Greek Historiography Read online

  given extensive characterizations through their own speeches and action and through authorial comment. But the greater action of the war itself determines the introduction, appearances, and departure of the major

  characters of the history. The course of the major events also dictates the brief appearances of lesser characters who play some noteworthy role,

  beyond which we know nothing of them.

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  History also generally eschews the Homeric extended concern with

  emotional issues of wrath and nostalgia; the seeking of causation from a divine machinery; and the domestic and personal scenes that form the

  bulk of Odyssey 13–24 (though Herodotus seems an exception). All these elements are selected out of history for different reasons. While the “machismo” of military exploits is kept, the focus on one man’s

  importance contradicts the later ethos, which promotes broad civic participation in a more polis‐centered culture. Herodotus’ Croesus, for example, is an archetype of the impossibility of human self‐sufficiency.

  Finally, domestic and tender scenes did not fit with a focus on the arete ̄

  of great men and were not suitable to political narrative. Such scenes were normally treated in lyric and dramatic poetry.

  Hesiod (fl. c. 700) “deformed” myths as Homer had, but with him we

  see the emergence of a genealogical ordering of gods and heroes, accompanied by a concern for continuity and the harmonization of variant versions handed down by tradition. In his Theogony, Hesiod, like Homer, attributes to a divine source, the Muses, his access to the truth, but he also acknowledges that the Muses know “how to speak falsehoods that

  seem true, and, when [they] want, how to utter truths” (Hes. Th. , lines 27–8). The disclaimer allows the poet an escape clause against critics of his content, but it is also consistent with the Greek view that poets and prophets cannot reveal the will of the gods without enigmatic obfuscation. We are far from the truth claims of historians, based on their own observation and the testimony of human informants. To explain human

  suffering in the world, Hesiod offers two tales in his Works and Days, one the purely conventional myth of Pandora’s jar. The other story describes the five races of men, four being metallic and possibly of non‐Greek

  origin, while a fifth race, of heroes, is interposed as a quasi‐rationalized Greek reminiscence of the “heroic age” of earlier centuries. The tale of races describes the quality of periods, not a precise quantity of time, but it does show real concern for causality and is “pointing to an entirely new line of intellectual endeavour and pointing away from epic and myth,”

  namely an embryonic form of chronological periodization along with

  notions of moral decline and regeneration in successive social structures (Finley 1987: 16–17; Kirk 1973: 226–38). Another work of Hesiod, The Catalogue of Women (now fragmentary; possibly begun in the eighth century and reaching a final version in the first decades of the sixth, in Attica) was the best model for the breadth of the early genealogical works.

  Genealogy was later given fuller form by Acusilaus of Argos (pre‐490 bc), who seems to have corrected Hesiod’s creation story (Bertelli 2001:

  73–4; FGrHist 2 Acus. F 5–6).

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  Writing used for records seems to have first become widespread in

  Greece from 750 to 650 bc. Written texts appear to be more common

  with the advent of public inscriptions throughout the sixth century, and are finally ubiquitous in the fifth century and later. The archaic period (c. 700–500 bc) evidences the first written laws and some religious and private inscriptions. In general, however, each city’s use of political documents varied greatly until the mid‐fourth century bc, when bureaucratization and standardized norms took hold. Yet oral traditions and oral discourse in politics lived strongly alongside the written throughout the archaic and classical periods. Comparison with the extensive use of writing in the Near East and Egypt even suggests that written records can often foster the control required by authoritarian central rulership (Thomas

  1992 passim, and especially 93–100, 128–50). With the advent of writing from 700 to 500 bc, Greeks first applied the medium mainly to epic, then to lyric and other forms of occasional poetry that dealt “with personal problems and generalities and not with politics and society in their

  concrete institutional expressions” (Finley 1987: 20–1). The Greeks of

  this era were not interested in the written organization and chronological tracing of events. The impulse in this direction ultimately came from the Eastern Mediterranean.

  The Ionian Connection

  Homer, most believe, like Hecataeus and then Herodotus, was a native

  Ionian. Ionia was the central region of the western coast of Asia Minor that was inhabited by independent Greek cities since at least the eighth century, then ruled by the Persians in the mid‐sixth to early fifth centuries. Some critics have distinguished the East Greek or Ionian emphasis on folktales from a mainland Greek preoccupation with political rationalism, perhaps arising from the hoplite class focused on action in war and politics. Scholars have further distinguished folktales and political themes from a “Delphic tradition” that emphasized the moral aspects of

  hybris and reversal of fortune. In short, diverse local cultures have created divergent interests in discourse, first orally, then in written texts, including history. The theory goes that Thucydides’ work more strongly reflects the

  “mainland” or hoplite culture, while Herodotus’ evidences the reception of Ionian folktales, and both incorporate the Delphic lessons of hybris avenged (Murray 2001: 32–3).

  Ionia was an extraordinarily creative culture not only for legends

  and poetic fictions, but also for the earliest production of new forms of

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  critical knowledge in Greece, notably Ionian philosophy, science, and

  historiography (Kirk and Raven 1957: 73–215). Thales of Miletus

  (c. 625–c. 545 bc) led the revolution with studies of the earth and

  heavens, proclaiming that water was the “first principle” of all things; Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610–c. 547 bc) also focused on natural laws

  of ceaseless movement expressed in the mutual destruction of opposites, but also of stability expressed in an entity he called “the unbounded”

  ( to apeiron), which is the basis of all things. Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570–475 bc) also wrote on the heavens and earth, but is known best

  for his skeptical position on the limits of human knowledge and the

  absurdity of anthropomorphic deities as Homer and Hesiod portrayed

  them. Heraclitus of Ephesus (fl. c. 500 bc) highlighted a central principle of cosmic order ( logos) that is in constant change. What these thinkers contributed was some necessary, though not sufficient, conditions for the Greek creation of history, namely a skepticism about myth, an affirmation of empirical evidence, and a nascent method of inquiry

  (Finley 1987: 30).

  While Ionia was politically subject to Persia from c. 546/5 bc until

  after the Persian Wars (479 bc), the region was home to major pioneers

  of historical genres. Scylax of Caryanda (c. 500) wrote of his sailing

  around the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, at the order of Darius I; Scylax also wrote a biography of a tyrant of Mylasa, another Persian subject.

  Hecataeus of Miletus wrote critically of Greek traditions. And then

  Herodotus was born (Momigliano 1990: 8–11).

  Herodotus, as we shall see, drew from both of his rich local traditions –

  storytelling and philosophical inquiry. What he added to them was the

  aim of preserving “human past events” ( ta genomena ex antho ̄ po �
� n), and especially “the great and wondrous deeds” of the Greeks and barbarians, for the sake of preservation in and of itself, as his preface proclaims (1.1.1).

  For centuries poets had sought to preserve myths that were considered to be essentially true, but Herodotus and a few others in the decades before him attempted to organize the traditions of genealogy, local traditions, and travel stories. The adaptation of an Ionian spirit of inquiry and natural empiricism to the aim of a serious understanding of human accomplishments was the crucial turning point in the invention, or perhaps better

  “evolution,” of history. The change is not really the final discovery of some new mode of expression by thinkers long in search of a solution, as

  “invention” implies. Rather history arose as the natural next step in a chain of cultural circumstances. Herodotus had absorbed storytelling and the spirit of inquiry, but applied both to his original focus on events that were secular, political, and human; Thucydides then further filtered the

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  genre through an even more rigid focus on these events and a more

  obsessive concern for chronology (Finley 1987: 30).

  What was the necessary final condition for Herodotus or any author

  positioned at this time to apply aspects of the writing of myth and of

  empirical skepticism to the human past must ultimately remain a matter

  of speculation. Beyond the impulse to preserve deeds from oblivion, the Persian Wars themselves obviously begged for a grand treatment along

  the lines of the Homeric epic. But Herodotus may also have been drawn

  to address at epic length a host of hot issues of the day, including civilization versus barbarism, democracy versus tyranny (versus oligarchy), law versus nature, divine versus human sources of authority, and pan‐Hellenic cooperation versus strife among Greek cities.

  Ionian thinkers had questioned laws of gods and nature long presumed

  valid, and the liberal spirit of inquiry may, some speculate, have led to a rupture of social barriers too, to a spirit of questioning of the elite hierarchies, which resulted in tyrannies and finally in the Athenian democracy (Meier 1987: 52; Roberts 2011: 12–14). The point is not that Herodotus

  follows or applies any of the specific Ionian monocausal explanations of natural processes, but rather that he lived in a region and a culture where diversity and innovation were also welcomed in the forms of writing and thinking.

  History Prefigured or Forestalled in Archaic Poetry?

  A series of poems forming what is called today the Epic Cycle were composed largely in the seventh and sixth centuries and treated a great range of legendary events, notably those around the Trojan War and the return of heroes, completing the contexts of the Iliad and Odyssey (Davies 1989; West 1996). The epics, known entirely from scant fragments and written

  by authors from many different cities, evidently also covered all great mythical periods of Greece, from creation to titanomachy, and the stories of Oedipus and other Theban heroes. Epics remained a vital source of

  interest for Greeks from all over the Mediterranean, if their continued production is any indication. The subject matter was, in the view of most ancients, not fabulous fiction but magnified fact. Even Thucydides’

  serious allusions to Agamemnon and Minos, tempered by an awareness of

  poetic licence, make clear that, for him, the tales were essentially based on true events (Th. 1.4, 9, and 21).

  In the seventh and sixth centuries the body of serious and lofty epic

  required balancing by literary forms that conveyed everyday concerns and

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  elevated personal themes. Prose narratives of contemporary politics were not yet conceivable or attractive enough to be committed to papyrus:

  prose lacked the verve of verse and its cultural cachet, and feuding city-states were of ephemeral interest. So the archaic period found another

  outlet, a literary genre worth writing down, namely lyric poetry (excellent translation and selection in West 1994). The broad classification includes both choral and monodic (solo) songs, written to be performed in their

  entirety at public or private occasions. Monody begins usually with

  Archilochus and runs the gamut of Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Sappho,

  Alcaeus, Theognis, Solon, and many more. Thee poets’ themes are largely personal and philosophically moralizing about loves, hates, friends,

  enemies, and the frustrations and joys of daily life. There is little extended narration and not much on politics, but noteworthy historical nuggets

  abound. In the seventh century, starting with Archilochus, we glimpse

  the reluctant warrior fighting for Thasos against Thracian tribes (West 1994: 13–14; Bowie 2001: 59–60). Tyrtaeus of Sparta and Callinus of

  Ephesus offer fellow citizens propagandistic exhortations to fight in battle (West 1994: 21 and 23–7). Theognis rolls off copious advice about

  friends, enemies, and the welfare of his state, Megara (West 1994: 64–73; Figueira and Nagy 1985). Solon (early sixth century) was the most

  politically accomplished among the lyric poets, being also a famous

  Athenian archon (594/3 bc) and lawgiver – a “sage” figure for Herodotus.

  Solon’s political poems evidence his sincere efforts to reform class inequities and his frustrations at the effort (West 1994: 74–83). Our brief catalog illustrates how various poets engaged the interests of the citizenry, primarily with warnings and advice drawn from personal experience in politics and war. There is no attempt at a systematic narrative, but rather a highly individualistic view of life in the polis. The general absence of religious authority and mythical subject matter indicates that the

  monody functioned to convey secular, civic wisdom distilled from recent experience. Though monody is hugely different in form and overt subject matter from history, it functions like history by presenting experience as a lesson for civic behavior. Hence monody prefigured and perhaps forestalled the invention of history.

  Choral poetry accompanied some religious worship, funerals, and

  weddings, as well as songs of praise for rulers ( enkomia) and victory songs for athletes ( epinikia) (Segal 1985). Many choral songs blended elements of myth with brief historical episodes, though ancients understood that there would be a necessary bias in poems praising the elite, the wealthy, and athletes (who often were aristocratic and monied). The choral

  pieces were, after all, paid for by families, clients, or the praised subjects

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  themselves. Choral poetry thus complemented monody by weaving

  together epic elements of myth with contemporary realia. The genre is

  first attested in the poems of Alcman of Sparta (later sixth century), best known for a lovely parthenion or “maidens’ song” designed to accompany a cult dance, but noteworthy also for a cosmogony contrasting that of

  Hesiod. Stesichorus of Himera in Sicily (c. 632/629–556/553 bc) wrote

  mainly on mythical topics but is said to have composed fables on political topics, for instance urging the people of Akragas to reject the tyrant

  Phalaris so as not to become his slaves, as a wild horse does by accepting a bit (Arist. Rh. 2, 1393b; see Kennedy 1991: 180).

  Poetic versions of foundation stories (only the titles are extant) arose in the seventh and sixth centuries and are of more direct historical interest.

  In the eighth century there is the Corinthiaca by Eumelus of Corinth and, in the seventh, Mimnermus’ Smyrneis and the Early History of the Samians by Semonides of Amorgos, a work of over 2,000 lines. Panyassis of Halicarnassus, fifth‐century author of an Ionica of about 7,000 lines, was a compatriot and kinsman (uncle or cousin) of Herodotus, who may

  well have known the poem. A poem by I
on of Chios (480s–c. 421 bc)

  tells of the foundation of his city. Progress in verse seems to be from poems on a single polis to an “overarching narrative … concerning several poleis” (Bowie 2001: 49–50). It is striking that Panyassis is the first to adapt elegy to a new form, which deals with several cities, while Herodotus seems to have been the first to move from local to pan‐Hellenic prose historiography. The inclusion of affairs may, among Greek poleis, have been inspired by the Persian Wars, but also seems to have arisen from the typically more cosmopolitan Ionian perspective.

  Recent scholarship on the papyri fragments of the choral poet Simonides of Ceos (557/556–468 bc) has highlighted the way in which lyric used

  historical events for its subject matter. The so‐called “new Simonides”

  verses, usually thought to be from one single poem, praise the Greek victory in the Persian Wars at the battle of Plataea (possibly also at the battles of Salamis and Artemisium), and they do so using Homeric themes and

  allusions (Boedeker 1998, 2001; Kowerski 2005). The occasion for the

  first performance may have been the funeral of those fallen at Plataea

  (Aloni 1994). Simonides’ blending of the legendary Greek–Trojan War

  with the Greek–Persian conflict illustrates the ready association of mythical heroism with recent military events. It is instructive, if not surprising, to contrast Simonides’ unalloyed praise with Herodotus’ critical account of the Plataean conflict decades later – an account designed to illustrate division within the Greek forces. It is also significant that, like Panyassis’

  multicity subject matter, Simonides’ poem is unique among extant Persian

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  War poems in including so many allied cities by name (Boedeker 2001).

  Lyric poetry after the Persian Wars to the time of Herodotus (480–c. 440

  bc) evidences an upsurge of interest in contemporary people, places, and events.

  Victory odes ( epinikia) were commissioned choral performances that, like Simonides’ elegy for the Plataean warriors, extolled the winners. The genre flourished brilliantly but briefly from around 550 to 450 bc. It conveyed the elite aristocratic ideal of the athlete in the image of a legendary hero and thus presented myth liberally mixed with contemporary family