I have seen editions of The Histories with a sculpted portrait on the cover. Some statue found in a French museum. But I never imagine Herodotus this way. I see him more as one of those spare men of the desert who travel from oasis to oasis, trading legends as if it is the exchange of seeds, consuming everything without suspicion, piecing together a mirage. (The English Patient, p. 118)
Taken from Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel, the above quotation underscores how the widely divergent evaluations of Herodotus remain even in modern times a central feature of his reception. If Herodotus continued to be read in antiquity thanks to the beauty of his style and his account of the past, he was also harshly criticised for overindulging in the fabulous and the improbable. In Herodotus and Imperial Greek Literature K. homes in on how Greeks of the imperial era approached the historian from Halicarnassus as a possible literary model. While K. joins a growing number of scholars, this reviewer included, interested in how later Greeks understood and repurposed their literary heritage, efforts thus far have been largely limited to the reception of poets (e.g. L. Kim, Homer Between History and Fiction [2010]; R. Hunter, Hesiodic Voices [2014]; T. Hawkins, Iambic Poetics in the Roman Empire [2014]). In taking up Herodotus’ imperial afterlife, K.'s excellent study is a welcome addition to the scholarly discussion. Rather than chronicle moments of allusion or quotation, it instead wrestles with the complicated question of the historian's reputation and in the process offers a sophisticated methodology that readers will likely find of use well beyond the specific example of Herodotus’ afterlife.
K. lays out this methodology in the book's introduction. He identifies two primary modes of reception: ‘kinetic reception’ and ‘hypotextual activation’ (pp. 17–20). ‘Kinetic reception’, as he defines it, refers to the relationship between ‘inherited reputation, explicit criticism, and a receiving author's own imitative acts’ (p. 18). As the subsequent chapters explore, interesting tensions and ambiguities can arise when a later author openly rejects certain aspects of an earlier author (e.g. Herodotus), but nonetheless imitates them in their writings. The concept of ‘hypotextual activation’, on the other hand, draws on Gérard Genette's theory of a ‘hypertext’, but is reframed by K. as ‘the moods, nuances, and unresolved opacities … evoked already in the original work or more specifically the part of the text to which a later author makes allusion’ (pp. 18–19). This dual-pronged approach to reception is fruitful because it allows K. to explore simultaneously both the interesting ways in which later Greek writers negotiated Herodotus’ authorial reputation and more conventional instances of literary reception.
As with other studies of this nature, the book explores a range of authors and genres. While each chapter can stand on its own, together they demonstrate how approaches to Herodotus in this period were in fact quite nuanced and complex. The book begins by taking up Herodotus’ reputation, with the first two chapters considering the positive assessments of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In the first chapter, ‘The Ethics of Authorship’, the focus is on Herodotus in Dionysius’ rhetorical writings. Here Dionysius’ preference for Herodotus is shown to go beyond stylistic charm or a simple expression of Hellenism to reflect an interest in issues of authorial ethics and imitation. Chapter 2, ‘Dionysius’ Global Herodotus’, shifts the conversation to Dionysius’ historical project and interest in imperial ideology. K. makes important arguments in this chapter for reading the Roman Antiquities as connected to the rhetorical project of On Ancient Orators.
K. describes Chapter 3, ‘Parallel Authors’, as a diptych to the positive responses evinced by Dionysius. The discussion centres, not surprisingly, on Plutarch's essay On the Malice of Herodotus. As K. rightly observes, it would be a mistake to divorce this essay from the rest of Plutarch's corpus – Herodotus after all is among the most quoted authors by Plutarch. Rather than rehash Plutarch's attempts to correct the historical narrative of Herodotus, K. instead explores how Herodotus provokes Plutarch to develop ideas about traditionalism and the ethics of authorship. Although he mentions the Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander in a footnote, the vitriol that Plutarch directs at the comic poet in that text might prove an interesting point of comparison to the authorial strategies K. highlights in this chapter.
From these examinations of Herodotus’ reputation, the discussion shifts to exploring more literary receptions of the Histories. Chapter 4, ‘Hellenism in the Distance’, offers a fruitful analysis of Dio Chrysostom's Borystheniticus. Dio, as K. shows, exemplifies a not uncomplicated form of reception, expressing an interest more in stories than history (μυθῶδες μᾶλλον ἢ ἱστορικὸν τὸ σύγγραμμα; Or. 18.10) and in the ensuing ambiguity that can result. Here K. does a masterful job of demonstrating how Dio capitalises on this ambiguity through complex narrative structure, among other motifs.
Dio is succeeded by two lively chapters on Lucian. Chapter 6, ‘Removable Eyes’, covers the prolalia Herodotus and Aetion and the well-known True Histories. Here K. homes in on Book 2 of the Histories, which becomes a model of sorts for Lucian in these two texts. In Chapter 7, ‘Anacharsis at Border Control’, we meet the figure of the Scythian Anacharsis, familiar from Herodotus (4.46 and 76–7) and Lucian's Scythian and Anacharsis. Lucian's understudied texts take their inspiration from Herodotus’ report that Anacharsis travelled to Greece and adopted its customs. In the Scythian Anacharsis arrives in Athens, where he meets the ex-pat Toxaris, who introduces him to Solon – a premise that undermines in typical Lucianic fashion Herodotus’ claim that Anacharsis was the first and only Scythian to come to Greece and adopt its customs. Anacharsis and Solon also converse in the Anacharsis, where we are treated to an outsider's perspective on Greek customs and especially gymnastics.
The final two chapters take up the figure of Pausanias. K. is by no means the first to highlight Herodotean resonances in the Periegesis, but he pushes the discussion in new and interesting directions. Chapter 7, ‘Acts of God’, explores the role of the divine in Herodotus and Pausanias, focusing in particular on Pausanias’ tendency to archaise. This discussion is complemented in Chapter 8, ‘Pausanias in Wonderland’, and its account of wonders (θώματα). As K.'s discussion demonstrates, Pausanias’ reception of Herodotus ‘both receives and transforms’ (p. 297). Thus, like Herodotus, Pausanias constructs his narrative through movement in space, but his cognitive space is neither strictly hodological nor chronological. Yet, as K. shows, Pausanias appropriates a ‘Herodotean rhetoric of wonder’ (p. 296) to enliven and reinvent the Greek landscape for his readers as itself a sight of wonder.
A brief epilogue brings the discussion to a close with Longinus and ‘the contingencies of reception’. Beyond toying with the sublime, the epilogue highlights the important themes that are interwoven in this book: ‘ideas of authorship and character, globalism and historical cyclicality, selfhood and foreignness, divinity and wonder’ (p. 334). The book also includes a thorough bibliography, an index locorum and a general index. As a well-edited and beautifully produced book, it is recommended reading for anyone interested in imperial Greek literature, Herodotus or reception studies.
