Herodotus - Narrator, Scientist, Historian PDF
Preview Herodotus - Narrator, Scientist, Historian
Herodotus – narrator, scientist, historian Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Associate Editors Evangelos Karakasis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Jonas Grethlein · Philip R. Hardie Stephen J. Harrison · Richard Hunter · Christina Kraus Giuseppe Mastromarco · Gregory Nagy Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone Tim Whitmarsh · Bernhard Zimmermann Volume 59 Herodotus – narrator, scientist, historian Edited by Ewen Bowie ISBN 978-3-11-058153-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-058355-7 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-058210-9 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Preface This volume assembles the written versions of papers which their authors were invited to deliver at a conference at the European Cultural Centre of Delphi planned for 3 – 6 July 2015. The outcomes of the referendum called by the Prime Minister of Greece in late June included the temporary closure of banks and the imposition of capital controls, and the Director of the European Cultural Centre cancelled the conference four days before it was due to start. Those who had been asked in March 2015 to organise it at very short notice were not consulted on whether cancellation was necessary, and it will be for future historians to decide whether prudence or irrational panic prevailed. Despite the frustration, incon- venience and in some cases financial loss incurred by the Greek and international scholars who had accepted the invitation to participate, almost all have agreed to offer their papers for this volume, which is hoped to be a κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί more than compensating for the loss of the ἀγωνίσματα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν. One or two were, understandably, not in a position to do so, and an extra paper has been solicited from a distinguished scholar who had been invited but had a prior commitment for early July. The book’s focus remains that of the projected conference: Herodotus: narra- tor scientist historian. Its papers explore, from different angles and employing dif- ferent but complementary methodologies, how one of our greatest writers of Greek prose enlisted for his project techniques of investigation and modes of ex- planation current in the contemporary intellectual world, where both were being developed in geographical and medical writing, in other departments of what we would call ‘natural science’, and in rhetoric and related discussions of literature and language; how he works in different ways with non-Greek (especially Egyp- tian) traditions and with elements in Greeks’ accounts of their past that we would classify as ‘myths’ or ‘folk tales’; and how in his presentation (ἀπόδεξις) of the results of his enquiry (ἱστορίη) he emerges as a brilliant narrator as well as thoughtful and provocative analyst of events and objects, often using the latter to mould readers’ assessments of the former. That combination of investigation, analysis, explanation and artistic presentation in superbly crafted prose gave birth to the first work to bring together the qualities that have ever since been seen as essential to ‘history’. The papers have been arranged under the very broad categories ‘Narrator’, ‘Scientist’ and ‘Historian’. But few could not have been put in a different category, and many, like Herodotus himself, straddle all three. To his huge and diverse masterpiece Herodotus attached a preface of only forty words. Like that preface, these paragraphs do not offer a pedestrian digest VI � Preface of what will follow but invite curious readers to set out on a journey of stimuli and illumination. Ewen Bowie Mykonos August 2017 Contents I. Narrator John Marincola Ὁμηρικώτατος? Battle Narratives in Herodotus � 3 Angus Bowie Herodotus the story-teller � 25 K. Scarlett Kingsley Justifying Violence in Herodotus’ Histories 3.38: Nomos, King of All, and Pindaric Poetics � 37 P. J. Finglass Sophocles’ Oedipus and Herodotus’ Periander � 59 Ioannis M. Konstantakos Time, Thy Pyramids: The Novella of Mycerinus (Herodotus 2.129–134) � 77 Gregory Nagy Herodotus on queens and courtesans of Egypt � 109 II. Scientist Vasiliki Zali Herodotus mapping out his genre: the interaction of myth and geography in the Libyan logos � 125 Reinhold Bichler Herodotus the geographer � 139 Nikolay P. Grintser Herodotus as a literary critic � 157 Paul Demont Herodotus on Health and Disease � 175 VIII � Contents III. Historian Christopher Pelling Causes in competition: Herodotus and Hippocratics � 199 Smaro Nikolaidou-Arabatzi ἱστορέειν and θωμάζειν: scientific terms and signs of unity in Herodotus’ Histories � 223 Maria G. Xanthou Χρυσός, χρόνος, and κλέος: objects of gold, cognition, ambiguity, and authority in Herodotus’ Lydian logos � 243 Rosalind Thomas Truth and authority in Herodotus’ narrative: false stories and true stories � 265 List of Contributors � 285 Bibliography � 289 Index locorum � 317 Index of names and subjects � 334 � I. Narrator
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