Herodŏtus in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

A celebrated Greek historian, born at Halicarnassus in Caria, B.C. 484 (Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 29, 2d ed.). He was of Dorian extraction, and of a distinguished family. His father was named Lyxes, his mother Rhoeo or Dryo. Panyasis, an eminent epic poet, whom some ranked next to Homer, was his uncle either by the mother's or father's side. The facts of his life are few and doubtful, except so far as we can gather them from his own works. Not liking the government of Lydgamis, the grandson of Queen Artemisia, who was tyrant of Halicarnassus, Herodotus retired for a season to the island of Samos, where he is said to have cultivated the Ionic dialect of the Greek, which was the language there prevalent. Before he was thirty years of age he joined a number of his fellow-exiles in an attempt, which proved successful, to expel Lygdamis. But the banishment of the tyrant did not give tranquillity to Halicarnassus, and Herodotus, who himself had become an object of dislike, again left his native country and visited Athens, where he made the acquaintance of many of the brilliant writers of the time. Of these, Sophocles became his intimate friend, and wrote a poem in his honour in B.C. 440, a fragment of which is preserved by Plutarch. (See Hanna, Sophokles' Beziehungen zu Herodot [1875]). Eusebius states that he received at Athens many public marks of distinction. As Athenian citizenship was not open to him, he joined, as it is said, a colony which the Athenians sent to Thurii in Southern Italy, about B.C. 443. He is said to have died in Thurii, and to have been buried in the market-place. Herodotus is regarded by many as the father of profane history, and Cicero (De Leg. i. 1) calls him historiae patrem; by which, however, nothing more must be meant than that he is the first profane historian whose work is distinguished for its finished form, and has come down to us entire. Thus Cicero himself, on another occasion, speaks of him as the one qui princeps genus hoc (scribendi) ornavit (De Orat. ii. 13); while Dionysius of Halicarnassus has given us a list of many historical writers who preceded him. Herodotus presents himself to our consideration in two points: as a traveller and observer, and as an historian. The extent of his travels may be ascertained pretty clearly from his history; but the order in which he visited each place, and the time of his visit, cannot be determined. The story of his reading his work at the Olympic Games, on which occasion he is said to have received universal applause, and to have had the names of the nine Muses given to the nine books of his history, has been disproved. The story is founded upon a small piece by Lucian, entitled "Herodotus or Aetion," which apparently was not intended by the writer himself as an historical truth; and, in addition to this, Herodotus was only about twentyeight years old ( Suid. s. v. Θουκυδίδης) when he is said to have read to the assembled Greeks at Olympia a work which was the result of most extensive travelling and research, and which bears in every part of it evident marks of the hand of a man of mature age. The Olympic recitation is not even alluded to by Plutarch, in his treatise on the "malignity" of Herodotus. Furthermore, it is certain that the division of his work into books was not known to Herodotus himself, but was probably due to the Alexandrian grammarians. It is first mentioned by Diodorus Siculus. At a later period Herodotus read his history, as we are informed by Plutarch and Eusebius , at the Panathenaean festival at Athens, and the Athenians are said to have presented him with the sum of ten talents for the manner in which he had spoken of the deeds of their nation. The account of this second recitation may be true. With a simplicity which characterizes his whole work, Herodotus makes no display of the great extent of his travels. He frequently avoids saying in express terms that he was at a place, but he uses words which are as conclusive as any positive statement. He describes a thing as standing behind the door (ii. 182), or on the right hand as you enter a temple (i. 51); or he was told something by a person in a particular place (ii. 28); or he uses other words equally significant. In Africa he visited Egypt (see Budinger, Die ägyptische Forschung Herodot's [Vienna, 1873]), from the coast of the Mediterranean to Elephantiné, the southern extremity of the country (ii. 29); and he travelled westward as far as Cyrené (ii. 32, 181), and probably farther. (See Neumann, Nordafrika nach Herodot [1893]). In Asia he visited Tyre, Babylon, Ecbatana (i. 98), Nineveh, and probably Susa (v. 52 foll., vi. 119). He also travelled to various parts of Asia Minor, and probably went as far as Colchis (ii. 104). In Europe he visited a large part of the country along the Black Sea, between the mouths of the Danube and the Crimea, and went some distance into the interior. He seems to have examined the line of the march of Xerxes from the Hellespont to Attica, and certainly had seen numerous places on this route. He was well acquainted with Athens (i. 98, v. 77), and also with Delphi, Dodona, Olympia, Delos, and many other places in Greece. That he had visited some parts of Southern Italy is clear from his work (iv. 99, v. 44). The mention of these places is sufficient to show that he must have seen many more. (See Hildebrandt, De Itineribus Herodoti Europaeis et Africanis [Leipzing, 1883].) So wide and varied a field of observation has rarely been presented to a traveller, and still more rarely to any historian of either ancient or modern times; and, if we cannot affirm that the author undertook his travels with a view to collecting materials for his great work, a supposition which is far from improbable, it is certain that, without such advantages, he could never have written it, and that his travels must have suggested much inquiry, and supplied many valuable facts, which afterwards found a place in his history. The nine books of Herodotus contain a great variety of matter, the unity of which is not perceived till the whole work has been thoroughly examined; and for this reason, on a first perusal, the history is seldom well understood. But the subject of that history was conceived by the author both clearly and comprehensively. His aim was to combine a general history of the Greeks and the barbarians (i. e. those not Greeks) with the history of the wars between the Greeks and Persians. Accordingly, in the execution of his main task, he traces the course of events from the time when the Lydian kingdom of Croesus fell before the arms of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy (B.C. 546), to the capture of Sestus (B.C. 478), an event which completed the triumph of the Greeks over the Persians. The great subject of his work, which is comprised within the space of sixty-eight years, advances, with a regular progress and truly dramatic development, from the first weak and divided efforts of the Greeks to resist Asiatic numbers, to their union as a nation, and their final triumph in the memorable battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycalé. But with this subject, which has a complete unity, well maintained from its commencement to its close, the author has interwoven, conformably to his general purpose, and by way of occasional digression, sketches of the various people and countries which he had visited in his wide-extended travels. The more one contemplates the difficulty of thus combining a kind of universal history with a substantial and distinct narrative, the more one must admire, not so much the art of the historian, as his happy power of bringing together and arranging his materials, which was the result of the fulness of his information, the distinctness of his knowledge, and his clear conception of the subject. These numerous digressions are among the most valuable parts of his work; and, if they had been omitted or lost, barren indeed would have been modern investigation in the field of ancient history, over which the labour of this one great writer now throws a clear and steady light. The anecdotes, also, that sparkle through his pages are fascinating in their variety and in the illustrations they afford of the life and manners of the age that he describes. The style of Herodotus is simple, pleasing, and highly picturesque; often, indeed, poetical both in expression and sentiment, and bearing evident marks of belonging to a period when prose composition had not yet become a finished art. That he was a close student of Homer is evident in every page of the history, since his phrases and expressions are everywhere coloured by the Homeric influence. Hence, Dionysius of Halicarnassus calls him Ὁμήρου ζηλωτής, and Longinus μόνος Ὁμηρικώτατος. So graceful and winning was his style that Athenaeus describes him as ὁ μελίγηρυς. His information is apparently the result of his own experience. In physical knowledge he was somewhat behind the science of even his own day. He had, no doubt, reflected on political questions; but he seems to have formed his opinions mainly from what he himself had observed. To pure philosophical speculations he had no inclination, and there is not a trace of such in his writings. He had a strong religious feeling bordering on superstition, though even here he clearly distinguished the gross and absurd from that which was reasonable. He seems to have viewed the manners and customs of all nations in a more truly philosophical way than many so-called philosophers, considering them all as various forms of social existence under which happiness might be found. He treats with respect the religious observances of every nation; a decisive proof of his great good sense. Until lately there was a strong tendency to exaggerate the credulity of Herodotus; but a fuller knowledge of the countries described by him has justified many of the statements once regarded as absurd. Moreover, a distinction must be drawn between the things he tells of his own knowledge and those which he merely relates as having been told him by other persons. The exquisite lines quoted by Prof. Merriam in his introduction are wonderfully descriptive of the whole tone and spirit of Herodotus: "He was a mild old man and cherished much The weight dark Egypt on his spirit laid; And with a sinuous eloquence would touch Forever at that haven of the dead. Single romantic words by him were thrown As types on men and places, with a power Like that of shifting sunlight after shower Kindling the cones of hills and journeying on. He feared the gods and heroes and spake low That Echo might not hear in her light room." Plutarch accused Herodotus of partiality, and composed a treatise on what he termed the "spitefulness" of this writer (Περὶ τῆς Ἡροδότου Κακοηθείας), taxing him with injustice towards the Thebans, Corinthians, and Greeks in general; but the whole monograph is weak and frivolous. Herodotus had planned to write a work on Assyrian history (i. 106, 184), but whether or not he ever carried out his intention is not known. A life of Homer has been commonly ascribed to Herodotus, and appears in some editions of his history; but it is now deemed spurious. See Schmidt, De Herodotea quae fertur Vita Homeri, 2 pts. (1874-75). Manuscripts.-Of forth-six MSS. containing a whole or a portion of Herodotus, five, which are of superior age and excellence, form the basis of the accepted text. These represent two "families," to one of which belong the Codex Florentinus or Mediceus of the Laurentian Library at Florence, dating from the tenth century, a Codex Romanus of the eleventh century, and a second Codex Florentinus, also of the eleventh century. To the other family belong a Codex Parisinus, beautifully written, of the thirteenth century, and a third Codex Romanus of the fourteenth century, lacking, however, the Fifth Book. Of this, also, the text of the First Book has been considerably altered, possibly in order to adapt the work to the use of schools. An account of the MSS. is given by Stein in his edition mentioned below. Bibliography.-The editio princeps of Herodotus is that of Aldus (1502). Standard critical editions are those of Schweighäuser, 5 vols. (Strassburg, 1816); Gaisford (Oxford, 1840); Stein (Berlin, 1869); and Dietsch (Leipzig, 1874). Good commentaries are those of Bähr in Latin (Leipzig, 1856); Blakesley (London, 1854); Stein in German (Berlin, 1877), and Rawlinson (London, 1858); also Abicht in German (1876). English translations have been made by Rawlinson, 4 vols. (2d ed. 1862), and G. C. Macaulay, 2 vols. (London, 1890). A valuable Lexicon Herodoteum is that of Schweighäuser (London, 2d ed. 1824). Very useful are the appendices to Prof. Sayce's edition of Bks. I.-III. (London, 1883). On the dialect, see Abicht, Uebersicht über den herodoteischen Dialect (3d ed. Leipzig, 1874); and Merzdorf, Quaestiones Grammaticae de Dialecto Herodotea (Leipzig, 1875). Stein's introduction on the dialect in his school edition is admirable; also Smyth in his Sounds and Inflections of the Greek Dialects (1894). On the sources of his history, see the monographs of Panofsky (1865) and K. W. Nitzsch (1871). On his travels, see the works already cited in the text.

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