whi eh the Argi ve 'apo 1 ogy' itself is no more than a substantiation of all our suspicions. That coherence is the sign of Herodotus' editorial hand: a genuinely objective report of the sources ought to have produced something much less cut-and-dried. But Herodotus ends up affecting a tone of pious goodwill: 'you may make of what I have reported what you will, it is not for me to pass malicious judgement, and that holds for everything I say'. Surely this is meant to thrust the responsibility for cynical inference on the reader, and to imply that Herodotus himself is far from ever introducing motives of treachery and division into his account of the Greek defence? Needless to say, the disclaimer is a fraudulent blind: this is not how Herodotus has in fact proceeded either here or e 1 sew here, and malice is frequently insinuated without warning75. But all is not even as simple as that. What is the point of the moral tale on the subject of oikeia kaka76? The meaning is that by comparison with certain others of the Greeks the Argives need by no means be so ashamed, even if they did come to an agreement with Persia ( cf. Stein, ad loc. ). So much is clear: but with whom are they being compared? Not surely with the other medizers, since Herodotus has not yet described any act of medism more shameful than this one, although what the Thebans eventually do is possibly worse ( see below). The real criminals are possibly quite other. We need to retrace our steps to the Argive embassy to Artaxerxes ( 7.151 ), and remind ourselves that Herodotus has quite gratuitously provided us with a synchronism which tells us virtually nothing about the Argive embassy itself: we have no real need to know that the embassy took place at the same time as the embassy of of Callias, son of Hipponikos. The traditional view of this Athenian embassy is that it represents some stage of the negotiations for the Peace of Callias 77, and this remains the.most appealing interpretation. In that case the heteron pregma is ea lcul atedly reticent: Herodotus trusts his readers to spot the allusion. However, the implied significance of the embassy is the same whatever -249its precise business. It must be taken as an indication of how in the period after the Persian Wars Athens came less and less to see the necessity for hostility towards Persia, and even in some way or another came to terms with the Great King in order to leave her hand free for aggression against other Greeks. Certainly after the disputed Peace of Callias there is no unequivocal evidence of an Athenian treaty agreement with Persia until at the accession of Dari us I I in 424 the I Peace of Epilykos I was contracted, presumably as a re-negotiation of the earlier peace with Artaxerxes78; indeed in the period between there are certain indications that Athenian relations with Persia were not altogether harmonious, with the Athenians throwing their weight about rather more than was consistent with the terms of the original treaty, and with the satrap Pissouthnes showing a certain willingness to favour Athens• enemies79. But Thucydides, who surprisingly mentions neither the Peace of Callias nor that of Epilykos for whatever reasons of his own80, records how in the winter of 425-4 the Athenians had intercepted the Persian envoy Artaphernes who had been making his way to Sparta with letters from the king, and how the Athenians decided to send him back with messages of their own only to discover that the king had just died ( 4.50.lff ). There can be little doubt that Thucydides is holding back other references to this sort of diplomatic activity, for Aristophanes' Acharnians, produced at the Lenaea of 425, shows at the very least that Athens had just seen the return of an embassy from Persia ( cf. Ach.6lff, supposed to have been dispatched epi Euthymenous arkhontos, i.e. 437~ but presumably this is comic exaggeration of the delay). A more,' natural view of the Acharnians-passage is that such embassies were a familiar occurrence at this time, for the reaction of the characters does not suggest that this is the first such occasion; indeed Dikaiopolis 1 grumble implies rather the opposite. Dikaiopolis 1 peacocks are presumably gifts of the Persian king to the ambassadors, a luxury from the province of India, and this -250seems to tie in with a number of other pieces of evidence: Plato's reference in the Charmides ( Pl.Charm.158A) to Pyrilampes, son of Antiphon ( cf. PA 12493, with Davies, APF 8792.VIII ), who was greatly honoured 11whenever he went as an ambassador to the Great King or anyone else in Asia Minor11 ; Plutarch's mention of Pyrilampes, "a comrade of Pericles, accused of using his peacocks to bribe the women with whom Pericles consorted 11 ( Per.13.J5 ) ; and Athenaeus' reference to a speech of Antiphon ( Athen.397CD = Antiphon F57 Blass ), in which the orator mentioned that Pyrilampes' son Demos had a muchprized collection of peacocks although the exhibition of these birds at Athens had been going on 30 years or more before the date of the speech ( ? 413 BC )81. Demos too seems to have been involved in diplomacy with the Persian king like his father, to judge from the gift of a gold cup mentioned by Lysias ( 19.25 ). This evidence suggests to me that men like Pyrilampes, and possibly also Diotimos son of Strombichos, mentioned by Strabo as having been an ambassador to Persia ( Strabo 1.3.1 (p.47} = Damastes FGH 5F8; possibly the general of 432, cf. Thucyd. 1.45.2, with Davies, APF p.161 ), had been engaged in diplomacy with Persia fairly regularly before the date of the Acharnians. Pyrilampes could, of course, have been given his peacocks as a junior member of Callias' party, and Diotimos may possibly have been a member of the embassy parodied in the Acharnians, but such economy with the evidence is scarcely necessary. Did the Athenians, for example, not test out the support of Persia in anticipation of the outbreak of the war with Sparta? I find it hard to believe that, desptte the continued populartty of the charge of medism at Athens82, the state did not in fact keep up diplomatic contact.with Persia, with families like. those of Pyrilampes repeatedly called on to assist with the negotiations: was 449 the only year in which peacocks were brought back to Athens before the Peloponnesian War, or does Dikafopolis 1 bored familiarity suggest otherwise? Perhaps the precise details of diplomatic relations in the years after Callias 1 embassy do not radically affect the interpretation of Herodotus here, since his invidious contrast between the attitudes of the Persian Wars and those ----**--***-~--------------------------***-----* -251of the period that followed remains the same whether or not any Athenian ever spoke to the Great King after 449 and before Herodotus wrote this passage83. Implicit in any treaty with Persia was the suspicion that the party concerned was shamefully turning to the former enemy for assistance against its former friends, as indeed both Sparta and Athens were prepared to do in the Ionian War, and as Thucydides grudgingly acknowledges they were both contemplating as soon as the events at Plataea had formally begun the war ( cf. 2.7.1, That this was indeed the way that Herodotus thought will be seen when we come to discuss the debate at Athens at the end of Book Eight, where the possibility of Athens 11coming to terms with the Mede in order to enslave the rest of the Greeks11 is voiced rather too pointedly for it not to strike some modern chord. It is enough to suggest here that the significance of the embassy of Callias at 7.151 ( like the embassy of the Spartans at 7.137, above) is that it can be construed as a betrayal of all that the Persian Wars had meant; for Herodotus no doubt knew that a policy of peace with Persia by the Athenians went hand in hand with a policy of aggression towards Sparta and her allies, not to mention the conversion of the Delian League into an instrument for the enslavement of Athens' own allies 84. At the very least such things must have been in the air at the time of Herodotus' writing, even if there were not suspicions~ whether justified or not, that Athens was trying to secure influence with Persia in anticipation of the war with Sparta. If we follow Fornara 1 s attractive dating of the compl~tion of the work to the end of the Archidamian ~Jar ( cf. Ch.III.Introd. ), we could argue that Herodotus is actually encouraged to think this way on account of the recent re-negotiation of the terms of the earlier peace in the Peace of Epilykos ( 424-3 BC). We have thus arrived at the possible reason for Herodotus wanting to contrast the behaviour of the Argives here with that of another party which has behaved more 'shamefully' still. While the Argives may indeed have medized out of -252self-interest, at least they are not guilty of the Athenians 1 later hypocrisy in accepting peace terms with Persia in the interests of aggression against those they had earlier called their allies. The Athenians are 'guilty' in precisely the way that Sthenelaidas accuses them of being: oLnAacrCas ~nμCas ''e , ' " , ' ' - ' , a.,,LoL E:LOLV, OTL avT aya.\Jwv ,mxoL ye:ye:vnvTaL ( cf. Thucyd.1.86.1, above). 4. The embassy to Gelon ( 7.l5}ff) both contrasts and compares with the embassy to Argos, but the p,rincipal distinction can be simply stated: while it appeared obvious in the case of Argos that the Argives were not really interested in compromise of any sort, and that the allied overtures were unjustly rebuffed 85, the opposite seems to happen at Syracuse, and Gelon seems prepared to make the most generous concessions, while the intransigence of the allies is this time shown up most clearly 86. The opening speech of the allies is typi ea lly ful 1 of fine sentiments ( e.g. 7. 157. 2 ) ~ nv 0£ ;u1μewv O l μsv 87 The 1 oyal Greeks are interested in saving the whole of Greece: the moral tone is very high! Gelon1 s reaction at once strikes the reader as abrupt and unexpected, even,until we realize what he is talking about, unreasonable ( 7.158.lf ): ( cf. 7.149.3, above) ETOAμncraTE: When at another time I asked you for your help against a barbarian army, when my quarrel with the Carthaginians broke out, and I begged you to avenge up6n the Egesteans their murder of Dorieus, and offered to help you free the ports which have been the source of such profit and advantage to you, you refused either to help me or avenge Dorieus and for all you cared, this whole country might be subject to b b . 1 88 ' ' x . ' • - . ' ' ' l " , <'I . 6 ~ ar ar,an rue . aAAa E:V yap nμLV xaL E:UL TU aμE:LVOV HaTE:OTn. VuV ~ • ). ~ • • "' • ,, ' ' - ' • ,l " o \ r *~ E:UE:LO[I ue:pLE:An/\U-vE: 0 UOAE:μos :Ka\., auLXTa\., ES Uμt-as, OUTW n .E:AWVOS μvncrTLS yfyovE:. Ge 1 on then, un 1 i ke the Argi ves, has a genuine reason for calling the Greeks self-interested and grasping. Though they speak in lofty terms about the common interests of the Greeks, they can all too easily be ~***--------------**-----***--------**---------------*----- -253convicted of arrogance and disregard for those very same interests: they were not moved by appeals either of honour or material profit, let alone considerations of Hellenic unity, to assist Gelon against the Carthaginians. With a magnanimity designed to shame the ambassadors89 Gelon claims he will help them ( 7.158.4 ): BoñtsLv • His promise of 200 triremes, 20,000 hoplites, 2,000 horses, 2,000 bowmen, 2,000 slingers, and 2,000 light infantry, together with grain to feed the entire Greek army as long as it is fighting the war, sounds magnificently generous90. But the promise is conditional ( 158.5 ): en' ~L Ts oTpaTnyob looμaL npob Tiv BdpBapov, he continues to demand. At this the Spartan envoy, Syagros, replies in shocked disgust, and without any word of compromise ) :r , ' ' , ' ,,,_ 'A , '''' ( 7 .159 : IJ }(£ lJ.EY 0Ll,.1Wc;£L£ 0 lI£A01tLvn!'.: . yaμ£μ\l1!1!1V ••• CIA.A' Greeks is the same as it was when 'Spartan' Agamemnon was king and led the Greeks to Troy, a presumption both arrogant and petty. When Gelen reproves them for their insulting answer, we can see his point , ,,_ r::' 'B , , - ', " ,, , , ' , mtovs.,,aμsvo!'.; u PLO"l:taTa sv TWL AoywL ou μs sn£LCHl!'.: aoxnμova sv T'i')L aμoLB'nL He continues to temper his indignation with compromise and makes a second offer ( 160.2, nμsL!'.; TL 0Il£Lc;Oμ£V TOU &pxaLou loyou ) : he wi 11 lead either by sea or by land, depending on which the Spartans themselves choose. The offer, though still demanding, is, as Gelon himself points out, reasonable given that he is volunteering to provide not only the greatest land force but also the largest fleet. But before the Spartan envoy can answer the Athenian ambassador intervenes ( 7 .161.,l ) : i1 Baot».di EupnxocrLwv, oux "We made no fuss when you asked for the hegemony of the whole army; but now that you claim the leadership of the fleet, even if the Spartans give it to you, we will not stand by ( 161.3 ): -254μa'tr)V ya.p eh, @OE: 1tctpctAO\J 'EHrivwv 0-TPClTO\J ddcrTO\J i::CnμE:\J 1bnnw!voL, i::l LupnxoaCoLOL EÕTe~ 'ÃnvatoL auyxwpnaoμEV xñ nyEμovCñ, &pxaL6TaTOV μev ~.evos 1ta.pi::x6111::VOL, μoO\JOl, OE £6\JTE:S OU μE:Ta\JacrTctl, 'EUrivwv• TW\J Jtctt "Oμnpos 6 £11:0'ftOl,OS &v6pa etpl,CTTO\J E(Jlncri:: ES "Ht,O\J &.nJtecr.\Jal, TaEctl, TE: Jtat Ql,Cl.liOCTμncraL O-TpctT6\J. ÕTW OlJJi ~\JE:l,o6s EO-Tl, ou6e\J nJJt\J A8yE:l,\J TCI.UTCI., Once again, though here even more explicitly, the claim to the hegemony is based on remote claims about the mythical past, on the one hand the autochthonous antiquity of the Athenian people ( a point of dubious relevance here, but something the Athenians always said 91, implies Herodotus ), and on the other the heroic qualities of Homer's Menestheus ( Jl.2.552 ), not the most memorable of the poem's heroes! Gelon1 s final answer is even more justly scornful than anything he has yet said ( 7.162.1 ): ' ( ,, ' ' ,, " ' 6~ Ei::tvi:: Ãnvati::, u111::ts ot,JtctTE: Tous μi::v a.pxovTas i::xet,v, Tous ~ apEoμfvous Ollli lEEL\J, £1tE:t ToCvuv OlJOE:\J b1tl,8\JTE:S ixE:l,\J TO l~\J E.\J8AE:TE:, Ql)Ji ~\) (jl.\Jct\JOLTE: Tn\J Ta.xCcrTn\J 01tCcrw &.1tctAAC1.0-cr611evot,92 93 Jtat &.yy8AA0\JTE:S Tnl, 'EAA.a6L !TL Eli TOD E\Jl,CI.UTOO TO ~ap EEctpa.CpnTal, • The moral of this embassy is clear: the dispute over the hegemony is meant to show up the eonexia94 of the Greeks, and of the Spartans and Athenians in particular, and the fatuousness of their desire to ~~ad rather than to be led. Particularly important is the tone of the dispute, ranging as it does from the pomposity of the Greeks1 opening gambit to the petty and self-important bickering that ensues, with all its artificial arguments from the mythical past. Herodotus has disturbingly caught the mood of intransigence and divisiveness on both sides. What emerges is the disunity of the Greeks, the conflict between their avowed ideals of Hellenic unity and their actual response to the crisis 95. In addition, the comparison of then and now once more rears its head: the conflict over the hegemony of the Greeks was the issue of Herodotus' lifetime, the issue which had already reached its crisispoint at the time he was writing 96 The very same unwillingness to be led rather than to lead, justly rebuked by Gelon, the desire to have all and yield nothing, had emerged after the war in the ever-growing dispute between Athens and Sparta over the hegemony of the Greeks, culminating at last in the Peloponnesian War ( cf. Herodotust own description at 6.98.2, a.uTwv Twv **~**-~***--- -255The sequel to the account of the debate at Syracuse is puzzling, and deserves closer attention le_stttshould be thought that Herodotus is not really in control of his subject. After the departure of the Greek embassy Gelon considers his position ( 7.163.l ): Accordingly he sends Cadmus, son of Coes, to Delphi with a large sum of money, with which he is to make friendly overtures to Xerxes in the event of a Persian victory. Naturally this puts a rather different complexion on Gelon's former conduct and speeches: the difference lies in Herodotus• characteristic use of perspective. In the previous scene Gelon appeared as a foil to the Greek ambassadors and hence we were tempted to see him more as a shrewd and disinte~ rested critic of Greek arrogance; now we are made to see what we have no doubt already suspected, that he spoke with tyrannical pride, prepared all the while to countenance the defeat of the Greeks, if necessary, and come to terms with Xerxes, no less than the Argives in the previous episode. The reader begins to doubt whether he ever really meant to help the Greeks. The next section, however, is more difficult. Herodotus introduces a Totcrt. vEAATJcrt., st μn ••• : and there follows the story of Terillos' and õTw 6~ oux ol6v TE yEv6μevov Pontfst.v TOV rtAwva Totat. vEAATJOl, a.K01t8μ1tEl,V E:S AEA<pODS Tct XPlll-\aTa, 1tpos; 6t 1mt TClOE A8Y©\JOl,, WS cruvsPn Trjs; aUTrjs; nμspt)S ev TE TT)l, [l,}(l;:ALTjl, I'£AWV~ xei.t ijnpwva v~xav 'AμLAxav TOV KapxnMvt.li»V xat ev foAaμLVl, TOOS VEAAT]Vas; TOV II{pcrnv. S.tJr~ l_y t~is virsfon, -w11fd,-M~ro<il,otus--do@s nothi lil*i t© r@fut@:@Jii iv@n seiiitg accept-as true 97, completely overturns the presuppositions of his lengthily reported Syracusan debate? If Gelen was indeed engaged in a war with Hamilcar and Carthage, there is no sense in his offers of help to the Greek allies. The -256simple answer would be to assume that Herodotus is not in control of;his source-material, and has reported two conflicting stories without being aware that the second cancels out the first 98. Howeve~ it is clear that Herodotus is not so confused, and that in retailing the second version he still has the first in mind. The story about Cadmus and the embassy to Delphi is firmly attached to the first version, since Herodotus clearly gives as its mõve Gelon's reaction to the failure of his discussion ~,ith the allies ( 7.163.1 npob TauTa ( i.e. the debate) 6ECaab μEv ••• ). And the second Sicilian version explicitly recalls the mission of Cadmus, in order to interpret it in a different way ( 7. 165, O\JTW 6n OU1f otov TE YEVOμEVOV Son-&EEl..,V .•. Thus it is impossible to explain the contradiction in terms of Herodotus' blindness to the relation between the two stories. The 'Sicilian version' was, however, almost certainly the story that the Greeks knew best: Pindar's First Pythian99 speaks of Himera as a subject of renown to equal that of Salamis or Thermophylae ( Py.l.75ff ): . • • a.p[oμm, nap μ£V LaAaμtvob A-&avaCwv xapLV μLOiJOV, £V EnapT~L 6' (apa) Tav npo KLiJOLpwvob μaxav, TO'COL M{i6ELOL x&μov &y'){UAOTOE';OL, napa 6£ TaV EUU6pov &xTaV 'Iμspa EUL6EOOLV uμvov AELVOμEV£0b TEAEOOLb, Tov s6sq.l\WT • &μqi' &pETCtL, nOA£μLwv &v6pwv xaμoVTWV, Likewise the battle of Kyme, the final victory in the same Sicilian struggle, in *Which it could be claimed that tbe lord of Syracuse saved Greece from burdensome slavery ( ibid.7lff, 'EAAa6' sE;€Axwv SapECab 6ouACã ), could hardly be one whose fame had not spread beyond Sicily 1 OO. Thus not to have mentioned the war with Carthage would have laid Herodotus open to easy criticism. So, faced with the problem of wanting to retain both his Syracusan debate, the essential point of which was to show the allies not prepared to compromise in any way with a powerful and apparently willing friend, and the truth about Himera, Herodotus chose to advance the second story as an epichoric variant although, of course, to ease the transition he begins by presenting it as a supplement, as we saw above, that is, not immediately facing the reader with -257the contradiction of the two accounts. It can only be that he thought he could get away with it! The probability is that though Herodotus was indeed told of an embassy of the confederates to Gelon, he had no particular information about why it failed to bring him into the alliance, and hence*ithatthe entire debate, with its illustration of the theme of Greek disunity and the conflict over the hegemony, is his own imaginative reconstruction 101. This explanation avoids the necessity of supposing that Herodotus has been confused by an alternative chronology of Gelon's Carthaginian conflict, and that the tradition that Himera and Salamis took place on the same day ( 7.166, ascribed to the Sicilians ) never had any warrant in historical reality 102. 5. The. embassy to* Corcyra deserves brief mention as once more i 11 ustrating quite clearly ,the conflict of fine words and shameful actions. The Corcyreans at once promise help to the Greeks ( 7 .168.1 ) , cppd;;o\lT£s; oos; o'ttcrqn. , ' ' •• ,,, ' ' , . >\ . ~ , • !I 11:£pl,011:T£n £0-Tl, n E,u1.as; C11l0AA0μ£Vn" nv yap. crq,a;\fjt,' (Jq>£ts; Y£ 0'00£\l ctAAO The Corcyreans,affect to identify entirely with the Greek cause: their interests are the interests of all free Greeks; it would be unthinkable for them to do other than to defend those interests. But Herodotus tells us exactly how to take this rhetoric ( 168.2 ): U1l£1tpCvaVTO μev ÕTW £01lpocrwna* 81l£L 0£ eO£l, Soñ££l,V, &>..la VO£UVT£s; enlnpwcrav veas; ll;nHOVTa, μOyt,s; oe &vax~£VT£s; 11pocreμ£t,l;av Tnl, Il£A01lOVVncrwL ••• napa6oneovT£s; nat oi5.ov103 TOV 1101£μov ,rjt, 1l£CJ££Tctt,, &cA1lT£OVT£s; μev Tolls; "El>..nvas; 1)1l£p$aAetce~l,, OOH£0VT£s; OE: TOV Ilepcrnv }(etTanpcnnaavTa noA>..ov &pl;ct,v Tr\s; 'EHdoos;~ Herodotus moreover does eotmake do with this malicious inference about their motives, but goes on to elaborate their intended course of action, ~ven to the extent of imagining what they meant to say to Xerxe~ ( 168.3f ): fu Saat,Ad), T}μ£ts; 11ape:tAaμ$aVOVTWV TWV 'EAAnvwv. nμ(as; • • •0\J}( e))£Ancraμev TOl, &vnoucr{}at, ouoe Tl, &1to{}uμt,ov 1t:ot,fjaat,. ,ot,ctOrn ÃyovT£s; l;Anl;ov II '1 " .-.; *:,\ ,,,,. t J.I\(), 1tA £OV T t, ,wv a.AAWV o t,O£cr{)a.t, • Ta 1t£P a.v xa.t, cy£V£TO, ws; cμo t, OH££ t,. tp~s; 6t tous; VEllnvds; G(Jll, cr~fftt,s; £'Jt£1tOCnTo, ,nl, ncp 6~ nat expncra.VTO, To the Greeks they said that they had manned the 60 ships but had been unable to round Malea because of the Etesian gales and thus had failed to make it to -258Salamis. Herodotus has of cause prejudged the jssue, elaborating the duplicity of the Corcyreans by all the means at his disposal 1°4. Indeed he charges them not merely with acting in the interests of self-preservation, but with actually anticipating profit from their 1 assistance 1 to the Great King pleonexia )105: he even ventures that their hopes would have been fulfilled, •as it seems to him1 • This is a particularly clear example of the use Herodotus can make of malicious inferences, where there is no reason for us to suppose he has been especially influenced by any source. It is all surely free dramatic elaboration and it will be useful later to remember the techniques he employs in such a case. * (F) Tempe to Thermopylae. l. The first battle-front of the war is not Thermopylae, but Tempe, an inglorious fiasco, which Herodotus is not in any way concerned to play down. Thessaly is another state in which the advent of the Mede opens up the domestic rivalries of the different parties ( cf. Eretria and Athens in {C).2 above). Herodotus had warned us earlier that Xerxes was mistaken in supposing that he had originally won the support of the whole population ( 7.130.3 ). Now he reminds us that Thessaly 1 s medism was only sponsored by the Aleuadai at For when they first heard of Xerxes' intention to cross into Europe, they sent ambassadors to the Greeks at' the Isthmus and impressed upon them the necessity of sending a force to guard the Olympic pass. Herodotus' personation pays careful attention to the psychology of the Thessalians ( 7.172.2f ): ws; d μn 1t£μq>E:TE' hCna.a,\k ~J:1,Jt(ti*oμoAoynaE: l, v Tuil, IIepan l • ()\) yap to l, 1tpoxa.Tnw:vous; TOOO'ClTO 1tpO T?is; &Uns; . 'EAX&oos; μouvous; 1tpO uμc:wv od &1toA1:fo.\Ja.l,. 8on.\Jeuv ot ou\SoUAOμE:VOl, &va.y"J<a.L'r].V nμtv ouosμCav ofoC '[£ €OT€ 1tpOO(J)EPUV* 6uoaμa yap &ouvaoCns; a.vayxn xpsaawv ~(j)U. nμsts; 6~ 1tE:l,pnaoμs~a. C(l)TOL "Cl.Va. awTnpCnv μnxa.vwμE:VOl,. -259Clearly for the Thessalians the myth of Hellenic unity has begun to run a little thin: they see no reason why they should be expected to make sacrifices for the rest of Greece, rather than simply look totheirown safety. Naturally they express their choice as no choice: if the Greeks do not help them, they have no choice but to medize. However Herodotus has been clever in his personation of the Thessalians 1 position: there is undoubtedly a contrast implied here between their arguments and the actions first of the Spartans ( with the reservations expressed below) and then of the Athenians though as we shall see, even the Athenians at one stage threaten the allies with the same argument about the 'necessity' of medism 106 ( cf. (I).l, below) . Herodotus here represents clearly the conflict of pragmatism and idealism, which is such a central theme of his narrative. The expedition to Tempe shows the Greeks sadly lacking in resolve, even though with good enough strategic reasons ( 7.173.4, 6oxEELV 6£ μoL, ,. ,:r' ,_ t ,, ...,,, , '' 'o, appw6Ln [IV TO EEL~ov, w~ EEU~OVTO xaL aAAnv EOUcrav EG$oAnv E~ oEGGaAOU~ ••• is the moment when their slender loyJl.ty to the Greek cause collapses ( 7.174 ): etcrcraAOL 68 E:pnμw~EVTE~ cruμμaxwv o{hw 6n e:μ116Lcrav npõuμw~ ou6' itn tv6oLaGTW~, wcr,E tv .:ot::crL np1frμacrL tqiaLvov.:o $aGLAEi: ~v6pE~ ' ' ' EOVTE~ XPnGLμWTaTOL. There seems to be something of a paradox here: the Thessa 1 i ans had made themselves out to be reluctant medizers, even to the extent of describing their condition as one of unalterable necessity 107; but once they have made the decision to meldi ze, they d~ so) as Herodotus' has it, with pronounced enthusiasm. Herodotus himself endorses the Thessalians' judgement of their position only to the extent of saying that they medized I at first I under necessity { cf. 7 .172.1, above X, ,but we ,npw see that qualification as a foil to the present passage. The enthusiasm of medizers is a motif we shall"meet again: the Greeks who are not loyal -260to the Hellenic cause instead make a virtue of loyalty to the Persian king, and rejoice in the opportunity to do harm to their fell@w-Greeks ( for the Thessalians in this role, cf. esp. the anecdote discussed in (A).l, above). There is nothing really paradoxical in the behaviour of the Thessalians here, except in Herodotus' presentation. He was after all careful to show that their loyalty to the Greek cause was only a flimsy thing in the first place, and that the 'necessity' of which they spoke was merely a relative necessity. We are \tarned here that even where there is not positive duplicity, the loyalty of the allies is most volatile and changeable108. 2. This will be a convenient point to examine the medism of the Thebans in Herodotus' account. The first mention of the subject follows shortly at the beginning of the narrative of Thermopyl ae 109. Leoni das is parti cu,l ar~y concerned to take the Thebans along with him ( 7.205.3 ): ~n crqiswv μqct>,ws x1::nnyopmo μn6L1';uv* 1tapExaAe;E Giv ES -rov 1tOAEμov 6£AW\I ElosvaL. EfTE O'U1t£μ~0UO'L, EfTE xat &1tE:p£OUOL, EX TOD}:Eμ,avsos Tnv 'EAAnVw\l ouμμaxCnv. OL 0£ &AAa qip0\1£0\ITES E:1tEy1to\l. Opce again we must be clear how much of this is Herodotus' work and to what extent he has freely inferred the motives of the parties concerned. Was he actually told by his infmmnants either that Leonidas suspected the Thebans or that the Thebans sent their force to Thermopylae concealing their treacherous intent? Given what we have seen in other contexts ( e.g. Corcyra, above), we have no clear warrant to assume this: we should hesitate before accepting charges of duplicity as authentic reports ( cf. 7.168.2 above, ana noeuntes ). The part played by the Thebans at Thermopylae is, of course, a notorious crux for the historian 110. Herodotus reports that Leonidas sent away the rest of the allies when the news came that they could no longer hold the pass ( 7.220.lf, below), but that he kept back the Thebans against their wi 11 ( 7. 222 ) : TOUTW\I 0€ 8nSatoL μsv CXEXO\ITES e:μEVOV xat OU !30UAOμE\IOL ( xarE'Cxs yap ' ' ; ; -~ ) '°' ; J:.' • ; ;, cr,sas E\I oμnpwv AOYWL. 1tOLE:uμE\IOS , oE01tLEES vE EXO\ITES μaALOra, ' ' ,, ' ~ A , ' ' ' ' - ' , , 'r: "-o L. oux Eqiaoav a1toAL1toVTES EWVL.6nv xaL rous μET aurou a1taAAãsõaL, aAA& xa-raμEtVa\lTES OU\la1ts6a\lO\I. • -261It is quite clear what literary effect Herodotus has aimed at here: the Thebans' treachery is a foil to the Thesptans 1 loyalty. But as an account of something that really happened in the battle, this story is hard to credit in this form111. That Leonidas should have kept the Thebans by him in the last extremity, and even before, 'as hostages' is certainly suprising: they could only have been a liability if their loyalty was indeed suspect 112 But Herodotus' account is surely satisfactory enough in itself: for him, the Thebans always meant to medize as soon as they were given a chance, and that is what they did ( 7.233.lf ): , ' ' ',,, ,, '# ''' "'' ', TEWS μEv μETa TWV EAAnvwv EOVTES EμaxoVTO UR avayxaLns EXOμEVOL upos TnV SacrL>..eos OTpaTLnv* ws 6£ ELOOV MUTUEEPTEpa TWV IlEpcrewv yLv6μeva Ta upnyμaTa, OUTW on ••• &.uocrxLcr~SVTES TOUTWV xetpas TE RpOTELVOV Hal. T)Lcrav ifoaov TWV !3ap$apwj;I, >..eyOVT£S TOV &.>..ñifornrnv TWV >..6ywv, ws μnoL{OUOL HUL ynv TE MUL ~6wp EV EPWTOLCTL ~6ocrav SaOLASL, UEO 6£ &.vayxaCns EX6μEVOL ES 9epμouu>..as aELMOLaTO MaL &vaLTLOL ELEV TOU TpwμaTOS TOO YEYOVOTOS aoLlsI113, Ta0Ta AEYOVTES EEpLEYSVOVTO" d:xov yap MaL 9eoo&>..ous TOUTWV TWV loywv μdpTUpasl~. It seems clear that Herodotus has made up his own mind and imposed his own interpretation: the Theban claim to be medizing was absolutely correct, he says, and true too their claim not to have been responsible for the harm done to the king. The words here underlined are an advertisement of Herodotus' own reflexion on the matter: 'I know the Thebans to have begun to medize long before and not now for the first time, as it might have seemed 1 • He must himself be aware that the presence of the Thebans at Thermopylae in the last stages was problematic on his interpretation, and hence he is here concerned to vindicate the truth of his judgement that they were kept there against their will ( cf. the repetition of *hyp' anagkaies ekhomenoi* ). The sequel to this action of the Thebans also contains a lesson, where again Herodotus intrudes his own reflexion ( 7.233.2 ): ou μevToL Ta ye u&vTa e:uTvxnocw. The Thebans thought that, like many other medizers, they would profit from their treachery, and that they might escape the vengeance of Persians and Greeks ali.ke: Herodotus' inference is quite clearly malicious. But their luck now ran out ( 233.2 ): -262- , ' 6' ' ~ ' - ' ', - , "C .. "C , UpOOLOVTã. TOU~ c UAcvVã OUTWV XcAcUOOVTÕ ~cP~cW cOTL~av OTLyμaTa BacrLA.nLa, apEdμcVOL &u~ TOO crTpaTnyoO AcOVLTd6cw, TOO T~V uat6a Eupuμaxov XPOVWL μcTEUELTa e~&vcucrav IlA.OTOLEc~ OTpaTnyncravTa &v6pwv 8nBalwv TcTpaxocrlwv xat crxovTa TO clmu IT:\.aTaLewv ( cf. Thucyd.2.2ff ). The forward feference to the Thebans treacherous attack on Plataea is not a casual parenthesis, but a deliberate comparison of then and now115. The treachery of the Thebans in the present is no different from their behaviour during the Persian Wars; the coincidence between the fates of father and son is meant to bring home to us that the Thebans have not changed. One need only remember how they behaved then to understand what they are doing now. Would we however really be justified in assuming, as is usually done116, that Herodotus was not independent here, but relied for his understanding of the Thebans1 conduct on malignant gossip at Athens or some other state hostile to Thebes? Certainly there can have been many ( not only the Athenians who would have wished to give Herodotus a malicious account of Theban behaviour • during the Persian Wars ( cf. Thucyd.3.54ff ), but has Herodotus merely been g1:ff1ible, or is he rather being malicious on his own account? It may indeed be that he was wrongly told that the Thebans at Thermopylae were kept behind by Leonidas against their will; but may it not equally be that he has supplied this motif entirely on his own authority? Given the facts that the Thebans did stay behind with Leonidas and that they capitulated at the last moment, he. may have proceeded to give the story dramatic elaboration, by inferring (a) ,_ their original duplicity, (b) Leonidas1 suspicions, and (c) the manner of their appeal to the Persians when they finally surrendered. That these inferences are so uncharitable need occasion no surprise by now ( and see below, 9.86ff ). * 3. Of the Spartans at Thermopylae Herodotus tells a number of stories to illustrate their sang froid and quiet heroism~ what the Persian scout sees before the battle 117 and its interpretation by Demaratus118; Leonidas1 devotion -263in the light of the oracle ( 7.220.3f, either Sparta must fall or Lakedairnon bewail the loss of her king); Megistias 1 foreknowledge of his own end and his determination to remain ( 7.221 ); the heroic remark of Dienekes ( 7.226.l ). Herodotus emphasis on the heroism of the Spartan self-sacrifice is clear ( e.g. 7.223.4, knowing that they were to die, they fought magnificently, without regard for their lives ), in particular his insistence on having discovered the names of all the Spartans who died119, a claim that has a clear encomiastic function. The unusually affecting recital of the epigrams on the slain ( 7.228, ) Herodotus significantly does this for no other battle of the war confirms that Thermopylae is meant to be seen as an act of heroism of a kind more honestly grand and pathetic than anything else in the war119a. The narrative is an illustration of those virtues claimed for the Spartans by Demaratus ( 7. 1 Olff ) : but, as we sha 11 see , it is al so in a different way an illustration of the weaknesses of Spartan nomos. The Spartans remain at the centre of the stage throughout, but their own conduct sets off and is set off by the behaviour of the rest of the allies. The Spartans send Leonidas and his force of 300 to Thermophylae ( 7.206.l ): ( i . e. 1 i ke the The bans~ ) μn6Ccrwcr1,. In other words, the Spartans hope that their i ni ti ati ve will help keep together the faint-hearted alliance. Nonetheless once assembled at Thermopylae, with the.Persians approaching, the Greeks lose heart ( 7.207 ): • 11It was proposed by the Peloponnesians generally to fall back and hold the Isthmus secure; but when the Phocians and Locrians expressed anger at this suggestion, Leonidas voted that they should stay where they were and send messengers to the cities demanding help, as their numbers were inadequate to cope with the. Persians 0120. The inconstancy of the allies, a motif we shall meet again and again throughout the narrative of the Persian Wars, is set against the decision of Leonidas to remain though this decision is only reached at the most urgent and self-interested demands of the Phocians and Locrians. When the news of the descent of the -264Persians over the mountain path reaches the beleaguered Greeks after several days of fighting, there is once more a division of opinion ( 7.219.2 ), "some urging that they should not abandon their post, others taking the opposite view". * And some 1eave for home, whi1e the rest remain to fight with Leonidas121. Herodotus then raises the question of how it was that they actually came to go home ( 7.220.lf ): .L , _,1, , )l-22 , , , , , A '$:; ' ' '* A1;:.;:yE:TCLL OE ~iMG1.L . ... ws mJTOS O'(j)ECLS CtltEltEμ(j.,£ £ul\)Luns' μn CtltoAWVTCLL xn66μi~ot* ~6TiL 6£ xat I1tapTLnTiwv ToCcrL 1tapeoOcrL oux lxeLv £U1tpe1tew~ EXALltE:tV Tnv TãL\) ES Tnv nÃOV (j)UAãOVTE:S apxnv. TetUTnL xat μaAAov12 TnV :yvwμnv ltAE:CO'TOS slμL, AewvConv, £lt£LT£ nLÕE:TO TOUg cruμμaxous £0\)TUS a.1tpõuμous :im.t oux E~EAOVTUS O'UVOLUXLVOUVE:UE:LV' xeAeOcraC O'(j)E:ctS a.1ta.AAacr£0~CtL' a.OTOOL 0£ &nsva.L OU xa.Aii:is huv• μevovn 0£ aUTOU XAEOS μs:ya. £AE:C1tno, xat n I1tapTnS £U6a.LμovCn oux &~nA£L(j)£TO, It is hard to be1ieve, however exact1y we constitute the text, that Herodotus is here simp1y repeating the same opinion twice over ( :>..eysTa.L 6£ ••• / Ta.uTnL xa.t μ<iAAov ••• ) in more or less the same words; rather he must be contrasti,ng the opinion firs:tz reported with the opinion he goes on to give in his own person. Originally, in the first narrative reportJ it seemed that after the debate the allies simply got up and left on their own intiative; then ( >..eyeTa.L ot ... ) it is suggested that Leonidas dismissed them formally, because he knew that the cause was now hopeless and nothing was to be gained from their staying to die with him; finally Herodotus offers his own opinion that Leonidas sent them away because he saw that they in fact had no stomach for the fight and would not be of much use if they stayed. In other words Herodotus goes out of his way to give authority to an account of the matter whi eh credits the a 11 i es with the 1 east firmness of purpose and unity of resolve. It would have been quite possible for Herodotus to have glossed over the al1ies 1 lack of loyalty: instead he makes so much fuss over the matter of their departure that we cannot but take notice of this uncomfortab1e detail ( and cf. Herodotus• recapitulation at 7.220.4, &1to1tsμ4>a.L Toos cruμμ&xous 4. The last word on Spartan heroism is not given in the honorific catalogue which draws to an end at 7.228.4. Not unnaturally Herodotus has dissociated • -265the story of the Thebans1 medism ( 7.233, above) from the main account of the battle, so that it does not disturb the heroic narrative of the Spartan achievement124; but before the Theban section and after the catalogue of Spartan heroism he has added a most detailed account ( complete with an unusually trenchant commentary ) , whose clear purpose is to suggest the weaknesses inherent in Spartan obedience to nomos125. It is said, Herodotus begins, that two of the 300 might have made common cause and either both .returned safe home to Sparta, as they had been released by Leonidas and lay at Alpenoi suffering severely from ophthalmia, or both have chosen to die along with the rest. But they did not cboose to act in concert: instead, Eurytos, when he heard about the Persian circumvention, armed and ordered his helot slave to tale him to the battle, where he plunged into the throng a..nd was killed; Aristodemos on the other hand was le.ft behind in a swoon126. Herodotus then ( 229.2 } offers his own judgement on the matter although the preceding narrative is also heavily coloured in anticipation of this paragraph, in particular in its forceful emphasis on the failure of the two to make common cause ( uapeov aUTOLOL aμ~OT£pOLOL XOLVWL AOyWL XPncraμ£VOL •.. uapEOV ). Herodotus argues that if either Aristodemos had returned to Sparta as the only one afflicted with his disability, or if both had returned together, 60X££LV Eμot oux &v cr~L EnapTLn,as μnvLV OU6£μCav But as it was, since one of them was killed and the other with the same excuse chose not to die, &vayxaCws cr~L ~X£Lv μnvtcraL μey&Aws 'ApLcrrn6nμwi,. And that is how seme say Aristodemos came home to Sparta ( 7.230 ), but others recount that he was sent as a messenger fr:omthe camp, and though he could have made it back to the battle, chose not to, whereas his fe 11 owmessenger returned to Sparta ( 7. 231 ) , 8v£L6os TE: e:'lx£ xat &nμCnJ ~7. No Spartan would kindle a fire for him and no-one spoke to him: ove:L6os TE And another messenger sent to Thessaly from the 300, named Pantites ( 7 .232 ), returned alive to -266All this is not merely of antiquarian interest to Herodotus, as shown by the length of the narrative and the care he takes both in preparing and expounding his interpretation. For a clearer picture, however, we should look forward to the resolution of the story in the later account. Of the aristoi at Plataea Herodotus first of all singles out Aristodemos ( 9.71.1 ): xat &p~oTos sylvsTo Philokyon and Amompharetos, all Spartans. And yet when the Spartans discussed who had been the most virtuous ( 71.3 ), they decided that Aristodemos had wanted an illustrious end because of his disgrace: BouA6μsvov ,avspffis £pya μqcO.a &1rooll;ao-l1ã. But Posei donio .. s had fought bravely having no wish to die and was thus so much the more virtuous ( i.e. brave). But Herodotus the others all received honours for their valour, Aristodemos alone did not. What Herodotus himself feels about all this is surely that the Spartans' respect for valour is limited and arbitrary: his remarkable inference that they merely witheld honours from Aristodemos because of envy. points to an obvious scorn for their arguments128. Similarly in the earlier narrative we can understand from Herodotus' careful hints that it was merely a matter of chance that Aristodemos came to be dishonoured: had it not been for the invidious comparison with Eurytos, the Spartans would not have blamed him, that is, there was nothing objectively wrong about what Aristodemos did, it only came to seem wrong to the Spartans ( with their peculiar conception of virtue), because of what Eurytos did. It is most unlikely, however, that the Spartans actually felt as they did towards Aristodemos simply because of the comparison 129; tbey were surely not as perverse as Herodotus makes them in having been prepared not to blame Aristodemos at all if there had been no such comparison ( cf. • -2677. 229. 2, OOK£El,\) EμO(, OUK (l\) O<pL l:Kapnrhas; μfi\Jl,\) ouoeμLa\J 1tpoo-1h:o.e'aL ) It seems likely that Herodotus has constructed the paradox simply to provoke the reader to think about the arbitrariness of Spartan ideas of virtue. The story surely invites further reflexion: it is hard to believe that the prominence given it in Herodotus1 account is meant only lb show up one particular anomaly in Spartan behaviour on one particular occasion; it is surely rather a comment on the nature of Spartan valour itself, and on the intransigent demands of the state on the individual. Demaratus had defined Spartan nomos as a harsh and uncompromising master, which demanded unquestioning obedience of its subjects ( 7.104.S ): 1toLeDoL y@v T& Nv J:xetvos; &v~ynL" Eurytos 1 sacrifice, Pantites 1 suicide, Aristodemos1 disgrace, all testify to the power exercised over the minds of the Spartans by this demanding despot. Yet surely Herodotus feels that this is wrong: Aristodemos is a brave man, as his fighting at Plataea showed, and he did not deserve to be treated as he was. As for Eurytos 1 sacrifice, it is perhaps an act of senseless devotioñ given that he and Ari stodemos were both incapacitated with an ailment which unfitted them for Eurytõ needs to be helped to the battle by his helot, unable to make it alone. Nothing is served thereby, except some rather extreme demand of honour. It is tempting to see here a comment on the sacrifice of the whole 300 at Thermopylae: dld they not merely give up their lives because Spartan nomos told them to? This interpretation is supported by a strange omission: nowhere in the account of Thermopylae does Herodotus ever state or imply130 that the Spartan sacrifice was undertaken on behalf of Hellas, let alone for the ideal of Hellenic liberty! Not least significant is that the epigram he cites in celebration exclusively of the Spartan achievement is that which, most pathetically to the non-Spartan ear, records simply and plainly that they died 1d6ing their duty 1 ( 7.228.2 ): @_1;:E:tv', ayyE:AAE:l,\) AãE:OaL.μ<;lJ1C@l,~ ()Tt;'.Tlll,,0£ )(E:GJJE:%a TG'G~ xdvwv bliwtcr0, 1te: L.%6μevo L.. -268It is hard to believe tbat:tbere were not epigrams for Sparta which spoke * . 131 of Thermopylae as a service to Greece . Moreover the epigram quoted is typically Spartan: it is hard to imagine any other state idealising its own authority in this way, and this is surely the reason why Herodotus cites it . • The only thing approaching 1 idealism 1 in the Spartans is the desire to achieve kleos as, for example, in Leonidas1 reasons for deciding to send . 132 away the allies ( 7.220.4 ), Sou>..oμe:vov )(AE:õ xa-ra%la%aL. μouvwv Lxap-rL.n,lwv , where there is the faintest hint of fanaticism in the desire that the Spartans should be alone in winning the glory of dying in this lost cause. But surely the 1Legend1133 would have had it that Sparta's sacrifice was for Greece: no other state, however small its contribution to the defence of Greece, failed to tell the world that its heroic sacrifice was first and foremost a service in the common interest of all the Greeks ( hyper Hellados: see above), that its warriors laid down their lives to ensure that Hellas did not see the dawn of slavery. We may conclude that Herodotus' picture of the Spartan sacrifice is an equivocal one, tempered by the insight that Sparta did not share in the Greek ideal of freedom: her society under the despotism of nomos was free in name only, the sacrifices of her soldiers, at least from a certain point of * . 134 view, vain and unlovely . 5. Herodotus attaches to the account of Thermopylae a final episode whose purpose is clearly to explain the significance of the Spartan resistance. Xerxes asks Demaratus135, since his words have proved tr:ue, to tell him how many Spartans remain, and now many of them are fighters of the same quality ( 7.234.lff ). Demaratus replies ( 234.2) that the "Lakedaimonians are many and their cities numerous, but there is in Lakedaimon a city called Sparta of some 8000 men, who are all of the same quality as those he has just seen., and as for the other Lakedaimonians, they are not the same, but good nonethelessu. -269In other words what we ( and Xerxes) have seen at Thermopylae is something exceptional: such things could only have been done by Spartans, their state being what it is. Xerxes then asks the easiest way to conquer them ( 234.3 ) ; and Demaratus proceep-s to te 11 him of how he might take 30 ships and capture Cythera, of which Chilon had once said it were better it were sunk beneath the sea136. Xerxes' fleet should m~ke its base on this island and strike terror into the Spartans ( 235.3 ): • ~apoCHou ol nol[μou a,L idvTos olxnCou õ6€V OELvot 1crovTaC TOL μ~ TfiS -&A.lns 'EUaoos &hcrxoμevns uno TOU nEi';OU Bon.\JEWOL rn1frnL, xaTaoOUAW.\JECcrns OE Tns ctllns 'Ellaoos acr.\JEVES non TO AaxwVLKOV μouvov lECnETaL. If Xerxes does not follow this advice, the loyal Peloponnesians will assemble at the Isthmus and provide him with more trouble even than he has just experienced ( 235.4 ): £KECvo OE noLncravTL aμaxnTt o TE 'Icr.\Jμos ODTOS All this strategic speculation, what might have happened had the Persians been able to threaten the Spartans' homelands, is without doubt the ptoduct of Herodotus' own imagination, his own interpretation of the story no question here that he has borrowed the judgements of his sources. The result is a remarkable pendant to his earlier 'strategic analysis' at 7.139. The contrast is obvious: whereas the Athenians were actually prepared to sacrifice Athens and Attica in order to be able to brtng the rest of the Greeks into the fight, the Spartans, Herodotus implies, if threatened with danger to their own state ( napoCxou 6t nollμou cr~L &ovTos olxnCou ), would have given up a 11 thought of fighting with the rest of the Greeks, that is, they would have at once abandoned the common cause in order to defend themselves alone. Whereas the Athenians see that they can best secure their own survival by abandoning the defence of their own city and lands and making common cause with the rest of the Greeks137, the Spartans could not see that the unity of the loyal Greeks was the only thing that could guarantee their common survival. If threatened as the Athenians were, they would have adopted a course whi.ch would have resulted not only in the defeat of the rest of Greece, but also in defeat for themselves. Once again Herodotus is making a point of the -270failure of Spartan idealism ( or better perhaps, vision}': Thermopylae was about Spartan kleos, not about the championship of Hellenic freedom138. * (G) Artemisium. 1. We come next to the preparations for Artemisium, where again the issue of Greek unity is raised, this time in a form which poses with the greatest clarity Herodotus ever allows himself the paradox of Athenian-motivation However we are to interpret this passage, we have no licence to argue that Herodotus' portrayal of Athens' stance on the matter of the hegemony here conflicts with what he represented of it in the -debc!Je at Syracuse ( 7 .157ff ) , since he makes clear and deliberate reference to that very debate here. But, he goes on, the allies objected to the Athenian claim: The passage is remarkable for its transparent cynicism and also for its eccentric interpretation of the facts. Herodotus is the only source to suggest that Athens 1 made an excuse of Pausanias 1 behaviour' and 'took away the hegemony ... * 142 from the Spartans 1 : all the others, starting with Thucydides , represent the changeover as something that the allies thems•lves wished, and to which the Spartans consented. After the disgrace of Pausanias, records ThYcydides, the Spartans sent out other commanders, led by Darkis, ot~ ovnsn etpCrnav ( l.95.6f ). The Spartans send no more generals, fearing lest they turn out 1 i ke Pausanias: chanãdovn::~ ot xat -rou MnoLxou -271ev TwL !fo'te 1tllpovT1. iJ111rn61:sCous. And Thucydi des goes on ( 1. 96 .1 ) : 1tapaAaSovTES 6e ol 'ÃnvatOL ,nv ny1:sμovCav TOUTWl, TWL TPOltWl, 8XOVTWV Twv t;uμμaxwv 61,a. ,o TiauaavCou μt:aos .•• 143. Anyone who believes either that Herodotus is a supporter of contemporary Athens, or even simply that his judgement is coloured by Athenian sources, must surely find this detail impossible to explain away: no Athenian could have told Herodotus such a malicious version of the matter. The probability is that he is distorting the account fbr his own ends: about the empire, even in its earliest infancy, he can only be cynical even if only rather allusively ( see (L) below) . • But this is not the greatest surprise that this short paragraph has stored up. For it quite openly implies that Athens' resignation of her claim to the hegemony had; despite the praiseworthiness of the action, a self-interested motive: nowhere does Herodotus' interest in the conflict of motive and action emerge more strikingly than here. The Athenians, he says, yielded and did not hold out, just so long as they had need of the Spartans, as events proved144. Inasmuch as the events in question are the beginnings,of the Athenian empire, that is, of Athens' claim to the hegemony of all the Greeks whom she could persuade or compel to submit to her authority 145, Herodotusl meaning can only be that their duplicity" was a matter of ambition. This casts a curious light on the earlier part of the paragraph: the Athenians had thought it of great importance that Hellas should survive ( cf. 7.13g_5, ), and realised that for them to dispute the hegemony would mean the destruction of Greece. There are two implicit observations here. In the first place, the mention of the destruction of Greece through a dispute over the hegemony inevitably calls to mind the war which was destroying Greece at the time of Herodotus• writing ( cf. 6.98.2, au,wv ,wv xopu~aCwv 1tspt Tns &pxns -272TOCTOUTWL xaxLOV SCTTL ~CTWL uoitμos slpnvns is not too strictly tied to the present context: although the word stasis here in part at least answers stasiasousi in the previous sentence, we can hardly conclude that the generalization is meant to refer only to disputes over hegemonies between Greeks fighting together against a common enem~,which is surely an absurdly narrow field for generalization. Herodotus must here be broadening his horizons dramatically, and using the word stasis in the sense which Plato gives it at Republic 47080, where it is distinguished from polemos, war against foreigners, as denoting war between Greeks an argument which depends on the assumption that to Hellenikon is a unity with common interests • ( cf. e.g. Hdt 8. 144.2, with 7.9b.2; and especially Aristoph.Lysistr.1128ff, 146 in (A) .2, above ) . Thus the relation of the moral to the present issue is surely i roni ea 1: it was a 11 very we 11 for the Athenians to resign their claim to the hegemony then, and they observed a sound principle in doing so; but have they not forgotten it since, laying claim to that hegemony in such a way as to bring the Hellenic nation to a war more terrible'by far than the war against Persia? The second point emerges if we take the whole paragraph together. Given that Athens' resignation was only provisional, 1 as long as they really needed the alliance of the Greeks, as events showed', we can only conclude that their apparent idealism in desiring the sdrvival of Greece cf. 7.139.5 was itself not such a strafghtforward matter after a 11. Athens desired the survival of Greece beause she had plans of her own: that is, even while lheroically' acting i.n the common interest, making sacrifices for the safety of Greece, she was thinking about the future, thinking -about empire! This remarkable conclusion is supported by what Miltiades is made to say to Callimachus before Marathon ( 6.109.3 )~ ~v 6~ uepLylvnTaL ãTn ~ uoALS, oGn T£ fon upohn Twv 'EHnvC6wv uoACwv yev{cr.\tcxL. Miltiades means that Athens will 1 lead 1 the Greek cities in more than just the sense of being the most prosperous or enjoying the most acclaim; he sees that Athenst -273survival brings with it the chance of another prize than just liberty it promises empire. The present passage shows that the Athenians possess just what Herodotus had decided the Spartans lacked, namely vision. For them the important thing is not simply to show valour or obedience, it is to act in the interests of a cause~ the survival of Greece. And that's what makes them so dangerous! For what looks to casual observers like idealism, the championship of Hellenic interests, is for Herodotus the determined pursuit • of self-iQterest. The Athenians are the work's chief, and most disturbing, example of Herodotus' pre-occupation with the conflict between apparently admirable action and shady motive, which is but an offshoot of the interest in instructive paradoxes which we explored in Chapter One147. * 2. With the Greek fleet drawn up at Artemisium, Herodotus offers us a further example of a regular scene-type, that is, a decision by the Greeks to abandon that particular line of defence and retreat to safety ( 8.4.1 ): enst auToLaL The motif is one that Herodotus used at Tempe ( 7.173.4, ooxfrLv §~c*μoL &ppw6Ln nv TO UEL%0\! ) , and at Thermopylae ( 7. 207 ~. El:uuon nD,as eyi:;vsTo cf. 218.2 ), and it appears again after Artemisium ( 8.18, opnaμov 6£ eSodAsuov laoo ls Tnv 'EAAaoa; and cf. 23.1 )148, and especially before Salamis ( 8.40.lf, 49.2, 56ff, and 70.2, TOD§ 6£ vEAAnvas slxs oles TE xat &ppoooCn, oux nMLcrrn 6£ Tous &no IlEAonovvnaou; cf. 74.1, 75.2 ( the message to Xerxes), ' v ,.., '. 6 's ,, 6, ,P~OO\!Ta OTL OL EAAnVES pncrμov OUAEUOVTaL xaTappw nxoTES ..• ) . The emphatic repetition of this litany suggests that Herodotus is concerned to make as much as he can of the inconstancy of the allies, certainly in part as a foil to the heroism of those who do remain .constant, but also clearly to show us the lack of really decisive leadership on the Greek side, resulting in near-disastrous division. -274In the present instance at least we cannot much admire the manner in which the Greeks are made to stay at Artemisium. The Euboeans149 are dismayed at the desertion of their cause, and approach Eurybiadas to make him change his mind unsuccessfully 150. Whereupon they turn their attentions to the Athenians and persuade Themistocles ( 8.4.2 ), tKt μLa61i\L TPL~xovTa TaldvToLaL, Themistocles achieves this object by first approaching Eurybiadas with 5 And then he turns to the Corinthian, Adeimantos ( 'A6£LμaV~ijS yap ••• TWV lOLEWV naEaLp£ μouvos ), and Herodotus gives his speech (!) ( OU au y£ nμsas ctKol£L~£LS, £K£L TOL .. 151 auμμaiqus, -?hemistocles gives him 3 talents (5.3 ): OUTW T£ on ElnysVT£S owpOLDL &vaKEK£LDμEVOL naav xat TOLDL EuSosuaL Exe.:x&:pLOTo, aU-rOs; TE 6 0e:μLoT01tAEns; ExEpOnve:, EA<lv.Sa.vE: at -rCt AoL1tO.-~texwv, &.ll' T)KLDT£Ci.TO OL μ£TalaS6VT£S TOUT WV TWV xpnμchwv £1( TWV **. 'Aenvswv £l6ELV tKt TWL loywL TOUTWL. Herodotus' choice and elaboration of this story testifies clearly to the lack of idealization in his account: the decision to make a stand at Artemisium is taken entirely for reasons of the generals' private profit, not in any • way because it is in the common interest of the Greeks152. It is even suggested in the brief speech of Themistocles to Adeimantos that the Corinthian may have been discouraging the engagement because he was planning to betray the Greeks to Persia for a better ppice. The salvation of Greece depended on a slender thread indeed, is surely Herodotus' moral here. There is also the unsettling paradox of Themistocles' own behaviour: he achieves the desired result by corrupt means, and moreover sees here an opportunity of profiting himself. We have discussed elsewhere the paradoxical aspect of Themistocles 1 character ( cf. Ch.I.i.7 ): the present story forms a parallel with that of Themistocles' behaviour after Salamis, when, likewise nominally serving the common interest, he again finds an opportunity for private profit. The precision of the parallel may tell against the view that these are merely stories echoed from Herodotus' sources. At any rate the present story of bribery is almost certainly not 'true', reporting as it does secret and ---**--**----- **--**---**--*--**--**--**--**~--** -~--*--- -275obviously undisclosed negotiations; and supposing it to be a fiction, there is no reason why Herodotus should not be its author, rather than the Themistocles152a legend . • The battle of Artemisium itself is given a somewhat cool treatment by Herodotus: Plutarch ( MH 34.867C ) is ri~ht to note the discrepancy between this and Pindar's resonant description of Artemisium ( F77 Snell ): 86L RaLOE<:;; 'AectvaCwv €$aAOVTO ~aEVVaV / xpnRto' EAEU6EpLac;; ; not to mention the inscription which the Greeks set up in the temple of Artemis Proseoa153. As Plutarch remarks, HerodotuscCJlllles near to contradicting the claim of the ,, when he has the Greeks running away from the engagement ( 8.18 ): we;; OS &t.le11n<Ja\);,aaμEVOL. eM.~"fef)Ql, Es opμov T]RELyo'1fo} õ OS "EUnvEc;; we;; OLctXpL(:,£VTE<:;; EM TT]<:;; vauμcixCnc;; chnnfxenaav, TWV μsv vexpwv JH.16 TWv vauny~wv £11:sMp<lTco\J, TPnxEws; oE 1te;pLcq>,&EvTcs, Mat oUJ< TiML_OTct 'M}:i:ivaLOl, ••• opncr}JGV 611 e:SoJle:uov eaw €:$ Tfl'\I 'EH~6111.. It is hard to see what justifies his use of the expression, beyond noting, as Plutarch does ( see above n.,~e ), hts obvious attachment to it. The most that can be said is that there is a certain Homeric grandeur and pathos in Herodotus• conclusion to the battle narrative ( 8.16.3 ): ROAAat μsv oh w:e:c;; TE Twv SapSapwv xat civopEc;; ( cf. e.g. Hom.11.4.543-4, with e.g. Alcaeus .l,.c"P 283.12ff ). Again, as at Marathon and later at Salamis and Plataea, Herodotus allows the battle itself to emerge as an ergon axiologon, while finding as much as possible to be cynical about in the framing context. Just because the gods w~nted the Greeks to win the battle ( cf. S.13 ), it does not mean that Herodotus is prepared to show us they deserved to do so for any other reason than that, when it came to it, they fought bravely: they clearly do not win in his account because of their virtue in any other respects! * • -276- (H) Salamis. 1. The account of Salamis is remarkable for an extraordinary disproportion in its dramatic emphasis. Though the account of the battle itself is full enough ( 8.83-96 ), its effect is overwhelmingly outweighed by the enormously protracted build-up, from the moment when the Greeks first assemble at Salamis ( 8.40~82 ): the battle itself covers roughly 7 pages of OCT, the build-up 19 pages. Certainly the length of the build-up is defensible in dramatic terms, the battle being without dispute the turning-point of the war, and so deserving elaborate preparation 154. But that the greater part of this is disturbingly unheroic, concentrating almost exclusively on. the protracted and circling indecision of the Greek allies, is something different~ 54a. It is only at the urgent request of the Athenians that the Greeks are made to stay and fight at Salamis ( 8.40.lf; see n.149 above ). The Athenians want to be able to evacuate their women and children from Attica, and to have • time to consider what they ought to do; they are at heart really only concerned with their own preservation, though they see that this lies in being able to persuade the allies to fight for them: cnt yap TOt~L xaTnXOUOL npnyμ~QL Soulnv £μ£llov noLnaacr6ã ~S E<j>EUDμEVOL yvwμns. 60XSOVT£S yap £Upncruv I1£lonovvncrCoi.ls nav6nμd. CV TnL BoLwTLnL unox~Tnμevous TOV SapSapov, TWV μEV £Dpov OU6£V cov, OL 6E enuve&voVTO TOV 'Icr6μov aUTOUi T£LXEOVTas, Tnv TI£lonovvncrov R£pt nlELCTTOU noLe:oμsvous R£pLdVaL 55 xat Tmhnv sxovTas CV q>Ulm<nL, Ta. &lla 6£ ansvaL. In this paragraph Herodotus sets the scene for the entire narrative until just before Plataea, when the Athenians are again disappointed at the abandonment by the allies. The Athenians require the Peloponnesians not to desert them; the latter on the other hand see no reason why they should not retire behind the Isthmus wall and protect their own homes, rather than defend what they believe is a lost cause. Which of these sides is to get its way is the theme of the long build-up to Salamis. When the council does take place ( 8.49.lff ), the question put to the allies by Eurybiadijs seems already to have prejudged the issue ( 49.1 ): oxou 6oxsoL inLTn6£LoTaTov ELV~L vauμaxCnv noLsecr6aL -277they were still unaware that Xerxes had taken it! ), ,wv 6£ AOLKwv u(pL Most of the allies are for a retreat to the Peloponnese and the Isthmus wall ( 49.2 ). At this moment a messenger arrives to announce that the Mede has reached Attica and is even now ravaging it with fire 50.lff ). Having narrated Xerxes' arrival at Athens in a longish parenthesis 8.51-5 ), Herodotus records the reaction -0f the allies at Salamis ( 8.56 ): As we have seen, the inconstant panic of the Greeks before a major battle is almost a stock motif with Herodotus, and it is here given a comic exaggeration. Again it is partly no doubt a foil to the introduction of Themistocles 1 famous plan, to highlight the presence of mind and steadfastness of purpose of Greece's saviour ( but see below); but equally Herodotus makes a point of not sparing any of the allies assembled at Salamis157. The narrative of Themistocles' negotiations follows at once; but here again Herodotus seems to be doing his best to subtract from the glory of the legend ( cf. Plut.MH 37.869CF ). The MnesiphilGs-episode, as we have seen earlier { cf. Ch.I.i47 }, must be judged to be a story told against Themistocles, as Plutarch so indignantly observes it to be. To what extent Herodotus is responsible for the story cannot be decided for certain: Mnesiphilos was definitely a historical personage ( known to us even from the ostraka ), and his association with Themistocles as mentor and friend is well established outside Herodotus; but it may still be that it was Herodotus himself who chose to introduce him at this critical juncture to 1 advise 1 Themistocles, like many another Herodotean 1warner1158. Herodotus• Mnesiphilos, we may say, knows and thinks things that Herodotus' Themistocles does not and the nature of his promptings deserves careful note. Just as before Artemisium Themistocles needed the prompting of Euboean gold to make him do the 1right thing' for Greece, so here too he converts the advice of • -278Mnesiphilos into the saving of the allied cause. Herodotus1 Themistocle-s needs to be instructed in the importance of Hellenic unity but once given a lead, he can turn it to the best practical advantage, dressing up Mnesiphilos' idea as his own { 8.58.2, cwu,oU KOLEUμEvos, MaL aAAa UOAAa Kpocr,L6ELS, 8 &vlyvwcrE ). Without Mnesiphilos, Themistocles would appear an idealist in his own right; as it is, Herodotus can suggest that the hero of Salamis is a man of immense practical abilities, but devoid of sentiment; the same man who later turns just as easily to the shameless betrayal of the Greeks. Mnesiphilos points out the importance of Hellenic unity ( 8.57.2 ): ,, ,, .n ' , \ , , '\ - ,, ' " , ,, ou TOL apa, nv auapwcrL ,as VEas auo raAaμLvos, ou6E UEPL μLns ETL ua,pC6os vauμaxncrELS" xa,& y&p K6ALS ~xaOTOL ,pl4ov,aL, xat OUTE õlas EupuSLa6ns xaT£XELV 6uvnoE,aL OUTE TLS &v6pWKWV &AAOS WOTE μ~ OU 6LaCTME6aoenvaL T~V o,pa,Lnv* &uoA£ETaC TE~ 'EAAas &aouACnLOL, Once more we are made to hear that pan-Hellenic idealism is lacking in the allies: once they have sailed away from Salamis, there is no-one who will be able to recall them to fight 'for Greece', for national unity. Somehow they must be constrained to fight for Greece 'against their will 1 : and this ( eventually! ) is what Themistocles achieves. But of cause hardly any source for Salamis can have wished to implyt,hatthe heroism of that hour was merely a matter of coostx-aint.,even the Athenians, who are after all only incidentally party to Themistocles' conspiracy in Herodotus' account: even if such a tale were true, the tradition would surely have done its best to suppress it. This seems particularly clear from the story of Themistocles' message to • Xerxes, which appears in the tradition as early as Aeschylus' Persae ( 355ff ), and is for that reason probably historical in some form159. Whereas in Aeschylus it seems clear that there is nothing secret here between. the Greeks, no suggestion that Themistocles was deviously forcing the hands of the Greek generals, nothing for the Greeks to have been ashamed of, and the ploy seems to be mecwt as a concerted scheme of the Greeks as a who 1 e, in Herodotus there is no doubt that the whole business tefl ects the utmost discredit on the Greeks, who are forced against their will into fighting Salamis by this secret and almost 'treacherous' ruse of Themistocles. No doubt with -279enough ingenuity it would be possible to think of a 'source' fõ Herodotus' version of the story; but it must surely seem probable, in view of Herodotus' clear and repeated insistence on the inconstancy of the Greeks at Salamis, that this re-interpretation is no-one 1 s work but his own. At any rate he. certainly knew Aeschylus' play ( cf. n.171 ), so that we cannot argue that he was involuntarily misled into adopting a malicious version of the story. Once Themistocles has persuaded Eurybiadas of the urgency of his request, there is another assembly ( 8.59ff) at which Themistocles 1 presumption is chided by the same Adeimantos who had only been diverted by the former's bribe from deserting the Greek cause at Artemisium ( 8.59; cf. 8.5.lf ). Themistocles resolves at first to conduct himself meekly and not to advance the invidiotJs argument he had used to Eurybiadas ( 8.60.1, ws he:av anapwcrl, • x6crμov ou6tva xaTnyop{El,\I ( see below). Herodotus reminds us that the inconstancy of the Greeks demands castigation, but that Themistocles' practical diplomatic sense prevents him saying so. Instead he begins with an appeal to the safety of Greece ( 8.60a.l ): tv aot vUv lo/TL crwaal, TTJV 'EAAa6a, ~~ lμot 1tEC&nl, vauμaxlijy * auTou μ{vwv nol,tEcr&al,160. But given that this sort of idealism runs a bit thin with the allies, he proceeds at once to detailed strategic arguments, not insisting that the loss of Salamis, Megara and Aegina would be a betrayal of the Greek cause; he merely adds this parenthetically to the disadvantages of fighting at the Isthmus, and indeed insists 8.609 that the survival of these will be of profit ( kerdos ) to them, and that the Peloponnesians own interests will be best served if they follow his plan ( 8.60b.l ): \ .. ' #6 ' " ""' ,, - ' , , Mat. μE\I ,W.t. TO E E:\I aUTOl,Gl, E\IECTTl,, TOU xal, 1tEpl,EXEG~E μaALCTTa0 6μoCws auToO TE μ{vwv npouvauμax~crEt.S IlEAonovu~aou xat np~s TWl, 'Icr&μwl,, ouot cnpfos, EL 1tEP ED qipoveELs, &i;ELs ht TTJV IlEA01t6vvncrov. But for all this Themistocles has to face further criticism from Adeimantos -280The gibe shows that so far from wishing to consult the common interest of all the Greeks, Adeimantos at least can regard the responsibilities of the allies to the Athenians as now at an end. But it also Qffers a foil to Themistocles 1 riposte, which finally breaks out into abuse ( 8.61.2, ROAAU T£ xat xaxa £A£Y£ ): lwu,ots ,£ &6nlou ldywL &s sfn xst u61LS x•t yfi μttwv ~. nsp ~xsCvoLaL, £CfT •; Sv OLflXOOLaL vtes O(f)L £WOL unlnpwμtvav oo6aμoos yetp 'EUrivwv au,ous enLov,as £ELMpouascr~aL. The underlined words are an extraordinary addition: Themistocles rightly st,esses t• i..-rtmtet of t-IU:liMlflliM f1 nt, !!>:wt •i s.@,w l!!I i. 1- -* to i ,,, is t not on the advantage to the Greeks of this asset ( the ,3.rgument required by the context) but on the superiority which it brings the Athenians over all the other Greeks}61? The Athenian fleet, says Themistocles, gives them the ability to attack any of the Greeks with impunity: but this refers to nothing that Herodotus is to tell us about the Athenians in the narrative, and can only be read as an anticipation of the future. The Athenians may have had to sacrifice their lands and their city, but the fleet which is to guarantee not only their survival but their future empire, remains safe. Already in the depths of acute crisis, the Athenians, through Themistocles, are foreseeing what can come out of victory for them. Themistocles finally turns to Eurybiadas and in less antagonistic terms ( 8.62.lf, μffllov tnsa,paμμtva ), though still more pointedly than before, calls upon him to If Eurybiadas does not listen to this, the Athenians will up and sail for Siris in Italy: uμe:ts 6t avμμdxwv TOLWVO£ μouvw~EVHS μq1V11crrñe: TWV &μwv 16ywv. Whereupon Eurybiadas is persuaded ( 8.63 ): 60X££LV 6£ μoL, &ppw6ncras μaALOTa TOUS The conclusion is far from simple: Themistocles'1 threat may be meant only as a gambler's bluff, although Herodotus does not help us to decide, but even so it raises -231the possibility, which the Spartans take seriously, distrusting the Athenians as they have done before ( cf. e.g. 5.91.1 ) and are to do again ( cf. e.g. 8.141.1 below), that if the Athenians cannot ensure the adoption of the plan that will guarantee their own surviial, they will not remain by the Greek cause. It does seem that Athens' pan-Hellenic 'idealism' rests only on the understanding th~t Greek unity means their own survival. The most disturbing impression of the debate as a whole is its tone: the repeated insults of Adeimantos, which finally sting Themistocles into complementary abuse, despite his original intention to keep bitterness out of his speech; Themistocles' threatening reminder that the Athenians are a match for any of the Greeks ( and can prove it! ); the distrustful fears of Eurybiadas that the Athenians really mean to desert the Greek cause. All this vividly illustrates the extreme uneasiness of the Greek alliance, and undermines the epic glamour of the Greek defence; and there can be no doubt that this 'dramatization' is Herodotus' own free composition. Herodotus has not yet finished with the theme.of Greek inconstancy. Shifting attention briefly to the Persian side ( 8.66-9 ), he tells us of the advtce Artemisia gave the king, first of the superiority of the Greeks at sea ( 8.68a.1 ) and then the recommendation that if he must attack, he should not attack at once ( 68b.lf ): ou y&p olõ TE •oXÃv xp6vov Elat &vTEXELV ot vEAAnvEs, &AA& • CT~Eas OLaOXEOCTLS, xa.Tct u6ALs 0€ €XO.CTTOL ~eutovTaL •.. OUTE aUTOUS olx6sw ffv ab €Kt T~V IlEAox6vvncrov &Aa6vnLs Tov KE~3v aTpa.Tdv, dTpEμLEtv TOUS €XEt~EV aUTOOV nxovTa.s, ou6e cr~L μEXnaEL upo TOOV 'Ãnva(wv , va.uμa.XEELV. Artemisia 1 s forecast that the Persians will be defeated ~nan engagement at Salamis by the supetior skill of the Greeks at sea, contrasts uneasily with her reminder that they are far from steadfast in their decision to defend Salamis and in their championship of the Athenians ( see below). Indeed we have seen that things are worse even than she implies and there is still more to come. When the Persians finally sail up to Salamis, Herodotus ~***--*---*--*---***-----------**--**--*----- -282describes a further change of heart among the Greeks ( 8.70.2 ): Tõs 6t 11They were afraid at having to remain at Salamis and fight a sea-battle for the Athenians' land, and feared that they would be defeated and then besieged on the island, while their own homes went unprotected". At this point Herodotus describes the Peloponnesian arrangements for the fortification of the lsthmus ( 8.7lf ), the wall which is to play such a significant role in Peloponnesian strategy after Salamis below). After a brief listing of the Peloponnesians who did not help the Greek cause in any way 8.73.3, sL 6t tAsu~epws ~ssoTL and a reminder that the Peloponnesians at the wall put no faith in the outcome of Salamis ( 8.74.1 ), Herodotus returns once more to the doubts of the loyal Peloponnesians at Salamis ( 74.1 ). In Homeric fashion, they grumble amongst themselves 8.74.2 ): ~ws U8V 6n &vnp &v6pL 1tapaoT&s OLyftL A6yov £1t0L£ETO, emua 1tOLEUUEVOS Tnv Eupui3u£6sw ai30UÃnv* T£A6s 6€: E~Eppayn ES TO μeoov. ouUoyos T€ 6n ' , ' i\' ' , ' - ' t '\ t ' '\ ' , EYLVETo xaL 1tOAAa EYEVETo 1tEPL Twv auTwv, oL usv ws ES Tnv ITs>..01tovvnoov XPEOV sCn &1toKA£ELV xaL ltEpL exdvns HLV6UVE'UELV, un6t 1tp0 xwpns 6opLaAWTOU EVOVTas uaxsoiaL, 'AenvatoL 68 xaL ALyLVftTaL xat Msyapsss aUTOU UEVOVTas &uovrniaL. .. • The resentment of the allies has finally reached its apogee its embittered tone is caught in Herodotus' pointed language ( compare this with 8.70.2, above) and Themistocles is powerless to influence them further. There follows the famous stratagem, whose probable revision by Herodotus we have discussed above ( 8.75.lf ). What in Aeschylus was deception pure and simple, here has much more truth in it 162 ( 75.2 ): The emphasis on the disunity of the Greeks in Herodotus' version is unsettlingly true: we see the allies in the same condition of disarray as the Ionians at Lade. ~******--------- --- -283The debate of the allies is still going on163, when Aristides ~rosses from Aegina with the news of the encirclement. The interview between Aristides and Themistocles 164 seems unlikely to have been part of the tradition, especially when we consider that it requires a doublet of Aristides 1 mission ( the arrival of the deserting Tenian trireme at 8.82.lf 1 ~ 1tEp 6n 1,EPE Tnv &An&ñnv ToicrL Sappapov xaTElOUOL ) to get the allies to believe the truth of the report. Why Herodotus should wish to give Aristides, the architect of the of the Delian League, the glowing approval that he does is hard to guess ( 8 79 1 ) ' ~ 'A - ' ' . , ~ ' ' - $:. , ' ' ' , • : av11p &nvaLOS μev E~WOTpaxLOμEVOS OE U1t0 TOU unμou, TOV EYW VEV6μLxa, 1tUV&avoμf:VOS mJTOU TbV Tp01tOV, <lpl..OTOV av6pa YEVEO&aL. tV 'A&nvnLOL xat 6LxaLOTaTov, No doubt the Aristides-legend was already well under way165, but it may be th~t Herodotus sees something significant in his ostracism by the new democracy: Aristides might be imagined as a paragon of the lost world that Themistocles, the empire and the radical democracy of Ephialtes and Pericles had supplanted 166. At any rate it is clear that Herodotus brings him in here more than anything as a foil to Themistocles, and more particularly to illustrate how the rest of the allies ought to be behaving and are not. Aristides realizes more clearly than anyone else in Herodotus• narrative that this time of national crisis demands the reconciliation of private differences ( 8.79.2 ): t~ExalcETo 0EμL.crToxlla, tovTa μEv ewuTwL. ou ~llov, 11:oLEOμEvos; s~sxaleno, &llwv mh@L cruμμst:~aL . Before he announces his news, he delivers a homily to Themistocles on how they both ought to conduct themselves ( 79.3 ): This sounds paradoxical: stasis is the endemic malady of the Greek polis, the last thing to be encouraged unless of course it is directed to the good, rivalry not in self-seeking but in servingthe common weal. But in the context of Herodotus' narrative Aristides 1 words raise disturbing doubts: the 1 good1 rivalry which he advocates here is quite obviously lacking between • -284the allies. Indeed the bitter antagonism between Themistocles and Adeimantos which Herodotus has just so vividly described is clearly meant to testify to its absence and there are more examples still to come. Aristides' message brings home the inadequacy of Greek homonoia, on which the legend of the Persian Wars seems to have laid great stress ( see Isocr.Paneg.85, quoted above, n.167 )168. * 2. All this time the Greeks have been wavering, planning to abandon Salamis, to leave the Athenians and others to their fate, and to save their own homelands . But the battle is now upon them and they have no escape. Themistocles delivers the speech of encouragement to the troops ( 8.83.lf ): • This is the only straightforward example of this type of speech ( the'encouragement to battle 1 ) in Herodotus' entire narrative ( contrast e.g. Dionysios at 6.ll.2f, with (B), above ) and even this is singular for its lack of explicitness. The absence of such speeches, so common throughout Thucydides' work and, of course, borrowed originally as a literary form as much from Homer as from real life, is surely to be explained by Herodotus' unwillingness to make any ITT;i)he than is necessary of the 'idealism' of the Greek defence:there is to be no talk on such occasions of the unity of Hellas, or the common interests of the Greeks. Instead the abstractions of Themistocles' reported speech leave the reader somewhat detached and cold and indeed wondering whether what the Greeks in fact do in the battle is to choose virtue rather than vice, at least in quite the way that Themistocles seems to mean169. As we shall see again, no "idealistic speech precede~ actions which do show Greek courage, while on the other hand such speeches as there are which do suggest idealism are set in contexts where no worthy actions substantiate that suggestion. -285The narrative of the battle from the Greek point of view is curiously dominated not by stories of Greek virtue, but rather by stories of Greek feuding, recrimination, even treachery. This is no doubt to put the matter too simply, but there is once more a clear disproportion of scale and emphasis. In Aeschylus, by contrast, everything on the Greek side is order and firmness of purpose. The dawn finds the Greeks drawn up unexpectedly in tight battle formation, which strikes terror into the barbarians ( 392ff ): ..• ou y&p ~s; ,uyffL naLav' t,uμvouv cr£μvov VEAAnV£S TOTE, UAA' 8$; μ&xnv opμwVT€S €U~UXWL %pdcr£L. The trumpet sounds the attack ( 395ff ), and all advance in perfect order, with the right wing leading the assault ( 399ff ): ' '' - ,, , TO LOV μ€V npwTOV €UTU~TWS X£pas; ny£LTO xocrμwL, 0£\JTEPOV o' 6 nas; CTTOAOs; £11:€f;£XWP£L , , , ... ~,E;£ o' sμSoAffs; 'EAAnVLXTl (409) vaDs;, x&no%pm5u n&vrn q>oLvCcrcrn,s: v£ws xopuμS'' sn' UAAnv o' UAAOS nu%UV€V oopu. No doubt it would be wrong to imply that Aeschylus' version was in any sense canonical outside Athens or that there were not available to Herodotus numerous different versions of the course of battle. But Herodotus' account, selective . t . 170 * l t . . h . t l b t . h t . as 1 1s , 1s sure y eccen r,c ,n c oos,ng o ea ora e Just t ose s or,es which most suggest Greek disorder and disunity. We should imagine that such stories were largely the exceptions and that the legend of Salamis told ( as Aeschylus does ) that the battle was a triumph of concerted and determined action. Instead Herodotus begins his narrative with a disagreement ( 8.84.lf ). The battle commences when the Greeks put out to sea, where they are set upon at once by the enemy, and proceed to back water ( 8_4.1 ): OL μsv on &U.oL "EHnv£s; npuμvnv UVEXPOUOVTO xai WX€AAOV TClS veas;, ' ' ' ' . ' ' 'A - ' i:- ' . ' ' S ,, ' ' ' Aμ£LvLns; 6£ IlctAAnv£us; a.vnp %nva.Los; £.,,a.va.x%£Ls; vnL £μ ctAA£L.' cruμnA£X£Lcrns OE: Tffs; V£0S xat OU ouva.μevwv &naAActynva.L, OUTW on oL aAAOL 'Aμ£LvCnL Son%£OVT£S crUVEμLcryov. All this is clearly at variance with Aes.«;:hylus1 story of the confident advance of the Greek fleet, a story which Herodotus 1 evident acquaintance with that l l 7! . ht h b th ht t h d d t h. . Th p ay m, g * ave een oug o ave recommen e o ,m ,n some way. e • -286story of Ameinias is, however, according to Herodotus, an Athenian version itself: but though in a sense it reflects well on the Athenians in giving them the honour of having started the battle, it does not imply that the Athenians as a whole initially showed the same courage or foolhardiness as Ameinias. This version Herodotus sets off with another derived from the ALyLvav, ,aJ,nv ELVaL ,nv ap~acrav. And there is even a third version ( AljiTaL 6~ Hat Td6e ), that the apparition of a woman was seen by the whole fleet and heard to berate them in these terms: a; oaLμdVLoL, μ£XPL Hdcrou This third version, whatever its provenance is supposed to be, dramatically emphasizes that what really characterized the opening of the battle was Greek indecision. But Herodotus also wishes to reminds the reader that the heroes of Salamis afterwards squabbled among themselves about who had done what, something which further underlines the already disquieting impression that they all very nearly threw away the chance of being heroes at all. This is not, of course, the healthy rivalry advocated by Aristides, but its opposite; and it is this motif of Greek squabbling which emerges strongly from the whole account of the battle. The rivalry of Athens and Aegina173 is the subject of another anecdote fromthemiddle of the battle ( 8.92.lf ). Herodotus brings together the ships of Themistocles and Polycritus of Aegina and the latter uses the occasion to taunt the Athenian general ( 92.2 ) : Hat Bwcrã ,<>v 0q.iw,oHAea hexep,oμncre c~ It is hard to believe that we are really faced here with a traditional anecdote, since outside the context given it by Herodotus it can scarcely stand up for itself, lacking as it does either a particularly s;igriifitantaction or a striking expression. On the other hand it works in terms of Herodotus' own work because of what he has told us about the background of the rivalry between Athens and Aegina ( cf. Ch.II.ii.F ). But whether or not it is a Herodotuean invention, it • -287is clear that its introduction serves to tell us less about the battle itself 174 than about the spirit in which it was fought on the Greek side: even in the midst of the struggle of national unity these two states could not set aside their squabbling. Moreover its effect is all the more piquant inasmuch as Herodotus, with a most suspicious narrative economy, contrives to sandwich into this anecdote a mention of Pytheas, whose bravery against the Persians in the engagement off Euboea had been so admired by the enemy ( cf. 7.181.lff ): Krios just happened at this moment to be ramming the Sidonian ship on which _was held Pytheas ( 8.92.1 ). The juxtaposition of Greek heroism and Greek squabbling is characteristic of Herodotus' equivocal treatment throughout. There is a third anecdote in a similar vein, which by its treatment, position and scale produces an even more remarkable effect than the two discussed above. Almost the last thing that Herodotus reports from the battle is the long story of Adeimantos1 desertion ( 8.94.lff ): But as they fled, they were approached by a ship of mysterious origin ), whose sailors addressed them in portentous fashion: 'AoECμavTE, ao μev &noaTpt~as * They finally persuade a reluctant Adeimantos by suggesting that he take them atorrg as hostages against the truth of their report. But Adeimantos and his companions reach the Greek camp only when all the fighting is over ( ' ' ER £~Epyaaμ£VOLCTL ). The most remarkable part of the account is still to come ( 8.94.4 ): , i , , ,, • ' ' Acs. , ' , ' . , tOUTOUS μ~v TOLQUTTI ,aTLS EXEL uno vnvaLwV, OU μEVTOL aUtOL YE KopCv-0-l.OL oμoAoye:oucrL, &n. £V 1t:pWTOLCTL a,tas ao-toos T~~ vauμaxCns voμCr;oucrL YEVE:a.Oav pap'fc:V{)~fe6 OE cr,L xat Tl &nn 'EXAasl. , Herodotus' proceeding, as no commentator has failed to remark to his discredit, is extraordinary. Not only the self-evident malice towards the Corinthians • -288of the Athenians, to whom he ascribes the story, but also the confirmation of the Corinthian denial by 'the rest of Gr~ece1 should automatically have warned Herodotus that the story was worthless and yet he reports it in considerable detail, and omits any account of how else the Corinthians might have conducted themselves. We should also note, as does Plutarch { MH 39.870Aff ), that there is a wealth of evidence, most of it accessible to Herodotus, which should have proved that the Corinthians, and indeed Adeimantos himself, did take a valorous share in the fighting at Salamis176. It is inconceivable that Herodotus failed to see that the story was untrue, nor can we believe that he thought it worth telling si~ply because it was his duty to report whatever was told him ( cf. 7.152.3, above ). We need an explanation not for the story 1 s inclusion, but for its selection: when he might have chosen any number of stories of heroism and Greek unity, why does Herodotus give such uncomfortable prominence to an anti-heroic story, whose only interest to the critical reader is that it is a slander, as corroborated by the evidence Herodotus himself has given? The best answer is the one chosen by Plutarch { MH 39.870CD ): To 1,ouTo s fon v lv noUo C'cr1, o &v.\upwnos • hc:pas 1<a6' h c:pwv 61,a So>.&s 1<at 1<aTnyopCas 1<aTaTC6no1,v, !oTE μ~ 61,aμapTEtv ToU ,av~vaC T1,va K~VTWS novnp6v* ~o•ep £~Ta06a •epCEoT1,v ãTra1,, &•1,crTouμtvous 'AenvaCous, n1,crTEuoμc:vns 6e Tns 61,aSo>.ns Kop1,v8Cous &6õEtv. In oth~r words it is very likely part of Herodotus' intention that we should be in a position to infer the probable falsehood of the story; and if we do make that inference, the Athenians emerge in a bad light as slanderers. He must surely be relying on his reader's appreciation of the intense hatred between Corinth and Athens so prominent in his own da/ 77. On at least one level, then, this story is further evidence of Greek division, of the spirit of recrimination and antagonism which so much coloured the memory of the Greek defence for Herodotus, if not the ordinary Greek. This is not to deny, however, that Herodotus has chosen the Corinthians, and Adeimantos in particular, as representatives of those Greeks whose loyalty to the cause could justly be considered suspect. What the Athenians lay at Adeimantos1 door here is at least consistent with what Herodotus has reported of him up to now, his *-------**--**---- -289suspect loyalty at Artemisium ( cf. 8.5.lf, with Themistocles' speech there ) and his obstruction of Themistocles in the debate before Salamis ( 8.59 and 61.lf )178. To that extent Herodotus' inclusion of the story does indeed work both ways, as Plutarch suggests. If this was not what actually happened, it is at least, he hints, not inconsistent with the way things actually stood. We should not forget that in Herodotus' account the Greeks as a whole are fighting at Salamis aga.inst their will. The story may possibly contribute to the impression of a supernatural background to the battle, with the mysterious ship playing much the same role as the mysterious lady earlier ( cf. 8.84.2, above; with e.g. 8.13 ), and suggest that the gods appeared to be watching ' over the proceedings in the interests of a Greek victory; but given Herodotus' telling insistence that this is only an Athenian story, discredited by all the rest of the Greeks, that is unlikely to be the principal reason for its inclusion. If he was principally interested in it as a story about the divine background, he need not have been so explicit about the source-problem, a proceeding.which considerably undermines whatever poetic dignity such a story might have aspired to. 3. What there is of glory attaching to the victory at Salamis is rather* abruptly clouded by Herodotus' narrative of the sequel on the Greek side. * On the morning after, the Grreks, observing the flight of the barbarian, resolve to give chase, which they do without success as far as Andros ( 8.108.lff ). There they hold a council of war, in which Themistcles at first advises that they satt to the Hellespont and dismantle the bridges. Eurybiadas opposes him, pointing out the strategic undesirability of trapping the Persians in Europe, and the Peloponnesian generals concur in this view ( 8.10~:4 J.-Themistocles, thus defeated, turns his attention to the Athenians, who are most eager to sail to the Hellespont alone if need be. He argues to them the case Eurybiadas has just put ( 8.109.2, xa.t a.u,õ non 1toi\AotoL 1ta.pe:ye:voμnv xa.t 'ftOAAWL 'ftASW &xnxoa. TOL&6£ y£veõa.L ••• )(!), and advises them ( 109.2ff to be content with their unexpected success and to stay at home, restoring ---------- .. ---***- .. *-- -290their fields and property, until the following spring. And this, says Herodotus, was all bluff ( 109.5 ): TOUTO ~A£Y£ 4xõnxnv μE:AAWV uoLncracr~aL €~ TOV td uEp ~v Mat £y£v£To. The Athenians believe him because of his, by now, high repute, and he at once sends a message to Xerxes, once again by Sikfnnos ( 110. 2f ) : We have discussed the remarkable implications of this duplicity of Themistocles in detail elsewhere ( cf. Ch . .I.i.7 ). We need only remind ourselves here of the main points: how he seizes on the arguments of Eurybiadas and makes them his own ( just as before he had used the arguments of Mnesiphilos ), how his change of tactic is the merest opportunism, how the dignity of sentiment of his speech to the Athenians is undermined by the cynicism of his motive in so speaking to them, how Herodotus sets out to show the parallelism between this message to Xerxes and the earlier one, which had been the saving of Greece. In other words, Herodotus implies that the same quality in Themistocles which helped the Greeks to win at Salamis, is revealed in his present treachery: the same opportunist duplicity, even the same want of idealism 179. The ensuing narrative of the Greek expedition under Themistocles against the medizing islanders enables Herodotus both to observe once more the duplicity of Themistocles, and to reflect on the arrogant presumption which victory has so soon given the Greeks. Once they had decided not to pursue the barbarian further no.r to break up thebrigges ( 8.111.1 ), TTJV "Avopov 1tcpLxaTsarn The remarkable thing about this episode is that Herodotus fails to explain clearly why the Greeks now embarked on this expedition, even to the extent of not directly remarking that it was in recompense for the islanders' medism180. Indeed it is tempting, inasmuch as Herodotus emphasizes principally the Athenian role in all this ( 8.111.2f ), to see -291him offering us here a foretaste of the reprisals of the Athenian empire against the island states which resisted its power181. But the episode soon becomes more an illustration of the corruptibility of Themistocles ( 8.112.1 ): oo ya.p en:a.uETo n:)..t:ovEuewv. Herodotus reminds us that his exactions of money from the islanders here are no more than a repetition ( hence ou ya.p ' , E'Jl:C;UETO of the kind of behaviour we have already seen from him. Thus he observes that Themistocles used Sikirmos yet againinhis threatening approaches to Itappears from Herodotus• closing sentence that Themistocles' exactions after Andros are secret negotiations of his own ( 8.112.3 ): BEμLcrTox)..ens μev vuv crTpa.Tnyrav. We are reminded not only of his negotiations before Artemisium ( 8.5 ), but also of his two missions to Xerxes. * 4. The next episode involving the Greeks, no less unattractive in its implications, is the matter of the aristeia 182. After having told us of the offerings of the victors td the gods ( 8.121.lff ), Herodotus describes the council of the generals in which they voted for the aristeia ( 8.123.2f ): ' "- "' - ' - • - ' '"- ' ,1.- • ' v EVvet.uTCl 11:Ct.S TLS Ct.UTWV EWUTWL ETLvETO TnV yn,ov, et.WTOS EXClOTOS 6oHi::W~.H apunos yEvecr.&a.L, 6EUTEpa. 6t ol n:oHot cruven:Lnov 0EμLO'TOXA£et. xpCvoVTES ••• 00 Sou)..oμi::vwv 6s Tet.UT(l xpCVELV TOO\) 'EAAJ1\)W\) ,.s-ovwL ••• II .o, ,, ', '' , 'T '' \ < .t oμws vEμLOTOXAEns ESwcr~n TE xa.L E6õw-&n EvVa.L a.vnp n:o)..)..ov E)..)..11vwv ao,ooTet.TOS ava n:acra.v Tnv 'E)..)..a6a.. After recounting the honours given to Themistocles and Eurybiadas at Sparta, Herodotus adds an anecdote about Themistocles' treatment by one of his fellowAthenians ( 8.125.lf )182a: Th . t 1 I 1 . . t t d " ' :>\ ' " ' ' B 1 , em1s oc es rep y 1s an appropr,a e pu own: ouT. cw qw Ewv EASLVLTns -292Herodotus evidently means the story of the generals' voting at the Isthmus ( depriving Themistocles of the aristeia through phthonos ) and the story of Timodemos ( minimizing Themistocles 1 achievement through pbthonos ) to complement one another. He thus observes pointedly that not only between individuals of different states but also between members of the same state mutual rivalry of the worst sort prevents either virtue being rewarded as it ought to be183, or the citizens helping one another to do the best for the state. This is perhaps a further reflexion of Aristides 1 observations about stasis_ ( 8.79.3, above ); but we may also turn back to a remarkable account of the workings of phthonos in the polis given by ( of all people Xerxes. Defending the goodwill of Demaratus against the attack of Achaimenes, the king explains that he judge~ by Demaratus1 former good advice ( 7.237.Zf ): Hat TfilL f6VTL, 5TL UOAL~TnS μE:V UOALnTnL Ei npncrcrOVTL t6oVfEL ( i.e. just as Timodemos 'envies' Themistocles! ) xat lcrTL 6ucrμEvns TftL OLYftL, ou6~ Rv auμBouAEUoμ{vou TOD &crToO noAL~TnS &vnp T~ &pLOTa ot 60H€0VTa ElvaL uno6SOLTO, El μn npocrw &pETftS &vnxoL" crnaVLOL 6e ELOL ol. ,.-ot..ouToL ( e.g. like Aristides! ). l;E'Cvos 6E: LvwL di npncrcrovTC EOTL EUμEVSOTaTOV UUVTWV, cruμBoUAEUOμevou T6 av auμBoUAEUOELE ' ,, Ta apLOTCL. It seems unlikely that Xerxes is meant to be describing the life of a Persian polis, and the word polietes is surely meant to direct our attention to the Greek city-state, of which Demaratus is after all a representative, and an envirius citizen at that ( cf. e.g. 7.104.2 ). The very remoteness of Xerxes' analysis from the immediate dramatic situation should open the reader. 1 s eyes to its general application. As we have seen, Herodotus is interested in the contrast between the •generous loyalty' of defecting Greeks towards the king ( xeinos I xeiñi ) and the bitter enmity towards their fellow-Greeks ( polietes I polietei ); and as for the relations between Greek states and between the individual members of those states, Herodotus observes the almost complete absence of loyalty and fellow-feeling and the almost complete dominance of private interest and mutual hostility, The matter of the aristeia is for Herodotus symbolic of the weakness of Greek freedom, where every man is encouraged, in the absence of restraint, to go out for what he can get -293for himself ( in the words of 5.78: auTos sxacrTos t -EWUTWL [ 11:pO.\JU]JE:ETctL] , )184. XCI.TEpyet.l;;EO.\}Ct.L * (I) Between Salamis and Plataea. 1. The next important Greek action that demands our attention here is the mission of Alexander to Athens and the debate which follows ( 8.136.lff )185. Mardonios sends Alexander to Athens to win them over from the Greek cause ( 8.136.2f ): , ' ,, , ; ..,. ' " , ' ' ,, AEWV TE 11:0:\:\ov apa axouwv £LVaL xaL alxLμov, Ta TE Ket.Ta Tnv .\}aAet.crcrav OUVTUXOVTa cr,L 11:a.\}nμaTCI. XCI.TEpyacrμlva μaALOTCI. 'A.\JnvaLOUS £11:LOTCI.TO. TOUTWV 6e 11:poayEVO]JE:VWV Xet.TnAn:~7;:E Ull:ETEWS Tn, .\}a:\acrcrns xpaTnGELV, Ta 11:EP &v xat ~v. 11:£s~L 6£ £60XE£ IOAAiL ELVCI.L xpeaawv ••• This is of course a reworking of a theme Herodotus has deployed before, principally in 7.139, but also at 8.63 ( above ): the. saving of Greece depends on the fortitude of the Athenians. Before Salamis the Athenians could not, unlike the other Greeks, do much to save themselves by medizing, since the king meant to punish them for their crimes against him so that previously there had been a motive of self-preservation to keep them loyal to the Greeks. Now on the other hand Mardonios seems to be promising them not merely immunity but profit as well and yet the Athenians still resist. Surely Herodotus sees in this resistance a clear triumph of Athenian idealism, preferring to save Greece, even, if it must be, at their own cost (seethe orators quoted above, n .. lij5 )? But if Herodotus is simply and unequivocally glorifying Athens' altruistic defence of Greek freedom, then we have misjudged his sympathies entirely. 186 Howeve~ as usual the matter is rather more complex . We should state briefly here that this debate at Athens, in which the Spartans challenge the Athenians with their loyalty to the Greek cause, is part of a larger structure which includes the mission of the Athenians to Sparta at the start of Book Nine, in which the Athenians accuse the Spartans -294of disloyalty to them and to Greece. Rather than prejudge the intricate design of this structure, however, it will be better to analyse it first as Herodotus meant it to be read, by considering how it works as a 1 i near sequence. Alexander's speech ( 8.140a.lff} puts the Persian offer to the Athenians: he reports the message of Mardonios, which itself purports to contain a message from the king. Mardonios elaborates on the king's 'offer' by pointing out the weakness of the Greek position and the measureless resources of Persia, as well as the losses Athens stands to incur, and concludes ( 8.104a.4 }: napsxEL 08 uμtv naAALCTTa naTaAucracr~aL SacrLAEOS TaUTnL opμnμsvou~ [crTE 8AEU~EpOL, nμtv oμaLxμCnv cruv~sμEVOL avEU TE OOAOU nat &naTns. The irony of Mardonios' offer is palpable: such an arrangement would neither be 1 fine 1 ( at least morally, though it may be so ptudentially }, nor would it give the Athenians 'freedom' in any honourable sense. Alexander, however, in his well-intentioned way ( 8.140b.lff} urges the Athenians to accept the offer for their own sake rather than suffer from their exposed position ( EV TpCSwL TE μaALCTTa OLnnμc:vwv TWV cruμμaxwv naVTWV ). Instead of having the Athenians reply at once, Herodotus complicates matters by introducing an embassy which Sparta has sent having heard of Alexander's overtures ( 8.141.1: }: &vaμvncr~c:vTEs Tffiv >..oyCwv ws crqieas XPEOV €CTTL &μa TotcrL aAAOLO'L 6wpLEUCTL ennCnTELV EX ITE>..onovvncrou uno Mnowv TE nat 'ÃnvaCwv~ napTa TE EOELcrav μn oμoAoyncrwcrL TWL Ilc:pcrnL 'ÃnvatoL. We should notice the ominous effect of the mention of this prophecy here: Herodotus raises the possibility that Athenian treachery against the Dorian Greeks may, if not now then later, become a reality. He does not as a rule ( pace Macan, ad loc. } care to cite prophecies whose untruth is glaringly obvious, and as suggested in my discussion of 7.151 above ( cf. (E}.3 ), there is reason to suppose that the possibility here envisaged, namely that the Athenians would come to terms with the Mede and set about enslaving the Peloponnesians, may indeed have been canvassed as Athens and Sparta prepared ----***--***--**--***--**---- -295t t t th t . of Herodotus' wr,*t,*ng187 o go o war a e ,me To have such a sugg~stion brought to our attention here surely throws a disturbing light on the Athenians' apparently so forceful repudiation of the Persian overtures. And there are other indications in the debate that this is a deliberate irony. The Athenians, Herodotus says, made a point of delaying tn their reply, knowing .the reason for the Spartan embassy ( 141.2 ) : e:1tCTn6c:s Jiv h0Cs1.n>\'. lv6ELKVUμE\JOL TotcrL AaxE6aLμovCoLCTL Tnv lwuTfil\) yvwμnv.~ The Spartan speech is an important addition to the debate 188; it is clear that to have the Spartans so forcibly point out the disgrace of the Athenians accepting Mardonios1 overtures substantially dilutes the force of the Athenians 1 own repudiation. It looks a1most as though Herodotus means to show the Athenians miscalculating the effect of allowing the Spartans to speak first. Instead of being able to score points off them, they are put in the invidious position of having to answer a challenge to their virtue. The Spartans ( 142.lff) require the Athenians not to submit to Mardonios: μnTE VEWTEPOV ltOLEEL\J xaTa Tnv 'EAAaoa μ~TE Aoyous 8\JOEKEcr.\}aL 1tapa TOU $ap$apou. ÕTE yap OLKQLO\J ou6aμffis ÕTE xocrμo\J (flEpOV ÕTE YE a.AAOLCTL 'EAAnvwv ou6aμot:crL, uμt:v 6£ 6n xaL 6Lct. ltd\JTW\J nxwTa ltOAAW\J EtvExa* nyc:CpaTE y&p TOV6E TO\) ltOAEμov UμEts ou6ev nμswv $OUAoμlvwv, , , - • , • • • , • , 18 9 * , , xaL ltEPL TnS UμETEpns apxn.\}c:V O ayw\J EYEVETO • VUV OE (flEPEL xat £S 1t5crav 'EAAa6a. aAAWS TE TOUTW\) &1ta\JTW\J alTCous yEvecr8aL 6ouAocruvns ~otcrL •EAAncrL 'A8nvaCous o66aμfils &vacrxc:Tov, otTLVES alc:t \ . ' ,, , "I ~ \ '' , . ' , xaL;;To 11:a.AaL cpaLvc:cr.\}E lt011.~€HlS EAEU.\}EpwcravTES av.\}pw1twv. They then offer to look after the Athenians' women and children as long as the war lasts; and they conclude with a warning against Alexander ( TUpavvos yap lwv -rupavvwL cruyxa-rEpyctsETaL) and the untrustworthiness of the barbarians )190. Th S t e par ans in other words charge the Athenians with their duty ( to. dikaion ) : they were responsible for involving Greece in the war, so that it would be shameful indeed for them to back out now; moreover, the Athenians' reputation, of which they themselves make so much, demands that they should not be responsible for enslaving the Greeks. It has often been seen that this debate is interlarded with motifs of Athenian state rhetoric, best known to us from the Epitaphioi ---------------***---***----**-------------***--** -296Logoi191• and Herodotus 1 readers are bound to have been familiar with the Athenians 1 own catalogue of their contributions to Greek freedom. It is this reputation with which the Spartans are challenging them, and which is appealed to once more in the Athenian reply. The Spartan challenge, however, surely contains an irony, unseen in the dramatic context, but transparent to the attentive reader: while Herodotus was writing, Athens was being charged throughout the Greek world with responsibility f9r enslaving its threat to Greek liberties were the central issues of Greek international affairs in Herodotus 1 lifetime, we can hardly avoid reading these words about 11the unacceptability of the Athenians being responsible for the enslavement of the Greeks11 as a deliberate irony. The only alternative to this view is to assume that what Herodotus thought he was doing was exonerating Athens' record in his own time; but this is hard to maintain when he so signally fails ever to make such an apology explicit. Thus the debate is yet another example of Herodotean equivocation, going as it does to the very brink of outright approval of Athens' record, but supplying just enough hints to give the attentive reader pause. The Athenian repudiation too must be read again this background: that was what they said then, but look what they have done since and how empty their claims to be the guardians of Greek freedom! Their reply ( 8.146.lff} serves only to compound the irony 192. To Alexander they say that they are aware of xat oovwμE~a. f]l~ir reply to the Spartans sounds an uneasy note of rivalry ( 144. lf } : -297The inflated rhetoric of this speech drives home the irony even further. 11It is clear that the brave words of the Athenians are double-edged when viewed from the perspective of Herodotus and his contemporaries. Athens made peace with Persia to gain land and gold. The burned shrines were rebuilt by Pericles with imperial revenues. Those common bonds linking Greek to Greek were snapped by the outbreak of war between them11 ( Fornara p.86 ). In particular the resonant appeal to the community of interest of all Greeks, their common language and culture, is one that rings distinctly hollow in the context of Herodotus• narrative: we have seen few Greeks if any who really respected the ~nity of Hellas, a great number to whom it meant nothing at all. Indeed we clearly recall what Mardonios had said about the Greeks and their civil wars ( 7.9b2 ): Toõ xpnv, lovTã Herodotus has given some reason to believe that the Athenians are different in their apparent attachment to the ideal of Hellenic freedom ( esp. 7.139.5 ), but equally those hints have never been quite unequivocal. Athens seems attached rather to the idea of a unified and free Hellas with herself as hegemon! This interpretation is once more re-inforced by an irony in Herodotus1 choice of words, 11under no circumstances whatsoever would we ever 1medize' and enslave Hellas 11 , the same irony that we saw prepared by Herodotus• citation of the oracles ( 8.141.1 ) which predicted just such an eventuality, an eventuality already given some substance by Athens' coming to terms with Persia in the Peace of Callias ( cf. 7.151 ), and very probably, as we said, canvassed more tl 'th S t d ( see above )193. urgen y as war w, par a rew ever nearer To see the debate in its proper context, and to understand the spirit in which Herodotus 'reports' it, we need to read on to the parallel debate at Sparta a few chapters later. The Athenian speech had ended requiring of the Spartans that, rather than make offers of protection for their women -298and children, they make sure to send an army as quickly as possible to Boeotia ( 8.144.4f ) : vuv OE: ••. (JTpa:n,nv ws TUXL.CJrn EXltEμlt8TS ••• nptv fu\) Tnv BoL.wTCnv. But time passes and Mardonios once more captures Athens and once more tries to bring the Athenians round to his side ( 9.4.lff ); once more the Athenians resist temptation ( 9.5.lff, below), but they continue in vain to wait for the Spartans. They had crossed to Salamis disappointed in their expectation of an army from the Peloponnese, which .Accordingly they send messengers to Sparta: &μa μe:v μsμ4oμf~ous ,õs Aaxsoa1,μovCous iTL. 1tsp1,stoov ccrBal6vTa TOV BapBapov ES TT}\) 'ATTL.xnv &11' 00 μsTa a,EwV nvTCaaav ls TT}V BoL.wTCnv, &μa 6e: UltoμvncrovTas !era a,L, U1tEdXSTO 6 Ilt:pcrns μsTaBalOU(Jl, OWCJSL.V, 1tpost1taC TS 5TL. st μn &μUVSU(Jl, 'ÃnvaCOL,(Jl, ws xat aOToC TL,Va &lswpnv supnaovTaL.. The explicit reference back to the debate of Book Eight ( by no means the only one in this passage, cf. esp.9.8.2, below) rules out the suggestion of Macã94 that Herodotus' two narratives 11are from independent sources, and more suo he gives them both, without adjustment, for what they are worth11 • But Macan was right to note the discrepancy: it is extraordinary that the same Athenians who had just asserted that nothing on earth would persuade them to make peace with the Mede at the expense of the other Greeks are now threatening darkly ( and later 9.11.lff, not so darkly that if the Spartans do not hurry up, they will find some means of saving their own skins and the Greeks be damned! We have no way of knowing to what extent Herodotus is alone responsible for this discrepancy, since it is theoretically possible that he has a composite picture from his sources, with one informant stressing the loyalty of the Athenians and another questioning it. But it should be remembered that Herodotus is offering us very few hard facts here~ beyond the information that there was a debate at Athens, at which the Athenians turned down Alexander's overtures and the Spartans agreed with them on a joint strategy, -299that the Spartans then gave the Athenians reason to doubt their loyalty, and that Athenian ambassadors then crossed from Salamis to Sparta to tax them with their inactivity. There is a fair likelih'ood that the rest is all Herodotean. dramatization or interpretation, the licence he habitually allows himself in the composition of speeches. We need by no means suppose that any source actually told him that the Athenians showed signs of being less than loyal to Greece in the episode at Sparta: is this not rather Herodotus' malicious inference about how they might have spoken on that occasion, given his interpretation of the Athenian character? It is worth remembering that the Athenian tradition, as retailed by Isocrates Paneg.94, cf. n.185 ), had it that despite provocation the Athenians "refused to be angry 11 at their betrayal by the allies ( ou6' opyLcr.Stt'vn=:s; Tots; "EUncrL on 1tpou60.Sncra.v • . • ) • Herodotus wi 11 have none of that sentimentality: his dramatization ensures that we sense the note of bitterest recrimination in this embassy to Sparta, and further that we do not stay fooled ( if we evei were) by the earlier rhetoric bf the Athenians, but rather notice that here again fine words can perfectly easily be the merest show, disguising ignoble intentions. It could be objected that Herodotus is merely having the Athenians blackmail the Spartans rather than actually implying they meant at this moment to medize, though I would be happier with such an explanation if Herodotus had actually pointed out that they were only pretending, especially in view of the very aggressive tone of the final speech ( see below). Even if this is what he means, however, it clearly reflects ill on the Athenian character the blackmail is cynical and self-interested, not the blackmail of a city whose first interest is in the survival of Greece and, to judge from Isocrates, it is a version unlikely to have been favoured by many Athenians { and cf. Thucyd. 1.74.2 ). The episode also throws light on the Spartans. Characteristically, Herodotus avoids giving away his position all at once. The Spartans, he begins, were at this time engaged with the Hyacinthia ( 9.7.1 ): -300- ' ' " ' l'. ' c, " .. ' ' " KEPL KAELOTOU 6 11yov Tct TOO veou uopcrUVELV0 aμa 6E TO TELXOS cr~L, TO E:V TWL 'Ia.\Jμli\L E:TELXEOV, l!ctl. n6n E:U(lÃLS E:>..&μ8a.ve. ,, The Spartans apparently have a reasonable excuse, the service of the gods ( but see n.200 below); the mention of the Isthmus wall remains as yet a dark hint of something less honourable. Herodotus then proceeds to give the Athenian speech { 9.7a.lff ). They explain first of all how things stand between them and Persia; the ephors, they 1 charitably 1 assume, will not remember what transpired in the debate at Athens: TOUTO μEV Tnv xwpnv &uo6L60L, 6 ,'\ '\ ' , ( 0A0\) }(Cl,L ctUaTns Presumably we are meant to notice that the Athenians here significantly embellish the offer they actually received from Persia, for we have heard nothing so far about any gift of dominions: do they imply that they would choose the right to rule over a subjugated Greece ( cf. 9.11.2, below)? The Athenian speaker then reminds the Spartans in elevated terms of the decision to repudiate any agreement with Persia ( 9.7a.2 ): nμe[s 6€ ~LO TE 'E>..>..nvLOV aloecr.\J8VTES }((tl, Tnv But this lofty opening gives way to something less dignified: ••• l!CtLUEp a6LMEOμEVOL uu' 'E>..>..nvwv l!ctt XctTCtUp06L60μE\lOL €ULOTaμevoC TE ~TL 1tEp6CtAEWTEPOV EOTL oμo>..oyt'uv TWL IltpcrnL μilHov n UEP UOAEμ8E,L\l0 OU μEv oo6e oμo>..oyncroμEV EMOVTES ELVCtL. Mctl. Tb μEv &u' nμt'wv OOTW &xC8on>..ov vt'μeTa.L tut Toos uE>..>..nva.s. There is clearly a discordant note or two here. The talk of kerdos is certainly unattractive: the Athenians now appear to be insisting that their loyalty conflicts not so much with survival ( i.e. resistance to Persia might mean destruction if they failed) as with profit ( i.e. in choosing the Greek cause they are missing out on the rewards that they might buy with their treachery). In addition they can now see themselves coming to terms with Persia through 11necessity 11 { cf. oo μtv ou6£ oμo>..oyncroμev e:xovTE:s elva.L ). where before they had insisted that 11as long as the sun travels in the same course, we will never come to terms with Persia 11 ( cf. 8.143.2 ). These are no doubt the merest details, but as we shall -301see, they are significant. With the claim that 'they at least are honest towards the Greeks' (above), the Athenians launch into a tirade against the Spartans for their 'treachery' ( 9.7b.lff ). 11In the former debate your fear was real enough that we might give in to Persia; but now that you have discovered our true mind, that we would never betray Hellas, and now that your Isthmus wall is complete, you have betrayed us, standing by and watching while the Mede invaded Attica. We have just cause to be angry with you for such unbecoming behaviour. We demand that you now send a force to face the Mede in Attica, now that Boeotia is lost to us 11 • There is no denying the bitter tone of all this almost as though the Athenians were pleased to be able to berate the Spartans for their inconstancy and it is all the less happy because Herodotus has not yet made it quite clear that the Spartans were indeed 1 betraying 1 the Athenians. H. . t. h . . k t t th. * . . 195 1s narra 1ve, owever, 1s now qu1c o correc 1s om1ss1on though not perhaps altogether with the effect of dispelling the impression that the Athenians were happy to infer the worst. The ephors, he goes on, put off replying until the following day ( 9.8.1 ), and then the next, and so on for ten days: iv 6e TOVTwL TWL xpovwL Tov 'Iõμov sT£Cx£ov Having prepared the ground so carefully with innuendo, Herodotus then shows his determination to make the most of Sparta's treachery by offering his own judgement { 9.8.2 ): ouo' lxw £L,1[£L'I) TO ULTLOV OL' OTTL ().l[l,}(OμEVOU μev 'A>-e:f;avopou ••• 01Cou6nv μq&Xnv ElCOLllOUVTO μn μn6LOUL 'Ãnvcdou~, TOT£ 6t ~pnv ElCOLllOctVTO o06E:μ(~~;, &uo ye n OTL o 'Iõμõ O!pl.. E:TE:TECXLOTO }(UL EOOME:OV 'ÃnvaCwv ETL OEE:Õa.L. ou6tv196. Anyone who supposes that Herodotus' sympathies are really with Sparta 197, must find this entirely ungenerous insistence on their treacherous desertion of Athens most indigestible. The simple truth is that Herodotus has contrived the sharpest possible antithesis between their fine words about justice and loyalty in the earlier debate ( which he is, of course, quite explicit in recalling here, in the references to 'Alexander's arrival at Athens' ) and the obvious cynicism of their real intentions as revealed -302by their subsequent actions. Herodotus now explains how they came to change their minds, in an anecdote which is certainly worthless historically 198, though not certainly a Herodotean invention. On the day before the final meeting was due 9.9.lf ), the ephors were approached by a Tegean named Chileos who urged them to consider that with the Athenians against them and on the side of Persia the gates to the Peloponnese would be thrown open to Mardonios1 army, despite the Isthmus wall: &11' tOUMOUOUTE npCv Tl.. allo 'ÃnvaC01..,01.., The speech of Chileos, besides implying that the Spartans meant to go through with their abandonment of Athens, makes the impression even stronger ~at Athenian capitulation is really likely, and that unless the Spartans act quickly the Athenians will indeed bring disaster on Greece. The ephors see the truth of what Chileos has said ( 9.10.lff) and decide to send out a force of Spartans at once, while it was still night. This secrecy gives Herodotus the opportunity of staging another meeting with the Athenian ambassadors ( 9.11.lff ), at which ( with piquant injustice now! ) the Athenians can be made to berate the Spartans with treachery and to threaten even more openly than before that they mean to accept Mardonios' offer. It is hard to imagine any reason for Herodotus' introduction of ~is extra speech beyond his desire to extract the last drop 199 of embarrassment out of the mutual suspicions of Athens and Sparta . He could for instance instead have given us a speech in which the two sides made up their differences and agreed to fight together in the common cause. But the Athenian accusations are this time more bitter still: UjlCLS j1£V, 6i AaME:6aL.μOVLOL,, mhoti Tr,L.6E μevov-n:.s **YmH~V~L(l TE ayi:.:1:E xat ~aCsi::Ti::, MaTaipooovTES TOD~ cruμμ&xousf 'Ãnvato1.., 6t ws &01..,xi::oμi::vo1.., ' ' • , , .. , "\, *,.., II' ~- 'f,f uio uμe:wv xnTEL,.TE cruμμaxwv XUTU11.UOOVTUL, WL £pcrn1.., OUTW!f; oxws , av OUVWVTUL.. J<UTC'LAUO<XjlEVOl.. 6€: 6rj; .a yctp <3n cruμμaxo1.., BaaL.1£0s y1..,voμ£.\Ja, OUOTpUTE:UOOjlE:.\Ja tit, Tf\\l av txe:tVOL. e:~nyt:WVTC'LL. \Jjlf:ts; 6€ TO f:V~E:tiTE:V μãnae:cr~e: oxotov &v TI., uμtv E~ aDTOU e:x~aCvn1..,. The Athenians accuse the Spartans of making an excuse of their Hyakinthia in order to betray their friends ( the sarcastic tone of paizete is clear leo.,.... but Herodotus has of course contrived that the suspicion is now unfair! -303It is the 1unfairness 1 of this speech, ~he fact that the Athenians' criticisms no longer apply, which is surely its point, bringing out as it does the uneasiness and distrust which h~ve been in the background of all the previous exchanges between the Athenians and Spartans. As for the Athenians themselves, it is now transparent that they are about to renounce the loyalty to the Greek cause which in the debate at Athens they had declared to be as unswerving as the course of the sun itself ( cf. 8.143.2 ), but which we already saw developing flaws in their first speech at Sparta ( 9.7a.lff, above). The future tense katal ontai no longer leaves their intentions in any doubt: had it not been for the timely intervention of Chileos, Herodotus implies, the Athenians would indeed have gone through with this threat ( cf. here also Themistocles at Salamis: 8.62.2, above ). The way that they choose to close this tirade, moreover, cannot be anything but sinister: what other complexion can we give to the warning to Sparta to "watch out what will result for you if the Athenians are forced to side with Persia" than that they will end up marching against the Spartans themselves and not too unwillingly at that? The tone of this remark, and its climactic position, surely mark it out as a thoroughly poisonous threat: 1 if you let us go over to the Mede, assuredly we will be given pOv'ler over you that we will be happy to use to your extreme disadvantage•. The redundancy of this speech in puralY narrative or expository terms cannot be over-stressed. The story is already complete before the Athenians open their-,moilths:~'the Spartans have finally done the honourable thing, and we have watched them march out to Boeotia, and have been introduced to Pausanias, the hero of Plataea ( cf. 9.10.1-3 ); the importance of Athenian loyalty to the success of the Greek cause has been more than adequately illustrated and discussed. I see no other possible explanation for the addition of this speech except its purpose in showing us something about the Athenian character, the sinister flash of menace in their dealings with Sparta, the disturbing insight that all those proud claims to idealism in the debate at Athens could give way -304to such a cynical expression of self-interest in despite of the common good of Greece. Herodotus has contrived to disquiet the reader by juxtaposing the apparently glorious affirmation of Hellenic unity in the debate at Athens with the almost complete rejection of that position by both sides in the 201 ensuing negotiations at Sparta He ensures that we keep sight of the original debate by constant reference back to it, as we have seen, confirming that there is nothing accidental in the transformation. Moreover, though the facts reported to him no doubt offered him the opportunity to make something of the contrast, the elaboration of the idea in a complex series of speeches is entirely his own work. We have also observed that Herodotus is particularly conscious of what can be pone with tone. There are clear signs of the artificiality of the Athenian-Spartan concord in the earlier debate, especially in the tone of prickly uneasiness on both sides. This mood has degenerated into open contentiousness in the debates at Sparta, finally breaking out into almost unreserved hostility. This is not merely a matter of style or dramatic presentation: Herodotus is interested to show the true character of relations between Athens and Sparta, because that is the burning issue of his own time. * 2. In bringing these two debates together we have of course passed over a significant portion of Herodotean narrative, in which in particular two things stand out. The first is the advice given by the Thebans to Mardonios ( 9.2.lff ). He should decide to encamp in Boeotia and follow their plan to bring the Greeks into subjection without a fight: ..... '\,, ' ' " ' " '\"\ t , y ' # ' '\ xã~~evyap TO Laxupov EAAnva, oμofpOVEOVTas, OL lCEp xaL uapos TaUTa e:yCvwcrMv, XctAEl[(l ElvaL lCEPLYLVEcrlo-aL xal. alCaOL &.v!o-pwuou:rv El, 0£ UOLllO'ELS Ta T)μELS mx.paLVEOμEV ••• ei;ELS tl.lCOVWS UlCaVTCt Ta exdvwv BoUAEUμaTa. lCEμUE xpnμaTa E:S Too, 6uva<JTEUOVTas; &v6pas; ••• ieμuwv ot ' ' .... ;5'. ; ' ' " ' ' ' ; Tnv EAActva 6LaoTn<JELs;0 EV'o-EUTEV oE Tous; μn Ta oa fPOVEovTas; PnLÕw~ μETa TWV OTacrLwT£wv HaTaOTpl~EOL. -305Mardonios of course does not adopt this plan, but goes on to take Athens a second time but would it have worked, why does Herodotus mention it, and why does he mention it here? Certainly the story reflects in part on the character of the Thebans, and their presumption that their fellow- Greeks are as lacking in idealism as they evidently are themselves ( cf. 9.88, below). But what does Herodotus want the reader to think might have happened if the plan had been tried out? He has told us earlier of • powerful factions in a number of Greek states did indeed medize merely in the hope of private profit ( cf. e.g. {E).5 ), so that it is a realistic enough proposal to raise unsettling doubts in the reader. Moreover, � to Q,A t@ r@�U .( H A�VI Sl@'ft ) taat tM loyailty tf !Mta At� and Sparta to the cause of Hellenic untty is by no means as unshakable as has just been made out, the doubts sink deeper. The phrase xa,& μtv strikes a pdsitive enough chord, if we remember only the impression of the preceding chapters, but the illusion begins to crumble when we consider what follows. The same idea in fact recurs later in Herodotus' narrative, at the council of the Persians after 10 days• fighting at Plataea. Artabazos advises that they withdraw to Thebes ( 9.41.2ff ), and at their leisure send bribes to the Greeks, and especially to the leading men: xac ,axews a�eas napaowae�v And Herodotus adds, lest by chance we had forgotten ( 41.4 ): TodTou μtv � a�,h lyCveTo xat That last addition ( 11and Artabazos knew a thing or two about the Greeks! 11; cf. Macan, \'rather insight than foresight 11 ) most strikingly confirms that Herodotus too believes, what Artabazos and the Thebans saw, that the Greeks' attachment to the ideal of freedom was not so secure that it could not easily be loosed by the solvent of money. This is a somewhat disturbing intrusion into the narrative of Plataea, especially since ( as we shall see ) Herodotus goes out of his way to show that Greek unity at this point is less complete than it might be 202 -306The other important anecdote which Herodotus inserts between the two debates is the story of the fate of Lykides ( 9.5.lff }. When Mardonios' second ambassador delivers his overtures to the Athenians at Salamis, Lykides, one of the bouleutai, expresses the opinion that it would be a good thing to present the matter before the assembly, EtTE on OEOEyμsVOV XPnμa,a 1tapq MapoovCou, EC,E xat rniha oL MvoavE. , But the Athenians are so enraged both those in the council and those outside, that they surround Lykides and stone him to death whereas the Hellespontine envoy was sent away unharmed). And with the uproar, the Athenian women soon heard the news; whereupon, without a word from the men, they got together, and, each one egging on her neighbour and taking her along with the crowd, flocked t L k 'd I h ' \ l ,. ' 1 - \ ' ' o y 1 es ouse: xaL xa,a μEV eAEucrav av,ov ,riv yvvaLxa, xa,a 6E ,a Tsxva. Kleinknecht suggests ( p. 570 } that the story 11zei gt noch ei nma l die unab~nderliche und instinktive Entschlossenheit des gesamten athenischen Volkes"; and indeed there are prima facie reasons for adopting this interpretation. Demosthenes ( 18.204 )203, speaking of Athens' heroic attachment to the ideal of freedom in the Persian Wars ( n.1ss, above ), can refer to the story ( its protagonist here is not Lykides but Kyrsilos ) as confir- ,"\ "\ , ' ..t ' " '"\ "\ ' ' ' t KvpcrLAOV xaTaAL~wcraVTE~, OU μuvov aUTOV aAAa xaL aL yuvaLXE~ aL ~μs,EpaL ,nv yuvatx' ã.ou. ~ There is no suggestion there that the stoning was anything other than a glorious assertion of the love of freedom. But can Herodotus really admire Athens1 love of freedom to the extent of countenancing such a barbatism as just? Certainly_Lykides may be for him one of those Greeks susceptible to the lure of Persian gold ( above ), although Hirodotus significantly adds that he may simply have been expressing his own opinion. To judge from the st~ilar story of Arthmius of Zelea204, the Athenians would probably have insisted that Lykides was indeed corrupted by gold, rather than allowing as Herodotus does that he may not which --~--------------------------------* **--------------- -307does put a slightly different complexion on the story. What is surely decisive is the context of the story in Herodotus: as we have seen, Athens 1 original declaration of loyalty to the ideal of freedom ( 8.143f) is very nearly reversed in the debate at Sparta which follows this anecdote 9.6ff ). The senseless horror of Lykides' death is surely brought out by the suggestion hinted at by this juxtaposition that it was an expression of irrational mob violence curiously at odds with the cynical rationalism of Athenian policy as shown in the ensuing debates at Sparta. Then there is also the dramatic emphasis of Herodotus 1 narration itself: the detailed description of the way hysteria worked on both men and women, and in particular the forceful and pathetic effect of the anaphoric tmesis with which Herodotus describes the stoning of Lykides I wife and children. It is surely of considerable importance that Herodotus does include the children, a detail absent in Demosthenes' account: we may contrast Pausanias' magnanimous treatment of the children of the Theban medizer Attaginos ( 9.88, below), when he declares that "children are not responsible 11 in such matters. Certainly Herodotus leaves the present story without explicit commentary, and we may suspect that an Athenian reader might well have been pleased with this rehearsal of the famous e'('t:nt; but a more objective reader must surely be meant to view this as an unacceptable side to the Athenians' devotion to freedom205. As we shall suggest later ( cf. (L) below ), Herodotus may well have a particular reason for evading direct comment in such matters. To judge what he might have said here, we may compare a story from the narrative of the retreat of the Persian forces after Salamis ( 8.116.lf ). The king of the Bisaltai had originally determined never to help Xerxes, saying that he wou 1 d never will i ng ly be a s 1 ave to the king; and he forbade his sons to march either. But they wanted to see the war and so accompanied the expedition; and when all six of them returned unharmed, their father dug out their eyes in punishment. Not for nothing does Herodotus introduce that story as an ergon hyperphyes: the king 1 s attachment to freedom leads him to a fanatical and monstrously unnatural ----~~-****-----~**** --- -308action. Herodotus 1 failure to offer a similar expression of disapproval of the stoning of Lykides ( not so terrible, but terrible enough! ) may be put down to a general principl~ of never speaking a word of explicit criticism of any Athenian action, however atrocious or shameful ( cf. e.g. Xanthippus at 9.120.4. ,with (K) below), a principle not, however, inconsistent with 1 letting the facts speak for themselves 1 ~ as surely they are meant to do here. * (J) Pl ataea. l. With Mardoni os encamped at Thebes, Herodotus reports an anecdote about the Phocians which raises further questions about Greek heroism. The Phocians ( 9.17.lff ), who did not join Mardonios in his attack on Athens, although they had already medized ( see below), were late in arriving at Thebes, and were at once ordered to encamp away from the rest of the army. Whereupon the Persian cavalry rode up to them, and the rumour went round among the Phocians and other Greeks that they were to be massacred. At this, the Phocian general Harmokydes encourages his men ( 9.17.4 ): 11Men of Phocis, it is clear that these men are coming quite openly to kill us. We have been slandered by the Thessalians, I should guess. Now then is the time for each man to show his mettle: xpeoowv y&p 11:0l,E:\JVTC!s; '[l,. ,((ll, aμ1'voμevovs TE:AE:VTfjOal, TOV alwva Tl 11:E:p 'ltctP£XOVTas; 61.,a,napnvaL aloxloTWl, μ6pwt.,. CXAAa μa68TW Tl,S ãT@V ~'[l, ldvTE:S BapBapOL l11:' VEAAnOl, av6pao1., ,dvov tppa4av. The cavalry now enci re l es them and actua 11 y begins to attack them, but they stand firm, and the Persians wheel about and retire. Herodotus then observes to the puzzled reader ( 9.18.2) that he 11cannot tell whether they came to murder the Phocians at the bidding of the Thessalians, or whether Mardonios was just trying to test their mettle 11 • We are then given Mardonios1 speech to the Phocians ( 9.18.3 ), commending their bravery, which was not rJhat he had been led to expect: ;x(lt v~v 11:poeuμws -309- ~8p£T£ TOV KOA£μov TOUTOV" £U£pyeoCnLOL yap OU VLXnO£T£ õ.* iliv £μ€ ÕT£ BaoLAea206. And that is where the story ends. It is hard to see why else Herodotus should have lavished so much attention on this trivial episode, which after all leads to nothing, except as an ironical reflexion on Greek heroism. One of the motifs here is certainly the mutual hostility of Phocians and Thessalians, whtdh clearly calls to mind what Herodotus had earlier said ( cf. 8.27.lff ) about the Phocians only not medizing in order *to do the opposite to the Thessalians. Harmokydes1 suspicion that they have been denounced by their enemies is tacitly confirmed by Mardonios1 comment about the things he has heard of the Phocians: at any rate the suspicion that the Thessalians had wanted their rivals massacred leaves a very nasty taste. More suprising, however, is the incongruity of Harmokydes1 speech: ostensibly we seem to be hearing the true voice of Greek heroism faced with Persi~n treachery 0 cf. &AA& μa6eTw TLS au.@v ); but the circumstances are cle~rlynot right. The Phocians are not fighting for their freedom. for they have already medized - 'decidedly', if we may so read 207 the text at 9.17.1 and are presumably about to follow Mardonios' injunction to medize 'enthusiastically'~ Moreover the Phocians do not end up "showing the barbarian the folly of trying to murder Greeks'', but instead they incongruously and undesignedly prove to Mardonios that they are loyal and worthy subjects of the king. A speech like the one given to Harmokydes here belongs more properly in a context where the Greeks are indeed about to make a noble sacrifice in the name of Greek aret~ and Greek freedom, that is before any of the great battles precisely where Herodotus avoids any rhetoric of that kind. Coming where it does, its grand effect is perceptibly deflated both by the resulting action and by Mardonios1 unexpected acknowledgement. Thus the very triviality of the episode may well be its point for Herodotus: having exploited the theme of Greek courage in this 'wrong place•, he goes on to avoid any repetition of it where it does belong at least as a motif in a battle speech. -------C----------------~-**-----*-*----------**---* L -3102. The battle at Platlea is delayed ( like Salamis, above ) by a long preparatory narrative, in which Greek indecision and inconstancy are amply explored. The account begins decisively enough. The Spartans march from the Isthmus ( 9.19.1 ): uuvOavoμEVOI., 0£ Tau.a ol AOl.,UOL IlEAonovvno1.,01., oox lo1.,xaCEuv A£Cnecr.\Ja1., -rns l�oiou.Jhis elevated opening ( the demands @f t:tonour co•l*t• P@l(i)lfi)OMll@Siiins to •rcl!i ) is $011D'ti!liMt Qf a\/foil to the undignified sequel and the absence of any concerted action by the Greeks as a whole at Plataea. to descend into the plain ( 9.20 ), and Mardonios sends the cavalry against them. The Megarians happen to be drawn up where they are most open to attack ( 9.21.lff ), and when they begin to suffer, they send a messenger to the generals appealing in hurt tones for support: OU 6uva.oC ELμEV -rn� ITEp0€WV rnuov 0€'KE00a1., μouvo1.,, �XOVTE� o,ao1.,v • � " ' • • ' ' ' ' • .r5 ... • ) ' --rau,nv ,nv £0,nμEv apxnv. aAAa xa1., E� Tu £ A1.,nap1.,nti TE xa1., apETn1., &v.txoμ£V xaCncp Ul.,E�OμEVOI.,. vuv Tc EL μn -r1.,vas &AAOU$ n[μ�£TE , - ; ,, t , ' \ , ' ' r: 61.,aooxous ,n� -ra�1.,o�, 1.,0,E nμEa� E'KA£L�ov,as ,nv ,a�1.,v. Herodotus' reason for introducing this speech in oratio recta 208 is clearly to allow himself an ironic reflexion at the Megarians' expense. They are all too ready to cast themselves as heroes, when faced with no more than a skirmishing attack: Herodotus of course offers nothing to vouch for their heroism. They show rather a distinct readiness, despite their heroism, to want to escape from the line of fire. When Pausanias asks for volunteers, only the Athenians are prepared to go to their aid ( 9.21.3 ), although once the Athenians have dispatched Masistios, the whole army is bold enough to join in the fight over the body ( 9.23.1 ). After the success of this encounter the Greeks gain in confidence ( 9.25.1 ) and they decide to mowe down to Plataea ( 9. 25.2f ). This episode is important in setting the scene: what characterized the actions of the Greeks as a whole at Plataea ( as at Salamis ) was a lack of confidence for the fight. • -311The episode which immediately follows is the dispute between the Athenians and Tegeans ( log6n pollos 6thismõ ) about who should have the privileged left flank balancing the Spartans on the right ( 9.26ff ). Once more "' Herodotus intrudes a debate whose keynote is rancour, disagreement and division like the debate over the hegemony at Syracuse ( 7.157ff ), or like the debate over the aristeia at the Isthmus ( 8.123f ). In each instance the Greeks make great claims to honours for themselves, envious of each other, while the narrative itself suggests only that all such argument is vain and vaingl_q_rjous. This is another such exampJe of Greek silliness, standing in ironic contrast to the vacillations which follow and which Herodotus describes at such length (below). Moreover, in the actual engagement when it comes, the disposition of the Greek forces has become a matter of no importance and the left flank is actually left out of the . f. ht209 marn 1 g • There are however bigger questions concealed in the debate. It has been noticed that the Tegean speech is little more than a foil to the Athenian reply 210. In particular, the Tegeans pride themselves ( 26.lff) on the ancient achievement of their king, Echemos, who they say fought and defeated Hyllos in single combat when the Heraclids returned to claim the Peloponnese; it is to this service that they trace their right to the left flank in all expeditions of the Peloponnesians. Their speech offers in this way a perfect opportunity to the Athenians ( 9.27.2 ): The story is advanced as an answer to the Tegean claim about their treatment of the Heraclidae, but is belongs of course firmly in the traditional catalogue of mythical topoi, by which the Athenians asserted their attachment to the ideals of justice and freedom in their state orations, most notably ---**~----**--- -312for us the Epitaphioi 211 Should we not say then that Herodotus has constructed the debate, on his own initiative or on instructions from his Athenian source ( the latter less likely), to glorify these Athenian virtues? • Such a view would indeed imply a devoted admiration for Athens but we have not seen Herodotus hold such a position elsewhere. The answer must again be more complicated. It is clear that H~rodotus is equally convinced of the futility of the claims of both parties to the debate. Certainly the Athenians make a great show of disdaining the value of the exercise ( 9.27.1 ):-e:1J;<:ri&μE.Oa l6ywv. And yet they are drawn into the debate for all their protestations: this avowal turns out to be a mere debating ploy. Herodotus has them rehearse not merely their championship of the freedom of the Heraclids, but the rest of their mythical catalogue as well, including their championship of the rights of the Seven, the defeat of the Amazons, and the exploits of the Trojan Wars ( 9.27.3f; cf. 7.161.3, above ). But then he makes them perform a remarkable volte-face which cuts the ground from under the whole debate so far a rhetorical trope no doubt, but nonetheless remarkable for all that ( 9.27.4f ): all' OU y&p TL npO€XEL TOUTWV E~Lμvna.OnvaL• xat yap ~v xpnaTot T6TE E6VTES ~UTOt V00 &v EtEV ,alup6TEpOL xat t6TE e6VTES ,laOpoL """" . ,t '/' ' " 1 I ' U U n vuv av ELEV aμELVOVES, IlaAaLWV μEV vuv Epywv alLs EOTW. And they go on to record their achievement against the Mede at Marathon212: " . ~ 'E'' , . "'' , , ' " OLTLVES μouvoL AAnvwv vn μouvoμaxEaaVTES TWL ITEpanL xaL EPYWL _J! • .L , c. 7 ' ' , , ' TOOOUTWL EnLXELP110!lVTES IlEPLEYEVOμE~a ••• ap OU OLXaLOL ELμEV EXELV TaUTnv T~V TÕLV ano TOUTOU μouvou TOO £pyou;213 Though on the face of it Herodotus would seem to be atquiescing wholeheartedly in Athenian propaganda in these words, and simply giving himself the opportunity to celebrate Athenian heroism, this very climax sounds the essential note of qualification. The Athenians• patronizing disclaimer will for the contemporary reader surely seem to cover their whole speech, their services at Marathon -313included. This is of course precisely the observation which Thucydides has Sthenelaidas make to crush the Athenians 1 rehearsal of their services to Greece in the debate at Sparta ( Thucyd.1.86.1 ): • tOUS μEV Aoyous tOUS 1I0AAOVS tWV 'ÃnvaCwv OU yLVwcrxw* £1IaLV£GaVt€S yap 1I0AACX eaurnus ouoaμoO &.vn:t:uov ws oux UOLXOUGL tOUS nμnEpous sVP\:i~xo.1J~s xat <flV IIsA01rcivvncrov* xaCtoL sl 1tpos tOUS Mrioous eytvov<o &yãot tOtS, upos 0€ nμas xaxot vuv, OLlIAacrCas nμCas asLOL slaLV, OtL avl' &ya%wv xaxot ysytvnvtaL 214 ~ We must repeat here what we said earlier ( cf. (A).2,,above ): the Persian Wars, and all that they could stand for as propaganda, were in Herodotus 1 day still a topic of the most passionate interest The Ql!'=stion whether or not Athens was justified in having built up her empire on the strength of her services to Greece at Marathon and the rest, was one in which it was surely impossible not to take sides ( cf. esp. the discussion of 7.139, above). In reading Herodotus on the Persian Wars, therefore, we are obliged to imagine ourselves in the position of his original audience, to whom such recriminations and self-justifications by appeal to the Persian Wars were thoroughly familiar. Hence the merest echo of those arguments is enough to stir a response: the Athenians, Herodotus reminds the reader, were already, even at the time of Plataea, using those same arguments we are now so tired of hearing them use; then it was a trivial matter they were arguing about, but since it has become 1empire 1 itself which is at tOU £pyou; with Thucyd.1.75.1, dp' ãLOL laμsv ). Herodotus comes very near to conceding the Athenian position in all this but finally gives them the words that COQ1\/Jtt their own case, for Marathon and the rest are as much palaia erga to Herodotus 1 generation who had seen the growth of the empire, as the story of the Heraclids was at the time of Plataea 215, and the Athenians are demonstrably ( to all but themselves ) no longer the heroes they were in that earlier time . . . ) . -314The Athenian speech ends on what seems like an even higher note, with the insistence ( 9.27.6 ): •;, , , , , - - ,, ' ?:: ., , , 216 ,, , aAA OU yap EV TWL TOLWLuE TasLOS ELVEXa OTaOLatELV KpEKEL ' apTLOL e[μEV KEC�Ea�aL UμLV ••• naVTnL y&p TETayμEVOL KELpnO*!lE�a ElVaL xpnaToC. &�nyeEa�s 0£ ws nsLaoμevwv. This elaborate defer�nce again seems at first sight creditable to the Athenians217 : they are prepared to accept the decision of theSpartans and to follow their lead without demur and to the best of their ability. But once again the context must qualify their claim. We remember that.Herodotus has told us ( 8.3.2 ) that the Athenians' acceptance of Spartan hegemony is entirely provisional: μEXPL xaprn oaou E:OEOVTO mhwv. The very emphasis of their deference here forcefully underlines the irony of it: the unwillingness -- ., • A-tltni �'S t© acc@1i)t S,irta'fil �-.\" is al rM<il:)' evi,lll•t itS �r••t.w,s draws the work to a close218, and it is this very desire to have all and yield nothing ( cf. 7.162.l ) which leads to the Peloponnesian War219• at Athens, 8.140ff) unless we appreciate that Herodotus is not, as is often supposed, speaking for the Athenians in his own voice, but rather indulging in the most subtly provocative impersonation. There is no more reason why we should read this Athenian speech in simple good faith than we did, for example, the assurances of Histiaios to Darius that he owed the king absolute loyalty ( 5. 106.3ff), or their own claim earlier that they would never at any price agree with Persia and enslave the Greeks ( 8. 143.2 and 144.1 ). There can scarcely be any more forceful irony in Herodotus than the claim of the Athenians here that they intend to defer to Sparta 1 s hegemony. Moreover, as we have said, the debate itself is not a bizzarely chosen opportunity to glorify Marathon ( cf. n.213 ) ' but rather_ yet another dramatization of Greek division, Once again the tone is all-important ( note especially the designation logon p_ollos 6thismos: a hard-fought tussle): the patronizing disclaimers of the Athenians that this is all a waste of time and that they, at least, are prepared -315to accept whatever the Spartans decide, are in striking confict with the obvious fact that they are indeed contesting the honour. The whole proceeding rings with the note of rancour on the part of both sides to.the dispute which we have so frequently noted in Herodotus' Persian Wars debates ( cf. esp. (H) .1, above ) . * 3. After Herodotus has listed the contingents on both sides ( 9.28-32 ), and explained that the manteis on both sides found the omens against an offensive engagement ( 9.36 and 38.2 ), we hear how on the advice of the Theban, Timagenides, Mardonius~ sends the cavalry to Dryos Kephalai to cut off the Greek baggage-trains ( 39.lff ). This goes on for three days ( 9.40 ), neither side wanting to start the fighting, but with the cavalry harrying the Greeks, enthusiastically encouraged by the Thebans220. On the eleventh day of the two .armies sitting opposite each other at Plataea ( 9.41.lff). the Persians hold a council of war, at which Artabazos suggests the use of bribery rather than force ( see above ); but Mardonios, with headstrong impatience, decides to ignore the portents and oracles and risk an engagement ( 9.41.lff ). At this point Herodotus introduces a justly suspe~ted episode, whose only point seems to be to show Greek, and particularly Spartan,. inconstancy 221 During the night, Alexander comes secretly to the Greek camp ( 9.44.lff) with a message for Pausanias 222, warning that Mardonios means to attack at dawn. The Athenian guards ( 9.46.lff) deliver the nessage to Pausanias, who is 0 filled with fright at the thought of the Persians 11 ( o 6e: TOUTw1., TWI., :\oyw1., }(a,rnppw6nocx~ TOD~ IT.tpoa.~ / 23, and suggests to the Athenians that they take up their position opposite the Persians, and the Spartans.theirs opposite the Boeotians ( 46.2 ). 11You know about the Medes and their way of fighting, having done battle with them at Marathon, but no Spartan has. -316ever fought with them though we are all familiar enough with the Boeotians and the Thessalians 11• The Athenians agree to this 46.3 ), explaining that they had thoughtof this earlier: aAAa yap appw6EOμ£V μn uμtv OUM n6E£~ • 224 ytvwv,ã ot Aoyõ The changeover is decided upon and carried out ( 9.47 ), but the Boeotians advise Mardonios, who at once changes his own line: whereupon Pausanias, realizing that he has not escaped detection, changes once {ll~_t'~, promptly followed once more by Mardonios. When all is back as it was, Mardonios sends a messenger to the Spartans, mocking their lack of resolution ( 9.48.1 ): Mardonios ends, after much scoffing in the same vein, by challenging the Spartans to a combat of champions to which there is no reply ( 9.49.1 ): Herodotus, with much elaboration through speeches ( there is very little else! ), here serves up a narrative which cannot really have much to do with anything that actually happened at Plataea. It is well recognized that it would scarcely have been possible for two such large armies to complete these elaborate manoeuvres not once but twice in the same day; moreover the rationale of the whole business, namely that the Spartans were quite simply unwilling to face the Persians~ has not about it the look of truth. It is usually supposed that Herodotus has either misunderstood some quite different manoeuvres of the two armies or borrowed the story wholesale from an Athenian ( and hence anti-Spartan) source, or both. But neitb~r~ef the~~?opttonsnor any combination of them can really satisfy, except on the most condescending view of Herodotus' method. It is inconceivable that Herodotus can have relied for his narrative of Plataea on one source only, which he failed to check against any other ( any more than he can have done at Thermopylae, cf. n.124 -317above). This battle is the climax of the history of the war; that Herodotus can have been so little interested in ascertaining the facts as to have been content with the first or only version he came across, defies belief 226; or if it is true, then we can have no respect for Herodotus' skills, or application as a repp;rt~f,. But the present story is by general agreement ( cf. n.221 ) not true as it stands, though perfectly consistent in itself. Assuming either that the report does bear some remote relation to something that actually happened or that it is a plain slanderous fiction, we need to explain how Herodotus failed in any way to cross-check his information, since h~ had but to approach a different set of informants to discover that. h. . .. f d d227 . t ings were not as stra1~t orwar as they appeare . These considerations leave us with only two options. Either Herodotus has kept the story knowing it to be a mere slander ( cf. 8.94.lff, with (H).2 above ), and deceitfully given it the elaboration of truth, or he has done something else rather-more complicated but equally devious. Knowing some vague story of changes in the battle-order, he has snatched at the opportunity of making this another illustration of Greek inconstancy, and has elaborated that hint out .of all proportion, or rather virtually invented his own narrative around it, adding, certainly on hisown initiative, the most important element here, the speeches, which expose the rationale of the whole affair as far as he is concerned. ln particular, unless he was able to confirm from his various sources ( by cross-checking ) that the real reason for these -manoeuvres was Pausanias' own nervousness ( ~aTappw6ncras Taus rrtpcras ), which seems unlikely unless all those he spoke to happened to be hostile to Sparta, we must. conclude that this essential ingredient is Herodotus' own fabrication. If these options seem unpalatable, and we wish to maintain that the story was essentially an authentic report of something he heard from a single source or group of sources ( which was or were peddling falsehood ), we must face the equally unpalatable conclusion that he has allowed himself to elaborate extensively, through the addition of substantial speeches, an anecdote he has not so much k h k . h . l . d d t 228 F as ta en care to cross-c ec wit a singe ,n epen en source or -318throughout the passage there is not the slightest hint that anything could possibly* have been otherwise than Herodotus describes it. At any rate the message of the episode is clear: Mardonios is given just 229 reason to question the claims made for Spartan arete . Ultimately of course his misjudgement is the height of folly, for the Spartans win ~t Pl.ataea! But the immediate occasion ( Pausanias' sudden fear of Persia, to which Herodotus testifies in his own person, cf. n.223) makes the unavoidable impression that his scorn is in part at least justified. Spartan aret~ is not what it was at Thermopyl ae, not the unalterable qua 1 i ty that Demaratus c]aimed it was. We can hardlyavoid this conclusion, when Herodotus is so • careful to have Mardonios echo the words of Demaratus ( cf. n.225 ). Thermopylae was then after all something exceptional, the golden*hour of Spartan valour. We have since seen them less willing to repeat the performance, in particular when they dragged their feet over the expedition to Boeotia ( 9.6ff cf. (I).1 above). Clearly Herodotus means us to observ~ that already in his work the degeneration has begun. Thermopylae was the .high point from which all else descends: Pausanias and the Spartans who fought at Plataea are the feeble epigoni of Leonidas and the 300. After this, .with Mardonios' cavalry harrying them and interfering with their water supply from§argaphia ( 9.49.2f * ) and their food supplies ( 9.50ff ) , the Greeks decide to move to the 'island'. This done, they plan on the following day to send half the army to Kithairon to assist the movement of supplies ( 9.51.4 ). But having been harried all day by the cavalry, when night comes and the time for them to move as planned ( 9.52 ): EV~auTa &Ep~EVTE~ oL 'V '\ ' , ' '\ "\ """ ' '\ ; ' ' , ff Il0AA0~ anaXXaocrOVTO, E~ μEV TOV xwpov ES TOV OUVEHEGTO OUH £V VOWG £XOVTES, This manoeuvre disposes ofthe majority of the army for almost the entire remainder of the campaign ( note the inferences as to motive, underlined). When later the Spartans come under attack, they appeal to the Athenians to .. -- .. ---***--**-----**--------- -319help ( 9.60.1 )230: &v6pE!; '.A.envaLOL, &yWvos 11tyLOTOU 1CpOJ<E:~μEvou €Ae:o-&£pnv t:Gvau' l') 6E6oulwμevnv Tnv 'EAAaoã ltpOOEOOμE.Oa UltO TW\l auμμaxwv nμEts TE oi A 6 , , , .... , , AD. _ t " , ~ , altE aLμOVLOL MC:tL UμELS< OL vDi£)0\LOL UltO TDV ltapOLXOμEVD\l \JUMTa 6Laopa\JTW\). When finally news reaches Plataea of the rout of the Persian army ( 9.69.lf ), the a,rmy. is then at 1 ast embo 1 dened to fight: ol 6£ aMouaavTES Ta urn, The Megarians and Phleiasians are spotted by the Theban cavalry who promptly rout them: e1tELyoμevous ouoeva M6aμov flAauvov ••• ÕTOL μ£\l on lv ouofvL AOYWL alt~AO\JTO 231. Lastly, in describing the burial of the dead at Plataea ( 9.85 .lff ), Herodotus again reminds us of the absence of the main army from the battle, and conjectures that besides the graves of those known to have died in the battle, there are others set up as a pretence by those states which had been absent ( 85.3 ):~TodTous 6e, He knows, he says, of an Aeginetan grave there, which he has heard ( TO*v J:.y~ a1wuw ••• ) was set up 10 years later by one Kleadas of Plataea, at the request of the Aeginetans, whose proxenos he was232. In other words, Herodotus. is concerned throughout to remind the reader that Plataea was no triumph of Greek unity, and that, f whatever we may have heard, most of the Greek army played the cowardeffectively, as Pausanias puts it, 1 betraying 1 their fellow-Greeks in the process. We will not, having observed Herodotus 1 concerns thus far, think it necessary to invoke any special theory about his sources to explain this cynic;ism. He wants to make clear that he has seen beyond the smoke-screens thrown up by the Greeks themselves around their achievements in the Persian Wars ). We are not to be fooled by the myths and the monuments: little enough has changed after a 11. When Pausanias sees that the army has left the camp, apparently still following the agreed plan ( 9.53.lff ), he orders the Spartans to march out after them. But then follows the remarkable story of Amompharetos233. • -320All h h d d t b b A .h 234 t e ot er comman ers are prepare o o ey, ut not momp aretos : Pausanias and Euryanax are angry that Amompharetos refuses to obey them ( 53.3 ), but worry even more that he and his men will be destroyed unless they follow the agreed plã. Meanwhile the Athenians had been holding their position as arranged ( 54.1 ): EELOTaμevoL Tct AaxeoaLμOVLWV ~povnμaTa 235 The verb epistasthai in Herodotus does not of course excJy$ively mean 'know', but often 'believe 1 , so that t th t h . h h. f th Ath . * * 236 we canno say a e 1s ere vouc 1ng or e en,an op1n1on . Certainly Herodotus' narrative has told us enough to justify the Athenian suspicions at least in part: the unwillingness to march from the Isthmus, the implausible excuse for the change of flanks, the uncertainty of the present plan ( cf. 9.54.2 ). But of course these words reflect as much on the Athenians < l themselves: despite their insistence in the debate ( 9.27.6 ) and after ( 46.3 ) that they are prepared to follow the lead of the Spartans with complete deference, we now see that they harbour suspicions which bring home to us that their promise was merely to obey the Spartans, not to trust them236a. For Herodotus this episode is merely confirmation that the Athenians, unjustly as events show, were ready to suspect the least indication of Spartan indecision. When they saw the army move ( 9.54.2 ), they sent a messenger on horseback: ,, L 237 eLn 11:oLc:eLv . The Athenian herald however finds the Spartans still in their 1 d 't' " • , ' L • - ~ , 238 o pos1 ion: xaL e~ veLxea aELyμc:vou~ auTwV TOU~ 11:pwTou~ . Pausanias tells the Athenians to join him and follow the same plan. of retreat. Meanwhile the quarrel drags on to dawn ( 9.56.lff ). Pausanias decides that Amompharetos will not remain if the rest of the Spartans move.off and accordingly gives the signal. The Spartans lead off in the opposite direction to the Athenians; Amompharetos, not believing that Pausanias would qare to leave him, remains • -321repeated once more ), until he realizes that he is indeed being left, when he changes his mind and tags along behind. The .whole episode239 has the ring of black comedy240, a parody of the Spartan claims about I never leaving their station• which Demaratus had insisted upon to Xerxes ( 7.104.5 ) and which had been so resoundingly vindicated at Thermopylae. Amompharetos carries adherence to this Spartan nomos to the ridiculous extreme of refusing to obey an order of his superiors which has the best interests of the army at heart. As far as that nomos is concerned, he is of course in principle right but his obedience to nomos involves him paradoxically in disobedience to his commanders. From another point of view the story again reminds us that the way the Spartans b.ehave at Plataea is not the way they ~ehaved at Thermopylae. That may mean that the Spartans are here no l anger true as they then were to the demands of nomos; but it may also suggest something about Thermopylae itself, that there was something not a little perverse in t~e 1 obstinacy• 241 of Leonidas and the 300. That same sort of Spartan obstinacy on the same principles turns Amompharetos into something of a fool. Although in this case there ism particular reason to doubt the historicity of the story, .we must stall explain why Herodotus has thoughtit important to elaborate it to such a remarkable extent ( 9.53-7: about 60 lines of OCT), so that it casts a shadow over the narrative of the battle. The answer that it simplyl'makes I a good story• does not strike me as adequate: is it really so inconsequential as that? The story is worth including from Herodotus1 point of view because it raises questions central to his narrative of the Persian Wars, and in particular the Spartan role in them: the issue of 'not leaving one's station• and all that implies about Spartan nomos, and the theme of Greek division ( here .rieikos ), as well as the uneasy relationship of Athenians and Spartans in the war. -322That the first of these questions is indeed at issue here is in part confirmed by Mardonios1 speech to the Aleuadai which follows ( 9.58.lff ): fu uat6£S 'AA£U£W, ~TL TL At~£T£ Ta6£ OpW\iT£S Epnμa; Uμ£ts yap OL uAncrL6xwpoL EAEY£T£ AaK£6aLμovCous OU '£Uy£L\i EK μdxns, aAA' dv6pas £L\iaL Ta noAtμLa upw,ous 0 TOUS npOT£pov ,£ μ£,Lcr,aμtvous EK ,ns TU~LOS £~Q£T£ ( cf. 9.44ff above! ), \iU\i ,£ uuo ,nv napOLXOμEvnv \iUKTa Kat OL na\iT£S op@μ£\i 6La6pdv,as* 6LE6£~U\i ,£, EU£L cr,eas E6££ npos TOUS &q,eu6lws apCcr,ous &v,!;tpt.Sj[fl}\i .μdxnL 6LaKpLSnvm,, on oo6lves &pa Eov,es E\i oo6aμotcrL EoDcrL uEAAncrL tvane6£LKVUa,o ••. Ad . th . 242 n so on 1n e same vein Naturally this speech, even more than the last, must be read in part as an indication of Mardonios' blindness and folly, of his misapprehension of the superiority of the Spartans, soon to vindicated in the encounter that follows ( cf. 9.64.1, 71.1; cp. 62.3! )243. In that sense it is surely a foil to the glorious narrative of Greek heroism. But again Herodotus is almost certainly trying to have it both ways. Coming as it does after the protracted narrative of Amompharetos' obstinacy the speech has a most disquieting effect. Indeed it includes an explicit reminder of the theme of that narrative ( AaK£6aLμovCous ou ,euyeLv EK μaxns ), as well as a reminder of the earlier speech and its occasion ( 9.44ff, the changing of the battle line, above ). Both Amompharetos and Mardonios are drawing attention to the same thing, the fact that Spartan indecision and hesitancy in their present actions conflicts with the story i of their unalterable constancy as told by Demaratus. In a sense both are wrong, and events prove them wrong. Yet the inconsistency remains and Herodotus has constructed his narrative up to now in part at least to illustrate it. * 4. The battle itself of course produces a Greek victory, which Herõotus does not hesitate to call fine ( 9.64.1 ): tv.&aO,a ;i TE 6CKn ,ou ,dvou Nor does he neglect to remind us that the Spartans -323won the prize for valour ( 9.71.1 ): 'EAAnvwv 6e, ayãwv ysvoμevwv xat T , ' • A"" , • a ,, , A 6 244 sysn,swv xaL ~nvaLwv, un:sp£μUAOVTO ap£,nL axs6aLμ VLOL • We are told also of the noble utterance of the 1most beautiful I Callicrates v ' ' , - ' ' u ' .L ' ,, t ' ; ,, OTL OUM EXpnaaio.TJlL XELPL xaL OTL ou6i:.:v E<JTL OL mrn6£6£yμsvov spyov E:WUTOU al;LOV ,}t:po-O-wsuμevou &n:oosl;aa.\l-a.L 245 In other words Plataea in Herodotus' account acquires the same paradoxical character as most of the other battles of the war: the Greeks, and here especially the Spartans who are the undisputed heroes of the battle, show considerable indecision and disunity in the lead-up to the fighting, while the battle itself is acknowledged to be a fine victory, in which the Greeks fought bravely and well. The equivocation is impossibl.~ to miss. On the Athenian,side Herodotus commends the virtue of Sophanes of Decelea ( 9.73.lff ), at which point he allows himself what seems at first sight an entirely gratuitous digression about Decelea, which he merely pegs onto the name of the Athenian hero ( 9.73.1 ): Ew~~vñ •.• lx " • 6 ,ov n:av,a XP vov. The transition seems not a little forced! According to the Athenians, when the Tyndarids came to Attica to.recover Helen, the Deceleans, annoyed at the arrogant behaviour of Theseus and fearing for Attica, gave away the whole secret and led the Tyndarids to Aphidna. And for that reason the Deceleans even now enjoy honours at Sparta: ~ WO'TE xat es TOV 1!:0AEμov TOV UO'TEpOV 1!:0AAOCO'L 8T£(JL TOOTWV Y£VOμ£VOV 'A.S-nva.LOLO'L TE xat IkAon:ovvnaLOL<JL, OLVOJ1£VWV ,nv (lAAnV 'ATTLXllV Aax£6a.LμOVLWV, ~£X£AEñ &n:sxca.\l-a.L. It is usually assumed that this passage is an inorganic addition to the whole, added to the text at a late stage in the composition 246. Yet is not the reference to the war between Athens and the Peloponnesians perhaps a pointed intrusion here? Herodotus reminds us here, at the end of the narrative of Plataea, a position of dramatic emphasis, that the uneasy -324unity of Hellas which won them the war against Persia, was to collapse and revert to open war in his own lifetime, at which time Sparta would not hesitate to ravage Attica ( as we have been told that Xerxes and Mardonios did), except insofar as they remembered an ancient act of treachery of the Deceleans! Herodotus repeatedly makes opportunities to set the Persian wars in the context of wars fought by Greeks against each other, most spectacularly, as we saw, at the start of the entire proceedings ( 6.98.2, with (C).l above )247. We:::may/note, for example, his occasional obituary notices on heroes of the Persian, Wars, in which we are reminded thaLmen who fought there in the defence of Greek liberty died fighting in wars against other Greeks. So Arimnestos, who distinguished himself by killing Mardonios at Plataea, died later in an invasion of Messenia ( 9.64.2 ); Sophanes himself, having distinguished himself previously in combat in the war with Aegina, was later killed by the Edonoi in Thrace, in a battle for the gold mines of the region ( 9.75; cf. Thucyd.1.100 and 4.102 ); Hermolykos, a hero of Mykale, later died and was buried at Geraistos, having fallen in the war betwen Athens and Carystus ( 9.105; cf. Thucyd.1.98 ). A war of Spartan imperialism, and two wars of Athenian imperialism: it is not hard to read these brief references as more than mere obituary notices, and to see in them a deliberate attempt to put the heroism of the Persian Wars against the disil~usioning background of Greeks fighting Greeks for power and profit. * 5. In the epilogue to Plataea Herodotus assembles, as has often been noticed, a collection of anecdotes centring around Pausanias, the hero of the hour, which seem devoted to the illustration of the virtues of the -325Hellenes as against the vices of their barbarian opponents248. But it would be curious if Herodotus ever allowed himself a message quite as simple as that, especially since he is clearly far from regarding the Greeks as unspotted or the Persians as wtiolly_ black. It has been noticed for example that the anecdote of Pausanias and the trappings of Mardonios ( 9.80ff) is a foreshadowing by ironic means of the Spartan 1 s later fascination with oriental luxury 249. For our purposes here it will be necessary to consider only the interview with Lampon of Aegina ( 9.78f )250. Lampon, says Herodotus, approached Pausanias with an utterly impious proposal ( 9.78.lff ). He begins his speech with praise for Pausanias 1 victory ( 78.2 ): ~ ~at These words clearly echo though in a noticeably exaggerated form the words that Herodotus himself used of the victory earlier ( 9.64 ): ,1at VLt!nV &vet.LPEETCl.l, ,!Ct.AALcrTnV crnacrswv TW\1 nμets; roμev IIaucravLns. Herodotus' reticence in mentioning nothing about saving Greece is quite as significant as Lampon1 s exaggeration. Lampon then goes And he then reveals his suggestion, that in retribution for the maltreatment of Leonidas 1 corpse by Xerxes ( cf. 7.238.lf ), when the king had the body beheaded and the head stuck on a pike, he should do the same to the body of Mardonios: TWL cru Tnv ctOTLS ot t!Ci.G ~pos TW\1 aAAW\1 'EAAnvwv. Pausanias replies by -thanking him for his goodwill and. thoughtfulness but condemning his suggestion ( 79.1 ) : ' , . , t' - ' ' , '\, ' ,, , " 6 ~ e~apas; yap μe u4ou t!aL Tnv naTpnv ,1aL TO epyov~ es TO μn ev , ; - , ,. ~, - , . ' t!ClTEl3aAes; ~apaLVEW\1 VEt!PWL AUμaLvecr&aL, ,!(ll; nv TCH)Ta IlOLEW, (j)ClS aμEL\10\) μe &,1oucrecr&a1,0 Tct npsneL μffAAOV Sapl3apoLCYl, IlOLEEl,\) n nep 9 EAÃcrL" ,1&,1eCvoLcrL o! lnL,&ovsoμev2 51 • Accordingly he would not be happy with anyone who approved such an idea: -326AeyeLv. Leonidas has his retribution and his meed of honour together with the other dead at Thermopylae through the countless souls of the dead at Plataea. The story contains as much irony as the others mentioned above. Pausanias declaration that he is content to do what is 'pleasing to the Spartans' and to behave and speak only justly, is precisely calculated as a foil to his later life, when the Spartan way suddenly no longer held the same attraction and the barbarian way, which he here affects to deplore, came to seem much more desirable. There is a pathetic irony too in his horror at being raised up only to be laid low ( lt&pas yap μe ~~oo ... ls To μnosv MaTsBaAes ): this is of course a mirror of Pausanias' career as it is known to the reader, the glory of his victory at Plataea brought to nothing by his subsequent actions. The moral of the story is clearly that the achievement of Plataea in no way gives Pausanias or:any other Greek the licence to behave as they please: however great the glory they have won, they cannot be excused if they then allow themselves to do wrong. The victory is sufficient in itself even as it requires no more than the souls of those killed in the battle to honour Leonidã and the 300 ( ~nμt μey&Aw~ TeTLμwpncr~aL ). This indeed illuminates Herodotus' treatment of the Persian Wars as a whole: the Greeks, and notably the Spartans and the Athenians, won the highest glory from their victories, but that fact must be taken as self-sufficient. They are not in a position to justify anything they may hav.e done since simply in the name of the kleos of that achievement: indeed if they have since done wrong, they are all the more deserving of censure ( cf. Thucyd.1.86.1, above ). It is clear that Herodotus believes the Greeks have listened to the argume~t, of Lampon and tarnished their glory just as Pausanias tarnished his: from the great heights of the PersiañWars they have been brought to nothing. * -3276. The first action of the allies after the battle, Herodotus tells us, was to decide on revenge ( 9.86.lff )252, to march against Thebes and demand the surrender of the medi zers ~ nv OE μn E:J<O\..bWC1l,' μn c:rnavCaTC:w.\tat, &rcb The Thebans resist. the Greeks ravage the land and lay siege to the walls. Clearly we cannot be surprised at the inclusion of some mention of the attack on Thebes253; it might reasonably be felt, hmvever, that the prominence and emphasis that Herodotus gives to it ( 'only eleven days after Plataea 1 ) are meant to have a negative effect. So soon after defeating Mardonios the Greeks devote their energies once more to fighting one another. The narrative, moreover, consists very largely of a speech given to the Theban Timagenides, which has the unsettling effect of letting us see the episode through the eyes of its, admittedly guilty, victims. The Greeks, says Timagenides ( 9.87.lf) to the Thebans on the 20th day of the siege, h~ve decided not to leave off before either taking the city or having you surrender us, the medizers: V'OV ~v nμc:wv dVE)(ct Yr\ ii BO,\..WTCn TCA£W μi) &varcAnant,,. &u' El, μtv XPTll.lctTa. xpnCi';OVTES rcpoaxnμa riμsas e:t;ct\..T£Q\)Ta,l,' xpnμaTa O"(fll, 66μEV £)( TOU )(0\.,\)0U ( auv yap TWl, )(Ol,VWl, )(ctt e:μn6CcraμEv ouot μoOVOl, nμELb ), Et 0£ nμswv aA11.(}£wb OEOμEVOl, TC0Al,Op)(£OUO"l,, nμEL~ nμlas ,, '' '\, , ctUTOUb E~ ClVTl,AOYl,llV TCctpEt;OμEV, It would be interesting to know if Herodotus.wrote this passage in the knowledge of the events at Plataea in 427 BC ( Thucyd.3.52ff ), when the Thebans were demanding the surrender of the 1 atticizing 1 Plataeans, and the Plataeans gave themse 1 ves up in the hope of be:.ing ab l.e to present the case for their defence, only to be thwarted by the Thebans. The present episode would surely have struck Herodotus as an ironic contrast of roles. At any rate it is hard to avoid the impression that there is something heroic in ihe preparedness of Timagenides to give himself up, with the other medizers, to save his city 254 even though he is not alone responsible for the medizing of Thebes255. That he is given no opportunity to present his defence ***~-****~-****~-****~-****-------------- -328- ( cf. 9.88, below ) heightens the pathos of his self-sacrifice. But his speech also tells us something about the Greeks: how just is his suspicion that all the Greeks are really after is money? Certainly past experience, in, particular what happened in similar circumstances at Andros after Salamis ( and cf. 9.2.lff and 41.2ff, above ), suggests that his conjecture might indeed be right in this case. There is no opportunity for testing it, because Pausanias sends away the rest of the allies and takes thematter into his own hands. This action of Pausanias is itself somewhat hard to judge ( 9.88 ). Attaginos manages to escape, but Pausanias spães his children: ~as Tou unol.aμou ua.t6a.s; ou6tv e:'lva.l. μe:rnl.TCous. This is clearly meant as a just and humane ~~tion, in keeping with the chivalrous role that Pausanias is given in this part of the narrative 256. But as for the medizers surrenc;lered by the Thebans: O l, μtv t6oxe:ov (l\)Tl,AOyCns TE: xupn<JE:l,\) xa.G 6n xpfiμa.qi.:; he:n:oC.\Je:aa.v Ol,W<JE:(J.\}a,l,• 0 ot ws; ua.p8Aa.$e:, O.UTa TO.UTa. Ul[0\)08W\) Tf}V <JTpqTl,n\) TT}V TWV auμμaxwv cha.aa.v Cl.ltT]XE: xa.t eltE:LVOUS a.ya.ytiJV £.s; Kopl.V.\JOV 6l.£~~e:t.pE. And this is the last we hear of the hero of Plataea. This is surely a disquieting end to the story of Plataea: the secrecy of Pausanias' action 257 and its ca].m brutality almost seem prophetic of his later be_haviour258. The story of the revenge on Thebes seems ea 1 cul ated to 1 eave a bitter taste after the narrative .of Plataea, not least after Pausanias' own strictures on just and unjust revenge only a little earlier ( 9.79.lf, ). We need only compare Thucydides on the massacre of the Plataeans in 427 ( 3.52.ff) to remember that the Greeks did not as a rule sanction the execution of prisoners without fair trial ( antilogia: what Tirnagenides and the others are denied here ), whatever their crimes. Does Herodotus not mean= however, that the Thebans surrendered on condition not merely that the medizers were handed over but also that they would get the right of antilogia, which he leaves us in no doubt that they expected ( cf. 9.88, wμoAoynaa.v euc TOUTOl,()'l, )259 • -329- (K) Ionia. The liberation of Ionia ( 9.90ff) is clearly not a dramatic climax for Herodotus, even though it is in this narrative that the work1 s original theme is finally brought to a close ( cf. ).5.3 ): the long enslavement of the Greeks of Asia Minor to oriental despoti?m is now for the first time ended for good. Herodotus' reason for playing down this climax may simply be that he is looking to the future: the liberation of Ionia is once again short-lived, and the new empire has already made its appearance at the point where he chooses to lapse into silence. The aftermath of Mykale is dominated by the actions of the Athenians and this emphasis may well reflect Herodotus• own desire to read into this earliest stage the beginnings of an aggressive Athenian policyJn Ionia. At the debate on the future of the Ionians ( 9.106.2ff ), it is mooted that they should be evacuated to some settlement in the Greek mainland, and the Peloponnesians suggest that the Ionians be settled in the emporia of medizing states; but the Athenians object in principle ( 106.3 )~ The implication of these words is unmistakable: Athens is already claiming the right to decide the fate of Ionia, and the first step has already been made to her rejection of the hegemony of Sparta and to her own imperial independence. The eagerness that Ionia should not be evacuated is a clear reminder of where Athen1 ambitions lie: had such a plan been effected, there would have been no empire. The outcome is that the Athenians get their way: &,v'fi.+et-VOVTW'-l*&~ 1?0-0TWV<'ipc:i~-oμws ( cp. 8.3.2! ) d:~av ot ns:>..011:ovvrtcn;o l,, :Mat. othw 6\l'i Eqμ~ous T£. xat.dt{St~t .. Jta.G Ae:af3Co'\Js Tõs &A:>..ous vnat,~Tas, ioC !Tuxov qucrTpaTe:voμe:~oC~otat, •E:>..:>..nat,, e:s TO auμμaxl,XO\f E:1Wl,7l0aVTO, 1tC0Tl, "["£ ltaTaAaf30VT£S rtaL opHCOl,0l, e:μμ£VSE:l,\) TE xat μn &no0T710acr~al,, It is clearly the Greeks as a whole, the Hellenic League itself, which here admits these states to the alliance; and yet there is little doubt -330that this oath was the model for that later administered to the new members of the Delian League260. Has not Herodotus, realizing this, over-enthusiastically inferred that already at this stage the allies were bound by oaths not to secede ( a1to0Tnoao.\Ja1, ), a word found frequently in the later imperial oaths of allegiance, but not in our texts of the oath for the Deli~n League itself ( cf. Ar,Athpol.23.5; Plut.Ar.25.1 )261? Similarly by deciding to carry his narrative on as far as the siege of Sestos Herodotus contrives to end with a picture of the Peloponnesians 11thinking that the best thing to do was to return to Greece11 , while the Athenians under Xanthippus 11determined to stay where they were11 ( .cf.9.114.2 ), a picture which anticipates the later withdrawal of the Spartans from Ionia, leaving the hegemony in the hands of the Athenians ( cf. Thucyd.1.95.7, above). This closing tableau may well be meant to set the reader thinking how things developed next, and remembering how these events led to the Delian League, and tbg11ce to empire. The sense that things are not complete, which led some commentators to suspect that the work was itself not complete262, is on this view a deliberate effect. The siege of Sestos drags on longer than expected, ~nd the Athenian troops begin to grumble ( 9.117 ): noxaAAOV õ 'A.\JnvatoL &1to T£ TD~ EWUTWV &1to6nμtOVT£~ xat OU 6uv&μevo1, fl;eAetv TO Tetxõ, £6£0VTO T£ Twv O'TpaTnywv oxw~ &1t&yoLE:V acpfõ 01tCaw• ot 08 ot'.Jtt e,cwav 11:ptv n £/;£Awai.j n TO 'A{JnvaCwv MOGVOV ocpsã μ£TCH£μq,nmt,. o{hw-on €CJT£pyov T& 1tapeovm. Quite how we are to take the last sentence here is doubtful. The orthodox view is that the subject of estergon is 'the Athenians', and that Herodotus ,is here signing off in a colourless way: "Thus the soldiers put up with their lot 11 ( cf. e.g. Powell, s.v. stergo, although the word does not otherwise mean 11put up with" in Herodotus ). Fornara ( p.81 n.9) suggests that the subject is rather 'the generals' and 'the assembly', though this is somewhat forced ) and .that there is an ironic barb here: 11so great)y did the generals like the present situation 11 • I would suggest another ***-------~ .. -*---~---------- -331possibility, given Denniston's observation ( Greek Particles p.209 ) that hout~ d~ "is often ironical, contemptuous or indignant in tone 11 , namely that it is indeed 'the Athenians 1 , i.e. the troops, who are 11putting up with the present situation 11 , but that Herodotus is inviting us to remember that this indifference towards the affairs of Asia Minor was not long-lived and that the same Athenian troops were soon strenuously fighting for empire ( cf. e.g. Aristoph.Vesp.1098ff ). The assembly never did recall the fleet from Ionia and the decision to stay soon put the means to empire into their hands. The last act of Xanthippus in Asia after the capture of Sestos and before the Athenians retire for the winter is his punishment of Artayktes. As the Thebans hoped to do with Pausanias (above), Artayktes ( ~.120.3 ) tries to bribe the Athenian general: 100 talents for the wronged Protesilaos and 200 talents for the Athenians, if he and his son are allowed to live. But Xanthippus is not persuaded263 ( 9.120.4 ): ol yap 'EAaLouaLoL TfilL If there was some doubt as to how to take Pausanias' similar treatment of the Thebans, Herodotus' account of the last act of Xanthippus in the work is unmistakably disturbing 120.4-121): &nayayOVT£S 6€ aUTOV ( SC. ApTãxTnv ) Tnv axTnv ES Tnv ..... , ~ ,, t" ' , t " , ' " ~ '\ ' ~£PsnS £~£Us£ TOV UOpov, OL 0£ A£yoUOL £UL TOV KOAWVOV TOV ~ulp MaodToU noALos, oavfoL u~oouaocrqA£UoavT£S av£xpeμaoav, TOV OE uatoa lv 6~~aAμotcrL TOD 'ApTaUKTEW KUTEA£Ucrav. TaDTa 6£ UOLnOaVT£S aU£UA£0V ES Tnv 'EAAa6a, Ta T£ &AAa xpnμaTa ayovT£S KUL 6n KUL Ta ~UAU TWV Y£~Up£WV WS &vãnooVT£S €~ TU ~pa. ' ' " - • ' ,, , ,. , • , 264 KUL TO ETOS TOUTO OUO£V £TL UA£0V TOUTWV. EYEV£TO • Xanthippus' revenge has all the character of the despotic punishments of the oriental kings265: the father who had asked his son to ~e spared sees him destroyed before his own eyes266. The 1 oriental I character of the act is perhaps highlighted by Herodotus' reminder that it took place ( at least according to the tradition he prefers, cf. 7.33) at the headland where Xerxes yoked the strait between Asia and Europe. That correspondence •• -332also suggests something else, that in this first victory at Sestos was born the empire to replace ( at least in Asia Minor) the one that was just passing. It has symbolic significance that the Athenians t:ake home with them to Greece the ouAa Twv ys~upswv~ the symbols of Xerxes' own imperial ambition: the reader may doubt that the Athenians learnt the lesson that these trophies stand for. Significant also is that Herodotus• account of Greek action with the pregnant reminder that all is not over, that the Athenians' work has just begun: 'nothing more happened in that year', but the Athenians would cont;rue each year after that to prosecute the business they had so ominously started here at Sestos. Athens' growth through freedom, first freedom from political domination the tyranny of the Peisistratids, cf. Ch.II.ii ), then freedom from imperial domination ( Persia ), parallels exactly the growths through freedom of Media and then Persia, which we followed in the first section ( cf. Ch.II.i.B ): through freedom Athens comes to empire and the enslavement of her fellowGreeks. Herodotus drops the curtain abruptly at just the moment when the transition to empire begins: the reader can be expected to fill in the rest 267 This is the point to which everything has been leading: we might almost say that the work's interest in empire, enslavement and liberty, has from the beginning had in mind this climax. The analogy between the empires of Persia and Athens, far-fetched as it may seem to us, was actually canvassed in Herodotus' own day. Thucydides can have an Athenian speaker openly acknowledge the comparison, recalling that their 1 allies 1 were subjects of Persia before ( 1.77.5 ): uuo youv TOU Mn6ou 6£LVOT£pa TOUTWV rraoxovTs, 268 y&p alst Bapt Tot, 0rrnx6oLs Accordingly we may suggest that in choosing to write about the Persian erpire Herodotus in some degree at le~st chose a subject which would provoke thoughts about the Athenian empire, and even that the importance of the t:heme of freedom throughout the work reflects . t t 269 a prom,nen con emporary concern . -333- {L) Conclusiob. The liberation of Greece is such an equivocal story in Herodotus' hands because it is written with the present in mind: it illustrates in and through the narrative of the Persian wars those qualities in the Greeks, their weaknesses, their rancorous divisions, their unscrupulous ambitions, which led by an inevitable and continuous process to the war during which the work was brought to completion. This interpretation of the work is indeed not new but the essential fact of Herodotus' systematic equivocation has not yet been fully recognized. The story is only wholly comprehensible if we appreciate that Herodotus has gone out of his way to exploit a paradox: the salvation of Greece was achieved through the actions of men whose characters, manners and institutions were ( and still are for Herodotus corrupt and unadmirable. We might suggest si parva licet componere magnis that Herodotus' treats the Greeks and their achievements in the same sophistic and paradoxical manner as the so-called Old Oligarch treats the Athenians and Athenian democracy270. The Ps.-Xenoph.Athpol. has learnt from the sophists the paradoxical trick of praising something abhorrent to general opinion ( cf. Ch.III.E ), so that the author simultaneously deplores the democracy and 1 praises 1 its remarkable 'good sense 1 ( Athpol.I.1 ): UEpt 6~ Tns 1 A6nvaCwv •oALTECas, arL μ~v ErAovto T00TOV T~V tp6•ov tffs KOALzECas õx &•aLVffi ••• &.Et 6~ taOta ~60~EV ÕTWS ãtots, &, E~ 6La<JWLi';OVTaL TT]V noAvr.dav xat;rihAci. 6LaKptlTTOVTaG cl 6oxo00l,V .~μaptdVELV rots &AAoLs 0 EAAncrL~ taOT' &•o6EC~w. Similarly, though more subtly, Herodotus paradoxically sets out at the same time to praise the Greeks for their achievements in the war with Persia and to deplore their frailties and vices. In the light of this we may turn back to his astonishing 'Encomium of Athens' ( 7.139, with (E).2 above): like the Old Oligarch, Herodotus has taken it upon himself to question criticisms levelled at Athens by the rest of Greece and to set the record straight in certain precise particulars, while all the time including himself among the critics. But while the Old Oligarch cannot -334resist giving vent to his hatred of the very idea of democracy, Herodotus allows the case for the prosecution to emerge with scarcely any explicit advocacy on his part. In many respects Herodotus shows in this narrative of the Persian Wars the same equivocal manner that we discovered in earlier sections, the same desire to contrast the admirable and the shameful qualities in human nature through paradoxical juxtaposition, to explore the conflicts of motive and action, of public pretensions and private ambitions. The Greek defence, like the Ionian r:evolt earlier ( cf. (B) above ), combines attractive and unattractive elements in the same perplexing patterns: , individual noble acts of heroism and self-sacrifice alongside corporate acts of treachery, inconstancy and disunity. In another way, the two protagonists on the Greek side exhibit different combinations of faults and virtues, or rather the same essential qualitites manifest themselves at different times in different ways: the Spartans fight the most heroically of all the Greeks, in particular at Thermopylae, but they do so at the command of a despotic nomos, which gives their heroic sacrifices a certain perversity while at the same time they fail to show any appreciation of the common intersts of the Greeks, but respond only to demands of their own honour or survival; the Athenians on the other hand show the greatest interest of all the allies in the survival of the whole of Greece, not just their own city, a factor which in fact proves the saving of the cause ( cf. 7 .139 ) , but they do so because that is where they see their private interests as lying, both their immediate jnt?rests 5 in the sense that they need the rest of the Greeks if they are to avoid destruction by Persia in which respect their position is unlike that of the others ( cf. n.57, above ) and their long-term interests, in the sense that through success in the Persian Wars they anticipate that their own power will grow in the Greek world ( cf. e.g. 6.109, with (C).2 and (G).I, above ). Herodotus 1 -335view of the world is made up of such contradictions and perplexities, and it is typical of his literary manner that he allows them essentially to 'speak for themselves' which is not to say that many of the perplexittes are not of his own devising! There may, however, be another side to Herodotus' equivocation in this account besides the taste for paradoxes and moral uncertainties, and that is that he did not feel himsel*f wholly free to make the explicit criticisms he wanted to make, given the audience he anticipated for his work. Let us confine ourselves to Athens. On the above interpretation Herodotus comes surprisingly close on a number of occasions to echoing Athens1 own propaganda about her democracy ( cf. 5.78 ), about her role in the Persian Wars ( cf. e.g. 9.27 ), and even about how her services to Greece justified her empire ( cf. esp. 7.139 ), so much so that the traditional view of the work as a panegyric of and an apoloiy for that city is not entirely without foundation. It has needed a somewhat painstaking attention to details of emphasis and omission to appreciate that Herodotus• heart and mind are not so committed. I believe we can offer an explanation of this :.curious evasiveness which will at the same time suggest the reason for the work's most startling omission, namely Herodotus' failure anywhere to speak directly about the Athenian empire, which is puzzling on any other . t t t• 271 ,n erpre a 1 on If Herodotus was indeed an enthusiast for Periclean democracy and empire, why does he leave out any explicit justification of them, even, as we have seen, in contexts which clearly cry out for it ( cf. esp. 7.139, above)? On the other hand if he is a critic of Athenian empire, why again does he never take the bit between his teeth and attack it outright, rather than confining himself to innuendo, and even coming close to conceding the Athenians• own p\opaganda? The answer seems to me that he wanted his work to succeed at Athens itself above al 1, the prytaneiontes sophias, the centre of Greek intellectual life of the day and there are clear hints that he is writing at least in part directly -336for an Athenian audience 272, besides the very obviously Atheno-centric bias of so much of the work but that he deplored the behaviour of his hosts and the way they had abused their power in the Greek world. Thus he anticipated that an Athenian audience, in the main, would hear only what it wanted to hear and would be well pleased, so that we might almost credit the clearly unreliable claim of the ancient biography that he was handsomely rewarded by the democracy for his work; but at the same time he hoped that the attentive and reflective reader, who saw with him the dark side of Athenian empire, would be aware that there were deeper currents beneath the surface. An outright critique of Athens and the empire was something he felt he could not write without fear at least of unpopularity, and perhaps even of censure or sanction of some kind. How safe could someone like Herodotus have felt, if having chosen to live and work at Athens among his i nte llectua 1 .peers. ( cf. Ch. II I ) , he then found himself increasingly out. of sympathy with the city and all it stood for? We may reasonably question whether Athens' much famed to}erance of free-speech ( parrh~sia )273 would have stretched to accepting a foreigner's explicit criticisms of her empire in a work designed for an Athenian audience, or rather an audience at Athens. If Cleon could prosecute Aristophanes ( unsuccessfully as it may be ) for 'wronging the city' in his 'Babylonians• 27\ when in all probability the play did no more than question the mis-management of the empire, would Herodotus have been immune from attack if he had questioned the very existence of that empire? Not even the Old Oligarch does that, and we may imagine that his pamphlet did not aim at the wide circulation that Herodotus must have hoped would attend his work indeed there may be some reason to suppose that the Old Oligarch is not actually writing for an Athenian audience at all. Herodotus was completing his book at a time when Athens was already at vJar, and thus no doubt demanding a greater solidarity than usual for the e(l1pire and the city, and already intolerant ( as Thucydides' speeches for both Pericles and Clean show) towards those who advocated -337a soft line over the empire~ If Herodotus was writing in Athens ( we cannot know when he went to Thurii: cf. Ch.III. Introd. ) or writing with a view to being heard in Athens, where he would have the ears of those who really mattered, his equivocation in treating Athens and its doings is not at all hard to understand. * ----'----- ***--CHAPTER THREE HERODOTUS AND THE SOPHISTIC MOVEMENT -339Herodotus and the Sophistic Movement. Anyone trying to write a chapter in the history of ideas must be daunted at some time or other by the suspicion that there has never been anything new under the sun, that the persistence of old ideas in and alongside new ones renders the task of*mapping even the most elementary boundaries at best arbitrary. But the novelty of the sophistic movement is such that we need scarcely be troubled by such considerations: the evidence, direct and indirect, from Euripides, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Plato especially, Xenophon, and even Aristotle, to mention only the rr.ajor witnesses, is quite sufficient to show us the radical consequences, moral, intellectual, social, political, even spiritual, of the sophists 1 Even Plato's pejorative reflexions on the moral and intellectual standing of some of the leading figures of the movement arise more from anxious defence than from lordly scorn: if the sophists were indeed as intellectually negligible as he sometimes seems to imply, he would have no business to devote so much time to them and their ideas. Fran Thucydides' speeches, on the other hand, we gain a clear impression of the impact that sophistic ways of thinking and talking had on the social and political life of the more advanced cities, as for example in Cleon's denunciation of the Athenian infatuation with clever speakers 3.38.4ff ). The Mytilenean debate can be called historical in the limited sense that Thucydides rsrembered how, already at that time, the influence exerted over the political life of the democracy by sophistic rhetoric and sophistic morality was an issue for concern. It is not necessary for our purposes here to decide what exactly we mean by a sophist, nor to ask how accurate is Plato's scornful definftion which limits the role of sophist to that of professional teacher 2 Rather, since we have such clear evidence of a radical intellectual revolution with a -340wide impact, we should ask what common inspiration of ideas and methods held it together, and allow that as a movement it attracted many participants not strictly sophists under Plato's definition, who nevertheless by their involvement helped to sustain and direct its momentum. What distinguishes the sophistic movement above all from all that preceded it, is that it initiated a whole new field of intellectual .inquiry, the inquiry into the nature of man3. This is not to deny that generations of Greek poets had in various ways formulated impressive insights into the human condition, insights which in some degree provided the sophists with a base to build upon; but there had not been anything approaching a systematic intellectual inquiry into such things until this period. Previously intellectual endeavour, outside the poets, had centred almost exclusively on the physical world, on the kosmos and the forces th~brought it into being. Man could be studied as a zoological organism, with a place on the evolutionary map4 but not yet as a social animal, or even a rational animal. The idiosyncracies of human perception were studied only insofar as they provided an explanation for prevailing misconceptions about 1 nature 1 not for the light they shed on the nature of man himself ( see (D) below). The sophistic movement was at the same time more and less ambitious: less, in the sense that it largely lost the taste for the mysteries of the kosmos, more in that by placing the nature of man at the centre of the inquiry, it threw open the door to the whole range of human experience. The proliferation of questions is breath-taking: the nature of human society, the nature of perception and moral judgementihuman psychology, the use and abuse of language to mention only the major categories. The typical sophist challenged his audience with the claim to be able to speak on any subject, even if need be imprornptu5. And though there is good evidence that the search for the right answers, rather than merely possible, or probable ones, was not often as tenacious, disciplined or scrupulous as it might have been, the Jhsight that no area of human experience was inaccessible to.inquiry, clearly exerted -341the most powerful effect on the imagination. It can scarcely have been possible any longer to make any statement about religion, politics, morals, which would carry intellectual authority, without having to acknowledge the consequences of the sophistic revolution. As we have said, this account of the movement will require us to include a number of figures not covered by Plato's definition. There seems, for example, little reason to exclude Socrates from the movement: he may or may not have attended the lectures of Prodicu~ ( cf. Pl.Cratyl.3848 ), but it is clear that both in the questions he treats and in the techniques he employs in tackling them he is a pupil of the sophists and an heir to their tradition. Democritus is another major candidate, and ancient testimony to his participation in debates on sophistic issues, and even with particular sophists like Protagoras 6, fully justifies this, as does the evidence of the fragments and doxography itself. In another direction we cannot ignore the 5thc medical writers, Hippocratic texts like Cn Ancient Medicine' On the Art, Airs, Waters, Places, On the Sacred Disease, On Breaths, both because of their style ( and especially what they have borrowed from the sophistic epideixeis ) and in some degree their content 7. Or in a different way, we may wish to admit Thucydides, whose absorption and working-out of sophistic ideas is one of the clearest testimonies to the influence and scope of the sophistic movement, as we shall see8 . Clearly there are complex problems of discrimination here if we are concerned to distinguish 1 borrowers 1 from 1 initiators 1 ; but such discriminations unhelpfully mask an essential common factor, namely that all these men in their different ways, and d~spite their separate individual pre-occupations, are demonstrably caught up in a common debate, and sense the importance of availing themselves of the langua_ge of the debate and in most cases taking a stand on its various issues. -342Is there any good reason to deny that Herodotus was caught up in this same debate? It has been widely recognized that there are certain passages in Herodotus in which the influence of sophistic thought can scarcely be denied, most notably for ir,istance in the Persian constitution-debate, in which style, form, argument and content all point in the same direction ( see below). But equally it appears to be universally agreed, on no very thorough review of the evidence, that Herodotus is only really 'influenced' in a half-hearted sort of way, or only at the end of his life, or only to a degree that is not, on balance, significant. So, for example, W. Aly ( one of the few to mak~ any serious attempt at analysing the question of sophistic influence in Herodotus ), despite having assembled a fair array of evidence remains convinced that Herodotus is 'essentially' primitive or archaic: 11Denn wMhrend Herodotus sich in die Geistigkeit seines grossen Freundes ( sc. Sophoklis ) innig eingelebt hat, bleiben die Sophistika ~ltropfen, die sich dem Ubrigen nicht vermischen. Sie beweisen nur aufs Neue, mit welther Energie Herodot. aufgesaugt hat, was die ihn umgebende Welt zu bieten vermochte. Wie weit er das Empfangenes assimil ierte, lag nicht in seiner Macht, ein Zeichen zugleich fUr die werbende Macht des Neuen, wie fUr die Festigkeit der in Herodot . lebenden Tradition, die die UnmBglichkeit, einer organischen Verbindung des unbewusst schaffendgrr 'Logos' ( i.e. Ioniag story-telling ) mit der bewussten Kunst des neuen Geistes empfand" Wherever Herodotus' 'modernity' is discussed and it is not a popular topic the conclusion is some such equivocation: Herodotus turns out to be neither wholly one thing nor wholly another, although if anything rather archaic than modern. But this is clearly unsatisfactory, for the reason that it fails to account for the influence of sophistic thought on the basic conception of Herodotus' work. To take the most obvious example, the constitution debate, as we have seen repeatedly in the above chapters, is in no sense an alien adjunct to the work, but rather a fully integrated part of the whole, in which the debate on government is one of the major thematic threads. This is not consistert with any of the orthodox views: if we are to argue that Herodotus is only incidentally or superfi~ially affected by sophistic thinking, we need to be able to show that it has -343not penetrated deep into the roots of the work, but that it has rather coloured only certain isolated and incompletely assimilated passages. Hence what is required is not simply a new emphasis in this question, but rather a complete rethinking of the terms of the inquiry. It is not that there is a greater degree of sophistic influence than has hitherto been supposed, there is rather a difference in the kind of influence: the work's ' ' conception depends on sophistic influence, not merely its decoration. Herodotus may, in short, be classed as a participant in the sophistic debate. I shall not here attempt an exhaustive illustration of this thesis; the aim of the present chapter is merely to establish that there is indeed a case worthy of consideration. My contention is that the orthodoxy tends on the one hand to misunderstand the 'Ionian Enlightenment' and the limitations of its horizons and on the other to underestimate the range of interest of the sophistic movement itself, with the result that what ought to be recognized as modern in Herodotus is either thought to be 'archaic' and Ionian or passes by unremarked. A final point that must be made before the main investigation is that the supposed chronological hindrances to the hypothesis of sophistic influence in Herodotus are unfounded10. We have, as Jacoby has shown, no reliable biographical tradition for Herodotus, that might assist us in determining his dates 11 The only reasonably certain biographical datum, deriving not from the biography alone but from an early text of Herodotus12, is his involvement with Thurii ( founded 444-3: Diod:XiI;l0.3ff ); but even here the usual assumption that he was among the first colonists is wholly unnecessary, and hence the datum is worthless for our purposes. As for the evidence relating to the composition of the work13, the only certain clues point to his being at work on at least some part of it around the beginning of the Peloponnesian War ( cf. 5.77.4 (?); 6.91.1; ~~------------------------~----- ----,- --- -3447.137.3, 233.2; 9.73.3 )14• and even, if we are to accept the powerful arguments of Fornara, as late as the end of the Archidamian War. For example, the reference to the failure of the Spartans to ravage Decelea in the war ( 9.73.3, xat t~ T~v n6AEμov Tbv ~aTEpov no;\).otaL ITEOL T06Twv ' ~ ' ., , '\ ., ' , ' ,,,, yEvoμsvov A&nvaLoLaL TE xaL TIE;\onovvncrLoLaL, crLvoμsvwv Tnv aAAnv 'ATnxnv)1.aJ:ls6ciL11ovCwv, l:IEXEAEns; &ntxrn&aL )15 is inconceivable before hostilities have been brought to a close in 421: at any date before this, Herodotus' statement must be an unaccountably rash prediction which the events of the following year could all too easily have controverted. It does not seem likely that he could have confidently assumed that there would be no mor,e Laconian invasions of Attica after Pylos, something that Thucydides does not have the Athenians anticipate even just after the successful conclusion to the affair ( Thucyd.4.41 ; does he not exaggerate Spartan despondency after the capture of Cythera at 4.55.lff, and was a Spartan revival not to be expected after Delium and the successes of Brasidas? ). If Herodotus' conviction depended on the signing of the qñ7year-~s truce 422 ( Thucyd.4.117.lff; still, of course, an acknowledgement that the two states were at war), we are carried beyond what would otherwise be chosen as the terminus ante quern for 'publication', namely that provided by the apparent parody of the opening of the work in Aristophanes' Acharnians, which was produced at the Lenaea of 425 ( cf. n.18 ), and the precise date when Herodotus finished work would still be obscure. Certainly there are statements which we might have expected Herodotus to have changed if he was still working on his book as late as this: in particular, his report of the earthquake on Delos in 490 ( 6.98.1, xat npraTa xat ~crTaTa JJEXPL fusu crucr&et:cra is hard to imagine having been written after 432-1, when another notable earthquake took place there 16. But we cannot assess the likelihood of his making a thorough revision of all he wrote before 'publication': the physical problems of ancient book writing tell against the up-dating of details, and the whole business of correction must have been far more cumbersome than is anachronistically assumed by some modern scholars 17. -345We can perhaps do no better than conclude that the second half of the work was being written down during the twenties: as for the rest, there is nothing to show whether it was written before or after thisJ8. An author who has reached literary maturity by the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, is perfectly capable of having formed his thoughts through contact with the sophists. By general agreement19 the main 5thc sophists fall into two groups, the older group headed by Protagoras and GQrgias ( and probably including Antiphon), both born probably between Marathon and Salamis, the younger group including Hippias and Prodicus, both still alive fn 39920. An important text here is Plato's Protagoras, with a dramatic date shortly before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War ( ? 433 )21. Here Protagoras appears as the father-figure of the sophistic movement ( 317C .) : he has been practising his craft now for many years, and he even claims he is old enough to be the father of anyone of the company. That company includes besides Socrates, both Hippias and Prodicus, who are nonetheless introduced to us as established professionals giving their own seminars ( 315Bff ), and whom the young Hippias is as eager to meet *as to hear Protagoras himself ( 314C ). If Hippias and Prodicus are already well established at this time, and Protagoras the 'old man1 of the movement, we are entitled to see Herodotus, who is still at work on his book possibly more than a decade later, at the very least as a contemporary of Protagoras, if not nearer in age to the younger sophists. (A) Herodotus and Hippias. Of all the sophists known to us the one who most suggestively recalls Herodotus is the peripatetic master of all knowledge, Hippias of Elis. A vivid picturepf his interests and activities emerges from the opening of Plato 1 s Hippias Major, in which the sophist describes to a suitably respectful Socrates how he travels around the Greek world, lecturing on -346whatever his audiences want to hear ( Hipp.Maj. 285 BE ). This might be astronomy, geometry, arithmetic ( or logic? ), language and poetry, or at Sparta the particular delight of the audiences which is arkhaiologia, for example, the generations of heroes and men or the foundations of cities. As the fragments show, moreover, this by no means completes the tally of his interests. When Socrates, not without irony, exclaims ( 285Ef) that Hippias is lucky that the Spartans' taste is not for the complete list of Athenian archons from Solon, Hippias corrects him: he need only hear a list of 50 names once over to be able to remember them all. Of course, replies Socrates, I forgot that you are 0skilled in mnemonic devices ( to mn�monikon 122 .Similarly in the Hippias Minor ( �63C) the sophist reminds Eudikos how he made a habit of going to Olympia at the time of the festival, where he would offer either to deliver any of the epideixeis he had prepared or to answer any questions anyone chose to put to him. In other word;:; Hippias had a vast store of general knowledge and the ability to remember enormous lists of facts, a cornucopia from which he could equally well give prepared or impromptu lectures on any topic anyone could wish for.� The biographical tradition which makes of Herodotus the same sort of peripatetic lecturer cannot unfortunately be trusted in any way23. We cannot, for example, give much credit to Lucian ( 'Herodotus' l.lff who has him recite from his work at Olympia, even comparing this practice with that of Hippias and the other sophists; nor can we trust the story that he was rewarded by the Athenians after a recitation of his work in the cit/4. It remains possible that Thucydides ( 1. 21.1) is indeed referring to Herodotus among the authors who recited their works or from their works - ( lit T� xpoaaywy6TEPOV TnL &xpo&aEL � &AneicrTEPOV }. It is probably wisest to say that neither external nor internal evidence25 can be taken to prove that Herodotus either delivered the work in lecture form, or gave lectures adapted from it, or pieced it together out of already existing - --*-*-*--**-*---- ------- -- -347lectures. On the other hand it seems a priori credible that, like the sophists and some the medical writers, he did indeed make a living delivering display lectures 26. Given the predominance of oral over written culture which continued in the late 5thc despite a widespread familiarity with reading, writing and books27, it would be curious if Herodotus was not concerned to gain as wide as possible an audience for his views and researches ( and by no means only those which found their way into his book) through public lecturing in a sophistic manner. Herodotus may well be thought to have given 'seminars' of the kind typical of the sophists whose activities we see pictured in Plato's Protagoras 28 Certainly it would be useful to know how reliable is the report of Aristophanes of Boeotia preserved in Plutarch ( MH 864CD = FGH 379F5 ), according to which Herodotus asked for*money from the Thebans but failed to get it: ',. ,, , ,,.... " "\; EKOOAD.ftn 6L ci:ypoL'XLCl.V au,wv 11.CtL μLOOAO"(LCtV • Aristophanes is thought by Jacoby to have written as early as the end of the 5thc ( see Kommentar, ad loc. ), and Jacoby is convinced enough of the reliability of the anecdote to consider ascribing it to the author's own recollection. If we can bring ourselves to share this suspension of scepticism ( and certainly the story is almost sufficiently uncomplimentary to the Thebans to rule out the simple hypothesis that it was invented to get revenge for the slanderous treatment of them in Herodotus' work ), we are afforded as clear a glimpse of Herodotus the sophist as we could wish: a professional lecturer, conducting seminars for the young men of the city and distrusted by the authorities as being 'too clever' for the common good. We can hardly be confident that the story is true: but even if it is not, that a Greek of the late 5thc or early 4thc could think of portraying Herodotus as a sophist is a piece of evidence worthy of our attention as being nearly contemporar.f 8a. -348To .consider the texts themselves: there are a nllllber of intriguing correspondences between the work of Hippias and Herodotus which at the same time show that Herodotus' interests are characteristic of this kind of sophist, and suggest that Herodotus may actually have been acquainted in some way or other with the work of Hippias29. The most obvious thing that both of them have in common is a pride in the extent ( t~ough not necessarily the depth! of their general knowledge. Hippias 1 mnemonics were essential to him to remember lists of facts, names, places, and so on: it is not hard to imagine that Herodotus made rather more use of such devices than he did of the 1 notes 1 , card-indexes and filing-systems which have been so anachronistically foisted on him. But there are also correspondences in the type of knowledge that both were expert in. Unfortunately we know nothing of Hippias 1 Ethnon Onomasiai ( DK II.331.20ff.,;;:H2 ); Snell suggested with some plausibility that the work contained something like a doxography of earlier philosophical writings 30 . Certainly it seems very probable that we should associate the work with the fragment quoted by Clement ( DK II.331.12ff = 86 ), in which Hippias introduces some kind of collection of interesting information culled from numerous different sources: from Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, Homer and other poets, and from the syggraphai of Gr,eeks and barbarians ( this last a rather remarkable much more than a compendium of materials from other people' work: but like Hippias he is clearly aiming at a novel synthesis, a compendium among whose chief attra.cttons is variety of interest. We may wonder whether Herodotus I search for variety, never admittedly claimed by him as a principle but clearly discernible in the choice and handling of hismaterial,his search . b' ( h- . )31 . t . l for remarkable and arresting su Jects tat omasia , is no naive y archaic and 1 Ionian 1 , as it is often portrayed, but rather modern and sophistic 32. It is possible that Thucydides is linking Herodotus with -349the sophists when he appears to allude to his work as designed snt To the meretricious elements of Herodotus' work surely have more in common with the alluring displays of the sophists, with their fanciful use of fables ( cf. (8), below), their brilliant arguments ( cf. (E), below), their sophisticated worldliness, than with the apparently much drier intellectualism of the Ionians, with their contempt for the common man, their lofty physical speculations, their plain and unalluring catalogue-style. Hippias' arkhaiologia suggests more precise points of contact with Herodotus, in particular for example their common interest in Sparta. We know that Hippias mentioned Lycurgus ( DK II.332.15-6 = Bll ), though unlike Herodotus he casts him as a military man, experienced in many strategies. Plato's evidence (Hipp.Maj.above ) seems to confirm that Hippias did indeed have an interest in early Sparta: we can but speculate whether it is not Hippias to whom Herodotus refers, when introducing his account of Spartan customs he says he will not embark on the early history ( 6.55 ): ,, \ ... , ,, ' J::, ,,, '\ , '\ 's , QAAOLOL yap KEPL aUTffiV ELpnTaL •.• Ta uE BAAOL OU xaTEAa OVTO, TOUTOOV , , 33 μvnμnv noLnooμaL There is another possibility which might well be thought to point to Herodotus' acquaintance with the work of Hippias. The Olympionikon Anagraphe is known to us from a single reference in Plutarch's Life of Numa ( DK 8683 = Plut.Vit.Num.1 ), where we are told that Olympic dating is a particularly untrustworthy activity, in that the first list was a relatively late production: ~v T~V &vaypã~v 6~t ~aaL 'InnLav &xooOvaL T6V HAELOV &n' oD6EVOS opμwμEVOS &vayxaCou rtpos KLOTLV. If Plutarch's information is reliable, then it is clear Hippias must have set himself a task involving a considerable amount of original research, and possibly even some mere speculation. There being no list for him to copy from34, Hippias' list must have been a typical combination of erudition, memory • -350d . t. 35 an organ, za 1 on Turning to Herodotus, we find that his work is liberally annotated with information about Olympic victories. Such are the mentions of the victories of Miltiades ( 6.36.1 ), of Demaratus ( 6.70.3 ), of Cimon ( 6.103.2f ), of Alcmaeon ( 6.1 .5 ), of Cleisthenes of Sicyon ( 6.126.2 ), even of Philippos of Craton ( 5.47.1 ); the discussion of Pheidon 1 s usurpation of the administration of the games ( 6.127.3 ); the judgement of the Olympic officials on the nationality of Alexander and his victory in the stadion ( 5.22.lf ); and the efforts of Teisamenos to win the five victories he believes he has been promised by the oracle ( 9.33.2 )36. It is tempting to conclude that Herodotus writes as someone who had access to Hippias' work. Certainly famous victories and famous victors will have survived long in the oral tradition, but where Herodotus brings in an Olympic victory without obvious necessity, where the information has no integral relevance to the tradition he is relating, as he often does in the passages cited, his liberality might well have to do with his reading of Hippias36a. (B) Human origins, early society and the inventive mind. One of the most striking concerns of the sophistic enlightenment appears to have been the speculative reconstruction of the development of mankind through social and technological change, from his earliest beginnings as . l . 137 a soc,a an,ma . This whole field of research is clearly a new discovery of the second half of the 5thc. Certainly Hesiod has some conception of how human history has progressed from its beginnings, in his myth of the Golden Age, but his view is that of a poet, a mythographer and a moralist, and we are offered descent rather than ascent. A further anticipation " has been seen in the remarkable fragment of Xenophanes in which the gods are said to havewitheld knowledge from man in the beginning ( DK 21818 ): We may reasonably doubt, however, that -351Xenophanes attempted a developed account of the progress of human culture. But by the 440's there is clear evidence of a n.ew interest in explaining, without recourse to mythology or theology, how man emerged from being a wild animal ( theriodes ) into a social and technological animal. It was not until the sophistic period that there arose the idea of human culture as an autonomous, self-developing and self-perpetuating system, whose workings could be accounted for in purely naturalistic terms. Unfortunately we know of these discussions only indirectly, whether through poetic echoes, or borrowings and imitations in other writers, most of whom are late 38. Nonetheless the impact of these new speculations is clear enough, even though in the poetic texts the naturalistic explanations have been largely re-mythologized. Prometheus1 account of the technological gifts that elevated man from his original brutish state in the Prom.Vinet. ( 442-68 and 478-506) is one of the early echoes, though in considering its date we need no longer be hampered by the hypothesis of Aeschylean authorship 39. The chorus of the Antigone ( 332-64) which celebrates man's technological ascendancy over nature, while warning of his weaknesses and limitations, can be read as a poetic reaction to the amoralist optimism of the new ideas of the ascent of man40. The most direct testimonies are the mythical narrative of the origins of man in Plato's Protagoras ( DK 80Cl = Pl.Protag.320Cff }, and the account in the first book of Diodorus ( 1.8.1-7 ), ascribed originally by Reinhardt to Democritus41, which illustrates the social and technological advance of man from the earliest beginnings. The complex account of man's early social life, 'after the.flood', in Plato's Laws 11142 clearly has a sophistic origin, though its'moral lesson has been twisted into an unusual shape by Plato himself 43. Four pieces of specifically 5thc evidence are worth mentioning, as providing the most direct ancient testimoMy we can hope for; the account of the development of medicine in the Hippocratic 'On Ancient Medicine•44; Thucydides 1 reconstruction in the -352Archaeology of the social development of Greece from the rliest times; Diodotus 1 speculative account of the history of punishment ( Thucyd.3.45.3ff, and Pherecrates 1 Agrioi ( 421 BC), a satire on the primitive life of man, . t I t. t th h f 1 • • 45 Ph t 1 a comic poe s reac ,on o e searc or man s or1g1ns erecra es comedy should remind us that there can hardly have been a long tradition of such speculation: like Aristophanes 1 Clouds, the play must have been a topical reaction to a contemporary fashion. The impact of this modern speculation has left clear marks in Herodotus: and the influence is very far from superficial. The sophistic anthropology made a clear break with the past in its insistence on the vastness of historical time, as a precondition of the social evolution of man46. Herodotus 1 'discovery 1 that Egyptian history extends back for many thousands of years, without any sign of an age of heroes or gods, which he contrasts with the perception of Hecataeus ( 2.143.lff, with n.69 below), is surely a point he emphasizes because of the bearing he knows it to have on the question of the evolution of .h_uman culture as posed by the sophists. There is a remarkable parallel here with what Solon learns about the antiquity of hμman civilization from the Egyptians in Plato 1 s Timaeus ( 22Bff ), which it is tempting to suppose has a common model with Herodotus ( see below). Admittedly the vastness of time was an important part of Pre-Socratic speculation on the evolution of the physical world ( cf. e.g. Anaximander, DK I.85.20ff; with Democritus, DK II.94.22 ), but the insight that this could have relevance for the evolution and diversity of human culture is very probably a sophistic one ( see below). We may compare here Herodotus 1 observation that the Median origin of the Thracian Sigynnae is not something he can confirm ( 5.9.3 ): ytvoLTD 6~ Bv ñv l~ TffiL The diversity of the human world could now be explained .as a result of evolution over measureless tracts of time. -353A good example of such a process of diversification is Herodotus 1 . remarkable story of the origins of the Sauromatai ( 4.110-17 ), a new ethnic group formed by the union of a band of wandering Amazons with.a tribe of Scyth.ians. The account has rightly .been identif}ed by Cole as bearing 11the marks of being a thinly disguised piece of speculative ethnology 1A8. Cole well illustrates the similarities between the assumptions of this passage and the theory of society advanced in Polybius VI ( 5.10-6.1 ), an account which may well go back to a 5thc sophistic model. The natural obstacles to the mingling of different ethnic groups can be overcome by their living together in peaceful proximity ( synetheia, syntrophia ); the next stage is for individuals of the two groups to begin sexual relations, this leading to i~termarriage and subsequently the formation of a new ethnos. Herodotus' account is particularly interested ( again, as we shall see, a sophistic pre-occupation) in what happens to language in such cases of racial mingling. When the .Amazons first arrive in Scythia the inhabitants cannot make out their language ( 4.111.1 }, and the first meeting of individuals of the two communities has to be conducted in sign language ( 113.2 ). When the two groups start living together the linguistic problems continue, the men being unable to make headway with the language of the Amazons, but the women picking up that of the Scythians ( 114.1 ). So too once the new community has broken off from the old, the new culture becomes a complex mixture of the two original ones, not least in its language This microscopic attention to the mechanics of linguistic change and the generation of new languages, all of it of course speculative, is clearly a product of the sophistic interest in defiring culture and the ways in which its various forms and manifestations come about. The same speculative interest in language, and the way it survives or alters over time through contact with other languages, recurs in a -354number of other contexts. So, for example, Herodotus speculates how the language of the early Pelasgian inhabitants of Greece is related to that of the Hellenes ( 1.57.lff ). What language the Pelasgians spoke, says Herodotus, he cannot say for certain; but there are still Pelasgians 1iving in Etruria and on the Hellespont, and if we.can judge from these, the Pelasgians spoRe a barbarian language. And if all the Pelasgians were like these, then the people of Attica, being originally Pelasgian, must have changed their language when they became Hellenes. While on the other hand the Pelasgians of Kreston ( Etruria ): oU6aμoLcrL TWv vDv cr,sã ncpLoLxcOvTwv cLaL OμOyAwcrcroL oUTe oL ITlaxLnvoC ( on the Hellespont )~ acpLaL.6E oμoylwaaoL, 6nloOaC TE ;TL Trav AvECxavTo ylwaans xapaxTr\pa μETaBaCvoVTES TaDTa T& xwpCa TODTov EfxouaL iv cpulaxr\L. To 6E 'E.UnvLxov ylwaanL μ(v, t1E,Te lyiVETO, alEC HOTe Tr\~ ãrr\L, 6LaxpaTaL, ~~ &uot xaTacpaCvETaL EivaL. The method of reasoning clearly has something in common with the techniques of Thucydides 1 Archaeology, as we shall see in a moment. Here, as in the case of the Sauromatai, Herodotus explores the racial origins of the Greeks and the Pelasgians through speculation about language. His discussion is based on the perception that language, no less than the other characteristics which differentiate the various ethnea, has evolved its variety over historical time, again a perception derived from sophistic anthropology 49. The natural origins of language are explored in the remarkable story which introduces Herodotus' account of Egypt, Psammetichus1 experiment to discover the oldest language and hence the oldest people ( 2.2.lff )49a. The form of the story, its obvious relation to the other 'sophistic experiment' of Darius ( 3.38 ), as well as its mythopoeic manner, similar to that of the story of the Sauromatai ( above ), immediately remind us of the sophists. :Jmd the content too clearly justifies this suspicion 50 Psammetichus hopes that by bringing up two scfiildeen under strict experimental conditions and not allowing them to hear any hμman speech51, he will provide himself evidence for the original language of man from the first words they speak. There are two assumptions underlying the experiment52: the first is that -355of environmental determinism, that if the conditions of the first men are recreated ( i.e. a state of speechlessness ), the children will produce the same language as those original men ( see below on this theory); the second is that human history is in some sense linear, so that in the beginning there was one language invented, from which all other languages are descended. This latter presumption coincides with the presumption of ,2ophistic speculation into man's, origins, that inventions are made once only and ih10ne place only: the ,protos heuretes for the first time acquires a secure historical footing in the anthropology of the sophists 53 We may turn here to the related topic of man's technological and social inventions or discoveries. In 'Democritus' 1 account of the discovery of fire and its accompanying technologies, for example ( cf. e.g. Cole pp.36ff ). the catalogue of hurran inventions is clearly an essential part of the search for the origins of human civilization. But there seems to have been also a sophistic interest in human inventions, which inclined as much to the antiquarian as to anthropology. Of such work Critias' somewhat superficial invention poems ( DK 8882 and 86) may be a pale reflexion 54; but we can see that the importance of inventions to the improvement of man1 s lot was also illustrated by the revival of certain culture heroes, notably Prometheus and Palamedes55, though Isocrates even offers us a variant in which 'oratory 1 performs this function 561 For Prodicus ( and others ) the gods are brought back into the picture (i) as personification of elements useful to man ( including besides sun, moon, water etc., 'discoveries' like bread, wine and fire), and possibly (ii) as apotheosized rotoi heuretai inventors elevated to divine status for their services to humanity57. Kleinganther, - . 58 in a special study of the protos heuretes , recognizes both the explosion of interest in the idea in the sophistic period ( pp.95ff) and the considerable attention to the subject in Herodotus ( pp.43ff ), but insists on treating Herodotus as though he belonged to an earlier generation 59, untouched by -356sophistic influence. This is clearly improbable60 We may take two examples, one trivial, the other much mote weighty. Herodotus reports that the Lydians invented the games which they now share with the Greeks ( l.94.2ff ), and elaborates the claim in a typically fanciful sophistic aetiology: the games were invented in response to a ~eed, as a way of taking their minds off a period of acute famine. Need or necessity ( khreia ) is a characteristic element of sophistic anthropological aetiologies cf. e.g. Diod.I.8.7, T~v XPElav auTnV 6L6doxaAOV YEV£0~CTL Tots &v~pWTIOL$ ) 61. The other example is Herodotus' elaborate and sophisticated account of the introduction of writing into Greece ( 5.58-61 )62. Admittedly we know that Hecataeus mentioned the introduction of writing ( FGH 1F20 ), or rather we know that along with Anaximander and Dionysios ( ? of Miletus ) he mentioned Danaus as having introduced it. However it is hard to believe that this was much more than a brief .Jlo:tice in the mythological Genealogies ( to which Jacoby assigns it). What we have in Herodotus is something quite different, a scientific anthropological study of the question, with reference to documentary evidence ( after the manner of Hippias? ), and a subtle discussion of the mechanics of transmission. Writing, he claims, was an invention of the Phoenicians and brought over to Greece by the Phoenician 1 Cadmaeans1 ( 5. 58. 1 ) : " ' ~- ' ' ' i ' ' ' 6 6 •, aAAa TE TIOAAu oLxnoav,Es raurnv TqV xwpnv Eonyayov L aoxaALa ls ,ots .EAAnvas xat 6n xat ypaμμaTa, OUM t6v,a nptv ~EAAnOL ws E:μOL 6oxluv, npwTa μtv ,otoL xat &11:avTES XPEWVTaL q:;o(vLxss* μE:Ta 6t xp6vou npo8a{vovTO$ &μa TffL (j)WVr\L μnl8aAOV xat TO\I . ypaμμaTWV, In the same way thatthe Scythian language developed into the 'new' language of the Sauromatai by adaptation, so the Greek alphabet is metamorphosed out of the Phoenician by a process of historical evolution over time. Significant too is the way Herodotus explores the archaeology of writing materials { 5.58.3 ): MOTE ev an&vL suSAwv ( i.e. necessity) explwvTo 6L~~lpnLaL aLyEnLaL TE MaL OLEnLOL" ETL 6e xaL TO MaT' eμe ROAAOL TWV SapSapwv ES TOLaUTas 6L~%€pas ypãOUOL. -357The insights underlying this passage, that language can preserve historical data, that evidence for the historical past can be extracted from the usages of primitive peoples, strikingly recalls the argumentation of Thucydides1 Archaeology ( esp. e.g. Thucyd.l .6.6, ROAAa 6' &v xaL aAAa 6uiLTwμEvov ) 9 as we 11 as Herodotus I own inferences from the surviving Pelasgians for the reconstruction of the pre-historic past of Greece ( 1.57.lff, above). The greatest number of inventions of this kind are, of course, to be found in Herodotus• account of the Egyptians and the discoveries which spread from Egypt to the other peoples of the world and especially the Greeks. It seems probable that the idea of Egypt as the birthplace of the culture of mankind, an idea so elaborately pursued, for example, in Diodorus I First Book ( I. 10-29; with Hecataeus of Abdera, Peri tes Aigyption Philosophias, DK II.242-5 ), or in Plato 1 s Timaeus ( 22Bff, above), is one that first achieved concrete expression with the sophists 63. If this is right, we should hesitate before explaining Herodotus• conviction of the primacy of Egyptian culture as a private discovery. Certainly the same sophistic conception of original unique inventions spreading from a single source across the world, a conception curiously oblfjious to the possibility of independent discoveries in different places at different times, is at the root of Herodotus• numerous post hoc,ergo propter hoe fallacies in this account64. The rationalism of his account of the diffusion of Egyptian religious ideas is well known ( see below ), and his spe~ulative reconstruction of the religion of the Pelasgians before the introduction of Egyptian gods, for example ( *2.52.lff ), has a sophistic character to compare with the exp@riment of Psammetichus to -358discover the state of man before speech {above). Herodotus imagines that the Pelasgians originally worshipped gods without names and without attributes, until in the course of time they learnt these from the Egyptians. The story combines speculation about primitive man ( for the Pe 1 asgians" cf. 1. 57. lff above ) with the theory of cultura 1 diffusion. Like Thucydtdes in the Archaeology, Herodotus prefers to adapt what is likely to have been generalized speculation about the pre-history of man to the reconstruction of particular moments in the h<istory of particular peoples unless> that is, the sophists too wrote something approaching history. The clearest example in Herodotus is his account of the condition of Media before the tyranny of Deioces and after the liberation from Assyria, whi eh we have discussed elsewhere { 1. 96-7, with Ch. I I. i. B .1 ) . That Herodotus finds it natural to do this suggests that he has indeed absorbed the implications of this sophistic specu~ation: having meditated on the problems of society and social change in the light of the researches of the sophists, he went on to explore particular questions of historical reconstruction with a disciplined eye. That is> the sophists turned him, if not actually into a historian in the first place ( cf. App.IV ), at least into the sort-of historian that we admire him for being. -359- (C) Ethnography and the Idea of Culture. One of the grandest achievements of Herodotus, though for various reasons the least remarked, is the confidence and fluency with which he handles the idea of culture, his appreciation that nomoi, nomaia, nomi~a, form coherent systems within each different society, which distinguish and characterize societies from each other. This is apparent in his ability to bring the particular cultures vividly to life before our eyes; and this is not simply a question of piling up distinctive details, lists of ethnic peculiarities. On the contrary, Herodotus treats the major cultures in his work, Egypt, Scythia, Persia, Babylonia, with a clear appreciation that a culture is a coherent, systematic thing, in which the parts are related to the whole in an organic sense. The antique civilization of Egypt, with its profound respect for traditions, its extensive learning, and its rigid political and, religious life, has a distinctive and unified character 65, which immediately marks it out from the youthful culture of Scythia, with its brutal customs and its primitive, nomadic way of life. The traditional view of Herodotus1 ethnography is that it is es~entially based on Ionian models, and especially on Hecataeus, that there is really no important difference in Herodotus1 ethnography except that it is more detailed, better researched, and somewhat more broadly ranging 66. So self-evident has this seemed, that the work of Hecataeus is often reconstructed out of Herodotus67. But this whole approach is quite misleading: there is every indication that Hecataean ethnography ( and the rest of the 'Ionian tradition 1 is a closed book to us ) was different in kind and not merely in degree of detail from Herodotus. We should remind ourselves what the -360I scale of Hecataeus 1 Periegesis is likely to have been. If the division into two books68 i~ Alexandrian, as there is no reason to doubt, neither is likely to have been longer than the longest book of Herodotus; and given the remarkable number of places that Hecataeus got around to mentioning, it is very difficult to imagine that in so short a space he can have developed anything approaching a rounded picture of any one culture. The only place that he seems at all likely to have lingered over is Egypt, though even here the evidence is scarcely promising ( F300-24 ): (i) the Herodotean story of his visit to the priests at Thebes ( F300 = Herodotus 2.143 ), which may welLbe an oral anecdote told about Hecataeus rather than something he wrote about himself 69; (ii) Egypt as the gift of the Nile ( F301 ); (iii) an account of the river 1 s inundation ( F302 }; (iv) a brief and unremarkable note on the island of Chembis ( F305: contrast Herodotus 2.156 ); {v) a couple of notices about food and drink ( F322, 323 ), and another about dress ( F307 ); (vi) accounts of the phoenix, the hippopotamus and the crocodile-hunt ( F324 )70; and otherwise {vii) just a list of names ( F303-4, F306, F308 ( the name Kanobos aitologized ), F309-21 ). Nothing anywhere about religion, politics, history 71, customs { e.g. marriage and death, as opposed to food and drink). values, ideas. This may just conceivably be an accident of transmission: all this part of Hecataeus 1 account may have been eclipsed by Herodotus 1 more thorough treatment of Egypt but the chances are against it~ \especially when we consider that nothing of this kind ha:s survived from any part of Hecataeus' work: at the most a few more references to food, drink and clothes ( e.g. F154, 284, 287, 335, 358, 367 ), little more71a. We have a few materials to reconstruct the average page of Hecataeus' book and the results are scarcely impressive: it is clear that the backbone of his writing was geography, rather than culture or even ethnography in any except the most ttivial sense. Typical of the kind of writing we ought to expect is e.g. F292(a): HUvdpa, lTsa, μuplxn •.. ; or e.g. F299: EV 6 1 a6Tots olxsoUOLV av~pWTIOL napa TOV 'Iv6ov noTaμov 'QnLaL, EV 6£ T£LXOS SacrLAnLov. μsxpL TOUTOU 'QnLaL, &no 6€ TOUTOU lpnμLn μSXPLS 'Iv6wv. -361It is impossible to imagine that a Hecataeus who can write as drily as this was interested in describing at all ( let alone with any Herodotean amplitude ) what lifea was like in the places he mentions. The gulf between all this and Herodotus is huge: we cannot possibly assume that the Hecataean 'ethnography' metamorphosed into the cultural research of Herodotus by unaided development. And the essential difference of course brings us back again to the sophists. To Hecataeus geographical and crude ethnographic data are interesting enough in themselves to build a book around. For Herodotus the focus of interest has shifted entirely to put man and culture in the centre of the picture 72 As we have seen, the interest in speculative anthropology was a discovery of the sophistic movement; and this work depended on the insight that human culture was indeed what Herodotus sees it to be, a coherent system, created by a process of evolution and selection, in which the parts have become adapted for cc, the successful working of the whole. Herodotus can see the elements of a culture as cogs in a machine, that marriage, education, religion, politics, moral values, are all mechanisms for the perpetuation of a society ( below )na. The sophists• interest in how societies worked extended beyond mere abstract speculation and into anthropology. The cleanest evi:dence of this is the curious Doric sophistic text, the Dissoi Logoi ( from some time after the end of the Peloponnesian War: cf. Dialex.1.8 ), which, though thought by some to draw on Herodotus, is in fact clearly independent of him73. The second chapter of that piece discusses the relativity of kaka and aiskhra, first in general terms, and then with reference to the different customs of cities and nations. The examples chosen, while they contain sufficient divergences from and additions to Herodotus to suggest that he is not being used as a source, are many of them identical to observations -362made by Herodotus. These include the Thracian custom of branding ( 2.13 with Herodotus 5.6.2 ), Scythian head-hunting 2.13 with Herodotus 4.64.lff ), the Massagetai's custom of eating their parents ( 2.14 with Herodotus 1.216.2, see below), Persian effeminate dress and the habit of incest ( 2.15; but see Herodotus 3.31.lff below), the Lydian custom of prostituting their daughters before marriage ( 2.16 with Herodotus 1.93.4 ), and the observation * that Egyptian nomoi, in such matters as the distribution of work between men and women and the like, are contrary to those of other people ( 2.17 with Herodotus 2.35.2ff below )74. The most natural explanation of these correspondences is that the earlier sophistic source(s)~ on which the Dissoi Logoi draws, is reflected in Herodotus as well. Unfortunately earlier sophistic ethnography is not too easy to identify. I would suggest that there was indeed a partic~lar sophistic interest in the culture of Egypt, for what its antiquity could show of the origins of human culture ( cf .. (C) above), as well as in the culture of Persia, for what it could show of the phenomena of kingship and empire { cf. esp. e.g. Xenoph.Cyropaedia; Plato, Alcibiades I; with the Cyrus dialogues of Antisthenes, F19-21 and F29-33 Caizzi ). There are too the Ethnon Onomasiai of Hippias ( cf. (A) above ), and references to ethnographic examples or parallels in Antiphon's Peri Homonoias ( DK 87845-7 )75. Most useful for our purposes, however, is the ethnographic section of the Hippocratic 'Airs, Waters, Places', which clearly shows some sophistic influence in other directions. The Hippocratic treatise falls into two parts, the first of which is designed ( 1.lff) to assist the itinerant doctor in predicting how in the cities he visits the health of the inhabitants will be affected by climate and environment. The second part is devoted to considering how not only physical but also psychological differences in the various peoples of Europe and Asia can be explained in terms of •environmental influence 1 • Not content, howesreti to observe simply the effects of climate, the author gets drawn into discussing man's own interventions in these ----**--***--***------------------------***-- -363matters, the conditioning of nomos76. It is natural to suppose that where the author is carried beyond his brief in the description of lands, peoples and customs in the real world, he is somewhat over-enthusiastically reproducing the ethnographic researches of some earlier source or sources. Here again there are obvious correspondences with the ethnography of Herodotus, but it does not seem likely that either draws directly or indirectly on the other 77. Diller, however, suggests that in basic outline both the geography and ethnography of Hippocrates go back to Hecataeus, or more loosely the Ionian tradition. of Ionia is due to But aside from the claim that the mildness of the climate 78 a per.feet mixture of the seasons , which is hardly decisive for Ionian authorship, there is not much to go on. Diller argues that the geographical framework of both Hippocrates and Herodotus derives from a common Ionian source ( pp.72ff ), and certainly both strikingly agree on the polarity between Egypt and Scythia, as representatives respectively of the extremes of Europe and Asia. Both authors insist in an exaggerated way that the Egyptians and Scythians are uniquely like themselves and unlike all other men ( cf. Airs 19.2ff ): OTL IlOAU annAAaXTaL TWV AOLilWV &v%pwnwv TO rxu%LXOV Y£VÕ xat ~oLxev ãTo lwuTwL ;anep To AlyunTLov ( cf. 18.lff, 20.13ff ); with Herodotus 2. 91.1 (. on Egypt ) : 'EUnvLxotaL 6£ vo1mC0LcrL qieuyoucrL XPifo%aL, TO cruμnav d.ndv, JJn6' aHwv μn6aμwv av%pwnwv voμaLOLCTL; and 4. 76 .1 { on Scythi a ) : tuvit;xotcrL 6e: voμaCoLcrL xat o6rnt. 79 alvws; xpacr%aL [jl£UyoucrL, μnT£ Ttwv aAAWV, 'EAAnVLXOtcrL 6c xat nxLcrTa80. But there is no convincing reason why this polarity should derive from the work of Hecataeus: as we saw, there is no evidence to suggest that Hecataeus was ever interested in anything more than the crudest ethnographic data and certainly he shows no signs of the developed appreciation of culture we find in these ideas. If his Egyptian fragments offered little to suggest such an interest ( above ), the Scythian ones ( F184-90) offer nothing but a list of places and ethnic names, and the solitary notice, possibly supplied by Stephanus not Hecataeus himself, that the Melankhlainoi are so called after their clothes(. F185 ). Does not this polarity point rather in another direction? As we saw, -364the Dissoi Logoi shared with Herodotus the theory that Egyptian nomoi were 81 somehow topsyturvy , and the corresponding passage in Herodotus betrays more than any other the crisp and artificial antitheses characteristic of sophistic sty1J3.2. Inasmuch as we find the same theory independently in each of Herodotus, Hippocrates and the Dissoi Logoi, and since Herodotus shows a sophistic style here and the Dissoi Logoi is demonstrably a sophistic text, it is tempting to iraw the economical, though not, of course, necessary, conclusion that Hippocrates shares with these two a common sophistic source for the theory. In addition the exaggerated cultivation of paradox and antithesis here is not hard to imagine emanating from such a quarter, and it may be worth remembering that the sophists seem to have taken a special interest in Egypt, as the birthplace of human culture ( above ). That Hippocrates is indeed influenced in this section by s6phistic ideas is clear. His discussion of the Makrokephaloi, for example establishes the principle that nomos ( that is human conditioning) can sometimes have the force of nature. The Makrokephaloi83 are supposed to bind their children's heads at birth to make them narrow and long instead of round ( 14.3ff ): ••• õTws T~v &px~v 6 vdμos xaTELpydcraTo, wcrTs ~K~ Blns ToLadTnv T~v ~UCTLV ysvtcr~aL' TOU OE xpdvou npoCdvTOS lv ~UCTEL £YEVETO, wcrTE T~V v6μov μnxfTL &vayxdtsLv. The words physis and nomos are clearly being used in extended~ quasi-technical, sophistic senses: in particular nomos seems to mean not the particular custom under discussion, but rather something much more abstract, almost equivalent to 'conditioning'. And if not only the language of this passage, but also its though~4 and its ethnographic subject, the Makrokephaloi, known to us admittedly in an uncertain connexion from Antiphon ( DK 87846, above ), can be plausibly argued as having sophistic connexions of some sort, we are offered a valuable pointer to the sources of Hippocrates' ethnography. As for the source of the theory of 'environmental influence' itself, it is difficult to be certain about its origins, despite the confidence -365of the orthodoxy which upholds the claims of 'Ionian science' here. It is not clear whether what seem to us like the two different parts of the theory, on the one hand natural influence ( climate etc. ), on the other human influence, the latter itself divisible into two parts, physiological ( e.g. Makrokephaloi, Sauramatai etc. ) and political or social ( e.g. despotism) whether these different parts have a common origin in a single theoretical conception, or whether it is merely the confused synthesis of Hippocrates which has brought them together 85 This is not the place to explore these distinctions but certain general observations may be useful. We should not be misled by the Ionian dialect of the Hippocratic writings into the assumption that their theoretical preconceptions are necessarily Ionian even less so in a case like this, where there is no reliable supporting evidence for Ionian influence. For example, as for the 1 natural I side of the Hippocratic theory, there is remotely discernible a trend towards linking 1 environment 1 with the physical characteristics of men and animals at least in the later Presocratics, Diogenes, Parmenides, Empedocles, as in the supposed relation of male and female sex to the temperature 6f 66 the womb . It is just possible that this kind of work had an influence on the medical writers, if .we are to judge from On Ancient Medicine1 s complaints about the encroachments of scientific 'hypotheses' into medicine ( Vet.Med.l.lff )87. But these Presocratics are none of them Ionians. Only in Democritus, an Ionian certainly, but also, of course, a participant in the sophistic debate, does the doxographic evidence suggest a theory of environmental influence similar to that in Airs, Waters. Places, as, for example, in his discussion of the effects of heat and cold on the parturition of animals, vthich recalls the c.orrments of both Herodotus and Hippocrates on the hornless oxen of Scythia 88. But Democritus seems from the ancient testimonies to have given an altogether more complete picture -366of the world in action than any of his 1 Presocratic 1 forbears, whose interests extended little if at all beyond describing how the world and its inhabitants came to be. And he can hardly be taken as evidence for the older traditions 6f Ionian scientift~ thought: even in physical theory his roots are in Magna Graecia rather than the Greek East89. Moreover if we could accept that the various parts of the theory are an original unity, there is a strong argument against Ionian authorship. Heinimann ( pp.29ff ) argues that it must have been the stimulus of the Persian Wars which first provoked considered debate ( as opposed to unargued ~rejudice ) about the opposition between Europe and Asia, and with it inquiry into the reasons for the superiority of Greek temperament and hardiness, - .. 90 . - -** .... which those events seemed to have proved . The combination of environmental and political reasons for the superiority of Europeans over Asiatics in Hippocrates clearly ref:tects that 01.dginal stimulus ( Airs 16.16ff and 23.30ff ) : 6L~ ToDT6 ( sc. the climate) sloL μaxLμjTspoL oL T~v E6pjnnv olxs6v~ES xat 6L& Tõs v6μous, ~TL 06 SaoLAE~OVTaL ;onEp oL 'AoLnvo{~ If this correctly exp 1 a ins the origins of the theory, it is hard to see that Ionia is the most natural place for its conception, presupposing as it does the super_iority of the mainland Greeks to those who live in Asia unless it is meant to be apologetic, which seems unlikely. In additioñ a date of conception after the Persian Wars takes us well away from the heyday of Ionian science, and into the period when the focus of Greek intellectual life had shifted to Magna Graecia and, of course, Athens91. In more general terms still we may argue that the debate as to what characteristic~ men owe to nature and what to culture, that is education, social or political conditioning and so on, is one that only really comes to life in the context of the sophistic movement92. Indeed, as we have already seen, the sophistic sociology of Democritus and others seems to have accounted both for the development of human culture generally and for -367the generation of variety indifferent cultures in naturalistic terms: change takes place in response to external pressures, whether environmental Qr social. It is difficult not to conclude that the sophistic climate is a much more natural breeding ground for the theory of 'environmental influence 1 than Ionia, a source favoured by not a single piece of evidence. This conclusion is important for our purposes for a number of reasons.* It confirms the distinction we have already made between Ionian ( especially Hecataean ) ethnography and the anthropology of the sophistic movement. It removes the only substantial argument for supposing that Herodotus' intellectual roots are Ionian rather than sophistic. It shows that where Herodotus comments on or, as often, simply alludes to such matters as the connexion between environment, culture and temperament, he is making a contribution !O a current debate93. It is well-known that these and rel.ated ideas have a thematic role in Herodotus, that the influences of culture and environment on temperament and disposition explain certain of the narrative sequences basic to the work1 s structure. Thus, for example, while it was natural for the Greeks, ever since Homer and his Trojans, to depict barbarians, and Persians in particular, as enfeebled by their addiciton to luxury and softness of living ( cf. e.g. Xenophanes on Lydian softness, F3 West; and the softness of the Persians in Aeschylus ), Herodotus appreciates that the Persians were not* always so and that a number of different influences have combined to make them the way they now are. Early in the work, Sandanis has to advise Croesus on the folly of attacking the Persians ( L71.2ff ), a people;w,IJoyJearleather trousers, and other clothes made of leather, who eat only what they can get, not what they want, who live in a harsh land ( trekhean: a key word); . . d . k . h 1 1 . . f . 94 who indeed r,n water not wine, w ose on y uxury , s 1 gs . They must not get a taste for Lydian culture, or they will never let go. In Sandanis' description the harshness of the Persian way of life is an allusive warning: -368Herodotus clearly wants us to see Persia here as a primitive culture, whose very strength lies in its Jg~o_rance of luxury and soft 1 iving 95 However~ during the work the Persians gradually change, and by the end the transformation is complete. After Plataea Pausanias can compare the luxury of Mardonios1 way of life with the austerity of the Spartans, and exclaim at the folly of the Persian invasion ( 9.82.3 ): ToD M~6ou Thv &~poadvnv •. ~ 8~ TOL~V6E 6CaLTav ( another keyword ) ,, EXWV &~aLpnaoμEvõ. What Cyrus is made to predict in the closing chapter of the work has indeed come true: the Persians have exchanged their harsh primitive 1 ife for one of soft luxury which has made them weak rather than strong ( 9.122.3 ): ~LASELV y&p 8M μaAaMWV xwpwv μaAaMOV~ av6pã yCvEa*aL 96. This theme js one of the principal interpretative ideas of the whole work, and, as we have seen, it is an idea which may well have achieved its first precise articulation in the context of the sophistic movement; so that we could say that in this respect one of the work's basic ideas shows sophistic influence. The sophistic inspiration of Herodbtus' ethnography can further be inferred from its characteristically sophistic pre-occupatioñ,. from the level of the family, through the small community, to the ;r~ation or state. We may concentrate for economy's sake on Herodotus' interest in the institution of the family and ideas of kinship. This is clearly a field of much sophistic inquiry, both sociological and moral. Aristotle's view of the family as the microcosm of the state goes back past Platonic totalitarianism to the 5thc, and Plato's own concern with the institution of marriage in the Republic and the Laws is certain to have been stimulated by sophistic thought 97. liJe. might compare in particular the fragments of both Democritus and Antiphon on the family, on the procreative drjve and the tensions of marriage 98 Herodotus1 ethnography provides an instfuctive set of illustrations of the various different.*way~ithe family can be conceived. In particul~r he -369examines many different examples of 'marriage customs', different ways of institutionalizing sexual relations between men and women.* So for example, he jntroduces us to marriage by purchase in Babylon ( 1.196.lff: a most wise custom) and Thrace ( ~.6.1 ), to prostitution before marriage in Lydia 1.93.4; cf. 5.6.1 ), to ritual prostitution with strangers in Babylon 1.199.lff: the most shameful of their laws ), to the 1 droit du seigneur' of the King in Libya ( 4.168.2 ), and to the promiscuity of the Libyan Gindanes ( 4.176 ), whose women commemorate each act of intercourse with an ankle-bracelet:" 6~ ~v nAEtaTa ~XnL, ãTn &pCcrTn 6l6oxTaL slvaL ws Dn6 nAsCaTwv &v6pwv ~LAñEtcra. It will be useful ~ere to focus on a particular example of Herodotus' interest in the institution of marriage. He mentions a number of different_ cases of the custom of sharing wives in common, among the Massagetai ( 1.216.1 ), the Scythian Agathyrsoi ( 4.104) and the tribes of Libya ( 4.172.2, TponwL 11:apcrnAnaCwL twL xat MaaaaylrnL (!); and 4.180.5-6 ). Herodotus does .more than simply list examples: he shows a clear interest in the rationale and the mechanics of the practice. So we are told that the Agathyrsoi practise wife-swapping ( 4.104 ): Cva xaaCyvnToC TE aAÃAWV ~WDL xat olx~LOL lovTES It is scarcely conceivable that Herodotus is here reproducing the reasoning of the Agathyrsoi themselves: rather he is a1lowing himself a theoretical inference as to the kind of society that mightresult if each of its members was related by blood to each other ( see Plato Republic V ). The Agathyrsoi are a people who live in accordance with the laws of nature, monogamy not being observed for example in the animal kingdom: their primitive institutions make for a society without the resentment and mutual hostility common to societies with 'unnatural I prescriptions. This implicit reasoning reminds us in particular of how Antiphoñ in the Peri Al~theias papyrus, observes that man-made laws are hostile to nature and make demands on !!}an which are not in his best interests ( cf. frg.A col.2-4 ). A later example from,Libyã the tribes -370around lake Tritonis ( 4.180.5-6 ), offers Herodotus an opportunity to consider the. mechanics of such a system. Here men and women do not set up house together, but merely couple at random like animals: õTE auvoGxlovTE~ xTnvn66v TE μGay6μ£voG, The way they decide the parintage of the child is to wait until it is full grown, at which time the men gather together and agree which of them it most resembles. Aristotle discussing the issues arising out of Plato's advocacy of the community of wives, has occasion to allude to 'certain tribes of Upper Libya', who share wives in common and who distinguish their children kata tas homoiotetas ( Pol.1262Al9ff ). Possibly Herodotus is the source here, though a common s6phisttc model is just as likely 99 In either case it is illuminating that both Herodotus and Aristotle find the case interesting, though they move in different directions, Herodotus from the instance to the generalizable problem, Aristotle from the general problem to the instance. Herodotus is interested to see the different ways in which different peoples respect the institution of the family and the family bond. Quite different from these Libyan polyandrists are the Persians, among whom a man is honoured highest for prowess in battle, but next in order for the number of children he sires. Those who produce the greatest number receive annual gifts from the king ( 1.136.1 ): To noXXov s' ' \ '.3' Gaxupov e;1.,vaG. Here then the family is the bulwark of the state: the prosperity of the community ( as in Plato) is felt to depend on the healthy production of citizens and soldiers. At the same time, the child is kept from its father until five years of age, on the principle that if it dies in rearing, it will cause the father less grief if he has not seen it ( 1.136.2 ). The theory that.i though procreation is a natural drive, the parents of children suffer torments of anxiety, is one that we can see developed, for example, . D 't 100 ,n emocr1 us . But most remarkable is the Persian theory of murder within the family ( 1.137.2 ): no-one, they say, has ever yet killed his father or mother, but wherever this has apparently happened, it has turned -371out that the child was either a changeling or a bastard: ou y&p 6n ~acrL Clearly the Persians believe that there is a natural law which prevents such occurrences: the ties of blood ar,e thought to be so strong as to be 101 physic;:ally inviolablea rather extravagantly naturalistic theory of morals . In another area, Herodotus takes pains to distinguish the variety of different ways that people honour their parents ( or family) in death. All the larger ethnographies indeed set aside a section for the discussion of funeral practices; but the most famous example is the parable of Darius• experiment ( 3.38.2ff ), where sophistic thought has been widely recognized 102. Darius asks first the Greeks and then the Callatian Indians whether either would adopt the funeral practices of the other ( burning and eating, respec~~ tively ), and both parties show that nothing could persuade them to do so ( 3.38.4 ) : OUTW μ1fo vuv Taurn vsvoμLcrrnL, Mt op.(Jws; μOL ()01{€E;l, l1Lv6apo!; TCOLr\OaL Both the form of the parable ( its obvious similarity to the experiment of Psammetichus, above) and its characteristically h. t' f th f p* d . . lOl sop 1s 1c use o . e amous 1n ar1c tag on nomos , so frequent:in sophistic illustrations of the relativity of nomos, point us to the sophists. That moral, moreover~ is significantly both a pre-occupation of leading figures of the sophistic movement and one of the Leitmoti of Herodotus• own work. The discovery of the relativity of moral values, customs and attitudes gave rise to the question whether there were indeed no such things as universal taboos. The aspect of attitudes to the family that receives most attention in this respect is the taboo on incest. This is a subject that Xenophon has Socrates. raise with Hippias ( Mem.4.4.20ff ): in discussing the existence of agraphoi nomoi common to all men, Socrates gets the sophist to agree that parents are everywhere held in honour by custom, and then asks: ouMDv that this is a divine law, inasmuch as he knows of people who contravene it; -372but Socrates argues that incest between p~rents and children at least carries a natural sanction. In Euripides' Andromache, Hermione taunts the heroine of the play with incest ( 170ff) and states that: TToEoDTov nav T~ SapBapLx~v ytvos* Parents mate with children, brothers with sisters: xat Tffiv6' õ6~v !~eCpyeL v6~os* Xanthus ( FGH 765F31 ) ascribes incestuous practices to the Persian magi, and the Dissoi Logoi ( 2.15) similarly to the Persians as a wQole104. It is against this background that Herodotus' narrative of Cambyses' incest with his sister should be read ( 3.31.lff ). cruvoLHEELv rr{pcraL* Cambyses realizes that for him to marry his sister will be unparalleled ( ouk eothota ) and so calls together his advisers to ask whether there is any law that bids a man who wants to marry his sister. The question is of course nonsensical: laws do not compel ( keleuein ) people to do things they want to do rather the opposite, according to Antiphon! Their reply is described by Herodotus as 'just and safe': they say they know of no such law, but they know of another which says that the Persian king may do whatever he wishes. Thus, adds Herodotus ( 31.5 ), they were able to avoid changing the law despite their fear of Cambyses, but instead managed to pacify him with another. It seems certain that Herodotus is here taking up a position in a contemporary debate: he claims that there was no nomos qmong the Persians that condoned incest, as Xanthus and the Dissoi Logoi both sean to have it; rather he implies that the universal taboo existed there too, until it was broken quite exceptionally by Cambyses, notoriously no respecter of laws ( cf. 3.38.1 ). But the story also points to the weakness of temporal laws, which can sometimes be made to condone practices which are absolutely wrong: legal systems, Herodotus implies, are both inconsistent and only feeble allies of natural justice. This is only, of course, a specimen discussion of one aspect of Herodotus' ethnography: enough has been said, however, to show that sophistic preconceptions -373do indeed underlie his interpretation of what sort of a thing culture is, what are its essential components, what are the forces which keep it together, and so on. This is not the place to show that nomos is one of the major themes of the entire work, both narrative and ethnography. We may observe that the work is on the grandest view a discussion of the range of meaning of the term 0barbaros a consideration of what the Greeks look like s~en against the background of world culture, and what that shõs about them.about 1 barbarians 1 , and about mankind as a whole105. Herodotus' expansjve vision of humanity in all its transformations is indeed closely akin to that of Antiphon in the remarkable passage of the Peri Al~theias papyrus ( DK II.352-3: frg.B ), in which he compares the attitude which distinguishes the low from the high-born with the equally artificial distinction of Greek and barbarian: €V TOUTWL 0€ npos aAAnAous xat "EAAnVES, We are in short all men, without distinction in nature, l . 106 on y 1n nomos . A full study of the place of nomos in Herodotus 1 work, with a proper appreciation of his contribution to the sophistic debate, is called for 107. W~ may conclude here by saying that Herodotus 1 relationship to the sophists in the matter of 1 culture 1 is not one of mere dependence: he is rather working parallel to the sophists, adopting their ways of looking at society and human institutions, but responding to their somewhat shallow interest in ethnography by producing much more elaborate and detailed studies of his own to illustrate how real cultures actually work. My impression is that Herodotus set about gathering his material through research and travel with his sophistsic interests already formed. I doubt, however, that he travelled nearly as extensively as either he makes out or as modern scholars, going far beyond anything he tells us, have made him do ( cf. Appendix III, for Egypt), so that there is very little need to set aside any substantial period in his life when his travels took place, ---*-**-**--***~------------- -374and before his intellectual maturity was complete. We cannot tell how much he owed to Hecataeus in conceiving his plan, but it does not seem on this view nearly as rruch as traditionally supposed. If we are right in supposing that Hecataeus had not come round to the idea of portraying culture but spent his time, if not exclusively in geography, collecting merely superficial ethnic details, then there is an unbridgeable gap between his work and Herodotus. At the very best we could try to argue that Herodotus thought of rewriting Hecataeus from the point of view of the sophistic enlightenment. On any view, it is not possible to understand Herodotus• interest in ethnography without appreciating its sophistic inspiration. (D) Nature and Convention. We have argued that Herodotus• interest in ethnography has been shaped by his participation in the sophistic debate on the nature of human society, as well as on the relativity of ( temporal ) nomoi. It remains to illustrate that Herodotus shows a typically sophistic preoccupation with the general question of what (abstract) things are prescribed by or exist in natu~e, and what things are artificial constructs of the human imagination. Heinimann's discussion of the nomos-physis antithesis rightly observes that is does indeed have antecedents outside the sophists, notably in the later Presocratics' concern with the limitations of human perception. So tha-s for example, when Democritus asserts that the impressions we perceive and the things that really exist, are not onec\and the same ( 86-11; • 11 89 # , I ' I",# 6' '1 ' # ) espec1a Y ; VOμWL yAUHU, VOμWL nLXpOV ••• £T£nL £ aToμa XaL X£VOV , he is probably doing little more than echoing the strictures on sense perception of Parmenides or Empedocles, or even Heraclitus 108 However there are important differences in the character of the debate as conducted by the Presocratic physicists and the sophists. The Presocratics sought -375to ~evalue sense perception, or even to remove it from consideration altogether, in order to justify their constructions of the physical world and to protect themselves from refutation by appeal to sense DJ:rception., There is no evidence that they were really interested in the philosophical implications of the question; in fact all they offer us is stricture, never debate. The sophists on the other hand were genuinely interested in probing the question of perception philosophically; and the contribution of Protagoras in initiating the debate has been widely recognized 109. Moreover this new departure involved a broadening of the inquiry. No longer is it simply a question of disposing of sense perception in order to make room for constructions of the physical world. Rather the full range of objects of human perception can now be explored: not merely the material components of the physical world and their properties or qualitites, but also abstract questions of justice, virtue, law, indeed the whole range of ideas about the world. And it is surely this change that makes the sophistic debate on nomos-physis such an important advance on anything that went before. It is clear moreover that it was the sophists who initiated the debate on the conflicting claims of natural and temporal law, the agraphoi nomoi and the laws of the state, which gained such a strong foothold in the second half of the 5thc, in particular at Athens110. There is no indication whatever that the question had been so clearly formulated or so enthusiastically explored before this time111. There are several different ways that Herodotus reflects the various t f th . d b d th t 1 th t f 1*1 l 1 t. 112 pars o 1s e ate, an e wo examp es a o ow are on y se ec 1on . We may consider first a remarkable geographical discussion ( 4.42ff ). Having proceeded earlier with an account of the geographical extension of the continents in accordance with established convention ( 4.36ff ), Herodotus stops and corrects himself, and explains that to talk in this -376way is quite arbitrary, that such divisions do not correspond to anything in nature. He has already indicated his reserve in using the conventions, when describing the borders of Arabia ( 4.39.1 ): ÃyEL 5~ anTn, 06 , , , , 113 Anyouoa EL μn voμwL • The ensuing discussion ( 4.42ff) can be described as a reaction to the naivet~ of the old Ionian geographers in the light of a sophistic understanding of the conventionality of names and words in general ( 4.42.1 ): 3wμãw iliv TWV OLOUPLOQVTWV xat 6LEAOVTWV ALSunv xat 'AoCnv xat E0p~nnv. The old way of thinking is indeed deeply ingrained in people's minds, 4espite its arbitrariness ( 4.45.2 ): o0o' ~xw xat 5&Ev leEvTo T&s tnwvuμCas And Herodotus goes on to speculate on the possible history of the names ( apparently without realizing that the women are mere personifications -unless this is a joke?). This supposition that human conventions or nomoi must have had original inventors somewhere back in the mists of history is typically sophistic, as we have seen. It would be interesting to know in what connexion Hippias ( DK 8688 spoke of the continents of Asia and Europe having been named after the daughters of Oceanus: it seems likely that, like Herodotus, he was speculating on the origins of the conventional names114, rather than simply mythologizing. Herodotus however cone 1 udes that he had better fo 11 ow convention in naming h . ( 4 4 ) ' ' ' , ]15 t e continents . 5.5 : TOLOL yap voμL~OμEVOLOL aUTWV xpncroμE6d, It seems highly probable that Herodotus is here taking a side in the sophistic debate, best known to us from Plato's Cratylus, on whether names exist . t 1 b t. 116 1n na ure or on y y conven ion . If in this passage Herodotus adopts a sophistic position on the arbitrariness and conventionality of names, he is clearly unhappy about accepting that norms also do not exist in nature. In his account of Egyptian religious attitudes, he observes ( 2.64.1-2 ) that almost all -377other men besides the Greeks and the Egyptians see no objection to having intercourse in sacred places and to entering temples unwashed after contact Birds and beasts, they say, can be seen mating in temples and sanctuaries: et L \i • But Herodotus is not content with such an argument from 'nature': õTOL μcv vuv ToLaDTa LAcyovTcs noLEDcrL eμo(yc oux &pccrTa. It is certain that Herodotus has not in fact derived this argument from the mouths of barbarian informants 117. Rather the comparison of human behaviour with that of animals at once '' recalls sophistic ethological and moral speculation 118. So for example Democritus observes that the biological drive to reproduce the species is identical in man as in animals ( DK 688278: 6~Aov 6~ xat Tots &AAOLS , )119 I; W L O UJL , So too Callicles supports the claim of the stronger to rule over the weaker by appeal to the animal kingdom ( Pl .Gorg.4830: xat ev Tots &AAOLS ~~LoLs ); while Pheidippides supports the right of sons to beat their fathers by a similar argument ( Aristoph.Nub.1427ff ): &μU\J£TaL' xaLTOL TL 6LãcpoUaL\J I nμwv €X£L\JOL, nAn\) y' OTL 4ñLaμaT' ou ypãouaLvt 120 What Herodotus seems to be doing here is conceding the amoralist case that such behaviour can be justified by appeal both to the relativity of morals ( most peoples besides the Greeks and Egyptians have no taboos on the subject) and to the behaviour of animals - 'nature' allows it and makes no distinction between sacred and profane. But at the same time he advances his own intuition that such things seem to him repugnant. As in his discussion of Cambyses1 incest ( cf. (C) above ), ! Herodotus is here facing a central question of the sophistic debate, whether or not there are taboos in nature. Here again he seems to be drawing back from his extreme relativist position as expressed in 3.38, where it seemed there were no such absolute taboos; he is, however, simply observing the discrepancy between his intuition of what is fitting and the evidence ---** ---- ------ ---~***--*** (E) The Use and Abuse of Logos. The sophists were not the first to discover the intrinsic appeal of arguments: this honour clearly belongs to the Eleatic physicists, Parmenides and Zeno, who are the first to appreciate that an argument -378is a tool that can be used over and over again, and does not need to be forged afresh for each new emergency121. However the range of such tools was enthusiastically extended by the sophists: even Aristotle's Sophistici Elenchi is only the catalogue of a strict logician, impressive testimony though it is to the fascination of the sophists with the mechanics of argument. But besides an evident interest in strictly logical argument and syllogistic techniques, as dramatically exampled for instance in Gorgias 1 treatise on 'Not Being1122, the sophists were equally, if not more concerned with arguments whose purpose was to persuade rather than prove. Many of them seem to have advertised their services as being essentially of practical value: thus Prodicus is said to have defined a sophist as mid-way 123 between the philosophos and the politikos aner. , and repeatedly in the Platonic dialogues the sophists are made to claim that their teaching is designed to give an advantage to the man intending to embark on a 'political I life. Hence the sophists popularised a whole range of practical 124 arguments to make the weaker case seem stronger . In the matter of persuasion the sophists favourite tool was the argument from eikos, probability, the appeal not to reason pure and simple, but to reasonable expectation 125: Similarly, borrowing no doubt from the law-courts, the sophists seem to have given a new currency to the terms tekmerion and martyrion, ~ot in the sense of forensic evidence merely ( cf. e.g. Aesch. Eum.485-6 ) , but also for 'evidence' in theoretical arguments such as those of Thucydides1 Archaeology, for example126 Sophistic argumentation is particularly concerned with what one might call reconstruction, that is the testing of possible 1models1 ( cf. Ch.II.i ): what could have happened, what might have happened, if such and such had been true, -379what may happen, given certain assumptions about human nature 127. 128 In Herodotus there is clear evidence of sophistic argumentation, t • 1 1 f 1 • '"°' • I d f f t129 • h • par 1cu ar y, or examp e, ,n uar,us e ence o apa e , or ,n 1s justification of monarchy ( 3.82 ): but rather than discuss isolated and striking examples like these, it will be more useful to remind ourselves of the widespread, almost automatic, resort to sophistic persuasive techniques. The ~ord eiKos used for a probable inference was by no means new with the sophists ( cf. e.g. Pind.Py.1.34-5 ), but there are clear signs of its having oecome a stock-in-trade of both theoretical and forensic argument under the influence of the sophists ( cf. n.125 }, and Herodotus' evident attachment to the word in such contexts is surely an indication that he shares that influence 130. So, for example, the discussion of the inundation of the Nile ( 2.19ff) has repeated recourse to th2 argument from eikos ( 2.24.2, 25.2, 25.5, 'and esp. 22.2 ): av6p( YE AOYLs£0~aL TOLOUTWV oUO€ oLxÕ &nO XLOvõ μLV PEtLV, npWTov μSv 131 More striking is his use of the words tekm~rion / martyrion in the context of more formal arguments. The range of applications and contexts is noticeably wide: arguments about the Nile ( 2.13.1, 22.2 above ), about the history of Egyptian and Greek religion ( 2 .. 2, 58 ), about racial origins ( 2.104.4 ), about the relativity of nomoi { 3.38.2 ), for the establishment of historical traditions ( 5.45.1 bis, 45.2; 7.221; 8.120 ), for supernatural intervention ( 9.100.2 ). The historical 'reconstructions', in rticular of the far distant past, inaccessible to oral tradition, clearly mirror the work of Thucydides in the Archaeology 132 The argumentum per contrarium is another type of argument from probability, which establishes the essential importance of a proposition by illustrating what would follow, or might have followed, if its contrary -380were assumed. Thus the author of Ancient Medicine ( 1.llff) establishes that it is the experience and skill in the art of medicine that makes the good doctor and the bad doctor, by assuming the non-existence of an art of medicine: As Kleinknecht has shownJ this type of argument is common in,Herodotus, notably in his demonstration of the importance of Athens' contribution to the saving of Greece ( 7.139.2i st *,Ãnv~toL xaTappwonaavTs~ ... ), l 3LI. but in many other contexts as well *. So for example in discussing the historical relationship of Gree~ and Egyptian religion, Herodotus argues the impossibility of the Egyptians having learnt of Heracles from the Greeks ( 2 .. 3f) by the following ~eans. The Egyptians do not know of Poseidon or the Dioscuri; but if they had learnt the name of any deity from the Greeks, it was these more than any that they were likely to remember, given that both peoples were seafarers ( i.e. these being the gods of the sea ). So that these names would have been better known.in Egypt than that of Heracles. Ergo the Egyptian Heracles must be prior to the Greek. The argument is scarcely solid, but it is remarkable for its ingenuity and for the near perversity of its argumentative display. Perversity is indeed one of the hallmarks of sophistic argument, some of it not obviously deliberate ( as perhaps here), much of it consciously and provocatively so. The sophistic techniques for making the weaker case appear the stronger were chiefly useful for forensic purposes. But they also gave rise to epideixeis whose primary purpose was to illustrate what could be done with argument, what a powerful weapon logos could be. Such pieces as Gorgias 1 Helen and Palamedes or Isocrates 1 Helen and Busiris are the most familiar examples of these ideixeis in which the author attempts the defence of an 1 indefensible 1 criminal. Another Sthc text, *--** ***--**---- -381the PsTXenoph.Athpol., as we commented in Ch.II.iii.L above,.takesnot a mythical defendant, but a historical one, the Athenian democracy, and while bitterly castigating its criminality, argues the case for tts supreme good sense against the verdict of the 'rest of the Greeks'. It would be interesting to know here if this type of double-edged defence had anything to do with the techniques of 1 indirect praise and censure 1 taug~t by Euenos ( Pl.Phaedr. 135 267A: hypodelosis ... parepainoi ... parapsogoi ) * ... * . That Herodotus too tries his hand at such defences seems very probable. A more or less trivial example is his version of Heracles' adventures in Egypt ( 2.45.lff ), which turns into a defence of the Egyptian Character against Greek slander ( cf. Isocrates 1 Busiris! ), and similar is his much more elaborate account of the story of Helen and Menelaus in Egypt ( 2.112120 ), which again turns out to be a defence of the Egyptians, though not delivered in Herodotus' own voice. Proteus 1 self-righteous claim to piety , LVO}!TOVEELV ) is clearly an indirect riposte to the Busiris myth. Similar again is Herodotus 1 reconstruction of how the Persians might have tried to excuse the conduct of Paris at 1.4.2, with its obviously sophistic antitheses: TO μev vuv aprcasELV yuvaCxã &vopwv &oC:;iwv voμCsELV Epyov EGVaL, Tb OE aprca0.0E:LO'£W\) arcouonv rco L!lO'aO'.OaL TLμWp£€LV &von,wv, Tb OS μnoi::μCav wpnv SXELV &prcacr~ELO'SW\) crw~p6vwv. Besides these mythological examples, however, there are the 1 apologies 1 for the Alcmeonids ( 6.121.lff ), for Argos ( 7.152.3) and for Athens ( 7.139.lff ). The latter two we have already discussed in detail ( cf. eh.II.iii ), arguing that Herodotus is provocatively 'defending' the indefensible, in the case of Athens in something like the same way that the Old Oligarch 1 defends 1 the democracy136. No less than in the sophistic epideixeis mentioned above, Herodotus allows the essential improbability of his 1apology 1 to show through: he says enough to show that both Argos and Athens are indeed deserving of the accusations which have been levelled against them. -382Is the matter not the same with his remarkable defence of the Alcmeonids against the charge of having displayed the shield after Marathon? Strasburger's excellent discussion of this '~pology' does much to justify the suspicion that Herodotus is here simply indulging in a grim charade and that he has deliberately chosen suspiciously weak ground for his defence 137. The Alcmeonids' hatred of tyranny ( 6.121.lff) is a weak argument from character ( cf~ e.g. Gorgias Palam.28ff ), which squares ill with Herodotus' own account of Megacles' involvement with Peisistratus ( 1.60.lff) and with his evident awareness that past principles can always be forgotten in the pursuit of present advantage ( cf. esp. Ch.I.i and ii ). His reminder that the Alcmeonids rather than the tyrannicides rid Athens of the Peisistratids ( 6.123.lf ), depends on the unflattering appreciation that the Alcmeonids were the ones who bribed the Pythia ( El 6~ õToC ys &1tn&tw~ ... ) ; it hardly makes sense to rebut one charge of dishonest and corrupt dealing by appeal to another. Herodotus raises the objection ( 6.124.1 )138 that the betrayal was occasioned by hostility to the demos, which charge is first briefly then at length ( 125-131 ) 'answered' by the observation that the Alcmeonids were then.and always in high regard at Athens: 06 μ~v 'I' 1' II " ' " ' ' " '6' 0\ -,, WV nõ~ ÕEWV aAAOL 60MLμWTEpOL EV YE A&nvaLOLOL av6pE~ OU OL μaAAOV tTETLμfaTo* In the long account of the Alcmeonid rise that follows, the association of Alcmeon with Croesus ( tyranny and wealth ) ( 125.1-5 ), and especially the marriage of Megacles into the house of Cleisthenes of Sicyon ( 126-131 ), are stories hardly best calculated to allay our suspicions that the Alcmeonids were always a family that nourished tyrannical ambitions. We know Herodotus to be a more than competent advocate when he needs to be, capable of the most subtle and persuasive use of evidence: that he should here have negligently used all the 'wrong' arguments seems inconceivable. As for the climax, the portent of Pericles' birth ( 6.131.2 ), there can be scarcely any doubt that Herodotus wishes to interpret Agariste's lion-dream as a sinister prophecy139. That he does not explicitly draw out its so obvious ***--*--**---- -383meaning accords with our interpretation of the entire excursus as a mock apology: beneath the surface the attentive reader sees the improbability I of the defence. It would be interesting to know to what extent Herodotus himself saw ( and expected his readers to see) the 1Alcmeonid1 Pericles ( he accepts the matrilineal descent! ) as the man who effected what the traitors of Marathon failed to do: that is, come to terms with Persia ( cf. Ch.II.iii.E.~ ) and set himself up as a constitutional tyrannos at Athens140. * No less than Thucydides, Herodotus is interested in the relation .between words and actioñ logos and ergon, the conflict of reason and passion 141, a concern inseparable from the sophistic discovery of the power of logos. The use and abuse of gnome in Herodotus is, however, a theme whose importance has been obscured by repeated affirmations that he is a determinist, that advisers in Herodotus are powerless to alter the decisions of rulers and men of power because the freewill of such protagonists has been immobilized by fate and by divine infatuation. The scenes of advice in Herodotus are on this view merely vehicles for the elaboration of such motifs as the inevitability of fate, the envy of the gods, the blind folly ( ate ) of despotic rulers doomed to disaster, and so on142. But Herodotus devotes so much detailed attention to the mechanics of advice, the techniques and psychology of persuasion, the value of debate and deliberation, that we are bound to see in these speeches a pre~occupation with the intrinsic interest of such things and to accept that he did believe men could influence each other's actions through reasoned argument. The fact that it is possible for Herodotean warners on occasion to make their addressees see sense ( cf. e.g. l.27.2ff, 88.2ff, etc. ) shows that the determinist explanation of the speeches is an incomplete one: illustrating the infatuation of the addressee is only one of their possible functions, and one that does not -384al ways operate. Artabanus is the chief advocate of the importance of careful deliberation and reasoned debate ( e.g. 7.lOa.l ): μ~ AEX6ELalwv μsv yvwμlwv &vTLfwv &AÃAnLaL o6x raTL T~V &μE{Vw alpE6μEVOV tAlcr6aL, &AAa 6EC T"L ElpnμfvnoLxpaa6aL, AEX6ELafwv 6' " " ' ' ' ' , ' ' ' ' ' - ' EOTL, WOREP TOV xpucrov TOV axnpaTOV DUTOV μEVER EWUTOU OU 6LayLVWOXELV, EREaV 6s napaTp(~wμEv aAAWL XPUOWL 6LayLVWOXELV TOV &μdvw 14'3 . Artabanus is here setting out one of the recurrent themes of Xerxes1 expedition against Greece, which is at the same time a theme of the sophistic debate itself 143a. It is clear, for example, from Euripides, Thucydides, and even Aristophanes' Clouds, that the use and abuse of logos ( or gnome ), the value of argument in resolving practical problems, was itself the subject of animated contemporary discussion. Given that men like Protagoras were claiming that it was possible to argue both sides of any case with equal force and persuasiveness ( cf. DK 80B6a: 6uo A6yous EGvaL nEpt navTos np&yμaTos &vTLMELμfvous &AÃAoLs; cf. DK II.260.lff )144, a skill we find deployed in virtuoso fashion in Antiphon's Tetralogies, for example, was it any longer true that reasoned debate was the best means of arriving at the truth or the best practical solution, or would such debate not more usually result either in confused aporia or the success of the best argued, but not necessarily the right position? An appreciation of the power of logos, of the advantages and dangers of debate, had been with the Greeks at least since Homer, but it is not until the sophistic period that there is any sign of a fully developed debate about debate itself 145. In the same speech Artabanus further observes that even when one has deliberated well, there is an incalculable relation between one1 s plans and the vagaries of chance ( 7.lOd.2 ): -385This rather artificial ( sophistic ) antithesis relates chance and planning in a way that reminds us at once of Thucydides: chance is an unmeasurable quantity that threatens to make even the best deliberation arbitrary 146 The theme of the conflict of chance and deliberation crops up again later in the discussion of Xerxes and Artabanus at Abydos. Here Artabanus is even more cautious about the dangers of chance ( 7.49.3 ): μa,\}E o,L This is of course not either fatalism or determinism as usually ascribed to Herodotus, as the context shows ( 49.5 ): &vnp 0€ OUTW av ELn apLCTTOs;, EL SoUAEUOμEVOs; μsv appw6soL, ' , , . - ' "' - " Cl. ' ,, nav EltLAEyoμEVOS 1tELCTECT,\}aL XPnμa, EV uE TWL EPYWL vpaCTUS ELn; ( cf. Antiphon DK 87856: xaxos 6~ &v (E~n), EL (in') &noOCTL μsv μsAAOUCTL rnt:s; xLvouvoLs; ,i'\L yAwnnL .\JpowuvnaL xat ,WL 0£AELV eneCyeL' TO a** ~pyov av napf\L' OJtVEL ) • The symphorai referred to here are the variables of chance, which, as in Thucydides, can undermine the most acute planning. 'Thucydidean' too is the description of a 'rational fear' ( here arrhodia ), which encourages one to foresee as many pitfalls as possible ( cf. esp. Thuc.4.62.4 ). As de Romilly has shown, Thucydides makes a special point of distinguishing this rational fear ( deos ) from the irrational fear ( phobos ) which is d t . t 1 t 11 d 1 . 147 e r1men a o a goo p ann1ng . But in this passage Artabanus' somewhat exaggerated pessimism about planning becomes a foil to the elaborate riposte of Xerxes ( 7.50.1-3 ): El yap 6~ BoUAOLO lnt TffiL aLet lnea,epoμ£VWL npnyμaTL TO nav oμoCws; EHLAeyecr,\}aL, noLnCTELag av ou6aμa ou6sv* Jtp€000V 0£ n&v,a .\Japcr{ov,a ~μLau ,mv 6eLvffiv ndaxeLv μaAAOV fl nav xpf\μa npoOELμaCvov,a μn6aμa μn6sv nãELV. Indeed the discussion here turns into a debate about debate: Xerxes puts the case for determined, decisive action, without undue deliberation, citing the example of his Persian predecessors, and insisting that great prizes call for great risks. In Thucydides the Corinthians, for example, offer the Spartans similar advice against the excessive devotion to deliberation ( 1.120. 5 ) : no Ha ytl.p Jta:xws; yvwa.\Jtvrn aSOUAOT€pWV TWV lvavrrCwv TUXOVTCI. -386Herodotus is perhaps, less pessimistic than Thucydides about the value of planning, and of course shows us that Xerxes is mistaken in his rebuttal of Artabanus148. What Herodotus is particularly pessimistic about are the psychological tensions that hinder good advice: whether the recipient accepts good council depends both on his own predisposition and on his opinion of the motives of his adviser; whether the adviser advises well depends b9th on his own motives and his ability to allay the suspicions of the person he is advising. We may instance Demaratus' problems in •telling the truth' to Xerxes before Thermopylae ( 7.101.3f and 104.1, &pxfi-&cv n11:Lnctμrw on ; cf. 104.5 } and Xerxes• defence of Demaratus' good intentions later in the face of the slanders of Achaimenes ( 7.236.1; cf. 237.lf: 11as a foreigner, he is more prepared to give me good advice, being free from the envy which attends all dealings between men of the same c i ty 11 } 149. Weshoul d acknowledge the importance of the dramatic setting here and Herodotus• desire to dramatize the problems faced by advisers to oriental despots 150; but here again there is a point of contact with Thucydides, and in particular his analysis of the pressures on speakers in the Athenian assembly. To t~,k .. e an example from the Mytilenean debate, Clean warns against speakers who want to appear cleverer than the laws ( 3.37.4 ), and suggests that anyone who speaks against the agreed decision either wants to make a display of his cleverness or is pursuing some private gain ( 38.2ff }; on the other hand Diodotus has to defend the value of debate ( 3.42.lff ) and argue that anyone who wants to block debate is either stupid or pursuing some private gain (1): the general suspicion in which speakers are held in the assembly, he concludes, does no good to the city ( 42,4ff ). It is surely possible to explain this correspondence in terms of the sophistic debate on the use and abuse of logos, which was certainly stimulated in part by the phenomenon of the -387Athenian democratic assembly { and others like it), in which parrh~sia was discovered to be such a double-edged weapon151. Clearly it would not be right to suggest that the traditional view of Herodotus' scenes of advice as illustrations of the infatuation of doomed kings, is wholly to be discarded: Herodotus remains enough of a theist to believe in divine punishment. But this is only one aspect of the problem, and one that has been absurdly over-played. Herodotus is equally interested on another level with the mechanics and theory of deliberation and debate. That Herodotus seems so clearly to 1anticipate 1 Thucydides in all this is surely to be put down to a common sophistic inspiration: there is a thoughtfulness in both authors 1 treatments of the question which shows that it is still something of a novelty, not an old inheritance from the poets. Whatever our prejudices about Herodotus, we do not expect to find Thucydides devoting so much space to a tired old theme. (F) Religion and the Supernatural. We cannot possibly hope to characterize here the complexity of Herodotus' conception of the divine, much as the subject needs thorough re-examination. It may, however, be thought that it is in the area of religious belief that Herodotus• alienation from the cold rationalism of the sophists is most apparent; yet this is to misconceive in some degree both Herodotus 1 own position and that of the sophists themselves. Naturally, whatever conclusion we come to, we will want to avoid the mistake of supposing that the degree of a man's belief or disbelief in the divine can ever be used as a measure of his intellectua] ,sophistication. Socrates after all was both a convinced theist and intellectually quite as forward-looking as any sophist. -388To start with a comparison. Herodotus introduces his account of Egypt with an apology or disclaimer ( 2.3.2 ): ,a μsv vuv 6sLa TWV &nnynμaTWV ota nxouov, ODH ELμL npoBuμõ ; , ,, !)\ ' ) ,. ' ,,.., . ,... , , s~nysscr6aL, s~w n Ta ouvoμa,a auTWV μouvov, voμL~wv nav,ã &vepwnou~ raov nspt au,wv ln{crTao6aL ( and cf. 2.65.2 ). And in recounting what seems to have been a supernatural occurrence at Plataea, he apologizes_for his conjectural explanation with the words ( 9.65.2 ): 6oxsw at, EL TL nspt ,wv esCwv nv~iμa,wv 6oxssLv 6st What Herodotus seems to indicate in his Egyptian introduction 152 is that he will refrain from relating anything to do with the metaphysical world ( ta theia as opposed to ta anthropeia ), with only the 'necessary exceptions'; that is, he will allow himself to talk about the cults of the gods ( temples, f t . l t ) d th . 153 ' h f .. es 1va s, e c. an e,r names , which belong to mans sp ere o act1v1ty, but not about the genealogies, myths, attributes and forms of divine beings, which belong to a different order. About this order every man knows equally much that is, equally little: there can be no certain knowledge of such things. The parallel with Protagoras' famous introduction to his Peri theon is clear ( DK 8084 ): TIEpL μh eswv ODH exw £L6EVaL, oi'.5e' w~ Opinion may be divided as to whether Protagoras is claiming that it is impossible to know 'that' the gods exist or not, or 'how' the gods exist or not; the former seems at first sight more natural, but the latter seems rather more probable in the context: the appearance of the gods ( idea ) is a redundant consideration, if their very existence is being called into dispute. But it remains clear that he is disqualifying any discussion of the attributes and characteristics of the divine as matters it is futile to speculate about, given the limitations of human experience and perception. How Protagoras managed to find anything to say after this is a matter f d bt lSL!.a bt't • 'bl thth t t d' 1 l' • I o some ou ... , u 1 1s pass, e a. e wen on o 1scuss re 1g1on as a component of human culture and a historical phenomenon, as Herodotus ---***--**--***----~------- -389does in Book Two. This after all is what interests the other sophistic writers: Prodicus seems to have written some sort of anthropological study of the history of religion 155, and Democritus, demonstrably not an atheist, gave an account of how men came to conGeive of their gods through fears of such things as storms and lightning 156. Clearly, too, sophistic naturalistic anthropology helped stimulate* the revolt from the traditional mythical conception of the gods and the growth of the idea of an abstract divine ( theion as opposed to theos! ), about which speculation was impossible. Certainly Xenophanes and other Ionians had helped to start this rationalist revolt 157, but the reductionist historical analysis of the development of religion(s) is clearly new and sophistic. It is just this anthropological speculation we find in Herodotus, especially in the lengthy discussion of Egyptian religion and the origins of Greek religion in Book Two side by side with an unwillingness to talk about ta theia, and about matters directly relating to the divine itself, rather than religion as social phenomenon. Herodotus allows himself to discuss how the Greeks came to have the religion they do, including a speculative reconstruction of the 1 Pelasgian 1 religion of Greece before the advent of Egyptian gods158 and the elaborations of the poets 159 The most startling example of Herodotean rationalism in these matters is his discussion of Poseidon and the mountains of Thessaly ( 7.129.4 ). The Thessalians themselves say that 1 Poseidon 1 created the exit through the mountains for the river Peneios: ' ' ' t, ' ' II 5-' ' - ' ' OLXOTa AEyOVTES, OOTLS yap voμL~EL OOEL EWVa Tnv ynv OELELV KaL Tet 6LEOTWTa. Un:o OELO]JOU TOV kl-mu TO'\JTOU spya d:vaL, xat. av E:XELVO ' ... , ii - ;, ' - ,, t ' ' L6wv ~aLn TIOOEL6Ewva ~oLnoaL" EOTL yap OELO]JOU Epyov, ws E]JOL ' , ,, ( 6 , - ' , E~aLVETO ELVaL, n LaOTaOLS TWV opewv. It seems probab 1 e that these words presuppose the theory that the ~ods of Greek religion have acquired their attributes and functions by a historical "--*~-*---------- -390process: men saw the n:s1tural phenomena of storms, earthquakes, and the like, and came to think of them as the actions of gods just as in Oemocritus 1 h f th . . f l . . 160 t eory o e or1g1ns o re 1g1on Of course Herodotus does not commit himself to either view: and he certainly does not share the Democritean view that the gods do not influence the world we live in. For example, he seems to accept that the same Poseidon was responsible for the tidal wave that destroyed the army of Artabazos ( 8.129.3 ), though he does not there go beyond commending this interpretation of the Potideans. And yet it remains that he feels it necessary here to take up a rationaltst.position: not everything in the world, he concedes, is the result of divine intervention; there is room for naturalistic explanation, and we should not forget that religious beliefs have a historical origin. As a rule we might suggest that Herodotus sees divine intervention as essentially limited to particulars, notas c;o_11eringevery imaginable event in the world. Thus the tidal wave which engulfed the Persians was a particular intervention to secure a particular moral equilibrium, the punishment of a Persian impiety; and that is the nature of all Herodotus' divine interventions. Aside from such particulars, the world behaves as a place where natural laws hold sway, where natural phenomena have natural causes, as with the earthquake in Thessaly, although those natural laws are probably put there by the gods in the first place, as we shall now see. A more remarkable passage still is one where it is possible to see a close link with Protagoras. In describing how the poisonous snakes of Arabia are ( like vipers ) prevented from increasing to unmanageable numbers, Herodotus comments ( 3.108.2 ): xaC xws TOD aeCou ~ npovoCn, ~ansp xai olx6s taTL, touaa ao,n, ooa μsv ~uxnv TE OSLAd xaG low6Lμa,.,aDTa μcv navTa no:>tuyova , ff ' -, , # , ., .s::" , "\ , ... nsnoLnxs, LVa μn snLALHnL xaTsa&Loμsva, oaa us axs,ALa xaL aVLDPCT, 0ALy6yova. Accordingly hares are allowed a twofold parturition, while lion-cubs scratch their mothers 1 wombs to prevent them giving birth a second time . .. ***--*-----*--*--------- -391The theory of a balance of nature is advanced in remarkably similar terms by'Protagoras' in Plato's dialogue ( 3218 ) in describing Epimetheus' d . •t• f th .. 1 ld 161 1spos1 ,on o e or1g1na wor ff , ~ ff "'¥ ' II ,,, ' B II '\ ,..., " 1 i EDTL 6 OLS E6WXEV ELVQL TpO,hV tWLWV QAAWV opav• MQL TOLS μEV OALyo- -yovCav np6cr~~E, Tots 6' &va11Lcrxoμlv0Ls ~nb TÕTWV no11uyovCav, crwTnpCav TWL yEVEL nopCtwv. The coincidence 162 ought to suggest that Herodotus owes this argument to Protagoras 163. And if this admittedly tentative ) conjecture is right, have we any reason to suppose that Protagoras did not admit 'divine pronoia 1 as Herodotus does here? If we were to accept that the Peri theon fragment merely rules out speculation about the attrib4tes of the gods, rather than denying that we can know whether or not they exist at all (above), then we might be in a position to accept that Protagoras admitted some form of divine legislation in the begininning, whatever he thought about the subsequent involvement of the gods with the world. It seems perverse ( and it is hard to think of any reason why it should be so ) to accept that Plato's 'parody' represents Protagoras 1 thought in any usable particulars, and deny that the divine legislation, without which the myth makes little sense, is either merely 'conventional I or a Platonic intrusion. Protagoras' thesis is that the materials for the good life exist in nature, including man's share both of the divine mind ( 322A) and his sense of aid5s and dike ( 322CD ): what explanation of these things did Protagoras offer if not .1 divine forethought'? We should remember that in addition to the atheists among the sophists ( the minority? ), there were those who argued that the gods did exist but that they took no notice of human affairs ( cf. e.g. Pl.Legg.888C; with Thrasymachus DK 8588 ). Democritus was, of course, an extreme exponent of this view, but no doubt there were considerable variations. There was quite possibly a debate among such as held this view as to the precise extent of the gods' involvement with the world, or lack of it. -392Where Herodotus stands in all this is not hard to decide: clearly he envisages considerable involvement in human affairs by the gods, not merely in giving the world its original shape ( 3.108.2 ), but in influencing the course of human lives. We might even wish to argue that hi~ explicit examples of divine intervention are meant as a contribution to this very debate on the extent and nature of divine involvement in human affairs. There is certainly something peculiarly pointed about such references: e.g. 7.137.1 and 2, 6fj).ov iLv μo l, on %dov hlvno To ri:pnyμa. ( sc. the wrath of Ta lthyb i os ) ; or 9.100.2, 6n).a. on Tl:OAAOLOl, TEHJ..lnPLOl,OL EOTl, TU ~ELCI. TWV ri:pnyμaTWV ( of the news of Plataea reaching Mykale the same day )164. lt is as if Herodotus were saying, against the agnosticism of the sophists, that there are indeed moments when the workings of the divine can be recognized even though we cannot be sure that we understand what sort of thing the divine actually is and what it does. The remarkably prevalent view that Herodotus is a strict determinist is wholly uns~tisfactory. The 1 gods 1 are involved in human affairs only in certain broad respects: not every detail of human action is planned by the divine. So, for example, the gods send the storm which equalizes the Greek and Persian fleets off Euboea ( 8.13 ): lri:ot,fET6 TE ri:av 6ri:o ri:AEov etn. But this means that it was left up to the Greeks to make use of the advantage given them. The Greeks have to make the choice to stand and fight: the intervention of the gods is not enough on its own to guarantee the outcome165. In other words the gods make plans only in broad outline and it is left to men to make entirely free decisions within that framework. The rationalist knows this to be nonsensical, but it is not a primitive . 166 view Another consideration which could affect our understanding of the supernatural in Herodotus, is that his attitude to and interest in dreams, -393prophecies and portents may itself be 1 sophistic 1 • The reason for such a suggestion is the ( admittedly surprising ) evidence of the work of Antiphon167 on dreams and portents ( DK II.367.16ff; cf. 87Al ), apparently . - . 168 entitled Peri kr1seos one1ron This work seems from the various references to have offered some sort of commentary on the symbolic language of dreams and portents ( e.g. 878, on the sepia ), as well as testing out alternative explanations of the same phenomena against one another. So for example Cicero records two Antiphontic interpretations, which answer the patient 1 s simplistic assumptions with more complicated 'true 1 explanations ( DK II.368.9ff • Cic.d~ Div.II.70 ): for example, the man who dreamt before setting out for Olympia that he was driving in a four-horse chariot, was told by an interpreter that he would win, the speed and strength of the horses signifying as much, but by Antiphon that he would lose, inasmuch as 1 four were running before him1 • Herodotus is similarly interested in 1 alternative explanations', where the recipient of a dream or portent leaps to a simplistic or misguided conclusion, as for example in his account of the portent of the horse which gave birth to a hare~ as Xerxes set out for Europe ( 7.57.lf ): s~crdμSAnTov ' , " ...... TOV a.UTOV XWPOV. No doubt it would be rash to make too much of this: there is nothing especially new about the interpretation of dreams cf. e.g. Aesch.Choe.523ff, esp.540ff; and, of course, Homer ), and we do not know enough about the rationale of Antiphon's work to do any more than guess at his likeness to Herodotus169. But other evidence showing that Herodotus' interest in. portents and prophecies is not necessarily a primitive or 'archaic 1 preoccupation is perhaps offered by Thucydides. Marinatos170 has recently argued with considerable plausibility "that Thucydides accepted oracles, like his pious contemporaries Herodotus and Sophocles (?), and indeed that he exhibited a consistent interest in oracular puzzles and their correct interpretation''. L ... -394So; for example, Thucydides comments on the misreading by Cylon of the oracle which told him he could successfully stage a coup 'during the great festival of Zeus' ( 1.126.5-6 ), which he wrongly took to mean Olympia rather than the Athenian Diasia: the way in which Thucydides describes Cylon's mistake ( voμCcras; ••• OUTE }(CX,TSVoncrs ••• OOltWV OE: op-\'l-ws; YLYVW(J}(SLV clearly seems to show that he believes there was a 1 right interpretation 1 which Ixlon missed, that is, that the oracle was reliable, if characteristically ambiguous. In other words, like Herodotus and Antiphon, Thucydides is interested to contrast the mistaken interpretations of both amateurs and the traditional khresmol ( cf. 2.17.2~ 54.2-3; 5.26.3 ) with the correct interpretations of those who understand the ambiguities and enigmas of oracles: the correct resolution of such riddles was a novel intellectual cha 11 enge. These various considerations suggest that we are in danger of overestimating the divide between Herodotus and the sophi~ts in the matter of religion and the supernatural through an inclination to credit the sophists with a greater rationalism than they by and large professed 171 On the other hand we may be in a better position to understand Herodotus' explicit statements about the divine if we see him as participating in a modern debate on the extent to which the gods influence the natural and human worlds171a. (G} Psychology and Human Nature. The sophistic movement established man himself as a field for systematic intellectual inquiry for the first time. Besides introducing the new social sciences of politics, sociology, anthropology and the rest, this made room* for a serious analytical approach to human psychology172 Man's social institutions, even his moral behaviour, could be best approached if attention -395was paid to the peculiarities of his psychological make-up, his needs and desires, his passions and affections, and to discovering which of these belonged to him by nature and which by conditioning, how and to what extent each could be controlled. Nowhere is the impact of these inquiries clearer to us than in Thucydides, to whose work the study of human psychology is of very great importance, and where the term physis anthropou has an almost technical psychological sense ( cf. 3.§2.2; with n.3, above ). The study of states of hope and fear, of the acquisitive drive in man pleonexia ), of the conflict of passion and reason this gives the work an * underlying unity. It can scarcely be doubted that Thucydides owes this interest to the sophistic ~ovement. Not much parallel material has survived in the fragments of the sophists themselves, though Democritus is clearly much concerned in his ethical work to illuminate questions of human psychology, as is Antiphon, not least in the remarkable papyrus fragments of the Peri aletheias. Although it was not until Aristotle's Ethics that there appeared what could be called a wholly systematic study of the subject, it remains true that the discussion was already well under way in the late* 5thc173. Detailed discussion of Herodotus 1 interest in psychology need not be undertaken here, since we have already devoted a chapter to illustrating this ( cf. Ch.I.i and ii ). But we should remind ourselves that what we saw as Herodotus' concern with paradoxical or 'contradictory' psychology may well reflect the sophistic taste for instructive surprises. We might however observe that, quite as much as Thucydides, Herodotus is concerned to explore the themes of elpis, _epithyrnia, the pursuit of kerdos and the acquisitive drive in man. Certainly the moral expressed by Artabanus ( 7.18.2 ), ~s xax~v Ern Ti nol~ffiv tñeuμfE~v , does indeed go back as far as the poetry of Solon ( esp. F13 West ) ; but it is equally clear that -396discussion of the ambition for gain, pleonexia, acquired a new currency in the sophistic period, in the context of the debate on the ethics of giving reign to one's natural de:sire:s~ Soj for example, Callicles argues that nature itself shows that it is just that the better man should 'have more' ( lean ekhein ) than the worse and the stronger than the weaker, taking as his text the history of the Persian empire ( Pl.Gorg.483CD ): mnnp au,ou bi EHu-ltas; It is tempting to see a historical stimulus here: from the middle of the 5thc with the experience of the rise of the Athenian empire so hard on the heels of the Persian empire, it began to seem that the desire of thestronger to impose his will on the weaker was a law of human psychology, that it would always happen that success bred the appetite for power and profit, an appetite that once fed became insatiable. Or as nsvCns lcrxdtns •ollbv xals•w,tpn• μttovss y&p 6pttsLs μltovas lv6sCas noLsDoLv174 . As we said earlier { cf. Ch.II.iii.K ), Herodotus may even have chosen his subject with half a mind to illustrat~the growth of the Athenian empire: at any rate, it would be curious if in this major respect he did not exhibit the influence he shows so often elsewhere175 . (H) The Political Debate. Political theory is another area in which there is no ~vidence of t t . . . bf th h' t' .. d176 . h b any sys ema 1c inquiry e ore e sop 1s 1c per,10 ; ,t as even een suggested that the concept of the constitution, and in particular the tripartite opposition of democracy, oligarchy, monarchy (tyranny), only. came into being in the political consciousness of Greece after the Persian Wars and with the rise of the Athenian democracy177 . Here at least Herodotus' involvement with the sophistic movement has been widely recognized. Here -397too, however, commentators have tended to argue that sophistic influence is confined to isolated and unusual passages, rather than having contributed to the overall conception of the work. The influence of so-called 1metabole-theory 1 in Herodotus, the idea of the evolution of constitutions through distinct phases, has been clearly observed by Ryffel in his important study of the idea 178. We have already discussed in detail the various prominent examples, notably of the rise of tyranny out of political anarchy, as in the cases of Peisistratus ( l.59.2ff with Ch.II.ii.A ), Deioces ( 1.96.lff with Ch.II.i.B.1 ) and even Darius ( cf. 3.80.l ), where we noted the correspondences between Herodotus and the Anon.Iambl. on anomia, but also in the history of the Lycurgan reforms 1.65.lff with Ch.II.i.A.2 ). The theory is explicitly voiced by Darius in the constitution debate ( 3.82.3f ), where it is explained that both oligarchy and democracy degeherate 1 inevitably 1 into stasis~ out of which emerges tyranny ( Ryffel pp.§1ff ) . The constitution debate itself is almost universally agreed to be sophistic in some sense even by those who obstinately hold that it is a genuine report 179. Thus not only has the content been judged sophistic, for example, from clear correspondences with the 'constitution debate' in Euripides' Supplices ( 399ff )180, but also the form of the debate, with its three mutually opposed speeches, which has been thought, for example, to recall the Kataballontes Logoi of Protagoras. To these considerations we may add that of style, which is appropriately sophistic in the pervasive brevity of the cola ( statistically unparalleled in Herodotus ) and the accumulation of such decorative figures as isokolon, paronomasia, parechesis. However the very obviously sophistic character of the debate has led many critics to regard it as an alien pody in Herodotus' work, to the extent that some have even followed Maãs in suggesting that Herodotus has substantially -398- 'copied out' some sophistic source ( usually Protagoras! ). This results in, or possibly stems from, the view that the 'sophistic elements' in Herodotus are not typical of him ( or even not his work!*), he being 1 essentially 1 an* 'archaic' writer. But this interpretation of the debate is wholly unsatisfactory. As we nave seen in the rest of this chapter, there is scarcely any area of Herodotus' work which has not in some way been influenced by the sophistic hand, we have seen again and again how the constitution debate is undoubtedly an integral part of the work's conception, a reference-point for the running 181' debate on democracy, tyranny and freedom"*--. If Herodotus adopts a virtuoso so phi sti c manner* :h.ere, it is because this one of the work• s main set pieces. In short the constitution debate is not the exception it has been thought to be, but rather the proof that Herodotus' thought is indeed 'essentially' sophistic: the very corner-stone of the work1 s construction turns out to be made of the same material as the whole. The same considerations apply to the chapters on Peisistratus, Dejoces, Lycurgus and the rest, which we saw exhibited a fundamental unity of thought: Herodotus has clearly planned the work's basic structure out of sophistic materials. Herodotus' thinking on the subject of freedom, on eunomia and anomia, on democracy and tyranny, even on empire, forms one single monumental conception, in which sophistic thought is the essential catalyst. We may return here to the argument of Ch.II.i, where it was c;l_aimed that Herodotus made use of various transformations of a historical model in the reconstruction of certain of the work's most important historical turning-points, and that he was led to adopt this method through his experience of particular developments of the sophistic movement, which for the first time set about exploring systematically the social and pblitical functioning of human. society. The model1 as we saw, incorporated elements of such sophistic theoretical discussion, elements whose influence we can trace variously in Plato 1 s Protagoras; in the Anonymous Iamblichi, and in Thucydides1 Archaeology. -399Conclusion. My argument in this chapter has a strong cumulative force, even if some of the details adduced cannot be pressed as far as others. There is clear evidence that Herodotus shows the influence of the sophistic movement in his range of interests, in his attitudes to particular isssues of the sophistic debate, on culture, on the functioning of social and political systems, on human nature itself, which led Herodotus to conceive and shape his work in that way that he has. The sophistic movement is thus surely a primary influence of the work, as important for the evolution of Herodotus 1 thought and method as are Homer and the epic in literary matters. It may be thought that this makes Herodotus merely sophistikos rather than sophist~s, a Thucydides rather than a Protagoras; but in certain respects he is very close to a particular type of sophist, the type exemplified by Hippias, -who is not so much concerned to explore the finer subtleties of abstract philosophy or the resources of rhetoric in the manner of Protagoras or Gorgias, as to set himself up as a master of all knowledge, catering for the widest possible audience, but bringing to his researches an appreciation of sophistic issues, problems and methods. If Hippias, with his arkhaiol ia his ethnography(?), and the rest, can count as a sophist, then surely Herodotus could count as well. It is not, of course, necessary to force this extreme position: it is enough that we realize that in certain fundamental qualities of his work Herodotus shows himself a participant in the ~9R_histic debate. APPENDICES -401Appendix I: Milesian Politics. Herodotus' introduction to the Ionian revolt attaches blame to Naxos and Miletus for disturbing the peace of Asia Minor ( 5.28 ): μsTa 6€ ou MLAnTou !woL yCvsaOaL xaxd. Before describing the circumstances which caused these two.cities to provoke the revolt, however, he indulges in a longish explanatory parenthesis: TOUTO μEV yap n Nãos suoaLμOVLnL TWV vnawv Epoe~sps, TOUTO OE XUTa TOV UUTOV XPOVOV n MLAnTos au,n T€ €WUTns μaALOTU on TOT€ &xμaoaaa xat on xat TnS 1wvCns nv Epoaxnμa, xaTUE€p0€ 0£ TOUTWV &xt ouo ' ' {j - , ' ' '1 , , T II , ysvsas av pwv voanaaaa ss Ta μaALOTa aTaoL, μsxpL ou μLV apLOL , xaTnp,Laav ... And there follows at some length the account of the Parian settlement ( cf. 5.30.1, completing the inner ring: IIapLoL μev vuv MLAnaCous õTw xa,npTLaav ), before the narrative is properly begun: ToTs ot ex Tou,lwv It seems clear from the run of the passage, and notably the connecting particle (yap), that Herodotus means the reader to infer that it was the contemporaneous prosperity ( xaTa Tov auTov xpovov) of Naxos and Miletus that brought them into conflict with each other 2 and ultimately provoked the Ionian revolt. It also seems clear that we are meant to infer that Herodotus• digression on the way the Parians brought political stability to Miletus is integral to his argument: Miletus' confidence and ambition which led her to stir up the revolt is the product of this successful political change, in the same way that, rather more vaguely, Naxos' prosperity is an encouragement to her to get involved in the preliminary conflict ( 5.30f ). Herodotus• treatment of Miletus here clearly reveals the application of the same theoretical model that we observed in his treatment of 1 post-Lycurgan Sparta• ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.2 ): a political change, here the Parian settlement, there the Lycurgan reforms, brings a condition of prosperity { cf. μaAGOTa on TOT€ &xμ&cracra; with 1.66.l, -402- &v& Te ~opaμov au,Cxa xat eu~ev£~ncrav ), in both cases after a period of acute stasis { cf. vocrncracra ~oav crxeoov navTwv 'RAAnvwv ); and with the confidence inspired by that new prosperity comes the inclination to interfere in the affairs of neighbours and to make some show of strength: here the interference in the domestic politics of Naxos, and subsequently the incitement to the rest of Ionia to revolt from Persia, there Sparta 1 s campaigns against the Arcadians3. That it was in fact Aristagoras, and later Histiaios, who were responsible for leading the Milesians into these ambitious enterprises { cf. Ch.II.iii.B) does not seem to divert Herodotus from this interpretation which so well serves his purposes in this introduction. My contention is that in the present passage Herodotus can be detected forcing the facts to fit his model rather than adapting or distorting the model in the interests of the facts, in other words following the same procedure we discovered in his treatment of Lycurgus1 reforms. It is, of course, possible to argue that Herodotus merely reports the 1 prosperity 1 of Miletus as an econoriic fact, whether rightly or wrongly4, and so to claim that the digression on the Parian settlement is not meant to be brought into conjunction with the fact of Miletus 1 prosperity at all, that it is merely an interesting tale without any logical relation to the context ( cf. e.g. Macan, ad loc.: "Herodotus has here, in his way, brought in a good story which has no obvious bearing on the situation 11 ). If this were so, then some of the force of my arguments here would be lost; but I cannot believe that Herodotus would really insert such a confusing excursus at such a point without warning the reader against the natural inference from his order of exposition, that the escape from stasis did indeed have something to do with*enabling Miletus to reach its akme at just this moment. In my -403opinion, Herodotus has a clear reason for wanting the reader to make this inference, without, however, drawing it out explicitly himself. If then we are meant to understand that Miletus 1 prosperity had a political cause, and that it was the Parian settlement which ( like the reforms of Lycurgus at Sparta) stimulated Miletus' rise to her akme just at the time of the Naxian campaign, we are faced with considerable problems of historical reconstruction 5. Let us consider first a cUrious problem of chronological compression which Herodotus' version seems to produce for us. Herodotus seems to be implying that in the period before the Naxian campaign and Miletus 1 akme ( xaTu~ep&e 6s ,ou,wv) there was a period of severe stasis 'for two generations, until the Parians put and end to it'. On independent evidence we will need to set a terminus post quern for the start of that period of stasis at the death of the tyrant Thrasybulus, who as a younger contemporary of Periander probably died between 585 and 5806; but even if we assume the stasis to have set in immediately he died7, two generations on from that ( on Herodotus' own reckoning of 3 generations to a century: cf. 2. l42.it) 8 would bring us down to c. 520-15 at the very least. On Herodotus• own evidence, however, Histiaios is either already tyrant in these years or just about to be, as shown by his arguments to the tyrants at the Danube bridge ( c. 514-3? )Sa at 4.137.2: Tffs 6apeCou 6l 6uv~μLos xa,aLpE&ECans õTE , " 1 , T, " " " , .-. , , , ,..,. 9 aUTOS MLAnGLWV Q(,OS TE EOEO&aL apXELV OUTE aAAOV ou6eva- ... QV6.cqJ!:llV .• Perhaps on its own this compression is not too serious: Herodotus may here be working with shorter generations, or he may have a higher date for Thrasybulus' death; but taken in conjunction with the question of the Parian settlement it is surely syptomatic of a more serious anomaly in Herodotus' reconstruction. Clearly it is impossible that the Parians should have been called -404into Miletus while Histiaios was tyrant, not least since the Parian settlement so obviously provides a 'constitution' ( see below) in which there is no room for a tyrant 10. That means, however, that the settlement must be squeezed into the chronologically minute space that we have seen is left if we count two generations after the death of Thrasybulus. This consideration brings home the fullr ,roblem of Herodotus• account11: we are asked to believe that the Parian settlement brought stability after a long period of stasis, thus enabling Miletus to reach her akme at the time of the Naxian campaign ( c.500 ); and yet this is to gloss over the fact, which Herodotus does not want us to appreciate here apparently, that the akme was, in fact, reached under a period of tyranny, first Histiaios and then Aristagoras. In failing to mention Histiaios here, and in speaking of Milesian politics only in terms of the constitutional Parian settlement, Herodotus is surely hoping that the reader will not spot the gap in the argument: clearly he can have had no wish to suggest that the responsibility for Miletus 1 prosperity rested on Histiaios of all people, who never once in Herodotus' view acted in the interests of anyone except himself ( cf. Ch.U.iii.B ). On the other hand if we do remember Histiaios, we must conclude that Herodotus is disguising the fact that the Parian settlement was singularly unsuccessful except in the very shortest term, in that the constitution it provided for was succeeded almost immediately by a tyranny; that being so, Herodotus' use of that settlement to suggest how Miletus secured political stability and hence prosperity must be felt to be distinctly fraudulent. I believe, however, that the answer is not that Herodotus knew the Parian settlement to have taken place in or before the last quarter of the 6thc and is thus suppressing the knowledge that is was unsuccessful, but rather that he did not believe the period of stasis to belong to the 6thc at all, and that he is deceiving the reader into inferring that it did. -405We need first to re-examine Herodotus' text to see whether it supports this view of his intentions. The temporal indicator :){ct,1.ht£p-&£ õ ,ou,wv which links the Parian settlement narrative to that of the Naxian campaign is on this view deliberately elusive. Clearly Herodotus wants the reader to infer a close relation in time between these events, so as to give the impression that Milesian prosperity was caused by the settlement; indeed if such a relation cannot be inferred, then the narrative of the settlement becomes a confusing excursus with no obvious connexion. But if there did exist such a close relation in time why does Herodotus not tell us of it, since it would so clearly serve his purposes to do so? In other words this is the same chronological evasion as we detected in Herodotus' account of the Lycurgan reforms ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.2 ), where, important as it was to know the length of time between the reforms and Sparta's Arcadian imperialism, Herodotus offered at best only a vague impression, seemingly calculated to mislead. It will also be significant for Herodotus' intentions here that he avoids any mention of how and when the Parian settlement gave way to the tyranny of Histiaios, knowing, as I believe he does, that this was not the way things happened at all although it should be conceded that he would equally have wanted to suppress the process by which the Parian settlement gave way to a tyranny, if he knew or believed that to have been the real scenario. Whether or not Herodotus knew it to be so and I claim that he did there is a strong case for supposing that in historical fact the Parian settlement belonged to the period before Thrasybulus, that is to the 7thc. That is not, however, the view of modern historians, who are in general agreement that the period of stasis de$_criJiE;Ji by Herodotus belongs between Thrasybulus and Histiaios, and that this is the meaning of his text 12. Admittedly this reconstruction is not dependent on Herodotus alone, but the supporting evidence is hardly decisive: **--**~-*-**---....-"*~----- --- -406- (a) Plutarch in the Greek Questions ( Qu.Gr.32, Mor.298CD: TLV£~ oL 'A£LvaurnL 11:apa MLAnaLoL~; ) speaks of a time when 'the tyrants with Thoas and Damasenor' were abolished ( Twv n£pL SocivTa MaL ti.aμaonvopa. Tup6wwv MaTaA.u.\1evTwv )13 and two factions held sway in the city, one under the name Ploutis, the other Kheiromakha. The dynatoi gained the upper hand and took control of affairs through their faction: their most important decisions were taken out at sea aboard their ships, and for this reason they were called the Aeinautai ( i.e. on this interpretation, 1 Perpetual Sailors' )l!a. (b) Athenaeus preserves a fragment of Heraclides Ponticus ( Athen.523Fff= Heracl.F50 Wehrli ), which describes how Miletus succumbed to luxury and political strife. The men of property were at strife with the demotai, whom they dubbed Getgithes; at first the demos prevailed, exiled the rich and took horrible revenge on their children by trampling them to death with oxen. Then the rich gained the ascendancy and set alight their enemies as human torches. The god showed his displeasure in a series of portents and repelled the victorious faction from his shrine, explaining his anger in an oracle: MaL μoL f£pyL~wv Ts ~ovõ μEA.EL &11:TOA£μLOTWV / 11:LOOnpwv T£ μopõ 'KC1.L 6Ev6psov C1.LSL a.\1ClAÃ~: (c) If we accept that Phocylides of Miletus was a historical figure and a Milesian poet of the 6thc, then it may be possible, as West has recently done14, to interpret the fragments of his poetry as evidence of stasis in 6thc Miletus. ( d) The Milesian list of Aisymnetai ton Molpon ( Milet I.iii.122~8; pp.24lff ), which appears to date from 525,-4 by backward counting from later synchronisms, was taken by von Gaertringen15 as evidence of a new political order instituted at just this time. These pieces of evidence are decidedly weak as a corroboration of a 6thc stasis and a Parian settlement in the last 25 years on the century. Plutarch and Heraclides are, of course, without any indication of date and I shall be suggesting a much more suttable. context for them later; that leaves only Phocylides and the list of Aisymnetai. There are a number of possible objections to using Phocylides as evidence. In the first place, we cannot be sure that we are actually dealing with a single historical poet, rather than a name haphazardly linked with any stray gnomic hexameters ( or even some elegiacs; cf. West, IEG II.93, for the testimonia )16. West has recently argued a case for the historical identity of Phocylides, on the basis that comparison with the gnomic literature of other cultures helps to reveal the unity of the Phocylidean corpus; but he admits ( p.165) that 11it is equally possible that -407- ( Phocylides) was someone known at the time and place of composition as a sage of a former generation". As for the fragments in question, there is perhaps no compelling reason to use them as West does, even if we do accept that they were a 11 written in and about Mi l etus. ,cTh~,i r:~ content is in most respects so general and their thought so commonplace that we need not attach them to any particular political situation 16a: they talk of the folly of aristocrats ( F4 Bergk ), of the advantages to a city of kosmos ( F5 ); they warn of the danger of malicious rumours ( F6 ), advise acquiring wealth through farming ( F7 ), comment on how men are not always as reliable as they seem ( F9 ), equate arete with the possession of a sound livelihood ( FlO ), and praise the mean rank in a city ( Fl2 ). The respect for a man who looks after his livelihood is as old as Hesiod, and need by no means be brought into conjunction with Herodotus' Parian settlement with its preferential treatment for good farmers; the political advice too is commonplace enough and need not presuppose any particular r~gime as its context. Comparison with Theognis reveals a significant absence Hi these verses of any mention of political conflict, of rich and poor, khrestoi and poneroi, the whole language of factions, which we surely want to hear if they are to be evidence of 6thc Milesian stasis. If we are to keep West's view of these fragments, there is no objection to giving them a ?the context, before the '" <:::,' ,, ' tyranny of Thrasybulus, where I shall be putting Herodotus' stasis and Parian settlement; in other words, West's correspondences between Phocylides and Herodotus could thus be allowed to stand. The ancient synbhronism between Phocylides and Theognis is no obstacle to this view, based as it surely is on perceived similarities between them17. The only internal evidence for Phocylides' date is the mention of the folly of Nineveh in F5 ( Bergk ), which if we accept the somewhat fragile argument that it did not impinge on the Greek consciousness until it fell in 61218, gives a terminus post quern for that fragment which is still some few yeã before the accession-date of Thrasybulus19. -408The list of Aisymnetai, on the other hand, turns out to be of little value for reconstructing Milesian politics at this date. Even if we accept the highly questionable restoration of the text of the Athenian Regulations of 450-49 ( SEG X.14.7) to give us the J~õ[ET~Lpõ~oAnwv and the <;11;-[cn.1μvnTñ negotiating with the Athenian arkhontes 20, we cannot be sure that the political functions of this clearly religious body extended back to the late 6thc. There are severe problems in the way of interpreting the list as a political document in this earliest period, notably its failure to show any sign of interruption with the Persian evacuation of the city in 494, or to show any change with.the tyranny of Histiaos 21, Aristagoras' suppression of the tyranny and the institution of isonamia at the start of the Ionian revolt ( cf. Hdt 5.37.2 ), or with any of the political changes of the 5thc ( see below). The political life of Miletus in the early period of the list is marked by discontinuity, while the list shows only continuity: it is hard to see any other explanation of this than that the list has no political or constitutional significance in this perioci22. Thus a 6thc Milesian stasis and Parian settlement receive no firm support from any of this supplementary evidence. More seriously, however, there is a decisive objection to such a reconstruction, as we can see from a consideration of Miletus 1 external relations in this period. Herodotus himself gives us clear evidence of a treaty of immunity for Miletus negotiated with Alyattes of Lydia by the Milesian tyrant Thrasybulus I . ( cf. 1.i2.4 ), an agreement which seems to have continued under Croesus, since it is still in place when Cyrus renews it after the Persian takeover ( 1.141.4 ): npõ μouvou~ yap TOUTOU~ (SC.the Milesians alone of the Ion4ans) OpJH,OV Kupõ t::noLnmno ih' oGcrC nEp o AD6õ ( and cf. l.169.2 ). If, however, the death of Thrasybulus brought not only a change of r~gime in Miletus ( i.e. something other than tyranny) but also a period of -409violent political unrest voanaaaa E~ Ta μaAL0Ta 0Ta0L ), which continued unchecked until around , in other words if we accept the orthodox reconstruction of 6thc Milesian politics, it is impossible to .understand (a) why the Lydians would have wanted to maintain their old relations with the city and (b) why the Persians, too, when they took over control of Ionia, should have been prepared to si~~e out Miletus for preferential diplomatic treatm~nt. We know that Persia accepted and understood tyranny, and even perhaps on occasion actively promoted it in the interests of better imperial administration 23: surely the only reason that Cyrus was prepared to be indulgent towards Miletus, in the same way as the Lydians had been, was that the Milesian tyranny, reliable, tractable, and sympathetic to eastern imperialism, had been preserved unchanged since the death of Thrasybulus? Persia was certainly happy to leave the administration of Babylon virtually unchanged after tbe fall of Nabonidus, as the documents show24, but tha.t was because its stability and loyalty to the empire could be guaranteed. By contrast~he Behistun Inscription shows clearly enough how concerned Darius was at his accession at any suggestion of political unrest within the empire, even in places where there was no direct threat of secession 25. Later still, Artaxerxes is persuaded to prevent the Jews doing any further work on the temple at Jerusalem, begun under the auspices of Cyrus, when he is told of the unsettled record of the city ( Ezra 4.19 ): 11And I commanded, and search was made, and it is found that this city of old time hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made therein 11 • If even unjust suspicion such as this can withdraw the king 1 s favour from a city of the empire, it is surely unimaginable that Cyrus will have been prepared to enter into a special friendship with Miletus at the time of conquest, if there was at this moment anything remotely resembling the extremely violent stasis described by Herodotus, when at any moment a rival faction could have gained ground on its opponents and threatened secession from the empire25a. -410If we accept that there was indeed tyranny at Miletus continually through the 6thc down to the Ionian revolt, we have.the obvious expl.anation of how it is that Herodotus can introduce Histiaios at the Danube bridge as a tyrant who c:;laims he owes his position to Persian support ( cf. 4.137.2, above ) at just the time when we would otherwise have expected the Parian settlement to have begun operating at Miletus. On the orthodox scheme there is no very easy answer to this problem26. The present explanation might also make sense of Histiaios'abdication in favour of Aristagoras, while he went off to pursue other prizes ( cf. 5.30.2, TE EWV xaL avE~LÕ 'IaTLaCou TOD AuaayopEw, TOV 6 6apEtõ ev IoucroL0L xaTECXE ; cf. 5.11.2, for Histiaios 1 ambitions in Myrkinos ). This looks very much like the luxury of a well-established tyranny, rather than something a tyrant would be likely to do only a few years after having seized power at the expense of a constitutional government. We mu~t turn now to consider how well a ?the stasis and Parian settlement might work. We cannot say with any confidence when or how the aristocracy of the Neleids fell, nor are the accounts of Nicolaus of Damascus and Konon clearly enough rooted in history to enable us to determine what followed that collapse 27. That what followed was two generations of stasis before the emergence of Thrasybulus cannot by any means be ruled ' out, especially if the dynasty fell as early as the beginning of the ?the. A Parian settlement of the late ?the, giving way to the tyranny of Thrasybulus some years after,.h!as on the other hand positive recommendations. There is, for example, evidence of diplomatic activity, including arbitration, by the Parians in this period, which certainly adds colour to the view that their present intervention in Miletus belongs there too. The famous story of Koiranos ( variously a Milesian or a Parian) appears in its earliest form in Archilochus ( F192 West; cf. SEG XV.518 ): the dramãic ~---------------~***----------**--*--*--*--*-* -411setting of his well-known rescue by dolphins appears to have been that of an embassy sailing between Miletus and Paros28, which we could conjecturally identify with some stage of our*Parian arbitration. In addition we know of another example of Parian arbitra.tion belonging to the ?the ( cf. Plut. Qu.Gr.30.298AB ), when, together with the Erythraeans and the Samians, they arbitrated between the Andrians and the Chalcidians. Was the ?the th.us perhaps the heyday of Parian diplomac/ 9? The argument is admittedly fragile there is no reason why Paras should not have played the role of arbiter in the 6thc but the fact that the two securely datable archaic Parian arbitrations ( and one actually involving Miletus! ) belong to the ?the, while none is apparently known from the 6thc, except supposedly this Herodotean arbitration, is one certainly worth one remarking where there is so little other evidence. We are on firmer ground, however, when we come to consider the content of the arbitration itself. It is hard .to accept that the constitution the arbitrators ~et up here, with its extremely primitive appearance, can have been a constructive political solution as late as the end of the 6thc. The Parians select those landowners whose farms they deem to be the best kept and assign them political office ( 5.29.2 ): Tod~ous μlv T~v *n6ALV vlμELV Trnv E~pov~Tõs &ypots E~ £~Epyacrμ[vous* OOXEELV yap ~~acrav xaL Trnv onμocrLWV ÕTW on G~Eas snLμEAncrEcr~aL ,, - , wcrnEp TWV G~ETEpwv. It is the clear.implication of the Greek that these selected landowners are to be the sovereign body under-the new dispensati?n. It could be argued, on a literal interpretation of the story, that these ar~ equally likely to*be small, efficient hoplite farmers as to be prosperous aristocrats; ' but it is surely more credible in Greek political terms that what the Parians established was a high property qualification, assessing not the efficiency of the farmers' methods ( a somewhat unquantifiable standard for these purposes ) but the absolute value of their estates, either -412in terms of productivity ( the annual yt:eld ) or, less likely given the implications of the story, in terms of their total assets. If this is the right interpretation, a constitution which puts political power exlusively into the hands of the prosperous landowners could well have been still acceptable in the late ?the, but surely seems hard to swallow in the late 6thc, after a period in which throughout Greece the hoplite classes had begun to secure substantial political recognition .. The anachronism becomes clear when we compare the character of the Chian constitution of 575-50, substantially earlier than the earliest date offered for a 6thc Parian constitution at Miletus, if not quite as early as was once 30 thought . The constitution at Chios is clearly quite politically advanced, bearing comparison even with Salon's provision for Athens31 Here we find a considerable measure of responsiblilty devolved to a boule demosie ( cf. Meiggs.Lewis no.8 ), which is to "transact the other affairs of the demos, and to [pass?] final [judgement on?] all verdicts which have been appealed against during the past m~nth11 ( Jeffery's translation and supplements ). On the other hand the primitive character of the Parian constitution is revealed by comparison with the reconstructed archaic constitution of Phocaea1 s colony of Massali.a (founded c.600 )32 where we find a council ( synedrion ) of 600 ti~oukhoi, "who held their seat for life and were all heads of houses, the eldest son succeeding to the seat on his father 1 s death .. a rigid principle which may have been based on inalienable kleroi which had been allotted to the original settlement of 600 males1133 This procedure indeed offers us a very probable parallel to the Parian constitution: we may imagine that the Parians selected a synedrion on some principle of land-ownership, presumably a very ñrrow property qualification, that is by a once for all decision on who should count as timotikhoi,and that they proposed the same hereditary principle for the replacement of offi holders on the death of the original appointees. In other words the Parian constitution is narrow, aristocratic in character, and surely primitive, scarcely an acceptable or even conceivable solution ------ ---------***----***---- -413to a 6thc stasis. It could be that we are wrong to expect a linear progression in Greek political history, but it is hard to believe that the Parians thought they would be able to get away with a settlement, an arbitration(!), which so flagrantly ignored the currents of polit,cal change: well over 50 years before at Athens Solon had seen that there would have to be a mediation between the wishes of the plousioi and the aspirations of the penetes. Assuming the arbitration to have taken place towards the end of the ?the, it is much easier to understand how the hoplite majority can have been so ignored: it might even have been that the arbitration was between rival aristocratic factions such as those of Megakles and Lykurgus at Athens before the tyranny of Peisisrtatus ( cf. Hdt 1.59.3 ), where, had it not been for the prostasia of Peisistratus, the penetes ( assuming this to be the composition of the hyperakrioi of his faction) would not have received recbgnition, presumably even despite the earlier arbitration of Solon. If the Parian solution would have been unacceptable to the parties to a 6thc stasis, to the extent that it could never have been ratified, let alone instituted at such a time, it,is also of such a kind that it would have soon led to abuse in the ?the. It is not difficult to see how such a system of government could have given way before very long to the tyranny of Thrasybulus. Aristotle describes the rise of a Milesian tyranny, usually presumed to be that of Thrasybulus 34, out of too narrow a constitution { Ar.Pol.1305A15ff ): eyCyvoVTO 6t 1'Upavv{6e:s; n:p6Te:pov μci).:\ov n vuv 'HO:L 6LC. 1'6 μq&:\as &px&s eyxe:LpL~e:cr~aL TLGLV, wcrne:p ev MLAnTWL Tns; n:pUTave:Cas ( 11:0AAWV ydp nv 'Hctl.. μeyaAWV XUPLOS o 1IPUT0:VLS ) • It would not be difficult to interpret the office of prytanis here in the light of the Parian constitution, assuming our analogy with the Massalian * system is correct. At Massalia, according to Strabo ( IV.5 p.179 ), execut'ive power was put into the hands of a committee of fifteen: -414TodTwv 6~ sls. The single all-powerful president at the top of this pyramidal structure could well have existed in the Parian constitution for Miletus, and hence be the same as Aristotle's prytanis. We may compare further the 7thc constitution of Dreros ( Meiggs/Lewis no.2 ), which makes provision against just the danger that was apparently actualized at Miletus, setting limits to the presidential office of kosmos to avoid the possibility of the office being used as a stepping-stone to tyranny or to bolster the power of an individual family. Cumulatively the case for transferring Herodotus' stasis and Parian settlement to the 7thc i~ clearly very strong: not only is there a powerful objection to admitting a 6thc stasis, but a number of arguments combine to make a 7thc settlement highly attractive. It should, however, be ! conceded that a possible objection to a continuous 6thc tyranny is provided by a passage of Aristotle's Politics ( 1315Bllff ), which argues that tyranny ( like oligarchy) is the most short-lived form of government .. There follows a league-table of the longest tyrannies, with the Orthagorids at Sicyon in first place ( 100 years ), second the Cypselids at Corinth ( 73. years and 6 months ) , and in third place the Peisistratids at Athens although this tyranny was not continuous ( 35 years in power). The tyranny at Syracuse { Gelon, Hieron, Thrasybulus ) lasted only 18 years: at 6~ Clearly no allowance is made here for a Milesian tyranny of a little over a hundred years. There is, however, reason to doubt that Aristotle is the author of this section and clear evidence that the list of tyrannies is hardly authorative, omitting as it does any mention of the long-lived tyrannies of Aristotle's own time, such as that of Dionysios I and his succerssors * 34a at Syracuse . We are not well .informed about J:onian tyrannies and there ~ay well have been exceptions to this rule of brevity in.that part -415of the world, especially given its special relattonswith. the empires of the East. Ephesus, for example, a city comparable with Miletus in its ability to work with Lydians and Persians, seems to have been ruled by tyrants for most if not all of the 6thc. The dynasty was founded by Pythagoras in the late 7thc {cf.Baton FGH 268F3 ), who is followed by Melas, then Pindaros, who married the daughter of Alyattes; and the tyranny is still in evidence in the second half of the 6thc, when Karnas and Athenagoras exiled the poet Hipponax ( cf. Suda s.v.; West, IEG I.109 ), and we cannot be sure that it did not last even down to the Ionian revolt 34b. This Ephesian tyranny is thus not only a long-lived exception ignored by the Politits passage, it is also a useful analogy to our reconstruction of a continuous 6thc Milesian tyranny. What then remains to be done with the evidence for Milesian stasis offered by Plutarch and Heraclides? The simplest answer would be to assign them along with Herodotus to the ?the; but we should not neglect another possibility, viz. that they belong in the 5thc political history of Miletus. Our evidence for 5thc stasis in Miletus derives otherwise almost exclusively from evidence relating to its relations with the Athenian . 35 empire : (a) the earliest quota-lists, which show Miletus itself failing to make a payment in 454-3, but in the same year show contributions from Mil esioi .ekhs Lero and Mi 1 es i oi ek Tei khi ousses, as we 11 as Neo olitai ek Mileto enteukoi Akroterioi ( cf. List I.vi.19-22; with 8.0. Meritt, Hesperia 1 197 ff . There are nm"_Milesian entries for the following year and it is not until 452-1 ( List III. ii.23) that Miletus herself re-appears. The natural conclusion is thatMiletus was in revolt from 454-3 or some time before, until 452-1, and that exiled Athenian loyalist 36 made payments in the first year from their various places of refuge . (b) the Athenian regulations for Miletus of 450-49 ( SEG X.14: ATL II.Dll ), in which five Athenian magistrates ( arkhontes ) are appointed, possibly to serve alongside the Aisymnetes and Prosetairoi Clines 4-7 ), though the restoration is very c:!oubt_fuL ( cf. n.20, ----------~**--***---- -416above ). The decree also mentions a garrison ( line 77 ), though it is not clear whether it is imp~7ed now for the first time or had figured in an earlier settlement . Again the regulations show that Mil etus has been threvo l t, though the decree itself must be an afterthought of some kind. after an earlier suppression of the revolt indicated by the quota-lists ( see above). (c) Ps.-Xenoph.Athpol.3.11, speaks of occasions when Athens has 'tried to choose the beltistoi 1 1 as in Boeotia and Miletus: td0To 6~ 5TE MLAnaCwv EEAovTo Tous BEATCoTovs, tvTts 6ACyou xp6vou &nocrT&vTES T~V 6~μov ~aTlxo4av. (d) the Milesianbanishment decree { Milet I.iv.187: Meiggs/Lewis no.43 )38, which outlaws 1 ••• the sons(s) of Nympharetos, together with Al kimos and Kresophontes, the sons of Stra,Jonax1' ( and possibly others, missing from the start of the inscription ), with their d d t , ' ' ' "r: ' ] ' ' ' [ ]' ' , escen ans: tEUYEV Tnv EK aLtμaTL ,uyEV xaL auTos xa L sxyovos. A price is put on their heads of 100 staters to be paid from the property of Nympharetos, and if they are captured, the epimenioi are to put them to death or pay heavy fines. The decree has no secure date: epigraphically ( e.g. Rehm, Meiggs ). it may be as early as c.470, but historical contexts have been found either in the late 4501 s ( Meiggs, ATL ) or the late 4401 s ( Earp, Barron ). (e) At some stage Miletus was given a democratic constitution on the Athenian model, as shown by a decree of 380-79 with Epistates and Prytaneis bearing Athenian tribe-names ( cf. Wiegand, SBBA (1901) 911 ), and by a more recently discovered lex sacra for the cults of Poseidon Helikonios, plausibly assigned by Hermann ( Klio 52 (1970) 163ff) to 437-6, which shares the same form of prescript. The evidence that Miletus 1 tribute was halved to 5 talents from 443-2 9nwardi, there having been no payments recorded before that since 447-63J, has been taken to show that the democracy was set up by Athens c.443 after a second revolt ( Eafp pp.144-5, Barron p.2 ). Meiggs howeve~ has argued ( AE 564) that it seems improbable that Athens would have allowed Miletus to defy her for 3 years after the crisis of 446, having reduced the Euboeans and made peace with Sparta. and that the non-payments of the 3rd assessment period should be accounted for by .the paying-off of an indemnity ( as happened at Chalcis and Eretria ), arguing that the change in constitution came instead in 447. Gehrke denies that the tribute-lists can be taken to show any second revolt { pp.27ff) and claims that the democracy was imposed in the Athenian regulations of 450-49, which other commentators are agreed .. reflects Athens' 'choice of oligarchy' as reported by Ps.-Xenophon. (f) B.a.rron: followin*g an iñeniouss'tudyofthe banishmeñ decree by Glotz ( CRAI (19Ci6)51lff ), argues.that Milesian stasis in this period re.valved around an oligarchy which claimed Neleid descent. The case depends (i) on identifying the names Alkimos and Kresphontes from the decree as good Neleid names ( hardly decisive?), and (ii) on correspondences of wording between the text of the decree and the passage in Nicolaus ( FGH 90F53: cf. n.27, above), which describes the overthrow of the Neleids seemingly at the end of the monarchy. On this view Nicolaus' account proceeds from a c.onfusion and conflati.Qn oftwo events, the early ( 7thc) expulsion of the Neleid monarchy and a later 5thc E;;XRu40iõ following some sort of treasonable activity by a 'Neleid faction' . Barron argues that this thesis helps explain why Athens should have taken the unusual step ~ecorded by Ps.-Xenophon -417of supporting an oligarchy at Miletus ( p.6 }: if this was a Neleid faction, the reason will have been Athenian propaganda of the Ionian migration, Codrus of Athens being the father of the Neileus who founded Miletus ( cf. Hdt 9.97 }. Two points of interpretation need to be made before we can attempt a reconstruction. (i} We would naturally expect the Athenian-loyalists in exile in Leros and Teikhioussa in 454-3 to be an exiled democratic faction and that the party conducting the revolt was an oligarchy of some description: only democrats could reasonably be expected to feel such an urgent necessity to remind the Athenians of their loyalty and equally a democratic revolt goes somewhat against the grain 41. (ii} The banishment decree is usually taken to belong to the occasion of the expulsion of the oligarch rebellious against Athens either after *tb,e first revo1t42 or the second ( c.443-2 }43. There is however a clear objection to this view, namely that the decree makes no mention of Athens in any way whatsoever, The regulations for Erythrai ( Meiggs/Lewis no.40 }, with which the present decree is often compared44, reveal all too clearly what is missing here esp. lines 26ff }: - '6 6 ' '6' " " [ ] "' ' ' -Tu.\\) cpvya Q\). JtaTa r::xcroμaL 0\) E: E:Va OVT ••• 8... a,rnOL 11:E:l,OOμaL Tu.\\) ES M[oos ~r::uy6VTOV CTVE:U TES SOAES TES 'A6nvaCov xat TO 6eμo ouõ TO\> μr::v6VTOV £XO£AO a\>£\) Tns SoAES 1 A6nvaCov xat TO oeμo. It is surely inconceivable that the Milesian decree, if it has anything at all .td do .with an Atheni.an settlement, should be later in date than this Erythrai decree and neither be an Athenian enactment ( as the other is) nor show any sign of Athenian intervention, especially when we consider the character of the regulations of 450-49. The decree must accordingly belong before the period of Athenian involvement in Milesian politics 45. Let us now turn to our reconstruction, rraking use of Heraclides and Plutarch where appropriate. The banishment decree can be taken first: the fact that the order of expulsion includes the ~xiles' descendants, as well as the heavy sanctions for all involved, show that the crime,is likely to be treason, and it is a reasonable inference that this took -418the form of 1tyranny 146 That being so we may interpret the decree in the light of Plutarch 1 s reference to 'the tyrants around Thoas and Damasenor1 ). Certainly we do not find these names on the inscription. although by chance the traces happen to allow us to restore ~aμa]cr[nvopa T]oEvJ Nuμ~apsTo. We do not know, however, how many names have been lost before the first preserved; and it may equ<1Jly be that Thoas andpamasenor had themselves already killed in the coup which deposed them47 We cannot lay much stress, if any, on the appearance of the demo_crati c-souñing epimeni oi in this inscription and thus argue that the government which passed the decree t h b d t . 48 mus ave een emocra 1c . Certainly we do not find here the Aisymnetes and Proserairoi who sound oligarchic, but can we be sure they have a political role even in SEG X.14 ( cf. n.20 )? Moreover it is unnecessary to suppose that, when one faction gained the ascendancy over the other, this was actually accompanied by a change in the structure of government, rather than that the personnel occupying the main offices of state was changed. Thus we may argue from Plutarch that the fall of the 'tyrants' was followed by an ascendancy of the oligarchs unless by a compression he has left out a previous democratic ascendancy. For the second phase of the stasis we may turn to Heraclides and posit an ascendancy of the democrats, involving the exile of the plousioi and the gruesome revenge taken against their children. This in turn leads to a third stage, the re-establishment of the oligarchs, as also set out by Heraclides. This will then coincide with the first revolt of Miletus from Athens as indicated in our other evidence. It may be that it was disagreement over whether to send ships to help in the Egyptian expedition in 460 ( cf. ATL III.253) that precipitated the oligarchic coup and led to the revolt from Athens which shows up in the first quotalists of 454-3 { cf. (a) above). The democrats escaped to exile in -419Leros and Teikhioussa and continued from there to remind the Athenians of their loyalty by sending payments of their own to the League chest. The quota-lists show that the revolt is suppressed in 452-51 ( cf. (a) above ), and depending on our interpretation of the Athenian decrl:!e Qf 450-49 Athens either restores the democracy or allows for the continued existence of the oligarchy. Gehrke's objections to accepting that it is an oligarchy that Athens negotiates with here amount to nothfng more than the case against the restoration of Aisymnetes and Prosetairoi in the text of the decree ( lines 6-7: cf. n.20, above ); but this is not enough in itself to rule out an oligarchy here, and we may wish to accept Meiggs' observation that the use of the word sophrono[si ( line 82 ) is an appeal to an oligarchic virtue ( Cf. AE 563 ). In my view it is easiest to understand the introduction of arkhontes and garr.ison in the decree as provisions to ensure the loyalty of a potentially suspect oligarchy rather than to supervise a recently established democracy: in particular it is curious that there should be no mention in the decree of an episkopos ( cf. n.41, above ), whom we normally expect to find superintending the setting-up and teething troubles of new constitutions in the allied states. It is of course of considerable importance for my reconstruction that Athens should be allowing the continued existence of an oligarchy here, in order to give some reference to Ps.-Xenophon's report of bow the Athenians 'chose the beltistoi at Miletus' ( Cf. (C) above ). I believe it is only appropriate to talk about Athens 'choosing' the oligarchic party ( heilonto) if she had made a positive decision to favour oligarchs when she might have given her support to a democratic party already in existence 49; and on this reconstruction that is surely what she is doing on the evidence of the regulations decree. In other words sooner than proceed heavy-handedly by restoring the original democracy or imposing a new one on the Athenian model, Athens decides to try to ----------------- ---****----*** -420make the existing oligarchy work50. The reason for this may be Barron 1 s ( and Glotz' ) theory of Ionian ( Neleid ) propaganda; but equally we could argue either that Athens still considered it necessary to keep up the pretence of a League and was not yet ready to try direct political interference with such a powerful ally 1 or that Athenians of 'oligarchic' temperament managed to persuade the assembly to give the beltistoi another chance ( cf. Ps.-Xenoph.I.14 ). If this is the reference of Ps.Xenophon ( 3.11 ), it is clear that Athens' velvet-glove approach soon failed: "within a short time the oligarchs revolted and cut down the demos11 • The puzzle, as Earp sees it ( p.145, n.10 ), of 11why, if the oligarchs were already in control, any bloodshed should have been necessary 11 can perhaps be explained by assuming that the oligarchy which the Athenians sanctioned after suppressing the revolt was a reasonably broad-based one, giving the demos a blocking-vote for example. At any rate it is not difficult on this reconstruction to see the reason for the second revolt: the oligarchs will have felt that the coming of peace with Persia ( 449 ) removed any further justification for loyalty to Athens; possibly the demotai tried to block this secession but discovered that with the Athenian garrison no longer in place 51 there was no-one to protect them against their enemies and there ensued another violent pogrom. If we allow that Heraclides has perhaps conflated two consecutive cases of oligarchic revenge, it will be possible to parallel Ps. -Xenophon 's ka tekopsan,, in the details of hj s graphic account ( see above). Finally the oligarchy is at last removed by a further Athenian settlement after the suppression of the revolt in either c.446-5 or c.443-2 ( cf. (E) above ), at which time Athens installs a democracy on the model of her own, realizing the failure of her earlier diplomacy. -421There are three further considerations in favour of referring Plutarch and Heraclides to this period of Milesian stasis. (i) Jeffery argues that if Plutarch 1 s democratic faction Kheiromakha is to denote the party f I L b ' t b . d b th 1 . h 52 . t o a our , as seems o e require y e ex1cograp ~rs , , seems out of place in the 6thc. Her answer was to render it 'Close-fighting' ( i.e. presumably the hoplite party); but perhaps this is an indication that the account belongs to the 5thc rather than the 6thc. (ii) Parke observed of the oracle reported in Heraclides that it looks anachronistic for.the 6thc53: we would expect the shrine concerned to have been Branchidae if the account belonged in the 6thc, but the verse form of the oracle suggests Delphi; hence either the oracle is a 5th or 4thc forgery, as Parke argued, or it shows that the account belongs in the 5thc, when we can more easily understand why the Milesians should have consulted Delphi rather than Branchidae, which had been in abeyance since its sack by the Persians. (iii) If Barron ( with Glotz ) is right that the oligarchic party advertised themselves as Neleids, that is Milesians of pure Hellenic stock ( cf. (f) above), we can readily accomodate the evidence of Heraclides and the Suda54 that the plousioi taunted the demos with the name Gergithes ( or Gergethes ), for the Gergithes were thought to be the last remnants of the ancient Teukroi ( cf. Hdt 5.122.2 and 7.43.2 ): in other words the demotai are cast as Milesians of impure stock, cross-bred with the natives of Asia Minor55. This is, however, not the strongest of inferences: that the oligarchs were Neleids at all depends only on the combination of the banishment decree with Nicolaus, which is far from fertain. It should be stressed that the evidence of Plutarch and Heraclides is highly flexibleand moreover historically imprecise, so that we need not be too concerned that all the details do not match the suggested context precisely. Neither account is of course principally interested in the precise historical context: Heraclides is lng a moralist ( cf. -422e.g. F49 Wehrli, for a similar treatment of the fate of Sybaris ), Plutarch an antiquarian. Thus there is no reason to be surprised that neither mentions any involvement of Athens in this Milesian stasis, especially since on the above reconstruction both are talking about the period before the first intervention of Athens in 452-1, so that the only possible omission is the mention that the ascendancy of the oligarchs iojncided with the secession from the Athenian alliance, which is not really relevant to either author 1 s theme. -423Appendix II: Esoteric sources and 1 polis-traditions 1 in Herodotus' Greek hi There has been much speculation on the subject of Herodotus' sources for his Greek histories, but the emphasis has almost invariably been on arguing from Herodotus' text to the identity of his informants, while the question of what can be inferred from extra-Herodotean evidence about the probable character of his sources has been almost entirely ignored. Certainly Jacoby achieved a significant advance by establishing that Herodotus 1 sources were in principle, if not invariably, likely to be oral traditions, and that he did not, as was supposed by many earlier writers, 'depend at all heavily on written sources 1. But Jacoby reached this conclusion ( now generally accepted ) without touching on the external evidence for the question of Herodotus' sources, beyond inquiring to what extent he did or did not depend on any given written texts; Jacoby's account of what oral traditions were available to Herodotus' makes no use of any other evidence than the text of Herodotus itself. His Quellenanalyse des Werkes2 offers a description of the sources for the entire work, passage by passage, which in common with almost all source-criticism of Herodotus, depends on a highly questionable method: where Herodotus does not explicitly cite his source ( but cf. below and App.III ), his text is analysed for whatever it can show of 'bias', and the 1 likeliest 1 representative of that bias is postulated as Herodotus' informant. Thus if Herodotus' account of Thermophylae shows the Spartans in a heroic light and seems in any way to devalue the achievement of the other Greeks, his source must be Spartan ( but cf. Ch.II.iii n.124 ); if the narrative of the liberation of Athens seems to highlight the role of the Alcmeonids at the expense of any other party, the Alcmeonids must be his source ( but cf. Ch.II.ii.B-C ). This proceeding is in my view seriously flawed, and, because of its tendency to restrict the inquiry to the text of Herodotus, it has reached some anomalous results: the hypothesis of an ***-*--**----*--**--*----------------- -424Alcmeonid source for the liberation of Athens appears to be held in d~fiance both of external evidence for what the Alcmeonids might have told Herodotus and of what is shown by a close reading of the text on which it purports to be based. There are, moreover, clear methodological objections. In the first place, we often cannot be sure that it is the influence of any one source rather than any other that led to the version Herodotus actually sets out. For example, is his version of Marathon to be explained as a tradition of either of the families of (i) Miltiades or (ii) Callimachus, or is it merely an 1 Athenian version'? The 'bias' of the account, if such there is, could be due to any of these three sources or indeed any combination of them, or even others we cannot know. Secondly, there is a tendency to postulate only single sources and to ignore the possibility that Herodotus is selecting and combining from among several different versions he has. heard of any particular event. Finally, and most important, as I have argued repeatedly in the text, it is quite possible, and in many cases probable, that it is Herodotus' own doing that a particular passage shows the 'bias' which the traditional criticism treats as a pointer to the identity of his informant(s). I would argue that Herodotus can take neutral reports and give them any 'bias' he chooses ( cf. e.g. Plutarch on his kakõtheia ), as well as neutralising positive or negative bias, or even turning it into its opposite. This being so, the precarious constructions of the traditional criticism are even further undermined: before we can start looking for the biasses of Herodotus' informants, we must make a determined effort to see whether Herodotus has his own reasons for 'interpreting his evidence in one way rather than another and to see what he has added or taken away) on his own initiative ( e.g. motivation, speeches, etc. ), and finally we should allow that Herodotus may have 'interpreted' in ways and according to principles or ideas that we cannot necessarily identify as his own. I would suggest that, if real progress 1s to be made in the investigation of Herodotus' sources, inference from the text as to the identity of individual "--**--- .. *-- .. *---------~ witnesses should give way to a much more broadly based inquiry: we need to inquire into the nature of Herodotus' sources in general, what sort of traditions might have been available to him, how they came into being, how they were kept in circulation, how they came to Herodotus' attention. In other words, it is necessary to see what can be done to reconstruct Greek oral traditions, a question for which Herodotus' own text should not be the primary evidence. Herodotus offers the largest amount of evidence for such a reconstruction, but for the reasons outlihed above, not by any means the clearest evidence. Clearly this new approach will not yield the answers to all the questions we want to ask, but. it should be possible to establish certain basic principles from which to generalize and on occasion to suggest the form that particular traditions are likely to have taken or not taken and to set those reconstructions against the narratives of Herodotus ( cf. Ch.II.B, for the Alcmeonid tradition ). Any systematic treatment of this question is, of course, quite beyond the scope of this appendix1 I offer here merely some assorted doubts and observations designed to gtve colour to some of my arguments in the main text. I would contend that in principle and for the greatest part of the work, and in particular the Greek sections-thereof, Herodotus relies on the traditions he designates as those of 'the Athenians', 'the Spartans', 'the Aeginetans 1, or whoever it might be, and which I would designate 1 polistraditions1, both for convenience and because I would suggest the term explains their true nature. The often invoked esoteric sources for his Greek history, on the other hand, whether priestly traditions or family traditions, are in my view of much smaller importance . . It has been argued by Finley 3 however, that such esoteric sources, the great families of the Greek states and in a different way the priestly offices of the shrines such as Delphi or Eleusis, were the only important repositories of knowledge about Greek history and that other sources are -426of no account 3. Only such groups, it is argued, have the necessary interest in ensuring that stories relevant to the preservation of their status or power within the society are remembered, and the necessary influence to impress them on the rest of society. Some anthropological studies of oral tradition, those of the 1 structural-functional I type, have argued that in pre-literate or semi-literate societies the community as a whole and groups within it as a rule remember things about the past because they need to remember them, that family traditions, group traditions, state traditions, are preserved in order to ensure the stability of rights and privileges for the group doing the remembering4. The functional theory of oral memory attempts to exclude all other explanations, but this seems singularly artificial. Even if the th~ory is correct and certainly common sense suggests that in the case of certain types of memory in certain societies it ought to be-, there are clearly other reasons why groups, or even individuals, should preserve traditions, such as antiquarian or even aesthetic interest 5 I would argue, however, that Finley's picture of Greek oral tradition, at least insofar as it has relevance to the study of Herodotus' sources, is misleading not so much because the functional theory itself does not work as because it puts a false emphasis on the evidence we in fact possess. I shall suggest in a moment that the functional theory may in part help us to understand the notion ?f 1 polis-traditions 1 ; but I must first examine the case for Greek esoteric traditions. I start wit:h priestly traditions, a problem that is relevant to our inquiry since the shrine of Delphi has been thought to represent a relatively frequent unstated source for Herodotus, not only for Greek but also for Lydian history 6. Did the priests at Delphi have an interest in preserving historical memories, and if so what sort of memories will those have been? -427It is worth observing first of all that Delphic priests would not have stood to gain political advantage by the preservation and re-iteration of historical traditions: the success of the shrine lay in its political adaptabilit/, not in claiming for itself a role in the political life of Greece. On the other hand, it did have a clear interest in influencing the Greek world in respect of the traditions about its own oracle, an interest which resulted in the interpretation, distortion and even invention of Delphic oracular responses with a view to preserving the authority and credibility of Delphic Apollo. It need not follow, hcmever, that the priests preserved extensive oral or written records, even for these purposes 8; indeed such historical knowledge as was current at Delphi need not even have exceeded the common stock of Greek popular memory on any matters not directly connected with the administration of the shrine. It is worth noting that even in such matters as knowledge about dedications made at the shrine there seems to have been little organized Delphic record 8a. Thus, for example, Herodotus says he thinks the Delphians ( see below) may be right when they claim that the silver kreter dedicated by Croesus was the work of Theodoros of Samas, "it being an impressive piece of work" ( cf. 1.51.3 ): Herodotus clearly implies that his guess may well be as good as theirs, which seems to suggest that he has little confidence in their authority. This seems to be further illustrated in what he goes on to say of the golden sprinkler which he takes to be another dedication of Croesus; he claims that it is falsely inscribed as being a dedication of the Spartans, and that some Delphian, whose name he knows but will not divulge, added the inscription to please them ( 51.3-4 ). Again Herodot~s does not show any sign of being impressed with the authority of the Delphic traditon although he could, of course, simply be trying to show us his critical independence from a source on which he has relied quite heavily; at any rate, it is surely significant that he does not show to Delphic priests any of the respect he so strikingly affects in the case of his Egyptian 'priests' ( See below; but cf. App.III ). It seems likely then that insofar as Delphic officials remembered any traditions -428in their official capacity those were almost exclusively traditions to do with the administration of the shrine in quite a narrow sense: thus I imagine that, though there may have been traditions about the dedications made by Gyges and Croesus at the shrine these will not have included any detailed knowledge of the historical background, which Herodotus picked up in Ionia rather than mainland Greece although Bacchylides shows the story of Croesus at ]east to be more widely known. It is thus significant that while Herodotus makes extensive reference to priestly informants in his account of Egypt ( but cf. App.III )9, only once is any Greek priestly source quoted ( 2.55.lff, the promanties at Dodona, for the tradition about the foundation of their own oracle! )10. As for Delphi itself, Herodotus .nowhere explicitly cites priestly officials, and even the citation of hoi Delphoi, which may or may not refer to priests or other officials of the shrine but is surely striking for not doing so clearl~only occurs a meagre four times 1.14.3 and 51.3 (above), for the treasures of Gyges and Croesus; 1.20, for the oracle given to Alyattes; 8.39.1, on the heroes Phylakos and Autonoos and the Persian attack on Delphi11). The Delphians are nowhere cited for any extended historical tradition and certainly for no tradition not directly connected with the shrine. Clearly this evidence is somewhat indecisive, although it is more worrying on the traditional view that the source-citations are meant to give a reasonably accurate picture of Herodotus' researches; if we accept the arguments of Fehling ( cf. App.III ) that the source-citations are to a great degree a fiction, and in particular that Herodotus tends to observe a rule of citing the •nearest or most obvious source' ( der Wahl der nMchstliegenden Quellen ), we ought perhaps to admit that they offer 1 ittle access to his real informants. I take it, however, that Herodotus' failure to cite Delphi or any other Greek priestly witness for his Greek history reflects an appreciation that in the Greek world religious centres were not recognized as repositories -429of secular historical traditions at any rate, not in anything like the degree that they were, or rather could be believed to be in Egypt. where Herodotus accepts that their authority ought to be paramount on any question of Egyptian culture and history. It is worth mentioning finally Jacoby 1 s massive refutation of Wilamowitz1 theory of the sources for the Atthidographers: Jacoby showed that there was no reason to suppose that the Eupatrid exegetai at Athens preserved any historical information in their hieratic records, and certainly no evidence that such historical notes formed the source material for the earliest writers of Athenian history 12. It is not clear how far we may generalize from this instance and argue that no priests anywhere in the Greek world ever preserved either in writing or in oral memory any secular historical traditions; but I would suggest that in talking of Greek priestly traditions for Greek history, as Finley does, we may be importing a notion that misconceives the status and function of 1 priests 1 in Gr~ek culture f th . .13 o e per100 The importance of family traditions as sources for Herodotus is even less easy to decide. It is, of course~ true that Greek families did have an interest in keeping alive the memory of distinguished ancestors ( cf. e.g. Pl.Charm.157Dff, etc. ), and indeed we find Andocides, for example, using the record of his great-grandfather, leogoras, in the period of the tyranny ( cf. Andoc.2.26, with 1.106) as evidence that he himself is dimotikos, i.e. for political capital. The political and social importance 14 of the genos remained considerable even in the radical democracy at Athens , and certain types of family tradition, especiaJly those which showed the family to have been good servants of the state, are 1 ikely to have been preserved for public rehearsal, as in the Andocides example, while others will have been preserved simply as evidence of the kleos or even simply the blue-bloodedness of the family. The family traditions that Herodotus -430would have used, if any, would have been of the former variety which related the family 1 s history to the history of the state, or even of Greece as a whole the Alcmeonid excursus is the only sign that he used the latter sort, and even there his evidence need by no means inevitably derive from family tradition ( see below). The sort of traditions, however, which bridge the gap between family and state clearly presuppose that others will be familiar with the broad outlines of the events to which they refer; and this being so, we must be clear that it is indeed family traditions that Herodotus is using rather than the background Knowledge that they presuppose, i.e. the 1 polis-tradition 1 • Herodotus cert~inly did use 'family traditions' of a kind, but, if we may trust the picture he seems to want to convey, he did so only very rarely and cautiously. He cites at.,3,55.2 an interview he had with Archias of Pitana, whose grandfather had distinguished himself in the campaign against Samas. This later Archias_, says Herodotus, particularly honoured the Samians as his xeinoi, and he told him that this father had been called Samios on account of the place of his father's heroic death; he explained also that he honoured the Samians because they had buried his grandfather at public expense. There are a number of observations to be made about this passage. Herodotus does not name Archias as the source for the Samian campaign, or indeed as a witness for any other event but the death of his grandfather and the honours paid to him by the Samians; to judge from Herodotus' intrcduction to this narratilte, we are meant to understand ( whether it is true or not! ) that he has balanced the evidence of the Samians ( as a whole! ) against that of the Spartans ( as a whole! ) in order to build up his account of the campaign ( cf. 3.47.1 ). The traditional sourcecriticism might argue that Archias is indeed a major source and has provided Herodotus with much else in his account; but the inference is not a reliable one and it is clearly not one that Herodotus himself wants us to make. -431It may be right to understand here that he would in principle not const~ct major narratives on the evidence of a single witness, but would need to arrive at least at a consensus 1 polis-tradition 1 ( see above ), both presumably for reasons of reliability and perhaps, since one man could not remember everything about a battle or a campaign or anything of that scale, simply for reasons of completeness. The same considerations seems to apply to other citations of single 't 15 w, nesses . Archias, we should notice, is not even cited for the fact that his grandfather fought valiantly Herodotus pretends to know that already ( cf. 3.55.1 ) but merely for the information that the Samians gave him a burial at public expense and that for that reason there exists even now a xeinia between Archias' family and the Samians. It would seem that if single witnesses are to be used for anything but matters of incidental detail, their reports need to be substantiated. Thus, as we shall see in App.III, the story offered by the grammatistes at Sais on the source of the Nile ( 2.28) does not receive Herodotus' stamp of approval because it is the view of a single witness which he cannot confirm with reference to a consensus ( cf. 2.28.1 and 29.1 ). Herodotus' attitude seems to be that single witnesses, whatever their possible authority, represent either partisan, distorted or simply partial views of the truth: thus they may be cited for details, decorative anecdotes, isolated scraps of information which may give colour to a particular account, but not for major accounts themselves ( cf. e.g. Tymnes, the steward of Ariapeithes at 4.76.6, cited only for details of the farnily 1 sconnexions of Anacharsis; Thersandros at 9.16.1 and 5, cited only for the Theban dinner party, not for any other story f~om Plataea )16. It may, of course, be the. ca;;e after all that Herodotus does occasionally depend on such witnesses for major accounts, and is merely deceiving the -432reader with a pretence of having researched consensus 'polis-traditions'. Certainly it seems likely that in some cases the 1 polis-citations 1 are themselves source-fictions ( cf. e.g. Ch.II.i, n.35 ); but it would not follow even from this that polis-citations in reality 1 disguise 1 citations of family traditions, as argued, for example, by Jacoby17 We must surely allow that it makes sense for Herodotus to have depended in principle on polis-traditions, since these are all he cites for major Greek narratives: significantly no 'family' is ever actually cited for any detail, however small, and indeed all the single witnesses named in the work have been mentioned above, so few is their number. If it was Herodotus' regular practice to consult family traditions, it is st~ange that he should have let slip no clear indication that he ever did so, or only one if we count Archias. It would be foolish to deny that he was occasionally supplied details, as in the case of Archias, by descendants of those invol;ved in the events he narrates: but there is a considerable difference between this and a dependence on family traditions for major narratives, in the way that~ for example, we are asked to believe that he depends exclusively on a Philaid account of the Danube-bridge episode ( cf. Ch.I.i.6 ) or substantially on an Alcmeonid account for the liberation of Athens cf. Ch.II.ii.B ). We may add that, apart from these two examples, which on close examination prove illusory, there are very seldom any signs at all of Herodotus consistently favouring one individual or family in dealing with any particulã state. It remains to ask whether it makes any sense to talk of polis-traditions, which could on an extreme view be argued to be merely another variety of consistent source-fiction cf. the Egyptian priests in App.III ). We may start by observing that Herodotus' practice is followed, whether consciously or not, by Thucydides on those few occasions where he makes reference to sources ( e.g. 2.5.6: 8ftBaTioL μ~v Ta0Ta AlyouoL .•• ITAaT&Ltis -4336' OUX opOAOyouã ... ' cf, also e.g. 1 the Athenians 1 at 6.54.1, with 1.20.2 ). This may be sufficient to prove that Herodotus' polis-citations can have a valid reference unless we argue that Thucydides too is dependent on family traditions! As for what may be meant by a polis-tradition and how such a thing might be transmitted, we may turn back to the functional model. It may be possible to argue that the citizen-body of the typical Greek state, i.e. those who made up the voters in the assembly, had an interest in preserving particular memories about its past in order to perpetuate its corporate identity, its corporate status and privileges, both in the sense of its being a political unit within the state ( threatened from above by aristocrats and from below by those excluded from the franchise and as representing the interests of the state in relation to th~ outside world. This is, of course, to simplify somewhat: the citizen-body at Athens, to take the only state for which we have enough evidence, was an aggregate of different classes, the_ aristocratic Hippeis, the middle class of hopl ites, and the thetes, and there was no doubt a fairly wide spectrum of political opinion to be garnered from these various groups18. It is nevertheless a reasonable tontentiori that the middle ground was occupied by the majority, that in principle, when the state was ~tits most stable, there was the sort of democratic solidarity which Pericles in Thucydides 1 Funeral Oration singles out as the strength of the city ( Thucdy.2.37.1-3 ). Certainly there may have been disaffected aristocrats resentful of this solidarity ( cf. the Old Oligarch, distinctly addressing himself to a minority audience, if he is writing for Athenians at all ), but it was very likely not until the rise of the aggressive democracy of Clean; Hyperbolus and the rest that the arjstocrats began in ~ny number to disassociate their own interests from the interests of tbe democracy19. It may be that Athens is something of a special case in this resp~ct although it 'is surely probable that -434Sparta too in a different way was a state closely bound together by civic solidarity through the very narrowness and precariousness of its political 1 ife 20 . What polis-traditions can we identify_at Athens and how are we to see them perpetuated? It may be that comedy and oratory are not merely our main sources for such traditions but also among the means by which they were kept alive in the corporate consciousness 21 Both make clear reference to certain 'charter myths' of the democracy, most obviously (a) the liberation of Athens from the Peisistratids, i.e. the tyrannicide""myth ( cf. e.g. Lysistr.632f ), which we also find celebrated in public dedications and decrees ( cf. Ch.II.ii.B ), and (b) the Persian Wars, and especially Marathon and Salamis; such myths are typically rehearsed either when the rights of the citizen-body are threatened from within ( e.g. by corrupt officials or oligarchic conspirators ) or, particularly in the case of the Persian Wars, when Athens needs to justify hE'.rself to the outside world ( cf. Ch.II.iii.A.2 and E.2 ). Other lesser polis-traditions that we have touched on in the text are e.g. (a) the stories of Lykides/Kyrsilos and Arthmius of Zelea, i.e. stories about men who had dared to threaten the stability of the dem.ocracy ( cf. Ch.II.iii.I.2 ), and (b) the story of the double-victory over Boeotia and Chalcis, which we find revived in an inscription of the mid-5thc, i.e. the earliest victory of the democracy ( cf. Ch.II.ii.E ). It tould well be, however, that this is to ,overplay the theme: this sort of historical memory tends to be sketchy and possibly rather limited in what it encompasses. Moreover it ~annot be merely such officiijlly reiterated traditions that Herodotus is using: his range of subjects is too wide for that. Nonetheless it can be shown that Athenians did remember traditions ' about their city in their capacity as citizens. Perhaps in the last resort ------------------------------***--***--** --------------- -435we need to remind ourselves of the relatively greater tenacity of oral memory in the cultures wi.thout extensive historical records, and particularly societies like the city-states of the Greek world in which so much political capital could be gained from the rehearsal of the city's historical ( and mythical ) traditions. That Herodotus relied principally on such traditions seems likely on internal grounds: the relative absence of unequivocal hero•s not only, as we said, gives the lie to the extensive use of family trarliti~ns, . it may also reflect the polis' distrust of over-prominent individuals, individuals who by their eminence or outstanding success threaten the stability of the state. If it is indeed possible to see behind Herodotus 1 own authorial distortions to the traditions with which he is working ( and it must be admitted that on my view that is an .uncertain task ), his narratives could perhaps be seen to reflect attitudes to powerful men ( and powerful families similar to the distrustful attitudes to be found in particular in Attic comedy, in this respect surely a fairly reliable monitor of the views of the polis as a whol We may add that Herodotus' traditions for the age of tyranny are demonstrably not derived from soyrces close to the centre of power. This is is surely what we must conclude from the prevalence of folk-tale elements in these narratives, in particular, for example, in the stories of Peisistratus ( and Phye ), Polycrates ( Amasis and the ring ), Kypselos and Periander, and the like 23. Such folk-tales are surely unlikely in family traditions, and support the inference from the lack of any cl~ar bias in favour of families and individuals in these narratives: these c1re surely the sort of traditions that we can imagine having been generated and sustained by the polis as a group. The marriage of Agariste is a good example ( 6.126-131 ): there is really no opportunity to extrac~from it the pro-Alcmeonid or anti-Philaid propaganda that it has been thought it must contain. -436The heroes, not only Megakles and Hippokleides, but the other suitors too, fantastically assembled from all over the Greek world with a carefree disregard for chronology24, are all remembered equally distantly. Hippocleides' famous dictum ( 6.129.4f, ou ~povTL~ 'InnõAsL6nL) is hardly quoted from an eyewitness who bequeathed it to his family's private memory! We may conclude that Herodotus' 1polis-citations 1 do indeed seem to have a positive reference, and that any picture of the oral traditions accessible to and used by him that tries to suggest he is predominantly dependent on esoteric sources is likely to be seriously ~isleading. Moreover, since, as we have seen, the supposed influence of ( unstated! ) family sources in Herodotus I text is hard to maintain, they shoul.d be invoked with even more caution than these general considerations have suggested. If the precise reference of 'polis-traditi~ns' is hard to pin down and it is reasonable to object to what has been said here that the traditions evidenced by oratory and comedy at Athens seem to be less complete, accurate (?) and wide-ranging than whatever traditions Herodotus may be using that may be simply because our evidence is incomplete. We only have ( limited) evidence of what could be said in gatherings of the whole polis, at the theatre, in the assembly, in the law-courts,, where the common denominator of historical knowledge ~as, for various reasons, likely to be low. The knowledge of the old will have been greater than that of the yqung ( cf. Thucyd.1.42.1 ), that of the better educated, wealthier, more politically experienced, than that of others not so happy~. HerodotusJ certainly, is 1 i ke 1 y to hav.e sought out those who were more l ogi o/ 5, who were best acquainted with the city's traditions: but such men need by no means have been better, more complete sources because they had access to family traditions. Andocides' version of the liberation of Athens ( above ) is clearly less complete and less accurate than Herodotus', for all that it is a family tradition! Certainly Herodotus may have moved among the more well-to-do -437families, whose previous generations, fathers and grandfathers, may actually h h d . t 1 . th h d . b . h. k26 ave a prom1nent pars top ay 1n e events e escr, es ,n 1s wor ; but it is likely that where he came ~cross such traditions, and if he ever felt inclined to use them, he had enough critical sense to beware of any tendency in them to self-glorification, self-justification or hostility to prominent rivals, and to guard agaiñt such distortion by cross-checking with other witnesses thus arriving at some sort of consensus which could fairly be called the version of 'the Athenians', or whoever it might be. At any rate, I would argue not \hat Herodotus did not have access to such traditions or that he never used them which would be impossible to prove but (a) that it was not necessary for him to have relied heavily on them, and (b) that there is little justification for the traditional view that we can identify their influence in the text. This vast and treacherous area calls, as I have said, for much more careful and detailed investigation; the purpose of this appendix has been chiefly to explain my prejudices and myobjections to the prejudices of others. * -438Appendix III: The case for 'source-fictions'. It is an important, though not essential, ingredient of my view of Herodotus that I accept the conclusions of Fehling that the source-citations in the work are in general fictitious ( cf. Introd. ). I would argue that in a substantial number of cases Herodotus did not hear what he says he heard from the person or people he claims as his informant(s). Unlike Fehling, I see no need, however, to make of this a universal rule, and I would insist that we must be cautious in how we generalize from particular cases: by proving the existence of source-fictions we have not ruled out the possibi 1 ity of Herodotus ever having conducted oral inquiry; we have only shown that he tends to claim the support of authorities whom he has either not interviewed or whom he has no right to claim as sources for what he reports. I offer here two examples of the phenomenon from Book Two which clearly present a formidable case;. on the basis of these I will suggest how we are to approach the problem of who exactly Herodotus' informants might be for his Egyptian account. Herodotus introduces his account ( after the story of Psammetichus' experiment) by saying that what he will be recounting has been cross1 checked in three different places ( 2.3.1 ) : nxouaa 6s MCiL aAACi €V M[μ~L, £Aewv ES A6yous TÕOL 1 Lp£UOL TOU 'HcpaLa:rou* XO.L on X<XL h Sn Sas TE XCiL ES 'HA LOU 1t6hv CilJTWV TOlhoov ErVEMEV ETpa1t6μnv, E6€AWV El6€VaL El OUμBnaov~aL TotaL A6yoLOL TOCOL £V M[μ~L ..• As he goes on to distinguish between his information about the gods ( 2.3.2, ', ""'' , 1'ff ,.) Ta μEv vuv eEta Twv a1rnynμatwv oLa nxouov and his information about secular matters ( 2.4.1, 5aa 0€ &vepwnnLa npnyμaTa, ili6£ [AEyOV ), it is clear that he does mean that the whole account has been cross-checked in the manner he states. It is, however, incredible that this should have been true. The most devoted defender of Herodotus• .... _______________ ----------- ------- ----------- -439reliability on matters Egyptian would be forced to admit that much of what he says is either seriously distorted or simply mistaken 2 This causes few problems until we bring it into conjunction with the present passage: regardless of whether or not his 1priests 1 can be assumed to have accurate knowledge of their own history and culture ( a knowledge which has been minimized by commentators seeking to trust Herodotus 1 every word about his researches ) 3, it is extraordinary that they should never have disagreed with each other over anything for Herodotus never once tells of any disagreement between any of his three independent priestly sources in Memphis, Thebes and Heliopolis. Even if everything he reports were entirely true to the facts of Egyptian history and culture, this apparently complete correspondence of independent witnesses would be hard enough to accept: could there really have been no discrepancies of emphasis between his sources? Since, however, so much is plainly wrong or distorted, it is impossible to defend Herodotus• claim to have cross-checked his information in the manner he describes. The traditional defence of such improbable agreements of independent witnesses is to argue that Herodotus contrived to secure such agreements by the device of leading questions, i.e. simply making do with any sign of assent to questions of the type 1 do you agree with this story told me in Memphis, etc.? 1 4 In this instance, ho.,.ever, this defence will hardly work: Herodotus explicitly claims to have tested whether his informants would agree, so that it would have needed an extraordinarily lucky ( or - ', -~ unlucky! ) use of leading questions for him to have failed to detect any disagreements.of any kind. In addition, it seem~m6st unlikely that the Egyptians of these three different cities would have had no interest in 1 correcting 1 each other, whether or not they recognized that the story they were being asked to agree about was true or not: in other words, Herodotus' Egypt appears to be a place with no discrepant, epichoric traditions -440- ( unlike his picture of Greece), and such places do not exist in the real world. It could be argued that Herodotus is exaggerating, i.e. that he did not cross-check everything and~ostlyjust collated different stories from different sources; but this is not what he wants us to understand, and the problem remains that there are no disagreements whatsoever. At the very least he claims to have cross-checked the opening Psammetichusstory ( but cf. A.B. Lloyd (1976) p.12 ), which has a suspiciously Greek colour and which requires some special pleading to vindicate as an authentic Egyptian tradition 5; but the only variant he cites for the story is a Greek one! The second example is stronger sti11 6 Herodotus' transition to his Egyptian history ( 2.99.lff) brings us back to the priests. After recounting what they said about Min, the first king of Egypt ( cf. 2.99.2 ). he reveals what he would like us to understand as the basis of his information at least for his first period of Egyptian history ( 2.100.1 ): μ£i& 6~ T00Tov xaT£AEyov oL Lp ~.* , ' , TE xaL TPLnxovTa ouvoμaTa. In this number were 18 Aethipoans and one Egyptian queen, and the rest were Egyptian kings. Herodotus then goes on to describe an event from the reign of queen Nitocris, before sweeping aside all the remaining 330 kings 2.101.lf ): TWV 6s aAA(JJV SacrL~EWV OU yap SAEyov OU6£μ(av spywv &no6£~LV, H<lT ouotv ELV<lL ACrnpOTnTO!::, nAT]V E:VO!:: TO\) foxchou Cl,UTWV MoLpLO!:: ( whose achievements Herodotus briefly notes ) ... TODTov μ~v TocraDTa anOOE~acr,&aL, TWV 6~ ctAAWV ouosva ou6{v, Herodotus then announces his intention of passing over all the others and beginning with Sesostris, the king who came next after.Moiris ( 2.102.1 ). We need only concern ourselves here with one of the peculiarities of this curious passage. If there was one fact of Egyptian history which we could conffdently have expected any Egyptian of however lowly an education to have known, it would have been that the pyramid-builders ( 4th dynasty) belonged -441to the very earliest centuries of that history: if asked when the pyramids were built, any Egyptian would surely have answered that it was a very long time ago indeed, and that if anything were proof of the antiquity of Egyptian culture it was the pyramids. If any chronological distortion is likely it is upwards not downwards: it defies belief that any Egyptian should have wanted to minimize rather than maximi the antiquity of such monuments7. But Herodotus claims that his priests ( substantiating one another here as well?) told him quite a different story: not only does he place the pyramid-builders a mere handful of generations before Psammetichus ( 2.147ff) and the arrival of the Greeks in Egypt they are the fifth to eighth kings of the ten from Sesotris to Sabakos, with Cheops following Rhampsinitos ( = Ramses III: 20th dynasty) -~ he also explicitly has the 'priests' tell him that, with only two exceptions ( Nitocris and Moiris ), the 330 kings after Min performed no action worthy of record. On its own, the misplacement of the pyramid-builders seems relatively unimportant: Herodotus could perhaps have forgotten the correct order or 'jumbled his notes'. But in conjunction with the fact that Herodotus has the priests vindicate this chronology by their comments on the earliest kings, the problem assumes serious proportions 8. Either Herodotus has in some way misremembered his interview with the priests ( but it is hard to believe he can have misremembered something to which he gives such confident prominence ), or for some unaccountable reason the priests did actually suggest to him that the pyramid-builders were only relatively recent ( cf. n.8, but such a deception seems extremely unlikely! ), or the report of the interview is a thoroughgoing fiction. If we take this example together with the one already discussed, it seems clear that both ought to be interpreted in the same way: Herodotus is affecting methods he did not use and authorities he did not consult. To whom, then, did Herodotus speak in Egypt? Logically, of course, it may still be that he spoke to 'priests', even if these examples show ---**--*------- **--**--**--*--**--**-------- -442him not to have done so in the manner that he claims. But it seems probable to me that these 'priestly informants 1 are throughout a convenient fiction to give his account the greatest possible authority and to disguise the more prosaic truth of his Egyptian researches 9 A.~oth~rE~ssage"'~fftX.~ a telling clue. In discussing the source of the Nile ( 2.28ff ), Herodotus claims that no-one he met, whether Egyptian, Libyan or Greek, could tell him anything ( 2.28.1 ), with the exception of the grammatistes of the sacred objects in the temple of Athene at Sais ( 28.2ff ). Whether or not the grammatistes 1 J;xp1anation here reflects genuine 5thc Egyptian tradition 10, it is extraordinary that in all his supposed dialogues with priests Herodotus should not have been able to hear any other Egyptian account of the matter or even either a substantiation or a refutation of this story, which he himself believes to be merely a joke played on him by the scribe! Herodotus has clearly forgotten for the moment that he is meant to have been talking to much more distinguished informants. I would suggest that in making anything of what this man told him he is incautiously revealing a pride in having spoken to at least one genuine Egyptian: lowly though he is, the grammatiste~ is nonetheless an Egyptian and Herodotus cannot help giving him the attention which he is doubtful his story quite deserves 10a. Herodotus, it seems certain, spoke no Egyptian and yet apart from one mention of an interpreter ( 2.125.6; see belDw ), he claims to be speaking all the time to Egyptians. It would, however, have been the obvious thing for him to have done to have acquired most of his information from a much more accessible source, namely the Greeks in Egypt! I would suggest that the source-fiction of the 'Egyptian priest.s 1 is meant to mask the fact that this was exactly where almost all his information did come from. We know not only from Herodotus,-but also most impressively from archaeology, hO\'i long and in what ways the Greeks had been sett.led in -443i1 Egypt . The two chief reasons that brought Greeks to stay in Egypt were mercenary service ( from Psamtik I onwards: 664-10) and trade, the latter reflected in the foundation of Naucratis some time between 640 and 620. Thus both in the mercenary camps and the emporia the Greeks had been living on the fringes of Egypt and in continuous contact with Egyptians and Egyptian culture for some 200 years or more before Herodotus 1 day, some of them possibly acquiring an even closer intimacy with things Egyptian by intermarriage with natives 12. It is inevitable that these Greeks should have developed their own traditions about Egyptian culture and history, an abundant store of information for a non-Egyptian speaking visitor like Herodotus. To deny that he drew heavily, if not almost exclusively on such Greek 13 sources is surely perverse we are only justified in doing so if we find that his citations of Egyptian sources are above suspicion, and that is far from being the case .. Does is make sense, then, to see Herodotus 1 account of Egypt as depending of Egyptianized Greeks? There are many hints that this is so. (a) The misplacement of the pyramid-builders may show signs of a Greek source: the Greeks may have wished to belittle the antiquity of Egyptian history as natives themselves would not (above), insisting that the early kings did nothing of note; also the pyramid-builders may be attracted down to the more recent past by a Greek story ( 2.134.lff) which identified one of the pyramids as belonging to the famous Greek courtesan Rhodopis: ~ssuming all the pyramids to have been built about the same time and believing one of them to belong to Rhodopis, the Greeks may have been encouraged to place the pyramid-builders only a few generations earlier. (b) Two of the names of Herodotus' kings are instructive: Proteus ~-**-------------*---~ -444- ( 2.112.lff) is clearly a Greek name, borrowed from Greek myth indeed the Odyssey seems certain to be a source ,in some form for Herodotus 1 14 narrative ; Pheros, on the other hand, is surely nothing but the Greek for Pharaoh15, and if that is so, it is extraordinary if Herodotus spent time talking to Egyptians that it did not become clear to him that Pharaoh was a title not a name, whereas the mistake is understandable if he only spoke to Greeks who would have referred to the Pharaohs chiefly ( as Herodotus does ) as basileis. (c) A similar question can be asked of Herodotus 1 obvious confusion as to Egyptian god names: he believes, as Lattimore showed16, that the Greek god names were actually used by the Egyptians for their own, equivalent gods a mistake it was easier to make if his informants were Greeks who had developed their own equivalences for referring to Egyptian shrines and cults; Egyptian guides are much less likely to have evolved a system so indulgent to Greek visitors 17. (d) Was the hermeneus of 2.125.6, who told Herodotus that the hieroglyphs on the Great Pyramid stood for,the amount of silver spent on radishes, onions and garlic for the workmen, perhaps a Greek who pretended he knew more than he did about Egypt? Again this is an ~asierhypothesis than to assume that this was an illiterate or malicious Egyptian guide18 It remains possible, however, that this is Herodotus 1 own joke at the expense of Egyptian writing. (e) The oracles at 2.133 ( Mykerinos ) and 152.3 ( Psammetichus } are obviously Greek not Egyptian19; and this being so, it is easier to suppose that the sources fõ the narratives in which they appear are also Greek~ rather than that Greek detail has somehow or other found its way into a narrative from an Egyptian source. ----- ----------------- ---~- -445Thus the inadequacy of Herodotus 1 account of Egypt may best be explained if he spoke principally to his own expatriate countrymen rather than to the Egyptiannativeswhom his source-citations imply to have been his main informants. Not surprisingly he dissimulates as to the source of his information in order to give authority to what he has to say: any Greek could go to Egypt and speak to Greeks, but a proper appreciation of a foreign culture requires research into the beliefs, opinions and traditions of the native inhabitants. We may note that Herodotus similarly dissimulates about the extent of his travels in Egypt, if we may accept the excellent arguments of Sayce that he can never have been as far as Upper Egypt20 I suggest that these limitations are reflected in the character of his account: he knows a great deal about Egyptian culture and history, but very little about Egyptians he is even under the impression, it seems, that Egyptians look like negroes, a view held by some vase-painters but one which could hardly survive extended commerce with the people themselves! 21 If such a proceeding may be generalized, if others of the ethnographies are the product of much less extensive travel and ~esearch than they claim to be, we must begin to re-write the itineraries and time-tables of Herodotus' travels which have hitherto been drawn up with such confidence 22. Herodotus becomes no longer a field anthropologist, though not necessarily an arm-chair anthropologist either: his researches will have taken him as far as the Greek dockyards and market-places, and at least in Egypt to some of the most accessible local sites and monuments. This picture of Herodotus' travels considerably weakens the traditional hypothesis of the course of his early life: if those travels were less extensive than his own claims state and imply, then there is much less need to set aside a large number of years devoted to nothing but geographical and ethnographic research in all corners of th~ known world, and to suppose that such a period of years formed an early stage in Herodotus• intellectual development before he finally came to Athens(?) and for whatever reason 1 discovered 1 the -446science of history ( cf. App.IV ). It should, of course, be conceded that in showing the existence of the source~fiction in the Egyptian account ~e have not necessarily undermined Herodotus' source-citations in other parts of the work: it might be that in places less mysterious and inaccessible than Egypt, and especially in Greece itself, Herodotus is entirely truthful about his researches, about who told him what. I do not, however, believe that this objection can bring the comfort which it seems to promise; there are good arguments for the existence of the source-fiction even in the case of Greek informants 23, in other words even where it might be thought that the fiction could have been exposed for what it was. The case for the source-fictions is,indeed generalizable: I have merely chosen here the most dramatic and elaborate examples of its use, and the reader is referred to Fehling to judge the somewhat subjective question of the extent to which it is generalizable. * -447Appendix IV: The composition problem. The central concern of 1nost Herodotean criticism, particularly since Jacoby 1 s monumental RE article, has been the debate as to whether the evident. problem of the work1 s unity ( or lack of it! ) is to explained with reference to Herodotus 1 intellectual development, as showing the signs of separate stages of composition, or in terms of certain unifying themes or principles of selection and organization 1 It may be objected that such a basic problem should have been tackled earlier: if the work was composed in separate stages at different times and under the influence of different interests and pre-occupations, any attemptL at contextual analysis should be very wary of bringing together passages not originally conceived and/or written as part of the same unity. However, it seems to me that nothing certain has been uncovered by the analysts about the composition of the work, which by comparison with that of Thucydides offers no unambiguous clues to the stages of its construction. Moreover, some of the basic assumptions of the analysts seem to me quite unsound. What almost all the analysts have in common is the belief that 1 ethnography 1 must come before 'history' in Herodotus 1 development: it is this hypothesis which is taken to explain the striking disharmony between the ethnographic ( and geographical ) portions of the work and the more or less continuous narrative which otherwise seems to give it a broad .unity. If Herodotus was first an ethnographer/geographer and had substantially completed the ethnographic l-0goi before 1discovering history', we could assume that he was loth to discard his earlier studies and produced a final work which unhappily synthesized his old and new interests 2. There are a number of objections to this view. Herodotus did put ethnography and history in the same finished work and evidently assumed, on any theory of the work's composition, that he was producing some sort of unity: there is no reason ----**--**--*----**---------- -448why he should not have 'published' his material in separate books -"as Hellanicus, a contemporary working in the same fields, was able to do if we are to suppose that Herodotus himself did not feel that it ought to belong in a single book. It has been well shown by a number of unitarians 3 that 1 excursuses 1 long and short are a basic feature of Herodotus' composition, as he himself claims at 4.30.1: ~poae~xas y&p 6~ μõ 6 A6yos f6~tnTo. Whether or not the ethnographic sections are themselves 'excursuses' or prosthekai and admittedly Herodotus do.es not so describe them -, and whether or not we see them as 'digressive', the developmental hypothesis may well do violence to a principle of Herodotean style: Herodotus himself may either regard the ethnographies as legitimate digressions given the kind of work he is writing ( i.e. prosthekai ), or else have set himself so wide a brief as not to think of them as digressive at all! The developmental model, moreover, rests on what I believe to be mistaken assumptions about the nature of Herodotus' ethnography itself and about what is actually involved in his writing 'history'. The ethnographic sections, it is argued, are those which qepend most heavily on a pre-existing ( Ionian ) tradition, while Herodotus must have come to write 'history', i.e. the narrative sections of his work, only after having 'discovered' the new discipline through some accident of his intellectual development. To take the second of these asssumptions first. We may object first of all that, for example, the Egyptian 'excursus' contains a large proportion of hismrical narrative and indeed illustrates a sophisticated appreciation of th~ problems of evidence ( e.g. the cross-checking of independent witnesses; cf. 2.3.1, with App.III )4 which it is hard to accept as an early tentative grasping towards the discipline ofhistory, as von Fritz, for example, would explain it 5. The analysts, convinced as they are that there is somet,~ing remarkable in Herodotus' having come to write 'history', by which they seem to mean chiefly the fact of his coming to write a narrative of the Persian Wars, need to explain what it is that brought him to this: so, -449for example, Jacoby suggested that he came to Athens after an early ethnographic period and was sufficiently impressed with Pericles, the democracy and the empire to want to write an apology for the city in the form of a narrative of Athens' servicesto Greece in the Persian Wars. But is it credible that Herodotus should have needed any such stimulus to be able to see the potential of the Persian Wars as a subject for him to write about, or even, as is usually suggested, that he came to that subject via a study of the Persian empire6? As has recently been stressed by Drews7, the Persian Wars acquired the status of myth as soon as they happened: Phrynichus, Ãschylus, Simonides, Pindar, are all testimony to the fact that the heroic def~nce of Greece against Persia was at once elevated alongside the subjects of epic as a theme for poets to celebrate. For the first time historical events could attract the same literary interest as had hitherto been reserved for the mythical past: in a sense we might say that the Persian Wars gave the Greeks their historical consciousness or at least made them fully aware of it for the first time8. This being so, however, the subject of the Persian Wars was available to Herodotus all his life he did not have to show much originality in choosing it. And, of course, Herodotus shows no sign of believing that he has 'discovered' history: there is nothing radically new in his telling the story of an epic polemos, something that Greek poets had been doing in one way or another as far back as Homer, who is demonstrably one of Herodotus' primary models. It could indeed be argued that Herodotus' earliest plan was to write a prose narrative of this epic subject and that he was only gradually drawn back into exploring its antecedents, into writing the story of the rise of Persia and finally(!) examining the extent of the Persian empire through ethnography. It is my view that it is not the plain fact of Herodotus' writing about the historical past rather than the mythical past that makes him a 'historian' ( if we need to label him as such at all }, but rather his appreciation of method, of types of explanation and arguments for reconstructing the past ( see below). --------------------- *~--**--*-----* -450As for the hypothesis that Herodotus• first intellectual efforts were in the field of ethnography, leaning heavily on a ready-made Ionian literary tradition, we are again faced with a precarious assumption. As we argued in Ch.III.C, Herodotus• ethnography shows a very substantial advance on Hecataeus: to simplify the argument, we may say that Herodotus has 1 discovered 1 an interest in culture of which there is no sign in Hecataeus, and which we may with some confidence ascribe to the influence on Herodotus of the sophistic movement. If this is correct, there is much less warrant for the traditional model: Herodotus' ethnography is revealed not as a mere inheritance from archaic 1onia but as a mature product of reflexion on modern ( non-Ionian) theories of human culture and society. It could be added that even by the earliest possible date for the beginnings of Herodotus 1 ethnographic researches Hecataeus was already long dead, so i that the idea of Herodotus following in his 1 Ionian predecessor 1 s 1 footsteps is itself chronologically illusory. Tb1,1s3nterms of content it is Herodotus' historical subject which is the least original part of the work1 s conception and the ethnography which is the most original the reverse of the traditional view. It is not clear how long we will require for Herodotus' 'theory of culture' to have matured, but it begins to seem less likely that this was his earliest intellectual discovery. We may add that if, as suggested in App.III, Herodotus• travels were not as extensive as his claims for them make them appear, we need not set aside any great length of time during which he is doing little except travel for ethnography 1 s sake~ though even if he did travel widely it is hard to see why this should be a serious problem! Thus the traditional develqpmental hypothes , even allowing for the refinements of its different advocates, proves itself distinctly weak on the mast general grounds; its assumptions could easily be replaced by their opposites! My view is that certainty as to how Herodotus came to conceive -451and set down his work is scarcely worth aiming at, given how little unambiguous evidence the work i~self provides. I would, however, offer this alternative model, if only to make clear how different a view can be sustained with equal cogency. Herodotus 1 earlie thought was to write a narrative of the Persian Wars, a subject which it took no great effort to choose and which, if we follow Drews9, may have been attempted much less ambitiously pyothers at much the same time as Herodotus chose it, if not earlier. During the 4401 s, however, Herodotus came into contact with the sophistic movement, which with its new ideas and methods turned him both into a 1 historian 1 and into a student of culture 10. He learnt about the need for caution in the use of evidence ( cf. App.III); he learnt techniques of historical reconstruction ( e.g. models: cf. Ch.II.i.A-B ); he learnt about the mechanisms of political and social life ( cf. Ch.II.i.A-8, and ChIIl.B-C and H ); he learnt of the vastness of historical time ( cf. Ch.III.B ). These new ideas, and especially the last, encouraged him to extend his original theme, to look for more distant origins and causes than those he had been contemplating so far. But there was a further stimulus in this direction, which also began to make itself felt in the 4401 s and without which his historical narrative would not have taken the form nor acquired the range that it eventually did, and that was the rise of the Athenian empire, which deepened and broadened his intere~ts in various ways. First he was faced with the irony that the city which had done most to save Greece from enslavement in the Persian Wars was now turning to the enslavement of her fellow-Greeks. It was interesting now to look further back into Athens 1 past to trace the course of her growth; it was also incidentally of interest to trace the earlier history of Sparta, the city next most important in his story and the city with which Athens had already been in confrontation in contesting the hegemony of the Greeks. But the phenomenon of Athenian empire offered a further stimulus to Herodotus to broaden his perspective: here was an ---- ----*-***********--*-----**-*------- ------------- -452analogy with that Persian empire which had tried to enslave Greece in the Persian Wars maybe exploring the earlier empire further back would help to explain this new arkh~ which was thEeatening the peace of the Greek world anew. The history of the Persian empire, a subject on which others too may have been engaged, if again we follow Drews, gave scope for another sophistically inspired interest of Herodotuss an interest in ethnography, the problems of nomos, the difference between Greeks and barbarians. By this means Herodotus became involved in writing a work of considerable diversity, one which would give much opportunity for display in other words a work for the sophistic age, which prized polymathie ( cf. Ch.111. Introd. and {A) ) and which was familiar with the virtuoso epideixeis with whichmenlike Gorgias and Hippias would regale their audiences at Olympia. Herodotus• digressions on, for example, the sources of the Hile, on the Homeric Helen-story 11, on Spartan kingship, can well be understood as sophistic epideixeis brought together into one book, a work characterized above all by variety of interest. Thus there is no need to understand this variety as the analysts have done as a sign of clumsy synthesis, or as the unitarians bave tended to do as a mark of Ionain naivete ( especially since the Ionians share scarcely any of Herodotus 1 interests! ): in neither sense is Herodotus here looking back to his Ionian past, but rather responding to the stimulus of a new movement. If we have eyes only for Herodotus' development as a 1 historian 1 and show impatience with,the other half of the work, we are guilty of myopia which prevents us seeing that the same stimulus produced what is new in his historical work and made of him a student of human culture and society. * *****---------------------------- ---- ------------NOTES Chapter One: NOTES (l) Cf. Timaeus, Lex. Plat.s.v.knaphos: like a carding-comb, used to torture slaves to extract evidence. A slave torture used'on a free -454man is a shameful indignity and this increases the horror of the deed; moreover even slaves were not as a rule tortured to death. (2) For the relationship between Nie.Dam. and Xanthus ( and Hdt ), cf. H.Diller, in Navicula Chiloniensis (1956) pp.66ff but not on this story. (3) Immerwahr p.29 mentions the story only to point out that Hdt is not elsewhere concerned to present the early history of Croesus; Powell pp.39f, unconvincingly argues that the story shows incomplete assimilation. The most useful observation is that of Plutarch ( MH 18. 858DE ), who, though he exaggerates Hdts 'malice• towards Croesus elsewhere, aptly notes how this episode works a discordant effect: "TiL 6� KpoCcrwL μn6�v &AAo xctAo�" TO TLμ"craL TO�S eto�s &vaenμaOL noAAots xat μEyaAOLS μ�pTUpncras, aUTO TOUTO naVTWV &crE$€GTaTOV &no6ECxvucrLv fpyov. (4} Cf. 2.146.1, 4.195.2, and 7.152.3, the texts usually cited in $,t,jlpliQl1l"t ©f tlli\is '.p>1rit111Cip>l@ 1 IDtWt Ca,fll - $,clf@ly tm.l,� tfi11@1l U 'prO*!iJr�mmatic'?----�- f@.r • cl l t@,r1• H VI@ aic C@11!Jlfil,t @f 7 • ll,,f . l i Ill its <C@llil'U:� t ' c f . Chi • I I. i i i . (5) Learning through suffering is something that comes as suddenly to certain other kings in Hdt: e.g. Astyages ( 1.129 ), Psammenitos ( 3.14 ), Cambyses ( 3.65 ); others, however, show no signs of learning: e.g. Xerxes, Cyrus, Cleomenes. Cf. H.-P. Stahl, YCS 24 {1975) 1-36, for this motif. Hdt uses the device as much for dramatic purposes as for insight into character; a sudden peripeteia affords a new perspective ( cf. 1.129.1: 11what is slavery like after kingship? 11 , with 6.67.2, Leotychidas• gibe to the deposed Demaratus: 11 what is arkhein like after basileuein?" )There is a 1 so* a certain paradox in seeing men 1 i ke As tyages and Cambyses acquire insight, or foresight, when they earlier so sig.nally lacked it; see below. (6) Cf. Pindar Py.l.!B14f, where Croesus' ({JLAo({J p*C!iiV il}n<i is contrasted wi tlil* tlil!@ barbarity of Phalaris; and Bacchylides I I I. llf'f. Also Furtwangler/ Reichold II Taf.113 (=Boardman ARF no.171 ). Cf. Weissbach, RE Suppl.Bd.5 (1931) s.v.Kroisos, 455-72, and on this passage, 457.67ff. For Hdts sources for Croesus, cf. Jacoby, RE art. 419ff. (7) Cf. Bruns, pp.110-12, who argues that the portrait of Croesus is so obviously unified that it must be the result of a subtle imaginative synthesis: "aber der Poet, der diese ZOge so wi'rksam gruppiert hat, ist ein grosserer als Hdt das griechischer Volk 11 • (8) Cf. Immerwahr p.155: "Croesus thus represents a type of ruler morally superior to the Persian kings, and one on whom Hdt looks with* more favor, following therein the bias of Greek tradition". Cf. n.6 above. �9) Cf. Pausanias and Lampon at 9.79.l ( Ta npsnEL μaAAov BapBapOLOL nOL€ELV fl nEp .EA�nDG�' x&xECVOLOL 6� lnL,eovloμEV ). But this exam�le shows that even the Greeks can be barbaric in thought: barbarity is something common to all human beings in varying degrees. Cf. also on 9.120.4 ( Xanthippus' punishment of Artayktes ), below Ch.II.iii, sub fin. (10) Cf. Bruns p.104, arguing that the story is not strictly a contradiction of the earlier narrative: 11wohl aber stimrot auch in -456dem so liebevoll und farbig aus1gefllhrten Bilde des Xerxes zu frl.iheren Beobachtungen die v6llige Verbindungslosigkeit, in der Hdt die so verschiedenen wirkenden Theile gelassen hat 11 • For us, the lack of explicit connexion and comment is deliberate: the positioning of the anecdote is what speaks loudest for Hdts intentions, here as in the Croesus example. For an excellent account of the integrality of this story and its relation to the opening narrative of the court of Candaules, see E. Wolff, 1 Das Weib des Masistes•, Hermes 92 (1964) pp.51-8, repr.rev. in Hdt WdF pp.668-78. (11) Hdts story of Croesus• early life ( unlike that of Nic.Dam./Xanthus describes the unfortunate victim as an antistasi~tis, a political opponent ( cf. 4.164.1 and 5.69.2 ). In Nie.Dam. the kingship passes to Croesus by right as the elder brother: in Hdt the succession is in the gift of Alyattes ( 1.92.4: oovTos ,ou Ila,pos ), and by implication might as well have fallen to Pantaleon. Compare esp. the confusion over Darius• successor ( 7.2.lf: stasis), where Hdt improbably envisages that Xerxes• claim is bolstered by the Greek political reasoning of Demaratus ( 7.3.lf ). Hdt repeatedly goes into the conflicting claims of successors to kingships ( cf. n.137, below), as though to draw our attention to the vagaries of autocracy, for him something that rests on no natural or self-evident rights. Hdt introduces the Greek political idea of stasis into the Croesus story, whether from a suggestion of his source or ( more likely) on his own initiative, to sharpen its edges: Croesus1 barbarity is inspired by political animosity and the pursuit of power. Thus the episode throws light on the ambition for absolute power, which can so often pervert human behaviour. Cf. esp. Otanes on the corruption of absolute power ( 3.80.3 ), discussed below. '(12) Cf. Bruns p.81: 11Der Verdacht is gerechtfertigt, dass, wo uns seiner Charaktere widerspruchvoll und unklar erscheint, dies dem Schriftsteller zur Last fallt, der noch gezwungen war, in unmittelbarer Abh~ngigkeit von den ihm vorliegenden Traditionen, auch wo sie sich widersprachen, zu arbeiten 11 • And cf. von Fritz, GGS I.238f: 11 ••• so ergibt sich das Resultat, dass Hdt ... die Geschichten, die er erzahlt, gewiss nicht erfunden hat. Er hat sie gesammelt ... 11 • (13) Cf. e.g. A. Momigliano, 'Historicism Revisited 1 , in Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (1977) at pp.367-8. This argument is offered merely ad homines; as we saw in the Introduction, there is no reason to suppose that Hdt thought he was writing 1 History 1 , or that we can expect to understand him on those anachronistic terms. (14) D. Fehling, Die Quellenangaben bei Hdt (1971). See Introduction. (15) Cf. H. Strasburger, Hdt u.das perikleische Athe.n.:. in *Hdt WdF pp.579f: 11Uneingeschrlinkte Bewunderung bzw. Anhl:ingerschaft fur eiñn bestimmten Mann oder Staat bei Hdt zu vermuten, heisst einen Bruch mit seiner eigenen Geschichtsauffassung von ihm fordern. In seJñin Werk hat er keiner Perstinlichkeit, deren Lebensweg er auf eine langere Strecke erfolgt, uneingeschrlinkte Anerkennung erzollt. Ebensowenig hat er irgendeine der grossen Figuren einseitig als hassenswert oder verlichtlich dargestellt 11 • The problem is however more complicated than the mere presence or absence of partisanship and more important than just an issue of 'historical methodr. (16) Cf. less cautiously Fornara. (197l) 56 n.37: 11Hdt, clearly, scatters praise and blame without any evident direction 111 but there are some good remarks here on 'balanced presentation' ( see below). Much less -457cautiously H. Wood (1972,) 138 n.49: 110ur author•s chief characteristic in biography is that he always presents all sides and aspects of character and acts, without attempting to reconcile or subordinate the often contradictory results ... n, but again some useful remarks on individual passages. Cf. also Immerwahr, 1 Historical Action in Hdt1 , TAPA 75 (1954) pp.14-45; e.g. p.26: 11The ability to look at the same event, or the same person, from two different points of view without attempting to reconcile the resulting paradox is characteristically Hdtean11 , or pp.39f: 11Hdt distributes praise and blame freely in his Histories, but there are few human actions which do not partake of both desirable and undesirable features ... 11 • ( My italics here, showing points of disagreement or uncertainty). The only extended discussion of the question is the dissertation of Th. Spath,'Das Motiv der doppelten Beleuchtung bei Hdt1 , Diss.Wien (1963); see the Endnote to this chapter. Even this study does not adequately treat the importance of this critical principle for the understanding of the problems of Hdts sources. (17) K. Reinhardt, Hdts Persergeschichten, repr. in Hdt WdF p.358: 11Jetzt geht>rt das Schwanken ... zum Wesen der Gestalt. Notwendig ist das Schwanken, weil in den Geschichten, die die Majestat jn jrgendeJner grossen Geste zeigen, schon geheim das Gegenteil enthalten ist: indem der Mensch die Rolle, in die er hineingeboren und -gestellt ist, nicht mehr aus ftfl lt, der Koni gsornat in ei nem Miss verhlil tni s zur Person des TrMgers steht, der Purpur um die Majestat zu schlottern anfangt. Auf Xerxes lastet der Fl uch, dass er ei n Nachfahr i st ... 11 • And cf. Bruns pp.95-104, for whom the portrait of Xerxes is the single successfully unified conception of character in Hdt. Also e.g. Immerwahr:, 2 J?P,l82f; 11In all his complexity, Xerxes is primarily a contradictory character, in whom opposite qualities balance each other throughout ... Thus we may say that in Xerxes all character traits turn into their Opposites and help to destroy him11 • ( The generalization, underlined, seems unhappy ) . For Hdt Xerxes volatile changes of direction ( see below) have much to do with his youth ( cf. his apology to Artabanus before the Persians at 7.13.2, napauTCHa μ~v ~ vE6Tns &nftEcrE ), but also with his position as heir to a demanding tradition of Persian expansion ( cf. 7.5.l, his initial reluctance to march against Greece: ouoaμws npõuμos nv HaT' apxas crTpaTEuecr~aL ; but cp. his later speech to the Persians at 7.8a.l: ouT' aDTos HaTnyncroμaL vdμov Tov§e ... ), and in more general terms with his character as tyrannos/despotes ( see below). To this extent Hdt is careful to offer an exp 1 anation of Xerxes• psychology wni.ch will reconcile the paradoxes of his behaviour ( contrast the interpretations cited in n.16 above). For the beginnings of 1 biography1 in Hdt, especially in the stories of the eastern kings, but also those of Miltiades, Themistocles and other outstanding Greeks, cf. H. Homeyer, 1Zu den AnfM.ngen der gr.Biographie', PhiloLl06 (1962) pp.75ff. * (18) For this kind of th~ma, cf. 7.135.l (below), and 6.121.l and 123.1. With 9.37.3 ( below n.64) and 5.92e5, etc. {19) Cf. Themistocles• speech of encouragement before Salamis ( 8.83.l ): ... ' ,, :r , < ') , - " ' , v ~' ' ' 0.. , Ta 6e enca 11v ~avTa Ta Hpccrcrw TOLOL ncrcrocrL aVTLTL.\JEμeva, ocra vn EV avvpw~ou cpoov t!aL Hara&Tda1, kyyCvi;;:TaL. * *He encourages the Greeks to choose 'the better' ( ta kresso ). For the expression physis kai katastasis, cf. Democritus DK 688278. (20) Cf. Thucyd.1.138.3 and 2.65.Sf, though such commentaries are exceptional even for Thucydides, whose practice presumably owes something both to Hdt and indirectly to Homer. Cf. H. Westlake., Indivi.duals in Thucydides ( Cambr. 1968 ). And see Bruns pp.lff and 64ff, on Thucydides. Bruns makes an artificial and misleading comparison with Hdt ( p.75 ): 11Genug der Beispiele daftlr, dass dieser Mann ( sc. Hdt ) weit davon entfernt war, sei nem persBn lichen Urtheil irgendwe l che Beschdinkungen ----*-*-**---~ aus stilistischen GrUnden aufzUerlegen. Wer so frei und ohne Umschweife seine Meinung ausspricht, wo ihm das Herz dazu treibt, von dem wAre es sehr fAlsch, in FA11en, wo wir sie vermissen, zu vermuthen, er verschweige sie. Diese Thukydideische Feinheiten liegen ihm vollkommen fern 11 • ( cf. also p. 108 ). But see below. (21) Character through speech and action in Homer: ef. esp. J. Griffin, 1 Homer, on Life and Death' (1980) pp.50-80. (22) Cf. esp. Strasburger (1965J p.58lf: 11Pointen werden nicht erklArt; der ErzAhler kommentiert sich nicht selbst und schrAnkt die eigenen Meinungsatisserungen auf den Mindestmass ein. Er setzt Gedanken in Aktion oder Rede um ... vor allem auch die Widersprtiche11 • (,?3) Compare this. ainos and Antiphon DK 87854: both dea 1 with the same _ mo-ral situation, the responsibilities of a man entrusted with a paratheke, although their respective conclusions are different. Fcrthe influence of sophistic stylistic patterns on Hdt, see Ch.lll, sect.B, below. The* ainos here is no mere diverting narrative but a moral lesson. This is not to deny that the ainos was an established literary form from the earliest times: compare Aeschylus Agam.717f, with Fraenkel at line 719. For the form paratheke, cf. Hippias DK BlO; with Nestle, Progr.Sch(iJ1,t.aJ 1908 p.23. And for the present moral, cf. esp. Democritus DK 688265: wait'e:p<ya.p rbv) \ '. . ' . . . () ; , ' ' ' - *. ' ' .... l'tlf 11'"<~fc:tl<.ctra.{tnxa.$ a n:o 61.,6ov*rn ou xPn e:n:<Jt., ve:ta,\}ai .. ~ . 'rl'Y\l.. Jin &n:061.,6ov,ct J{Ci,J{W~ &xoOE:1.,\) xa.t n:acrxe:1.,v, ÕTW xa.t '(q\) &pxov,a. (24) That is, he will swear an oath ( cf. 86g.4 ) that he knows nothing of the deposit ( cf. Stein ad 1 oc. ) , in effect a false oath. Compare Cyrus I denunciation of the Greek habit of perjury at 1.153 .1. (25) Attempts to test the divine invariably end in disaster: cf. e.g. Croesus and the oracles ( l.46.2ff ); Aristodicus and Apollo { 1.158.2ff }; Palycrates and the ring { 3.40ff }; Artabanus and the dream sent to Xerxes { 7. 1 T. l ff } . (26) Cf. also Macan at 6.869 {51}: 11It is oDvious from what follows that Hdt approves of the action of the Athenians (~), but was not going to throw away so delightful a story on mere critical grounds11 • I do not see the force of these criticisms: the story is approapriate oecause the Athenians too are thinking of witholding a paratheke. Immerwahr pp.213-4, notices that the 11parable is used ironically, not only with reference to the speaker", adding 11but also in respect of the Athenians, who do not anywhere receive punishment from the gods for refusal to hand over the hostages 11 • But Hdt does not imply that punishment, late though it be, will not find out the Athenians eyentually: cf. 5.89.2; 7.133.2; for Hdt the working of the divine is by no means clearly accessible to human intelligence, except very rarely. {21) See esp. Strasburger, {1965) p.58lf, on this story and its 'calculated contradictions'. (?R) In one version at least ( 6.75.3 ), this is the crime for which Cleomenes was ultimately destroyed: see below. (29) Cf. Thucyd.5.63.lff, the punishment of Agis. (30) For a fuller treatment of this passage in its context, cf. eh.II.iii. (31} In this sense W. Marg may be right to describe Xerxes as more than the sum of his parts ( repr. in *Hdt.Wcf.L . p.622 ) : 11nicht die Besonderheiten des Individuum Xerxes sind fDr Hdt von Interesse, wohl aber seine Person als ein Beispiel des Menschlichen,.!lllenschlicber Gefahren in der Geschichte11 • But Hdt is obviously also interested in Xerxes as a particular human being iri a particular historical ~ituation ( see n.17 above), so that the disjunction here is a false one. (32) For the comparison between human nature and the nature of the physical world, cf. 1.32.8 ( Solon ) : wcrnsp x~Pn ouosμLa. Jta.-rapx{st.. 1tavi:a. lwuTT\t.. 1ta.p[xouoa., xTA. ; and perhaps Megabyxos I image for the behaviour of the demos at 3.81.2: xst..μippwt.. 1t0Ta.μwt.. tJts:\õ: -459- (33) The parallelism of the Pythios-story with that of Darius and Oiobazos ( 4.84) has often been remarked, as one of a sequence of overt parall _s between the Scythian expedition of .Darius and the expedition of Xerxes: cf. e.g. Powell (1939), pp.57ffrand* esi:h Bornitz (Tei.l Il) pp. l 25ff. (34) The words closely echo those of Darius to Syloson ( 3. 140.4 ); and cf. 9.89.3, Artabazos' promise to the Thessalians ( a deception). (35) For another tyrant delivering a lecture on human psychology, see Gelon to the Greek embassy ( 7.160.l ): ovsL6sa. Jta.Tt..ovTa. &v~pJ1twt.. fPL.AEE:L. l1ta.vaye:t..v Tov \Juμifo •• Cf. 7.238.2 ( Xerxes' anger at Leonidas ), and contrast 1.137.l ( Persian justice! ). And see 1.155.3 and 3.36.1. Compare Oemocritus DK 688236 ( ~uμwt.. μ&xsõa.t.. μev xa.!nov* &.vopõ Be To Jtpa.Test..v e:u:\oyCoTou ), and esp. Antiphon DK 87858. (36) There may be some apotropaic ritual behind this story; see the Old Testament parallels cited by How and Wells ad loc.; and add Pl .Legg. 7530, where those appointing magistrates are to pass 6t..a woμLwv However this human sacrifice is clearly a barbarity even for the Persians, not to mention its effect on Greek ears. (37) Cf. e.g.*dmn1erwahr p.182, with n.101: 11Xerxes rewards and punishes his own subjects to excess 11 • See e.g. an incident at Salamis ( 8.90 ), in which Hdt contrasts ( 90.l ) Xerxes• punishment of the Phoenicians ( by decapitation: 90.3) with his rewarding of the Ionians ( 90.4 ), whom the Phoenicians had tried to accuse of treachery. For Darius)) cf. Immerwahr, p.173, n.74. (39) For metamelesis, cf. Antiphon DK 87858: esp. for its discussion of the confl ,et of passion ( thymos ) and restraint ( sophrosyne ) . (40) Cf. Hellmann p.104, on this passage: 11Die beiden erstennahelieger:iden allgemeinen M6glichkeiten bilden den Hintergrund, von dem sich die besondere Eigenart des dritten Grund klarer abhebt. Nur dieser beeinfltlsst die Darstellung und in seiner DurchfUhrung wird die Wohlgesinntheit des Gottes erwiesen 11 • Hdt may have invented Cyrust change of heart out of nothing. Our earliest sources ( cf. Bacchyl.III. and Boardman ARF no.171: cf. n.6 above ) suggest that Greek tradition thought Croesus' immolation was self-imposed, rather than the work of Cyrus. Bacchylides says that the fire was quenched by Zeus, as it is by Apollo in Hdt: but Hdts version introduces a doub 1 et in Cyrus I attempt to put out the fire earlier, and it may be that he has simply contaminated the original story on his own initiative. Moreover the attempted rescu~ depends on Croesus' calling upon Solon at this point, and inasmuch as the Solon-Croesus conversation, upon which this itself depends, seems likely to be a Hdtean fiction, the story of Cyrus' attempted rescue ( and change of heart) ought likewise to be Hdtean invention. Compare also Fehling pp.148-:9. (41) Cf. 1.86.2: 11either as a victory-offering to some god, or in _ fulfilment of a vow, or knowing Croesus to be a pious man ( theosebes to test whether some god wil*l save him from Ms fate 11 • We pass from seeing his act as a sign of piet,to the gods to seeing it as a gross impiety: to test whether the gods really help those who honour them, is the act of one who does not hold the gods in high esteem ( for the -460motif of testing the divine, cf. n.25 above). The last motive is the one that leaves the strongest impression here ( cf. alto n.40 above), and indeed it is the one presupposed in Cyrus I change of heart: it makes little sense for him to repent of a religious duty, but it is clear why he should do so if the act was a real impiety. Note that Hdt informs us elsewhere that it contravenes Persian nomos to burn human bodies ( cf. 3.16.3 ). Contrast Hellmann pp.106f. (42) Cf. Hom.Od.18.130-142; Soph.Aj. 121-6, OC 560-8; and cf. Arist. Rhet. 1385Bllff, on eleos. (43) Cp. von Fritz GGS I.258: 11Die Darstellung einer psychologischen Entwickluhg eines Individuums liegt offenbar ausserhalb des Gesichtskreises Hdts11 ( with special reference to Xerxes). This will not do, if it means that Hdt cannot see changes in psychological disposition. (44) See also Chapter Three, section H, on the background to the debate and its place in the work. ' (45) Cf. Democritus DK 688266: o66EμCa. μnxa.v~ TillLvvov xa.3Ecrt@TL ~u3μffiL μ~ o6x &6LxECv Tõs 5pxovTa.s; flv xa.t ndvu &ya.3ot lwcrL. (46) The complexity of Hdts attitude to tyrants is well known: cf. e.g. H. Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen (1967) p.197: 11Aufs Ganze der grundsatzlichen Er6rterungen gesehen, kann es nicht zweifelhaft sein, dass Hdt die Tyranni's ablehnte ... Dach erregten nicht nur die eindrucksvollen Gesta lten mancher Gewa lthaber Interesse und Lust des farbenfrohen Erzahlers, der sie menschlich sah und beurteilte. Es wurden ihm, angeregt durch die staatstheorethischen Er~rterungen seiner Zeit und vermutlich auch durch Diskussion Uber die fast monarchische Stellung des Perikles ... sowohl die Tyrannis wie die reine Demokratie zum Problem11 • And cf. Strasburger ((1965) p.588. On the present interpretation.,however, this ~quivocation' turns out to be more than either simply the desire to tell colourful stories, to investigate political institutions, or to be scrupulously unpartisan: tyrants are contradictory because they are human nature writ large. Cf. also ( somewhat erratically), K.H. Waters, 1 Hdt on Tyrants and Despots1 , Historia Einzelschr.15 (1971). (47) For the parallel between Maiandrios here and Cleomenes later in the interview between the two at 3.148, see below eh.I.ii. (48) For the idea of a tyrant elevating himself artificially above his equals,see esp. Deioces at 1.99.2 (below). Hdt insists that the autocrat is not obviously marked out by nature from ordinary men: he exercises an arbitrary authority over men who are by nature no different from him and not inferior. And cf. n.11 above. (49) μecrov Tnv &px~v TL3ECs. Compare Cadmus at 7.164.1, ES μecrov ••• Ma.i«&ets TT}V apx11:v, and esp. Otanes at 3.80.2, E:S μecrov ... XCI.Ta.\JE:LVCI.L Ta. nprh'μa.Ta.. Al so Demonax at Cyrene ( 4. 161. 3 ) . (50) Cp.Ostwald ('19691 pp.107-9, who discusses Hdts text as though it embodied the words actually spoken by Maiandrios in 533 BC. But the ideas of this speech are in Hdt as hypothetical as those expressed by Otanes in the constitution-debate though Ostwald believes this too to be 'historical 1 ( ibid.pp.178-9 ). (51) The acceleration of criminal acts is well suggested in Hdts presentation here: arrest of prisoners, murder of prisoners, surrender of power to the traditional enemy, revenge of Charileos, destruction of Samas by the Persians. -461- (52) hypomargoteros ( cf. Cambyses at 3.29.1 and Cleomenes at 6.75.l ): surely one of the shadiest advisers in Hdt! (53) Cf. e.g. the deception practised by Deioces on the Medes ( l.96.2ff, below ) ; by Darius to bring Histiaios to Sardis ( 5.24. lf ) ; by Miltiades to arrest the Chersonitai ( 6.39.2 ); by Cleomenes on the Argives to make them leave the grove ( 6.79.lf ). (54) Cf. B.M. Mitchell, 1Hdt and Samos1 , JHS 95 (1975) pp.75ff, who discusses Hdts Samian sources and claims that aristocratic bias is easy to detect. But as we shall see there is little reason to suppose that Hdt ever relies on aristocratic or esoteric sources of any kind, rather than on the humble polis-traditions of the Greek states; cf. Ch.II.ii. (55) According to Erxias 1 Kolophoniaka ( otherwise unknown: quoted by Athen.561F = FGH 44.9Fl ) , the Samian Eleutheria were conducted in honour of Eros, not Zeus as here. Cf. Jessen REV (1905) 2348.23ff, s.v. Eleutherios, esp. 2349.53ff. Has Hdt made a mistake, or is this a different festival? Might it be (anyway) that the Eleutheria. were not in fact connected with the fall of Polycrates at all? As a rule the cult of Zeus Eleutherios is associated with victories in battle ( cf. Jessen); , but cf. e.g. the cult of Zeus El. at Syracuse after the fall of Thrasybulus ( Diod.XI. 72 ) . (56) Cf. e.g. 2.147.2: ou6(va yap XPOVOV otoC TE noav aVEU SaOLAEÕ 6LaL,aa.\Jm, : and cp. 4.142, the Scythians 1 abuse of the Ionians for their failure to accept freedom from Darius. (57) i.e. aphrosyne as (a) folly, stupidity, and (b) the opposite of sophrosyne ( in its moral sense ) , e.g. crimi na 1 insanity. Cf. Pl. Protag. 332E. And see e.g. Eurip.Bacch.386. ( 58) See Chapter Three, section H, for bibliography. Cf. e :g. even von Fritz GGS I.289: 11 ••• dass die Deiokesgeschichte zu einem grossen Teil aus Hdts eigenem Nachdenken Uber gewisse historisch-poHtishce Probleme hervorgegangen isC. * (59) Stein renders: 11obgleich er wusste, dass die Gerechten van den Ungerechten befeindet werden'', taking theneut.adj.sas collective personal plurals and the participle as concessive. But this makes little sense in the context, as well as being somewhat stretched. It is easier to assume that Hdt ( paradofically) means that Deioces used justice to combat injustice ( see below). For the modernity of the 1 abstrace neut. of the adj., see e.g. F~ Solmsen, {1975) pp.llOff. (60) The prescriptions for the rights of audience anticipate what we are told of Darius ( 3.118.lff ), and the excessive punishment of Intaphrenes for transgression of the rules ( on which see Bornitz pp~216f ) . (61) For the arbitrariness of despotic penalties! cf! e.g. 3.36.6 ( Cambyses ), 119.2 ( Darius and Intaphrenes ); 4.84 ( Darius and Oiobazos ); 7.39.3f ( Xerxes and Pythios: see above}; 8.118 ( Xerxes punishes his sea-captain: see below). Occasionally, and surprisingly, the tyrant may weigh the penalty against the crime:.so Darius, having decided to impale Sandoces ( 7.194.lf) for giving false judgement for bribes, pardons him on consideration that his good deeds have outweighed his faults.* Compare the parallel anecdote of Cambyses and Sisamnes ( 5. 25. 1 f ) , whom the tyrant had flayed for corrupt judgement: it is perhaps a paradox to have Cambyses practising justice in any form. Hdt has of course told us that the balancing of good deeds against crimes was the rule of Persian justice ( 1.137.1 ), in which also the death -462penalty was never supposed to be inflicted by the king or anyone else for one offence only. Hdt praises the principle, but seldom, if ever ( cp. 7.194.lf above: only a partial exception) observes it in operation, and as a rule severe and arbitrary sentences are the mark of all Persian royal judgements. But the 'discrepancy' is not accidental: the noble ideals of Persian nomos as represented in the ethnography are seen to be consistently perverted in practice, where irrational passion prevails over reason and moderation. The contrast between principle and behaviour is thus another deliberate paradox. In another respect however the arbitrariness of Persian royal judgements turns out to be paradoxically 'fair', as in the story of Xerxes' return after Salamis ( which however Hdt affects to disbelieve). The king rewards the se~-captain with a gold crown for having saved his life, but cuts off his head because he had done so at the expense of so many Persian lives ( 8.118-9 ): the sentence has a terrible juristic logic about it. Characteristically, the despot judges results rather than motives and tends to punish or reward accordingly, or~put more simply, he is unable to distinguish whether his subjects are really helping or harming him. Thus, for example, Darius honours Histiaios highly even after his death ( 6.30.2, ' , s:. ' ,,. • - ' , ' .L ) h . . WS <lVvpOS μEy<lAWS EWUTWL TE X<lL IlEpanLOL EUEpy~TEW , av1ng consistently mistaken his treachery for goodwill; or at Salamis Artemisia { by accident or design ) contrives to sink a Calyndian ship and at the same time win the praises of the king ( 8.87.lff, esp. 88.l ): TouTo ot auvlSn WOTE H<lHOV &pyaaaμsvnv &no TOUTWV auTnv μaALOTa EUOOXLμnaa.L nap& a£pfnL • (62) Indeed nothing that Deioces does as tyrant really fits the familiar picture of autocratic excess: none of the cruelties of a Cambyses, none of the perversions of a Periander; he does not even have the usual ambition of empire ( l.101 ). He comes instead surprisingly close to the ideal king of Darius 1 apology for monarchy ( 3.82.2 and 4-5 ): Cyrus alone could give the Persians freedom, Deioces alone could give the Medes eunomia ( cf. Ch.II.i.B.l ). (63) Note that the shift from just behaviour to injustice i!S structurally the same in the episodes of Deioces, Maiandrios and Glaucus: in each case Hdt goes gut of his way to lay stress or.1 the character's original dikaiosyne ( 6.86a.2, 3.142.l, 1.96.2 ), but avoids in each case any explicit comment on the character's changed condit:ion. The paradox of Deioces1 behaviouris noted by Plutarch ( MH 18.858E ), although he is not quite clear what to make of it: AnLoxnv OE TOV Mnoov apETnL xat J::. - , ' t , , , , __ , -- . - ~LX<lL~auvnL, wrnaaμEVOV T~V ny£μ6Vl,..li:11V OU (fJUOEL YEVEakraL ,t~{~ 't!JlpU'tO\) • epa.cr'oeVTCl o e TUpavv Coos EnLkrta.\JaL npocr1to L nμan o L xa LOcruvns. Hdts point is not quite this simple contrast between natural and feigned virtue. (64) tolma: the word does not mean bravery ( cp. andreie ). The other two uses ,n Hdt are neither morally approving ( 2.12lz.l and 9.37.3 ), both, of them describing acts of criminal daring, both as here arousing thoma. Hdt often avoid$ using morally charged words in his comments on the action where we seem to expect them. * (65) For the sentiment here, compare Democr.DK 688251. (66) a1hos 0£ Tll E:liELVOLO'L E:ltL"TI:AllOOEl., 'mUTa OU 11:0LllOELV • Compare the words of Maiandrios ~t 3.142.3: &y~ ot Ta TmL ni1as &nLnAncrcrw, auTõ xa.Ta. ouvaμLv ou noLncrw, Instructive to note that Hdts mind is working on the same lines in these two. passages. * (67) Macg.n, following Stein, compares 7 .146 for the quality!) but not the word; he believes the passage to be a daub 1 et of the present one, i .. e. two separate anecdotes.describing the same historical event. May we suspect rather Hdts own penchant for parallel scenes? See Fehlingpp.142f, -463on MotivwiederholUhgen as a structural device. (68) Contrast e.g. Immerwahr p.177. n.86: 11Here also Xerxes is boasting and wants to show himself superior to the Spartans". (69) Compare the ambiguity of Polycrates' megaloprepeie at 3.125.2; and cf. Isocr.ad Nicocl.19: "Display megaloprepe,a, not ,n any of the extravagant outlays which straightwayvanish, but in virtue ... 11 (70) For a further discussion of this passage in its context, see Ch. I I . i i i . E . 1 . (71) The pattern of this Miltiades~narrative is repeated in the Greek narratives which li.kewise follow the battles of 480 and 479. Miltiades 1 pursuit of gain here finds a ready parallel in*the behaviour of Themistocles after Salamis ( 8.112.1, ou yct.p hmk,o u11.e:ovi::newv ) , in the collecting of the money from Andros and the other islands. Cf. Immerwahr p,:T25;. Bornitz, pp.134-5. For the 1 contradictions 1 of the Miltiade~-narrative, cf. esp. Bruns pp82-4; 11Widerspruchvoller kann sich ein und ~erselbe Mann auf so engem Raum wohl kaum darstel len ... ein Historiker, der Uber seine Personen' nachdenkt, wird, wo das Leben eines weltgeschichtlich bedeutenden Menschen so krasse GegensM.tze ntht\lt, sie nicht ohne ein vermittelndes Worf weitererzlihlen ... Liegt es nicht nahe zu glauben, dass der Grund ft}r dies Schweigen darin liegt, dass Hdt durch die in ihrer Wirkung so widersprechenden Erzahlungen in seinem Urtheil Uber ihn selbst unsicher gemacht ist? 11 (72) Cf. Obst, RE XV.2 (1932) s». Miltiades 2, 168lff; H.*Berve, 'Miltiades. Stud.z.Gesch.des Mannes u.seiner Zeit''., Hermes Einzelschr.2 (1937); K. Kinzl, 1Miltiades 1 Parosexpedition ... 1 , Hermes 104 (1976) pp.280ff, with some useful remarks on the pecdliarities of the Hdtean narrative here. For the present interpretation compare also Bornitz, pp,95ff: 11Miltiades, der die Athener so bewusst auf den Weg der Macht ft.lhrt, weist in seinem weiteren Schicksal die gefahrliche Doppelsichtigkeit der MachtfUlle auf, die Hdt an allen grossen Gestalten, StM.dten und Vtllkern nachzuweisen bemUht ist 11 • The extra-Hdtean tradition for the Paras-expedition preserved in Ephorus ( FGH 70F63, with Nepos Milt.7.lff: cf. Gottlieb pp.65ff, and Kinzl pp.293ff) has nothing to offer on the problems discussed here , although it contradicts Hdt in suggesting that the assault on the island almost succeeded. Kinzl ( pp289f) is right to remark that the division of Hdts Parian narrative into two parts ( at 6.134.1 ), the first from general Greek tradition, t.fue second from the Parians themselves, is merely an expository device. The Parians are named 1 informants 1 for the part of the story that takes place on Paras: cf. Fehling, on the 'Wahl der n!chstliegenden Quellen 1 • But even if this were not so, a Parian tradition would not of itself account for the 'discrepancy' of the Miltiades-story3 since the slanders against Miltiades ( his corrupt manipulation of the Athenians) are not credited to them. (73) * proskhema: it is the characteristic sign of ambition in Hdt that the aggressor makes use of spurious grievances: cf.e.g. Croesus { 1.26.3 ), and 4.167.3 { proskhiima ), 6.49.2 ( prophasis ), etc. (74) On this odd detail, cf. Berve p.93 n,l; Kinzl p.284 n.21. And compare esp. Cleomenes1 expedition against the Athenians ( 5,74.1 )~ ou cppa?;;wv E£ ,o au11.i.:fri;;1., • See be low n. 125. (75) It is not clear what this was: had Miltiades been betrayed while trying to escape from the Phoenicians to Athens ( this does not fit with diaballein) or is it something from the time when Miltiades was officially in league with Persia? Compare n.86 below. (76) Cf. Immerwahr, p.p.l91-2. (77) Fully described by Hdt, from its beginnings with Miltiades, son of Kypselos, through Stesagoras, the brother of the elder Miltiades, down to Miltiades himself ( 6.34.lff ). Cf. H.T. Wade-Gery, 1 Miltiades 1 , JHS (1951) pp.21_2~21, for an imaginative study of the family history. (78) Cf. Wade-Gery pp~217ff: 11 ••• all of 6.39 was meant ( not by Hdt, but by the parties whom he echoes) to be damaging: thetreacherous arrests, the foreign wife, the bodyguards, not least the help from Hippias, all have the smell of tyranny". We may object to the implied disjunction in the parenthesis: Hdt too means these details to sound damaging, and has made a conscious choice to bring them to the fore. * (79) For Hdts implied commentary on the weakness of the democracy here, cf. Kinzl pp.283ff. Cf. 6.136,3, where the demos saves Miltiades from the death penalty demanded by the hawkish Xanthippus ( 11:pooye:voμ{vou OE: TOU onμou CllJTWI., }{(l'[il TT}\I &:n:oJ... U(Jt, v TOU 3avaTOU ) • And o.f,. 6. 104. 2, where Hdt says that after his first treason trial, he was elected Strategos: aipe:3e:~S ~11:a TOO onμou , With deliberate, if perhaps anachronlstic, emphasis. For the possible historical inaccuracy, cf. C.W. Fornara, 1The Athenian Board of Generals r ~ Hermes Einzelschr.16 (197l)pp.9-10, with n.29 ( 11he extrapolated ... from the conditions of his own time" ); but contrast Hignett (l952)pp69:...70. The attempt of the Athpol.28.2 to make of Miltiades a leader of the gnorimoi and Xanthippus the leader of the demos is unlikely to have any historical basis ( cf. Berve pp67f ). For Rats picture of the Athenian democracy, its strengths and weaknesse~ see Ch.II.ii.D-H. (80) Immerwahr p~192, views the ambiguity of Miltiades' argument merely as a 11tyrannical trait"; but Miltiades with his ambition, his quick thinking, his trickery, is representative also of the Athenian character as a whole. just as Themistocles later proves to be. See esp. Bornitz. pp. 93-4. See Ch.II.iiLC.2. (81) Cf. e.g. Jacoby RE art.434.12ff; Berve pp.41ff: on the Danube-bridge episode ( contra Bornitz pp.113ff ). For Marathon, cf. Berve pp.75ff; and for the impossibl~ theory that Hdts account of the battle derives from the 1 Philaid propaganda' of the Stoa Poikile, cf. e.g. V. Massaro, L1Ant.Class. 47 (1978) pp.458-75. (82) For Eupolis 1 Demoi. cf. Kock I.279ff ( F90-135 ), with papyrus frg.s in Austin CGF pp.84-94. And cf. Adesp.F361K ( ? Eupolis 1 play): ãxμmv1:ai6' o,hws cfvopa xa4 KE:KO\lt,μ{vov 1 1 xaAJ...Cov n TW\I \)\)\) lCClAClLOTW\I oonaouv . In Aristoph.Hipp. the Sausage-Seller rejuvenates Demos to the condition he enjoyed in the good old days ( 1325 ): oles 11:e:p 'Ap1.,oitCon1., 11:po1:e:pov xat M1.,>..1:1.,&on1., iuve:0C1:e:1.,. (83) Cf. n.81 above. And Obst 1683.42ff (!) (84) Cf. the arguments of Bornitz pp.113ff. But ff the Danube-bridge story is unlikely to be a Philaid apology9 it may yet be a fiction of one sort or another.* (85) Cf. Berve pp,62f ~ who argues that Miltiades actually; did not par:ticipate in the Rev6lt. t~ntrast Obst"1687.4ff~ On the assumption of a Phjlaid source for Hdts Miltiades, we would need to explain the lack either of an apology for his absence or of some indication of his involvement: it is hard to believe that the PhilaidS could have made Hdt swallow the Danube-bridge fiction. but failed to impress upon �i�that Milti�des di.d :the'.best t�ing in either involving himself or not involving himself in the actual liberation of Ionia later. But typically the machinery of esoteric sources is only invoked when it is convenient, and quite forgotten when it is not. (86) The explanation of Kinzl (pp.284f) that what Hdt means here is not a private grievance of Miltiades. but a reaction of the Athn demos to an attack on their champion at the time of Marathon, seems a hlghly improbable interpretation of what Hdt actually says, though not a necessarily historically impossible. The contrast of npocrxnμa Aoyou and EyMoTov ( TLva )is between the official reason given to the Athenians by Miltiades and his own private grievance, which he witheld from them. For the word egkotos in this sense; cf. n.132 below. (87) Plut.Kim.8.lf, preserves the story that when Miltiades was asking for an olive crown, Sophanes of Decelea stood up and attacked him, saying that when Miltiades had fought single-handed against the barbarian, then he might demand such an honour. There seems however little reason to regard the story as representative of an early 'anti-Miltiades' tradition, as does Gottlieb ( pp67-8 ), attributing it to Ion of Chios: "das zeugt von einem ausgepr�gten Gemeinschaftsbewusstsein des athenischen Volkes 11 • It. is more than likely that the story, like so many of its kind which compare and contrast her�es of former times, is a late compilation: the 'source' could well be Hdt himself, the compiler misremembering that. Sophanes' own monomachia took place earlier against the Aeginetans, while his brave action against the Persians took place later at Plataea ( cf '. Hdt 9.73.1 and 74.lf� with 75 ). (88) Cf. Paus.10.10.1, with Pomto� RE Suppl.IV 1924 sy.Delphi 1214.59ff. (89) Cf. M. Bieber, in AJA 58 (1954) pp.282-4. (90) Cf. esp. A.J. Podlecki, 'The Life of Themistocles. A critical survey of the 1iterary and archaeological evidence' (1975). And see F.J. Frost. 'Jhemistocles' place in Athenian Politics', Cal if.Stud. in Class. Ant.l (1968) pp.105ff; G.L. Cawkwell. 'The Fall of Themistocles', in Auckland Class.Essays (1970) pp.39ff. And cf. esp. Brunspp.85-90: 'es ist [ deshalb] kein Wunder, dass Hd t den Themistokles nie selbst beurtheilt hat. In dem Durcheinander verschiedenster Eindrllcke fand er nicht den centralen Punkt. aus dem sie ihm verstAfndlich wurden. Er war ihm ein Rtttsel''. Contra�t Strasburger 1 (196�) AP603-4; and Gottlieb pp49-50: "Hdt dagegen ( sc. unlike Thucydides) stellte gllnstige und ungllnstige Nachrichten llber Themistokles nebeneinander; er hat das bewusst s -�wie ich glaube. Dern Leser werden die Umrissen einer Perstlnl ichkeit gezeichnet,. und es bleibt ihm uberlassen, welcher Bild er gewinnt. ;Mtifl :zeigt ifil einem ihm eigenen Bewusstsein von gerechter Geschichtsschreibung den •fiu,ch@n so wie man inm dle-e.en beschrieb". Cf. also W. den Boer, Mnemo?-:yri_e 15 (1962) 225ff. (11) Cf. (?) �lb� Demoi fJ*lf�* ( = t>tl!Jt • .li,,.wldLI. a somewhat optimistic ascription-): cro�os yap avnp, TnS OE X€�pos ©U MP�TWV. And see e.g. Vit.Sophocl.1: ( the comic poets ) Twv ouoE 9£μLcrToxAeous aurnxrn1evW-v , although the context shows he was made fur. of for his supposed low birth ( for which cf. P. Bicknell, Hist.31 (1982) pp.161ff, and esp. 166-7 ). It is not clear whether Teleclei des' Prytaneis F22K, "life in Themistocles' day was habros 11, is meant to be favourable or not ( cf. Podlecki p.58 ). (92) Cf. Aristoph.Hipp.811-19, with Podlecki 59-60. Cf. Hipp.B0-4-. a reference to Themistocles' death by drinking bull's blood. -- - (93) Themistocles certainly fortified the Peiraeus ( cf. Hipp.884-6 ), but the Long Walls are here anachronistically ascribed to him ( cp. Thucyd. -4661.107.1 and 108.3 ); they are possibly even Periclean ( cf. Cratinus F300K = Plut.Per.13.7 ). It is a measure of the development of the Themistoclescult that already he is credited with services to Athens which he did not perform. (94) Cf. Pl.Gorg.4550E, 503C and 5160; also Meno 93BE and 998. (95) Cf. Lys.30.28, with 'Pod]ecki p.82. Cf. Isocr.8. 75, the demagogues Hyperbolus and Cleophon contrasted with Aristides, Ihemistocles and Miltiades ( cf. Antid.233 and 307, Panath.51 ). Also Oemosth.c.Aristocr.196-8 and 207 ( cp. 205 ); and esp. de Corona 204. (96) Cf. Podlecki pp.77ff, with Xenoph.Symp.8.39; Mem.2.6.13, 3.6.2, 4.2.2. And see Aeschines Socr.Fl. Krauss ( Alcibiades ),*see below. Cf. Frost, al':t.cit. p.109: 11In fact, articulate spokesmen of the 5th and 4thc seem to be unanimous in viewing the general as a non-political statesman and hero of Athens I greatest hour11 • (97) Podlecki 's witnesses here are Timocreon, Ion of Chios and ( uperhaps11 ) Stesimbrotus. But Timocreon, bitter though his denunciation of Themistocles may be ( cf. PMG727 = Plut.Them.21.4, with Podlecki pp.51ff, for problems of historical context), both speaks a private grievance ( he contrasts the heroes, Pausanias, Xanthippus, Leotychidas and Aristides, with the scoundrel who 11did not bring his guest-friend Timocreon home to Ialysos, but took 3 talents of silver and sailed off to the devi1 11 ) and represents a non-Athenian and early 5thc view. The only relevant fragment of Ion of Chios ( FGH 392F13 = Plut.Cim.9.1 ) has the guests at a dinner praise their companion, Cimon, for his singing and call him 'cleverer than Themistocles 1 : SMELVOV yap &L6ELV μsv OU ~&vaL μãELV ou6s ML~apC~ELV, nOALV 6s noLnaaL μqdAnv xaL nAouaCav e:nCcr*mãaL ( cf. Podl ecki pp55-6 ) . . It is hard to see this as a perjorative comparison: the stõy is meant as a pretty compliment to Cimon ( 'cleverer than the cleverest man of the Greeks'; contrast Stesimbrotus FGH 107F4 ), which nevertheless does nothing to minimize the fame of the man he is compared with. Stesimbrotus' On Themistocles, Thucydides, Pericles ( FGH 107Fl-11 ) is a much better candidate, and two of the fragments do indeed look hostile to Themistocles, one which has him secure his naval policy for Athens in the teeth of opposition from Miltiades ( F2 ):-an oligarch's objection to the change which brought the radical democracy perhaps ~and the other which has him fleeing to Gelen in Sicily, asking his daughter's hand in marriage and promising to deliver the Greeks into his hands ( F3 ). F. Schachermeyer, in a recent study of the work ( 'Stesimbrotos u.seine Sehr.a.die Staatsmanner', SBaAw Bd.247, Abh.5 (1965) ), has argued that the common view that it is a mere political pamphlet is mistaken, and has suggested that it is rather a serious attempt at objective historical biography inspired by Hdt himself. This is probably too generous a reading of the fragm€nts: more likely is that the work is indeed a pamphlets but a decidedly eccentric one, in that it directs itself equally Q,gainst the democrats Themi stocl es and Pericles and the oligarch Thucydides, son of Melesias. This eccentric view-point ( probably just anti-Athenian), and of course the Thasian origin of the author, make it an unworkable piece of evidence for reconstructing an Athenian anti-Themistocles tradition. And is the work even certainly a product of the late 5thc? It makes Themistocles, who died in the 460's, a pupil of Anaxagoras ( diakousai, not merely 'hear a lecture of' but rather 1 be a pupil of': cf. LSJ s.v. ), who was st~ll alive in the early 4201 s, and an adherent of Melissus ( spoudasai ), also of a younger generation. Can a writer of the late 5thc really be :thJsunaware * of tne re 1 at i ve ages of these three O oux di 1:wv xpov~v &noμEvo s- , as Plutarch rightly observes ( Them.2.3 )? More telling than Stesimbrotus is the notice in Aelian that Critias ( OK 88845) compared the profit made by Themistocles during his political care~r with that made by the demagogue Clean, presumably to the discredit of both. Thus possibly -467in the narrowest oligarchic circles, as frequented by Stesimbrotus and Critias, where even the people' hero Pericles was attacked, Themistocles was held up as an early representative of the trend towards the corruption of the radical . democracy; but the evidence for a widespread anti-Themistocles tradition -~-is~st.;ty not tt1:@f"@. Cf. also di@*n !.@j@r-,-irt:-c,f.11);p.~3-3ff. urtherJili; ___ ---~----~ Stesili1'rotus 1 p,ai.llllet, cf. _K. ~iiirter, Miit@lria 27 (1978) lll*P*274ff. * (98) Cf. e.g. Stein at 8.110: "Die Ausserung zeigt wie eingenommen des Vf.s Urtheil auch da gegen den Charakter des Them. ist, wo nicht einmal ein Schein von Hinterhaltigkeit auf ihm liegt 11 • Jacoby, RE art.458.58ff: "Die Geschichten von Themistokles ... verraten ihren athenischen Ursprung durch eine dem grossen Manne bitter feindliche und hAfmische Ausdeutung11 • And e.g. Cawkwell p.40: "Although he does not neglect Themistocles 1 part ... , he constantly denigrates him, both his motives and his reputation, and Themistocles emerges as a cunning, corrupt, self-seeking schemer11 • H. Barth, Klio 43-5 (1965) pp.30-7, well shows that Themistocles' pleonexia is a Hdtean theme, but concludes that the stories which show it ( ~f. 8.4f and 112 ) , f icti,©lm& 1 ts t•r $Allll"@l J il:,~, ~r@ m1~~tifil~ l~ 1ss i. product of a H•lt a1.111tti-'F1~mfst©11 u*J1QMtii@llil. *M cf. t1ta.U.Hi.(l,-(,,I, for t~i,es.e stories. (99) Cf. Thucyd:1.135-8, with Podlecki pp.72ff. But see below. (100) Cf. e.g. Podlecki pp68-9; Cawkwell p.40. The further criticism. that the words pais de Neokleos ekaleeto imply that nThemistocles' real father was not necessar, ly given by the patronymic" ( Cawkwel l ibid. ) , is mistaken. As Stein on 6.88, line 3, shows, this use of kalein se~ms, to*be meant as poetic and dignified: cf. e.g. Pind.Py.3.67,-~u'A.~w~~B:a 1fsMAnJ.1svov n 1ratifpos; ( with Wil amowitz ad Euri p. Hera kl es 31 ) . The usage is almost certafnly meant to sound Homeric: in the epic kaleisthai in expressions of this type often has the force of einai. Cf. Eustath.445.8ff; and see esp.Il.2.260, μn6' ~TL TnAEμ6xol~ xaT~P xE,Anμtvos; E~nv, and Il.15.338. utas 6~ r,~Aõo xaA(axETo BouxoAC6ao If this is right, then Hdts introduction is meant to sound honorific rather than slanderous and this too tells against the malicious interpretation of neosti parion. But see perhaps Aeschines of Sphettos, P.Oxy.1608, supplementing~. Krauss, which discusses the story of Themistocles' supposed repudiation ( &1roxnpux%nvaL ) by his father; for which cf. also Plut.T~em.2.6. Hdt is dnlikely to be alluding here to this tradition of an apokeryxis, a formal disinheriting, which does not imply that Neokles was not Themistocles' natural father, but merely that he fell out with him and legally disowned him. (101) Cf. Podlecki pp196-7; cf. esp. R.J. Lenardon, 'The Archonship of Themistokles, 493-2 1 , Historia 5 (1956) pp.401-19; but contra e.g. C.W. Fornara. 'Themistocles' Archonship'. Historia 20 (1971) pp.534ff, who argues that Themistocles never held the office. The relevant evidence is DH.Ant.Rom.6.34.1 and Thucyd.1.93.3; the only reason to doubt Dionysios' date however is the literal interpretation of this passage of Hdt! (102) Cf. Podlecki pp.189ff, for discussion and bibliography. (103) Cf. Frost art.cit.p.115. (104) The introduction of Aristides is a striking exception ( 8.79.1 ), not the rule by which to judge the rest of Hdt: cp. e.g. Cawkwell p.40, with n.1. (105) Cf. e.g. Podlecki pp69-70. That the objection is valid is shown by the outrage felt by Plutarch at this passage ( MH 37 .869CF: d. yap ElaLv -468avTCuoOES nμwv, WOUEp tvGoL AEyouoL; Tns yns Ta x&Tw EEpLOUXO�VTES -0ZμaL μn6' lxcCvous &vnx6ous clvaL 8£μLcrToxA[ous �&t ToU � 8£μLcrrnxAfous SouAEUμaTos . . . ) . Hence f ornar.a I s defence ( p. 72n .19: "his mention of Mnesiphilus is calculated to give dramatic emphasis to the cruci�l moment at Salamis, not to deprive Themistocles of credit. We are over-solicitous of _Themi�tocles 11 ) is m�sguided. Cf. Str�sbu�g�r (1965).* pp. 603f: 1*Ich f1nde n1cht, dass Them1stokles von Hdt e1nse1t1g parte11sch oder gar geht:issig behandelt wt:tre li. (106) Cf. e.g. 1.96.2 ( Deioces ), 6.132 ( Miltiades ); cp. 1.59.4 ( Peisistratus ) etc. (107) Cf. e.g. Cawkwell pp42-3; Bodin, REG 30 (1917) pp.123ff. (108) Cf. Thucyd.1.137.4 ( the text is somewhat confusing: see Gomme ); Ktesias FGH 688F13(30), with Plut.Them.16.6 (?); Aesch.Socr.Fl Krauss ( Alcibiades ), with Dittmar, Aiskhines v.Sphettos, Philol.Unters.21 (1912) pp.99ff. Cf. Gottlieb pp.108ff, for the tradition in Diod. ,Plut. ,Poly�enus and Justin. And cf. for the course of the tradition, Bodin in REG 30 (1917) pp .137ff. (109) Cf. Podlecki pp26-7, who seems to conclude that the Hdtean version is a re-interpretation of an original story ( a true one! ) which made of the mission a ruse ( of Themistocles and Aristides ) to expedite Xerxes' departure from Greeca hut the new story is for him invented by Themistocles in his letter to Artaxerxes! (llO) Thespee.eJfts usually bracketed with those of Solon, Amasis and Artabanus on divine envy and the mutability of human fortune. as though they:are all equally evidence for 1 Hdts thought�: cf. e.g. Pohlenz. (1932} * p.115; and Immerwahrp.313, with n.16. . (111) And on the view that Hdt has maliciously re-interpreted the story of a ruse to saveGreece, he must have been told even less than this. (112) Cf. von Ffitz,GGS I.278. ( ll 3) Cf. FlOrna ra pp. 62ff: 11 • • • the reflex ions of his contemporaries are the precondition of his narr.ative ... his portrait of Pausanias is in the light of that knowledge a masterpiece of irony and a harbinger of tragedy 11• See further in Ch.II.tii.J.5. Contrast Bruns pp81-2: "Pausanias ist von Hdt einseitig, aber ohne Widersprtlche dargestellt ... es ft:illt kein Schatten von ihr ( sc. his later life ) auf den Helden des grossen Tages". (113a) For an appreciation of some of the ways in which men's speeches and actions can conflict, cf. Democritus OK 68B53a, uoAAot 6pwvTES Ta aCoiLcrTa A6yous apCcrTOUS aDXEOUDLV ( cf. 863 ); and esp. 8177.o�TE Aoyos EO�AOS �aulnv upn�Lv'&μaupCcrxEL O�TE npn�LS aya�n A6you SAacr�nμCnL luμaCvETaL . Such conflicts are frequently given dramatic expression in the plays of Euripides, where characters can say the right things for the wrong reasons, or, as Democritus has it, mask foul deeds with fine words. *------- -*��.-� �*- ---- �--� ,114) Cf. J�ffery (1i7'.i,) li).124. A1Pt€1 e.,. B,r1i1"1111� plllt:7�** f<i>: tf4i@ Fl":'�i�mtinterpretation cf. e.g. Wood p.13"8, n.49: *�The ab1l1ty to view a single figure or act ambivalently is shown in°Hdts treatment of Cleomenes in VI: it has often been objected that Hdts portrayal of Cleomenes is inconsistent because of the supposed inconsistency of Cleomenes' character. But in Hdt all great men are both good and bad ... 11• Also Immerwahr e.g. p.204. -469- (115) For Demaratus 1 family as a source for Hdt, see e.g. Lewis (1977) at_ p.54, with n.30, for whom Hdt meets the exiled family on their estate in Kaikos valley. On the supposed sources for Hdts Cleomenes, see Jacoby) RE art.438.43ff and 442.28ff; Lenschau) RE XI.l (1921) s».Kleomenes 701.46ff,and Klio 31 (1938) 412-3. (116) This logical but not strictly chronological arrangement of Hdts material was a point of style which Dionysios ( DH.Ep.ad Pomp.773-4 ) found to praise above the strictly annalistic method of Thucydides. Narrative dislocation is of course quite typical of Pindar 1 s treatment of myth, and Hdt perhaps shares this literary taste for variety and surprise. (117) Cf. e.g. Immerwahr pp.1 92-3, for the structure of the Cleomenes- narrative: 0 The story of Cleomenes forms ... a particularly vivid account, - - � despite the fact that it has to be:pieced together from separate l ogoi 1' .-- - ---�---�* --�----��---**- - (118) Cf. H. Wood p.63 n.10, on the oriental narratives in this respect. (119) Cf. 3.64.3 ( Cambyses 1 fatal accident ), with 6.75.3 ( Cleomenes 1 self-mutilation ). And compare esp. the fatal wounding of Miltiades at the temple of Demeter in Paros at 6.134.2 ( like .C�mbyses, he dies from an accidental wound to the thigh ). Miltiades' career indeed, as we shall see, has clear points of contact with that of Cleomenes, an intriguing reflexion of the unity of the work. - (120) Cf. Bornitz pp.55f, on this passage. (121) Cf. 5.63.1, the Pythia had apparently been bribed by the Alcmeonids; cf. 5.90.1 and 91.2, with 6.123.2. See Ch.II.ii, on this narrative. (122) Cleomenes proceeds aμa 1 A.\JnvaCwv Tot:crL Sou>.oμlvowL d:vaL c>.cu.\JlpoLcrL ( 5.64.2 ), an expression calculated to excite our immediate. approval. Contrast the expedition to restore Peisistratus a third�time ( 1.62.1 ) by those foi:crL n TUpctVVG� npo EAcU.\JcpCn� �v acrnctO"TOTcpov ( cf. Ch.II.ii ), an obvious antithesis. ( And cf. 3.143.2, Maiandrios and the Samians, above ). Cleomenes is also assisted by a lucky chance ( syntykhie ), which might suggest that the gods were on his side. But Hdt 1s not going to say as much., The syntykhie was TOi:crL μ£v }tct}!TJ ( sc. the Peisistratids ) ... Toi:crL 6£ n auTn auTn cruμμaxo�: * Compare esp. Croesus I words to Cyrus at 1.87. 3f, tr\L crr\L μ£v cuoaLμovCnL � TflL Eμcwurnu oE }tct}tooaLμovCnL*. Hdt chooses rather to emphasize the relativity of fortune here, so that we do not concentrate too completely on the .desirability of either cause. And cf. C1T-<Li7.3. --- (1�*3) Bornitz pp.56-9, offers an unacceptably subtle explanation of this detail, when he has Isagoras force Cleomenes' hand with the threat of a prosecution for adultery ( moikheia ). For the present interpretation, cf. PhJ•t. *NM 23.-.@I. (124) An obvious reminder of the siege of the Peisistratids in the Petargic fortress at 5.64.2f. Hdt must have been alive to the ironic symmetry of these events, though he would presumably distinguishthe ironies of chance ( as the siege motif ) and the ironies of human action: the important irony is that Cleomenes behaves on two comparable occasions in contradictory ways because of the kind of person he is, and because of the vagaries of human nature itself. For Cleomenes besieged on the Acropolis, cf. Aristoph.Lysistr.274ff, with Schol. ~~--------*------ -470- (125) Hdts insistence on the secrecy of Cleomenes' intentions ( ou ~pa,wv ls; -ro a-uHt:y£L) seems confusing ( e.g. How and Wells ad 5.74.1: 11it seems impossible that the Spartans and the allies should not have known that the expedition was directed against Athens, especially as the Boeotians sieze Oenoe by a concerted plan" ). If the answer is that while it was known that the expedition was to be against Athens, it was not known that Cleomenes meant to install Isagoras as tyrant, and that it was:the discovery of this intention that started the disaffection of the allies ( so e.g. Forrest (1968) p.87; de Ste CroixOPW p.109 ), it remains that Hdt has not told it this way because he wants to emphasize Cleomenes' misuse of power in the ~ursuit of private grudges. ( Pausanias III.4, does not give anything independent of Hdt here). Hdts report indeed both closely echoes what he says of Miltiades' Parian expedition ( 6.132, see text) and raises an identical historical problem ( cf. n.74 above): in neither case can we be certain what historical inferences to dr.aw from Hdts suggestion of an abuse of power. (126) The expression puzzles the commentators ( e.g. How and Wells ad loc. ): 11Hdts tone here is unusually favourable to Cleomenesi:. (127) l~ euLa-r6Ans: : for the motif of 'accusation on instruction', cf. Cleomenes' accusation of Cleisthenes on instruction ( ex 6L6axns: ) from Isagoras at 5.70.2, and Leotychidas' accusation of Demaratus at the instigation of Cleomenes at 6.65.3 ( ex -rfis KAEoμ(vlos: upo6uμCns ). Cf. also perhaps the Spartans' accusation of Leotychidas at the instigation of the Aeginetans at 6.85.l ( xa-raSwaoμ(vous; ). This sequence of plots and counter-plots builds up a disturbing picture of the dissension between the various factions in the Greek states, which is such an important theme of Hdts Greek history: cf~ Ch.II, Parts ii and iii. (128) Except for the hint at 5.75.1, to be picked up later at 6.64 ( see below) but not here, for reasons of dramatic effect. (129) A ring with 6.51, but an amplified ring, so that the restatement of the theme quite alters our appreciation of it. (130) For phthonos as an essential characteristic of Greek polis life, Ch~II.iii.H.4. Cf. 3.80.3-4 ( phthonos in political life); 7.237.2; 8.79.1, 124.1 and 125.1; 9.71.4. (131) Cf, P. earlier, 1 La vie politique ~ Sparte sous ... Cleom~ne Ier', Ktema 2 (1977) 75-6. (132) For egkotos as a private grudge, sf. Miltiades (again) and the Parian expedition ( 6.133.1, above). Cf. also 9.110.1 ( Amestris ). (133) The Spartans have fulf~lled the required conditions ( cf. 6.50.2) by arfiving with two kings. But there are two possibly related difficulties here. On Hdts own evidence ( cf.5.75.2 ), a"law had been made only a few years before at the time tif the Eleusis expedition that the two kings should no longer go out together in command of an army ( cf. Xenoph.Hell.5.3.10 ), a law whose existence Hdt seems to forget again at 7.149.2. See How and Wells ad loc.; and earlier, Ktema 2 (1977) . 78-9, who argues ( unconvincingly that Demaratus was using the Aeginetans to get the recent law repealed. Secondly, however, did the Aeginetans really believe this technicality made any difference, or that it could be used to their advantage, and did Cleomenes really accept it? More surprising st:ill is Hdts account only a few pages later of how the Athenians used exactly the same objection against Leotychidas, when he came to reclaim the Aeginetan hostages . ( 6.86.1 ). Carlier's account of this problem ( see above ) fails to 'take any effective notice of this second use of the objecion ( merely a -471- '!reprise ironique" ); nor does the discussion in de Ste Croix ( OPW p.150) do much to allp.y suspicion. If we agree that the probable ex~lanation is that the Aeginetans' objection was in reality that Cleomenes was acting without the authority of the Spartan state, as Hdts text certainly seems at one point to imply ( 6.50.2, &vE~"xoD xoLvoa ),.this still leaves a lot unexplained. Why does Hdt explicitly say all along that what Cleomenes needed was for Leotychidas to accpmpany him to Aegina ( 6.65.1 ), and that the Aeginetans decided that the arrival of both kings meant they could no longer reasonably hold out ( 6.73.2 )? Cleomenes on this interpretation only needed to obtain the appr6val of the Spartan assembly by some means, which should not have been that difficult, given that the cause was 'Greek freedom1 ( cf.6.61.1? ). He should not have needed both to secure the deposition of Demaratus and to take his successor with him to Aegina. And even if we assume that the Aeginetans were appealing to some statutory right as members of the Peloponnesian League, the justification does not stand in the case of the Athenians, who were clearly not members ( cf. de Ste Croix ), to judge from Hdts acount, in that Leotychidas accompanies the Aeginetans to Athens ( 6.85.3 ) following a ruling by the Spartan courts which had made the king over~to them to do with as they wished ( 85.1, lx6oTõ &yEd~aL ). The advice of Theasides ( if it is historical is best understood as a formal amendment to*the court's decision, which meets with the agreement of the Aeginetans ( oμoAoyGnL 6£ lxpncravTo ToLnL6£ ). It is very hard to see how either the Athenians or Leotychidas can have thought the objection binding. The historical objectirins to Hdts narrative as it stands are thus formidable: can we infer that the internal coherence of the nar.rati,"'emasks a confusion of Hdts sources which he himself has exploited in the interests of his pattern? Compare here also T. Figueira, CPh. 76 (1981) pp.1-24, arguing against Aegina's membership of the Peloponnesian League, but also with a good appreciation of some of the problems of this Hdtean narrative ( at pp.8-14 ). (134) For the gesture of declining 'good things', profit ( agatha ), on point of principle, cf. Lycophron at 3.52.3ff, Maiandrios at 3.142.3, Cadmus at 7.164.l ( uno OLXaLocr~vñ ). And cf. H. Barth, Klio 43-5 (1965) at .31-2, on the Hdtean theme of the greed for profit: the resistance to temptation is characteristically dikaiosyne (135) The reception of visitors is a most frequent scene-type in Hdt. Cf. e.g. Solon/Croesus ( 1.30ff ); the Spartans at the court of Cyrus ( 1.153 ); Darius, the Egyptian priests and the statue of Sesostris ( 2.110 ); Helen, Paris and Menelaus at the court of Proteus ( 2.112ff ); Hecataeus and the Egyptian priests ( 2.143 ); the Eleans in Egypt ( 2.160 ); the Ichthyophagi at the court of the Aethiopian king ( 3.21f ); the Persians as guests of Amyntas ( 5.18ff ); the Athenians and Artaphrenes ( 5.73 ). These scenes often involve 1 reflexion 1 : i~ the examples cited here, the visitor. who comes full of arrogant preconceptions, is put in his place by the host and we at least are made to see the emptiness of his selfesteem; the Solon/Croesus encounter is merely an inversion of the type, with the roles of host and visitor reversed. The frequency of this scene~ type surely shows the hand of Hdt, prepared to turn his material to literary effect, perhaps on the model of the scenes in Homer ( cf.IT~ix and xxiv. Od.ii-iv and (inverted) xvi-xxiii ). Compare what Lattifflore, CPh 34 (1939) p.35, has to say of the related Warner-motif: 11The regular occurence of the wise ad~tser is illuminating to the student of Hdt as a writer; but, by reason of this very regularity, at his apearance the. historian must proceed with care 11 • Contrast von Fritz GGS I.215f .. * (136) Immerwahr at p.192 n.10, notes the similarity of the episodes and the way they contrast with the portrait of Cleomenes elsewhere, explaining: "but these two stories are outside the main logos, as it were", and referring to his comment at p.167 n.54, on the 1 inconsistencies 1 in the story of Cyrus ): ''such inconsistencies between major logoi ( but not within a logos ) are characteristic of Hdts dramatic technique". It is not made clear how this structural or 'formal' interpretation is meant to work. Certainly, as we shall see, the Aristagoras-episode is not a 'separate logos', but coheres closely with the surrounding narrative. Moreover, -472- ( as we have already observed, there are clear _cases of parado0 ( Immerwahr's ~nconsistencies 1 ) within narratives, not ~erely betwe~n them, as in the stories of .Deioces and Maiandrios, to name but*two of our examples~* (137) Cf. 6.52.2ff, the twins of Aristodemos.and the problems .of the Spartan dual kingship; 6.61.lff, the pate~nity and right to the kingship of Oemaratas; 7. 3. 3, Demaratus supports Xerxes' qa im to succeed Darius by reference to a Spartan nomos ( of doubtful authenticity! ); 7.205.1, the coincidence which brings Leonidas to the kiryg~hip. (138) On Cleomenes 1madness1 , see below; with 6.75.1. (139) Cleomenes seems to have ruled for some 25-30 years; he was already king when Maiandrios came to Sparta c.515BC,and possibly as early as 519BC ( cf. Thucyd.3.68.5, with Gomme II.358, though the date ought perhaps to be 509BC; cf. Hdt 6.108.2 ); and he was apparently still on the throne around the time of Marathon ( cf. Hdt 6.73 ). When exactly he died we have no way of knowing. Cf. Lenschau RE XI.I (1921) 695.65ff, who argues on the evidence of Plut.Apothegm.Lac.Cleom.7 ( Mor.2230 ) that Cleomenes is already king in 525BC; and cf. id. Klio 31 (1938) pp.412ff. (140) Cf. Beloch, I. 2, p.174; and e.g. 0. Murray (]980} p.249: * 11Spartan oral tradition sought to minimize his importance, claiming that he was 'somewhat .mad' and I did notTule for*very long 111 • (141) We should not underestimate the difficulties of comparative chronology for Hdts Greek history: see esp. W. den Boer, rHdt u.die Systeme der Chronologie', Mnemosyne ser.4.20 (1967) pp.30ff, emphasizing rightly the considerable limitations of Hdts resources for accurate calculation. Even the reign lengths of the eastern kings, despite theiri*authoritative appearance, may well rest on a borrowed and artificial Greek scheme: cf. R. Drews, 'The Fall of Astyages and Hdts Chronology', Historia 18 (1969) pp .1-11. ( 142) Cf. Stein ad 1 oc.: 1'.er war aber al s Sohn zwei ter Ehe zi eml i eh jung zur Herrschaft gekommen und starb vorzeiti g ei nes gewaltsamen Todes, sodass noch sein zweiter Bruder Leonidas im besten Mannesalter fol gen konnteu. That this was indeed the way Hdt thought is confirmed by his mention of the circumstances of Leonidas' succession at 7.205,1, which clearly implies a knowledge of the present passage, echqing its words explicitly: \X1{0%uyo\lTO(; 68 Kt.EOμ£\lfl0(; aTI:aL6os; EPO'E\lO(; yovou, LiwpL£0(; TE 0\))(tTl, £0\lTO(; aAAU TEAEUTnO'a\lTO(; £\l LLMEt.CnL. (143) Even if Hdt did know the length of Cleomenes' reign to have b~en 25 or even 30 years, .he is still on his own terms almost justified in describing it as relatively short, since he is familiar with kings who reigned much longer than this: e.g. Ardys at 1.16.1 ( 49 yrs ), Alyattes at 1.25.l ( 57 yrs. ), Deioces at 1.102.1 ( 53 yrs. ), Cheops at 2.127.1 ( 50 yrs. ), Chephren at 2.127.3 ( 56 yrs. ). (144) Cf~ the remarks of Stein ad 5.33, line 9, on this use of tis. (145) Hdt quite often balances the length of a king's reign against what he has done in his life: e.g. Gyges at 1~14.4, who ddspite reigning for 38 years ( basile~santos, concessive) achieved nothing beyond the capture of Co 1 ophon . { &.x.~' ouoEv ya.p μeyu <h' mhoD a>.Ao Epyov hevETo ) ; or Amasis at 3.10.2, who despite his 44 years of rule managed to come to no harm, ( £\) TOtO'l, OUO£\l OL μey~ &vapO'l,O\l TI:pnyμa cruvnvECx*nl, ), in contrast to his successor, Psammenitos ( at 3.14.1 ), who reigned for only -4736 months before falling to Cambyses; or Darius at 7.4, who reigned for 36 years but died before he could complete hi~ two latest projects ( ou6t ot ctEyEVETO ÕTE TÕS &nECTTEffiTas 'ALyURTCovs ÕTE 'AenvaCous TLμwpncracr6aL contrast Aesch.Pers. 554f, 652f, 709f, '7.?0J, for a different perspective on Darius' career ); and cf. Kypselos at 5.92z.l, ap~avTos 6t TOUTO'\.l ht TPLnXOVTa ~TEa XaL 6LaxAssaVTOS TOV Blov E~ ... Hdt invites-us to consider the appropriateness of the fates of these men: do they get what they deserve, are they fortunate .beyond their deserts, beyond what is reasonable for men in their positions? Compare esp. the way Solon at l.32.2ff balances the length of a man's 1 ife ( carefully computed in days, not merely years or even months ) against his chances of happiness ( cf. Artabanus and Xerxes at 7.46.2ff ). (146) Cf. de Ste Croix, OPW p.140, on Cleomenes: !!There is scarcely an event of any importance in his reign ( sc. in foreign affairs? ). apart from the proposal to restore Hippias ... 11 • By comparison with Hdts ~naccuracy' a statement like this, even taken in its context, ,fs a downright falsification! (147} Cf. H. Bischoff, Der Warner bei Hdt, Diss.Marburg 1932. For a discussion of this speech, cf. L. Solmsen)I\ 'Reden beim ionischen Aufstand', in Hdt WdF pp.633-7 ( 11ein Beispiel van Uberredungskunst'' ); Heni, (1976) p.123. (148) There are certain obvious points of contact between this speech and the 'temptation-speeches' of Maiandrios and Xerxes at the start of Book Seven, urging the invasion of Greece. Cf. 7.5.3, nE~LxaAAns xwpn ,t(!tG 6{v6pEa l[aVTOLa (()EPEL TO. f)μp1pa.'.&pETnV TE axpn, and 7.8a.2,. * ?('.WPTJV .... TTlS v\Jv £XTnμE6a oux cA&crcrova ou6e:: (()AaUpOT£pnv 1taμq>OPWT£pnv 6£, with Aristagoras on the wealth of Asia at 5.49.4, ~crTL 6e:: xat &yae& . TOLGL TnV ~RELpOV E:XECVnV Eμoμ£VOLGL 5cra ouSt TO&GL GUV&RaGL aAAOLGL. Ccimpare Xerxes on the conquest of Europe at 7.8g.l, ynv Tnv IlEpcrC6a &noolsoμEv 1w1, _t.~~, at'.,,OjfpL oμoupsoucra.v, with Ari stagoras on the capture of Susa at 5.49.7, lA6VTES 6e:: TaUTTJV Tnv u6ALV 6a.pGEOVTES ff6n TWL 6LL uAOUTOU nlpL fpCsETE, For Aristagoras on the weakness of the Persians, compare Mardonios at 7.9a.lff, ••• TWV £RLGT&μE6a μev TnV μ&XTJV, £RLGT&μe6a OS TnV OUVaμLV £0UGaV acr6EV£CI., (149) See the views cited by L. Solmsen, art.cit.p.635. Macan ( following Grote ) sees this detail as an 'anachronism' which tells against the historicity of the interview; however the Spartans themselves never meant to march into central Asia in Hdts lifetime, nor did even the Delian League at its most ambitious ever tjuite dream of marching on Susa and claiming Darius' empire, so that Aristagoras' proposition can hardly be an 1 anachronism1 in that sense. The phantasy i~ surely Hdts rather than his sources: the idea makes sense in terms of his work, with its scheme of threat and counter'-threat between Asia and Europe ( cf. also the highly questionable story of the Scythian embassy inviting Sparta's support for a war against Darius, at 6.84.lff ), but is not a credible invention_of anyone who does not share this unusual historical perspective. (150) Cf. 5.49.9, &vaB&UoμaC TOL £S TplTnv nμtpnv &noxpLveeoS-aL ; cp. the deceitful stalling of Glaucus at 6.86b.2, &vaB&UoμaL xupwouv ls TsTapTov μnva., and the deiay of the Spartan ephors at 9.8.1 ( cf. Ch.II.iii.I.l ): £s nμspns :£S nμspnv &va.Ba.U6μEVPL, It would seem that Cleomenes' hesitation also betokens a preparedness to do the wrong thing. ( 151) Cf. Stein: uverzweifelt er an der Zustimmung des Vol kes". (152) This cannot have been the historical reason for Cleomenes1 refusal. There was in reality no question of the Spartans going any further than Ionia ( or at most Sardis ): the march to Susa is a phantasy ( cf. n.149 ). -474- (153) Cf. 1.66.1, the result of the Lycurgan reforms &~,xpa ~auxCnv &y&Lv ), with Xerxes at 7.11.2 etc. below. ( ' 6' • , Het L n 0 (jH, OU l!ET L See Ch.II.i.A.2, (154) Cf. the contrast hetween Athenian polypragmosyne and Sparta's constitutional lethargy made by speakers in Thucydides: e.g 1.70.lff, with 84.1 ff. (155) Whose money are we meant to suppose this is, Aristagoras' own or money given him by the Ionians to negotiate in this way? Compare the 30 talents which the Euboeans pay to Themistocles to get the allies to fight at Artemisium ( 8.4.2f, with Ch.II.iii.G ).The figure of 50 talents is fantastically large here surely a further indication that the story is a fiction. (156) 1:And got no opportunity to tell anything more of the journey to Susa", adds Hdt, as he prepares for the excursus which immediately follows. Cp. Fehlingpp~34f, who overestimates the na1vet~ of such linking devices. Before speaking condescendingly of Hdts practice here, we should compare the way Thucydides introduces the Sikelika at the start of Book Six ( 6.1.lff ): 11The Athenians had the notion of trying to conquer Sicily, &rceopoL OL TCOAAOL OVTE:~ TOU μq{eou~ 't:i'j~ vnaou J{ULTTW\) E:VOL){QU\)'[(l)\) TOU rc>..n.esos J{(ll,. 'EHnvwv J{(:tl, SapSapwv II Thucydides assumes ( for the purposes of his exposition) that the reader shares the ignorance of the Athenians, and with this introducti:on launches into his account: LLH&>..Cns yap rcspCrc>..ous μlv e~TL ••• The technical similarity with Hdt is most striking. And cf. C. Schneider, Information und Absicht bet Thukydides, Hypomnemata 41 (1974), esp. pp.53ff. (157) For Cleomenes' answer as the voice of a Spartan, cf. Immerwahr, p.204. (158) This is not however solely a peculiarity of Cleomenes, but rather a general rule about men of power; cf. esp~ Miltiades, above. The parallels in the careers of these two men confirm the impression that Cleomenes is portrayed more as an exemplar of the corruption of power than as an eccentric madman ( see below). (159) For political theory in Hdt, see Ch~pter Three, section H. As implied in this discussion, the work can be said to offer a dialectical treatment of the nature of political institutions, with the constitutiondebate as its focus. (160) In di~~lacing.th~ narrative Hdt has made no effort of any.kind to suggest how it fits with the rest of his Greek history in chronological terms. We can conclude that Hdt is interested in other things and does not feel the importance of historical sequence quite as much as historians would like him to do: he prefers to arta'nge his material impressionistically. For a recent discussion of the date of the battle of Sepeia, cf. F. Kiechle, Philol.104 {1960) pp.181ff. (161) When Cleomenes discovers that he has been misled ( 6.80) he groans al6ud ( &vaa-rsvatas μ,ya ) as a man recogniiing the workings of ate. Cf. Croesus' recognition of the truth of Salon's advice at 1.86.r, &vev~LHaμ&vov T& Mat. &vaaT&Vãas ; and Hippias at Marathon ( 6.107.4: &vaaT&vãas ). The scene closely resembles the anagnorisis of Cambyses at 3.64.lff: compare esp. the inquiry as to the name of the place at 3 64 3 . " " ~ *. *. * "**"' * ** "' .*** -• ?/.,,.. ' J::.' 7 " 'A B' .,., • • ' &Lp&TO ••• OTL t*f~ 'ftQ{\l, }~v,\!OH:Cl\~f"'I ••• OL v& &LTCCtV OTL y a't:a:va!> with 6.80, hsCps1:o ••• TCvos; eCn .eswv 1:0 &>..aos ••• 6 6E: ~cpn 'Jl.pyou~: slvaL. Cleomenes' complaint that Apollo has deceived him ( n μ&ya>..ws μ& nrcaTT]Has ) recalls those of Croesus ( 1.87.3f, 90.2, hepprn.\JaL &l E:~arcaTfiV 't:OUS &0 TCOL&UVTCtS voμos E:OTL OL ; cf. 90.4 ). -475- (162) When he gets to Thyres as a result of this diversion, he sacrifices a bull to the sea before proceeding ( 6.7 6.2 ): for Cleomenes' 'pious observances', see below. (163) Cf. e.g. )mmerwahr's index under; 0'river-motif 1 ; and e.g. H. Wood pp.2 7f: 11 for Hdt rivers are not only physical boundaries, but also limits of spheres of authority 0'. For example, the Halys dominates the First Book as a geographical, political, military, historical, 'moral I boundary: 1.6.1.-28, 72.2 f, 75.3, 10 3.2, 130.1 ( cf. 5 .52.2, 102.l; 7.2 6.3 ), so that the story of Croesus' diversion of the river to allow t�e army to __ cross (1.75.4f. even thoughHdt affects disbelief ) has a very ominous Siflllific/ll!Ree.-74Ad cf. e.j. Cyru-sr h�iAt o�f-fh!i rlv•r-:-t,Riii�t-* ---*-- ----*-�1. l •• 1 f. )ter�s 1 � li l'iltl of tin. �1 l_�Sfll@Rt Wil:S r�&lrtHil H i!lfl act of the highest folly and irreverence throughout antiquity. But contr�st K.H. Waters (1971) p.96: tXerxes committed no wrong in actually crossing the Hellespont a feat which obviously aroused Hdts admiration 11 ('.);but see, of course, Aesch.Pers.744ff and 864ff; Darius did not cross theHalys, i.e. did not overreach himself and bring about the disaster that fell� ltw'1'«.s 1 trtt1si•t 1tf t� l:4eHe�. lDlt llft � �UQM h:v:e t"e � 1,� �'tfliN:� itt Jlft, if • tJlu ..-. lii-si,1 ...-t? (164) See also Miltiades'. entry into the temple of Demeter at Paras ( 6.134.2 ), where Hdt affects ignorance as to his motije ( EfTE xLv�crovTd TL TWV OXLVnTwV EtTE o TL on XOTE upn,ovTa ). Once again, the Miltiades narrative coincides with that of Cleomenes. Cleomenes 1 trial after the Argive expedition ( 6.82 .lf) is similar again to the trial which follows Miltiades' Paras expedition ( 6.136.lff, above). (165) Cf. Bornitz p.222 11Auch dart, wo Hdt zwischen divergierenden Beri eh ten scheinbar res i gni erend die Entschei dung dem Leser uberHlsst, ist es bei genauer Analyse des Zusammenhangs u,nd der Darstellungstechnik m6glich, Hdts eigenes intendiertes Urteil zu erkennen, das es zwar andeutet aber dem Leser auf Grund der nicht eindeutigenQvellenlage.-ni{;ht aufzuzwi:ngen sucht". My interpretation of this curious practice �akes Hdt out to * be less interested in objective historical truth than Bornitz implies: the tension between the objectivity of his disavowal and the decisiveness of the narrative is designed to create a sense of unease in the reader, who will automatically feel he can infer the right answer from the narrative but at the same time wonder if he has missed some psychological subtlety discovered by Hdt. (166) Historians are not always content to leave Hdts narrative as they find it. For example. the episode at Erasinos, though it explains itself naturally for Hdt in terms of Cleomenes' character, is re-interpreted as a piece of military strategy 1 to trick or circumvent the Argive defence: cf. e.g. Lenschau RE XI.I {192 1) 69 6.20 ff. This is unlikely if we remember the importance in.Spartan military expeditions of the ritual of the diaQateria: cf. Pritchett III.68ff, with bibliography. The historical �eality of the Argive expedition and especially the reasons for and -�,c ircums ta nces of Cl eomene_s I withdrawal , may we 11 have been very different� although it is unlikely we can extract much of reliable truth from our other sources: Plut.de mul.virtut. 4.2 45CF ( citing Socrates' Argolika ), Paus.II.20 .8f. Polyaen. Strateg.8.33; with e.g. Busolt,S: J,I.53§ff� If it were true that Cleomenes ( with Demaratus! ) actually entered Argos, as reported by Plutarch (=Socrates ), then Hdts account of Cleomenes' trial cannot be historical, as it assumes no attempt was ever made on the city. {167) Cf. Bruns p.80: "es ist kein fweifel, dass Hdt sowohl den Kleomenes wie den Kambyses geschildert hat, ohne mit sich llber die wichtige Frage ins Reine gekommen zu sein, ob sie von Haus aus als -476krank oder gesund anzusehen seien 11 • Compare Bruns pp.82-4, on Miltiades> and pp.85-90, on Themistocles ( cf. nn. 71 and 90, above). ( 168) Cf. 3. 29. 1 and 30. 1 , for a similar attack of madness in Cambyses. (169) For Hclts use of speeches and their relation to the action, cf. Deffner (1933); Hohti (1976); and Heni (1977). (170) Cf. Schneider (1974) for the demonstration that in principle Th,ucydides1 ascription of motive depends on his own imaginative reconstruction and not on the report of his source(s); Schneider, in my view, actually concedes too much when he allows that there may be exceptions to this rule. At any rate. what appears to be a principle in Thucydides is clearly likely to be a principle in Hdt as well. (171) Cf. e.g. Fornara pp.92-3: 11Hdt is not as simple as he is made to appear. He was capable of irony a.rid aimed at dramatic effect. Above all, he knew full well the Tendenz he is supposed merely to reflect ... Hdt is responsible for the obJect,onable contradictions; it is we who make Hdt simple111 also Strasburger (1965) p.581: 11die archaische scheinbare NaivetSt nicht tauschen darf 11 , and p.582: 11sicher ist dies gerade ein Hauptvergntlgen des Slteren griechischen Publikums: die eigene Intelligenz als H6rer oder Leser z~ geniessen 11 • (172) For the dubitatio ,~£.-t,e .• , £C1s, etc.: cf. Schmid-SUlhlin I.2.630 n.5; e.g. 1.19.2; 2.181. 1; 3.33; 4.147.4~, 164.4; 6.134.2; 8.54, 87 .3, 116.2; 9.5.2, 18.2; and cf. e.g. Hom.Il.9.537. -477Endnote: It remains to'.mention here the dissertation of Th. Spath, 1 Das Motiv der doppelten Beleuchtung1 , Diss.Wien (1968), which came to my notice too late for me to take proper account of it. Spath's thesis, which differs little from e.g. the position of Immerwahr ( cf. n16~ above), is essentially that Hdt makes a poirit of allowing contradictions in the stories of individuals and states to stand without correction. In this, he argues, Hdt is particularly concerned to observe his own 'principle' ( cf. 2.123.1 and 7.152.3, but contrast n.4, above ) of 1 reporting what was said to him' ( legein ta legomena ). that is accepting the contradictions of the oral traaitions at his aisposal without attempting in any way to reconcile them. This procedure constitutEs a. 1motif of double illumination•, whtch guarantees that every character will in some way be seen in two different lights. Spath goes on to illustrate this by a rapid review of most of the main characters in the work ( including the main Greek stat~s ). in which he lists, without any detailed commentary, the passages which reflect well on them and those which do not. When he comes to Themistocles, to Cleisthenes and the Alcmeonids. and to the city of Athens. he argues at greater length that the principle is here suspended] and that Hdt was influenced by Pericles and the Alcmeonids into taking a hostile view of Themistocles and a favourable view of the Athenian democracy and the Alcmeonid house ( but contrast Ch~I.i, above, for Themistocles. and for the rest cf. Ch.II.ii ). The chief weakness of this study is that is nowhere discusses contexts in any detail9 and hence offers no explanation of how Hdt actually wants his effects to work. This means that while the range of examples covered is quite considerable, it is hard to feel that the thesis is anywhere satisfactorily proved? rather than merely stated. My main disagreement, however. is not so much over method. as in interpretation: for me the reason for these Hdtean paradoxes is that he is concerned to show us certain truths about human nature and the ways in which we form our judgements of it. I have in addition numerous points of detailed disagreement with Spath 1 s treat~ent, which however it would be unprofitable to rehearse here. Cf. the hostile reviews by G. Lachenaud, REG 82 (1969) pp.646-8, N.G.L. Hammond, CR 85 (1971) pp.126-7, and H.C. Avery, AJP 92 (1971) pp.357-8; but contrast W.den. Boer, Mnemosyne 26 (1973) pp.65-6. -478'Chapter Two, Introduction and Parts i.A and B: .NOTES. (1) For the problem, cf. Jacoby, RE art.337.42ff; Powell p.10; contra e.g. Focke pp.9f and Hellmann pp.23f. The significance of eleutheria in this passage and the importance of the passage as a whole in defining the limits of the work do not seem to have been appreciated. The explanation of this problem by B. Shimron, Eranos 71 (1973) pp.45ff, that Hdt is distinguishing Croesus of whom he has secure historical knowledge from his predecessors of ~horn he has not, seems to me preposterous. Shimron, of course, fails to observe that the formula pr6tos t6n h~meis idmen which he takes to be proof of this imterpretation, is of a kind with the exp res Si ons xaU t.,Q'TO s.;/μt:yt.,CiTO 1.Jn:Ac:'Ccr,os/&p,r;cr,os; /μoUvo s; TW\l nμds; C6μEv/m'.nos.; oL6a ( cf. Powell s.v. oL6ct (1): e.g. 1.142.1; 2.68.2; 3.60.4; 4.46.2; 5.49.5; 6.21.1; 7.20.2; 8.105.1; 9.31.2, etc. ). It is clear that this type of expression is merely a rhetorical trope: 11let me tell you, this was the first/best/only/biggest, etc. 11 , and in most, if not all cases, Herodotus would clearly be hard pressed to explain how he could lay claim to such certainty! (2) Would Hdt like us to remember how this sequence could be extended beyond the end of the work, to the time when Ionia.' was 1 enslaved 1 by the Athenians? Cf. e.g. Thucyd.1.98.4 ( on Naxos ), npw,n TE ãTn m5;\t.,<; Kapa TO XctktE0Tnxos s6ouAwktn. See below on the importance of 1 contemporary perspective'. (3) Cf. 2.1.2 ( Cambyses ), »rwvas μ€v xat AloAt:as ws 6ouAous na,pw(ous £6vTã Ev0l.!L7;:E. (4) In this Hdt agrees with the author of Airs, Waters, Places, e.g. 16.3ff, 23.19ff and 30ff, 24.19ff; and esp. 23.40f, õTw<; ol v6μoL ÕX ~MLOTa T~V E0~ux(nv SpyatOVTctL. ( 5) Cf. Bornitz pp. 116 and 126; and for Hdts nomadic Scyths as an exercise in ethnographic imagination, cf. F. Hartog, Annales (ESC) 34 (1979) 1137-54. (6) Cf. e.g. Bornitz p.191; also e.g. Pohlenz (1937) pp.78ff. (7) There bas been remarkably little attention paid to such an obviously central theme of the work. K. von Fritz, Die gr.Eleuthe.ria bei Hdt, WS 78(1965) pp.5ff, is cohcerned almost~extlusively with the Gree~ side, and the Persian Wars in particular ( cf. Ch.II.iii.A.2 )~ There is more in his Gr. Geschichtsschreibung, though \>Jhile he reco.gnizes the thematic importance of freedom throughout the work, he is consfrainea* by his theory of the work1 s genesis to minimize its coherence and unity as a theme; e.g. GGS I.290 ( on the stories of Media and Persia in Book One ): 11Der Komplex van Geschichten ... itt also inhaltlich dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass er unaufhtlrlich um das Problem van eleutheria und Despotismus ... kreist, formal aber dadurch, dass die Resultate von Erkundungen, die Hdt verschiedenen Ortes angestellt hat, und.die Resultate seines eigenen Nachdenkens ~ber die Dinge nebeneinanderst~~n und gelegentlich miteinander in Konflikt geraten sowie dadurch, dass, w6 dies der Fall ist, der Denkprozess nicht imme'r ganz bis zu seinem Ende durchgefl.lhrt ist, sondern Unstimmigkeiten bleiben 11• As we shall see, there is very little reason for such criticism of the coherence of Hdts exposition. Besides von Fritz there is little to choose: few commentators ignore the question altogether, and yet there is almost no detailed discussion of contexts in any of them. Cf. e.g Pohlenz (1937) pp.9-21, and (1966); D. Nestle, 1 Eleutheria.Stud.zum Wesen -419der Freiheit bei den Griechen u. im Neuen Testament•, Teil I (1967) at pp.47ff; 0. Gigon, 1 Der Begriff der Freiheit in der Antike 1 , Gymnas.80 (1973) pp.8-56. And e.g. Fornara p.78: "There was a constant struggle between men fighting to be free and others to enslave, with a constant shifting of role. Cyrus won freedom for the Persians and proceeded to impose slavery on others. It is no understatement to say that for Hdt this was an immutable law of history 11• And also Strasburger (1965) at pp.578ff. (8) For the propaganda of freedom in Thucydides, cf. H. Diller, Gymnas. 69 (1962) pp.189ff = Herter (1968) pp.639-60. (9) Cf. Strasburger (1965) p.600 ( in relation to the Socles-scene ): "Die Jahre vor 431 sind in Griechenland von einem Meinungsstreit erfUllt, der die Antithese katadoulosis/eleutheria zur Grundlage hat. Auch Hdt beteiligt sich an der Diskussion 11• And cf. Fornara pp.89-90: IIHdt could have learned from a study of his material that Persia made a constant advance spanning the lives of several rulers ... The idea, however, that this process was inevitable because of the nature of things~ that Persia had to ~dvance for reasons transcending specific causes that could not be learned from the study of the facts. It can only have been projected back into the pattern as a 'truth' learned from the present 11 • On the view to be advanced here Persian growth does not depend on 1 reasons transcending specific causes•, but rather, like the growth of the Athenian empire in Thucydides1 analysis, on the drive towards leonexia in human nature. (10) The comparison between the Athenian empire and Persia was commonly made in Hdts lifetime to judge from Thucydides, cf. e.g. Thucyd.1.69.5 and 77.5 ( ~K~ yoav TOO M~6ou 6ELV6TEpa TOdTwV xclaxovTES ~vECxovTo, ~ 6~ ~μET{pa &px~ XDAEK~ 66MEL ElVaL, ElM6Tws* T~ xap~v y&p alEt $apu Tots vxnM60LS ) with 6.76.4. Cf.II.iii.K. (lOa) Cf. Kienzle p.85, for eleutheria in the praise of cities in Greek poetry. (11) Cf. e.g. Strasburger (1965) p.587: "Mit der eleutheria ( sowohl eines Gemeinwesens wie eines I~dividuums) ist fUr Hdt ein uneingeschrMnkt hoher Wert bezeichnet 11 ; and Fornara, p.80: 11And Hdt is as devoted as anyone in the history of letters to the ideal of freedom". (12) Cf. on the problems of justice and self-interest in popalar Greek thinking, Dover, GPM pp.309-10, and 81-2. (13) Cf. Democr.DK II.206.18 (?). Note that Darius follows Atossa's advice in part: the Scythian expedition is undertaken when the empire is at its prime ( 4.1.1 ), &vaedans y~p Tfis 'AaCns &v6pclaL xat XPnUclTwv μ~yaAWV OUVLOVTWV EKE6dμnoE o ~apELOS TELOao6aL Ixd6as. (14) Cf. e.g. Bornitz p.67: 11Sobald eine gewisse Ordnung, eine Wohlstand, eine gewisse MachtfHlle erreicht ist, tritt das Uberhebliche, ungezBgelte Verlangen auf, diese Macht Uber den begrenzten eigene Bereich hinaus aufzudehnen11 • (14a) For a similar view of the relative importance in Hdt of divine and natural causation, cf. Huber {1965), passim. G. Nenci, Assoc.G. Bude. Actes l.Xe Congr~s ( Paris 1975') pp.133-46: 11il comprend tres bien la logique du developpement qui change les 'structures' de la soci~te, mais en penseur , delphique il veut demontrer que cette logique ne se passe pas de la volonte de l'homme11 ; I do not, of course, follow the second half of this formulation. -480- (14b) Cf. P. Hohti, Arctos 9 (1975) 31-7, for these expressions. (15) That this observation need not be tied to a metaphysical scheme can be seen from the parallels in Pl.Polit.302A and Legg.676BC. And cf. de Romilly (1977), who rightly stresses the appreciation of underlying causes in this recurrent idea: "they had no idea of a genera 1 ru 1 e or rhythm thã would have commanded the rise and fall of states. whatever their conditions or policy 11 ; and on this passage, cf. pp.11-12. (16) Cf. de Romilly (1977) pp.42-6, who also minimizes the importance of religious hybris as an explanation: 11Hdt, although he occasionally puts forth general notions about religious hybris, shows a clear tendency to adopt more rationalistic explanations, an attitude by which he is volens nolens paving the way for Thucydides and for a totally political hybris 11• (17) For 1over-determination 1 , cf. Dodds (1951) pp.30f. (18) The nearest ancient word, and one that perhaps has its or1g1ns in the sophistic period, is hypothesis, a late 5thc usage to., judge from Hippocr.Vet.Me~L., passim, but otherwise not before Plato .. Cf. e.g. G.E.R. Lloyd, Phronesis 8 (1963) pp.108ff, and at p.126: 11VM ... indicates that already in the preiod before Plato ( in all probability) medical theorists were familiar with the concept of a postulate, i.e. something which has itself. not been proved, but which is assumed as a basis for theories and explanations, and had discussed the legitimacy of making use of such assumptions in different fields of inquiry 11 • That such a striking terminological innovation should have survived only in this one text ( if indeed it is pre-Platonic: cf. Ch.III, n.87 ), should remind us of how little we know the language of the sophistic movement. (19) Hunter (1982), summiAg up thg respective methods of reconstructing the distant past of Hdt and Thucydides, concludes that there is a fundamental difference ( p.107 ): "Both emp.loy generalizations and argue in such a way as to produce a synthesis. Thucydides alone begins with a theoretical and highly speculative.construct and consciously applies it to the early history of Greece11 • That Hunter can overlook the possibility that this too is something Thucydides shares with Hdt, is explained by her having confined her analysis of Hdt to Book Two ( cf .. pp.50-92 ), where our model at least tsabsent. But is even Book Two without the use of theoretical constructs: does not Hdts account of the priority of Egyptian culture and the debt of the rest of the world to Egypt itself depend on a model, a preconceived construct which Hdt artificially forces on the evidence? ( cf. Ch . I I I. B ) . (20) The reference of this sentence is disputed ( see Gomme, HCT ad loc. ): the autois may refer to the Atheni alone ( so Classen-Steup ) or to __ both them and-the Spartans. the latter alternativeissurely -the more--likely: Thucydides is stressing that both powers had at the same time reached such a condition of strength, each in its own way, that confrontation was inevitable. (21) For discussion of the thought of the Archaeology, cf. J. de Romilly, ASNP 25 (1966) 144ff; von Fritz, GGS I.557ff; and contrast W. den Boer (1977) pp.2lff ( a bizarre piece of negative argument to show that there is -481no conception of 'progress' in the account). And see now the analYSis of Hunter (1982) pp.17-49. (22) Cf. Thucyd.8.24.3ff, on Chios as an exception to rule of stability leading to aggressive expañion: XtoL yap μ6voL μETa AaKE6aLμovCwv ~ ' ' ' , ' , , ff ' ' , ' ., wv syw nLcr3oμnv nu6aLμovncrav TE aμa KaL scrw,povncrav, KaL ocrwL Coou n n6ALS aUTOLs; snt TO μstsov, TOGWL 6£ Kat SKOGμOUVTO £XUPWTEpO\J, (23) Contrast e,g. 1.15.2, KUTCI. ynv 6e: noAt:μous;, 53£\J ns KUL 6uvaμLS TiapsySVETO, ou6sts; ~uvscr.n' TiaVTES 6£ ncrav OOOL Kat syt:VOVTO, Tipos; 6μopous TÕS a,ETEpous; lKaGTOLS, KUL SK6nμous; GTPUTECas; noÃ &no TTlS taUTW\J ii' &AAW\J KUTUGTpo,nL OUK s~nLcrav ot .EAAn\JES, OU yap ~U\JELGTnKscrav npos Tas; μeyCcrTas; TIOAELS unnKOOL But these conditions no longer obtained after the Persian Wars, when alliances had been built up on either side to such a scale that major 'international' confrontation became inevitable: cf. l.18.2ff. (24) We can imagine tbat Hdts models of Persian and Athenian expansion in this more distant past are influenced by the experience of the growth of Athenian power after the Persian Wars as threateni~g confrontation with Sparta. Cf. Ch.II.i.8.3. (25) Cf. besides the examples cited here: 1.163.3 ( Arganthonios 1 perception of the growth of Persia ), 6 6s nuv3avoμsvos; TOV Mr\6ov nap' auTwv ( SC. the Phocaeans) ~s; ãtoLTO, s6C6ou a,L xpnμa.a TECxos nEpLSaAEG6aL Tnv TIOALV; 5.66.1 and 78, with 91.1 ( Athenian growth after the advent of democracy; cf. Ch.II.ii.C ); 7.156.3 ( the growth of Gelon's Sicilian empire ). And cf. Strasburger (1965) p.587, n.36. (26) Polycrates is encouraged by the evidence of his own prosperity to build himself a small empire. He has much in common here with Thucydides' Minos, whom in Hdt he replaces as the first known thalassocrat ( cf. 3 .122. 2 ) , TriS OS &v6pwnnCns; Aeyoμevns; y£VEr\5; IloXU-KJHl"Hlf; npiDTOs;, SAnC6as; noUas; £";<.WV 'IwvCns; TE Kat vnawv ap~uv; cf. 3.39.4, cruxvas; μe:v 6n TWV vriawv apaLpnKEE, _ no Ha 6£ KUL TriS: rncdpou CiGTE:a. _ In the same way Minos uses -nfs fleel to establish anisfand empire ( -cf. Thucyd.1.4, ,Ka[ TW\J KUK;\dowvvncrwv np~s ) of tribute-paying dependants ( and cf. Thucyd.1.15.l ). Polycrates indeed brings together in Hdt a number of the main stages of development instanced in the Archaeology: thalassocracy ( Thucyd.1.13.2ff, etc. ), tyranny ( 1.13.l ), imperialism { 1.15.l ), international a 11 i ances ( with Amas is and Cambyses; cf. Thucyd. l . 18. 2 ) . (27) For a discussion of Hdts 'pregnant' use of the word epairo, cf. H.C Avery, Hermes 107 (1979) pp.lff. (28) For the analogy, cf. de Romilly (1977) p.19; with Thucyd.1.82.6, 124.1, 144.3; 2.64.6; 3.10.1, 82.2. (29) Cyrus seems here to have forgotten the lesson he learnt when he saved Croesus from the pyre at 1.86.6, cvvwcravTa 5TL KaL auTos; av3pwnos zwv aAAOV &v6pwnov, YEVOμevov EWUTOU EU6aLμovCnL OUK SAacraw, sffivra nupt oLooCn ( cf. Ch.I.i.3, above ). This is perhaps a lesson that a man in his position cannot long remember as long as his good fortune remains unchanged. (30) For the expression oL' ~cruxCns slvaL, cf. 1.66.1, of the Spartans after Lycurgus: KUL 611 a,L OUKETL &nexpa ncruxCnv ayELV ( with the discussion below; and cf. 1.102.1 ); and 7.11.2, Xerxes on the supposed -482threat of Athens to Persia: ei &nLoTdμEvos ~TL El hμEts hcruxCnv &EoμEv, &ll' ouH EHEtvoL ( with Ch.II.iii.D, below; and cf. 7.8a.1 ). Compare the expression ouH aTpEμC~ELv: 1.185.1, Nitocris on Median expansion: &pxnv μqalnv n: HllL OUH &TpEμC~oucrav; and contrast Artabanus at 7.18.3: yvwμnv EGxov &TpEμL~OVTU OE μaHapLOTOV EGVaL npos ~dVTWV &v6pwnwv. There is an obvious parallel with Athenian polypragmosyne in Thucydides: "There is no cure for it 11 , says the Athenian speaker, Euphemos at 6.87.3. And see the strictures of Pericles and Alcibiades on apragmosyne at 2.63.2 and 3, 64.4, with 6.18.6 and 7. The Corinthian speaker at Sparta concludes his assessment of the Athenian character with the judgement ( 1.70.9 ): WOTE EL TLS aUTOUS EUVEAWV ~aCn TIE~UHSVaL ETIL TWL μnTE llUTOUS EXELV houxCav μnTE TOUS &llous &v6pwnous &av, 6p6ws Nv ELTIOL. As Pericles observes, the Athenians have burdened themselves with the necessity of ceaseless activity and the taking of ever more risks ( 2.63.3 ): ou6s EV apxõcrnL n6AEL Euμ~{pEL, &ll' &v 6nnH6WL, &cr~alws 6oUAE~ELV, In other words, their inability to 1 kee~ quiet• is a direct function of their empire: if they want a different life, they must content themselves with being 1 slaves 1 • Again Hdts perception of the workings of eastern emp,re bear-s-such a close reTafiori to fhucydides• analysls or.the Athenian empire that it looks as though he has built his interpretation on contemporary experience ( and possibly sophistic analysis of empire? ), although imitation of Hdt by Thucydides cannot logically be ruled out. (31) Compare here what Hdt says of Miltiades after Marathon1 ( 6.132 ), μETa 6s &v Mapa6wVL Tpwμa yEv6μEVOV MLATLa6ns, HaL np6TEPOV EU60MLμEWV napa 'A6nvaCoLcrL, TOTE μallov auEETo: the introduction to the account of the Parian expedition ( cf. Ch.I.i.6 ). The use of the verb auxein here seems to involve an ambiguity: the word can mean both •exalt by praise 1 ( cf. e.g. Pl.Lys.206A ) and 'increase in power• ( cf. LSJ sv.1.2 ). Cf. Stein's rendering here: 11augebatur, stieg an Ansehen und Einfluss 11• Cot!plgd with eudokimeon here it seems to invite the first sense ( with which cf. bebomena of Polycrates' achievements at 3.39.3, cited above ); but from the context it is clear that Miltiades' 4 influence' (power) at Athens is the more important result of his success at Marathon. That success, and the acclaim which attends it, breeds in him confidence in his own powers, and an ambition for profit and even conquest: he asks the Athenians for ships and money, but does not say where he means to take them, promising them wealth and land ( cf. 6.135.1, he sails back OUTE xpnμaTa 1 A6nvaLOLOL &ywv OUTE Ilapov TipOOMTnadμtvos ). See further Ch.II.iii.C. Compare the way Themistocles too abuses his acclaim after Salamis: cf. e.g. 8.112.2, nuv6avoμEvoL ( sc. the islanders ) ... BEμLOTOHAEll ws EV arvnL μEyLOTnL TWV OTpaTnywv ELn; and 112.3, xpnμaTa napa. Twv vncrLwTEwv EMTcxTo la6pnL Twv &Alwv aTpcnnywv. Both men show the presumption, ambition and even corruption that attend greatness. Cf. Ar.Pol.1304A33ff, on the disruptive effect of men who are responsible for increasing the power of the state: they will either stimulate the envy of others, n oOTOL 6Lct iJTIEpoxnv OU 6EAOUOL μEVELV ETIL TWV i.'.awv. {32) Cf. Thucyd. 1.120.3f, μrhs TriL HllTa TIOAEμov EUTUXLllL £1taCpE0'6aL; and cf. e.g. Pl.Legg. 641C, on the psychological effect of victory in battle: no Hot yap oflpLOTOTEpOL 6LO: TIOAEμwv C,ms YEVOμEVOL • • • Cf. de Romilly (1963) pp.322ff, for a discussion of this theme in Thucydides: it is not clear, however, whether she does or does not distinguish his position from the traditional Greek one. (33) For metaballein as a •technical term' i.n ,this passage, cf. Ryffel p.58 with n.179. -483- (34) The oracle apparently has nothing to do with the story of Lycurgus' political activity ( contrast e.g. the garbled tradition of Diod.VII.12.6 ); but it is surely probable that there existed in Hdts day an oracle or oracles which did connect Lycurgus' reforms with Delphi which Hdt may be deliberately passing over here, for two reasons: (a) to extend his 'obfuscation' of the Lycurgus-story that much further, and (b) to save his story about the discrepant Spartan tradition ( see n.35 ), which would otherwise fall to the ground. (35) That the Spartans should ever have told Hdt that Lycurgus borrowed their kosmos from Crete and not have claimed it as original to them and to the nsp ration of Delphi defies be l i . Contrast e.g. the argument of Ehrenberg (1925) at p.12: 11aber die Version mag ihren Ursprung einer vorllbergehenden politischen Entfremdung zwischen Sparta und Delphi verdanken, kann jedenfalls nicht als Mlteste Form der spartanischen Lykurgslegende angesprochen werden. Das wird schon durch die andere, spHter kanonisch gewordene Version bewiesen, die Hdt vielleicht in Delphi gehHrt hat, die aber ursprHnglich nicht ohne Wissen und Zustimmung Spartas geschaffen sein kann11• See also Kleingllnther (1933) pp.122ff; W.G. Forrest, Phoenix 17 (1963) p.161. It is hard to believe that the memory of Apollo:s divine approval for the new constitution ( cf. e.g. Delphi 1 s sanction for the setting-up of colonies ) could ever have been effaced by the state's temporary alienation from Delphi; and see esp. Pl.Legg.624A, 6320, 634A etc. , where there is no doubt that Apo 11 o is the I author I of the Spartan constitution. For whatever the comparison is worth, Plutarch has the Great Rhetra brought back from Delphi by Theopompus and Polydorus ( cf. Lycurg.6.1, μaVTELav EX 8EÃWV xoμCaaL EEPL auTñ ), while Tyrtaeus, whoever and whatever the subject of his poem may be, explicitly claims Delphic sanction for part or whole of the Spartan constitution ( F4.lffW, ~olBou axooaavTE~ ITu*wv6*ev ,oLxa6' eveLxav I μavTsLã TE *eou xaL TeAtsvT' enea ). Hdts kosmos almost certaiñy combines constitution and agoge in the work of Lycurgus ( cf. Stein: "die staatl iche und gesellschaftl iche Ordnung nach Gesetz und Sitte'' ), though it is probably right ( with Stein ) to excise the disorderly sentence at 1.65.5 which seems to link the two. This being so Hdt is disregarding ( probably through ignorance ) the evidence of Tyrtaeus, to the effect that the Spartan kosmos was brought back from Delphi, a tradition which, given the abiding authority of Tyrtaeus at Sparta ( cf. Pl.Legg.629AB ), is unlikely to have been replaced in the Spartan popular imagination by the story of Cretan borrowing. The latter story was however almost certainly current in the learned speculation of Hdts own day, that is in circJ~s outside Sparta. It is well established in Ephorus ( FGH Fl49 ) and Aristotle ( Pol.II.10.1271B20ff; cf. F535 Rose ), but the similarities of Cretan and Spartan constitutions are already taken for granted in Plato ( Republ.544C, 547Aff; Legg.631Bff and 780Eff ), though the theory of a historical connexion clearly has no basis in reality ( cf. e.g. Murray (1980) pp.169f ). These examples show not that the story was a Spartan tradition, bu.t that learned comparisons by early political theorists had shown to their satisfaction that the largely imagined similarities of the two cultures proved dependence. The presuppositions involved ( that similarities are sufficient evidence for cultural borrowings ) are the same as those which we find in Hdts account of the dependence of Greek culture on that of Egypt ( cf. Ch.III.B ). It is not hard to imagine that the Spartan theory originated in the work of some 5thc sophist such as Critias ( cf. DK 88832-7, for his Politeia Lakedaimonion; with Guthrie, HGP III.302) ,or possibly Hippias ( cf. Ch.III.A ). As for Hdts source-citation, Fehling has shown tb~t fictitiãs -484epichoric citations are often used to substantiate learned conjectures, and this example could clearly fit this category. (36) Whether we adopt the Spartan or the non-Spartan version, it is clear that Lycurgus is in Hdts mind the regent for Leobotes: although the information is broached for the first time within the Spartan account, the ensuing sentence pursues the narrative in Hdts voice and in epetropeuse picks up epitropeusanta as fact not as opinion. (37) With this provision, cf. esp. Salon's precautions at Athens ( 1.29.lf ): OPXLOLOL yap μeyaAOLOL MO!TELXOVTO 6lxa £TEO! xpnaeãaL voμoLOL TOUS &v ãL Z:OAWV ~rha L • {38) Cf. e.g. Diod.12.9.1 ( Sybaris ), auve:Bn Tcnhnv xa{3e'Cv,'rnxet:av ã~naLV 6La Tnv apETnv Tns xwpas. The metaphor in Hdts anadramein may well derive from Homer, as Stein and others have seen: cf. * Il.18.56 ( of Achilles as a ;child ), o 6' &vl6paμev EpveC laos, where the biological image is explicit. The 1 suddenness 1 of the growth of the Persian empire ( not the king's own rise to power) is presumably the thought behind the god1 s warning to Xerxes at 7.14, ws xaL μe:yas xaL noAAos tye:veo EV OALYWL XPOVWL, OUTW xat TanELVOS onCaw XO!TCT Taxos EOEaL. For the metaphor~ cf. de Romilly (1977) pp.12-3. Also A. Demandt, Metaphern f~r Geschichte (1978) pp.18ff, and esp. pp.37 ( das Lebensalter Gleichnis ). Aristotle in the Politics is fond of medical and biological metaphors and analogies for political conditions { 1281B3ff, 1290B21ff ); and the medical metaphor obviously underlies Thucydides' account of the plague at Athens and stasis at Corcyra in opposite ways. Compare Hdts way of talking about states as flourishing { akmazein ), flowering ( anthein ), blossoming ( blastanein ), growing ( auxanesthai ), and being ( nosein ). (39) Den Boer's calculation of Hdts date (1954) pp.65f, using 40 year *( Spartan and/or Hecataean ) generations for the king-lists ( 7.204 and 8.131.2 ), would put leobotes with Polydectes at the end of the llthc { 1010-970 ). Why Hdt chooses this date for Lycurgus cannot even be guessed at: cf. e.g. W.G. Forrest, Phpenix 17 {1963) p.172. If we are to believe that the Sirnonides mentioned by Plutarch { Lycurg.1.8) is correctly identified as the famous poet ( c.556-468 ), then a tradition older than Hdt and presumably accessible to him made Lycurgus the son of Prytanis and the brother of Eunomos ( Hdtean date: 970 ). It is not hard to imagine that Lycurgus I name came to be associ ate.d with king Eunomos because he brought eunomia to Sparta, though the name Eunomos, like Prytanis, looks suspic ous y ke a stop-gap from the point of view of the ki ng-'l ists. But Hdts lycurgus is regent for Leobotes, v1ho is a neration older than Eunomos and a member of the opposite house! For a speculativeireconstruction of the shape of the chronological tradition for Lycurgus, cf. Den Boer (1954) pp.5ff ( cf. esp. Plut.Lycurg.1 ). Lycurgus is well established later as the guardian of Charilaos ( a Eurypontid ) and placed early in the 9thc ( cf. e.g. Eratosthenes FGH 241 , who puts him 108 years before the first Olympiad}. Xenophon ( Lak.Pol.10.8) makes Lycurgus contemporary with the Heraclidae, in other words at the start of Spartan history, in the interests no doubt of maximum antiquity for the creator of the constitution. Other early witnesses do not name Lycurgus but place the 1 Spartan constitution 1 at widely different times. Hellanicus ( FGH 4F116 ), to the scorn of Ephorus, ascribed it not to Lycurgus but to Eurysthenes and Procles; Pindar ( Py.1.61.ff ), speaking of the Dorian constitution of Hieron's Aetna ( 'YAAC5os crTd6μas ) describes the Spartans as content to 15ve n:eμo'C'crt,v ev Alyt,μ(ou. Thucydides . ( 1.18 .1 ) dates Spartan eunomia ( or more precisely the change of constitution to 400 years before the end of 11the war11 ( ~~.e. c.821 or 804 ). A. Andrewes, CQ 32 (1938) pp.93ff, tries to avoid the implications of Thucydides' words and bring him into line with what he believes to be implied by Hdt ( see below); Thucydides, he argues, mus~ be dating not 'the introduction of eunomia' but merely the Spartans' enjoyment of the same constitution. But the supposed disjunction between ñvoμ~en and T"l, a6T"l, noAt,TsCat, xp@vTal, is forced, and it leaves Thucydides giving us a surprisingly precise date for a period with an unspecified beginning: what are we supposed to imagine happened that was different in the late 9thc if not the suppression of stasis and the creation of eunomia? Even more improbable is that we are forced to take the words ~Tn ydp scrTl, ~dAt,crTa TsTpaxdcrt,a ••• as an explanation of alsC rather than fx naAat,TdTou: 'always' cannot be paraphrased in terms of a finite number of years! Den Boer (1954) pp.83-5 takes Thucydides to refer to the reign of king Theopompus, reckoning back 10 generations of Eurypontid kings from Archidamus II ( d.427 ) with ( Spartan?) 40-year generations~ But this implies that Thucydides himself made a calculation using 40-year generations, which seems improbable, or that he borrowed such a calculation from someone else \-Jithout checking it, which is even less credible. None of this, of course, helps us with Hdt; but it is worth noting the variety of dates in circulation at this early period, none of which points, however, with any certainty to anything as late as a ?the date for Lycurgus. The tendency is to ascribe great antiquity to the Spartan constitution,. as to Lycurgus, no doubt reflecting the success of Sparta 1 s own propaganda. (40) Cf. A. Andrewes, 1 Eunomia1 , CQ 32 {1938) 92-3. For a reading of Htlt which assumes he actually does mean what he says, cf. N. Hammond, JHS 70 (1950) at pp.53-5 (=Stud.in Greek History (1973) at pp.67-9 ), who argues for an early date for Lycurgus. Hammond, however, makes no effort to explain why Hdt wants to create quite a different impression from what he believes to be the truth. Cf. also. den Boer (1954) pp.25-9. It is certain that Hdt did not intend to date the Tegean Battle of the Fetters with Lycurgus in the llthc-lOthc: cf. D. Leahy, Phoenix 12 (1958) p.156. (41) We can further object to Andrewes1 argument that if Hdt was indeed told of a change in Sparta's constitution around c.600 ( i.e. the reigns of Leon and Agasikles ), he was almost certainly_mi$led. This is surely too low a date for the Rhetra, and Andrewes1 contention that Tyrtaeus knows nothing of that document is surely false. Cf. e.g. Cartledge pp.131ff; Murray (1980) pp.153ff. The evidence now surely seems to require an early or mid7thc Rhetra, provoked by the demands of the rising hop l ite cl ass and the crisis of the second Messenian War, as reflected in the poetry of Tyrtaeus. The 'decline of Spartan culture' illustrated by archaeology and other evidence for the early to mid-6thc ( cf. Halliday, CQ 27 (1977) pp.lllff; contra e.g. Cartledge pp.154ff ), whether or not it is the product of legislation ( e.g. to be associated with the ephorate of Chilon ), is clearly a separate stage: the ag5g! is the answer, devised after 50*100 years of the new constitution, to the social needs of the new society. (42) Although the debate referred to by the speaker in Pl.Legg.776C seems to concern the advantages and disadvantages rather than the rights and wrongs of Helotage ( and other forms of slavery), it is clear that tht issue of its :-486morality was discussed in antiquity ( cf. e.g. Critias DK 88837; Isocr. Panath.178; Theopompus FGH 115F13; with Cartledge, Appendix 4, pp.347ff, for a selection of ancient comments ). Critias may or may not have openly criticised the Spartans on this point, but sophistic discussion of slavery ( cf. Guthrie, HGP III.155-60) must have dealt at least occasionally with the example of the Helots especially when the sophists in question were teaching at Athens! Cf. e.g. the horror of Thucydides at the .:gratuitous massacre of Helots 'for security reasons• in 424 ( cf. 4.80.2~4(and cp. 1.123.1, 3.40.2 ). (43) Cf. Cartledge p.127; and cf. 5.49.8a for the Messenian revolt(s} of the 5thc; cp. 9.35.2 and 64.2. (44) Cf. Cartledge pp.137-8: an 11infuriating vagueness" about which wars are meant here; Cartledge's only suggestion is 11the struggle for control of Olympia, in which Sparta helped Elis to oust the local Pisatan dynasty ( possibly in 572 ) 11• Stein understands a reference to an (earlier) struggle with Argos ( cf. Hdt 1.82; with Forrest (1968) p.73 and Jeffery (1976) p.138 ), or to victories over the other Arcadians ( cf. 1.65.1 ) and concludes: 11Die messenischen fallen frtlher 11 • But therein lies Hdts problem: the Messenian Wars are too early to serve his purposes. (45) For a thoughtful account of the problems of the Spartan-Tegean conflict, cf. D.M. Leahy, Phoenix 12 (1958) esp. pp.156ff ( cf. DL 1.115 = Theopompus FGH 115F69; with Deinias FGH 306F4 and Paus.8.47-8 ). *The Spartan aim, he argues, was principally to prevent Tegea supporting the Messenians, not conquest of Tegeatis. (46) Cf. 1.65.1, l6v~as n6n TffiL noA[μwL xaTUTIEpT[pous TsyEnTlwv; and 1.67.1, n6n .•. xo.rnJ1;epu:pol, ,mi... no);f!μw~,,, The expression ( cf. Powell s.v. ) clearly means "having defeated tnem in war11 • (47) The view that the Tegeans are not meant to be included among the katestrammenoi at 1.68.6 seems to me untenable: it is surely very difficult to read this last sentence as anything other than the climax to the Tegean narrative, which has served Hdts purposes in illustrating by a particular example what 'Spartan conquest• has consisted in elsewhere. A transition away from Tegea to a series of :conquests of which Teg~a was not meant to be a part would surely be intolerably abrupt here, especially given that we are offered no further substantiation of this important claim. (48) We may not perhaps infer much of value from the Alpheios-stele ( Plut. Mor 2928; Aristotle F592 Rose; cf. F. Jacoby, CQ 38 (1944) pp.15f ): Aaxs6aLμ6vLoL Tsys~TaLs 6LaAAaylvTES tnoL~cravTo cruve~xas xat crT~Anv tn' 'AAcpdwL xoLvnv &.vscrTncrav. lhe only clause we know stipulates what the Tegeans shal I and shall not do ( MEcranvCous txaãEtv tx T~S x~pas xat~μn EtvaL XPMTous noLECv ) ; but the language .pf the. decree ( cf. the words underlined above ) looks like that of a bilateral agreement r~ther than an impos~d settlement. (49) Cf. Cartledge J.c; and e.g. Forrest (1968) pp.69-77. Compare D.M. Leahy, Historia 4 (1955) pp,26ff, for the Bones of Teisamenos from Achaean Helike ( Paus.7.1.8 ). See also the propaganda of Stesichorus in this direction: Bowra (1961) 112ff; and cf. M.L. West, ZPE 4 (1969) pp.142ff. It is possible that the recovery of the Bones of Orestes was actually an element of the diplomatic settlement with Tegea, rather than something that happened while the war was still in progress: if so, we should have to abandon Hdts ***--***-----chronology. The problem is touched on by Leahy (1955) p.35 with n.6; and cf. Jeffery (1976) p.121. (50) Cf. Hdt 1.82; with Cartledge pp.140-2. -487- (51) Cf. FGH 105Fl, and Plut.Mor.8590, with D.M. Leahy, Phoenix 13 (1959) pp.3lff ( and cf. Sch.Aesch.2.80 Ddf. ). The Rylands papyrus puts this action later than Hdt requires, in the reign of Anaxandridas. (52) Cf. Forrest (1968) pp.79 and 88; Jeffery (1976) pp.120ff. And e.~. the contrast between Sparta's leadershir of the Peloponnesians ( lnt To uμt\! wqJt::\L.μo\! xcnacrTncr&:μs\!oL. li;nydcr.\Js * ) and Athens I genuine arkhe at Thucyd.1.76.1. (53) Cf. the wording of the Spartan-Aetolian alliance: W. Peek, Abh.d. SMchs.Ak.d.Wiss. 65.3 (1974); and F. Gschnitzer, 1 Ein neuer s.p.Staatsvertrag 1 (1978); at lines 4ff: £TI0μ8\!0U~ OTIUL. }!\l AaxeoaL.μO\!l,Ql, ayL.W\!T\ll, xat xaTa ya:v xat xa(.\J) ,B:a:\a(.\J).\Jav .. • ( and cf. de Ste Croix, OPW pp.102ff ). Hdts choice of words here has however led to inferences about the eatly 'constitution' of the League. Cf. de Ste Croix, OPW p.109: 11Sparta 1 s allies were always in theory autonomous so far as their internal affairs were concerned, but the use of the very strong word I subjected 1 ( katestrammene would be fully justified if they were obliged to follow Sparta into war at her bidding. I do not see what other justification it could possibly have". This is a most improbable answer in view of what we have said about the range of meaning of the word katastrephesthai and moreover .it is far from certain that this provision of the League dates back as far as c.550. De Ste Croix' use of Hdt here to argue a historical case must surely seem in grave error, if we reflect that his language depends on theoretical preconceptions not on historical judgement. Cf. Forrest (1968) p. 78, when he speaks of 11Hdts vague remark the greater part of the Peloponnese was under her controlu. Cf. D.M. Leahy, Phoenix 12 (1968) p.161: 11the general picture of Spartan power after the successful conclus10n of the 2nd Messenian War11 • ; j (54) Compare here Hdt 9.37.4, where Hdt speaks of the escape of Hegesistratos, the Persian seer at Plataea, from Sparta to Tegea: loocrav õx &p.\JμCnv Aaxs6a1.,μov(o1.,cr1., ToCTTov Tov xpovov, i.e. some time around the turn of 'the 6thc-5thc. What does this imply about the state of the League at this juncture? (54a) It seems unlikely that Sparta would have wanted to remember that it was once 1 the most unsettled of the Greek states and most alienated from the outside world'. It is more probable*thatthe Spartan tradition in general is represented by Xenophon's laked.Pol., which makes no mention of anomia and extends the Lycurgan constitution right back to the time of the Heraclidae ( cf. n.39 ); surely the Spartans likewise 1 remember~d' their hegemony of the Peloponnese as extending back to the same period? A traditional society like Sparta, one which prided itself on the stability of its political institutions, as well as on its leadership of the Greeks, is likely to haveenshrined these two things in its oral memory at least the self-doubts implied by Hdts version of their early history are improbable. Cf. n.56, below. --*-***** ---------'----*----------------------- -488- (55) Cf. Ryffel p.58: "Deutlicher ... wird es in der ... Herleitung der spartanischen Eunomie, dass Hdt mit Begriffen der Staatsund Verfassungstheorje ~rb~itet". And cf. Kleinganther (1933) p.124. (56) Thucydides 1 corresponding claim ( 1.18.1 ), ~ y&p Aaxe6aCμwv ... snt KAEtOTOV iliV rcrμev XPOVOV cr,acrLacracrav, may be derived either from Hdt ( altering Hdts superlative of degree to one of length ) or more likely a common source. Neither Hdt nor Thucydides offers ~ny evidence of this early stasis, and it is left to Aristotle later to scratch together some rather disparate clues ( Pol.1306B29ff; cf. Cartledge p.133 ), none of which is early enough to belong certainly before either Hdts or Thucydides 1 reforms. Stein ad .lac. thought that Hdts kakonomia was "nur eine notwendige theoretische Voraussetz4ng 11 for the Lycurgan reforms, and this scepticism may be justified. If .we adopt an ingenious argument of W.G. Forrest, Phoenix 17 (1963) at pp.162ff, it may be that we can identify the origin of the tradition of Sparta's kakonomia in malicious Athenian propaganda of the late 5thc. Forrest argues that towards the end of the 5thc there appears an artificial 1 tradition 1 concerning foreign visitors or immigrants to Sparta, who arrive to settle her civil disputes ( often by music! ) or to win her battles: the Theban Aigeidai; Tyrtaeus, the 1Athenian 1 ; Teisamenos of Elis; Kirnon of Athens; the musicians and poets, Stesichorus, Terpander and Thaletas. All these figures appear in.older tradition in slightly similar guise, but now they turn up in somewhat altered roles 11to produce a saga of a weak and quarrelsome Sparta, dependent at every crisis on outside aid: a deliberate democratic answer to the Spartan myth of Eunomia and stability". Forrest suggests that the author of this fiction was Pericles 1 musician friend, Damon ( cf. Guthrie HGP III.35 n.1, for his theory of the political power of music ), and that its propagation was assisted by the democratic Hellanicus. If this argument has anything to it, these 1 traditions 1 obviously do no more than contradict Sparta's claim ever to have had eunomia of a proper kind, referring as they do to a whore--assortment of different periods. This is not the story told by Thucydides or Hdt, and Forrest ( p.164, n.37 ) believes they either ignored or reacted against the fiction; but it may be that they are simply retailing a tidier ( more abstractly theoretical ) version of the same fictitious 1 tradition 1 • (57) ~f: Thucyd.1.12.lf. A particular instance of the Hdtean rule is the Thucydidean account of the Greek tyrants ( cf. Ch.II.ii.A ) ( 1.17 ): ., , .. ,,, ' ' ,, , , , -ou,w navTaxoeev ~ EAAas enL noAUV xpovov xaTELXETO μn,E xoLvnL ,avEpov μnotv xa,epyãecriaL, HaT~ KOAELS TE aTOAμOTEpa EtvaL. Under this inward-looking and divisive form of government ( To s,~ tau,mv . μovov npoop~μEVOL Is TB 0 TO criμa xat TO TOV roLOV olxov aO(ELV ) the cities remain insular and unambitious, as Sparta does while in a state of kakonomia. And cf. Thucyd.1.15.2, OU yap (UVELO,nxscrav npos ,as μEyLOTa$ KOAEL$ unnHOOL ..• Ha,' aAAnAOU$ 0€ μaAAOV W$ €Ha0TOL OL &crn;yeC,ovss hoAlμouv. In Thucydides there is a c.lear connexion between the creation of peaceful links between states for purposes of commerce, and the creation of alliances for the purposes of war; and these forms of contact are themselves related to the beginnings of hostile contactJ aggression against n,eighbouring states. The confidence needed to forge peaceful relations with other states is the same as that needed to encourage aggression: and this too seems to:underlie Hdts account here, for the Spartans put aside their ameixia not only in contradicting the alliance with Lydia, but also in their ambition to subdue the Arcadians. (58) Cf. Stein, ad loc.: 11Dieser letzte Umstand ist besonders betont, weil Krllsos im Begriff war i hnen ei n BundesverhMl tni s anzubietE:mi'. (58a) For Plato's historical writing in Laws III, cf. R. Weil, Et.et Comm.32 (1959) pp.42-54: 11L1 histoire n'est done sedeuse que dans la mesure ou son contenu peut aider a la demonstration. Sinon, il faut la reconstruire 11 • (59) Cf. Luckenbill (1926): the records of Sargon ( II.23-4, 146 and -489149 ), Sennacherib ( II.238 ~nd 432 ), Essarhaddon ( II.540 ), Assurbanipal ( II.584 ). Whatever allowances we make for the distortions of these documents, we cannot escape the evidence that the revolts lasted many generations. (60) I would argue that it is most unlikely that Herodotus had any information directly from eastern sources, and would suggest that his sources for the eastern histories are principally the Greeks of Ionia. Two problems are worth mentioning. Darius 1 tribute-lists ~t Hdt 3.89ff have now been shown to diverge significantly from the eastern evidence: Hdts lists are of regions ( like the Athenian tribute-lists?) rather than of peoples as are the Persian records; cf. G.G Cameron, JNES 32 (1973) pp.47-56. Secondly, the story of the detection of the false Smerdis by the uncovering of his ears ( cf. Hdt 3.68~9 ) cannot be Persian: in Persian iconographic convention the king never had his ears covered, though this was characteristic of Greek representationsi cf. A. Demandt, Iranica Antiqua 9 (1972) pp.94-101. Ifmore attention were paid to the discrepancies between Hdt and the eastern evidence, I believe that the.case would become clear. Confrasl D. Hegyi, AAntHung 21 (1973) 73-87, who argues that in principle Hdts Persian information is good, even if he sometimes goes in for invention in matters of detail. (61) Stein at 1.96 (3) takes the words xaC xw, ly{vovTo as indefinite: 11Hdt hat eben Ober bie Art der Befreiung keine bestimmte Nachricht und ersetzt sie durch Vermutung11 ( cf. Legrand: 11ils durent ... se comporter vaillament 11 ). But this is to misunderstand the idiom ( cf. Powell s.v. xws; .. ( enclitic ) 4 ). In narrative !{,(!$Sages xaL XW!'.; is invariably used as a simple narrative connector ( 11and as it happened11 : Powell ), without any qualification of this kind. Only in non-narrative passages is it used to qualify general statements, and can then be translated 11it seems'' ( cf. Powell s.v. 5 ). Thus Hdt is in no doubt that the Medes did actually 11fight bravely for their freedom11• (62) Cf. the Perinthians' attempt at resisting Persian enslavement at 5.2.1, &v6pwv &yãwv n8pL Tns; 8A8V~8pLns; YLVOμEVWV, (63) av6pEs; &ya.\JoL yCvw0aL seems to be a wholly desirable thing;, hence the use of the expression in exhortations: cf. 5.109.3, 7.53.1, 9.17.4; compare 1.169.1, 5.2.1, 6.14.1 and 14.3, 6.114 and 117.2, 9.71.1 and 71.3, 9.75. Cf. Thucyd.2.35.1 ( from the Funeral Oration): &v6p&v &ya6~v ( ~PYWL) YEVOμ[vwv. (63a) Cf. Wood p.36: * 11we recognize that Hdt has a political rather than a social concept of history, which is in this sense defined as a function of freedom. History can begin with liberty ( as the history of Persia starts with liberation fromM.ecticrule ); conversely, history can end with enslavement: thus Lydian history, viz. continuous discourse concerning Lydia, terminates with Cyrus1 capture of Sardis. The enslaved nation exists in a state of obscurity where it can claim no erga apodekhthenta 11 • It is not clear whether Wood means that freedom plays an important pa__i:~ -490in historical processes for Hdt or whether it simply provides him with starting and stopping points for his narratives. (64) Cf. Kahner/Gerth II.2.llOf: 110er Grund dieser abweichended Konstruktion liegt gemeiniglich in dem Bestreben das Satzglied mit grHsserem Nachdrucke hervorzuheben und den ubrigen Worten entgegenzustellen"; and Schwyzer/ Debrunner II.399-40. (64a) For the paradox of a monarchy which allows its citizens political freedom, cf. Eurip.Suppl.352f ( Theseus ): xaL yap MaTe0Tn0' auTov ( sc. TOV onμov) h μovapxCav I £AEU&spwaas; Trivo' t'..aoq.,n<pov nolLv. I would suggest that such a paradox may have come into being in sophistic theory through reflexion on the ambiguous nature of Athenian political life, a democracy which had the character of a monarchy ( cf. Thucyd.2.65.9 ); cf. (_B ) • 3 , be l ow. (65) Cf. esp. Pl.Protag.320Cff, with Guthrie, HGP III.63ff; and also Thucydides 1 analysis of the primitive early life of Greece in the Archaeology. Cf. Ch.III.B. With e.g. Isocr.Paneg.39, Tovs; uEAAnvas; &voμws; swvTa.s; xat 0Ttop&6nv ••• ; and Diod.I.8.lff, £V aTdXTWL xa.t &npLWOSL SCwL xa&saTmTa.s; crnopd6nv .•• (66) Cf. Pl.Protag.322AB, OUTW 6n Ttapsaxsuacrμ[voL xaT' &pxas: av&pwTtOL " ,, ' d Th d 1 5 1 ' . ' ' ' ' ' WVKOUV crnopa.6nv; an ucy . . . , TtOASCJLV aTSLXL,CTTOLS: XO.l, xaTa. xwμa.s; ot'..xouμevaLs;, with which cf. Oeioces 1 solution of building the walled city of Ecbatana ( Hdt 1.98.2ff ). {67) Cf. Pl.Protag.3228, n6Cxouv aAAl'1AOUS: ••• WCTTS n&ALV axsoavvuμsvoL OLE<p&SLPOVTO ; and Thucyd.1.2.2, TTlS: yap EμTtopCns; oux onans;, ou6' £TtLμSLYVUVTSS: &6s$s; aAAl'1AOLS: ( cf. 1.5.1 ). (68) Cf. Thucyd.1.2.2, ou6s ynv <pUTSUOVTES:, a6nAOV 6v OTtOTS rL&; * £TtEA&Wv ••• (lAAOS: &~aLpnosTaL. (69) Cf. C.W. Macleod, PCPS NS.25 (1975) pp.52ff, showing how Thucydides in a similar way represents Corcyrean stasis as 11the undoing of human progress 11• (70) Cf. Ryffel pp.60ff; with Ch.III.H. (71) Cf. A. Andrewes, 1 Eunomia1 , CQ 32 (1938) pp.39ff; and Ostwald (1969) pp.62ff. (72) Cf. Ryffel pp.52ff. (73) Lycophron DK 83A3 ( II .307 .25ff ) calle.d nomos an lyyunTns; &HriAov; Twv oLxaCwv in a society. (74) For the social compact in Protagoras, cf. e.g. Guthrie, HGP III.136-8 ( and cf. Pl .Gorg.4838 ); but contrast e.g. Kerferd (1981) pp.147-50. (75) Cf. e.g. Democr.OK 688267, <pUCTSL TO apxsLV OL.Xl'1LOV TWL xpecrcrovL; and Thucyd.5.105.2, nyouμs&a yap TO TE &stov 6osnL TOTS &v&pWTtSLOV ...., ' ' t ' , " , x- ,, ,. """" ,, TS oa<pws; 6La. TtCWTOS: UTtO <pUOSWS: avayxaLas;, OU av xpa.TnL, apxsLv; with 1.76.2 and 4.61.5. And esp. Pl.Gorg.483DE, etc. (76) Hdt emphasizes the idea of unification by listing here the differeñ peoples out of whom the Medikon ethnos is made up: the Bousai, Panetakenoi, Stroukhanes, Arizantoi, Boudioi, Magoi. There is a similar effect when Cyrus rallies a (divided?) Persia to support the revolt against Media ( 1.125.3, ECTTL OE Ilspaswv auxv& ysvsa, xaL Ta μsv aUTWV 6 Kupõ auvdALas xat &vlisLas &nCaTaaeaL &ñ M~owv with a list of the Persian tribes ). (77) Cf. H. Herter, RE Suppl.XIII (1973) s.v. Theseus, 1212.Bff; and on this passage of Thucydides, cf. 1213.Bff: 11So hat die Tradition vom Synoikismos schon fr~h die Spuren gelehrten Nachdenken aufgenommen ... Aber im Kern ist sie eine echte Sage, nicht etwa blosse Konstruktion 11 • Cf. Isocr.10.35; Ps.-Demosth.59.75; Theophr.Char.26.6; and Plut.Thes.24f ( from Aristotle?). For the tradition of Theseus• founding of the democracy, cf. E. Ruschenbusch, Historia 7 (1958) pp.408ff. (77a) Cf. ( besides 2.15.2, above) Thucyd.1.141.6-7, where Pericles argues that the Peloponnesian League is not well suited to waging long wars, μ~Ts BouAsuTnpCwL tvt xp~μ~voL. (78) I would suggest that we are meant to see the condition of Media before Deioces ( scattered villages with no common political organization ) as being the result of the autonomia which she secured along with the other peoples of Asia in revolting from Assyria. It seems likely, however, that in reality both before and after the liberation the states which were and had been under Assyrian power retained their own kings: if Deioces is the Daiaukku of the records of Sargon ( cf. n.78a ), we might argue that it was the kings of Media who helped win them their freedom and continued in power thereafter. For the reality of the Assyrian empire as shown by the evidence of the monuments, cf. J. Reade, 1 Ideology and Propaganda in Assyrian Art•, in Mesopotamia 7 (1979), Power and Propaganda, ed. M.T. Larsen, at pp.329-43. Thus Hdt could be fabricating the anarchy of Media in despite of the evidence though whether or not he had access to a tradition for that anarchy we cannot tell, tempting though it is to suppose that, like so much else in the passage, it is a theoretical construct. At any rate Hdt does not want us to think of the subjects of Assyria as being dependent kingdoms: theseipeoples were for him ruled by the Assyrians in both an imperial and a political sense, and when the liberation came there resulted 1 autonomy1 in both senses as well. It does not seem to me that we are meant to restrict the meaning of sovTwv 6-e m'nwvoμwv t~\IJ,t@V so. as to exclude political control: what happens to the other peoples in this respect is simply something we are not meant to ask. (78a) Hdts genealogy, confident though it is, may well be false. Deioces seems likely to be the Daiaukku named in the chronicles of Sargõ ( cf. Luckenbill II.12 and 56 ) , one of the tribute:-paying kings of Media, deported to Syria for his rebel activities. If the identification is right ( cf. e.g. Burn p.25 ), then clearly Deioces was no king of a liberated Media, nor can he have been the grandfather of Kyaxares, who lived until 584. For the Medic name represented by Hdts 1Deioces 1 ( *Dahyuka- ) , cf. R. Schmitt, AAWW 110 (1973) 137-47. (79) Hdt describes the Persians as the main collaborators of the Medes in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire ( cf. 1.102.2, of Phaortes: . hwv ouo Taurn ~evca xat &1-HpoTSpa t xupa ... ) , but appears to _know nothing of the alliance with Nabopolassar, king of Akkad ( cf. J.B. Pritchard, -492Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament (1969) ( = ANET) 303-5 ). The revolt of Babylonia is, from the evidence of the chronicles, as much if not more of a threat to the Assyrians as the revolt of Media: and cf. Nabonidus, ANET 309, on the Umman-Manda. (80) Cf .. D. Nestle, Eleutheria (1967), for a survey of Greek attitudes to freedom. {8Qa) For Hdts Cyrus, cf. the analysis of H.C. Avery, AJPh 93 (1972) 529-46, and esp. pp.531-2, for the theme of freedom. I do not, however, accept his distinction between aggressive Persian freeedom and non-aggressive Greek freedom at p.532 n.10; human nature being what it is for Hdt, the same principles ought to apply in differing degrees to all men and he surely illustrates that they do. (81) Cf. 1.33, the wealth of Croesus; l.71.3f, the wealth of Lydia as contrasted with the poverty of th~ Persians, who are to inherit it; l.207.6f, the wealth of Persia as contrasted with the poverty of the Massagetai; 3.89.3, the good things .which Cyrus provided for his people, as here ( cf. 3.75.1, the same); 5.49.4 and 97.1, Aristagoras on the wealth of the Persian empire, in his incitements to Sparta and Athens; 7.8g.l, Xerxes on the supposed wealth of Europe. By an obvious extensiõ agatha come to include the prizes of tyranny as well as empire: cf. 1.129.4, the kingship of Media; 2.172.3, the wealth of Amasis; 3.52.3 and 53.4, the Corinthian tyranny, as promised to Lycophron; 3.80.3 and 80.4, the wealth of the tyrant; 4.11.3, the Cimmerian ruling-classes are not prepared to forego their privileges, AOyLcraμcvous ~cra TE ayãa nsn6vSa0L xaL 5cra ~EdyoVTES lx TffS naTpC6os xaxa snC6õa xaTaAaμS&VELV ; 6.109.6, Miltiades on the I imperial I rewards of an ft,thenian victory at Marathon ( cf. Ch.I.i.6 ). Compare esp. Thucyd.4.61.3, on Athenian ambitions in Sicily: TWVSV Tr\L I:LXEACav.aya&wvs~LcμsvoL( cf. 6.24.3; and see 2.38.2, Pericles on the prizes of empire ). But cf. de Romilly (1963) pp.74-7, who denies the importance of the pursuit of material profit in Thucydides1 analysis of the empire. (82) Contrast e.g. 5.49.2, Aristagoras on the Ionians; and esp. 5.109.3, the Ionian exhortation to the Cypriots. (83) Cf. Megabazos on the darger of setting up Histiaios as tyrant among the Thracians ( 5.23.2 ), where there are Greeks and barbarians, ot upocrTdTEW lnLAaS6μEVOL UOL~00U0L T00TO T~ Bv XECVOS l(nycnTaL ( i.e. aspire fo freedom, as here ) . (84} For the 'sophistic' Darius, cf. K. Bringmann, Hermes 104 (1976) pp.266ff, at 276ff. (85) Cf. Ar.Pol.1310837-8; and e.g. Dio Chrys.XV.22 andXXV.5. Significantly perhaps Cyrus does not appear in this role in Aesch.Pers.767ff, although his benevolence as a ruler is commended there. (86} Cf. de Romilly (1963} pp.124ff. (87) Cf. de Romil ly (1963) pp.80-2, illustrating 11the parallel which Thucydides likes to make between independence and dominationn. She adds that the Thucydidean examples ( see below} show "that the act of ruling was really considered as the perfect expression of both internal and external freedom, and, in fact, as a superior freedom". I would argue that this corollary was not a common perception but rather a specialized argument of the sophists: see below. (88) Cf. 5.69.1 ( the exhortation to the Mantineans to remember what they are fighting for), 6nEp &px"s &μa xat 6oUAECas, T~v μEv μ~ KELpacraμcvõs &~aLpñnvaL, Tns 6E μn aõ~s RELpacr~ã ( cf. e.g. Hdts Persians at 1.126.5 ). And cf. Diodotus at 3.45.6, equating freedom and empire as the two principal motives for cities to go to war: n£pt μqCOTWV • • . tA£U.(}£p Cas n &Hwv &p;:(iis ;' (89) Cf. Kratos 1 wry observation in (Aesch.) Prom.Vinct.49-50: &11:avTt. tnax.(}ij nii.nv .(}£otaL HoLpav£tv* I tA£u.(}£pos; y&p õTLS tOTL nÃv 6Lds;, -493a work which already shows the influence of sophistic thinking ( cf. Ch.III.B ). With which compare Eurip.Hek.864ff, ouH EOTL .(}vnTwv ocrTLS foT' tA£Uo&£pos;. (90) Compare here esp. Pl.Legg.694A, on the fortunes of Persia after the liberation by Cyrus: npwTov μ£v tA£u.(}£poL &ytvovTo, snELTa 6s a>i.>i.wv noAAwv.<6Ecr1t6TaL. And cf. Legg .'962E, on the aims of certain nomotheta i: npos crμqJw SAETIOVT£$, £AEU0£pOL TE bTIWS aAAWV TE TIOAEW\) SOOVTaL 6EOTIQTaL; and Isocr.Paneg. 140, on the Egyptian revolt of the early 4thc: thou. T01JS CX,QJEOTWTaS μnH£TL TT)\) E:A£U.\}EpLaV &yanav, &n' n6n Ha.t TW\) oμ6pwv snT£L\) snapx£L\). (91) This picture of Hdt 'the historian' reverses the claims of such reductionist criticism as that of Waters (1971) p.7: "Yet many writers have claimed to discover patterns, tragic especially, in the historian's treatment ( sc. in particular of tyrants). To do so involves committing onesefl to the view that Hdt did not set out to write history, that what he wrote is not history, and that those who before and after Cicero have thought him the Father of History have all been in error". Such arguments, frequently enough heard, simply assume what needs to be proved. -494Chapter Two , Part ii: NOTES. ' (1) Cf.Il.5.62ff ( Meriones L os Mat- 'Aht;;&vopwL TswrnvaTo vnas t!:'Coas I apxs}(&:xou,' at> 11:&,h, }(0\}!0\) Tpwwo L YEVO\ITO I O l, T' mJTWL. And cf. Thucyd.2.12.3, with 11.11.604, etc. Plutarch, missing the point of Hdts allusion, understands only the Ionian revolt here ( MH 24.861AB ); but compare Aristotle Anal.Post.II.94A36ff, the burning of Sardis as the aitia of the Persian Wars; and cf. Pl.Menex.240A. Cf. Strasburger (1965) p. 592, n. 4. (2) Cf. vonfritz, GGS I.361. (3) Cf. Strasburger (1965) passim; and earlier Focke pp.26ff, against the orthodoxy established by Meyer and Jacoby. And more recently e.g. F.D. Harvey, Historia 15 (1966) 254-53 against Strasburger; and J. Schwartz, Historia 18 (1969) 367-70, for the opposite view. (4) For katekho in this sense of 'repress', cf. besides 1.59.1 and 65.1 ( or is this merely neutral?), also 5.78 and 91.1, below. This particular metaphorical usage is *confined to these four passages, each concerning the tyranny at Athens; cf. Powell, s.v.; and LSJ, s.v.A.II.6a. (5) Hdt mentions none of the military successes of the Peisistratids ( cf. e.g. How and Wellson 5.78 ), but not through ignorance; cf. their difficulties in fighti~g the Mytileneans for control of the Troad at 5.94-5. And compare Peisistratus' achievements before the tyranny, EV TnL npos Msyapc:as ysvoμlvnL 0TpaTnyLnL ( 1.59.4 ); for which cf. Rhodes (1981) 199-200. (6) The oracular anticipation of the tyranny of the Cypselids is obviously comparable, cf. 5.92b.2 and 3, with 92d.1. Antj see perhaps the ominous (?) anticipation of Pericles' birth at 6.131.2, with Ch.III.E. (7) Hdt goes further here than any of our other sources in his commendation of the tyrant, and in emphasizing the constitutional aspects of the reign he is even more explicit than Aristotle ( cf. e.g: Athpol.14.3, nolLTLMffis μBllov fl TUpavvLxfus ). Gottlieb p.20, says of the Peisistratus of the Athpol.: 11die genannten, allgemeingaltigen Einzelheiten aber die Herrschaft des Peisistratos, ... (sind) typisch fOr die sophistische ErBrterungen aber ~en gerechten und weisen Tyranhen11 • The same sophistic influence may well colour Hdts treatment here. Cf. e.g. Ar.Pol.1285A25ff, for the constftutional behaviour of the good monarch. (8) Cf. Ryffel pp.57ff, with Ch.II.i.A and B. (9) Hdt presents us with stasis in the abstract, and says nothing 9f the grievances which may have caused it; contrast Ar.Athpol.13.3f, where the reforms of Solon are the cause, some resenting the cancelling of debts, others the change in the constitution. Hdt of course does not describe the condition of Athens before Peisistratus and leaves Solon more or less in a vacuum. Cf. Jacoby (1949) p.153: "he knows about Solon 1 s legislation ( cf. 1.29.lf ), but he does not set forth the epochal importance of it, nor does he realize Salon's position in the development of the Athenian state 11 • We might have expected Hdt to be curious about Solon, however, given his interest in lawgivers ( e.g. Lycurgus, Demonax, Cleisthenes, ~tc. ) ,,-and that he-would have tried to understand him through research -if the evidence was indeed not available. He may have felt, however, -495that he was not concerned with the history of the Athenian constitution in rnere legal terms, but only with those events which deprived the city of its freedom ( the tyranny ) and those which gave it her back, with freedom once again defining the limits of the inquiry. Added to that is the desire to have important events happen only once ( cf. Ch.II.i.A.1 ): to acknowledge the 1 epochal importance' of Solon would have been to lessen the significance Hdt wanted to attach to the turning-point which 'gave Athens her freedom'. It should be admilttea however, that according to E. Ruschenbusch, Historia 7 (1958) pp.398ff, Solon was never thought of as the founder of a constitution until the middle of the 4thc. (10) This division of Hdts account seems to have been largely ignored, and most commentators speak of 1.59.6 as though it were a judgement on the entire period of tyranny; cf. e.g. Waters (1971) p.15: 11The account of Peisistratus is far from unsympathetic, despite the lack of consistency which is here betrayed". (11) Athpol.15.3, misses Hdts precise distinctiohby altering this to: JtctTE::LXEV non TT1\) TVpavv(oa. SEl3a.Cws;. Contrast Athpol.14.3, \vhich does reproduce Hdt accurately. (12) Hdt remarks pointedly that Lykurgus and Magakleswere at each other's throats.again immediately they had rid themselves of their rival. Compare also the second tyranny: Peisistratus returns at the invitation of Megakles ( cf. 1.60.2, nE::pLSACi,\J\)OμEvos; 0£ TnL OTUOL o MryaJtAsns; &nrnnpvnsOSTO ITeLaLaTpaTwL ), but the tyranny ends when Megakles once again makes common cause with his enemies to expel Peisistratus ( cf. 1.61.2, dpynL os &s; slxs •.• ). Hdt observes closely the workings of these shifting alliances, and how in the pursuit of power men forget whatever ties of friendship or marriage they may have contracted, when these have outgrown their usefulness ( cf. 1.74.4, &vsu y&p &va.yna.Cns; taxvpns; auμBaaLss; Gcrxupat oun e:-&sAovaL auμμsvsLv ). None of this, clearly, reflects at all well on Megakl~s the Alcmeonid, not only since he is quite prepared to enter an alliance with the tyrant, but also because of his so ready disloyalty. This is most surprising f there ,s any truth in :the A rcmeonfd~sour-ce - -- - . theory; but cf. the discussion in {B) and (C) below. For the vexed problems of the chronology of Peisistratus' exiles, cf. e.g. J.G.F. Hind, CQ 24 * (197 4) 1-18; fortunate 1 y, these do not concern us here. (13) Cf. Ar.Pol.1285A25ff, with 1286B35ff and 1311A7ff. For the bodyguard as a hallmark of the tyrant, cf. e.g. Aristoph.Hipp.447-9 ( Hippias ), and P~.Republ.5668, T~ 6~ Tvpa.vvLñv aCTnμa T~ noAu8poAnTov ••• a.GTstv '[()\) ofiμov (j)IJActJtas; nvas; TOU awμa.Tos;. Compare Hdts Gelon at 7.154.1, with Gyges at 1.8.1 ( cf. 91.1 ), and perhaps Darius at 3.139.2, for future tyrants associated with the bodtguards of those whose positions they usurp. For Peisistratus 1 korynephoroi as part of the family's political use bf tbe Heracles-myth, cf. J. Boardman, RA (1972) pp.57ff, at 62f and 66f; and Rhodes (1981) 200-1. (14) Cf. the attitude of Polycrates, who has no care for the Samians who desert him ( 3.45.3 ), TWL CnoupoL TE μLcr-crwTot na.L TOsOTaL otnnLoL ~aav nAñst nOAAOL, (15) Cf. Rhodes (1981) 215, with Thucyd.6.54.5, on the mild taxation of his sons, nat EnE:TnoE:UOav L nAE'C(JTQ\) 6n TUpã\IOL ODTOL &pnnv J{Cll, t;UVS0LV, }taL, 'A.t1nvaLoUs; d1toOTT)V μovov npa.aaoμSVOL TWV yvyvoμEVW\I, (16) Cf. Polycrates 1 taking of hostages from the families of the Samian exiles at 3.45,ff-, a tyrannical measure. -496- (17) Cf. A. Ferrill,~HistOria 27 (1978) pp.358ff. (18) Cf. e.g. 5.92e.2, on the tyranny of Kypselos, 1to>..Aous; μ£v Kop1.,v*Cwv £6Lw~s, lCOAAOU$ 0£ xpnμaTWV &nscrTspncrs, lCOAAWl, OS TI., lCA€L0TOU$ Tns ~uxns;. (19) Cf. Thucyd. 6.53.3, Sltl,OTC!μsvos; yap 6 onμos; chonL TT]V II€L0L0Tpchou Hai: TOO na1.,6os; TUpavvCoa xaAElCTlV T£AEUTW0aV ysvoμsvnv ; and Athpol.14.3 and 16.lf, with 16.7, they used to call Peisistratus 1 reign an age of Kronos, cruvs6n yap V0T€POV 61.,aos~aμsvwv TWV uLswv lCOAAWL ysvscr*al, TpaxuTspav Tnv apxnv. Both Thucyd. and Aristotle are here notoriously dependent on Hdt for their narratives; cf. Jacoby (1949) p. 153, G6ttlieb pp.9f, with nn.25-9, and see Rhodes (1981) pp.189ff. And yet both seem unaware that they are making any change. (20) Cf. Eupolis Demoi Fl23Kock ( = Sch.Ar.Ach.61 ), EunoALs; oc tv 6nμo1.,s; slcrdysL T~v ITs1.,0l0TpaTov Sa01.,Afã that is possibly as Archon Basileus, but at any rate in.z some flattering role, given the play 1 s premiss that it is the heroes of the democracy who are to be restored to 1 ife to help her in her present troubles. (21) Cf. Wilamowitz (1893) I.118-20. (22) Cf. also M. Hirsch, Klio 20 (1925) p.168, arguing for a common written source of the late 5thc. (23) Cf. M. Pohlenz, RE XI.2 (1922) s.v. Kronos, 2006-7, who shows how the golden age of Kronos was a folk-belief which grew out of the Attic Kronia ( cf. ibid. 1983-4 ): 11und noch in viel spaterer Zeit haben ja die attischen Bauern, wenn sie die idealenZusUnde unter Peisistratos preisen wollten, keinen besseren Auidruik gewusst als den Vergleich mit dem Regiment des Kronos11 • And cf. Rhodes (1981) 217-8, who argues for a very early coining of this description of Peisistratus': r~ign. (24) Cf. e.g Theopompus FGH 115F135 ( = Athen.532F-533A ): HalToL 6 naT~P ãTwv Ils1.,0C0TpaTos; μsT~Lws; lxpijTo TaCs; Aoovats;• ~s; ys õo' sv - , ' ' ' ,,... , $'\ , ' ' '\ ' ,, ' TOL$ XWPLOL$ ou6 sv TOL$ HnnoLs; ~UAaxas; HaTL,0Ta, ••. aAA £1.,a TOV SoUAOμEVOV €L0LOVTa &noAaUSLV HaL AaμSavsLV fuV osn*sCn, onsp U0T€POV tnoCncrs xaL KCμwv μ1.,μncraμsvos; sxsCvov ( cf. F89 ). And cf. Diod.IX.37. (25) Cf. Aristoph.Hipp.447-9;Vesp.502; Lysistr.619, HaL μaALcrT' ocr~paCvoμaL Tns; 'InnCou TUpavvC6os;. (26) Cf. e.g. Andoc.1.106 and 2.26; Demosth.17.3 and 21.144; [Demosth.J Ep.Philippi 12.7; Isocr.16.25; but contrast Isocr.Panath.148, (Peisistratos), 3s onuaywyo, ysvdusvos; Hat noAAa Tnv n6A1.,v Auunvdv~vos; Hai: Tous; SsATLOTous; TWV lCOAl,TWV W$ OALyapxLHOU$ OVTas; EHSaAWV, T€A€UTWV TOV T€ 6fiμov HaTsAucrs Hai: TUpavvov auTov Ha.T£0Tn0sv. This is the only case known to me from the orators of hostility towards Peisistratus himself, and it may be that Isocrates is adapting the tradition to make the tyranny stand as an interruption of the perfect politeia that Athens had enjoyed since Theseus (!); cf. his admission of eccentricity at this point ( 149-50 ). - .~ (26a) For modern assessments of the Peisistratid tyranny, cf. Andrewes (1956) pp.100-15, and Serve (1967) I.47-77. (27) This reticence about Hippias' tyranny accords ill with Jacoby 1 s claim (1949) p.335 n.25, that 11the four years of more severe tyranny were evidently the chief argument of Hdts Alcmeonid authorities, who minimized the action of the tyrannicides 11 • See below. (27a) For the problem of the chronology of the Alcmeonids1 exile, and Hdts comments upon it, cf. P.J. Bicknell, Historia 19 (1970) 129-31; and -497K.H. Kinzl, Rh.Mus.109 (1976) 311-14. In my view, nothing that Hdt tells us of their exile need indicate anything about his source(s). (28) Hdts referencesJ:o Pei s i stratus outside the main Mrrat i ve of Athenian history are various in character. We hear that Miltiades resents the tyranny ( 6. 35. 3 h &x&oμ£vov T£ TT1L IT£LcrLOTpaTou &pxfiL ( cf. .Theron at 4.147.3, and Dorieus at 5.42.2 ), and decides to establish one of his own in the Thracian Chersonese. We hear of the exile of Kirnon ( 6.103.1 ), xaTlAaB£ ,uy£Cv tt 'A&nvlwv IT£LcrCcrTpaTov T~\l 'InnoxpaT£os, and of how Kirnon had his second chariot victory at Olympia proclaimed in Peisistratus 1 name ( 103.2f ), xat T~\l v(xnv nap£ts TodTwL xaTnA&£ tut Ta i1:wuToD unocrnov6os. 11And when he won yet another victory with the same horses, he met his death at the hands of Peisistratus 1 sons, when the father himself was no longer living. And they killed him by setting an ambush for him at night near the prytaneion 11 • That Hdt adds here <that Kirnon was murdered ou1tln n£pL£ovTos; auToD IT£LcrLcrTpaTov shows that he is drawing a distinction between father and sons, such as we find elsewhere in the tradition. The episode is designed to tell us something of what life is like under tyranny. Kirnon must obsequiously relinquish a prize of the greatest worth to secure his return from exile. Survival under tyranny means stooping to flattery and it is hard to get the right balance ( cf. 3.80.5 ). Peisistratus, however, surely shows a certain magnanimity in allowing the return of such a distinguished rival, a magnanimity which is sharply contrasted with~the murderous revenge pf bis sons. Finally we hear of Callias ( 6.121.2 ), who alone of the Athenians dared, when Peisis.trstYs was in exile< to buy his proeerty when it was auctioned by the state, xat T~AAa Ta EX&LcrTa ts; aUTov navTa t11nxavaTo. This evidence taken together does little to confirm the existence df a popular anti-Peisistratid tradition, and the Kimonepisode in particular ( 6.103.2f) suggests that Hdt was familiar with the tradition which contrasted the mildness of Peisistratus with the excesses of his sons. Cf. e.g. Theopompus FGH Jl5Fl35, quoted in n.24, above. (29) Cf. HCT IV.322-3 and 327-8. Also c.w.-Fornara, Philol.114 (1970) 155ff, who rightly insists that the 'tyrannicide myth' did not at this stage pretend that the tyranny was brought to an end simultaneously with the death of Hipparchus~ but rather stressed the heroism of Harmodios and Aristogeiton as the factor most important in bringing down the tyranny. Contrast e.g. A.J. Podlecki, Historia 15 (1966) 129ff. (30) Cf. also Thucyd.6.53.3, the Ath~nians knew that the Spartans were rea 11 y responsible for the l i be rat ion, ou6' v,' i1:mnwv xaL 'Apμo6 Cou xaTaAU0£tcrav ( sc. T~\l TUpavvCoa ), aAA' ~ñ Tfilv Aax£6aLμov(wv. (31) For the date, cf. Pliny NH 34.17; and cf. Fornara, art.cit.p.158, with n.22. It is worth mentioning that the same Ant~nor employed to produce the first tyrannicide statue-group was also commissioned by the Alcmeonids to work on the temple at Delphi; cf. e.g. Boardman (1978) p.83. Perhaps both commissions are equally the result of Alcmeonid patronage and Antenor is, as it were, the protege of the family in the same way that Endoios perhaps was of the Peisistratids. (32) Cf. Page. Epigr.Gr.Simonides I; and B. Merttt, Hesperia 5 (1936} pp.355ff; ti μ{y' 'A&nva\joLGl, cpows; YE\l£0', nvCx' 'ApLGTOfy£(TW\l Inapxov xT£t:vE xat 'Apμo6Los ( and the second half of the second pentameter -498- •..• 11:cnp(oa ynv c:BtTnv, which ought almost certainly to be preceded by the word isonomon, the best candidate to supply the required sense of 1 free 1 • See now Page (1981) pp.186-9. What it was that stimulated the apparent resurgence of interest in the myth around 477, when the Antenor group, removed by the Persians, was replaced, and when the murder of Hipparchus became a popular subject for the vase-painters ( cf. Bowra (1961) p.394; plates in M. Hirsch, art cit. ), we cannot say for sure. That this shou1ld be connected with an eclipse of Alcmeonid power after the Persian Wars seems hardly probable, especially if it was their own invention in the first place. Possibly rather the Athenians saw in the myth of the liberation a parallel with their recent equally heroic liberation from Persia, i.e. the spirit shown by the tyrannicides was the spirit which saved Athens from enslavement by Xerxes ( cf. Hdt 6.109.3! ). (33) Cf. IG i 2.77 ( = SEG X.40 ), with H.T. Wade-Gery, BSA 33 (1932-3) pp.123ff; his conjecture that the decree was moved by [Per]ik[l]es is hardly certain, as shown by the editors of IG i3.131, who suggest Antikles, Kharikles, Lysikles or even Arkhikles. (34) Cf. PMG 893-896, and also Aristoph.Vesp.1225-6, where Bdelycleon tries to teach Harmodios to his father; and cf. Ach.979f and 1093. But contrast Jacoby (1949) p.160, and esp. Fornara, art.cit.p.180, with n.2, who both argue, ignoring the evidence of Aristophanes, th~t the poems must be aristocratic. (35) Jacoby (1949) pp.158~9, argued that the claims of the tyrannicides were voiced with vigour and imprecision by the democratic Hellani~us in his Attike Syngraphe, hence Thucydides 1 assault on the tradition in Book Six. Cf. also Marmor Parium A.45, which dates both the murder of Hipparchus and the expulsion of the tyrants to the same year, the archonship of Harpaktides ( 511-10 ), possibly following Hellanicus; cf. Dover/ Andrewes, HCT IV.321-2. If this were correct, it would be further evidence that the claims of the tyrannicides were particularly* pressed by those of democratic sympathies. (36) And cf. 6.123.2, ol μtv y&p ( sc. the tyrannicides ) e~nypCwcrav ,ot>s; 1JTCOAOLTCOUs; IlELOLOTpa, L6t::W\J "Inrcapxov &no,nEL\Jc:t\JTEs;, ou6[ TL μfiAAO\J ,, [ ' ~ ' ] , Enaucrav ,ous; AOLuous; TUpavveuo\JTas;. (37) The [ou] was supplied by Madvig ( cf. e.g. Aesch.Pers.570,006 uo:>-:>-ol ,Lves; ), but unnecessarily. The context shows that Hdt is remarking on the considerable extent of the isolation of the Gephyraioi ( cf. 5.61.2, below). For the expression, cf. Pausanias 1.9.3, rca-Bdv,es E~ UOAAa TE nat oun &~La e~nyncrews;. (38) For a discusison of the possible truth of the matter, cf. Davies, APF pp.472-3. Boardman's suggestion ( cited there) that as Euboeans the Gephyraioi came to be associated with Phoenicia through their activities in Al Mina, from where they introduced into Greece among other things the Phoenician alphabet, is certainly attractive. (39) Hdts treatment of this question gains point when we remember that the Athenians prided themselves above all on being autochthonous, unlike all other Greeks; cf. Pl.Menex.237BC, etc. -499- (40) Cf. e.g. Jacoby (1949) pp.160ff; Fornara, art~cit.pp.156-7. (41) Cf. e.g. P. Karavites,Historia 26 (1977) pp.129ff, with G.M.E. Williams, Historia 29 (1980) pp.106ff, on the 'fall I of the Alcmeonids after Marathon. And cf. Davies, APF pp.381-2, on 11the almost complete absence from the political scene after 480 of descendants of the family in the male line 11 • (42) Cf. e.g. Jacoby (1949) p.154, and Fornara, art.cit.p.156: "Striking a blow for an Alcmeonid tradition ... was inevitably to strike a blow against Alcmeonid detractors, and there can be no question that these were motivated politically, for Pericles was Athenian democracy'' (?). And cf. Dover I Andrewes, HCT IV.325. For Pericles as an Alcmeonid, cf. esp. Thucyd.1.127.1, with Hdt 6.131.2. (43) Cf. V. Ehrenberg, Historia 1 (1950) pp.515ff, answered by G.Vlastos, AJP 74 (1953) pp.337ff, and then Ehrenberg, WS 69 (1956) pp.57ff; and see Ostwald, (1969) pp.96ff. Contrast Jacoby (1949) pp.152-68; Podlecki, art. cit. (44) Cf. n.31, above. (45) Cf.~.g. Fornara, art.cit.pp.170ff. (46) For Delphi at the time of the Peloponnesian War, cf. Thucyd.1.118.3. The rap~rochment between Athens and the Amphiktyonic League indicated by IG i .26 ( with Meiggs, AE pp.418ff ), possibly at the time of Oenophyti3, cannot be taken as typical of their relations in the 5thc. * (47) Cf. Bornitz pp.30ff, who also argues ( somewhat differently.} that the account reflects little credit on the Alcmeonids. (48) Ar.Athpol.19.3, blurs a distinction in Hdt when he changes this to, ot ~uya6e~, ~V ot 'AAMμEWVL6aL ~POELOTnXEOaV, (49) Cf. 2.180.1, listing the various contributions to the temple-building, and thought by Jacoby to indic~te that Hdts source in both places was a Delphic tradition ( FGH IIIb.Suppl.1 p.451 ); but contrast Wilamowitz cited in n.62 below. (50) Cf. Bornitz p.32: 11War die erste Phase gekennzeichnet durch die Taktik des peirasthai, charakterisiert die zweite Phase ,das meJ5hanasthai11• And the word mekhanasthai, of course, can have distincly ignoble and unheroic coñotations, cf. 5.90.1, below. (51) Cf. the underhand scheming of Megakles against Peisistratus in Book One, 1.60.1, 60.2 and 61.2, with n.12 above. (52) Cf. W.G.Forrest, 'The Tradition of Hippias' Expulsion from Athens', GRBS 10 (1969) pp.277f; and K.H. Kinzl, 'Herodotos Interpretations', Rh.Mus.118 (1975) pp.193ff. (53) These passages clearly support one another, rather than offering alternative versions: cf. Kinzl, art.cit., who, however, surprisingly excepts 5.66.1 ( cf. pp.196-7, with n.68 below). -500- (54) Cf. Jacoby (1949) p.335 n.27: 11The Alcmeonid origin of the main account ( sc. of the liberation) is mariifest, because a variant, with a citation of the source hoi Ath~ñioi, accused the Alcmeonids of having corrupted the Pythia 11 , of wfiicfi claim it is a little hard to see the logic! And e.g. Forrest, art.cit.pp.279ff, substituting Spartans for Athenians ( cf. n.56, below); Kinzl, art.cit.pp.194ff; and even Bornitz p.32: "Diese grossfUgigere AusfUhrung { sc. of the temple-project) ... gilt bei Hdt als unbestreibares Indiz fUr die Einflussnahme ( m~khanomenoi ) der Alkmeonidai auf Delphi'\ and suggesting that the bribery story ,s a variant. (55) Cf. Denniston pp.468-70, for the particle-group on de; and cf. Powell, s.v. on II.2 { see below ). Forrest 1 s attempt to read adversative force into this connector ( art.cit.p.279 ) is most unconvincing: I see no such force in his supposed parallel at 7.142.2, Tõs ~v 6~ T~s vlas .11.lyovTas. Kinzl, art.cit. pp.195-6, is incomprehensible to me on this point. ** (55a) I know of no citation of a variant version i;n Hdt which does not make clear what informants are being distinguished form what others: cf. e.g. 1.5.1-2; 2.2.5; 3.~,ff; 4.8.1, to select four examples at random. The onus is on those who wish to see a variant in the present passage fo show that: Hdt is not: always so explfcif. F.J. Groten, PhoenixlT~ (1963) 79ff, has little to offer on the subject of Hdts use of variant versions beyond the observation that he does use them! (56) Cf. Fehling 1 s 1 Prinzip der nttchtsliegenden Quellen 1 • There is absolutely no warrant for the emendation of Ath~naioi to Lakedaimonioi here, suggested, in defiance of any palaeographical considerations, by Schweighttuser. It is accepted by Forrest, art.cit,p.281, on the extraordinary grounds that llthe mass of the Athenians ... accepted Hellanikos 11 , i.e. a version which had forgotten that the actual liberation was performed by the Spartans; but cf. Aristoph.Lysistr.1150-6, and Thucyd.6.53.3, with n.29 above. * Cf. also Kinzl, art.cit.p.194, n.8. {57) For this use of a delayed citation to point the climax or the central point of the narrative, cf. e.'g. the narrative at 3.102-5 of how the Indians gather gota from the desert ants. At the point in the story where Hdt has the Indians make off with their spoils, we are told how the ants set off in pursuit { 3.105.1 ): a0T~xa y~p oL μdpμnxEs 66μnL, oi_~_6n AEYETCH, uuo IIEpcJlwv, μa,&onEs QLwxoucrL. . And this is the first we learn.that-the story.is meant to derive from a Persian source! Cf. G. Karsai, AUB 5-6 (1977-8) 61-72, who argues that the story must be a genuine Persian tradition though whether it is or not little affects the point made here. (58) Compare the moral outrage of Pausanias III.4.6, ~ho curiously knows of Cleomenes as the only man impious enough to have attempted anything of this sort possibly a tacit rejection of Hdts story. (59) Cf. Forrest, art.cit.pp.277ff; and Jacoby, FGH IIIb Suppl.2 p.358 n.7; cf. esp. Ar.Athpol.19.4; Philochorus FGH 328Fll5; and Sch.Demosth.21.144 { IX.623 Ddf. ). -501- (6Q) Jacoby, FGH Illb Suppl.l p.454, and Suppl.2 pp.361-2 and 363-4; was misled by C. StH.tman, Athens (1924) pp.79ff, into supposing there to be numismatic support for this in an rAlcmeonid-Delphic issue•; but cf. Forrest, art.cit.pp.282-3, for a critique. (61) Cf. Wilamowitz (1893) II.323-8. (62) Cf. Wilamowitz (1893) I.32 n.32: "Lediglich ein Akt der Munifizenz und der Frommigkeit, die wir an den Alkmeoniden, von denen seine Tradition stammt, bewundern sollen". It is not a reliable inference from this positive estimate of their munificence and piety, however, to assume that the Alcmeonids are Hdts source here, as my arguments in the text are intended to show. (63) Cf. Bowra (1961) pp.383-4; and Bornitz pp.34ff. (64) Cf. Wilamowitz (1893) I.38, with n.20; and Bowra (1961) p.383. (65) Cf. 5.90.1, CI~tJ(j,QJlTJY ETCOLEUVTO OLTCAr,v, OTL n av6pas i;ELVO\JS OqJLOL t6vTas tl;sAnAdMEcrav EM Tns EMELvwv, Mat OTL TaDTa noLnaacrL xdPLS o66EμCa Eq,aLVETO TCpos 'AenvaLwv; and 5.91.2, ETCapeevTES yap ML86T1AOL(J'l, μavTnLOLOL ,, t: i:"' ,, ' ' , '' ' t , avupas ~ELVO\JS EOVTas nμGv Ta μaALOTa MaL ava6EMOμEVO\JS UTCOXELpLas 1tapt:l;ELV TCi.S 'Ãnvas' TODTOUS EM TriS TCaTp Coos Ei;nAdcraμEV. The threefold repetition of this motif leaves us in no doubt that the Spartans were acting without any thought for the ideal of freedom when they 1 liberated 1 Athens. (66) Ar.Athpol.19.4, 1 improves1 on Hdt by suggesting that the Spartans overcame their scruples because of the Peisistratids' relations with their enemy, Argos ( cf. ibid.17.4 ). Cf. Forrest, art.tit.p.281, n.7. (67) Macan at 5.66(1): 11The inc[fi'l~e or revival of power is antedated: probably the immediate effect of the expulsion of the Peisistratids was to weaken the power of Athens11• But the contradiction is in fact thrust on us by Hdts own narrative, which openly acknowledges that stasis was the immediate result of the fall of the tyrants. (68} Not an alternative version of the story already told, since clearly we are simply being reminded that Cleisthenes was one of the Alcmeonids reported to have bribed the Py.thia at 5.63.l ( cf. anapeisai/anepeithon ). But contrast e.g. Kinzl, art.cit.pp.196-7, "yet another legomenon, according to which Kleisthenes himself persuaded the Pythia 11• * • (68a) I cannot see much to recommend the suggestion that no Greek would have expected Cleisthenes to have done anything but look after his own interest: this is not one of those few exceptions to the 'rule' that the interests of the state should come first; cf. Dover, GPM 30lff. (69) Forrest (1966) p.191, points to the incongruity of the word proshetairizetai here ( cf. 5.69.2, TCpOS Tnv €W\JTOU μotpav TCpOOE~)lMQTO ••• Tov 6~μov rcpoaefμEvos ); Cleisthenes is still playing the game of factions, an aristocratic game, into which he mistakenly draws the demos, thus bringing the game to an end. The irony, of course, may well be of Hdts devising, rather than a reflection of historical fact or even tradition. (70) Cf. e.g. D.M. Lewis, Histbria 12 (1963) pp.22ff; P.J. Bicknell, Historia Einzelschr.19. (1977) pp.lff; J.S. Traill, Hesperia Suppl.14(1975); A. Andrewes, CQ 27 (1977) pp.24lff. To what extent Hdts cynical interpretation of Cleisthenes ã a man and a reformer is justified by the facts is spen to dispute. See e.g. Forrest (1966) pp.19lff, who plays down his altruistic rno_tj~es .L emphasj zing the app~ rent evidence that A lcmeon id contro_l__\'Ja. 5. __ I L -502built into the trittys-system ( cf. e.g. Lewis, Bicknell (esp.), Andrewes ); and arguing thai Cleisthenes fatally miscalculated in playing with the demos. For the opposite view, see e.g. Murray (1980) pp.254ff, emphasizing the eclipse of Alcmeonid power in the wake of the reforms, and the institution of ostracism. In my view the reforms show too much .careful and far-sighted thought to have been conceived with Alcmeonid ascendancy as one of their -main ~bjectives: no-one who was really interested in establishing the pQwer.ofhis own family would have wasted so much time on detail which did not directly affect this either way. Clearly there was some gerrymandering in favour of the Alcmeonids ( though possiblynotas much as was once argued), but by breaking up many of the old sources of aristocratic influence ( Andrewes ) Cleisthenes was also looking towards.a new and freer state. The modern controversy as to whether Cleisthenes was more of a politician than a statesman is, however, far removed from Hdts interpretation, which does all it can to deny that Cleistheres in any way had the interests of Athens at heart. (70a) Cf. Ar.Athpol.29.J; Isocr.7.16, 15.232 and 16.26; with E. Ruschenbusch, Historia 7 (1958) pp.418-21. (71) Cf. Ar.Athpol.21.1, where the reforms are instituted ~TEL TsTdpTwL μsT~ 'l;Y)V TWV TUpavvwv Jia'taAUCYLV EEL 'Iaayopou ClPXOVTO!; ( cf. DH Ant.RQm~ 1.75 and 5.1 ). This in Aristotle's narrative sequence comes after th~attempted coup of Isagoras and Cleomenes and the exile of Cleisthenes, unless we accept the argument of Wade-Gery (1958) pp.137-9. that 21.1 is a delayed elaboration ( for stylistic reasons! ) of 20.1, which reports that before Cleisthenes 1 exile, ~TT~μsvos .•• rcpocrnyaysTo T~v 6fiμov, &rco6L6õs TwL rc>..ri-&u Tnv rcoALTELav ( Wade-Gery translates, universe populo tribuens rem publicam ). If this is so, however, Aristotle:bas gtven no indication that ~his is how he wants to be read, and he is being unnecessarily confusing. See now D.J. Mccargar, Histori~ 25 (1976) pp.385ff, arguing that Aristotle does correct Hdts sequence with independent documentary evidence ( cf. Sch.Ar.Lysistr.273 ). (72) If Hdt is completely wrong and the reforms did not in any way antedate Cleisthenes 1 exile, his mistake may be due to a pre-disposition to see them as merely a weapon against Isagoras. If both Hdt and Aristotle are right ( cf. e.g. Hignett (1952) App.VI pp.331-6, and now Rhodes (1981) 244-5 ), and the reforms were set in motion before the exile but not ratified and/or executed until Cleisthenes 1 return, then Hdt may, for the same reason, have chosen to imply that all was complete before the fall of Isagoras. An acknowledgement that Cleisthenes was engaged in setting up the democracy even after the disposal of his political rival would concede more political altruism to him than Hdt is prepared to do. (73) Cf. Macan at 5.69.1; but the paradox is certainly one of Hdts own devising. (74) Contrast How and Wells at 5.67.1: 11The resemblance between the two policies ... is less clear that the contrast. The historian's distorted view shows how inadequate was his apprec a€ion of Cleisthenes 1 political reforms 11 • Distortion, however, can mean more than inadequacy of historical vision, as we shall see. (75) Mimeesthai can be used nf unconscious imitation: cf. esp. 1.176.3 ( ironic) and 2.104.4, 9.34.1. But there is no reason to understand that here ( cf. e.g. 4.166.1 ). (76) It is remarkable that Hdts picture of Cleisthenes should be so hostile when we compare what the author ( not Aristotle) of Ar.Pol.1315B12ff has to say of the Orthagorid tyranny, which lasted longest of all tyrannies, _n_l:>ecause the_y tre<3_ted their subjects with moderat'ion, rule(! according -503to law, and generally looked after the people * in such a way as to earn their goodwill 11 ; the author goes on to single out Cleisthenes, who ( it was said ) once 11placed a wreath on the h.ead of a judge who had decided against him in the games11 • The narrative of the marriage of Agariste in Hdt ( 6.126ff) also seems to pre-suppose a tradition favourable to the tyrant. For a modern interpretation of the Orthagorid tyranny, cf. A. Griffin, Sikyon (1982) pp.40ff, esp.47ff. (77) Cf. 5.70.2f, ~ovEDaaL 6~ ãTods ( sc. the conspirators ) alTln sxu 'AhμEwvC6as;. The episode is put in the worst possible light by Hdts insistence on the lawlessness of the Alcmeonids1 acti_on in murdering the conspirators after the RPUTavLES T~v vauHp&pwv had released them UREyyuous RAnv ~avaTOU ( cf. 5.71.2 ). Contrast Thucyd.l.126.3ff, where the enageis ( i.e. the Alcmeonids ) are themselves acti~g jn an official capacity when they put the suppliants to death~ inasmuch as they are themselves entrusted as the arkhontes with the powers to do with them whatever they think best ( cf. 1.126.8 ). Cf. Dover/ Andrewes, HCT IV.426. Clearly Hdts version reflects far less well on the Alcmeonids, who ( like tyrants?) take the law into their own hands. This is surely yet another indication of the inadequacy of the Alcmeonid-source theory, if a story so directly concerning the family, and indeed Pericles him1~H ( cf~ Thucyd.1.127.1 ). can appear in a form so wholly unflattering to them. Cf. M. La*ng, "CPh 57 ( 1967) 243-9, compa-ri rig the-two accounts and . concluding that what Thucydides has added is Alcrneonid bias! (78) Cf. Bornitz p.49:. 11Wenn wir nun vor diesem Hintergrund ( i.e. the character of the tyrant) die Taten des Athener Kleisthenes betrachten, zeigt sich, dass zwar am Ende seiner staatlichen Ver#nderungen die Einrichtung der Demokratie steht ... , doch die Motive dazu sind keineswegs aus der Sorge um das Wohl der Stadt erwachsen, sondern aus rein pers~nlichen, machtpolitischen Interessen 11• (79) But contrast Forrest (1966) pp.191ff, who supposes that Cleisthenes' endeavours Produced accidental results, which he little enough envisaged when he started. Is this any more than an attempt to accomodate Hdts erratic interpretation? Cf. n.70 above. (80) The text and sense ~ijve bbth been disputed. pant6s is Bekker's emendation for MSS panta or pant5n. KrHger suggested that ap6smenon was middle, with the sense 11wh i eh -before had rejected h im11• But the most natural interpretation is that of Stein: 111 zurHckgestossen, verschm8cht 1 van Kleisthenes. Dieser hatte frUher, als Haupt einer der angesehensten unter den herrschenden familien, es verschmMht sich um das Wohl und die Gunst des gemeiñn Mannes zu bekHmmern11• Contrast also Ostwald (1969) p.156: 11Cleisthenes first tried to get his programme adopted through a forum other than the Ass,embly11 ; but it is hard to believe Hdt means this. - {81) The answer to this question depends both on whether or not we.presuppose a Solonian boule ( cf. e.g. Rhodes (1981) 153-4 ) and on whether Hdt is right in putting the Cleisthenic reforms before Isagoras 1 attempted coup ( cf. nn.Jl~2, above ). (82) D.M. Lewis (1977) p.148, considers it to be 11a theme of the History that the Per$ian gradually discover what the Spartans are like 11 • Hdts point seem to be rather that misunderstanding on both sides is not so much dependent on knowledge or information as on the inclination to understand ( cf. ReflexiõCh.III, n.109 ). Moreover it is not only the Spartans who are treated in this way but the Athenians ãwell: cf. the present example and esp. C&rius at 5.105.lf, Elp[crijã oETLVES ElEv ol 'Ãnv~CoL. -504- (83) A most characteristic action of the democracy; cf. e.g. Thucyd.2.70.4, , _ , , , ,, *, t1 ,, ' ,..., ~ .t Q ÃnvaLOL OE: TOUS TE: <1TpC1.Tnyous €1U'll.,1:l,~,Q"IC(.\)T0 O L a.ve:u C1.UTWV sUVt:μncrav ( cf. 4.65.3,etc. ). Incidentally there is no indication here in Hdt of what modern commentators have inferred, namely that the authors ,Of this embassy are the Alcmeonids and that its failure means their disgrace ( cf. e.g. How and Wells at 5.73.3 ). For Hdt the episode shows the new corporate sptrit of Athens an unflattering reflexion on the democracy? {84) Cf. the Spartan embassy to Cyrus at 1.152.3, yns Tns 'EAAaoos μn6sμCav TIOALV crOvaμwpeE:LV WS C1.UTWV OU TIE:PLÕoμsvwv. (85) Cf. Cleomenes' grievance at 5.74.1 after having been ejected by the democracy ( ETILOTaμe:vos TIE:pl,U!3pCcr.\JaL STIE:OL '){(1.l, spyoLOl, UTI' 'A,Bnvawv ) as the Spartans here recall ( 5.91.2, ne:pLuBpCaas stsBaAe: ). Cf. Ch.I.ii. (86) Cf. 5.92e.5, oux aiv TIC1.UOE:O-&E: a.Ha TIE:Lpncrrn.\JE: na.pa TO 6Cxa.LOV xaTayoVTE:S 'InnCnv; (87) "Attacked on both sides 11 is surely a more likely rendering of &μq,v80ALnL exoμE:VOL than "in doubt 11 ( so Powell, s.v. ), as .the Thucydidean parallels cited by Stein .illustrate: 11von zwei ( oder mehreren ) Seiten angegriffen sein 11 • The Athenians are in critical danger, isolated by their new independence and compelled to be self-sufficient, but they show the very reverse of 'doubt' ~r hesitation. (88) Cf. Thucyd.1.108.2, on Oenophyta; and 1.100.1, on Eurymedon, svCxwv -r"L auT~L ~μspat.. &μq,o-re:pa ( i.e. by land and sea ). * Both those encounters show the speed and decisiveness of Athenian action. In the present case, however, the physical possibility of two such battles on one day is hard to credit. (89) Cf. Aelian, Var.Hist.6.1, who has .has number of cleruchs as diskhilious ( v.l. tessarakonta ). Whatever that evidenceisworth, it is generally agreedthat Hdts figure seems improbably large. This may well not have peentheearliest use of cleruchies by the Athenians ( cf. e.g. the regulations f6r Salamis: Meiggs/Lewis no.14 ), nor in reality anything very surprising or ominous; but it may be thatHdt anticipates that this detail will evoke memories of the empire, of which the cleruchy was a powerful instrument, a cause of resentment as grave almost as the imposition of tribute itself. Cf. Meiggs, AE pp.121ff and 260ff; ATL III.284ff; Schulthess, RE XI~l (1921) 814-32; and cf. esp. Isocr.Paneg.107ff. He thus shows an interest tn suggesting that the Athenians used their victory to secure territorial advantage in Euboea: an account more sensitive to the good name of Athens might have suppressed such a detail. (90) The latest discussion of the date of the second dedication is by J.H. Schreiner, SO 15 (1976) pp.25-35, who argues that it commemorates victories over Boeotians and Euboeans c.454 in the Sacred War wrongly dated by Thucydides to the early 4401 s (!). (91) Cf. e.g. How and Wells: 11Hdt here as usual champions freedom and constitutional government against tyranny''; or Jacoby, RE art.358.3ff: 11Wenn er ( 5.78) das Lob der attischen Isegorie singt, so steht das in einem Passus~ der die Bemerkung, wieviel leichter es sei noAAots oLa.B&Huv n [va auf sein richtiges Mass zurilckgeftlhrt. Contrast Strasburger (1965) pp.587ff. b. ----------------~ -505- {92) All this notwithstanding the translators are virtually as one in rendering othel'.Wise: cf. Rawlinson, Macaulay and Powell "an excellent thing 11 ;l!odley{ Loeb), "A good thing"; Legrand, 11il 1 excellence de l 1 egalite 11 ; Feix, 11etwas-~!?i"'tv9JJes,11 ;de Selincourt, II ••• proved, if proof were needed, how noble a thing freedom is 11 {!). Strasburger appears to be the only exception { 11ein Zustand yot1weittragender Bedeutung11 ) , but he offers no explanation for his divergence. And cf. Fornara p.48, "a thing worth taking seriously", but he goes on to spoil it by paraphrasing what Hdt is doing here as 1 praising 1 and 1 applauding 1 ; cf. p.49, "The quality of eleutheria fostered by any government seems to have been for Hdt the ultimate touchstone of its worth11• {92a) For the reference to moral qualities in the poets• praise of cities, cf. Kienzle pp.76ff. When 'excellence in war' is stressed ( cf. Kienzle p.74 ), it is either war against a foreign foe or simply war in the abstract: the poets naturally avoid what Hdt ~oes here, namely stressing the ability of the state in war against Greek neighbours. {93) For the epainos of Athens, cf. 0. Schdjder, De laudibus Athefl_g.rum a poetis tragic1set-ab oratoribus epidictis excultis, Diss.Gtlttingen (1915); at pp.25ff for the praise of the politeia. Cf. the use of the theme in tragedy: Eurip.Suppl.433ff, Hkld.181ff; cf. Med.824ff. For Euripides on Athens, cf. Schmid/St#hlin I.3.787, n.9. Cf. also Kienzle (1936) p.85, for eleutheria in the praise of cities: e.g. Pind.Ol.12 .. lff, Py.8.98ff. . {94) Cf. Isocr.16.27 ( &cr,u ,ns 'EAAa6os ), above, with Antid.299; and see esp. Pl .Protag.3370, Athens as the ~pu,avstov ,ns crõ~as. (95) Cf. H. Strasburger in Herter ( 1968) pp. 498ff, who colllpares the other sμrviving epitaphios literature and other similar state orations ( cf. Pl.Menex.; Lys.2; Oemosth.60; Isocr.Paneg. and Panath.; Aristid.Panath.; cf. Kierdorf pp.83ff ), and concludes that 11im schroffen Bruch mit der Tradition der Epitaphios werden gerade nicht die Verdienste Athens um die Hbrige Griechenwelt, sondern nur die Besonderheiten seines innerstaat: lichen Lebens gerHhmt11 • Certainly the speech has a character all its own; but exaggeration and elaboration apart, there is likely to be a. recognizable Periclean core { cf. n.98, below). Cf. P. Landmann, Mus.Helv. 31 (1974) pp.65ff, for a recent analysis of the epainos of Athens embodied in this speech. (96) Cf. Gorg.DK 8286; Ps.-Lys.2.18-9; Ps.-Demosth.60.25-6; Isocr.Paneg.106 and Panath.114ff ( a distinction between the patrios politeia and the radical democracy); and cf. Aristid.Panath.3'83-93 .. See also esp. Pl .Legg. 698Aff, who tjescrihes the heroic defence of Athens against Persia as a triumph of the pre-radical democracy ( see (H) below). (97) It will be remembered that the Athenians had assembled a stock of traditional mythical parallels for their role as liberators, which tbey regularly trotted out in state orations alongside the story of their championship of Greek freedom in the Persian Wars. Cf. Kierdorf pp.83ff, for a full discussion. (98) It is.;most unlikely that the Menexenus parodies Thucydides, whose Funeral Oration,i_t resembles least of all our extant models both in style -506and content; rather the speech is meant at least in part to reflect the style and content of a genuine Pericl~an Epitaphios. Cf. esp. Menex.2368, 5TE μoL 6oxEt auvETL6EL T~v enLTd,Lov l6yov, Bv IlEpLxlfis EZnEv~ nepLleLμaTT' aTTa et exeLvou auyxollwcra. , 1 The famous epitaphios of Pericles 1 was not the one that Thucydides has him deliver in the first year of the Archidamian War, but the Samian Epitaphios ( cf. Plut.Per.28, with Ar.Rhet.1365A30ff and 1411Alff ). Socrates' words must imply that there is recognizable Periclean material ( KEPLAELμa,T' aTTa e~ exeLvou) in the parody. (99) Or even a non-Athenian audience, if the yearly epitaphios was indeed delivered before an assembly which included non-Athenians, and especially the allies: cf. Thucyd.2.34.4, with Stupperich (1977) p.33. (100) Cf. also Pericles' last words on the empire at Thucyd.2.64.3, a rather stark and chilling contrast with the sentiments of the Funeral Oration. (101) Ethelokake6, cf. 1.127.3, 6.15.lf, 8.22.2 ( cf. 85.1 ), 8.69.2 and 9.67 (bis);a:-11 examples of the lack of spirit to be expected of the victims of despotism. (102) Cf. e.g. W. Backhaus, Historia 25 {1976) pp.170ff. See also Ch.III.C. (103) Cf. perhaps Aesch.Pers.242-3, with Hdt 7.103.3. (103a) Cf. the rather similar denunciation of(?) civil war at Eurip.Suppl 476-93. (104) For a recent discussion ofthe history of this conflict, cf. A.J. Podlecki, 'Athens and Aegina', Historia 25 (1976) pp.396ff; but see also Wilamowitz (1893) II.280-8. * (105) .Cf. J. Myres, CR 57 (1943) pp.66f, for the correct interpretation of akeryktos polemos as war 11without formal declaration 11 rather than "unappeasable, relentless, truceless 11 • (106) Cf. N. Hammond, Historia 4 (1955) pp.406-7~ for the correct interpr~tation of this oracle. The words ,llos μtvToL xaTacrTp[4e06aL are not the sign of an oracle ex eventu which can be used to 1 re-date 1 the beginning of the Aeginetan war on the basis of an Athenian success in 458-7. Contrast e.g. Wilamowitz (1893) II.281. (107) Cf. Wilamowitz {1893) II.281: 11Hdt bedient sich .der,seJoen ( sc. the Spartan threat) auch nur als eines stilistichen Mittels, urn einen Obergang zu jenen Planenl der Spartaner zu finden 11 • (108) Cf. T.J. Dunbabin, BSA 37 (1936-7) pp.83-91; and see now R.J. Buck, in Stud.in ~on.M.F.McGregor (1981) pp.5ff. (109) This sentence is thought by many to involve Hdt in a serious inconsistency, which is taken by L.H. Jeffery, AJP 83 (1962) pp.44ff, as the main indication that Hdts narrative of the Aeginetlnconflict at 6.87-93 is a 'later ins~rtion' into the text. Cf. A. Andrewes, BSA 37 {1936-7) pp.lff, and N. Hammond, Historia 4 (1955) pp.406ff. But the -507problem is unreal: it is assumed that the aorist participle systas must mean 11by breakirig out at that time 11 , and that Hdt is thereby dating 1 the war between Athens and Aegina' to shortly before 483-2, while at 6.94.1 implying that it had broken out just before Marathon; but there is no reason why systas should be taken as. indicating any particular date at all for the outbreak of the war. The temporal adverb tote belongs with esose, thereby distancing the action of the main verb from the action of the participle. Indeed systas should mean 11by its outbreak 11 ( cf. Ktlhner/Gerth II.i.197ff, for the aorist of the participle), at a time not here specified, but remembered by the reader as having been shortly before Marathon. The ak~rytos polemos, of course, does not count; cf. 6.87-8, with Jeffery, art.cit.p.46. Other objections to Hdts chronology are sensibly dealt with by Hammond, but his treatment of systas ( 11by its continuing 11 ), although answering the problem along the right lines, is based on a misunderstanding; cf. Jeffery p.46. (110) Cf. 6.11.2 and 13.1, ataxia as indiscipline due to lack of training or expertise; and cf. e.g. Thucyd.2.92.1, the difference between Phormio's fleet and the Peloponnesian force at Naupactus. (111) Hdt clearly knows what our other evidence confirms that the relationship was that of colony and mother city; cf. Busolt I.217, n.5, and Graham pp.90f. Thus it i~ curious that he does not simply tell us as much rather than elaborating on the specific circumstances of the dependence. There is som~thing odd_too in the procedure he describes, cf. Busolt I.217, n.6: uwas Hdt 5.82ff tlber die Art 'der Abhtingigkeit van Epidauros sagt, trMgt den Stempel seiner Zeit. Die Aegineten mtlssen, wie die Untertanen Athens, nach Epidauros gehen, um dart vor epidaurischen Gerichten ihre Prozesse zu ftlhren und fallen dann ab agnomosynei khresamenoi". It seems likely that Hdt wants to suggest that Aegina was indeed subjected to Epidaurus, perhaps like an imperial dependent, in order to represent her disaffiliation as a revolt ( cf. apestesan ), an assertion of freedom and independence. This, of course, assists the parallel with Athens, acquiring at the same time freedom from tyranny and independence from Sparta ( cf. (D) above). It is interesting, if Busolt is right, that Hdt should use the model of Athenian imperial jurisdictfon to reconstruct the dependence of Aegina on Epidaurus though itisunlikely that the reader would be meant to pick this up. (112) This is somewhat curious, since Aegina's sea-power was at least as old as the Hesiodic catalogue ( F2Q5.6-7 M/W ). o'C on TOL, TCpWTOL, s€Dtav vsã aμ~L€ALcrcrã,/ (npWTOL o' LCTTL' E~€V vnõ TCT€pa TCOVTOTCOPOLO). Cf. Busolt I.217, n.6 and 449f. The Aeginetans overseas, though difficult to trace because of their lack of native pottery, are prominent in all the major sites; cf. Boardman (1980) p.49 for Al Mina, and pp.117f for Naucratis, with Hdt 2.178.3. (113) Cf. A. Momigliano, 1 Sea Power in Greek Thought', CR 58 (1944) pp.lff; repr. in Secondo Contributo (1960) pp.57ff. (114) Momigliano, art.cit.pp.2f, takes Pericles' words at 2.62.1, ** o '" t ) ' , ' « ( , ' - '.s I μoL,O?X£LJ€ ?VT, aDJÕ fW~OJ€ ev~uμñ~1VaL,UTCapxov uμ~v ~€YE ovs ~&pL ES. Tnv apxnv ouT Eyw €V Tots npLv AoyoLs, to 1nd1cate the novelty of the theme at this moment in history. But the claim to novelty is a notoriously deceptive rhetorical device and does Thucydides mean to reproduce the words actually used by Pericles? -508- (115) Cf. e.g. Isocr.Paneg.lOOff, with Wilamowitz (1893) II.380ff; see Momigliano, art.cit. for further material. (116) Those who argue for an original 5thc source for the Eusebian Thalassocracy List ( e.g. J. Myres, JHS 26 {1906) pp.84ff, and W.G. Forrest, CQ 19 (1969) pp.95ff ), suppose that its author shares a common interest with Ps.-Xenophon and Thucydides. Bu"t contrast e.g. J.effery (1976) App. III. pp. 252f. (117) Cf. Momigliano, art.cit.p.l: 11Thalassocracy, as is well-known, becomes a clear-cut idea in Hdt11• Myres, art.cit.p.87, holds a different view: 11Thereis no trace, from beginning to end of his book, of any such scheme of classification by sea-power, or even of any theory of sea-power such as the List of Thalassocracies presumes11 • But Myres, ignoring 5.83.2, misrepresents Hdts account of Polycrates at 3.122.2, ITo:\uxpaTns yap SOTL np@TOS TffiV ~μECS C6μsv 'E:\:\nvwv Bs &a:\acrcroxpaTtELV tnsvon&n, nap MLVW T£ TOU KvwcrOLOU xat, £t .Sn TLS a:\Aos 1l:POT£POS TODTOU npi;£ Tns &a:\&crcrns. Hdt is surely taking issue with an account of the history of thalassocracy ( 1.4f ). Moreover we cannot criticize Hdt on the basis of a 5thc 1 Thalassocracy-list 1 when (a) there is no indication in Thucydides or Ps.-Xenophon either of a 'scheme of classification by sea-power', and (b) the chronographic 1 succession-principle 1 of the Eusebian list is clearly quite foreign to the historiographical interests of the 5thc. Cf. n.116, above. ' (118) Agnomosyne is a difficult word to pin down; cf. Stein and Macan ad loc.. Its basic sense in Hdt seems to be 11wilfulness 11 , ranging between 11stubborn, or heroic wilfulness 11 ( as in the resistance to oppression ) and 11foolish wilfulness 11 , and it dearly has the character of an opposite to s6phrosyñ, with a consequent ambiguity allowing for both 11lack of wisdom11 and 11arrogance 11 • Cf. the Thracian resistance to Persia at 4.93, ' ' , ' ' , , • , . '6 1 'c.. ( 11f 11 II OL OE f£TaL 11:pos ayvwμocruvnv ,panoμsvoL au,Lxa £ OUAwvncrav O y and 11stubbornness 11 ) ; Mardonios on the folly of Greek civil wars at 7.9b.1 ( cf. Ch.II.iii.D ); Mardonios1 foolish desire to capture Athens a second time, against the advice 6f the Thebans at 9.3.1; Mardonios1 view of * the Athenian resistance to Persia at 9.4.2, s:\nLaas 6[ a,sas unncr£Lv T~S &yvwμoauvns; Mardonios1 determination to fight at Plataea at 9.41.4, ( yv~μn) laxupoTtpn T£ xat.. &yvwμovscrTtpn xat õ5aμras auyyLvwcrxoμtvñ And compare 2.172.2, where Amiilsis wins over the E.gyptians to his monarchy, " " ' ' ' ' ' ' ' P 11 h μsTa oe ao,LnL auTous ••• oux ayvwμocruvn1 npoanyayE~o. owe ere translates 11tacilessness 11 'but the antlfhesis w,th sophl~-shows meaning to be something like "Jack of wisdom11 • It is not clear whether the agnomosyne shown by freedom-fighters ( cf. 4. 93; 5. 83. 2; 6. l O ) is meant to 5e an admirable wilfulness, or whether Hdt is not deliberately exploiting the potential ambiguity; certainly Mardonios1 reflexion on Athenian agnomosyne at 9.4.2 ought to be somewhat pejorative. The word possibly offers another insight into Hdts equivocal attitude towards freedomfighting in general. * {119) It may be that Athenian propaganda of the time of the Ionian revolt ~ade much.of t~e glory of Athens 1 intervention. It is possible that 1llustr~t~ons 1n art of Theseus in battle with Amazons in Asia might ~e suff1c1ently early to be construed as celebrations of their participation 1n the revolt. For a discussion of the evidence, cf. e.g. E. Culasso Gastaldi, 1L1Amazzonomachia nell 1 elaborazione propagandistica ateniese 1 , AAT 101 (1977) pp.283ff, who however considers only the propaganda of -509the Persian Wars proper. For a full survey of Amazon iconography, cf. D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (1957). It is curious if all the Amazonomachies are a response to the Persian Wars of the Greek mainland, that there should have been any emphasis on t.he narrative of Theseus' expedition against the Amazons in Asia, in which he replaces Heracles ( cf. Gastaldi pp.287ff ), rather than simply on the story of the Amazons' invasion of Attica ( cf. Gastaldi pp.293ff ). The l~.tter is a true paral,.lel to the events of 480 and perhaps 490, but the former is much better suited to illustrating an Athenian expedition to Asia. Identification of such representations with the Ionian revolt seems natural, especJ~lly since their earliest appearances belong some considerable time before 480-79, after which they might have been taken to stand for Mykale, Eurymedon and the rest. See e.g. the metopes of the Athenian treasury at Delphi, in von Bothmer pp.117-9, now generally dated earlier than Marathon, despite the evidence of Pausanias, cf. Boardman (1978) pp.159-60. (120) Charonof lampsacus FGH 262F10 provides Plutarch with a rather inadequate corrective of Hdts account ( cf. MH 861CD ), but the narrative, however cursory, does look to have been less cynical than Hdts detailed version. Cf. Strasburger (1965) p.592, n.45 ( overstated ). and Tozzi (1978) pp.60ff. (121) Hdts apparent disdain for Athens 1 action may have something to do with the much bigger question of his view of the Ionian revolt as a whole ( for which, cf. Ch.II.iii.B ), buf it has at least as much to do with his conception of Athenian democracy. (122) Note that it is a ps~phisma ( cf. 5.97.3, t4n,CaavTo ), decision. a democratic (123) Cf. Ar.Pol.1287A28ff, xat o &uμos apxovTas oLaOTps,EL xat TOUS &pCaTous avopas~ With Otanes' comment at 3.80.3, cf. Ch.I.i.4, (124) The observation of mass psychology much interests Thucydides in his treatment of the Athenian assembly: cf. e.g. the plague at 2.59ff, with Pericles' speech; Mytilene at 3.36ff, with the debate; Pylos at 4.2lff and 27ff; and Sicily at 6.8ff, with the debate. Cf. esp. 6.24.3f, xat ~PWS lvSKEOE TOCS n50L oμolws lxnAEDOaL ~** ~GTE 6L& T~V ayaV TillV nAe6VWV fnL&Uμ(av, er TWL apa xat μ~ ~pEOXE, OEOL~S μ~ &vTLXELpoToVrav xax6vous 66tELEV elvaL TftL n6AEL ~auxCav ~y£v. And cf. de Romilly (1963) pp.329ff. The matter must have been of concern to all those who,~ like Hdt here, were interested in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of constitutions; cf. Ch.III.H. (125) Cf. Tozzi (1978) p.39, reviewing the likely tradition at Athens concerning the revolt: 11la guerre persiane proposero questo sollevamento come il primo momenta dello scontro fra Greci e Barbari, ma il confronto in nessun modo potera riuscire favorevole ~Jla rivoltall. The Athenians played down the revolt, he argues, because they wanted to justify their protection of a 'weak' Ionia in the Delian league. This may be right, but it does not mean that if asked for their opinion of their .own role in the affair, they w6uld not have insisted that it was their love of freedom which made them go to the aid of the Ionians { cf. e.g. [Lys.J Epitaph.22 ), even if they had to excuse their departure from the alliance ( cf. Isocr.Paneg.164-5 ). See also Pl.Menex.240A; and cf. n.119, above. It is presumably the greater glory of the liberation of Greece which was chiefly responsible for eclipsing the story of the Ionian revolt i.-- -510in the Athenian panegyric literature, as well as its unsuccessful outcome. Contrast Tozzi pp.55-6. (126) Cf. his almost successful bribery of Cleomenes at 5.51.2, npoeSaLvE - , • D ; ' ' • 1'. , ,. ,, ' r:. , r:. TOLOL XPnμaOL UKEpμaAAWV ••• , ES 00 TIEVTnHOVTa TE TaAaVTa OTIEuEuEXTO. (127) Cf. K.H. Kinzl, 'Athens: Between Tyranny and Democracy1 , in Schachermeyer (1977) pp.199-223, rightly insisting on the gradual emergence of 'democracy' and rejecting the anachronism ( fostered by Hdt! ) that Cleisthenes brought about that change once and for all in his reforms of 508-7. (128) There js no sign of the qualification we find later in Plato and Isocrates, for example, to the effect that the Athen5an politeia which saved Greece in the Persian Wars was quite different from the radical democracy which subsequently gave the city such a bad name: cf. e.g. Isocr.Panath.114ff; Pl.Legg.698Aff. (129) Cf. Crahay pp.166ff and 256ff, arguing ( not very convincingly) that these oracles are mere Spartan propaganda to excuse their turning against the democracy. I would suggest that, unless they are a Hdtean fabrication, they were among the oracles suddenly found in circulation just before the outbreak of war in 431. (130) Cf. Stein ad loc.: 11aniasthai, was sich im Kriege wegen Epidamnos und PotidMM erfHllte 11 , and Macan ad loc.: "one is tempted to suspect here too a vaticinium post eventum, born probably not of the troubles which immediately preceded the Peloponnesian war ... 11 • With Crahay pp.166ff and 256ff; de Ste Croix, OPW p.169. The prophecy clearly demands .not some gradual growth of antagonism, an accumulation of provocative acts over a period of years; if it is ihdeed ex eventu, the lldays appointed 11 are best understood in terms of the events of Corcyra and Potidaea, not e.g. the creation of an Athenian navy, or Athens' adhesion to Megara ( cf. Thucyd.1.105 ), or the conquest of Aegina, all acts too indefinitely provocative to be thought of as harming Corinth. This implies that the prophecy was 'forged' very close to the time of Hdts writing, if not contemporarily with it: is it out of the question to identify the forger as Hdt himself? The Homeric echo is characteristic of Hdts grand manner, though it may be mere embellishment by him; cf. Hom.11.l.240ff~_Achilles 1 warning to the Achaeans, ~ noe' 'AXLAAfios noe~ rEETaL ulas 'AxaCwvl .•. EiT* ~v noAAot 0,* •ExTopos &v6po,6voLo I ev~LaxoVTES KLKTWOL. (131) Not theoi horkioi, as Strasburger (1965) p.590, n.43, has it, for such gods only presided over contractual oaths; cf. e.g. Thucyd.2.71.4. (132) Cf. Aristagoras to Cleomenes at 5.49.3, vDv ~v npos 6Ewv Twv 'E).).nvCwv puaacreE niwvas lx 600).oauvns ; and the Athenian appeal to Sparta at 9.7~.2, ~μsts ot 6(cl TE 0 EAÃVLOV a[6E06eVTES xat ~~V 'E).).doa 6ELVOV noLsuμsvoL npo6ovvaL ..• , referring back to 8.144.2. (133) So rightly Strasburger (1965) p.593: 11Sosikles 1 Rede gegen die Tyrannis und ft.Jr das gemeingriechische Ideal der Freiheit~nt;i Selbstbestimmung soll gelten! Aber die Prophezeiung des Hippias ebenfalls!~. (134) Cf. Fornara, Philol.114 (1970) pp.174ff, arguing that isonomia is not necessarily the same thing as democracy here. 1 Equal ity .before~ the ------***---- -511law1 could be also the watchword of oligarchies: cf. Thucyd.3.62.3 and 4.78.3 ( contrast 3.82.8 ), Isocr.Panath.178 ( co_ntrastAreop.20 ); with Pl.Epp.VII.3260 ( contrast Republ.561E and 5638 ). It is not necessarily democracy that Maiandrios promises to the Samians at Hdt 3.142.3f, or that Aristagoras imposes in Miletus at 5.37.2, and in each case, as also in 3.80.6~ Hdt uses the word simply of a 'free constitution' as opposed to a tyranny, without specifying its precise form. (135) According to J. Oliver, Rh.Mus.98 (1955) pp.37ff, Pericles' Funeral Oration in Thucydides ( 2.37 ) makes a distinction between 1 democracy1 which the Athenian constitution is not except in name, and isonomia, which it turns out to be in practice. I doubt, however, even 1f this is right, that Thucydides wants us to think of the 'mixed constitution 1 that Oliver argues he means. For Hdt, at any rate, the Athenian I Cleisthenic ) constitution is clearly 'democracy' ( cf. 6.131.1 ), although he only once so designates it, preferring at 5.78 the term is~gori~; otherwise he tends to refer to the Athenian state as the d~mos ( cf. Powell, s.v. 3 ). There are no grounds for supposing that Hdt thought the Athenian constitution a moderate 'isonomous' democracy and so immune from the potential sting of Megabyxos' criticisms. For Hdt and Thucydides on democracy, cf. H. Edelmann, Klio 57 (1975) 313-27. * -512Chapter Two, Part iii: NOTES. (1) Cf. also 7.176.4, on the wall at Thermopylae, built by the Phocians against the Thessalians; and 7.215, on the famous Anopaia path, by which the Melians had earlier led the Thessalians against the Phocians. (2) Plut.MH 35.868BF rightly judged Herodotus I kakoetheia here. (3) This designation of Herodotu~ narrative of the Persian Wars perhaps needs some justification. A Greek of Herodotus' time would have called ~hese events ta M~dika ( cf. Thucyd. e.g. 1.73.2, 97.2 ( a reference to Herodotus' own work?), 6.82.3, etc. ), which in its narrowest sense would indeed mean only 'the Persian War1; and yet surely he would have expected ãy l~terary_presentation of the theme to follow the example of the poets, S1mon1des, P1ndar, Aeschylus, and confine itself in the main to the narrative of Greek heroism, as for the most part the orators do, and would have done in the 5thc { see below, for some of the relevant texts ). Moreover there are internal hints that Herodotus regards this as his real theme: first the fact that freedom is perhaps the".major theme of the work (cf. Ch.II, Introd. ), which is here brought to a climax in the most celebrated example of Greece's devotion to that ideal; and second that Greek freedom is the subject of almost every major speech and debate in the course of this.narrative of the Persian Wars ( cf. e.g. 6.106.2, 109.3ff; 7.51.2, 102-4, 135.3, 157.2* 8.22,142.3, 143.1, 144.1; 9.41.3, 45.2, 60.l; and cf. n139.5, 178. , etc. ) . * * * (4) von Fritz, GGS I.266. (5) Cf. the excellent discussion of this question by Fornara, e.g. at pp.86-7; also, somewhat more erratically, A. French, Mnemos.25 (1972) 9-27. (6) Cf. Strasburger (1965) passim, but not on the Persian Wars. (7) Cf. von Fritz, Die gr. Eleutheria bei Hdt, WS 78 (1965) 5ff. (8) And cf. Thucyd.2.71.2ff, 72.1, and 74.2 ( Archidamus at Plataea ); 3.54.3f, 56.4, 58.4f and 59.4 0 the Plataean debate); cf. 6.76.4, 82.3f, etc. (9) Cf. Strasburger in Herter (1968} passim, on the eclecticism of Thucydides' speeches. (10) Cf. Hdt 8.144.2, below, with distinctly disquieting effect. And cf. perhaps the wording of the 1 Thernistocles-decree 1 • if it is authentic at this point, or at all ( Meiggs/Lewis no.23.14ff ): &μvvsãal, TOμ s&eSapov ~1elp Tñ €ASU~SpLã TS 8CtUTWV xat TWV &AAWV 'EAAnvwv μsTa Aãs6aL,μOVLWV X().l, KopL,V~LWV xat ALyl,VnTWV XCtG TWV &AAWV TWμ SoUAoμsvwv XOL,VWVnCTE:L,V TOU XL,\IODVOU. (11) Cf. Aristoph.Ach.696ff, av5p' &yãov ovrn MapãWVL, TCE:PL TT)V 11:0AL,V; Hipp.781ff; and cf. Hipp.1334, with Vesp.711, and F3pJ; also Thesm.806f, and Batr.1296f. Cf. Critias DK 8882.15. By contrast the dedication of/for Callimachus ( Meiggs/Lewis no.18.4 ) seems to speak of Marathon as a victory I on behalf of the Hellenes I ( TCpo 'E]A{A}nvwv ) . (12) Cf. Wilamowitz, ad loc.: "Der Gedanke kann nur der seit1em zahl~õe Malewiederholtesein, dass die Hellenen sich gegen den Erbfe1nd vere1n1gen sollen 11• And from the 5thc, cf. Gorgias' Olympikos Logos ( DK II.272.4ff) and Epitaphios ( DK II.272.9ff, and B5a ). -513-- (13) Cf. Meiggs/Lewis no.27. And cf. Herodotus 8.27.5, 82.1; 9.81.1; and Thucyd.3.57.2. (14) Cf. esp. Meiggs, AE0 152f, and full discussion at 512ff; contrast esp. R. Seager, Historia 18 (1969) pp.129-41. And nm" the eccentric views of J. Walsh, Chiron 11 (1981) pp.31-63, arguing that both the Peace of Callias and the Congress decree are authentic and belong after Eurymedon in the 460's. I much prefer the traditional chronology ( cf. Meiggs ), and would insist .that there is no evidence to determine the date of the congress decree ( nothing precise can b~ inferred from Plutarch ), only the relative attractiveness of the reconstructions which accomodate 1;. -- - - -- ( 15) Cf. Hdt 7.132, 145.1, 148, 235.4; with P. Brunt, Historia 2 (1953-4)'' l 35ff. And cf. perhaps the controversi a 1 Pl ataean Oath: P. Siewert, Der Eid von Plataiai (1972), who argues at length for the .?J.!thenticityof the Acharnae stele (=Tod GHI II.204 ). (16) For the various pan-Hellenic celebrations of the victory*at P.lataea, in particular the Eleutheria, cf. Pritchett III.178ff;.. with n.252, below. (17) The judgement in Pl.Legg.692D-693A, that the Greek defence against Persia was a disgrace ( alaxprã yoDv ~~dvavTo ãTod~ ) is surely meant somewhat contentiously. Cf. e.g. R. Weil, Et.et Comm.32 (1959) pp.117ff: 11aiskhros n1 est certes pas le mot que les Grecs utilisaient le plus souvent pour evoquer leur conduite pendant les Guerres Mediques11 ; Weil can cite no parallel for this attitude. (18) See esp. Gottlieb pp.48ff. And in general, e.g. Pohlenz, (1966) pp.lOff; Kierdorf, (1966). N. Wecklein, 'Ober die Tnadition d.Perserkriege 1 , Sitz.d.kBn.bay.Ak.d.Wiss. (1876) pp.239-314, offers a well balanced assessment of the traditions available to Herodotus, acknowledging equally the distortion which strove to make Greek achievement seem as glorious and spotless as possible ( pp.270ff ), and the distortion caused by 11persBnliche Neigungen, Parteihass und die Zerwurfnisse der griechischen Staaten 11 ( pp.298ff ). For other 19thc views cf. Hauvette (1894J pp.ll]-80. (19) Cf. e.g. Fornara p.38: 11VU-IX is a 'book' in itself, complete with prooemium; it~s a beginning, middle and end testifying to its conceptual independence. It can even be separated from what precedes without contextual damage". (20) See esp. Bornitz, Teil II. (21) See now Tozzi (1978), with full discussion ( and useful temarks on Herodotus' narrative ) and bibliography. Cf. also e.g. P.B. Manville, 'Aristagoras and Histiaios', CQ27 (1977) pp.80ff; J. Neville, 1 Was there an Ionian Revolt?', CQ 29 (1979) pp.268ff; and for the latest in a long line of historical romances on the revolt cf. D. Lateiner, 1 The Failure of the Ionian Revolt', Historia 31 (1982) pp.129ff. On the speeches in Herodotus 1 account of the revolt, cf. L. Solmsen, 1 Die Reden beim ionischen Aufstand', in Herodok~WdF pp.629-44 ( repr. from AJP 64 (1943) pp.241ff ). (22) Note that all the parties to this sordid affair are alike motivated by the thought of profit for themselves: cf. 5.30.6 ( the Naxian exiJ~s: ' \ ' ,. .. ' . ' ' ' f\ 6' ' ' ",' u ndvTa KOLnaE~V TOUS NãLOU~ Ta av aUTÕ XEAEUWOLf ws E xaL TOUS aAAO s vnaLwTã) and 31.2f ( Persia ). (23) Cf. also the speeches in the narrative of the revolt in Cyprus: 5.109.lff. -514- (24) Herodotus' use of the word agnomosyne here is indeed remarkable cf. e.g. Solmsen, art.cit.p.642, n.19 ), and surely somewhat provocative: but it remains unclear to what extent this •stubborn folly 1 is or is not admirable. Cf. Ch.11.ii, n .. 118, for a fuller discussion of the range of this word. * (25) Herodotus of course doesnot necessarily endorse their judgement ( cf. 5.124.1 ) as we can t~ll by comparing similar expressions of doubt which precede a favourable outcome: e.g. 6.9.1 (!), 7.168.2, 8.140a3. (26) Translate 11convinced 11 , rightly or wrongly, Herodotus dqes not say; see below on 9.54.l~in (J).3. (27) For Herodotus• 1 Samian sources', cf. Jacoby, RE art.220.4ff ( in general*), and on this passage, 440.23ff. See also B.M. Mitchell, JHS 95 (1975) pp.75ff; and compare the elaborate fantasies of V. La Bua, 'Logos samio e storia samia in Erodoto', MGR 6 (1978) pp.1-88. (28) Cf. the Athenians on the overtures of Mardonios at 9.7ã2-,hLcrTdμe:voC TE: OTL xe:p6aAE:WTE:pov fon oμo).oysuv TWL ITcpcrnL μahov n ne:p ltOAE:llEE:l,\) ( c:;f . .fl):_l' below ) . (29) The legontai-formula as so often simply marks the climax or turningpoint in the story: cf. Ch.II.ii.B, on 5.63.1. (30) Cf. Fornara, p.82, n.10: "That the entire period down to the death of Artaxerxes were (sic) three continuous generations of hμran_*misery indicates the connection he made between contemporary events and that prior triumph. Indeed, how otherwise could he have taken so grim a view of the •splendid victory'?". (31) The dispute over the hegemony of the Greeks ( auTwv Twv xopu~aCwv ne:pt Tñ &pxñ no).e:μe:ovTwv ) is a prominent motif in the narrative of the Greek defence: see e.g. (E).3 and (GJ.l, below. (32) For a somewhat fanciful discussion of this parallelism, cf. A. Hurst, i4us.Helv.35 (1978) pp.202-11. , (33) Herodotus does not mention the apparently historical and certainly well-remembered decision ( •~,Lcrμa ) of the people to march out to meet the Persian ( cf. Gottlieb pp.59ff, with Demosth.19.303, Ar.Rhet.14llal0f, Plut.Mor.628E ). If this is a deliberate 6mission, it may be that Herodotus wanted to lessen the impression of a firm universal resolve of the whole Athenian people,and so conc~ntrated insteadof th.e indecision of the _ pm@r•h at Mar&t*ffl itself. cf: ~~-)farxe\tf ~ ~.-17 llll,)lt,:.;21; ~-e (1~?) p.lt; ~"~ c. ~ic~t~ ~,~S 119 (lMl) p.l'®. (]4) Afii111 th@ ..,~sis is sw.rely ~M,R: n'° At.Ntdt1• i,&ij,rce till'il ll&N wished to ~mph~size such a negative side of the story, not even the Alcmeonids, who can hardly have wanted to lay stress on the existence of traitors in Athens! But there were apparently detractors of the Athenian achievement, notably Theopompus ( FGH 115F153: 11the Athenians try to deceive and beguile the Greeks with such stories" ), and no doubt Plutarch is thinking of others as well ( MH 27.8620 ), who maliciously claim the battle was no more than a proskrouma brakhy. (35) A curious effect this: cf. e.g. the Spartans at Thermopylae ( 7.210.l ), &XAd ot ( SC. ~sptnL ) t,aCvoVTO &vaL6e:CnL TE xat &eou).lnL 6LaXPEWμEVOl, μ£VELv; and the Greeks at Artemisium ( 8.10.1 ), ndyxu o,L μav~nv tne:ve:~~avTe:~. -515- (36) A remarkable suspension of rivalry perhaps. Herodotus earlier goes out of his way to give the story of how Plataea came to be allied to Athens., and hence on her side at Marathon. The Spartans, when approached for an alliance, told the Plataeans to look to Athens ( 6.108.3 ): ou xaT& suvoLnv OUTW TWV ITActTctL€WV ws SouA6μ£VOL TOUS 'A*nvaCous ~X£GV novous auvsaTsrnTas BoLwTotaG. Herodotus goes on at length to give the details of the conflicts which did in fact ensue between Athens and the Thebans. The report clearly contrasts irontcally with the immediate context and the Spartan pledge of support for the Athenians at Marathon. Herodotus• malicious inference as to their motive here ( again probably his own rather than his ~ource 1 s ) once again highlights the theme of the mutual hostility of the Greek states, and reminds us of Sparta's growing distrust of Athens* ( cf. Ch.II.ii ). Thucydides 1 date for the alliance at 3.68.5 appears to be 519-8 BC, i.e. under the tyranny at Athens, but the text has been suspected; cf. e.g. de Ste Croix, OPW p.167 with n.2. Herodotus however seems certainly to be thinking of the period after the fall of the tyrants, when Cleomenes had reason to be hostile towards the Athenians: could he be falsifying the relative chronology? (37) See Bornitz passim. (38) Cf. 7.9a.1, "What have we got to fear from them, when we know how ineffective they are in battle? 11 Amis-judgement, since Mardonios is arguing from too limited an experience and also falsifying his own discoveries ( cf. 6.43ff ). (39) Cf. Stein ad loc.: 11Der Einwurf trifft eigentl ich nur eothasi polemous histasthai : 1 Keiner zog mir zum Kampfe entgegen, obgleich sie doch Krieg zu ffihren pflegen 1 • Damit ist aber in abspringender Wendung zugleich ein Urteil Uber diese KriegfUhrung verbunden ... wodurch dann ein ~bergang gewonnenistzu der Anlassung Uber das innere Verhttltnis der hellenischen Staaten 11 • (40) The same theme appears incidentally in Aristagoras 1 speech at Sparta ( 5.49.8 ) : UAAct ntpi:. μtv xwpns &pa OU noHns ou6s o{hw XPnDTriS xat oupwv aμvnpwv XP£ov fon oμfos &.vaSaUsa*aL npbs MrncrnvLous sovTas laonctAEctS xai:. 'Apxa6as T£ XctL 'ApysCous, TOtDL OUT£ xpuaõ sxoμsvov san ov6tv OUT£ a.pyupoμ, TWV 1IEPL xaC nva sv&yu npo*uμCn. μaxoμevous a.lCo*v~axnv, nap{xov 6£ i:ns 'AaCns nacrris &pxuv dnnews, &no n aLpna£a.as; Certainly it is not Aristagoras 1 point to accuse the Spartans of criminal devotion to civil war, for his argument is merely cynical and pragmatic; but behind the underlined words lies a clear editorial comment: this is the same 'madness' of which Mardonios speaks so derisively. (41) Fornara p.84 n.13, misses the work when he says of these words that they 11look as if they could have been typical of Athenian rhetoric before the war ( sc. Peloponnesian ) 11 • The reference is hardly as narrow as that, and s.urely includes principally what others said about Athens ( see below ). But see of course Euphemos at Thucyd.6.87 .3: 11there .is no cure for our polypragmosyne11 , although this is rather the cynical outspokenness of Thucydidean rhetoric. -516- (42) Cf. Pohlenz, (1966) p.15, for a classic statement of the traditional view. Heni ppJ09f n.24, claims perversely that Herodotus, unlike Thucydides, is incapable of producing a dialectical friction between speech and narrative: "Unbewusste ~bertreibung oder ideologische VerbrMmung, die eine klare Diskrepanz von angegebenen und tatsMchlichen Motiven bewirkten, handelt es sich hier jedoch nicht 11 • Contrast the excellent treatment by von Fritz, art.cit.pp.6f; cf. GGS I.254ff. (43) Xerxes touches accidentally on the crucial point; but the discussion concentrates rather on the preparedness of the Spartans to fight to the death, and the essential problem of Greek unity is left unanswered ( see below). ' (44) Cf. von Fritz, GGS II.134, n.45. (45) Cf. 7.139.3-4 (below), where however Herodotus admits the possibility that Sparta might indeed have ~apitulated rather than fight to the death, if deserted by the allies. That Herodotus can allow both possibilities so openly there, shows that Demaratus is not speaking here in Herodotus• voice, as has sometimes been thought ( see below). -(46) Cf. the expression at 7.11.3, 209.2; 8.15.2; 9.60.1. necessarily a contest of honour or idealism. An agon is not (47) Certainly the Athenians did~ cf. e.g. Thucyd.2.39.1, nut &v Tuts UULO£LULS OL μev £ULUOVWt. &annasL £0.\Ju, VEOL ~VT£S TO &vopstov , • o' , , , , ' ~ , , ' μ£T£PXOVTUL, nμ£LS £ UV£Lμ£vw, OLULTWμ£VOL OUO£V qOOOV £KL Tou, lao•uAst, HLvodvous xwpoOμsv. It is clear that Thucydides is thinking of Herodotus while writing this ( cf. the key-word aneimenos, almost an answer to Xerxes? ) . (48) Cf. von Fritz, art.cit.pp.25ff ( with GGS I.256 ), qn the post-Herodotean arguments which compared Athenian freedom from explicit legislation against the rigid codification of the Spartan system, and esp. on Thucyd.Funeral Oration in this connexion. (49) Compare, however, Pl.Legg.6988, which claims something similar for the political life of Athens at the time of the Persian Wars: nut owuons e:vnv TL!; aGow,, ot.' nv OOUA£dovT£' TOLS TOT£ VOμOLS 1';iiv s.\JeAoμsv But the idea of the 'despotism• of nomos is here played up artificially for the desired parallel with Persia ( cf. 697C, 698A, etc. ). Certainly the idea of respect for law is one that was no doubt found in every Greek state, but that 1s different altogether from Demaratus1 fear of the law ( phobos, deos, as opposed to aidos, aiskhyne J: cf. e.g. [Lys.]Epitaph.25, μfiAAov ~ Rap' CtUTOL' voμou, alaxuvoμsvou' n TdV •pos Too, UOA£μLOUS HLVOUVOV q>of3odμsvot., which does not suggest at all that aiskhyne and phobos are equal. But see, however, Soph.Aj.1073ff; Pl.Euthyphr.12Aff, with Hom.Il. 15.657-8. (50) Cf. e.g. von Fritz, art.cit.p.9: 11Auch die scheinbar so grossartig in sich geschlossene Form der spartanischen eleutheria schliesst in Wirklichkeit ihre Unvollkommenheiten und Gefahren in sich. Dessen war sich Herodot sehr wohl bewusst. Im weiteren Verlauf $einer ErzMhlung von dem grQ5iSenPerserkrieg lMsst er diese Unvollkommenheiten deutlich hervortteten" ( cf. GGS I.265f ). -517- (51) Pausanias III.12.7, suggests, without detail, that at Athens retribution fell upon Miltiades and his house for this crime. (52) Cf. 7.8b.2f, ot ye e~e nat naTEpa TOV £~0V unnp,av &oLna EOLeUVTe~; cf. 7.9.2, with 5.97.3 and 8.142.2. Cf. Strasburger, (1965) pp.593-4, on the Herodotean principle that the initiation of adikia brings down just retribution on the offender. (53) Cf. Strasburger (1965) p.594, n.47 ( vJith some surprise? ): "Der PgrserkBnigscheint hier gottesfllrchtiger als die Helden der griechischen Freiheff ... * Contrast e.g. Pohlenz (1966) p.14; von Fritz, GGS I.261; Heni pp.133-4. (54) Herodotus fails to mention the other Spartan Pratodamos, Timagoras of Tegea or Poll is of Argos ( Thucyd.l .c. ) .. The selection is surely deliberate: further names would dilute the effect'of correspondence between past and present. Herodotus includes Aristeus, son of Adeimantos of Corinth, because the father plays such a prominent role as a faint-hearted traitor in the later narrative; tf. (G).2, (H).l and 2. (55) See also Aristoph.Ach.646ff, with Thucyd.4.50, and (E).3, below. (56) Cf, von Fritz, GGS I.261f. (57) Cf. Kleinknecht pp.542ff, for the effectiveness of this build-up. K:i~rdorf~pp.102-3, suggests that on a larger scale~ however, Herodotus has misplaced his encomium of Athens; see also von Fritz, GGS II.136, n.67, for some useful remarks on this problem. There are two main points here: (a) the immediate context offers no very good illustration of the sort of action we have been led to expect, only their determination not to give in to the discouragement of the oracles ( i.e. only self-preservation, nothing about •saving Greece1 ); and (b) at this point, unlike e.g. after Salamis and before Plataea, at which time Persia took to offering them terms, the Athenians had no reason to suppose that they could gain anything from capitulation as the other Greeks could, since at this stage Xerxes ____ was_<:il:J:l:JJTijneg~tQ_J)_l!ni ?h them fQ!'_t~J:-~~Q!!_9S_ they_haj_jDne_him. _I t_111a_y--_ wllb~@ tl!tat Met h,as at ~st tll11@ firit of .__ c..-~ti(Kl)Jg il!l vitw, .ttiiat t• Cil1 lfl•~M81ilt is •1i~ent@, i.e. llllll ta_. ttt w 91hfiat * the Athenians credit for pan-Hellenic idealism, except insofar as that could serve their own interests. ( !i3) Cf. lle i lllliMdlt ,J kc ~ fCJ<r tire ettc01i111,il* a,g tic: f•t,wr\K Cif tiki s diliti!i)ter ; sfl,e cf. n.ii, ~l•. (59) And specifically on the present passage ( MH 29.864AB ): a.A>-' , ' , , . '\ e; ' # 'I\ 'A.&nvaCo\)~ Yf:: μeya1tOU~ ev.&atha TWL AOYWL neno1.,nxe MaL O'WT,,pas; avnyopevMe THs; 'E1t1td6os;• 6p&ws; ye noLwv xat oLxaCws;, el μ~ 11:01t1t& jat P1t&a,nμa npoanv TOLi, hca{voLs; ••• 6r11tos; 80'Tl,\) OU TOUTO AEYWV el~ TW\) \I A.\tnvaCwv e11:a1.,vov &n' 'ÃnvaCou~ ha1.,vwv ~va naxw& £tnnL Tõ~ &uou~ ••• This too is well observed a characteristic Hdtean trick ( i.e. perspective). {60) Cf. also e.g. 1.120.1; 6.69.4. -518- (61) For the two usages, cf. Denniston pp.115f and 140. (62) This speech selects only the historical examples and omits the mythical ( 1 73 2 ' ' '' , ' . ' , 6 - ' , ~ ' ' -, ' q_ñs . . , xcH, Ta μe:v 1mvu 1ta.ACH,a TL e:1., AE:ye:1.,v, wv mwa.1., μa.AAOV 11.0ywv μapTUpc:g n 8qiuQ TWV axoucroμsvurv;, ). * Kierdorf ( pp.83ff ) argues plausibly that the mythical catalogue was constructed only after the Persian Wars, to illustrate Athenian cb9mpionship of Greek freedom and Athens• claim to the hegemony of the Greeks. Also on this section of Thucydides1 speech, cf. de Romilly, (1963) pp.244ff. (63) Cf. e.g. Jacoby, RE art.356.8ff. (64) Cf. e.g. Focke pp.32ff; Stir~sburger (1965) passim; Fornara e.g. pp.56-7. Contrast e.g. J.A.S. Evans, L'Ant.Class.48 (1979) pp.112ff, for a most inadequate critique of Strasburger. (65) Cf. e.g. Focke, l.c; and Powell pp.81-2. (66) There may well be an encomiastic idiom here: cf. Pind.Py.2.58.ff, e:l 6s ng n611 ••• ASYU he:pov TI.,\)' ••• ye:vsõa,I., U1tsp-re:pov, xm.J\!Ctl., 1tpa.11:C61., ta.11.a.1.,μovc:~ xc:vs&. (67) Cf. Kleinkñcht pp.544-5. I find it hard to see any other way of ~---~----*taking the Greek. Certainly the view that the kai links the two _ao_r_,._s ___ t****----*-*--*-p&rtTciplts tlij)cl:l. atl!Mll . . . - . i s••s-*ast i111fD;r'©i~li: jll,iSS ve "1"titiJlt i~ ,. it, _ 0 !1e ~ Hiii!@ i!e> t111lie ~tat1s, and apodeximenoi and apethanon are a separate sense.unit, what the Spartans might have done in other words the attraction of sense overrides the apparent attraction of the two participles. For the usage of kai with tM p&irticil!ll~, cf. ~H, s. v .1.3, t,lilllt fiP1. * - (68} Cf. Stesimbrotus FGH 107F2 ( =Plut.Them.4.lff }, with Gottlieb pp.99f; and cf. Thucyd.1.74.lf. (69) The expression ( also at 7.172.1 and 9.19.1 ) certainly seems to indicate approval of the loyalist cause on Herodotus• part. (70) Cf. von Fritz, GGS I.26lff. (71) There is a deliberate parallel here with the episode from the Scythian campaign of Darius, where the Scyths send ambassadors to their neighbours for support ( 4.102.lff, OOVTE:Q ocpCcn Aoyov wg ovx o'foC TS d,01., TOV ~a.pdou oTpa-rov l.s-wa.xCn1., 61.,wcrao.S-a.1., μotivot, ••• ). Their appeal is.obviously couched in the same language as we find Q.e~~~;:l,and i eed in other speeches of appeal throughout the last three books: Et. the phrases at 4.118.lff, uμdg Giv μn6c:vt-r,p61uut,£'){ '[QU.μfoou xa-rnw:vot, ( cf. 8.73.3) 1tsp1.,C6nTc nμfos 61.,acp~a.pt:V'ms; ~ &11.11.a TWUTO voriaavn:s &vn&z;wμc:v. TOV £11:t,OVTa ••• nμe:ts μev 1tu:i;;oμE:VOli n £XAdq,oμE:V TT]\J xwpnv n μSvoVTE:S oμoAoyCnt, xpnaoμsla. .•• ftxsL y&p 6 Ilspcrns ov6sv '[I., μaAAO'V e1t' nμlã n OU "- ' ' t , MctL E1t uμEas. For parallels in Persian War speeches, cf. e.g. 7.157.2, 172.2; 8.57.2, 60a.l, 62.1; 9.7a.l, 21.2, 60.l ( with Bornitz p.129 ). The self-possessed refusal of the majority of those approached to assist the Scyths, whom they believe to be in the wrong in having provoked Persia, not having consulted the interests of their neighbours therein, again has something in common with things said by the Greeks here ( cf. 4.119.2ff ). Thus we may say perhaps that Herodotus has constructed the Scythian story as -519something of a foil to the Greek one: if the reader had expected the Greeks would behave markedly differently, he finds instead the same lack of unity there too. {72) A highly improbable result in the real world, where we would not expect such an extensive overlap between the Argive and non-Argive versions: another example of Fehling 1 s 1 ineinanderpassenden Quellenberichten 1 , presumably. (73) And cf. 8.73.3, with Burn p.350. {74) Cf. e.g. How and Wells II.188: "Herodotus does not explicitly reject the special pleading of Argos because he is influenced by Athenian tenderness for a city which later became a useful ally"; and ibid.189: 11Indeed the vain excuses put forward by theArgives cannot cloak their medism11 • Also von Fritz GGS I.262ff, with II.fj7; n.78. {75) Plutarch is not deceived by this passage and sees the withdrawal as a mere pretence ( MH 28.86380 ): efe' ~KeLñv. ~aKEP eCw&E, xat avaouoμEVOS oux ELOCVaL (j)T]Ot KEpt TOUTWV aTPEXCWS, docvaL o' on naaLv &v&p~noL~iaTtv fyxl~μa,a. (76) Cf. How and Wells, II.191, who argues that Herodotus has confused kaka ( misfortunes ) and aiskhra ( misdeeds ). But compare D~rius' experiment at 3.38, where a very similar parable deals with aiskhra clearly; cf. on both passages, Ch.III.E, for probable sophistic influence. (77) The existence of such a Peace is, of course, disputed on the basis of Theopompus1 criticisms and Thucydides 1 silence: I know of no better treatment of this question than that of Meiggs, AE.129ff and 487ff, with evidence and excellent bibliographical discussion. Meiggs himself, however, refers the present passage to an earlier unsuccessful embassy of 461 BC ( cf. AE.92f ), not without plausibility. Neither of these considerations significantly affects the interpretation advanced here. Cf. also Walsh, cited in n.14, above. (78) For the 1 Peace of Epilykos 1 , cf. the essential treatment by Wade-Gery (1958) pp.207ff. And e.g. more.recently, A.E. Raubitschek, GRBS 5 (1964) pp .151ff, who spurns tll;e i\~t~t comprQ,ssed chronology of the orthodox date ( 424-3 BC; cf. esp. IGl*.M.J3•,t~~[9(,f'6) and argues for a date shortly before 415 and the Sicilian exped'fi'.ioñ" ' {79) Cf. Wade-Gery (1958) pp.221-2, for the evidence. Wade-Gery does however accept ( ibid. ) th~t "Athenian embassies had no doubt been visiting Sousa during these years 11 • D. Gillis, Collaboration with the Persians, Historia Einzelschr.34 (1979), covers only the period described by Hdt and is of no use to us here. (80) As I believe, a desire to minimize the extent to which Gre_eks ( and Athenians especially) had to demean themselves by turning to the despised Persian; but cf. e.g. A. Andrewes, 1 Thucydide§ and Persia 1 , Historia 10 (1961) pp.lff, arguing that it was not until a later stage in the composition of the work that Thucydides s~w the real significance of Persi~. (81) For the date of the speech, cf. K.J. Dover, CQ 44 (1950) pp~54-5. -520- (82) Cf. e.g. Aristoph.Hipp.477-8; other evidence in Meiggs, AE.394. (83) Cf. here Diod.IX.10.5, 11they swore at Plataea to hand on to their childrens' children to the end of time the hatred of Persia; but in a short time they were concluding an alliance of friendship with Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes11• And cf. Raubitschek's interpretation of Theopompus FGH 11 153 ( art.cit.pp.157-8 ). (84) See the brilliant study of Periclean Athens by Wade-Gery (1958) pp.239-70, on the opposition of'the pan-Hellenist, Thucydides, and the view of the outsider P*indar. perJcles' Athens-Sparta dualism ( e.g. the *c~~fi$ ... ~m T '1iU r~i, i•a l r; a,11\id Se0iA ,~w--, t0owtr1jliit- .... CfrJ!MfrMlt&ti•. Cf. ••* tfill@ fitrtil@HMii 1t TlltY,c1(!1.3. l0 4, het,6t:t 6t ,- - ' ' ~ ~ - ' , ,,, . ' , ~ ' - ' , ewpwμc:v auTous Tnv μev Tou Mn6ou c:x{rpav avt,evTas, Tnv 6e Twv auμμaxwv 6odAwat,v lnayo¥ivous, 06~ &6eets ~Tt, ~μc:v. (•) ~Ttill •Y tfwr' all lilt&V~ BM!I l!»~re,(lf to COll(tr@lliiS@ f~lllie,r (l)V@r the hegemony, while the peace never gets a chance to be discussed: the Argives seize on their first opportunity and forcibly eject the ambassadors at 7;d49. 3, npo 6UVTOS T\ALOU &1tct/l./l.<XCJ(JE:(J{JC1,l,1 ••• , d, oe μn, nept,sctiea%aL ws noAc:μCous; cf. 7 .162 .1, be 1 ow. (86) Cf. Heni pp.127f; 11Herodot hat trotz der n1:;.gativen Ausgangs dieser Gesandtschaft ein GesprMch gestaltet 11 • (87) For the metaphor of the diseased body politic, cf. 6.100.1 and 109.5, above . (88) For the problem of what Carthaginian conflict Herodotus seems to be referring to here, cf. How and Wells, ad lac., and van Fritz, GGS II.137, n.80. It seems most unlikely to me that he means Himera itself ( cf. 7.166 ): see below, n.98. (89) Cf. the magnanimity of Xerxes ( another tyrant) towards Sperc:,hias and Bulis at 7.136.2, above and Ch.I.i.5. (90) How and Wells remark that '~.the numbers sound suspiciously uniform, though not incredibly large''. Cf. Burn p.307. But did.Herodotus really have figures for the size of ari army that Gel on 'promised', but never actually provided? He is surely relying here on his own imagination, rather than the imagination of his sources. The passage is ignored by Fehling in his discussion of artificial numbers in Herodotus, but cf. e.g. his pp.162ff, for the number 'twenty'. It should be added that this is really the only 'circumstantial I detail of any importance in the debate. (91) Cf. e.g. Pl.Menex.2378, Isocr.Paneg.24, etc. (92) Contrast 7.149.3, above n.85. We have reached the same point but to markedly different effect this time. (93) Fornara's ingenious interpretation of this curious problem ( pp.83f is that the refereñe is to the Funeral Speech of Pericles delivered in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, and hence ,tctargue that 11Gelon's reference to the Greek unwillingness to compromise, their insistence on 'having the whole', is directly linked to a phrase celebrating the first to die from the fraternal conflict centring on precisely that issue''. However the only famous Epitaphios of Pericles in antiquity is not the one 'recorded' by Thucyd. for the first year of the war, but the Samian Oration of a decade earlier: see Plut.Per.8.,9' and 28.~b; and cf. Ar.Rhet. 1365A30ff, 1411Alff, for the present tag. Fornara's explanation works less -521well for the suppression of the Samian revolt, but may still be on the right lines. Cf. also P. Treves, 1 Herodotus, Gelon and Pericl 1 , CPh.36 (1941) pp.321ff, who argues that the phrase indeed comes from the Samian Funeral Oratiõ and that its use here demonstrates Herodotus' Periclean, prõAthenian leanings! (94) Cf. Democr.DK 68886, for the sense of pleonexia in this passage: KAEOVEsLn TO KaVTa A£Y£GV, μn6ev 6€ E~£A£GV UXOUEGV, (95) Cf. Heni pp.127-8: "Durch den Streit wird das Vers-agen der griechischen Ei nheit drasti sch vor Au gen geste l lt 11 • (96) Cf. Fornara p.83: "Herodotus' intent could not be clearer on several counts. The issue of the hegemony was more important than national survival. This is the obvious point of the story; Herodotus' contemporaries would have understood it only too well 11• (97) He comments, for example, on.the credibility of the Carthaginian version of Hamilcar 1 s end ( 7.167.1 ): ~crTG 6~ uK' auTwv Kapxn6ovLwv 56£ Aoyõ A£YOμ£võ, olxon xpe:wμc:vmv ; 09! a likeJy.,proceedingifhe held the entire Sicilian narrative to be fa]se. * (98) So von Fritz would explain not only this section but also the Argive episode which precedes it ( see above), cf. GGS l.264f, and art.cit.pp.14f and 23. For the apparent chronological problem here, cf. E. Lo Cascio, Helikon 13-4 (1973-4), who argues that the debate shows Gelon's war with Carthage to be completed and the danger past ( cf. 7.158.2-3 ), and hence that Himera belongs before 480 and the~adition which made it contemporary with Salamis ( cf. n.102, below) is a Deinomenid fiction. I would be much happier trusting Herodotus' narratives than his speeches on points of historical fact, not to mention that Gelon's words could be taken to imply some earlier conflict with Carthage than that which produced Himera. The strongest argument against Lo Cascio 1 s ~iew is that it would be virtually impossible to understand how, with Kyme still to come ( c474 BC ), Gelon would have had the confidence not merely to claim. Jhat the.danger was wholly past, but to be prepared to commit the vast expeditionary force Herodotus has him promise the Greeks to a struggle far away in macinland Greece which nobody believed the Greeks could possibly win; in other.words, since Kyme shows Carthage still to be a threat after Himera, and well after the Persian Wars, we are in no position to accept the doubtful evidence of a Herodotean speech to reject the view of Himera that it actually more or less coincided with Salamis. Might we not further argue that it would have been somewhat tactless of Pindar to remind Hieron of Salamis and Thermopylae, if Gelen had rejected an alliance with the mainland Greeks in their ~our of need? (99) A famous enough poem, it would be r_!;asonable to suppose: certainly it is 'known to the author of the Prom. \I inct. 351-72 .( cf. Groeneboom ad 1 oc. ) . (100) Cf. Gottlieb pp.69ff; Kierdorf pp.40-2; and esp. P. Gautier, REA 68 {1966) at pp.25ff, for the rest -0f the Greek tradition for Himera. More important must be Gelon's thank-offering at Delphi ( Meiggs/Lewis no.28 ), and Hiero's for Kyme ( Meiggs/Lewis no.29 ). It would clearly have been difficult for Herodotus to have turned a blind eye to the memory and records of this great conflict. (101) I cannot agree with van Fritz { art.cit.p.23) that Herodotus never invents stories of Greek division like the present one, or rather that -522he never creates his own fantasies out of the material: 11Dass es nicht Erfindungen Herodots sind, kann man schon daraus entnehmen, dass er abweichende Varianten anftlhrt, obwohl es auf der anderen Seite fur Herodot charakteristich ist, dass er einige von diesen Varianten offenbar in einen grt}sseren Zusammenhang einfugt, die tlbringen nur nebenbei erw~hnt11 • Treves, art.cit.pp.331ff, argues that there never was an embassy of the Greeks to Gelon, and that Herodotus is reproducing here in his debate a partisan forgery designed to favour Athens. (102) Cf. Gautier, art.cit., who argues, however, that the tradition of a common struggle against a common enemy ( i.e. of the Sicilian Greeks and those of the mainland against Carthage and Persia working in concert did not develop until the 4thc, and that Pindar and Simonides are merely ___ f_l_a_ttering the Sicilian tyrants in speaking as though all Greeks thought this w.ay; li>1,.1t'ttil,@re is SIJf'@lyinsuffici@ftt @vi<!k@,l!l,C@ to !il@ci<i@ tli1is GJ:~Stioifl. (103) i.e. like Gelon with his instructions to Ca-dmu-s, ã: a fu-rt-h-er indication of the tight rein Hdt is keeping all the time on his story. (lM) It is just p>;Qssib>le tl,1,1t th@ CtH"C.1'r"@<f4,~i \f.l@,re •bilM afl'@ly to J111;1.r@J the southern Peloponnese against attack ( so Munro, ap.How and Wells, II.203 ), and are so not guilty of Herodotus' charge (-cf. also Gottlieb p.86, on Diod.XI.15.1 ). It could be significant that the Corinthians in Thucydides ( 1.37-43 ) do not taunt them with the conduct here ascribed to them. (105) Cf. the Eretrians at 6.100.2, (106) The words underlined in the text of course contradict the sentiments of many a commemorative epigram of the Persian Wars ( see above ), the Thessalians declaring themselves not prepared to suffer for the good of the rest of Greece. - (107) How and Wells, Introd.p.40, argue that Herodotus is thus apologizing for the Thessalians, whom they believe he favours as being a state friendly or potentially friendly to Athens! A typical, but impossible over-simplification. (108) Contrast the tradition (?) of the Thessalians' medism voiced by Critias, DK 88831, which claimed they 'led the Persians against Greece, anxious to emulate their luxurious way of life'. Does Herodotus perhaps consciously avoid such scurrilous suggestions in the traditions of his day? (109) For.theThebans at Thermopylae, .cf. also Thucyd.3.62.3f, Diod.XI.4.7, with Gottlieb pp.77ff. And see esp. Plut.MH 31ff.864Dff. Plutarch is convinced of Herodotus' malice towards the Thebans, and reminds us that at least they appear to have contributed to the expedition to Tempe. His judgement is hõvever a little partisan ( *865A ) : To 6E μEyL,crTov naL n&AAL,crTov ~pyov ( sc. their part at Thermopylae! ) μ~ 6uvnSEts ~sou ' ' - ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ( f 7 222 ) npax.\JE\J aUTOL,S, aL,Tl,aL, cpa.uAnL, }(O.l, UlCO\JOl,O.l, 6L,a.Auμa.L,VOμEVOS • • • c • • . (110) Cf. Burn, pp.417ff; Hignett, XIG pp.271ff. (111) Plut.MH 31.865Bff, &AA' OU6€ TOU l[L,.\JavoD TnS 6L,aSoAns €cppO\JTl,OE\J, (112) See e.g. How and Wells, ad loc.; Daskalakis (1962) pp.51ff ( esp. pp.61-2 ). There are any number of possibilities and the truth is surely irrecoverable. That Leonidas and his 300 Spartiates could keep by them -523- 'as hostages', that is by force or the threat of force, as many as 400 Thebans ( Herodotus 7.202 ) is hard to believe. The Theban force may be a band of loyalist volunteers, who could hope for no mercy if they returned home after a failure at Thermopylae. Diod.XI.4.7, indeed calls them 'members of the opposing faction' ( &1ta Tfts tTlpas μEpL6os ), opposed to agreement with Persia; but this may be mere inference by him or hJssource. It may however be significant that though the Thebans in Thucydides ( e.g. 3.62ff) do nõ claim a heroic part for themselves at Thermopylae, they do apologize for their medism by arguing that the mass of the people was coñtr~ined by the ruling oligarchy ( 3.62.3f ). (113) Cf. the Corcyreans' imagined plea to the king ( 7.168.3 ): oux E:-0£>-naaμE°v TOl, &vnoua.Om., OU6£ n &1eoau.μLO\) 1tOL'i'jGaL ( uit>ove ). .. (114) Plut.MH 33.866EF rightly pours scorn on the idea of the Thebans delivering this apology ( as Herodotus has it) in the heat of battle: a characteristic but untruthful Herodotean dramatization ( cf. 8.92.2, in (H).2, below). He further doubts that the Thessalians had enough love for the Thebans to speak up for them; but the detail is perhaps significant: as enemies of Greece and friends of Persia they can join in an unwanted friendship. (115) Especially clearly if Herodotus has erred in making Eurymachus the commander of the expedition rather than simply its planner: in Thucyd. ( 2.2.1; cp. 2.2.3 ) the commanders are the two Boeotarchs, Pythangelos and Diemporos. (116) Cf. How and Wells, Introd.pp.39-40, and II.229: 11We must admit that Herodotus has been misled by malignant Athenian gossip". (117) The scout just happens to come by when the Spartans alone are visible outside the camp ( 7.208.2 ): tTuxov 6e ToQTov TOV xp6vov AaxE6aLμovLoL l~w TETayμevoL, The story applies only to them,_by deliberate choice on Herodotus'part: Thermopylae is the triumph of Spartan heroism,in isolation. (118) Cf. 7.208f, e.g. 209.3, v_oμos yap acpL OUTW txwv E:GT(* E:ltE<XV μE:AAWGL XLV6UVEUEL\) ~ftl, tuxftL, TOTE TUS XEcpaAas xoaμeovTaL; and 209.4, \)0\) yap 1tpos BaaLAnCnv TE xaL xaAALGTnv TWV £\) VEAAnGL 1tpoacpE:pEctl, xaL av6pas ' , apLO'TOUS, (119) Cf. 7.224.1, TWV eyw ws &v6pwv &~(wv YEVOμEVWV enu.Ooμnv Ta ouvoμaTa, EltU.Ooμnv OE xaL ~1taVTWV TWV TPLnxoaCwv. To be pedantic,it was surely not 300 that died, since at least Aristodemos and Pantites escaped ( cf. 7.229f and 232 ). If Herodotus had done the research he claims, we might reasonably expect him to be precise about the number, on the same principle of giving the dead due honour. Cf. on this problem, R. Ball, Mus.Afr.5 (1976) pp.lff. (ll§l,a) Fo;r ill.'fil &~rQciati©,n of Mtiits 'heroic n,ctwd' tvf T.-N<'iii)i)JlM, cf. K. Gross, NJAB 3 (1940) 87ff. (120) Cf. Hignett, XIG pp.113ff. (121) Cf. Hignett, XIG pp.37lff. {122) kai: addidi t Bekker, fortasse recte*. -524- (123) So Hude ( Stein: kai autos, presumably a conjecture). For this use of kai with comparatives, cf. Denniston 316ff, and esp. 319. Is this sentenceprogressive or adversative? ItJs usualty rendered as the former ( cf. e.g. Daskalakis p.55 ). It is a circular argument to say that the text requires some form of contrast here; kai mallon on its own is neither obviously progressive nor adversative ( cf. the oracle at Herodotus 1.65.3, adversative with alla ), so that we could say the sense of the sentence determines its force. Could it not be, however, that an alla or a de has dropped out here, i.e. &Ha rnuni1, xat μaHov . . • ? It does not seemto me that kai mallon on its own is adequate as a connector. (124) Of course a Thespian achievement as well, something Herodotus recognizes clearly enough ( 7.222, 226.1, 227 ); but for dramatic reasons he concentrates almost exclusively on the Spartans.* The battle is a paradigm of the effects of Spartan nomos, which holds so much of our attention in the work ( Thespian nomos is for obvious reasons of no comparable interest ) ; and it serves Herodotus' purposes to suggest to us that the Spartans were left virtually alone, to show their mettle ( cf. 7.139.3, μouvw~tvre~ ; and cf. the Chians at Lade 6.15.2, μeμouvwμifoo1, ). It .is. an improbable inference that the account of Thermopylae derives exclusively from Spartan sources: that Herodotus should have relied for a narrative of such central importance whole-heartedly on a single source, and indeed a source whose reasons for self-glorification it takes no imagination to infer, implies the lack of ,th~most basic critical awareness, which no-one should be happy ascribing to him. Cf. e.g. Hignett, XIG p.148, n.2: 11The curiously shadowy part played by the Thespians in the final drama is to be explained by the Legend, which found their presence embarrassing 11 ; cf.h~s App.IV pp.37lff, and esp. 378. (125) Herodotus has devoted here 32 lines of OCT to dealing with Eurytos and Aristodemos ( if we include the pendant story of Pantites, which adheres closely), and in the recapitulation after Plataea ( 9.71.2ff ) he sets aside another 14 lines. This compares with th.e 'honorific catalogue' ( 7.226-8) of 32 lines: the parity of the emphasis is most s.thiking, not to mention that the Aristodemos episode .coming last ( and forcibly recalled later) leaves us with a strong qualification, whose effect Herodotus does nothing to try to erase. (126) At,~o4uxeovTa AEl,~~nva1, ( MSS ); or if we choose to read ~t,Ao4uxtovTa ( Valckenaer ): 'showing a faint heart'. The choice is a difficult on*e ( cf. Tyrt.F10.18W ): but surely Herodotus is convinced of Aristodemos' essential bravery, unless there is a paradox in his playing the coward at Thermopylae but excelling in bravery at Plataea? * (127) Again, as with the Gelorr story ( cf. n.101, above ), the alternative version seems to destroy the point: but as we saw in C~.I, Herodotus is fond of creating moral and psychological uncertaintie.s for the reader. (128) Envy is ofrcourse for Herodotus the distinguishing mark of polis-life: cf. esp. 7.237.2, with 8.124.1, in (H).4, below. {129) Cf. Herodotus' own story from the Battle of the Champions at 1.82.8, where Othryadas is too afraid to return to Sparta as the last survivor of the battle, not as having been a coward. -525- {130) Cf. at most 7.206.1 (above), where the Spartans act to avoid further medizing among the loyalists. (131) Cf. e.g. Page,-'~imonid. VIII.3f: 'J::Uci6t.. yap OTI:EU60VH:S €AEU-&EpLnv TI:EpL-&EtvaL I XELμE-&' &ynpdvTwL xp~μcμoL EVAoyCnL* if indeed this epigram refers to the Spartan 300: cf. Page (1981), pp.197-9, for an indecisive discussion. * ( 132) And cf. 7. 220 .,2, μ£VOVTL 0€ mhoo KAEO!; μEya EAELTI:ETO, xat n ITI:apTns EvoaLμov(n ovx E~ni\.EL,ETo . Herodotus affects to see Leonidas 1 sacrifice as performed for Sparta alone no mention of Hellas, here or elsewhere. But the assonance ( homoioteleuton ) here in -leipeto/-leipheto is nonetheless a grand effect. (133) Hignett 1 s expression for the eulogistic Spartan tradition ( cf. XIG pp.124f. and App.IV). (134) Cf. Kleinknecht p.545. (135) The last occasion Demaratus appears as adviser: his usefulness to Herodotus is almost entirely as a Spartan, rather than as a Greek or merely a convenient interlocutor for Xerxes. He provides us with an oblique and distorting view of Sparta at the point in the work where Sparta is the centre of attention. (136) Cf. C.W. Fornara, JHS 91 (1971) pp.33f: a reference to the strategic threat of Cythera can only begin to have significance once the Peloponnesian war has broken out. But need the Athenian action of 424 ( Thucyd.4.53) have a)teady taken place? We might prefer to believe that Tolmides siezed the island in 455 ( so Paus.I.27.5; but cp. Thucyd.1.108.5? ), but the Periplous is mare of a raid than any concerted threat to Sparta ( see Meiggs, AE.100 ). Chilon 1 s 1 prophecy1 presupposes the extreme case of Sparta falling before an enemy army, or at the very least capitulating, after a seizure of Cythera, and this can only have seemed remotely possible once Sparta was faced with the only power after Persia strong enough to threaten this, and faced in open war. Against Fornara, cf. ( unconvincingly J. Cobet, Hermes 105 (1977) pp.6-7. (137) 7.139.5, £.A.OμEVOL 6E Tnv 'EAAct6a TI:EPLEtvaL EAEU-&[pnv, TO 'Ei\.i\.nvLxov nav TO A.OL1COV, ~aov μn &μnoLOE, aDTOL oDTOL ~oav oL bnyELpaVTES xat SaaLA.£a μETct YE -&Eous avwcraμEvoL. The unification of the Greek cause, on which the survival of Greece depended, was not something that the Spartans attended to, despite their formal hegemony of Hellas. * (138) Sparta's secrets are here betrayed by one of Sparta's kings ( see 7.234.3 ), who no longer feel's loyalty to his country because he has been deprived of honour there ( cf. 7.104.2 ): or μE TLμ~u TE xat ylpEa aKE.A.dμEVOL KaTp~La &noA.LV TE XaL ,uya6a TI:ETI:OL~XaOL ,,, OVX ~V otxos ' ,, " , ' , , , ,,,, , EOTL av6pa TOV aw,pova EUVoLnv ,aLvoμEvnv OLW-&Eo-&aL, AAa OTEPYELV μctALcrTa ( cf. von Fritz, GGS I.265f ). Hence it is ironic that Xerxes defends Demaratus' loyalty( to him! ) against Achaimenes1 criticisms by observing that citizens of the same state naturally envy one another ( 7. 237. 2f ) : !';dvos 0£ sECVWL d> 1rpn0crovTL EOTL 81JμEV£0TaTOV TI:ctVTWV, cruμSo0A.E1JOμ£V01J T6 av cruμf301JA.EVOELE Td. apLO'ra, l=his antithes. i.s ( not merely an artificial sophistic paradox but that as well! ) typifies the attitude of the medizing Greeks towards Xerxes and towards their feJl_ow-Greeks: .,..526like Demaratus, these Persian sympathizers show envy towards their fellow-Greeks ( Xerxes is not of course talking about Persian polietai: see (H}.4 below} and do their best to revenge themselves upon them and assist the Persian king, that is, they make a vJrtue, much rewq.rded and praised by the king, of their antagonism towards their cquntrymen. The phthonos of Demaratus t9\•.iards, th~ Spartans is further the subject of a final anecdote ( 7 .239: 239 2 • ' ' ' 6 , ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' 'I' esp. . 'w, μEV EYW OHEW, MaL TO OLMOS EμOL ouμμaxETaL, OUM nv E~VOOS AaME6aLμov(oLOL, ndpEOTL it ElxdtELV EfTE E1JVo(nL TamTa Eno(noE EfTE Mat MaTaxalpwv J: the authenticity of this chapter has been questioned for no very good reason ( cf. How and Wells, ad loc. ). {139) Note that Herodotus says merely ortha, not e.g. dikaia: the word allows an ambiguity, 1 right 1 as ~trateg1cally sensible, and 'right' as morally good. (140} i.e. the strategic fact that Greece 1 s safety depended on unity, not the thought dTdoLs ydp •.• , which is Herodotus 1 own explanatory parenthesis. (141) As so often, this form of ending (&>..>..&mum μsv ••• / rn\Jrn μtv 6n •.• , etc. ), suggesting a dispassionate Olympian calm, brings to a close a dramatic and affecting narrative: cf. e.g. 6.91~1, 7.137.3; with e.g. 9.121, below. (142) Though of course an Athenian, Thutydides quite clearly has no love for the Athenian empire, and even an exaggerated cynicism about the speed of its development: e.g. 1.98.4 ( Naxos ), with Meiggs, AE.70f. (143) And cf. Thucyd.1.75.2, xat y&p auT~V t>..dSoμEv ou BLaodμsvoL, a.AA, uμwv μe:v OUM e:-\Je:>..nodVTwV napaμELVaL npos T6J. UTIOAOLna rn\J f3apf3dpou, nμtv 6£ 1Lp00EA30VTWV TWV tuμμdxwv xat a1JTWV 6En3E~TWV nyEμOVOS xaTaoTnvaL; cf. 1.130.2; 3.10.2; 6.76.3. And see Kierdorf p.93, n.l, with parallels and literature. (144) Strasburger, (1965) p.601, n.62, is right to reject attempts to understand a change of subject here, i.e. to understand ol ~E>..>..nve:s rather than ol 'A3nvat::oL as the subject of e6tovTo and crnd>..ovTo,, attempts which do violence to the Greek and have no other justification than to show that Herodotus is uniformly generous to the Athenians. Cf. also A. Masaracchia, Helikon 13-4 (1973-4) at pp.384ff, with a discussion of how this passage relates to Herodotus1 appraisal of Athens. (145) Cf. e.g. the arguments of the Corinthians in Thucyd.1.124.3: T~V Ma3e:oTnxutav £V TnL 'E>..Ad6L TIOALV TUpavvov nynodμEVOL tTIG naOLV oμo(ws xa3EOTctVaL, WOTE TWV μtv n6n apxELV, TWV 6£ 6LaVOEL03aL. (146) For the expression stasis emphylos, cf. Thgn.51, and Solon F4.19 West; the phylon in the present case is clearly not the city but.!£_ Hellenikon itself. (147) For an excellent treatment of this passage, cf. Focke pp.32ff; followed by Strasburger, pp.601-2, and Bornitz p.106. Contrast von Fritz, GGS I.267, and Fornara p.90, n.2. (148) Cf. Plut.MH 34.867E: OUTW nt,xpii\s 'tWL pnμaTL ,TC[l0.\J1I£(J)l))(E, -527- (149) Like the Thessalians before Tempe ( 7.172.lf ), the Phocians and Locrians before Thermopylae ( 7.207 ), and like the Athenians later before Salamis { 8.40.1 and 56ff ). (150} For Adeimantos in Herodotus' narrative, see (H).l, below, on 8.94.lff. (151) Cf. Plut.MH 34.8670. (1 ) See esp. 8.112.3, 9e:μLCJTOXAt::ns; μ(v \)1.)\) "Av6pou opμwμe:vos; xpnμa:ra napa vncrLWTEW\J lx,a,o >..&~pnL TW\J a>..>..wv cr,pa,nywv. (152a) For an excellent discussion of the problems of this account, cf. M.B. Walla*ce, Phoenix 28 (1974) 22-44, who argues that Hdtean 'distortion• may be involved in representing these negotiations as secret. (153) Plut.MH 34.867F; and cf. Page, Simg_ni~L XIV, with Further Greek Epigrams (1981) pp.207ff. * (154) So, for example, it is important to hear the story of Dikaios ( 8.65 ), with its ominous anticipation of the disaster to Persia. (154a) For a similar treatment of the Salamis.:.narrative, cf. A Masaracchia, Helikon 9-10 (1969-70) 68~106. *(1 ) Contrast 8.3.1 ( of the Athenians): μsya ne:noLnμtvoL nspLe:tvaL ,nv 'E>..>..&6a; and cf. 7.139.5, above. (156) This sudden flight of the allies .is clearly modelled in part on the comically unheroic scene in the Second Book of the Iliad ( 2.149ff: ... ,ot 6' &>..a>..n,wL I vnas; ln' lcrcrcdov,o, no6wv 6' ~n(ve:pijc xovCn I tcrrn,' aupoμtvn •.• ( subliminally echoed in Herodotus' tcr,Ca &dpov,o? ). (157) See Hignett, XIG p.203, who no doubt rightly dismisses this panic as 'mythical': rightly that is, if we take this to mean a Herodotean invention ( cf. ibid. p.207 ). (158) Cf. Hignett, XIG p.204: 11The tradition of the part played by Mnesiphilos is manifestly a spitefyl invention". (159) And cf. Thucyd.1.74.1; Plut.Them.2.6, and MH 37.869CD (!); with Gottlieb pp.98ff, Kierdorf pp.68f; Hignett, XIG, App.IX(a). Cf. Ch.I.i.8, above. (160) Cf. Miltiades' words to Callimachus at 6.109.3. But as we said, there is a clear difference between fighting for one's city and fighting for the common good of Greece, and Eurybiadas is much harder to persuade! (161) Cf. Macan ad lac.: "The formula ... is ruined by the explanation that 1 no Hellenes whom they attack will be able to resist them'. Nothing further is heard of the threat in ~is sense; and it spoils the beautiful crescendo of Themistocles' arguments, being the most ~irect and brutal, if that indeed was what he meant". (!) (162) Not to mention that Themistocles' message begins to seem considerably more devious, and prophetic of his later 'treachery'. Cf. 8.5.3 and 8.112.3 for sim.ilar 'secret' negotiations. -528- {164) Cf. Heni p.136; Fornara p.74, n.23; Gottlieb pp.114ff. (165) He is linked with Miltiades in Aristoph.Hipp.1325 as a representative of the good old Athenian way of life: in the same spirit he is brought back from the dead in Eupolis' Demoi ( Kock ~I.279ff) to pass judgement on the corruption of the present day. - {166) Cf. Strasburger {1965) p.602: "Will er in ihm ein vergangenes edleres Athen versinnbildlichen, so etwa wie Thukydides ( 7.86.5 ) dern unglLJcklichen Nikias in ~hnlich knappen Worten das unvergMngliche Denkmal seiner persc1nlichen Sympathie ,~etzte? 11 • {167) For the sentiment, cf. e.g. Isocr.Paneg.79 { on the political life of Athens and Sparta before the Persian Wars ): ou,w 6n noAL,Lxws £Gxov, WCTT£ xat TCTS cr,aCTELS lnoLOUVTO npos UAAnAOUS oux 6n6,£pOL TODS STEpous &noAEOaVT€S TWV AOLnwv &p~OUCTLV, UAA' 6no1£pOL ~6noov,aL ,nv nOALV &ya66v ,L noLncr~v,£s ; and cf. ibid.85 ( the rivalry of Athens and Sparta in the fight against the Mede ): aAAa nEpt μ£v ,ns xoLvns crw,npLas 6μovoo0v,Es, 6n6,Epõ 6£ ,ad,ns ã,CoL yEvncrov,aL, nEpt ,od,6u noLodμEvõ ,nv aμLUav. (168) Themistocles tells Aristides the secret of his plan, and remarks that the allies will have to be forced into doing what is right, since they will not do so voluntarily ( 8.80.1 ): ~6EE yap, 6T£ oux kx6vTES ~6EAOV £S μdxnv xa,Ccr,ao6aL oL ffEAAnVES, aEx6v,as napacrTncrao6aL: Cf. the Scythian narrative, where the Scyths draw the Persians towards the lands of those who had refused to join the alliance, in order to involve them in the war ( 4.120.4 ): El yap μn €XÕTES ~n(6uoav TOV nOAEμov TOV npos IT[poas, aAA' aEXOVTas £X~OAEμncraL. See above for the view that Themistocles' compulsion of the allies at Salamis is Herodotus' own invention. (169) Contrast Aesch.Pers.402ff, quoted above, for the sort of speech we might have had. (170) Cf. Hignett, XIG pp.230ff. Also J. Keil, Hermes 73 (1938) 329ff. (171) Cf. the evident borrowing of the number 1027 for the size of the Persian fleet ( Hdt 7.89.l ) from Aesch.Pers.341ff; with H,ignett, XIG p.345, and Fehling p.165 n.2. (172) Cf. Hignett, XIG p.234. It is hard to imagine the source of this curious story, which appears to discredit the entire allied fleet: can any Greek have been happy to see a 11 the Greeks equally discredited? It is, of course~ from Hdts point of view another story to show that the gods are watching over the Greeks here: cf. e.g. 8.13, 65, 9402f, below. (173) The joint heroes of Salamis, according to Herodotus' explicit testimony: cf. B.86 and 93.1. (174) There is of course a point in the paradox that the Aeginetans, who were among the first states to medize, were yet the best fighters.at Salamis, even above the Athenians, who had denounced their medism to Sparta. {175) Cf. Hignett, XIG App.IX(c) pp.411f, who rightly discounts the story as an entire fiction, not merely a partial one. (176) Cf. esp. the commemorative epigrams cited by Plutarch: Page, Strnonid. 110.X-XIV, with Further Greek Epigrams (1981) pp.200ff. Cf. Meiggs/[ewis no.24. But see also Lycurg. c.Leocr.70, where Adeimantos is named alongside the Spartan Eteonikos and the entire Aeginetan fleet as having tried to run away from the battle at night. -529- (177) Cf. e.g. Thucyd.1.103.4, with Meiggs, AE 199ff; and esp. A.E. Raubitschek, in Schachermayer (1977) pp.266-9. On this passage cf. Fornara p.89, n.20: "His quotation of the Athenian slander ... is an illustration not of his blind and naive devotion to Athenian dogma but an indication of his ease in shifting from the description of the actual clashes of the early time to allusions to contemporary hatreds". (178) Cf. Herodotus' inclusion of his son, Aristeus, among the ambassadors who went to Persia with Nicolaos and Aneristos ( 7.137.3, in (E).1 above). (179) Contrast Fornara p.71: 11What is worthy of especial note in Herodotus' narrative is the care he has taken not to suggest that Themistocles was already marching down the path of treachery" (L). (180) We hear this at 8.112.2 merely as a perception of the islanders as to the reason why Andros is being besieged. (181) Cf. Strasburger (1965) p.602: 11das gewaltUtigen Vorgehen Athens gegeñber den Inselst~dten, welches mit der sp~teren athenischen Praxis innerhalb des Seebundes ( Thuk.l.98f) bereits eine so fatale Xhnlichkeit hat". (182) Cf. Plut.MH 40.871DE, on this passage; with Gottlieb p.93. (182a) J. Labarbe, RBPh 36 (1958) 31-50, argues that Timodemos was indeed not an Athenian ( a SE!riph1an in e.g. Pl .Rep.329.£,} and that Hdt has failed to make this clear. Does he not want the story to show envy between citizens? (183) Cf. esp .. Aristodemos at 9.71.t, and perhaps Aristides at 8.79.1? (184) Contrast 6.14.1 in (B) above, where Herodotus hesitates to award the prize for valour at Lade to any party: aUn>.ous yap m:nm,nwVrnL,. After Salamis on the other hand each man thought his own contribution the best: C.UTOS £:ita<JTOS OO}{SI.JJV CXpl,(JTOS yc:vsa,8-al,. (185) ~f. Kleink~echt pp.553ff; L. Solmsen (1965} pp.65Qlff ( =*PlatlHl. }; von Fritz, art.c1t.pp.17ff; Fornara pp.84ff; Masaracchia {1976) pp.118ff. Cf. esp. Isocr.Paneg.94, tt;av auTots μ~ μ6vov TOOS nap6vTas :itl.VOUVODS 6 - ,,,, ' ' 'i::- , ' ' , ' ' L.ãuysL.v aAAa }{al. TL.μas; s~aL.pE:TOUS >..aSc:tv •.• oux unc:μsL.vav Tas nap EMSLVOU 6wpsas, ouo' opyL.ãSVTE:S Tots UE>..>.nal, OTL npou6õnaav aaμsvws fnt Tas 6La>.>..ayas; Tas; npos; TOOS SapSapous wpμnaav; and also Demosth. 18.202f, &>..>.' OU}{ ~v Tau~*, ws ~OLMS, Tots 'A-&nvaLOLS naTpLa ou6' aVSMTa '6' ,, '6' '6 'ri , ' ,. ' " ' ' ~ OU sμ~UTa, OU E: uvnvn nwnOTE: Tnv noALV OU6SLS SM naVTÕ TOD XPOVOU lELCTaL TOLS LGXUOUGL, μev, μn 6LMaLa 6£ npaTTOU0~ npoãsμevnv aõa>..w~ 6 \ .( '\ ' ' ' , ' , ' ' , OUAEVSL.V, aAA aywVL.~Oμc:vn nspL npWTSLWV }((ll, TLμñ xaL 6ol;ns MLVOUVSUOU0a navTa TOV atwva 6L.aTST€ASXS, (186) Cf. Fornara p.85: contrast Kleinknecht p.570 n.56: 11Wie spMter besonders bei Thukydides (!), so dient auch schon bei Herodot hier die Redenform vor allem dem Zweck, die eigene gnome des Ge-sichichtsschrei-bers he-rvertreten zu lassen 11 • (187) Cf. Crahay pp.315-317, arguing that the oracle is a fiction originating in Themtstocles' anti-Spartan propaganda, revived later by Pericles (!). Cf. here also the oracles prophecying similar dangers to Spartans and Peloponnesians from Athens at 5.90.2 and 93.lf, with Ch.II.ii.D and H. -530- (188) Cf. Kleinknecht p.556: 11Die beiden Reden stellen zwei grunds}:!tzlich verschiedene Ansichten dar. Alexander kennt, griechisch gesprochen, nur den kindynos und das khresimon. Der Massstab der Spartaner ist das dikaion und a1skhron11• I cannot accept the line taken by Solmsen, PlaUM pp.652-3, here that the Spartan speech is merely a re-inforcement of Alexander's: Herodotus does not go in for such redundancies, as Solmen1 s own admission seems to recognize : 11Vergl i chen mit der ei ndrucksvo 11 en Rede A 1 exanders macht dieser Rede eine recht schwAfchen Eindruck11~ There is nothing •weak' about the speech if we recognize what it adds that is new. (189) Crahay1 s retention of MSS arkhes here ( l.c. ) as an anachronism referring to the Athenian empire ( and thus indicating the source of Herodotus' material! ) is somewhat hard to swallow. Cf. e.g. How and Wells, ad loc., on this reading. But cf. J.C. Kamerbeek, Mnemosyne 11 (1958) pp.252-3, arguing that the MSS text is right and means 11unprovoked aggression 11 , as at Hom.Il.3.100, 'AAEg&v6pou ~vEx' &pxfis, which Herodotus would be deliberately echoing. Cf. Masaracchia (1976) pp.122-3 (!). (190) There is an irony here which works against the Spartans themselves, for when the scene changes to Sparta at 9.6ff, it turns out to be they who are playing fast and loose with the Athenians! (191) Cf. Kierdorf pp.95ff, and esp.p.105. The present passage is on his evidence unhistorical in content and indulges in deliberate anachronism. (192) Cf. von Fritz, GGS 1.267f; Solmsen, PlatMM pp.653-4. Cf. e.g. Demosth. 6.8-10, for the Athenian claim ( in a different context, to be sure ), μovoL Trav •dvTwv μn6Ev~~ Nv xep6ous T~ xoLv& 6CxaLa Tffiv 'EAÃvwv •polcr6aL. {193) There is no reason to suppose that Herodotus is reporting what was actually said, but is he reporting what an Athenian source fed him _ ( so e.g. Jacoby, RE art.462.19ff; Solmsen, PlatMM p.653, n.11 )? Certainly he 'reflects' Athenian propaganda ( cf. the Epitaphioi motifs ), but that by no means requires us to assume that he is directly citing an Athenian source rather than ( as is surely his universal practice in speeches ) composing freely on his own initjative, and merely ( by choice ) working with Athenian panegyric material. (194) Macan,note on 8.144 (16). But in principle ( cf. n.J93} the content of speeches in Herodotus depends entirely on the imaginatio-n of the author, not on sources and it is only in the direction taken by the Athenian speeches here that the real discrepancy lies. (195) Cf. Plut.MH 41.871Eff. (196) Cf. of course what Herodotus says about the Athenians• need for the Spartans ( 8.3.2 ): μlxpL xdpTa ocrou £6£0VTO aUTOOV. (197) Cf. e.g. Fornara pp.49f4 (198) Cf. e.g. Solmsen, Platnn pp.656f, with nn.12-13: 11Dass die Spartaner nicht al ler Mt>gl ichkeit der pol itisch-strategischen Lage bewusst gewesen auch vor Chileos 1 Warnung, scheint unmBglich11 • -531- (199) The explanation of Solmsen is rather inadequate, and again makes Herodotus redundant; cf. PlatMM p.658: "Chileos unterstreicht die praktischen folgen des athenischen VerhMltnis fur den Widerstand .der Griechen gegen Mardonios, und die zweite Rede der athenischen Gesandten betont die Berichtigung dieser Ansicht 11 • (200) The matter of the Greeks and their games offers Herodotus the opportunity for a characteristic equivocation. The only episode much discussed in this connexion ( cf. e.g. von Fritz, GGS *I.272f) is the story of Tritantaikhmes' reaction ( sCias yvwμnv ysvvaLoTdTnv) to the news brought by the Arcadian deserters between Artemisium and Salamis that the Greeks are engaged in celebrating the Olympic festival ( 8.26.3 ): nana(, Map6ovLs, xoCous &n' &v6pas nyayss μaxsaoμlvous ~μ[as, oC 06 nspL xpnμdTWV Tav &ymva noLsDvTaL aAAa nspt &psTns. Naturally the story reflects well on the Greeks and Greek arete, although of course Herodotus does tell us other stories in which the Greeks signally show themselves more interested in profit than virtue, so that there may be something of an over-generous misapprehension in Tritantaikhmes 1 noble opinion. In the passage discussed in the text, for example, the Athenians are made scornfully to dismiss the Spartans' celebration of the Hyakinthia as an excuse for betraying them and Greece. It is •mere playing•: the note of sarcasm is unmistakable. Similarly Herodotus 1 own commentary earlier ( 9.7.1, xaL ãL nv 'Yax(v~La, nspL nAsCcrTou 6' nyov Ta TOD ~£OU nopOUVcLV .•. ) contrasts ironically with the disclosure that the Spartans just happenend at the same time to be awaiting the completion of the IsthmijS Wall: the 1 demands of religion', Herodotus implies, were a mock-pious excuse, as the Athenians correctly saw. More cynical still is his comment on the failure of the majority of the Peloponnesians to assist the Greek cause at Sa 1 ami s ( 8. 72 ) : 'oAuμnLa oe xat Kapvua napoLxwxss n6n ; that is, they no longer had any of the excuses they had been using up to now. This surely puts Tritantaikhmes' earlier praise of Greek arete as shown at the Olympia in a less than favourable 1ight. Cf. e.g. 6.106.3 ( the Spartans fail to assist the Athenians at Marathon ): &6dvaTa 6f a,L nv T~ napaUTLXa noLi£LV TaDTa 06 SouAoμlvoLCTL AUcLV T~V voμov_; and 7.206.1 ( the reason why the Spartans only sent a small force to Thermopylae ): KapV£L(J, yap a,L nv eμno6wv .. It is clear that religious considerations did indeed play an important role in Greek warfare, but equally obvious to the cynical observer 'that the rules were there to be broken when it suited. Cf. Pritchett I.116ff, and esp. p.126: 110ne may conclude that it was part of the etiquette of ancient warfare that religious obligations of the times often prevailed over purely military considerations, but abstinence from aggressive limitary operations during enemy festivals was not always observed". For the Spartans and the Hyakinthia, cf. Xenoph.Hell.4.5.llf ( with Pritchett_p.125 ): only the Amycleans are sent home to celebrate the festival, but the main army makes no plans to withdraw. And see esp. the Theban attack on Plataea during the hieromenia, with e.g. Thucyd.5.54.2f. Herodotus reflects ruefully that during the Persian Wars the Greeks could use their festivals as mere excuses for betraying Greece and leaving their friends in the lurch. (201) See Fornara pp.85-6. {202) Cf. Plut.Aristid.13, for a plot by Athenian oligarchs at Plataea to betray the allies to the Mede; with Gottlieb p.120, n.19. There are certainly stories of Greek treachery in the Persian Wars besides the ones Herodotus himself makes use of; but we need not surely conclude that he knows this story and suppresses it. On the present passage, cf. Masaracchia (1976) p.125. -532- (203) And cf. Lycurg.c.Leocr.122: yEvvatov 6', ! &v6pEs, Tb ~nqiLaμa xat &~LOV TWV UμETEPWV npoy6vwv, 6LxaCws* EUYEVELS yap OU μ6vov TUS ~uxas, aAAa xat TUS TWV a6LXOUVTWV TLμwpCas EXEXTnVTO* Nothing here about the wife and children though! Cf. A.W. Ver_rc1_Il, CR23 (1909} pp.36-40, for a comparison of the historical value of these different versions of the story. (204) Cf. Meiggs, AE 508ff. (205} Cf. von Fri , GGS I.268, with II.138, n.100, and art.cit.p.18. For the disquieting prevalence of stoning in antiquity, both legal and illegal, cf. R. Hirzel, 1Die Strafe der Steinigunf, Abh.d.SMchs.A!<,aiLWiss.27 (1909) pp.225ff; with D. Fehling, Ethologische Oberlegungen, Zetemata 61 (1974) at. pp.59ff. (206) Cf. Solmsen, PlatttM p.658; Masaracchia* (1976) pp.142-4. (207) The text at 9.17.1 is clearly problematic: μof:lvoL 6€: (Jlwxhs ou OUVE<JESetAOV ( i.e. with Mardonios against Attica)* tμn6Ct;ov yap on crqi66pa ' '( ' • , ' ' • • ' ; ( .. H d I OCT ) s l t. xaL OUTOL, OUM EXOVTES aAA UR avayxaLnS so U e S . 0 U ,ons: (a) Stein, followed by Macan, takes &μn6Lt;ov-oDToL as a parenthesis, apparently taking oux-&vayxaCns with the cruvEcrESaAov which applies to the other medizers earlier; (b) some editors delete crqio6pa ( only here in Herodotus! ); (c) others transpose to give ou <crqi66pa) ~x6vTES . The si~plest answer is certainly (b), though it is not easy to see the reason for it ( a gloss on ? ). But Hude1 s text may be right, and Herodotus could thus be offering us the same paradox as at 7.174, where the Thessalians likewise medize enthusiastically but unwillingly; but it must be conceded that the text here is somewhat compresse-d and unexpected if that is the meaning. Herodotus incidentally does not care to tell us here that some of the Phocians did not mean to medize but actually fought on the Greek side at Plataea, cf. 9.31.5. (207a) Cf. Masaracchia (1976) pp.142ff; also W~K. Pritchett, AJA 61 (1957), who sheds new archaeological light on the topography of Plataea and argues that Hdt is not confused or confusing. (208) Cf. Solmseñ PlatMtt p.658. (209) Except that the disposition leaves the Athenians isolated from the rest of the retiring army; but it is hard to believe with some critics that Herodotus retails the debate as an Athenian apology for their absence frõ the main battle. See Solmsen pp.659ff; von Fritz, GGS I.268f and art.cit. pp.19f; and see esp. Kierdorf pp.97-1DO. Cf. Masaracchia (1976) pp.148-52. (210) Cf. Solmsen, PlaUtt p.660: 11Die Rede der Tegeer ... ruft ... den Widerspruch und die Argumente der Athener hervor 11 • (211) Cf. Kierdorf pp.83ff. (212) Also from the standard catalogue of course: see Kierdorf l.c. (213) Cf. Thucyd.1.75.1 below ( an echo? ); and e.g. Page, ,Simonid_; XXI, with Meiggs/Lewis no.18.4. Solmsen, PlatMM p.661 regards the.entire debate as merely a preparation for the praise of Athens' victory at Marathon and perhaps there is a rhetorical topos here ( paraleipsis ). But contrast e.g. Isocr.Paneg.68ff, where there is no dismissing either set of achievements in favour of the other. Significantly perhaps Plutarch's reworking of this scene at Aristid.12.lff has Aristides leave out the whole mythical catalogue and Marathon as well, so that the disclaimer has real force and dignity compared with the pettiness of the Tegeans: ~xoμEv y&p 06 Tots ~uμμaxoLs OTa<JLa<JOVTES, aAAa μaxouμEVOL Tots ~OAEμ(OLS, 066' ERaLVEcr6μEVOL TOUS RetTEPas, &AA' a6TOUS &v6pas &ya&ous TnL 'EAAd6L xapf~OVTas. Cf. Plut.MH 42. 872A, which seems to suggest that this will have been a deliberate correction. -533- (214) Cf. Fornara p.57; Kleinknecht pp.549ff. And esp. Kierdorf p.99, who sees that this is in Herodotus' mind here ( 11Einmal begegnet Herodotus ... dem Einwand, der sicher auf dem Boden der beginnenden Sophistik gewaschsen ist: das Lob frt.lherer Leistungen zl!hlt nicht; man kann sich ja zum schlechteren entwickelt haben und verdient dann doppelt Strafe 11 ), but persists in as~uming that Herodotus is here apologizing for the Athenians! {215) Cf. e.g. Herodotus 7.137.1 and 3, where the present ( i.e. the Peloponnesian War) is separated from the Persian Wars by 11many years 11 • Cf. esp. Thucyd.1.73.2, the more distant past is pany palaia, in contrast with ta Medika, which are presumably just palaia; and 3.55.1, where the Plataeans recount their services to Sparta, beginQing with ta Medika and ending with the he 1 ot revolt at I thome ( ,& na.Ao:t Let xa.*L μty Lorn ) with 3.67.2, the Theban rejoinder: xa.t μ~ na.)-a.L&s &pBT&s •.• &xodovTES E:1tLXAct0&rj"CE, (216) Cf. what Aristides had said to Themistocles at 8.79.3, a curious reversal here, which brings home that this logon othismos is the wrong kind of stasis. (217} Cf. e.g. von Fritz, GGS I.269; SolmseñflãHH p.661. (218) Cf. 9.106.3, and 114.2. And we have already seen it on those occasions where Athens has insisted on J,_avtrrg her own way regardless of the Spartans: e.g. 8.63 ( in {H).1 ) and 9.7b.lff ( in (1).1 ). (219} Cf. Fornara p.88, n.19: 11The Athenians are in the leash, waiting for bigger game11• (220} Cf. 9.40, ot y&p BnBatoL~ &TE μn6~~ovTctS μEyaAms, npo&dμws i~Epov Tov no)-Eμov xa.G a.tEt xaTnyeovTo μlxPL μ&xns . No need, of course, to invoke ah anti-Theban source for the malevolence of Herodotus' account here: cp. -Mai::an, a-t: 9.40{5): -see (F}.2~a.1Yove~ (221) Cf. Solmsen, PlatHH p.662, with hn.21-3; von Fritz,GGS I.269f, with II.139 n.108, and art.cit.pp.20f; and Masaracchia (1976) pp.159-64. Also Hignett, XIG pp.316ff~ and Burn pp.528f. (222) Cf. Solmsen, PlatHH pp.661-2, stressing how this speech shows up Alexander's idealism. It is surely ironic that the Macedonian tyrant ( only half-Greek to some eyes, cf. 5.22 ) should shame the allies with his ideal j~m., when they themselves show so little. (223) Cf. Plut.MH 42.8728~ contrast von Fritz, GGS II.139, n.114. There is no need to be pusillanimous here: Herodotus tells quite simply that Pausanias was 'scared', and on his own authority too! (224) This clearly echoes their tone of deference in the debate on the left flank, but it hardly justifies assuming that Herodotus is following an Athenian source for the present episode what he puts into speeches is up to him. (225) Herodotus has Mardonios echo the clai~ made by Demaratus to Xerxes in the original discussion of Spartan arete at 7.104.5 (above); cf. Solmsen, l.c.: 11mit fast denselben Worten11• The correspondence is clearly deliberate; the reader should be expected to have kept such resonant words in his head. -534- (226) Contrast e.g. his account of Salamis, where he reports variant traditions for how the battle started ( 8.84.lf) and for the story of Adeimantos ( 8.94.lff ), in the latter case implying that he has cross-checked his account in different sources, so that he can report that the Athenian version is contradicted by the Corinthians and al1 the rest of Greece! Assuming this latter source report tb be authentic, we ought to be able to argue that the rest ( and more important parts! ) ofthe battle narrative has been s-im,larly cross-cnecked ana if this happened at Salamfs,-lhen surely also at Plataea. Cf. however e.g. A.E. Wardman, Historia 8 (1959) 49ff, comparing Hdt and Aeschylus on the defeat of the Persians and concluding that Plataea shows in Hdts version the influence of sources exaggerating the servi~es of Athens at Plataea; and cf. esp. Masaracchia (1976) pp.183-4, who seems to deny that Hdt had access to any source but an Athenian one for the campaign; also e.g. A. Mele, AFLN 5 (1955) 5741. (227) Since the story is precisely assigned to the twelfth day of the campaign ( cf. 9.41.1, 44.1, 47 ), we ought to assume that the source of the story, if there is one, is also the unquestioned source of the chronology of the campaign: had Herodotus coostructed the chronology out of any more than one source, he would have been confronted with the inaccuracy of this story. It should be noted against the view that the story is not a fiction that its adherents have to ascribe the event to which the story refers to an earlier stage of the campaign ( cf. Hignett, XIG pp.317f; Burn pp.528f ): but Herodotus would then be freely inventing the chronology and confidently brazening out his ignorance. (228) The same argument against Herodotus' use of single, unchecked sources for particular episodes of the Persian Wars should be borne in mind throughout this discussion. Where the narrative is more detailed than could be expected of 'common knowledge' of the period ( as is surely the case in an episode such as this ), Herodotus must have been thrust into the hands of particular informants. For example, we would expect that the narrative of Plataea, built up as it is of discrete and detailed episodes of differing character, has been assembled from several discrete sources; Herodotus has welded those episodes into a seamless narrative unit, kept together by a fairly ti~bt chronology. But to arrive at that he must have spent time trying to reconcile the i nevitab 1 e discrepancies of detail between the reports of his informants; and he can have done this either by using his own imagination in the study, or by going back and checking again with his sources and asking more and more questions of more and more people until he was clear in his mind. Clearly there must have been a bit of both activities; but we would hope there was at least some degree of the latter. For Herodotus' principle of cross-checking,cf. esp. 2.3.1, with App.JJI. (229) I cannot agree with Solmsen that the point of this speech is merely to show something about Mardonios' character ( p.664 ): 11Ich sehe den Zweck dieser Rede im Eindruck, den sie uns von Mardonios1 Oberheblichkett ... gibt 11 • The speech is an integral part. of the entire narrative from Alexander' midnight mission onwards: hence it ought to tell us something about the Greeks as well. (230) See Solmsen, PlatHM p.665 (!). Again the speech is not given quite the right context: the Athenians after all fail ( through no fault of their own indeed) to come to the assistance of the Spartans ( cf. 9.61.lf ), who are thus left alone ( mounothentes ) with the Tegeans, as at Thermopylae. The elevated rhetoric f~lls flat through not being followed by the heroic action that it anticipates,, and we notice all the mare the unfortunate fact that the Athenians are left out of the real battle. Herodotus makes no attempt to exonerate the Athenians in this: indeed by certain standards of honour ( cf. e.g. 9.72.lf) their absence is something of a failure ( cf. al so 9. 77. lf, with n.232, <below ) . -535- (231) Ironically of course the Megarians had earlier ( cf. 9.21.lff, above made themselves õt to be heroes of unremitting courage and virtue. (232) See Plut.MH 42.872Bff; cf. Hignett, XIG p.341, with Macan ad loc. See also the late arrival of the Mantineans and Eleans ( 9.77.lf ): both ~ties banish the generals who led the respective expeditions, and affect great sorrow at having been late ( e.g. 77.1 ): quμ,op~vtnouEOvTo μEydAnv &~LOC TE swaaav ELVaL 0~£US ~nμLwOaL. (233} Cf. von Fritz, GGS I.27lf, with 11.139 n.133, and 11.140 n.116; cf. art.cit.pp.21f. Also Masaracchia (1976) pp.164-9: "Emerge un quadro vivido .dello scollamento che domina il campo greco, del mediocre livello morale che caratterizza i raporti tra gli alleati, dell' anarchia, della mancinza di lealta e della vilta degli Spartani, del fariseismo manieroso degli Ateniesi". (234) Cf. 9.53.2, Aoxnyswv ToO IlLTav~TEw Adxou ; but cf. Thucyd.1.20.3, with GommeJ HCT ad lac. We may wonder whether Thucydides1 scorn is not actually .directed at the whole story, though he chooses to criticize only a deta i 1 • (235) Cf. Fornara p.89, on this passage: 11His account is the mirror of those animosities ( sc. of his sources ) as well as the harbinger of the final clash, and his references to them are keyed to it 11 • (236) Cf. rightly Macan, ad lac.; but contrast Powell, s.v.3. I would contend that many more ~campl~sbelong in this ~ategory than Powell allows. (236a) It is misguided to argue that Herodotus 11unconsciously reflects Athenian prejudice" here ( How and Wells, ad loc.: why 'unconsciously'?), since these suspicions, typical as they indeed are ( cf. e.g. Aristoph.Ach. 302ff; Pax 1063ff ), so obviously reflect badly on the Athenians themselves in this context: they are apparently a little too prepared to suspect the Spartans on insufficient evidence. Accordingly the view that this story is "the excuse put forward by the Athenians to explain their own failure to reach their appointed post on the 1 island 111 ( How and Wells, again ) will not do either. (237) Cf. e.g. Hignett, XIG p.331; also Macan, ad loc., who regards this as a story invented to counter accusations that the Athenians did not resond to Spartan calls for help. (238) The word neikos is uncomfortably insisted on here. The generals were unable to persuade Arnompharetos, lg 8 ls vsCxEd TE auμxsadvTss &nCxaTo ; and then, vsLxewv os 6 'AμoμwdpsTos ... ; Pausanias finally descends to abuse~ 6 .6~ μaLvdμtvov xat 06 ,psv~pEa xaAtwv ixEtvov. ; All this clearly leaves a decidedly uncomplimentary picture of Spartan discipline. (239) Cf. Hignett, XIG pp.328ff. (240) Similar in character to the episode of the Phocians at 9.17.lff, in (J).1 above. (241) Cf. 7.210.1, &AAd ot l,aCvovTo &vaLosCnL TE xat &BouACnL 6Laxps~μEvoL μtvELv; with n.35 above. (242) Cf. von Fritz, GGS I.270f. -536- (243) So Solmsen pp.664f: 11Der Angriff auf Artabazos ( 58.3 ) ist ebenso ein Zeichen van Mardonios1 Blindheit und Vberheblichkeit wie die Beschimpfung seiner griechischen Gegner11 • (244) It is somewhat surprising that among the Spartans singled out for praise is Amompharetos ( 9.71.2 ), notwithstanding that Herodotus had allowed him te lo6k~ery foolish in the episode discussed above. (245) Cf. the utterance of Dienekes at Thermopylae, 7.2261.\~ (246) Cf. e.g. Macan, ad loc.; Jeffery, AJP 83 (1962) 51. Contrast the rather curious account 9f Masaracchia (1976) pp.176-7. (247) Cf. e.g. Aristagoras at Sparta ( 5.49.8, with n.40 above); the Greek wars adjourned for the invasion of Xerxes, especially that of Athens and Aegina ( 7.145.1 ); the Tegeans and Spartans ( 9.26.7, rroAAot μ~v y&p E~ -EXOVTES rrpos uμlas hμtv .•• &y@VES &ywvC6aTaL, KOAAOt 6~ xat npos &AAOUS ). Cf. 9.46.2; and also the victories ( agones! ) won by the seer Teisamenos: besides Plataea. itself, the others were against Tegea and Argos, the Arcadians, the Messenians, and at Tanagra against Athens and :Argos ( 9.35.2 ). (248) Cf. e.g. von Fritz, GGS I.273ff. (249) Fornara pp.52ff; contrast Strasburger (1965) p.602; van Fritz, GGS*I. 273f; and Masaracchia (1976) pp.178-83. See Thucyd. 1.130. lf: ouxtn ' • ' - - • ' •,,, • M $:. ' E6uvaTO EV TWL xa&EOTW'tL TPOKWL SLOTEUELV, DAAD OXEUas TE nuLMã fvou6μEVOS ••• TpcinEt&v TE IlEpOLX~V rrapETC&ETO xat Ma't£iELV T~V OLdVOLaV OUM EOUVaTo, OAA' EPYOL$ SpaxioL rrpouonAOU a TnL yvwμnL μEL~OVWS ES crru,a cμEAAE 11:pal;ELv. It could, of course, be said that Thucydides was merely correcting Hdts record, but he may equally be bringing out what he knew to be implied by it. Possibly too Pausanias' gentlemanly treatment of the Coan woman at Hdt 9.76.lff is meant to offer an ironic contrast with his later unapproachable manner as reported by Thucyd.l.130.2: ouorrpocroo6v TE aUTOV napE'Cxs }(al, Tr)L opyr\L ou,w xaAETir\L E:XPnTo E:S 1t&vrns oμoCws OOOTE μnosva 6uvao%aL 1J:pOOLSVaL. (250) Cf. von Fritz, GGS I.273f~ Solmsen, Platll pp.665f; Heni p.132; and esp. Fornara p.65. (251) But Herodotus explicitly told us that Xerxes' behaviour was something exceptional for a Persian ( 7.238.2 ): his treatment of Leonidas showed the extent of his wrath with the Spartan king, ou yap &v xoT£ Tov vExpov taDTa napsvoμnoE, EnEt TLμav μaALOTa VOμLsOUOL TWV EY~ oloa &v~pwnwv TI[paaL &v6pas &ya&õs T& TIOAEμ~a ( cf. 7.181.lff and 8.92.1 ). (252) Herodotus has very possibly left out here an account of the Plataean covenant ( cf. Macan, ad 9.86{2); and Meiggs, AE 507f~ F. Frost, C&M 22(1961) pp.186-9; with Plut.Aristid.21.lf ), in which it seems that a number of measures were agreed to keep alive the m~mory of the victory, notably the institution of the Eleutheria ( cf. n.16, above: the late evidence for these is no case against their antiquity). If there was such a covenant at this time, it is not hard to see why Herodotus has kept is out: he wants no reminders here of Greek unity in the name of the Persian Wars! (253) For the original oath of the allies to punish the medizers, cf. 7.132.2. -537- (254)-Cf. Burn p.546: 11not without courage". (255) Cf. also Thucyd.3.62.3f, with n.112, above. (256) Cf. Macan, ad 9.88(3): 11another tribute to the magnanimity of the Spartan general, unqualified by any insinuation of bribery or torruption 11 • (257) There is no suggestion here that the prisoners were ever tried ( cf. Macan ), but if there was a trial, Herodotus has made the choice of suppressing it . . (258) Cf. Macan, ad 9.88(7): "This appears to be a very arbitrary proceeding, just such as might be ascribed to him after his fall, at a time when various parties might be glad to wash their hands, at his expense, of anti-Theban conduct11 • (259) Cf. Thucyd.3.54.2, 58.3, 59.1, 66.2f, 67.6, and 68.1, with Gomme, HCT, ad lac. The Thebans, of course, answer the Plataeans by pointing out that they too failed to observe a truce. Cf. P. Karavites, Capitulations and Greek Interstate Relations, Hypomnemata 71 (1982), at pp.34-5 on the present p-assage-f-Hlt 9-.87--8): 1iwhTch-perhaps *best exempnfiestfieHellenfc ____ _ spirit in its finest hour of triumph ... the Greeks limited the punishment to the few Thebans most responsible for medizing11 • Perhaps indeed this is the story behind Hdts text, and quite possibly this is .how most Greeks told it, but the details we have noted surely seem designed to create a very different picture. (26,0) Cf. Meiggs, AE 579; Macan, ad 9.106(21). (261) I do not see by what logic F.R. WUst, Historia 3 (1954-5) pp.140-50, argues from the appearance of the formula ovx &rcocrTncroijaL 'A.\JnvaCwv ToD rcAn.\Jous; in such documents as the Regulations for Erythrai ( Meiggs/ Lewis no.40.23ff) that these must have been the original words of the Delian Lea.gue alliance and this one which preceded it; for surely the documents where the formula does occur are 'imperial I decrees, requiring of the states concerned that they do.not 'revolt' from Athens, or as at Erythrai that they do not revolt again. I cannot believe that the word aMcrTncraa.\JaL is wholly appropriate to the language of mere alliances. As for Herodotus' text, we must surely doubt that he is here faithfully reporting the actual words of the decree, rather than simply using his own literary imagination. (262) Cf. e.g. Jacoby, RE art.372.14ff; and on this passage~ 378.12ff. Focke pp.14ff, offers an excellent rejoinder to Jacoby on this point. (263) Fornara p.56. (264) Cf. Macan, ad 9.121(3), who wants to excise this last sentence; but this is to misunderstand a characteristic ~erodotean device: cf. n.141, above. (265) Cf. esp. 4.84.lf, for Darius and Oiobazos; and 7.39.3, for Xerxes and Pythios. The present story comes uncomfortably soon after the narrative of Amestris 1 revenge at 9.108-113. F. Kiechle, Historia 7 (1958) 129ff, argues, however, that at least until the sophists the Greeks saw nothing wrong in the most gruesome revenge on a defeated enemy; cf. esp. Xenoph.Cyrop.7.5.72f. I suspect that Hdts view is already the 1modern1 one in such matters! -538- (266) Cf. Macan, ad9.120(17): "These executions do not exhibit the eothyia praotes of the Demos11• (267) Cf. Fornara p.81: 11In one quick and comprehensive mental stride we would cover the intervening period think of Athens' league, the retaliatory war against Persia, the reduction of rebellious subjects and transition to empire, and, finally, the outbreak of another war for the sake of freedom. And so we come full circle, sharing with Herodotus some of his sadness and pess irni sm11• (268) Cf. Thucyd.1.69.5, and 6.76.4; with Ch.II, Introd., above. (269) For the propaganda of freedom in Thucydides, cf. H. Diller, in Herter (1968) pp.639ff. Cf. Ch.II, lntrod., above. (270) For the date of this treatise, cf. Gornme (1962) pp.32-69; and Connor (1971} pp.207-9, arguing for a more traditional and later date than thã . advocated by G. Bowersock, HSCP 71 (1967) 33ff.( late 4401 s ). For soph1strc inspiration in the Old Oligarch, cf. Gomme {1962) pp.54ff. Cf. Prestel (1939) pp.66-86, for this example of antidemocratic propaganda; also M .. Treu, Stud. Class.12 {1970) 17-31, with Pap.Mich.5982. (271) Cf. e.g. Meiggs, AE.4-5: 110ne of the main topics of serious discussion when Herodotus travelled in the Aegean must have been the changing relations of Athens with her allies. It would have been impossible for a man so clearly fascinated by the instability of . PrQsp~y,ity and danger of greatness not to have wondered what would follow Athens spectacular rise to dominance. But Herodotus never reveals his feelings on these big issues 11. (272) Cf. esp. the topographical comparisons.at 1.98.5 ( the circuit of Ecbata11.a pprox. the circuit of Athens ), 2.7.lf ( the journey from the sea to Heliopolis approx. = the journey from the altar of the 12 Gods at Athens to the temple of Olympian Zeus at Pisa ). and 4.99.4 ( the Tauri£ peninsula compared to Sunium ). The use of the Peisistratid altar at Athens as a means of measuring distances to and from the city is clearly a ~enuine Athenian practice ( cf. ~.g ... Ã_.B. Lloyd (1976) pp.45-6, with IG \U,.?Q.4Q ), and surely reflects Herodotus I desire to make himself comprehensible to * an Athenian audience first and foremost. The recent attempt by A.J. Podlecki, 1 Herodotus in Athens?', in Schachermeyer (1977) pp.2,46-65, to deny that Herodotus ever went to Athens is wholly unconvincing: it rests essentially on (a) polemic against the ancient biography ( justified, to be sure), (b) the suggestion that all Athenian logoi could have been heard elsewhere than Athens ( perverse )sand (c) doubts about Herodotus' grasp of the topography of Athens, and especially the Acropolis ( i.e. 5.77.3f, with Podle,C:ki pp.259-60; but can we really use Pausanias to correct Herodotus' account of where movable objects are placed?). Admittedly there is no unassailable piece of evidence that Herodotus went to Athens ( or anywhere else,, for that matter, if scepticism is to reign), but (a) the work gives a clear impression of a deep interest in Athens and the Athenian phenomenon, which ought to betoken a fairly intimate acquaintance with the city, and (b) it is hard to believe that a man of Herodotus' interests ( cf. Ch.III can have been alone among the sophists and sapientes not to have wished to spend time in the prytaneion tes.sophias. (273) Cf. e.g. G. Scarpat, Parrhesia (1964) at pp.29ff, for this Athenian ideal. Also e.g. M. Radin, AJP 48 (1927) pp.215ff, *with a discussion of the comedy-laws. Cf. esp. Pl.Gorg.461E, where Socrates invites Polus to -539speak freely since he is in Athens~ 11where there is the greatest freedom of speech of anywhere.in the Greek world11 ; with Pl.Protag.3370, and Legg. 641E. Protagoras' words about the dangers of declaring oneself a sophist at Protag.316C-317B can hardly be taken au pied de la lettre and anyway they do not apply exclusively to Athens. Cr. K.J. Oover, The Freedom of the Intellectual in Greek Society, Talanta 7 (1975) 24-54, who rightly points out, against e.g. Derenne (1930), that the evidence regarding impiety trials at Athens can easily overplayed as indicating the limitations of intellectual freedom in that city; and cf. also Gomme (1962) pp.43-5, on the Old Oligarch's comment that the demos does not like itself to be ridiculed in comedy ( Ps.Xenoph.Athpol.II.18 ). My point here is,not that freedom of speech was in general limited at Athens which would of course be largely untrue-, but only that at the time when Hdt was completing his work it might have s~emed imprudent for a foreigner writing at Athens to be outspoken in his criticisms of the empire in particular and the democracy in general: it seems at least a priori plausible, however we are to deal with the indecisive and severely 1imited evidence, that the first years of the Peloponñsian War, and perhaps also the years immediately before it, saw a democratic reaction somewhat indiscriminately directed at all oligarchs, radical thinkers, atheists, intellectuals of all kinds, who might be thought of as a threat to the stability of the democratic state. For the democracy's hostility to those who try to criticize it, cf. Isocr.8.3-14, which is perhaps more than a mere rhetorical captatio. And cf. perhaps F.J. Frost, Historia 13 (1964) 385-99, for the vfew that the attacks on the frierids of Pericles { but cf . . DC>verjl975) above ) showed the anti-intellectualismof Clean and his followers rather than the oligarchic opposition of Thucydides Melesiou~l"restel (1939) is not helpful on the democrats• reactions to the 11antidemokratische Str8mung11 • (27!!-) Cf. G. Norwood, CPh 25 {1930) lff; and e.g. W.G. Forrest, Aristophanes and the Athenian Empire, in Essays in hon. C. E. Stevens *{1975) pp. l 7ff. For the controversy as to who actually wrote the Babylonians and who was prosecuted by Clean, cf. F.S. Halliwell, CQ 30 {1980) 33-45, and D.M. MacDowell, CQ 32 (1982) 21ff; perhaps not of much importance for our purposes. * -540Chapter Three: NOTES. (1) The intellectual and social impact of the sophists has recently been well explored in two books: Solmsen (1975) and Kerferd (1981). Cf. also Guthrie, HGP III; the collection of Classen (1976) is largely concerned with problems of pure philosophy. (2) Cf .. Pl.Soph.2310, Apol.19E, Euthyd.305C, etc.; and Ar.Soph.El.171825ff: xpnμcn;LO"Il,')!T) LS arco croqiLas qJO.L\!OμE\!ns:' See Kerferd pp.24ff. (3) Cf. Antiphon DK 87848: &v&pwrcos, os qincrL μtv rcdvTwv &npLwv &EEL6ecrTaTov yEvscr&aL ••. ; Democritus DK 688165: &v~~wn6s eaTLV, 8 ndvTES L6μEv ••. ; Protag. DK 8081 (!); and esp. Hippocr.Vet.Med.20.lff, on the opinion of some doctors and sophistai: ws oux Ern 6ovaTov t'..mpLxnv EL.6€\!0',l, OOTLS μn oloEV o TL EOTL,V av&pwnos • For Thucydides on anthropine physis, cf. E. Topitsch, WS 61-2 (1943-7) pp.50ff, with Thucyd.1.22.4, 76; with 4.61.5; 3.45, 82.2; 5.105; cf. 5.89f. (4) Cf. e.g. Anaximander DK 12A30, on the evolution 6f man from a fishy forebear into the form we know but no further! (5) For Gorgias, cf. Pl.Meno 708, Gorg.447C: EMEAEUE yoQv vuvot epwTffv OTL • TLS BoDAOLTO TWV evoov OVTWV ')!O',L rcpos &rcavTa cf. Pl.Hipp.Maj.2858, Hipp.Min.363C, below. ')!0.L nv ws aAn&ws £\) qJLAOOOqJLO',l, TCE:\!Ta&Aos lqin aTCOMPLVEtcriaL. For Hippias, For Democritus, cf. DK II.82.Jlff: ( cf. II.93.6ff ). .. (6) Cf. DK II.85.26-7, 28ff, 33ff, 36ff (!); lll.15ff; 174.15ff (=8156); and cf. J. Meyer, Hermes 100 (1972) p.178. (7) For sophistic argument in the medical wfiters, cf. e.g. G.E.R. Lloyd (1979) pp.86-98, and cf. Kerferd pp.57-8. For the association of 5thc medicine with the sophists, cf. e.g. DK 1I.277.13ff ( Gorgias and Herodikos ); II.336.35ff ( Antiphon 1 s tekhne alypias ); and esp. Hippocr.Vet.Med.20 (below). For Democritus and Hippocrates, cf .. DK II.83~20ff; 225.3ff. (8) One of the best discussions of Thucydides 1 participation in the sophistic debate is to be found in Solmsen (1975) passim; cf., also W. Nestle, Thukydides u.d.Sophistik, in Gr.Stud. ( Stuttgart 1948) pp.321-73. For Thucydides and the medical writers~ cf. e.g. recently C. Lichtenthaeler, Hermes 107 (1979) pp.270ff. (9) Cf. Aly (1921) p.292, with pp.286ff, for a full discussion; also (1929) p.120. Similarly Schmid/StMhlin I.2.572ff, on the failure of the various sophistic influences in the woik to affect its design and m~thods: 11Indessen ist davon seine Weltanschauung nicht tiefer, seine Auffassung von der Aufgabe des Gesichichtsschreibers Oberhaupt gar nicht berahrt worden: er hat weder an der Existenz der GBtter noch an der 8erechtigung der nomoi der einzelnen Vtllker bezweifelt 11 •.. Even W. Nestle, in a monograph specially~devoted to the topic is surprisingly reserved ( Progr.1908 p.37 ): 11So wenig also Herodotus ein philosophischer Denker oder ein Sophistenschaler in der Art der MMnner der nMchstfolgenden Generation gewesen ist, so wening ist es angebracht, seine Perstlnlichkeit und seine Denkweise, ja auch seine Art der Darstellung und seinen Stil einfach als 1 naiv 1 zu charakterisieren 11 • That 1 einfach 1 begs the entire question not to mention that the comparison of Herodotus with the 1 next generation 1 is unhelpful: just because he is not like a Euripides ----***-~---**------ -541or a Thucydides does not mean that he has missed the sophistic boat! It is worth remembering that some ( if not most) of the standard works on Herodotus and the history of 5thc thought are far less enlightened than these: cf. e.g. Pohlenz (1937) p.107: 11Wer 1 Sophistik 1 als bestimmendes Element in Herodots Wesen ansieht, denkt in Schlagworten und vergisst, wieviele Gedanken uncimethoden, die uns durch die 1 Sophisten 1 llberli.efert si.nd, schon vorher in Ionien durchdacht und ausgebildet waren. Die ganze Grundhaltung Herodot~ ... weist nach andrer Richtung11 ( cf. p.185! ). Hunter (1982), convincingly argues ( against the orthodoxy) that Herodotus and Thucydides in many respects share methods and outlook; but the word 1 sophist 1 is not listed in the index to the book, and the two writers share the anachronistic common designation 'Pre-Socratic thinkers'; cf. p.4, with n.5. Cf. here also Jacoby's RE art. on Herodotus' Style ( sect.31 ), which seems uncertain where precisely to locate Herodotus: e.g. 492.54ff: 11 ••• (Hdt) ftlr den der Einfluss der neuen Sophistik in den Grundlagen seiner Kunst schon zeitlich kaum in Betracht kommt, wenn er auch im einzelnen vielleicht in der Verwendung gewisser Schmuckmittel anerkannt werden kann"; contrast 501.46ff, on Herodotus' meetings with Protagoras and Empedocles, and even Gorgias, in Thurji (!) ( 11kein chronologisches Bedenken spricht dagegen ... 11 ); but see 500.46ff, for doubts about the meaning of the term 'Sophistik' and suggestions as to an 'Ionian Sophistic' ( whose existence had already been firmly stamped on by W. Nestle, Philol .24 (1911) pp. 242ff, an article that Jacoby had missed ). The debate on sophistic style in Herodotus has been long and hard: see H. Diels, Hermes 22 (1887) p.424 ( 11Neben der traditionellen NaiveUt der ionischen logopoiia vernimmt man schon oft die scharfgespitzte Antithese und die Per1odenzirkelei der gleichzeitigen Sophistik, die freilich .. dem biedern Halikarhassier anfMnglich noch etwas sauer wird11 ); with P. Kleber, De gen. dicendi Hdteo ( Progr.L~wenperg 1890 ), and contra A. Nieschke, De figurarum ... ( Progr.iYil!nden 1891 ), and M. Wundt, De Hdti elocutione ... (~Leipz.1903 ). Also E. Norden, Die Antike Kunstprosa (1909) I.27ff; and e.g. A. Dihle, Philol.106 (1962) p.212, n.l. The controversy was allowed to rage on only because commentators failed to make clear with any precision what they wanted their generalizations to mean and in what respects they wished them to apply. It is clear enough that Herodotus is the master of any number of styles, ranging from the Hecataean right down to the Gorgianic, but it would be a foolish man who thought he could identify Herodotus1 'natural' or 1 authentic 1 voice in all this. (10) Cf. Jacoby, RE art.510.49ff, cited in the previous note. (11) Cf. Jacoby, RE art.213-47, on this and the following; esp. 229.19ff. (12) Cf. (Ar.) Rhet.u~,9~A28, with Plut.Mor.604Fi cf. Jacoby, RE art.205-13; H. Erbse, Rh.Mus.98 (1955) 103ff, suggests that the MS reading Thouriou was recognized already by the A]exandrians as an unreliable conjecture. Cf. also Schmid-Stahlin I.2.588 n.5; and now V.G. Borukhovic, VDI 127 (1974) 127-32 (!). (13) Cf. C.W. Fornara, JHS 91 (1971) 25ff; contra J. Cobet, Hermes 105 (1977) 2ff; and again Fornara, Hermes 109 (1981) 149ff. (14) For the integrality of these references, cf. Powell pp.69ff; contrast e.g. L.H. Jeffery, AJPh 83 (1962) 44ff. (15) Cf. e.g. Powell p.75; "Such an irrelevant digression fõ.~he sake of topical interest is much harder to understand as a later addrt,on than as part of the original context 11 ; cf. my comments on this 13assage in Ch.II.iii.J. (16) Cf. Thucyd.2.8.3, itself a problem for ignoring Hdts earthquake; c!. Powell p.70. The unfulfilled promise of Assyrioi Logoi at 1.106.2 and 184 possibly shows inadequate final revision rather than that the work is incomplete; -542cf. Focke pp.14ff, arguing that 1 .177-200 is itself the Assyrios Logos; G. Huxley, GRBS 6 (1965) 207-12; R. Drews, AJPh 91 (1970) 181-91; ana most recently J. MacQueen, CQ 28 (1978) 284-91, who argues that the relevant passage has dropped out of the text; and cf. perhaps my App. IV n. 4 ( ! ) . For the prob 1 em of Ephialtes at 7.213.3, cf. H. Erbse, RhiM~s.98 (1955) 117-20. (17) cf. R. Lattimore, CPh 53 (1958) 9ff, for a discussion of these problems. (18) On the supposed •parody' of the opening ofHdts~work in Aristoph.Ach.523ff, produced Lenaea 425, cf. Fornara art.cit. (1971) 28, and art.cit. (1981) 153-5. The parodies in the Birds, produced Lenaea 414, are rather more impressive ( cf. App.IV n.4) and could be taken as evidence of 'publication' c.415: cf. Fornara, art.cit.(1971) 28-9. Cf. also G. Perrotta, RIL 59 (1926) 105ff, for a complete discussion of the Aristoph.parodies. It is not clear what can be made of the almost certain echo of Hdts story of Intaphrenes' wife ( 3.118-9) at Soph.Antig.904ff; cf. e.g. T.A. Szlezak, Rh.Mus.124 (1981) 108-42, for the most complete treatment of the question ( at pp.112-3 and 128-9, for relation to Hdt ). I believe two things are clear: (a) that the Soph.passage does imitate Hdt and that very closely { cf. the demonstration by Page (1934) pp.86ff, who, however, concludes that the passage in the play is interpolated), and (b) that, incovenient as is the conclusion for my purposes, the lines do belong in the play and are not any form of interpolation ( cf. esp. Ar.Rhet.1417A28ff ). These two hypotheses do not however get us any further with the Hdt problem. The supposed evidence of Aristoph.Byz. in the hypothesis to the play to the effect that Sophocles was given the generalship in the campaign against Samas because of the reputation he had won from the Antigone ( i.e. giving a date for the play in that late 440's; cf. e.g. G. Mllller, Soph.Antig. ( Heidelberg 1967) pp.24-5) surely amounts to nothing more than a scholarly guess ( cf. Lefkowitz (1981) pp.81-3) ~ perhaps dependent on the 'political' theme of the play? This being so, we are left without any guide to its date unless we would do better to use the evidence of Hdt and put the Antig. later than his publication date ( i.e. 425 )? An alternative hypothesis that Soph. saw an early draft of this section of the work is one that is quite impossible to test. For Hdtean echoes in other authors, cf. somewhat uncritically K.A. Riemann (1967); and cf. R. Browning, CR 75 (1961) 201ff, for a possible Hdtean echo in Eurip. Cresphontes F449N. For the question of whether different parts of the work were written at different times, or rather whether we can detect signs of this, cf. App. IV. (19) See in general Guthrie, HGP III.262ff. (20) Cf. Pl.Apol.1 ; cf. Hipp.Maj.282E, for the relative ages of Hippias and Protagoras. (21) Cf. J.S. Morrison, CQ 35 (1941) pp.lff; the authenticity of the dramatic setting is, of course, questioned, not without reason, by Athenaeus 2188. (22) Cf. DK II.327.28; 329.21~2; and cf. Dialex.9;lff. (23} Cf. Jacoby, Rt art.213.31ff, for the ancient biography. With e.g. von Fritz, GGS I.12lff. {24) For rewards { requested and obtained) for speaking at Athens and elsewhere, cf. Dia Chrys.37.17; Plut.MH 31.8640 ( below }; Marc.Vit.Thuc.27; and Diyllos FGH 73F3, with Jerome 01.83.4 ( 445-4 }, Arm.Euseb.Ol.83.3 ( 446-5 ), and _ Syncellus 2570 ( 446-5 ). And compare Marc.Vit.Thuc.54; Suda s.v. Thoukydides s.v. orgai, for recitations, etc. Cf~ Powell pp.31ff; contra H.W. Parke, Hermathena 67 (1946) pp.86ff; also Focke pp.42ff. -543- (25) For the supposed evidence of 'oral style' in Herodotus, cf. e.g. Pohlenz (ll131) pp.208ff; Immerwahrp.6, n.12; and R. Lattimore, CP 53 (1958) pp.9ff (!); contrast Focke pp.42ff. (26) Cf. Jacoby, RE art.353.39ff: 11das waren nat~rlich ausgearbeitete VortrMge, wie wir dergleichen ja noch im Hippokratescorpus besitzen; richtige Manuskripte, die auch stilistische Aspirationen yemacht haben werden, gerade wie die Vortr!ge der Sophisten 11• (27) Cf. Hunter {1982) pp.324-5, for a survey of the literature on this question and its bearing on Hdt; for Sparta add P. Cartledge, JHS 98 {1978) 25-37, and T.A. Boring, Mnemos.Suppl.54 {1979). I would argue not only that literacy is hard to define and even harder to quantify with our limited evidence, but that determining with any precision the extent of the book-reading public at this date is not possible. S. Flory, AJPh 101 (1980) 12ff, argues an unprovable case when he claims that it was only the smallest minority who ever read Hdts book. (28) Cf. Pl.Protag.314Cff, with Kerferd p.30. (28a) H. Erbse, Rh,Mus.98 (1955) 99ff, in arguing against the hypothesis of Hdtean lectures, rejects the evidence of Aristophanes of Boeotia, though somewhat casually in JJ1Y,_vie1tL ~-~- (29) For other possible contacts with Hippias, c!. ~:g. Nes~le, ~hilol.21 (1908) 567ff, and Progr.1908 pp.23ff; cf.~e.g. H1pp1as on d1abole, DK 86817, with Hdt 7.lOi, and Isocr.Antid.18; cf. Aly (1921) p.291. (30) Cf. B. Snell, Philol.96 (1944) pp.119-28 ( repr. in Classen (1976) pp. 478ff ); cf. Kerferd pp.48ff. If Snell is right and Thales figured in this doxography of Hippias, it would be interesting to know if he said anything that overlapped with Herodotus' treatment of the man; cf. 1.74.2, 75.3ff, 170.3. (31) Cf. A.B! Lloyd (1975) pp.141ff. And cf. Thucyd.3.90.1, a 6~ A6you μdALaTa &~La ••• TõTwv μvncr&~aoμaL , with K.J. Dover, Maia 6 {1953} pp.Bff. And cf. H. Barth, 1 Zur Bewertung und Auswahl des Stoffes durch Herodot1 ~ Klio 50 (1968) pp.93-110; cf. flJbeaet.155D, on philosophical thaumazein. (32) Note that Aristotle's description of Prodicus' devices for keeping the audience 1 s attention when it seemd to be flagging ( Rhet.1415812ff = DK II.310. 32ff ) : OH: VU(Hctl;;OLE:V oL crnpoarnL~ nape:μSdAAE:LV TT]$ ltE:VH]HOVTC.x6paxμou . . ãTOt$, Such a meretricious approach is not~issimilarto Herodotus• striving in his prosth~kai; cf. e.g. 4.30.1. * * (33) Cf. Macan, and How and Wells, ad loc. ( the epic 1 Aigimios1 ); Stein, ad loc. ( the logographers ). And cf. Fehling p.127. Note that Critias too wrote Spartan Politeiai in verse and prose, cf. OK 8886 and 832-7. (34) Cf. A. K~rte, Hermes 39 (1904) p.230; Kerferd p.47. (35) G.E.M. de Ste Croix, Class Struggle (1981) p.69, questions the existence of the list, but Plutarch's disparagement is directed at Hippias' methods not against the tradition which ascribed the list to him. Cf. further, Den Boer (1954) pp.42ff. * (36) By contrast the Pythian games are mentioned only once, at 8.47: a three times victor, Phayllos. And cf. e.g. 5.102.3 ( Eualkidas ): aTe:mavn,6pous TE: &ywva$ &vapaLpnH6rn HaL urea ILμwv(6e:w TOU Knlou rco:Uct. aCvri&t~r.a. It is possible that one of Herodotus1 sources of information was epinfcian poetry, rather than Hippias, although it is clear that Hippias must have used those same sources too. -544- {36a) B. Virgilio, RIL 106 {1972) 451-68, suggests that besides oral tradition Hdt relies for his extensive knowledge of athletic victories on epigraphic evi~~nce; but we know of no such material for this period, and Hippias' activity suggests that it did not exist. (37) Cf. esp. T. Cole {1967); L. Edelstein {1967); E.R. Dodds {1973) pp.lff; and contrast W. den Boer, Progress in the Greece of Thucydides {1977), which is to my mind confused and unhelpful. (38) Cf. Cole {1967), for a lengthy survey and critical discussion. (39) Cf. M. Griffith, The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound (1977); see index under 'sophistic elements', and esp. pp.217ff. (40) See also Theseus in Eurip.Suppl.201-13; and 1 Critias 1 ( = rip. ) Sisyphos DK 88825 ( with A. Dihle, Hermes 105 (1977) 28ff ). (41) Cf. K. Reinhardt, Hermes 47 (1912) 492ff; G. Vlastos AJP 67 (1946) 51ff; * and see Cole (1967) passim. Cf. also DK II.137.36ff. (42) Pl.Legg.677Bff ( cf. 782Aff ); with Cole (1967) pp.97ff. (43) Cf. Guthrie, HGP III.63ff and 79ff; Cole (1967) pp.1-10, for a complete survey of the relevant texts. (44) Cf. H.W. Miller, TAPA 80 (1949) pp.187ff; H. Herter, Maia 15 (1963) pp.464ff. (45) Note*here two passages of Herodotus which bear an obvious relation to Pherecrates' play: 6.137.3, the Athenians in the earliest days sent out their own daughters to fetch and carry water: ou y&p ElvaL ToDTov Tov xp6vov õCCTL MW ouot TOLCTL aAAOLCTL VEAAneyL olxsTas; ; and 8.137.2, noav OS TO TiaAaL xat aL TUpavvC6Ef; TWV &v.\Jpwnwv &o.\JEVSE:s; xpnμaCTL, * OU μ6vov o onμos;. n 0£ yuvn ,oa BaotA[os; au,~ Ta CTL,Ca CT~L lnECTCTE, With Pherecr.Agrioi FlO Kock: OU yap nv ,6,' ÕTE Mavns; ÕTE rnxts; OUOEVL/6oDAos;, aAA1 a0,as; l6EL μox.\JEtV &nav,' lv olxCaL" slTa Tip;s; TOUTOLCTLV ~AOUV 5p6pLaL Ta CTL,Ca,/ WCTTE ,nv xwμnv unnxstv .\JLyyavouowv ,as; μUAas;. Cf. Nestle, Progr.1908 pp.16f and 27. Compare the weakness of the age of tyrannies in Thuc.Archaeol. 1.17; and cf. Crates F14.lf Kock. Since the Agrioi is clearly a satire on sophistic speculations about primitive man ( cf. esp. Pl.Protag.3270; produced Lenaea 421: cf. Athen.2180 ), we may presumably invoke a common sophistic inspiration here. (46) Cf. Pl.Legg.676BC, 782Aff, and Tim.22Bff. (47) Cf. 2.11.4, on the time available for the silting of the Nile to form the land-mass of Egypt(!); a similar conception of the unimaginable variety of the known world at 4.195.2: sCn 6~ &v nav. (48) Cf. Cole (1967) pp.143-6. We might add that the fanciful, mythopoeic character of the narrative has little to do with the traditional folk-tale, but rather recalls the meretricious dressing-up of such sophistic parables as the Prometheus-myth in Plato's Protagoras, Prodicus' Heracles in Xenophon, and later Plato 1 s / Socrates' own 'myths', whose purpose is to sweeten the pill of instruction. Cf. F. Dornseiff, Die Archaische Mythenerzt:lhlung (1933) pp.82-7, e.g. p.87: "er ( Hdt ) ist der Obergang van der archaischen Mythenerzt:lhlungen zur sophistischen und platonischen 11• (49) Cf. Diod.I.8.3-4, for the origins of language and of the archetypes of the main languages. And cf. Hdt l.142.3f, the four Ionian dialects; -5451.171.6, the Carian Zeus~ etc.; 1.172.1, the differences and similarities of culture and language between Caunians and Carians; 2.42.4 ( the Ammonioi ): £6VTES A[yu•TLWV TE xat A[6L6•wv &•oLXOL xat ,wvnv μETã~ &μ~oT{pwv voμCtoVTEs; 2.105, the racial origins of the Colchians in Egypt, proved by similarity of language; 2.154.2, Egyptian interpreters of Greek; 4.106, the Androphagoi and the other Scyths; 4.108.2 ( the Gelonoi ): slot ... T~ &pxatov ~EAAnvEs ... xat yÃoonL T& μ~v Exu6LxfiL, T& 6~ 'EAAnvLxnL xp{wvTaL; 6.119.4, the Eretrians transplanted by Darius to Arderikka: ot xc1.t μsxpL lμso Efxov Tnv xwpnv TaUTnv, ~uAaOOOVTES Tnv apxaCnv yAwooav. (49a) Cf. A.Salmon, LEC 24 (1956) 321-9, arguing this to be a genuine report of an Egyptian story; but cf. Lloyd {1976) ad loc. (50) Cf. Nestle, Progr.1908 p. (51) Cf. Oialex.6.12: a Greek child brought up in Persia would speak Persian,. and vice versa. (52) Cf. A.B. Lloyd (1976) ad lac. {53) That the 'variant' version of this story ( 2.2.5 ) goes back to Hecataeus ( so A.B. Lloyd ( 1976) pp.8-9 ) seems to me incredible, when the assumptions and interests without which the story could not have.taken shape, are so clearly sophistic. (54) Cf. Soph.Antig.332ff; and Prom.Vinct.442ff; Eurip.Suppl.201-15; 1 Critias' DK 88825 etc. * (55) Cf. Gorg.Palam.DK 82Blla.30; c::f! Js'.t1-i;r!Pañ:$':,~5:fkO:: And cf. Eurip. Palamedes,. F578ff Nauck, in trilogy witn Sisyph"os Ccf. n.40, above ). (~6) Cf. Isocr.Panath.119-48. (57) Cf. DK II.317.2ff, with Kerferd pp.168-9. Compare Pl.Legg.6770. ( ) Kleingnnther (1933); cf. K. Thraede. 'Das Lob des Erfinders', Rh.Mus. 105 (1962) 158-86. (59) Kleingnnther (1933) compare$ Herodotus with Hecataeus: cf. FGH 1Fl5 ( Oineus ) and F20 ( writing: see below). (60) Cf. e.g. Nestle, Progr.1908 p. (61) For ~hreia_ in such discussion, cf. e.g. Cole (1967) p.41, etc. (62) Cf. Kleing~nther (1933) pp60ff. (63) Cf. Cole (1967) pp.179ff and 187ff; and compare esp. Isocr.Busiris passim, a text which has some clear correspondences with Herodotus1 account of Egypt; cf. Busiris 17: ~oTE xat Tffiv ~LAoa6,wv ( ? the sophists ) Tots ~-~P Tffiv TOLOUTwv ( cf. Hdt 2.167~1 ) A{ysLv £nLXELpo0vTas xat μdALoT' E66oxLμoDvTas Tnv iv AlyUXTWL npoaLpEto6aL noALTECav. Cf. Pl. Legg.656Dff, 799A, etc. And compare Froidefond (1971) at pp.115ff for Herodotus on Egypt, and at pp.231ff for Egypt in subsequent philosophical writers: Froidefond, however, surely exaggerates the extent to which later writers depended exclusivel on Hdt. Yor the originality of Hecataeus ofAbdera, however, cf. 0. Murray, CQ 22 (1972) at 207~8. (64) Cf. A.B. Lloyd (1975) pp.147-9. l -546- (b5) For an excellent appreciation of the unity of conception of Herodotus' account of Egypt, cf. J. Vogt, 1 Herodot in ~gypten', repr. in Hdt WdF pp.412-33. (66) Cf. esp. Trtldinger (1918), e.g. p.15: 11Herodot hat als Geograph und Ethnograph, als Nachfolger des Hekataios begonnen11 , following Jacoby, RE art. 341, 9ff. (67) Assisted by .Porphyry and others: cf. Jacoby FGH 1T22 ( cf. T1 and Tl8 ). (68) Alpha= 1 Europe1 , cf. e.g. F37; Beta= 1 Asia 1 , cf. e.g. F304, 323a, etc. For ancient doubts about the authorship of H.s 1Asia 1 , cf. FGH 1Tl5, with Jacoby, Kommentar ad loc. l69) Cf. Drews (1973) p.149 n.40t who assigns the 'fragment' to the Genealogies. But there is no need to read Herodotus' text as a citation of a work by Hecataeus: in particular, I find it hard to believe that Hecataeus would have been happy to tell a story which reflected so poorly on himself. ls it beyond Herodotus to have made this up to point the difference between himself and the gullibl~ Ionian? Cf. Fehli pp.60ff. for this passage. (70) For the case for believing Porphyry, cf. S. Lilja, Arctos 5 (1967) P?~85ff. Is it not the case, however, that accusations of plagiarism ter.d to get exaggeratea. especially when, as here. they are made at third hand? ----- - - (71) Cf. Drews (1973) pp.11-14, against Heidel (1935) and others, and arguing rightly that there is no real history anywhere in Hecataeus. (?la) For Hec.s ethnography, with particular reference to Egypt, cf. A.B. Lloyd (1975) pp.127-39; and at pp.138-9, for the most that Hdt can derive from Hee. on Egypt. (72) Cf. Nestle, Progr.1908 p.36: ( the collecting of nomima barbarika) "gewann jetzt eine neue Bedeutung: denn erst jetzt muss es dazu d1enen, das Wesen des Menschen als Gattung zu erfassen" {?). (72a) Roffler (1920) for the idea of 'complex-personification'; and at pp. 19-29 for Hdt without, however, stressing the impact on his work of the sophistic movement. (73) Cf. Nestle, Philol.21 (1908) 579; Aly (1929) pp.118-9. ~74) The most remarkable correspondence between the Dialex. and Herodotus is the ooservation in the former that if all men were to bring together their shameful practices ( aiskhra } and then take away with them those they thought to be fine ( la ), ld be nothing left behind ( 2.18; cf. 2.26 ): this is clearT,ya'" variation on the motif which Herodotus himself employs on two different occasions, both different from each other and from the Dialex. l cf. 3.38 and 7.152.2 ). ( Compare elut.Mor.1068 and Val.Max.7.2.ext.2 ). It is evident that the two works have a .. common inspiration here ( though not necessarily a stngle source ). (75) Nestle, Progr.1908 p.27: 11Heranziehung fabelhafter barbarischer V6lker als angeblicher Beispiele ftlr:~in Leben in naturgem~ssen ZustMnden11 ; cf. Ari stoph .Av .1470ff, l!i~~lf; and Pherecr. Agrioi Kock\ I.146ff ( see above ) . (76) Cf. Heinimann (1945) pp.14ff; H. Diller, 'Wanderarzt und :AitJolpge', Philol .Suppl.26.3 (1933) pp.lff. For the best defence of the unity of the worK, cf. Aly.(1929) pp.52ff; contrast e.g. Diller (1933) pp.5ff. (77) See most recently H. Hermal, Comparaison entre le traite hippocr. Airs les Hist.s tj'Hdte ( Strasburg 1972 ) ( not available to me )~ The view -547of W. Nestle, Hermes 73 {19}8) pp.25f, that Herodotus is the borrower, i.~ no longer accepted; contrãt e.g. Diller (1933) pp.69ff. See e.g. the a,screpancr over the hame of the Scythian Anarieis or Enareis ( Airs 22.5, with Rdt 1.105.4 and 4. 67. 2 ) , improbable if either is drawing <:lj_reftlY on the other. (78) Cf. Herodotus 1.142.1, and Airs 12.7ff; cf. Diller (1933) pp.69ff, Heinimann pp.23f. Cpntrast Hdt 3,106.1, of Greece as a whole. (79) sc. like the Egyptians: cf. Stein, ad loc. (80) See also Hdt 2.35.2 and 4.28f: the affects of climate ( extreme hot and extreme cold), which make Egypt and Scythia so different; Hdt 2.2 and 4.5.1: the Egyptians and Scythians are believed to be respectively the oldest and youngest peoples on earth; and Hdt 4.48f ( ,esp,.50.1 ): the Danube is the largest river in Europe and with its tributaries larger even than the Nile, to which alone it corresponds' in importance. Cf. Diller (1933) pp.74f, and A.B. Lloyd (1975) pp.167f. Unfortunately we do not possess the Hippocratic treatment of Egypt which has fallen out of the text ( Jacuna at 12.44 ). (81) Cf. Dialex.2.17, and Hdt 2.35.2ff: the ~Dialex. significantly has no special use for the motif of the topsy-turviness of Egypt ( cf. AtyunLOL TE 06 Ta6T& voμC~ovTL xal~ Tots &AAoLs ), since for him the customs of most ethnea are paradoxical in some way; in other words it seems likely that the author has simply borrowed the idea from hi~ source. Cf. also Soph.OC 337ff, which may derive from Herodotus, but is more likely to share a common source on the present evidence; and cf. Anaxandridas F39 Kock ( II.150 ), which corresponds in many details with Herodotus here, but diverges in at least one respect ( cf. lines 10-11 ). (82) Cf. e.g. the antithesis at 2.35.2, aL μev yuvaLXES ayopãOUCTL, xat xãnAEUOUOL, OL 6e av6pES xaT' OGXOUS £0VTES u~aLVOUOL, ( homoioteleuton! ). And note the straining for effect at 2.35.3, 06pfoua1., at μev yuvatxEs 6p3aC, ol:6£ av6pEs xaT~μEvoL: the antithesis ( implied throughout) between Egyptian and Greek would require men to urinate standing, against the evidence of Hesiod ( Erga 73lf) for the crouching position { and cf. Boardman, ARF no.84 ). (83) It is hard to imagine what other place the Makrokephaloi ever had in Greek anthropology, except in explanations of their 'long-headedness' ( cf. Hes.F153M-W ). (84) Democr.DK 68833, ~ ,u61.,s xat ~ 61.,6ax~ napanÃa1.,6v EOTL, xat y&p ~ 61.,6ax~ μETapuaμot T~V &v3pwnov, μETapucrμoUaa 6~ ,ucr1.,ono1.,~t~ And cf. esp. Euenos F9 West, Critias DK 8889, Protagoras DK 808}. And also Democr. DK 688242. (85) Cf. Airs 14.lff: xat 6x6aa μ~v 6ACyov 6La,lpEL TWV fevlwv napaAEL~w, 6x6cra 6e μsydAa fl ,ucrEL fl v6μw1.,, lpfw IlEpt a6TffiV ~S ~XEL. (86) Cf. Emped.DK 31A81, 865 and 67 ( cf. A73 ); and Parmenides DK A53. And see e.g. Diog.Apoll.DK 64Al9 ( the importance of air). Pythagoras: Vit.Pythag. Phot.Cod.249, p.441A13f; Aetius Plac.I.15.7, p.313 ( Diels ); with Eurip.Med. 826ff. Compare Menestor DK 32A5 etc. (87) For the problem of who is attacked in the Vet.Med., cf. e.g. H. Diller, Hermes 80 (1952) pp.385ff, arguing for a post-Platonic date; but contrast G.E.R. Lloyd, Phronesis 8 (1963) pp.108-26. {88) Cf. Democr. DK IL125.31ff, with Airs 18.17ff, and tldt 4.29f. Also Democr. DK U .. Ji);)6ftl25.8ff, 126.29ff; and for the peri georgies on climate, II.149.16ff. With Drller (1933) pp.27ff. ~--------*-------------------------------------- -548- (89) Cf. e.g. Guthrie, HGP ll.386ff, and e.g. p.389: "Atomism is the final, and most successful 1 attempt to rescue the reality of the physical world from the fatal effects of Eleatic logic by means of a pluralistic logic 11 • (90) Cf. Heinimann pp.35f: 11Das unwahrscheinliche und tlberraschende Erlebnis des Sieges einer kleine Zahl van Griechen nber eine vielfache persische LJbermacht Z\vang zur Frage nach dessen Ursache11 • See also H. Diller, in E. Hardt 8 (.19_62) pp.39ff. And cf. esp. W. Backhaus, Historia 25 (1976) pp.170ff, who fORc]udes that Hippocr.Airs is concerned to contrast not so much Europe and Asia as* Greek and barbarian ( p.185 ): 11die Schrift ... liefert damit unter Bertlcksichtigung politischer Ordnungsprinzipien die erste naturwissenschaftliche klimatheoretische Begrundung hellenischer Uberlegenheit und barbarischer lnferioriUt 11• (91) For the decline in intellectual life of Ionia after the suppression *of the revolt in the first decade of the 5thc,: cf. Emlyn-Jones, pp.164ff. Certainly Ionians continued to lead the intellectual life of Greece ( e.g. Democritus, Protagoras, Anaxagoras ), but they are now exiles from their home-cities, travelling the rest of the Greek world. The new centres of Greek thoughtare first Magna Graecia ( Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles, Gorgias ), and ultimat~lo/, the prytaneiun t~s sophias jtself, Athens ( cf. Pl.Protag.3370 ). There is no evidence at all that there \~_Ql'ltinued to be a thriving intellectual community in loni~ after the collapse of the revolt: indeed it is tempting to see a causal connexion here. For the chimera of an I Ionian-~ophistic', including prate-sophists unknown to us, see the robust critique of Nestle, Philol.24 (1911) pp.242ff. (92) There are certainly glimmerings of interest in these questions as early as Pindar: e.g. Ol.10.20f, Ol.2.86f, 01.9.100, Py.8.44f; and cf. Simoni des Fl5 West and PMG 542. See Heiniman, passim; 0. Thimme, Physis, Tropos, Ethos, Diss.Gtlttingen (1935); Nestle, *'J-lippocratica', Hermes 73 (1938) 8ff; K. Deichgraber, Antike 15 (1939) pp.116ff; H. Diller, N. Jahrb.2 (1939) pp.24lff; and D. Holwerda, Commentatiq de vocis quae est physis vi atque usu (1955). (93) Cf. 2.77.3, the good health of the Egyptians, as of the Libyans, depends ( bot oox Lv ) on the seasons _not changing ( with e.g. Airs 23.2ff ), as well as on their healthy regimen vitae { 2.77.2 ). Compare 3.12,lf, on the reasons for the relative thickness of Egyptian and Persian skulls; 3.23.lf (water); 4.187.2f ( cauterization ); 4.2~ ( Scythian hornless oxen: cf. Airs 18.17ff ); 4.30.1 ( mules in. Elis; with Democr.DK 68Al51 ); and cp. 2.35.2ff. With allusions at 7.102.1 ( Greek poverty, etc. ), on which cf. A. Dihle~ Philol.1060962)207ff, who assumes with the orthodoxy that the allusion here is to an 11ionisch-ethnographischer Betrachtungsweise 11 • C 94) Cf. R. MerkeJba<::h, Rh.Mus 95 (1952) 288, for this text. (95) Cf. 1.89.2 ( Croesus ); amd Herodotus 1 confirmation of Sandanis at 1.71.4 (!). (96) Cf. on all this, H. Bischoff, Der Warner bei Herodot, Diss.Marburg (1932) pp.78ff. (97) Cf. Kerferd pp.159ff; with e.g. Eurip.F653N. (98) Democritus e.g. DK 688275-280; Antiphon DK 87849 ( II.357.12ff ). -549- (99) Cf. esp. Aristoph.Eccl.635f, a burlesque on the community of wives: 11:Ws ODV OV'TW l;WV'TW\) 11].lW\) mus; aihoD 11:at:6as; E:XctOTOs/ £0'[Q,l, 6vvcnos; 6l,ctyl,yvwox£Lv; ( and cf. Dover (1972) pp.200f, on the sources of this passage ). Also e.g. Eurip.Fl015: aJd 6E: μihnp qJl,AOT£xvos; μaUov 11:a'rpos;~/ n j.lE:\) yap auTns; oC6£V 5vT', 6 6' oCETctC. . (100) Democr.DK 688278: Antiphon DK 87849 { sub f~n. ); and Eurip.Alc.882ff and 903ff~ Med.108lff, for the paradoxical 1 uttipian 1 desire to remain ateknos. (101) There is an excellent discussion of the unity of Herodotus' Persian nomoi by E. Wolff, repr. in Hdt WdF pp.404-11, which notes that implicit contras~and comparisons with Greek culture underlie the whole passage. See here also the story of lntaphrenes' wife ( 3.119.5~6 ). Her choice of her brother rather than her children or .husband, even though a brother is less close in blood ( allotrioteros ) than children and less loved than a husband, depends on practical considerations: a brother cannot be reproduced once the parents are dead. Her reasoning is paradoxical ( note Darius' surprise! ), but at the same time logical: the story ( possibly from a sophistic source? ) is designed to make the reader reflect on the real nature of family ties, whether it is really possible to establish an order of duties within the family. (102) Cf. e.g. Nestle, Philol.21 (1908) 568f ( Hippias? ); Heinimann p.80 with n.5; and e.g. Kerferd p.105: 11a kind of sociology of knowledge ... applied to moral values 11 • And cf. l)Jalex.2.18, with n.74 above . .• *-.. ,J (103) Cf. e.g. Guthrie, HGP III.131-4; J. de Romilly, La loi dans la pensee Grecque (1971) pp.58ff; cf. M. Ostwald, HSCP 69 (1965) 109-38. See esp. Pl .Protag.337Cff ( Hippias ), and Gorg.4848C~ cf. Eurip.Hek.799ff, etc. (104) Also for the Persians, cf. Antisthenes F29 Caizzi. And cf. Eurip. Aeolus Fl9N (!); Pl.Legg.838AB ( a nomos agraphos: no-one thinks of doing so r. (105) The contrasting and juxtaposing of different cultural attitudes is one of the work1 s main interpretative ideas, a technique I have termed 1 reflexion 1 (.cf. e.g. Ch.I.i.5, on 7.135-6 ) .. Significantly it is one of the main ideas of Herodotus' introduction to explore what Greeks look like to barbarians, or more precisely how Persians might react to Greek myths about their relations with Asian peopJes;Herodotus' 'Persian informants' ( cf. Fehling pp.39ff, for an excellerit demonstration of the source fiction here ) are made to undermine Greek pretensions, pointing out, for example, the folly of the Trojan expedition ( cf. esp.1.4.2, with sect.E, below). This theme of the introduction is surely programmatic: the work is to be an exploration of the relativity of attitudes, what can be learnt from seeing an issue through the eyes of a disinterested party, or one not immediately interested and capable of a certain detachment throug~ unfamiliarity, usually someone from a different culture. The examples are very numerous and there is not room here to list, let alone discuss, them all. Cf. e.g. 1.30-2, Solon tries to show Croesus that his prosperity is not the enviable condition he supposes it !o be, in particular by contrasting it with the happiness of * humble Greek polis-dwellers; 1.88-9, Croesus opens Cyrus! eyes about the Persians; 1.133.2, the Persians on Greek eating habits, with H. Diller, E. Hardt 8 (1962) p.63: 11gern nimmt solche Kritik die Form der Spiegelung in fremden Augen an 11 ; 1.152-3, Cyrus on Spartan pretensions and the Greeks' habit of cheating each other; 1.206 and 212, Tomyris on Cyrus; 2.13.3, the Egyptians on Greek weather; 2.110, the Egyptians on the conquests of Darius; -5502.112-120, the priests on the story of Helen(!); 2.143, the priests of Thebes on Hecataeus 1 presumptions about his ancestry; 2.158.5, the Egyptians call all those who do not speak their language barbaroi: does Herodotus think barbaros, like the Greek god-names ( cf. n.158, below), an Egyptian word?; 2.}fiQ, the Egyptians surprise the Eleans by not approving their management of the Olympic games; 3.21-2, the Aethtoptans on Cambyses and Persian culture; 3.29, Cambyses on the Egyptian theriomorphfc god, Apis: as a Persian he cannot understand such a conception of the divine ( cf. 1.131 ) and observesthat the Egyptians have the gods they deserve; 3.38, Darius' experiment to discover the relativity of nomos ( see text above ): the Indians and the Greeks express horror at each others• funeral practices ( cf. 7.152.2, with Ch.II.iii.E ); 4.77, Anacharsis on the Greeks (f): Herodotus suspects the story to be a Greek fiction;. 4.79.3, the Scyths on the Greek rites of Dionysos; 4.142, the Scyths on lonian cowardice and submissiveness; 5.18, Amyntas on Persian attitudes to women; 6.112.2, the Persians on the Athenians at Marathon ( cf. eh.II.iii, for this and the remaining examples ); 7.9b, Mardonios on Greeks fighting one another; 7.101-5, Xerxes pn Greek freedom, etc.; 7.135-6, the Spartan heralds with Hydarnes and Xerxes; 7.162, Gelon on Greek pleonexia; 8.26, Tritantaikhmes on ttle Greeks at the Olympic Games: 9.82, Pausanias on Persian luxury. The principle of 'reflexion' has not, to my knowledge, been systematically explored and is scarcely even recognized: but cf. Diller, cited above; and e.g. Iv. Nestle, Varn filythos zum Logos (1942) p.507: 11dies gibt ihm die Mliglichkeit, die Kritik der hellenischen Religion fremde VBlker ausllben zu lassen 11 • It is impossible to know how many of these anecdotes Herodotus came across in his researches ( e.g. 4.77? ), how many are his a,.m.working""up of suitable hints, and how many are his own fictions ( cf. 1.1-5, above ): the regularity of the motif suggests a fair amount of invention is involved. Contrast van Fritz, GGS l.292 on Hdt 1.153: "Offenbar stammt die Geschichte aus *derselben Umgebung, in welcher Griechen und Orientalen nahe zusammenlebten und sich gegenseitig ihre SchwMchen vorwarfen, aus der auch die Geschichten der logjpi stammen, mit denen H~rodotsein ganzes Werk einleitet 11 • We should note that it is not always at all clear where Herodotus stands in such cases, whether the critic is necessarily wholly right or wholly mistaken; and that evasiveness is surely to a large extent deliberate, another of the ways in which Herodotus gets the reader to think for himself, having surprised him. with an uncomfortable paradox. This is especially tr~e when it is the Greeks who are the subject of comment, as we have seen in discussion of many of these passages, especially those in the last three books ( cf. Ch.II.iii ). Cf. here perhaps Isocr. Paneg.133: nyouμaL o' et 1"LV€$; aHo-l}sv E1t£A%ov-re:s; -\h:cnat ysvoLVTO TWV 1tetpOVTWV npayμd,wv, 1tOAÃV ~V ãTois; xa,ayv@val, μav!av &μ~o,(pwv nμ@v. (106) Cf. Plato's parody of Hippias at Protag.337Cff. (107) M. Gigante, Nomos Basileus ( Napoli 1956) pp.114-45*, repr. with rev1s1ons in Hdt WdF pp.259ff, is the only discussion to explore the imp,ortance of Jhe th~e tn Herodotus: but Gigante does not enterta;ri _!_h~. iqgc1 that Herodotl!? belongs in the sophistic m-ovement and there -is still more to be said. Cf. also e.g. J. Hermann, Nomos bei Hdt u.Thk-d., in Gedtkhtnis H. Peters (1967) PP~ l 16ff. (108) For Heraclitus, cf. e.g. DK 22B101a, 102, 107 etc.; for Xenophanes, see Guthrie, HGP I.394 and 397f; for Parmenides, HGP 11.25; for Empedocles, ibid. 138f; Anaxagoras, ibid.319. (109) Cf. DK 8081~ with the new papyrus fragment, for which cf. G. Binder and L. Liesenborghs, repr. in Classen (1976) pp.454-62. Cf. Kerferd pp.85ff. -551- (110) Cf. esp. Soph.Antig.; and the Thucydidean Pericles' Funeral Oration ( esp. 2.37.3 ). See e.g. Guthrie, HGP III.117ff. (111) Contrast Heraclitus' assertion ( DK 228114) that all human laws are nourished by one divine law, with Soph.Antig.454f. (112) Heinimann is hampered in his historical discussion of the nomos-physis antithesis by the preconception that Herodotus is 1 re~lly 1 pre-sophistic ( e.g. p.83 ): "wenn wir nicht bei Herodot fMlschlich eine erhabene Nomosidee suchen, werden wir deshalb darin auch keinen Bruch, sondern eine allmMhliche Bedeutungsverschiebung sehen11• * (113} Cf. Heinimann p.82. (114) Cf. esp. DK 8689, on the history of the word tyrannos. (115) Cf. Emped.DK 3189.5: ou elμLs ~L xaAl6uoL, v6μwL 6' tu(,nμL xat au,os; with Heinimann p.84. (116) Cf. Kerferd pp.73ff; and cf. Democr.DK II.148.3ff ( efou Alywv T<:t ovoμcna ) . (117) For the comparison of the open sexual behaviour of animals with that of Men, cf. Hdt 1.203.2 and 3.101.1 ( xaTd uEp TotoL upoadToLaL / Trav upoadTwv ). For reflexions on the propriety of privacy in intercourse, see esp. Dialex.2.4; Xenoph~Anab.5.4.34. (118) Cf. Heinimann pp.145ff ( without reference to Herodotus ): "die Verteidigung der Physis durch Heranziehung der ZustMnde in der Tierwelt". (119) Cf. Democr.DK 688154 ( man has copied technological skills from the animals ) cf. 8198 ( with Diels ): 8257 ( an animal that kills another that has either harmed or meant to harm, goes unpunished! ) ; cf. 8259. For man as a zoion, cf. e.g. Pl.Legg.]69Bff; and cf. Legg.840DE, the mating of animals as a mode 1 for men to better.* - (120) The 'normal I Greek belief, however, was that the difference between man and beast was a difference in kind; cf. e.g. Demosth.25.20; Xenoph.Anab. 5.7.32; with Hes.~rg~276-80. Cf. Dover, GPM pp.74f. (121) Cf. Guthrie, HGP III.44; GER Lloyd (1966) pp.103ff; Solmsen (1975) pp .18ff. (122) Cf. Kerferd pp.93ff. (123) Cf. DK 8486 = Pl.Euthyd.305C. (124) Cf. esp. Pl.Phaedr.266Dff (=DK II.261.26ff ), e.g. on Gorgias at 267A: up~ Tfilv &An&rav T& ElxoTa ... TLμnTla μBAAov, Td TE ã oμLxp& μsydAa xat Tct μsyaAa oμLKpet ,aGVEO&aL •.. 6 L& pwμr,v Aoyou. (125) Cf. e.g. F. Solmsen, Antiphonstudien (1931) pp.53-8; and esp. K. Synodinou, Eoika-eikos kai syggenika (1981), for Herodotus' use of oikos at pp.lOOff. -552- (126) Cf. e.g. Solmsen (1975) pp.225ff. (127) Cf. Solmsen (1975) pp.lOff, on the device of 'in utramque partem disputare 1 • (128) For a selection of Herodotus' arguments in Book Two, see A.B. Lloyd (1975) pp.160-5. (129) Hdt 3.72.4f ( contrast 1.138.1 ): cf. Gorg.Hel.8ff, with DK 82823; and Dialex.3.2f, 3.10, 4.lf. ( But cf. Aesch.F301; Soph.F,J2,R; Xenoph.Mem. 4.2.14f; Hipp.de diaita 1.24 ). See Nestle, Progr.1908 p.20.and p.30, n.90. Aly (1929) p.139: 11Diese undhdteisch klingende Stelle verrc'.lt ihren Ursprung durch eine Kleinigkeit 11 ( sc. 1.138.1 ). But for the intergrality of this passage with Herodotus' portrait of Darius, cf. Bornitz. pp.20lff and 214ff; K. Bringmann, Hermes 104 (1976) esp. pp.276ff. * (130) See A.B. Lloyd (1975) pp.126-3. (131) Cf. e.g. 4.31.1; 7.129.4. (132) Cf. on the use of 6ri;>..o\)v9 on;>..ov oTL, Strasburger (1965) p.587 n.37, with reference to Hdt 5 .78:t-*11ael oun in der wi ssenschaft 1 i clien Termino 1 ogi e der Ausdruck unantastbarer logischer Beweisfllhrung11• Cf. e.g. 2.5.1 and 2; 2.44~5, 146:2; 2.116.1, 2, and 6; etc. (133) Cf. De Arte 6.lff; Morb.Sacr.5~19ff; with Kleinknecht p.546 n.9. ( 134) Cf. e.g. 2. 22. 4, 146. 1 ; 4. 118. 4, 185. 2; 7. lOg. 2, 50. 2; 8. 30. 2, 119. (135) Cf. Thrasymachus, DK I I. 325 .17-8; owSaHE:1:,v H MaL a1toAucracrZtaL 61:,a(:30).a,s; 0-11€\J Or) MpaTLOTO-f;, (136) Cf. Gorg.Palam.DK 82Blla.28, for the captatio epiphthonon men alethes de, with Hdt 7.139.1 ( Ch.II.iii, above). (137) Cf. Strasburger (1965) esp. pp.594ff. (138) A characteristic partition of the charges here:&;>..;>..& yap Ecrm~ L £1tt,μE:μ~oμE:vo1:,; cf. e.g. Gorg.Hel.6, Palam.5, etc. Cf. Solmsen (1975) pp.12ff. (139) Cf. esp. 5.92b.3, the oracle for Cypselos: T£~s1:, 6£ ;>..eovTa/ MapTEpov w11naT{iv* TCOAAWV 6' TCO youvarn AUCTEt,, Cf. Focke pp.27-31 ( 11Zweideutigkeit 11 ) ; and Strasburger pp.596-8; Bornitz pp.95-105. Contrast C.W. Dyson, CQ 23 (1929) pp.186ff: "the ordinary Greek use of leonine symbolism ... was complimentary not derogatory" ( a slightly unhelpful disjunction). It was natural for a man to be commended as a 1 lion-heart 1 for being a good fighter, as typically in Homer ( though not perhaps without ambivalence: cf. E. Fraenkel, Homerischen Gleichnisse (1921) pp.59ff and 92-3 ) and as the parody of a lion-birth oracle in Aristoph.Equ.1037ff, makes clear. The story of Agariste's dream may, of course, have reached Herodotus as a complimentary story about Pericles and referring to his martial prowess ( though Herodotus could perhaps have made it up?); but Herodotus' failure to make explicit that particular moral and, most important, the context he gives the story suggest that he means to interpret it differently. The Alcmeonid excursus, as we have said, is a 'defence' of the family against the charge of tyranny ( and medism) which, however, turns out rather to stress its tyrannical connexions: Pericles' mother Agariste is the great-granddaughter of the tyrant Cleisthenes of Sicyon, as Herodotus' closing genealogy makes uncomfortably clear ( 6.131.1-2 ). -553Thus Hdt may intend the perceptive reader to see the lion-dream as a portent of Pericles' tyrannical power, as the oracle for Cypselos was ( above; and cf. 5.56.l, for Hipparchus the lion? ); we might even see a similarity in the portent for the birth of Peisistratus ( cf. 1.59.lff ), and remember that in Hdt such portents almost exclusively herald the births of tyrants and imperia*lists~ Pericles was, of course, called a tyrannos by Cratinos ( F240 Kock: the son of Stasis and Kronos ), and fiis -Followers were styled the 1 new Peisistratids 1 by the comic poets ( cf. Plut.Per.16.1 )., while contemporaries actually recognized in him a physical likeness with Peisistratus himself ( cf. Plut.Per.7.1 ). Cf. J, Schwarze, Die Beurteilung des Perikles durch die attische KomBdie usw., Zetemata 51 (1971), at pp.170-2. It should also be noted that a popular fable and proverb warned of the dangers of nurturing a lion-cub in one's house, which would grow up and bite the hand that fed it ( cf. Aesch.Agam.717ff, with Fraenkel II.342; Aristoph.Batr.1431-2; and e.g. Phaedo of Elis, ap. Spengel, Rhet.gr.II.74-5. For lions in proverbs, cf. Steier, RE s.v. Lawe 985.23ff ). There is clear reminscence of this fable in a speech of Callicles;at Pl .Gorg.483Ef ( cf. Ch.II.i.B.3 ): soci€ty takes the best and strongest men at an early age, hosper leontas (!), and binds them with its laws; but the man whose nature 1s strong enough will burst his bonds: lnavdcrT&s &ve~&vn 6ecrn6Tns ~μlTepos 6 6o0Aos, Hat tvTaDija &teAaμ~~T~ Tns ~dcr£ws 6CHaLov. Asked to name a model for this lion-man, Callicles might well have said Peisistratus or Pericles. Is Herodotus perhaps thinking of Pericles in the same way, inspired by what the sophists had said about his rise to power ( cf. Thucyd.2.65.9 )? At any rate it is much easier to believe that Herodotus is thinking here of Peric::}es the lion as tyrannos, since tyranny is the subject of the excursus, than as a courageous hero of Athenian battles, a connexion not assisted by the context. (140) Note that Plutarch is in no doubt. about the dec~ption of Herodotus' defence here ( MH 27.862Eff: esp. 862F ): &AA' ~Tav ye n&ALv 0nlp Trav 'AAHμewvL6m~v &noAoyetcrijaL npocrnoLijTaL .. ,; ( and 863A ): Hat ã HaTnyopets, eZT' &noAoynL* Hat yp&~eLs HaT' lnL~avfilv &v6pffiv 6LaBoA&s, Bs n&ALv &vaLpets~ &nLcrTrav 6~ aeauToD 6nAov6TL( 860CD, 8620-~ ~ * Plutarch's entire monograph is an instructive commentary on Herodotus1 techniques of 'indirect censure'. (141) Cf. P. Huart, Gnome chez Thucydide et ses contemporains, Et. et Comm. 81 (1973). (142) Cf. e.g. Hellmann pp.78L( against the excellent treatment of the question by Bischoff): 11es handelt sich tlberhaupt nicht um die MBglichkeit, ein Geschehen noch abzuwenden, sondern es handlet sich gerade um die Darstellung der Unausweichlichkeit eines im Voraus bestimmten Geschehens11• (143) For the simile, cf. Theog.415ff, 449ff; Pind.Py.10.67-8; Bacch.Fl4 Sn. Common before his time as a simile for the assessment of a man's character, Herodotus has given it a new function to describe the testing of logoi one against the other. (143a) Cf. however, Aristoph.Vesp.725-6: n nou crõos nv OOTLS ~~aaxsv, npLv &v &μ~orv μD~ov &HovcrnLs,/ oux &v 6LHdaaLs. Need this be an ancient piece of wisdom, rather than either a dictum of a sophist or an ad hoe invention? {144) Cf. Kerferd pp.59ff, for the sophistic art of antilogic, the technique of "proceeding from a given logos ... to the establishment of a contrary or contradictory logos in such a way that the opponent must either accept both logoi, or at least abandon his first position 11 • See below on the -554constitution debate ( 3.80-2; sect.H) as an elaborate example of antilogia; with Kerferd pp.150ff. (145) Cf. J; de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric (1975) pp.lff, for Gorgias on the power of logos, a new interest of the sophists, but in part inherited from the poets. (146) Cf. e.g. Thucyd.1.140; 3~37.lff, etc. (147) Cf. e.g. J. de Romilly, Class.& Med.17 (1956) pp.119ff. (148) Compare Antiphon DK 87856 (!). And see Hdt 7.157.3 ( TWL £0 SouA£U&svTL npnyμaTL T£A£UTn ws TO Cnav xpncrTn t&tA£L EKLyCv£a&aL ); 8.~0g ( otxoTa μsv vuv SoUA£UOμEVOLOL &v&pWTIOLOL ws TO lnCnav l&eA£L yCv£cr&aL* un 6e olxoTa SoOA£UOU£VOLOL UK €&€A£L ou6e o &£OS npocrxwpncr£LV npos Tas &v&pwnnCas yvwuas ); cf. 8~69.lf ( Artemisia before Salamis ). And cf. 9.16.4 (?). (149) And cf. Coes and Darius: Hdt 4.97.2 and 97~5. (150) Cf. Hellmann p.93: 11Er weiss, wie ein Minister zu einem Herrscher zu reden hat 11; and P. Hohti ~ Arctos 8 ( 1 974) 19-27. (151) Compare Hdts comment at 5.97.2 on the Athenian democracy: nonous yap olx£ d:vaL £ii1teTeOT£pov 5LaScl'U£Lv ii ~va. Is this the democracy seen as tyrant? Cf. Ch.II.i.B.3. (152) Cf. A.B. Lloyd (1976) ad loc., for a useful discussion. (153) i.e conventional names not real ones: cf. esp. Pl.Cratyl.400D. (154) Cf. C.W. Mt.Iller, Hermes 95 (1967) 140ff, repr. in Classen (1976) pp.321ff; and cf. esp. Kerferd pp.165-8. Cf. also Pl.Theãt.162DE (=DK II.260.39ff ), where Socrates has Protagoras chide his imaginary interlocutors for introducing the gods: oUs l:yw sx T£ ToD Aey£Lv xã Toti ypct(Jl£LV ' ' ,..., ' ) ' .,, ' ' ' , ' -1[£PL ao,wv, ws £LOLV n ws OUK £LOLV, e~aLpw. (154a) But cf. Barnes (1979) II.147-8 and 306 n.5, who suggests that there may never have been a Protagorean theology; but can ft work beginning nept μE:v .(}£wv really have gone on not to mention the gods further? (155) Cf. DK II.317.2ff; Nestle Philol.21 (1908) 556ff; Kleingtlnther (1933) pp.274f and llOf; Guthrie, HGP III.238ff. . (156) Cf. DK 68A75 ( with Kleingtlnther (1933) pp.lllf; and cf. Diod.l.11.1 ); contrast B 30 (!) and 8166. * See also Eurip.Sisyphos ( DK B8B25 ), Bacch.274ff and Suppl.196ff; Isocr.Busiris 25 ( with Kleingtlnther p.120 ). So too in Plato's parody of Protagoras on the ascent of man, the sophists is made to give a quasianthropological account bf the origins of religion ( Pl.Protag. 322A ): the first men set up altars and worshipped the gods.because of man's kinship with the divine. Is this intrusive Platonic theism or Protagoras 1 own view of the relationship of men and gods? See below. (157) Cf. esp. the parallel between Hdt 2.3.2 and Xenoph.DK 21834: xat ,o μiv o6v craqiss OUTLS avnp LO£V ouoe TLS EOTaL/ £lows &μ(jlL &£WV T£ xat &aaa. Aeyw ' , TI£pL TiaVTWV, (156) The Greek god names are thought of as Egyptian words: cf. R. Lattimore, CPh 34 (1939) pp.357ff. . tmd se~ sjmilar]y;e .. g~ A.~. Lloyd .. (1976) pp.203-5. -, oh ,* "- .,_ (159) Hdt 2.5lff; see 2.53.2 ( Homer and Hesiod ). Cf. the sophists' interest in the literary-historical understanding of these poets: cf. e.g. Guthrie HGP III.205f, and see Pl.Protag.326A, 3388 ( DK 80A30 ); Hipp.Min.363Aff; and esp. Isocr.12.18. See Kerferd pp.40f. -555- ' (160) Cf. DK 68A75 ( above ): Ta EV rots μETEWPOLS nãnμaTa ol TiaAaLOG TWV &v%pwnwv xa%aTIEP 8pOVTcts xat acrTpancts XEpauvous TE xaL ttCTTPWV cruvo6ous • ' , ' ' ' ' ' ',h ' s::. .... ' ' , , • , nALOU TE XaL CTEAnVnS EXAELfELS EuELμaTOvVTO %EOUS OLOμEVOL TOUTWV aLTLOUS EtvaL ( cf. Lucr.5.1188ff i* (161} _P.eri tes en arkhei katastaseos (?): DK II.255.2 (162) But see also Democr. DK 11.125.Sff, who seems clearly to have included an account of this matter in his work on parturition. {163) Cf. Nestle, Philol.21 (1908) 553; Aly (1921) p.290, n.l; Kleingtlnther (1933) pp.102ff. ( 164) And cf. 1. 21 O. 1 ; 2. 120. 5; 6. 27. 3, 98. 1 ; 8. 13; 9. 65. 2. ( above ). We should not be confused by phrases of the type theiei pompei/tykhei, which are simply idiomatic for 'by chance'. Indeed the word theios can mean both 'divinely arranged; and simply 'uncanny', the latter witfiout any obvious appeal to divine causation. (165) Cf. Kleinknecht, pp.54lff ( esp. 572-3 ): a sensible rejoinder to Hellman1 s strictly determinist view of .Herodotus ( cf. n.142 above ). (166) Cf. G.E.R. Lloyd (1979) pp.29-32, who grudgingly allows 1 doubledetermination1 in some of Herodotus ( at p.32, n.108 ): 11What must remain in doubt is the extent to which Herodotus saw nature as a universal principle, and all .natural phenomena as law-like". To what extent does Herodotus really differ from Hippocrates ( e.g. Airs 22.8ff ) for whom all diseases are equally divine and natural? (167) .There was never any doubt in antiquity thaLthis was the same man as the_ s_ophist, although the orator/politician was djstinguished from the sophist by the negligent and perhaps eveñ,ncompetenf DidymUS\TOr whose papyrus .. Demosthenes-commentary, cf. S. West, CQ 20 (1970) 288-96 ) . Cf. J. S. Morrison j PCPS 7 (1961) 49ff; and Guthrie, HGP III.292-4. . (168) Cf. now esp. R.G.A.van Lieshout, Greeks on Dreams (1980) pp.217ff; and Jodds (1951) pp.117ff, esp. on the Hippocr.de diaita IV, which accounts for C:reams, including prophetic ones, in terms of psychological states. And tor the popularity of oneirokritike in the late 5thc at Athens, cf. Aristoph. Vesp.52f, Av.959ff, Hipp.109f, with Dodds p.132, n.99. (169) Note that Artabanus is given a surprisingly rationalistic account of the dream phenomenon, although the ensuing narrative puts it in doubt ( 7 1 rb 2 ) • '' ' ' '6' - ' ' - ' ' ' ' ' 1 ' .. 0 . aAA OU E TaUTa ECTTL ••• 6£La" EVUTIVLa yap Ta ES av6pwnous KEKAavnμlva TOLaD,a EO'TL ota (:I£ hw 6Loai;w •.• TI£TIAavncr6aL aOrnL μaALCTTa EW6CTO'L Ot!iLES OV£Lpchwv, TO ns nμtpns (J)POVT,sEL. Cf. Emped. DK 318108; but the word peplanesthai suggests rather the Democritean theory of dreams ( cf. Lucr.5.724; rerum simulacra vagp.:d. ). Cf. Democr.DK II.82.25 ( Antisthenes ap.DL ): ncrxEL TIOLXLAW$ 6oxLμas£LV ,as qJav-racrCas. (170) Cf. N. Marinatos~ JHS 101 (1981) pp.138-40, and her 1Thucydides and Religion\ Beitr.z.klass.Philol.129 (1981) at pp.49ff. (171} Particularly striking is the pessimism about the human condition expressed by a number of sophistic wr,ters:cf. e.g. Democr.DK 688285 ( cf. 8286 ); Prodicus DK 8489 ( but see Diels, ad lac.?); Antiphon DK 87850 ( TO snv ~OLXE (J)poupaL E(J)nμEpWL T6 TE μnxos TOD BCou nμspaL μLaL~ ws 8KOS e[nEtv, ;L &vaBAs~aVTES npos TO (J)WS nap£yyuffiμ£V ,oCg ETILyLyvoμEVOLS -556- ~Tlpõs ) and cf. 851-2; Critias DK 88849 ( SiSaLOV μ~v ou6tv, El μn T6 TE xaTa&avEtv yEvoμtvwL xat ~WVTL μn ol6v TE exT6S &Tns SaLVELV ). And cf. esp. Euripides, passim ( e.g. F449N with Hdt 5.4.2; and cf. Alc.802: ou SCos &ln&ilis 6 SCos, &ll& ouμ,opd ). The similarity of these expressions with the sentiments of esp. Solon ( 1.32.lff, e.g. pan esti pnthropos symphore with the Alcestis passage above! ) and Artabanus { 7.46.lff) is very suggestive: this fatalism of Herodotus' has always been thought to be the most typically archaic feature of his thought, but it may after all be yet another area where he shows the influence of the sophistic movement ( cf. e.g. Nestle Progr.1908 pp.20f, and Philol.Suppl.8 (1901) 654 ). Cf. J.C. Opstelten, Sophocles and Greek Pessimism ( transl. J.A. Ross, Amsterdam 1952 ), who does not, however, consider these striking sophistic texts. Nestle, Progr. 1908 pp.20f, tbpughJhe observed in Salon's analysis of human happiness a precision in the distinguishing of synonyms which recalled the orthoepeia of Prodicus and the other sophists ( cf. e.g. Pl.Protag.337AC; and DK 84Al3-20; cf. Kerferd pp.68-77 }. Solon clearly distinguishes the words olbios and eutykhes ( cf. 1.32.5-9, e.g. 32.7: Rptv Bv TElEUTnaaL, eRLOXELV μn6e xaAiELV xw 5lSLov, &AA' EVTux6a ) with a Prodican precision which recalls tha\t of the character in Euripides' Antiope Fl98N, who observes that he would not call a miser olbios but onlyeudaimon.where the manner and content could both be judged sophistic. * (17la) Cf. Daniels (1946) p.199: "Hdt is een conservatief, die ... tegenover de opkommende sophistiek en het scepticisme de goede elementen der oude Grieksche opvattingen overnam en de slechte ervan verwierp". (172) Cf. Solmsen (1975) pp.126ff, for Euripides and Thucydides. (173) Cf. P.Huart, Le vocab. de l 'analyse psychologique dans l 'oeuvre de Thucydide, . et Comm.69 (1968). (174) Cf. DK 688220, 283 and esp. 284; with 83, 58, 292, and also 870-4 and 191. (175) Contrast Hellmann p.87: 11Herodot interessiert diese Seite des Problems erst sekundlr: ihn interessiert nicht die Projektion dieses Problems auf ai e Fl c11che der 8ezi ehungen van f4E:it15sh.en und Vtll kern unterei nander, sondern er stellt gs hinein in den Raum-der Beziehungen zwischen Mensch und Gottheit 11• (176) Contrast e.g. Heraclitus DK 22833, 44; 49(?), 53(?}, 104(t), 114, where political questions are touched on. And cf. Pind.Py.2.86ff, for a sort of elementary classification of constitutions. (177) Cf. J. Bleicken, Historia 28 (1979) pp.148ff. (178) Cf. Ryffel, at pp.57-73, for Herodotus. (179) Cf. originally E. Maass, Hermes 22 (1887) pp.581ff; and e.g. Nestle, Progr. 1908 pp.31ff; Aly (1921) pp.105ff and 287ff. Recently e.g. K. Stroheker, Historia 2 (1953-4) pp.381ff; F. Lasserre, Mus.Helv.33 (1976) pp.65ff; K. Bringmann, Hermes 104 (1976) pp.266ff. And cf. Kerferd pp.150ff. Cf. also Connor (1971} pp.199ff, arguing for a 1 late date• ( late 430's-420 1 s for the debate on the basis of its reflexions of contemporary political changes at Athens. (180) Cf. Nestle, Philol~Suppl.8 (1901) pp:653ff; and e.g. Eurip.Suppl.447-9, with Hdt 3.80.4 . . (181) Cf. Bringmann, art.cit., for the integrality of these chapters with the surrounding narrative, and esp. on the character of Darius; also Bornitz, pp.201ff and 214ff. -557Appendix I: NOTES. (1) Macan, ad loc. remarks of this latter sentence that it "somewhat clumsily resumes the narrative broken by the digression"; but this is to miss the connexion Hdt wants the reader to make (below). (2) For the effect of contemporane6as prosperity in rivals bringing them into confrontation, cf. Thucyd.Archaeology, with Ch.II.i.A.l, above, esp. l.18.3f, on Athens and Sparta. (3) Cf. Tozzi (1978) p.129: 1111 richiamo alla fortuna della citta come condizione di hybris e pn?messa di rovina """ assai frequentemente nelle Storie per gli--=rnaividui, le poleis, gli stati, ma quasi isolate nella descnzione della rivolta singolarmente libera da elementi religiosi e sovrannaturali non fa velo alle ragione politiche che Erodoto coglie allabasedi questi eventi 11 • This account is to be commended for recognizing (a) the theoretical significance of Miletus' akme, (b) the absence of any metaphysical motivation, and (c) the fact~t Hdt offers hereon_1y a general explanation of the origins of the revolt, to be supplemented and corrected elsewhere in the narrative proper. But we might do better to consider the 'theory' as itself a type of political explanation, rather than as a metaphysical explanation with the supernatural unaccountably absent. Miletus' akme, like the prosperity of Lycurgan Sparta, is explicitly related to a polit""i'caT settlement, i.e. the Parian constitution. (4) The modern controversy as to whether one of the causes of the Ionian revolt was the economic decline of the region seems incapable of resolution. Cf. Tozzi (1978) pp.114ff ( with extensive bibliography), arguing for such a decline, with e.g. D. Hegyi, AAntHung ll{l966) 285ff, and Jeffery (1976) p.220; but contrast e.g. Roebuck .p.136: 11The initial conquest of Ionia by Persia ca.546-50 did retard the activity of certain states like Phocaea and Teos but stimulated others to greater activity like Miletus and Samos11• (5) The same may apply to his claim for the prosperity of Naxos ( . 5.28, d6at,μovCnt, 1:wv vnowv 1rpolq1t:pE ) : this seems somewhat inconsistent with the evidence of stasis in the island whtch Hdts own narrative later confirms ( cf. 5.30.1 ); but he may just mean economic prosperity and perhaps simply influence in the Ionian world. (6) Cf. Busolt II.472; F. Hiller von Gaertringen, RE s.v. Miletos (1932) 1594. (7) If we insert the 'tyrannies' (?) of Thoas and Damasenor here ( Plut. Qu.Gr.32.298CD ), as is usually done by modern scholars ( see below), then the interval is narrowed still further. (8) Cf. von Gaertringen 1594: "also, wenn buchstMblich zu nehmen, fast 70 Jahre 11• It is true that the dating may be no better than arough guess by Hdt or his informant. (8a) Cf. H.T. Wade-Gery, JHS 71 (1951) pp.215-6, for a full discussion of the evidence for dating the Danube-bridge episode. And see now J.M. Balser, HSCP 76 (1972) 99-132, arguing for 519 BC, which if correct would compress our chronology even further. L ----***--***-**---*------****--------------- -558- (9) Not much can be deduced from the dedicatory inscription from Didyma ( Didyma II.14; Tod GHI i.9 ), which names a Histiaios who may well be our tyrant; cf. Tozzi (1978) p.92. UO) The Parians are of course called in by the 1Milesians 1 and not by Histiaios as tyrant or otherwise: cf. 5.28. (11) Cf. Macan, ad loc.: "The story of the Parian arbitration and constitution of Miletos is very suspicious. What needs to be explai'ned is how the Naxian oligarchs found Miletos under a despotism11 • (12) The only exception appears to be Stein, ad 5.28(8): 11Es war in Milet, nach dem Sturze der herrschenden Neleiden, zu einem Kampfe zwischen den sog. Reichen, d.h. den eingewanderten Hellenen, und dem Demos ( der unterwor~ fenen karischen Bev~lkerung, Gergithes gennant ), gekommen". My view is that this is indeed what Hdt means, though he is giving the opposite impression also deliberately: I do not agree, however, that the evidence of Heraclides Ponticus used by Stein here can apply to this period. (13) Halliday, ad loc. objects that this formulation is improbable Greek and suggests that the word tyrann6n should be deleted as an explanatory gloss; but the curiously illogical usage of hoi peri tina to denote only the person named is quite common in this period of Greek, as shown by S.L. Radt, ZPE 38 (1980) pp.47ff, esp. 50ff; cf. Schwyzer/Debrunner II.417. Accordingly Pl utarch probab 1 y means s imp 1 y "after the fa 11 of the tyrants, Thoas and Damasenor11 • (13a) The etymology of aeinautai is almost certainly a scholarly inference of little evidential va ue; . also Hesych.s.v.: apxns; ovoμa rcapa Mt.,AT)OLOl,s;. The name is used of public officials in an inscription from thaleis~.SEG XXVII.559: [6s6dxeJa1., Tra1., xo1.,v@1., 'AsvadT{wv trca1.,vlcra1.,, xTA., and this makes it unlikely as the name of a political party. (14) Cf. M.L. West, JHS 98 (1978) pp.164-7. (15) Cf. von Gaertringen 1595f: 11Um 525-4 oder etwas fr~her fiele dann die Neuordnung des milesischen Staates, deren Niederschlag in dem Gesetz von 450-49 vorliegt ( cf. Milet I.iii.133, Schwyzer 726: a lex sacra of the Molpoi ) ... Oamit war Milet gewissermassen eine Theokrat1e unter dem Schutze des Apollon Delphinios geworden11 • It is hard to see how we are to reconcile this interpretation with the intervening tyranny of Histiaios: cf. n.26, below. (16) Phocyl.Fl Bergk is the same couplet as Demodocus F2 Ber~k, with~ me~e substitution of names, though West now sees Demodocus parodying the M1les1an poet ( cf. JHS (1978); contrast (1974) p.171 ). Phocyl.Fl7 Bergk is disputed as the property of Theognis ( cf. Bergk's testimonia -): cf;, West, JHS (~978) p.164: "people tended to muddle them ( sc. the two.poets) . The accretion of spuria to shadowy names, and many not so shadowy, ,s too commoñ process for us not to suspect it here; it is worth remembering that our earliest references to Phocylides are as late as the 4thc: cf. Pl.Rep.407A, Isocr.2.43, etc. (16a) I cite Bergk's numeration for convenience; but cf. now the ~ditions of M.L. West, Theognidis et Phocylidis Fragmenta, Kleine Texte, Berlin (1978); and B. Gentili/ C. Prato, Poetarum Elegiacorum Testimonia et Fragmenta, Teubner, Leipzig (1979), both adopting a different numeration without -559any obvious justification. (17) It may be, of course, that Theognis himself belongs in the late 7thc, as was argued by West (1974) pp.65ff. (18) For this argument, cf. West, JHS (1978) p.166. For the ancient dating of Phocylides, cf. West (1974) pp.65-6. (19) Dunham's date of c.604 for Thrasybulus' accession is a little optimistic ( cf. p.126 ); the consensus is that he is in power by the beginning of the 6thc: cf. Schachermeyer, RE s.v. Thrasybulos 567.64ff; Jeffery (1976) p.213. The only evidence is his association with Alyattes and with Periander ( cf. Hdt 1.20-3 and 5.92ze) and the dubious report of Diog.Laert. ( from Minyas ) that Thales lived at the same time as Thrasybulus ( DL I.27 ). (20) For doubts about this restoration of Oliver's, cf. Bradeen/McGregor, Stud.in 5thc Attic Epigraphy (1973) pp.24ff, who on a re-examination of the stone claim that the letter ffllowing npocrE[ ••• looks most like rho but might be kappa. Cf. now IG i 21; the text printed there is as foTTows: [ ... 7 ... ]oL<;; npocrEQ [ ••• 13 ... JL μna 1:0 e:~[ ... 20 ... ]. What is clear is that far too little of the surrounding context survives to make any restoration possible. (21) The list significantly knows neither Histiaios nor Aristagoras, nor their fathers, Lysagoras and Molpagoras. There is certainly a healthy sprinkling of -agoras names in this early part of the list, possibly indicating the social, if not the political eminence of the ~yrant family ( cf. Tozzi (1978) p.138, with n.22 ). (22) ~ H.-J. Gehrke, 'Zur Gesch.Milets in der Mitte des 5.Jhdts', Historia 29 (1980) at pp.20ff, agrees that the list cannot be shown to be a political or constitutional document. (23) Cf. Tozzi (1978) pp.118ff, with extensive evidence and bibliography for the imposition and support of tyrants by Persia; cf. e.g. p.122: "La posizione del tiranno ionica er~ dunque singolare rispetto a quella nel tiranno in generale, in quanto la tirannide ionica non era in relazione con la dinamica politica della citta e non esprimeva il risultato della lotta dei parti politiche 11 • If this is a valid generalization, it supports the view that Histi~ios is unlikely to have arrived at the tyranny as a result of a political evolution within Miletu~: he could have been imposed by Persia, but Herodotus gives no such indication where we would expect it at 4.137.2. Cf. n.26, below, for reconstructions of his rise to power. (24) Cf. the fundamental discussion of the tolerance of Persia towards her subject peoples by J.L. Myres, 'Persia, Greece, and Israel 1 , Palestine Exploration QuaxJerly (1952) pp.3-22, .who, however, argues that the Greeks accomodated themselves least well to this policy. Two more recent studies have suggt:!sted that the idea of Persian 'toleration' may have been exaggerated or slightly misconceived: cf. P. Tozzi, RSI 89 (1977} 19-32; H. SancisiWeerdenburg, Lampas 12 (1979) 208-22. (25) Many of the revolts so 9ecisively crushed by Darius are apparently risings within provinces, with local pretenders to power using the disturbance of the change of regime, rather than revolts against the empire. -560- (25a) It is worth remembering here what Ar.Pol.1276A10ff, says about states declining to fulfil existing treaty-obligations after a change from tyranny or oligarchy to democracy, on the grounds that they were not contracted by 1the state'. (26) For various attempts at explanation, cf. e.g. Mazzarino p.232: 11particolarmente benevoli verso Mileto ( sc. the Persians ), essi non erano interventi direttamente nella stasis; ma ora, verso il 525, sanzionavano l 1arbitrio pario, convalidando la tyrannis di Istieoquasi come 1 vicariato 1 dello stato persiano 11 ; Berve (1967) I.102, arguing for Persian imposition of Histiaios, 11da ein solcher Tyrann im Interesse der Erhaltung seiner Herrschaft sich ihm willHlhrig zeigen musste11 ; Jeffery (1976) p.219: .t•we *are:not to1d. whether one of its members ( sc. of the •emergency cabinet' set up by the Parians ) was Histiaios ... 11 • Cf. von Gaertringen 1596.23ff; Tozzi (1978) p.119, n.10; Dunham p.131: 11The constitutions up by the Parians cannot have lasted; for a tyranny was established not long after the Persian. conquest". (27) Cf. Nic.Dam.FGH 90F52-3, and Konon 44 ( = FGH 26Fl ). Reconstructions: Dunham pp.12lff, von Gaertringen,(1932) .1588.55ff, Jeffery (1976) p .. 210. (28) Cf. also Plut.Mor.984f, and Phylarchus FGH 81F26. With von Gaertringen 1588, Jeffery (1976) pp.211-2. (29) For arbitration, cf. M.N. Tod, International Arbitration amongst the Greeks (1913); and L. Piccirilli,Gli arbitrati interstatali greci (1973), at pp.7ff, for the Chalcis/Andros arbitration. Still useful for its listing of arbitrations is E. Sonne, De arbitriis externis, quos Graeci adhibuerint ... Diss. G6ttingen (1888). (30) Cf. L.H. Jeffery, BSA 51 (1956) 157ff. (31) Jeffery (1976) pp.23lff: 11The winds of change blowing in Athens in Solon 1s time were blowing in at least one other Ionic city 11 •. Could Miletus have been so much further behind? (32) Cf. Jeffery (1976) pp.43-f, and p.48, n.3: "Massalia offers a fascinating picture of the type of constitution which must have exjsted in an Ionic aristocratic city c.600, and was substantiallypreserved, even to the Roman period, by the tenacious communal memory of a small society descended from emigres who had been transplanted half across the world to the Li.gurian coast 11. (33) For the evidence, cf Strabo IV.5 [ p.179 ), and Ar.Pol.1305Blff and 1321A29ff. This archaic hereditary transference of power is a system the Athenian wants for his ideal state in Pl.Legg.7408. '(34) Cf. Dunham pp.l26ff; von-Gaertring1:n-1592.57ff; Jeffery (1976) p.210. But contrast Barron, JHS 82 (1962) pp.4-5. (34a) The passage was bracketed as an interpolation by Susemihl, Newman and others. The question of whether there was an Aristotelian Milesion Politeia is perhaps relevant here, but the evidence is not good: the fragments assigned to this supposed work by Rose ( F556-7 ), from Athenaeus, farth~nius_ftQd Hesychius, none of them actually cite their source. If there was no such Politeia, we may imagine that knowledge of the constitutionalmstory of Miletus never got to be widespread, and accordingly we need not express -561much surprise that our tyranny is not accounted for in this passage, whether it is by Aristotle or not. (34b) Cf. Jeffery (1976) p.223. (35) Cf. R. Meiggs, JHS 63 (1943) pp.25-7, and AE 562-5; ATL III.254ff; A.J. Earp, Phoenix 8 (1954) pp.142-7; J. Barron, Jl*jS 82 (1962) pp.lff; M .. Pjeratt, L'Ant.Class.38 (1969) pp.376ff; H.-J. Gehrke, Historia 29 (1980) pp.17-31. * Also Dunh;m pp.13lff; von Gaertringen 1598.14ff. (36) Cf. Dunham pp.132ff; Meiggs, JHS (1943) pp.26f; Earp p.142; Barron p.l. Cf. the Colophonians loyal to Athens, who continue to pay tribute from Notium: Thucyd.3.34.1; with ATL III.253, n.36. (37) Cf. e.g. Meiggs, AE 562-3. (38) Cf. Pierart pp. 365ff. (39) ATL IIL257 assume, however, that the 10 talents of this year represent a double payment to erase the default of the previous year. (40) Glotz, CRAI (1909) pointed to the fact that the banishment inscription is preserved on the base of an original stele, and suggested that this untidy arrangement meant the decree was appended to an earlier inscription, which he conjectured was the banishment decree on the ?the Neleids. Cf. Meiggs, AE 564-5, against Barron p.3, n.18. For objections to Glotz' view, cf. Pierart pp.368-9. *- ( 41) Note that the arkhontes of SEG X.14 belong to the machinery of supervision, whereas if a democracy is here being installed in place of an oligarchy, we would expect some mention of an episkopos: cf. Aristoph. Av.102lff, with Meiggs, AE 212f; but such constitutiona1arrangements need not necessarily show anything about which party is in power: see below. (42) Cf. Meiggs, JHS {1943) pp.26f; ATL III.256. (43) Cf. e.g. Earp pp.146; Barron p.5. (44) Cf. e.g. ATL III.256; Barron p.5; Meiggs/Lewis p.107. (45) Cf. von Gaertringen 1598.43ff, who also puts the banishment decree early, without argument. Pierart p.388, remains in doubt as to whether it belongs early ( terminus post 479-8) or late, but does not discuss the absence of Athenians from the text. (46) Cf. Pierart pp.367-8, for a discussion of the crime, which he concludes must be 'political'. Earp pp.146f, doubts that the exiles were tyrants, but discusses the possibility that Nympharetos and Stratonax were sons of the Aristogenes, mentioned by Plutarch Mor.8590 ~shaving been expelled from Miletus by the Spartans; we do not know when this event took place nor whether it actually brought an end to a dynasty. (47) Even allowing for what we might have lost frñ the start of the inscription, it does not seem likely that a whole oligarchic faction is being exiled here ( cf. Meiggs/Lewis p.106 ). Meiggs, AE 565, is surely right to argue that for the rewards of 100 staters a man to be paid all from the property of Nyrnpharetos shows the number of exiles cannot be large. It may be that we have here a plurality of tyrants, i.e. the sharing of absolute -562power between two or three families at most: such joint tyrannies can be paralleled in ?the Erythrai ( Ortyges, Iros and Echaros: cf. Jeffery (1976) p.229 ), Chios ( Amphiklos and Polyteknos: Jeffery pp.230-1 ) and Mytilene ( Myrsilos and Pittacus: Jeffery p.239 ). If this is right, it is another detail to chime with Plutar;e;b, if also hoi peri Thoanta iaj Damasenora tyrannoi are a group larger than just Thoas and Damasenor themselves ( cf. n.13, above). (48) For the office of epimenioi, cf. Pierart pp.370ff, and esp. Gehrke pp.24-6. Such officials are found in the Milesian colonies of Istrcs~ Kios and Odessos: cf. Gehrke p.25, n.40, which may mean they were to be found in the mother-:ci ty a 1 ready in the 7th and 6thc. It does not necessa i'il y tell us anything about Miletus that epimenioi are to be found in the context of a democratic constitution in early 5thc Eretria: cf. IG XII Suppl.549.4ff; with W. Wallace, Hesperia 5 (1936) pp~277ff, for reconstruction .. It is perfectly-possfbTe--fhat thename of-these *offi cer-s was i ntrod-ucecl--ear1y ( a 7thc constitution even?), but that the character and make-up of the constitution shifted around them and their functions changed while the name remained unchanged. (49) I am not convinced by e.g. Pierart and Gehrke when they take Ps.-Xenophon1 s heilonto as not having this positive sense of 'choose': Athens is hardly 1 choosing 1 an oligarchic party by merely allowing it to exist; she has to be allowing it to exist at the expense of a democratic party, which she might have chosen instead. Cf. e.g. Pierart p.388 n.96: 11trop vague pour impliquer une action de soutien systematique 11 • (50) If we take the view of the regulations decree that it is negotiated after Athens has restored a democracy ( cf. e.g. Gehrke ) , we need to explain (a) why there is no mention of epimenioi ( i.e. the old democracy, as represented by the banishment decree?) or (b) why we do not yet find a democracy on the Athenian model. (51) Earp p.145, suggest that the garrison was withdrawn in 449 11in accordance with the terms of the peace of Kallias 11 ; but cf. Meiggs, AE 149-50. ( ) Cf. Jeffery (1976) pp.214 and 234; with Halliday, ad loc., and Busolt/ Swoboda I.177, n.5. Cf. Eustath.1425.65: s'l:sv o' &v.xupwvawrss ot )ml, xupoμ&xa 11:An-;}us AtyO\lTaL 11:apa To'Cs 11:a.Aa.Lot:s ( with 1783.13, 1833.56,. and 1716.4 ). (53) Cf. Suda s.v. Gerg~thes: A TdpBn, xa.L ol xsLp~vax~ES õTw xaAoDvTaL nap~ TO'Cs MLAncr~OLS Tots £V K£pLBoAnL TOUT[CTTL To'Cs 11:AoucrioLs, an entry which seems independent of both Plutarch and Heraclides. (55) Cf. Stein, cited in n.12, above. * -563Appendix II: NOTES. (1) Cf. Jacoby, RE art.393.lff; contrast e.g. Schmid/StMhlin I.2.626ff, acknowledging Jacoby 1 s conclusion but not discussing any of the problems of Hdts use of oral tradition. (2) Cf. RE art.419.26ff. (3) Cf. Finley (1975) pp.26ff: 11In 01y judgement, for the post-heroic period well into the 5thc, the survival of the sort of tradition I have been discussing must be credited largely to the noble families in the various communities, including royal families where they existed, and, what amounts to the same thing in a special variation, to the priests of such shrines as Delphi, Eleusis and Delos". (4) Cf. Vansina (1973) pp. 76ff: 11Every testimony and every tradition has a purpose and fulfils a function. It is because of this that they exist at all ... It is usually the interests of the informant that give purpose and function to a testimony ... but the interests of the informant are almost entirely conditioned by what might be called the interests of the society of which he is a member11 • (5) Cf. e.g. Finnegan (1970) pp.331ff; her interests are with the literary qualities of African oral traditions,* so that ... she is critical of the 'functional approach' to oral memory, which 11implidtly insinuates the assumption that, to put it crudely, primitive peoples ( i.e. Africans ) have no idea of the aesthetic, and therefore the only possible explanation of an apparent work of art, like a story, is that itmust somehow be useful. And, of course, an assumption of this sort usually turns out to be selfverifying when the evidence is collected and analysed according to it ... These writers tend to assume that any story which looks at all as if it could be interpreted ã a 'charter' for society can be labelled •myth': the impression is thereby neatly given to the reader that this story is widely known, deeply believed, held different from other stories, and, perhaps, part of some systematic and coherent mythology. In fact, it is possible in a given case that none of this may be true at all ... " (6) Cf. e.g. Wells (1923) p.25, to the effect that the story of Delphi's role in the settlement of the succession of Gyges was 11undoubtedly derived from Delphic tradition based on contemporary evidence 11 ; or Pohlenz (1937) p.113, for Delphi as the source for the story of Cleobis and Biton; and cf. most adventurously Murray (1980) p.30: "the great religious shrine is of central importance ( sc. among the sources of Hdt ): the Delphic tradition is not usually political; it is rather popular and moralizing ... , etc. 11 • (7) Cf. Parke/Wormell I.416ff: MThe supremacy which Delphi long maintained over its rivals and all o.ther methods of divination was largely the outcome of accumulat~d prestige, and was little supported by dogma or ecclesiastical organization ... (An) equivocal and time-serving attitude in political questions was almost forced on the Delphians by their military weakness ... Mostly they had the Amphictyony to protect them, but its help was a very uncertain factor, frequently subject to the change of empires and alliances in Greece11. -564- (8) It is surely ill-advised to follow Wilamowi (1893) I.284, and imagine that Hdt had access to Delphic hypomnemata tied to oracles: 11eine Sammlung von Spr~chen des Gottes mit den zugehBrigen Erz8hlungen, einen wunderbaren Schatz geschichtlicher und religi~ser Belehrung"(Jmfassend11 ! (Ba) It is worth comparing h~re what we do know of the temple records Qf another Greek shrine, viz. the evidence at the Anagraphe of Lindos ( FGH 529-33, with Jacoby, Komm.III.b pp.443ff ), which is a late compilation of material concerning the ~edications of the temple of Athena material derived from the local chronicles! In other words in this case there were clearly no hieratic records to ~or~ from. Cf. also e.g. the 'records' of the Athenian Asklepi~ion: G,22 4960. (9) And cf. the priests at Tyre, mentioned at 2.44.lff as having given Hdt information on the shrine of Heracles (!.) in the city; with Fehling p.28. (10) But cf. Fehling pp~50-4, on the source-citations at 2.55.lff. (11) For whichcitations cf. Fehling pp.Jl-15. (12) Cf. Jacoby (1949) passim(!). (13) Cf. here also Hellanicus' ~iereiai tesHeras: fGH 4F74-84; with Jacoby, RE s.v. Hellanikos 144.lff. Cf. ? Thucyd.2.2.1 and 4.133.2f, etc. ). This was merely a work of 'universal history', substantially about the mythological period, which happened to use the succession of Argive priestesses a most fanciful succession in its earliest stages as a chronological framework. Cf. den Boer (1954) pp.35ff. Again there is no sign that Hellanicus would have been using priestly traditions or records. (14) Cf. e.g. Connor (1971) pp.9ff. (15) Unlike Fehling pp.88f, I believe that the citations of individual witnesses ~eed by no means be fictions; indeed I would suggest that the grammatistes ( 2.28 ) is such a.n improbable witness ( cf. App.III ) that Hdt must actually have spoken to him he is even ( pace Fehling ) an exception to the rule of the '1Wahl der n8chstliegenden Quelleñais h~ving no obvious connexion whatever with a story about the source of the Nile! (16) Cf. Dikaios at 8.65, who is not however mentioned as having spoken to Hdt, or indeed anyone that Hdt has spoken to. The theory'of P. Trautwein, Hermes 25 (1890) 527ff, that Dikaios was a major written source for Hdts Medika was firmly squashed by Jacoby, RE art.404.lff. (17) Cf. RE art.411.42ff. (18) Cf. E. Kluwe, Die soziale Zusammenstellung d.athen.Ekklesie, Klio 58 (1976) 295ff and Klio 59 (1977) 317ff, who argues that tbe democracy was not as representative as it might seem and that many citizens were seldom if at all involv~d in the political process. Even if this is correct, it simply means for our purposes that the 'citizen-body' is a smaller group. (19) Cf. Gomnie (1962) pp.6J-~~ arguing a similar case on the basis of Ps.-Xenoph.Athpol.III.12-3, which observes that the atimoi are few under -565the democracy, and thus seems.to imply that at the date when the treatise was produced ( cf. Ch.II.iii n.27p) the democracy's sense of corporate interest was considerable. Cf. also e.g. the arguments of Dover, GPM pp. 34-5, for the shared values of the citizen-body at Athens: 11The rich, the poor and the economically secure majority between the two extremes did not differ. in theirvalues and assumptions to a sufficient degree to warrant a belief that forensic speakers and comic poets must be expressing a minority view ~hen they extol the virtues of inherited wealth and expensive education''. ihe affempf of Presfe1 Cl 939Ttowrite the-hi story ofan 11antTdemol<-rat,-sche Str8mung11 in Athens up to the time of Pericles is striking for its somewhat negative conclusions { cf. pp.87-92 ): there is little concerted oligarchic opposition; it surfaces only intermittently; it has few clear political principles, and even in the Old Oligarch is not systematically articulated; it largely reflects the private political ambitions of individuals even Prestel 1 s effort to stress the importance of rival aristocratic families is not wholly convincing. This all in some degree confirms our picture of essential civic solidarity for 5thc Athens. {20) The existence of just such polis-traditions as I am postulating is perhaps nicely demonstrated for Sparta by Xenoph.Lak.Pol~5.6: xat yap 6n ETCL,XWPLO\l l:v TO'Cs; q>Li\vdo1.,s; i\{yrn-&a1., ~ TL c'lv xai\ws; ns; &v TTJL 11:0>..u 11:odan1.,. (21) The numerous discussions of the use of historical exempla in the orators have tended to be dismissive about the accuracy of the historical knowledge which is there implied: cf. K. Jost (1936); and for Isocrates, G. SchmitzKahlmann (1939); also L. Pearson, CPh 36 (1941) 209-29, and esp. S. Perlman, Scripta Hierosolymitana 7 {1961) 150-66. The question that concerns us here, however, is not accuracy of historical knowledge so much as frequency of historical reference and the use made of it, and in both these respects the evidence would fit w,y theory. For history in Aristophanes, cf. esp. the Lysistrata, at 271ff ( Cleomenes ), 616ff { Hippias ), 530ff { Aristogeiton ), 65lff ( ta M~dika ), 665ff ( Leipsydrium ), 675 { Artemisia! ), 801ff * ( Myronides ), 1137ff ( Cimon and the Messenian revolt), 1150ff ( Spartan help in the liberation of Athens ), 1247ff ( ta Medika ). Besides this, cf. the theme of Athenian-Persian confrontation 1n the other plays: Marathon at Ach.181, 692ff; Hipp.781ff, 1334; Nub.985-6; Sph.711; Thesm.806 (?); Batr.1296-7 (?); F413 Ddf; Salam..12. at Hipp.785; later events at Sph.1098ff. . 2. (22) Cf. V. Ehrenberg. The People of Aristophanes- ( Oxford 1951 ) pp.337ff; though we should acknowledge, perhaps, that comic poets may at times be voicing more private sentiments. (23) For folktales in Hdt, cf. the imaginative but now old-fashioned treatment by Aly (1921), which remains, however, the principal guide. For folktaleelements in the narrative of Cypselos, cf. M.V. Skrazinskaja, VDI 101 (1967) 65-74. (24) Cf. den Boer (1954) pp.59ff. (25) Surprisingly the word logioi is not used of any Greek informants: cf. 1.1.1, of the Persians; 2.3.1, of the Heliopolitans; and 2.77.1, of the Egyptians as a whole. (26) Fehling pp.170ff, argues provocatively that a man who could report a story like the lion-dream of Agariste ( 6.131.2 ) is speaking the ideas of 'the people' and does not look like a house-guest, let alone a househistorian of the Alcmeonids: 11Man hat bei der Lekture des Werkes nicht den Eindruck, dass Hdt mit den Grossen seiner Zeit auf Du und Du stand". , ... Similarly J.R. Grant, Phoenix 23 (1969) 264-8, argues 11that Hdt did not -566move among the top people. did not have ready access to the high-class sources postulated by Jacoby and others, and because he did not have a high standard of exactitude in treating of political and military matters he lacked a sufficiently strong impulse to search them out, and was too easily satisfied with the general report". This argument from the 'trustworthiness' of Hdts evidence seems to me unsound: as suggested in the text, the presumption that a tradition will be more accurate because it is a family tradition may well be unfounded, in which case Grant's argument would not follow. * -567Appendix III: NOTES. (1) Fehling does not make as much as he might of this impressive example: cf. e.g. pp.55 and 65. (2) Cf. e.g. Spiegelberg (1926); Ulddeckens (1954); Oertel (1970); and with a much more apologetic emphasis, A.B. Lloyd (1975) passim, and for detailed commentary {1976). (3) Cf. e.g. Lloyd (1975) p.95: 11We have in fact no justification whatever in assuming ... that the priests would get their history right in ~ny sense in which we should understand the word 11ri9ht 11 :i. Is there n:ot a note of desperation here: 1 no justification', 'in any sense'? (4) For the misuse of the explanation of leading questions, cf. Fehling, index s.v. 1 Hineinfragen 1 • (5) Cf. eh.III n.49a. (6) Cf. Fehling pp.54ff, for~ more extensi~e treatment of this problem; but Fehling does not play the trump card, the misplacement of the pyramidbu 11 ders. (7) Cf. e.g. the generalization of Lloyd (1975) p.116: 11Egyptians were quite likely to retail or develop traditions ad maiorem Aegyptiorum gloriam 11 • (8) H.T. Wallinga, Mnemos.12 (1959) 204ff, proposed the radical solution that the relevant sections of Hdts text have 6ecome accidentally transposed! H. Erbse, Rh.Mus.98 (1955) 109ff, followed by Lloyd (1975) pp.188-9, argued that the priests did actually tell Hdt that between Min and Moeris no ruler except Nitocris had achieved anything of consequence and that Hdt treated the pyramid-builders accordingly; my contention, however, is that it is precis.ely this claim which no Egyptian could possibly have wanted to make! (9) For a thorough traditional account of the question of Hdts sources on Egypt, both oral and literary, cf. Lloyd (197~) pp.77-140; cf. also e.g. Verdin (1971) pp.96-100. (10) Cf. Lloyd (1976) pp.lllff; ~nd for the names Krophi and Mophi as characteristic oriental rhyme-words, cf. J. Friedridi, AOF 20 (1963) 102. (lOa) Contrast Lloyd {1975) p.90 with n.2 and pp.111-2. I am not happy with Fehling's attempt ( pp.68-9) to make of this interview another example of a source.-fiction: he can explain why Hdt should have chosen the temple of Athena but not why this should be the temple of Athena at Sais of all places. (11) Cf. Lloyd (1975) pp.lff, with Boardman (1980) pp.lllff. (12) Cf. Lloyd (1975) pp.17ff, on the question of intermarriage; and cf. p.118, on the tomb of Si-am~n ( 26th-30th Dynasties ) from the Oasis of Siwa, which seems to be that of a Greek who had married an Egyptian woman and sired a pair of half-caste sons. "Such half-castes must have contributed a great deal to the growth of the Greek traditions on the country and its civilization 11 (Lloyd). (13) Lloyd (1975) pp.116-9. does indeed appreciate the importance of Greek sources for Hdts account and makes some plausible suggestions as to their -568identity but he persists in the belief that his evi~ence is primarily from Egyptian sources. (14) Cf. Fehling pp.46-50, with Hom.Od.4.35lff. (15) Cf. H. Meulenaere, Chronique d 1 Egypte 28 (1953) 248ff, who argues that the Pheros-story does represent good Egyptian tradition. but is undecided as to whether the name is or is not simply Pharaoh. (16) Cf. R. Lattimore, CPh 34 (1939) 357ff; with Ch.III n.158. (17) This notwithstanding Lloyd1 s observation (1975) p.116 that ''the Egyptians were more likely to know Greek than vice versan. (18) Cf. Spiegelberg (1926) p.42 n.12. (19) Cfr Lloyd (1975) p.95; and Klees (1965) pp.59-60, concluding that these two stories must be taken from nan-Egyptian informants. (20) Cf. A.H. Sayce, J.Phil.14 (1885)_257-86. (21) Cf. Fehling p.15 n.4, with Hdt 2.104.2: melagkhroes ... kai oulotrikhes. The same characteristics are even mare suspiciously predicated of the Cholcians in the same place, in the latter case a misconception shared with Pind.Py 4.212 ( kelainapessi ); but cf. the 'vindication' of Hdt by P.T. English, JNES 15 (1959) 49-53 (!}. For negroid Egyptians, cf. the red-figured stamnos of Heracles and Busiris, CVA Oxford fasc.i pl.XXVI, with Beazley's comment ( p.22 ): 11The figure on the .altar is no doubt Busiris himself, although he is represented as a negro like his attendants''; see also the pelike by the Pan painter on the same subject, Boardman ARF no.336. Cf. perhaps Aesch.Suppl.719-20 ( melagkhimois ). Did Hdt perhaps conceive the argument of the present passage before going to Egypt and perhaps forget to change it? Snowden (1971) p.264 n.52, suggests that oulotrikhes here may refer to the 11less than straight hair" of the Egyptfans; cf. e.g. (Ar.) Probl. 909A28ff, where the Egyptians and Ethiopians are both described as having woolly hair; and also Hom.Od.6.231 and 23.158, where Athene makes Odysseus' hair oulos. But with black skin this is surely the mark of the negroid type unless Odysseus' herald Eurybates ( of Itti~c.a: cf. Hom.Il.2.183-4 ), who is described at Od.19.244ff as distinctively 'black-skinned' and 1woollyheaded1 is not meant to be a negro ( but cf. Snowden p.19 ). (22) Far Egypt, cf. esp. the survey of Lloyd (1975) pp.60-76, who is rightly sceptical of many of the accepted inferences as to the date, season and extent of Hdts journeys while not, of course, accepting the added limitation that Hdts own explicit statements are themselves most unreliable. Cf. in general, Jacoby, RE art.247.42ff, with summary at 276~38ff; and contrast Fehling pp.168-70. (23) Cf. e.g. Hdt 1.23-4 ( Arion ) with Fehling pp.17-20 though Fehling draws his decisive examples mainly from the non-Greek citations. Cf. my arguments about the citations at 1.65.4 ( .. Ch.II.i.ñ5 ) and at 7.148-9 ( Ch.II.iii.E;3 ); also e.g. Plutarch's shrewd observation about the Spartan citation at 3.~7~1 ( Plut.MH21.859BE; Fehling at pp.80-1 and 140-1 does not avail hims~lf of this ally): even if it had not been true that the Spartans undertook the Samian expedition in order to expel Polycrates, it seems almost certain that this would have been the version they -569told Hdt ( cf. e.g. Hdt 5.92a; with Thucyd.1.18.1 ) rather than the story about the theft of the krater sent to Croesus 1 cf._1 1 70 ). * -57JAppendix IV: NOTES. (1) The history of Hdtean scholarship since Jacoby is well analysed from this point of view by eobet (1971) pp.1-44 and 188-98. ef. also e.g. H. Verdin, L'Ant.elass.44 (1975) 668ff. (2) ef. e.g. Jacoby, RE art. passim e.g. 341.9ff, and esp. 353.6ff: "diesen Ianuskopf, der zur~cksieht auf die geographisch-ethnographische Erdbeschreibung eines Hekataios und vorwMrts auf das erste reine Geschichtswerk eines Thukydides" ( my underlinings ). And more recently e.g. von Fritz, GGS I.104ff; and Fornara pp.1-23, who argues somewhat differently ( from the evidence of Book Two ) for Hdts "progression from somet~ing like a conventional historian ... into an artist imaginatively harnessing (his) material to higher purposes'' ( my underlinings ), but nonetheless retains the assumption that the 'ethnographic' Hdt is earlier than the 'artist historian'. (3) C.f. esp. eobet (1971) pp.45ff; H. Erbse, Gymnas.68 (1961) 239-61, argues perversely in my view that ouly the excursuses so designated by Hdt are actually to be taken as excursuses. (4) On the evidence of eh.III, Book Two also shows the greatest density of sophistic issues of any part of the work, and this is also relevant here: the section of the work supposedly earliest in composition turns out to be the most modern part! I am tempted to agree with Fornara ( cf. n.2 ) that Book Two is indeed 'different' in character from the rest of the work, and to wonder whether it is not in fact a later addition to the whole, perhaps included in a 'second edition'. If that 'second edition' was brought out shortly before Aristophanes wrote the Birds ( produced Dionysia 414 ), that might account for the play's apparent parodies of Hdt and Book Two in particular ( cf. e.g. Aristoph.Av.1130 with Hdt 2.127.1; Av.1142ff with Hdt 2.136.4 ). This idea that Book Two is later rather than earlier than the rest, suggested by Wells (1923) pp.177ff and originally by Bauer (1878) pp.27ff, has much to recommend it *( but cf. eh.III n.18 ). Is it possible that the two editions also differed in describing the author first as 'Halicarnassian' and second as 'Thurian 1 , and that this explains the currency of both versions of the opening sentence in antiquity ( but cf. eh.III n.12 )? Was the ad_ditional*note at 4.99.5, the comparison of the Tauric peninsula with Iapygia, 'for those who have not sailed past Attica' ( cf. 99.4 ), included for a western audience in this second 'Thurian' edition? Were the Assyrioi Logioi ( cf. eh.III n.16 ) perhaps dropped for the second edition with its new and lengthy Egyptian account and the references to it not removed at 1.106.2 and 184? (5) ef. von Fritz, GGS I. e.g. 178: "so kann man kaum sagen, dass Hdts Aufenthalt in ~gypten seinen ersten Schritt zum Histotiker bedeutet, wie es oben geschehen ist, ~usser insofern, als er zum erstenmal ein, wenn auch noch so oberfl~chliche Interesse an Gegenst~nden genommen hat, die zu Gegenst~nden historischer Forschung werden konnen". And cf. Fornara pp.1-23. (6) So Jacoby, Powell, von Fritz, Fornara, et multi. That Hdt could have set out to write a Persika not simply without intending to describe the Persian Wars but without even seeing the possibility of doing so, seems to me quite unthinkable: the obvious subject is the Persian Wars, the less obvious subject the history of the Persian empire! (7) ef. Drews (1973) pp.20ff. -571-. (8) So Drews pp.35ff: 11 ••• it was the Great Event, astounding those who lived through it, which compelled the Greeks to commemorate it in writing. Greek historiography was, in a real sense, a result of history itself". This view seems to me to hold good whether or not we accept Drews' preHdtean Persika: cf. n.9. * (9) Cf. Drews pp.20-32, reviving certain shadowy fore-runBers of Hdt in the writing of Persika: Dionysios of Miletus ( FGH 687 ), Hellanicμs ( FGH 4 ), and Charon of lampsacus ( FGH 262 ): the evidence that any of these authors and/or their Persika antedate Hdt, however, derives exclusively from late sources who can hardly be expected to depend on solid testimony*for the dates or chronological relationships of any of them ( cf. esp. Plut.MH 36.869A, for Hellanicus; and MH 20.8598, for (harorl y:--DreW' s-hypothesi s may be correct, buf rt is sure Ty nird to substantiate with the evidence available. But for Dionysios, cf. M. Moggi, ASNP 2 (1972) 433-68, arguing that he is used by Hdt; for Charon, cf. L. Piccirilli, ASNP 5 (1975) 1239-54, arguing that Hdt deliberately avoids fol lowing Charon; and for Xanth.us, cf. P. Tozzi, RIL 99 (1965) 175-84. (10) H. Barth's promisingly entitled article 'Die Einwirkungen der vorsokr. Philosophie auf die Herausbildung d,historiogr.Methoden Hdts 1 , N. Beitr. z.Gesch. d.alten Welt 1 (1964) 173-83, is disappointingly limited to the study of the word eidenai in Hdt and the preSocratics I cannot believe that epistemology -:rs-lTats most important debt to the philosophers! Barth 1 s 'Methodologische und historiogr. Probleme der Geschischtsschreibung des Hdt', Diss.Halle (1963) is unavailable to me. Cf. also Hunter (1982) passim9 for Hdts 1 historiographical method1 in relation to that of Thucydides, both authors reflecting 'Presocratic thought'. (11) For the sophistication of this analysis, as historical reconstruction and for its judicious use of the 'Homeric evidence, cf. J.W. Neville, G&R 24 (1977) 3-12, who does not, however, invoke the parallel methods of the sophists. * . ,/