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In Defence of the Greek Historians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

P. J. Rhodes
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Extract

I began the oral version of this paper by remarking that it was a great honour and pleasure to have been invited to visit the place in which it was delivered and to address my audience – and asking my audience to remember that I had said that.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , October 1994 , pp. 156 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

Notes

1. It was indeed an honour and a pleasure to be invited to speak on this subject to the Classical Association of Scotland in 1991, the University of Liège in 1992 and the University of Bochum in 1993; and I thank all of those who invited me, listened to me, and discussed the subject with me.

A French translation of this paper was published in the series Faculté Ouverte (U. de Liège: Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres: Conférences, Débats, Dossiers) in 1992 and reprinted in Cahiers de Clio 116 (Winter 1993), 3.26; a Russian translation is to be published in Antičnosti Europi.

2. Arethusa 20 (1987)Google Scholar.

3. London, 1988.

4. (ARCA 21) Leeds, 1989. Original edition Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot (Berlin & New York, 1971)Google Scholar.

5. London, 1989.

6. Herodotus and the Invention of History, 261.

7. Herodotus and his ‘Sources’, p. 149 = Die Quellenangaben, p. 110.

8. HSCPh 82 (1978), 45–62Google Scholar; 84 (1980), 51–74; JARCE 15 (1980), 59–73Google Scholar; Herototus' Autopsy of the Fayoum (Amsterdam, 1985)Google Scholar.

9. Cf. Gray, V.J., The Character of Xenophon's Hellenica (London, 1989), viiiGoogle Scholar: ‘I believe that the value of written history is the discovery of the mentality of the writer and the society that produced the writer. This is worth far more to me than the knowledge of the strategy that won the battle of Cyzicus.’

10. For a good critique of the ‘post-modernist’ history which tries to undermine the validity of history as traditionally practised see Himmelfarb, G., Times Literary Supplement 16.x.1992, 12–15.Google Scholar Among recent approaches to the problem of truth in ancient historians which are both sensitive and sympathetic I would mention Pelling, C. B. R. in Russell, D. A. (ed.), Antonine Literature (Oxford, 1990), pp. 19–52Google Scholar; Moles, J. L. in Gill, C. & Wiseman, T. P. (edd.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter, 1993), pp. 88–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an impassioned case-by-case riposte to Fehling and other critics of Herodotus see Pritchett, W. K., The Liar School of Herodotos (Amsterdam, 1993)Google Scholar.

11. Berlin & New York, 1989.

12. Thucydides Book VI and Thucydides Book VII (Oxford, 1965), ivGoogle Scholar.

13. Her. 1. praef.

14. [Long.] De Subl. 13.3.

15. Her. 7.129.4.

16. Her. 2.21.

17. E.g. Her. 8.20; 7.12–19; 8.65; 8.129.3.

18. E.g. Her. 4.181–92.

19. Her. 1. praef.

20. Her. 2.99.1; 3.115.2, 4.16.1; 3.123.1, 4.195.2, 7.152.3.

21. Phoen. Supp. 23 (1989).

22. Her. 8.65.

23. Her. 4.187.3; 191.4.

24. Her. 4.25.1.

25. Her. 4.42–3.

26. Her. 3.12.

27. Her. 4.(5–)11–12.

28. E.g. Her. 1.5.3, 3.122.2, with Shimron, B., Eranos 51 (1973), 45–51Google Scholar.

29. Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 123–31Google Scholar. Cf. also Ruschenbusch, E., Hist. 41 (1992), 387Google Scholar.

30. Her. 2.(112–)120.

31. Her. 6.121–4.

32. Oral Tradition, esp. pp. 281–2, 284–5.

33. We can best save his reputation by supposing that he has in fact based a single description on two monuments: Cook, J. M., Türk. Ark. Derg. 6.2 (1956), 59–65Google Scholar; Smith, D. N., Herodotos and the Archaeology of Asia Minor: A Hisloriographic Study (Diss. Berkeley, 1987), pp. 231–2Google Scholar; cf. the uncharacteristically sympathetic treatment of West, S. R., Hist. 41 (1992), 117–20Google Scholar.

34. Hesp. 8 (1939), 59–65Google Scholar = Meiggs & Lewis 6 = Fornara 23, frag, c, contr. Her. 6.123.1. Thomas, , Oral Tradition, pp. 148–51Google Scholar, suggests that the Alcmaeonids did not go into exile at all under the tyranny, but I think that is excessive scepticism.

35. Smith, , Herodotos and the Archaeology of Asia Minor. At p. 255Google Scholar he remarks, ‘The Herodotos of Fehling, Armayor and West is a fantasy that we can confidently put to rest’

36. Lewis, D. M. in his Postscript to Burn, A. R., Persia and the Greeks (London, 1984)Google Scholar.

37. Thuc. 1.22.4.

38. Thuc. 1.22.2–3, 20.3, 20.1.

39. Eg. Thuc. 2.47.4.

40. Thuc. 1.3, 5–6, 8, 10.1–2, 10.3–4.

41. Thuc. 6.54.7, 55.1–2.

42. Thuc. 1.132.2–3 (for the replacement text see SIG 3 31 = Meiggs & Lewis 27 = Fornara 59); 128.6–129.

43. But notice Thuc. 2.5.4–7, 6.60.2, 8.87.

44. Thuc. 1.23.5.

45. Eg. Thuc. 1.23.1–3; 2.29; 2.102.5–6.

46. Thuc 1.1.1.

47. Thuc 1.23.3, 5.26.3–4.

48. Thuc. 5.84–116; 6–7.

49. IG i3 364 = Meigs & Lewis 61 = Fornara 126, with Thuc. 1.45.2, 51.4.

50. Andr. FGrH 324 F 43, Ath. Pol. 29.2; also Philoch. FGrH 328 F 16.

51. IG i3 83 = Tod 72, with Thuc. 5.47.

52. Thuc. 5.26.5, cf. 4.104–6.

53. Hobbes, T., ‘Of the Life and History of Thucydides’, introduction to his Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre … (London, 1629)Google Scholar (in The English Works ed. Molesworth, W., viii [London, 1843], p. xxiiGoogle Scholar); Kitto, H. D. F., Poiesis (Sather Lectures, 36. Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1966), esp. pp. 257–354 ch. 6Google Scholar.

54. Thuc 1.22.1–2, cf. Marincola, J. M., CP 84 (1989), 216–23Google Scholar.

55. E.g. de Ste Croix, G. E. M., The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972), pp. 7–11Google Scholar.

56. ILS 212 = Smallwood, E. M., Documents Illustrating the Principals of Gaius, Claudius and Nero (Cambridge, 1967), 369Google Scholar = Sherk, R. K., Translated Documents of Greece and Rome, 6. The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian (Cambridge, 1988), 55Google Scholar, with Tac. Ann. 11.24.

57. Toronto, 1973.

58. Thucydides, the Artful Reporter, pp. 11–21.

59. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, pp. 32–40.

60. AJAH 5 (1980), 64–96, 110–33Google Scholar.

61. Hermes 115 (1987), 154–65Google Scholar.

62. Originally in Allison, J. W. (ed.), Conflict, Antithesis and the Ancient Historian (Columbus, 1990), pp. 46–91Google Scholar with 165–81: quotations from pp. 91, 56, 58. Revised in Badian's, From Plataea to Potidaea (Baltimore, 1993), pp. 125–62Google Scholar with 223–36: quotations from pp. 162, 133, 134.

63. See especially Harding, P. E. in Phoen. 28 (1974), 282–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hist. 25 (1976), 186–200Google Scholar; Hist. 26 (1977), 148–60Google Scholar; cf. Phoen. 28 (1974), 101–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; AJAH 3 (1978), 179–83Google Scholar.

64. See my discussion of the Atthides in Verdin, H. et al. (edd.), Purposes of History (Studia Hellenistica, 30. Louvain, 1990), pp. 73–81Google Scholar.

65. E.g. Polyb. 2.56, 3.33.17–18, 47.6–48, 12.25b, 25e.

66. E.g. Tuplin, C. J. in Moxon, I. S. et al. (edd.), Past Perspectives (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 37–66Google Scholar; Gray, V. J., Hermes 95 (1987), 72–89Google Scholar. Buckler, J. M., Ath. 2 60 (1982), 180–204Google Scholar, suggests that even his speeches bear some relationship to what was actually said (contr. Vorrenhagen, E., De Orationibus quae sunt in Xenophontis Hellenicis [Diss. Münster. Elberfeld, 1926])Google Scholar.

67. E.g. Gray, The Character of Xenophon's Hellenica.

68. E.g. Grayson, C. H. in The Ancient Historian and his Materials … C. E. Stevens (Farnborough, 1975), pp. 31–43Google Scholar; cf. Gray, , The Character of Xenophon's Hellenica, pp. 6–9Google Scholar, etc., on his interest in moral principles.

69. Soulis, E. M., Xenophon and Thucydides (Diss. Bristol. Athens, 1972), pp. 32–8Google Scholar.

70. Xen. Hell. 2.3.56, 5.1.4, 7.2.1 (contr. the conventional remark in 4.8.1); with Usher, S., The Historians of Greece and Rome (London, 1969), pp. 93–9Google Scholar; Rahn, P. J., TAPA 102 (1971), 497–508Google Scholar.

71. London, 1936 (21946).

72. Cf. Arist, . Eth. Nic. 1.1094 b 11–27Google Scholar.