Reception — how the record has been read; the house quotes the fighters and picks no side

Rawlinson defending Herodotus

defense · essays first published 1858–60; 2nd ed. 1862 · dated secure · ascription secure receipt — the reception record

The 1862 editor answers the assailants before serving the text: a chapter on the merits and defects of Herodotus that concedes credulity — and then holds the line on honesty, calling the malice charge back on the man who made it.

The reader / the read — who reads, and who stands accused or defended

the reader

George Rawlinson — 1812–1902.

the read

Herodotus of Halicarnassus, The Histories. his witness card. The target is served: The Histories.

The reader's stance — his own method, in his own words

The defense files its brief in the chapter head itself: diligence, honesty, impartiality — against 'all attacks.'

Merits of Herodotus as an historian: 1, Diligence. 2, Honesty — Failure of all attacks on his veracity. 3. Impartiality — Charges of prejudice — Remarkable instances of candour. Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. I (2nd ed., 1862), p. 59 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf

The charges and the findings — blow by blow; where the struck passage is served, it stands beside the blow

The defense concedes the defects: credulity, over-striving after effect — the assailants' true ground, granted. charge

1. Credulity, or an undue love of the marvellous, whether in religion, in nature, or in the habits of men ; 2. An over-striving after effect, leading to exaggerations, contradictions, and an excessive infusion of the anecdotical element into his work Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. I (2nd ed., 1862), p. 71 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf

Ctesias' motive exposed: the first attacker hoped to raise his own reputation on the ruins of his predecessor's. rebuttal

Ctesias seems to have introduced his own work to the favourable notice of his countrymen by a formal attack on the veracity of his great predecessor,^ upon the ruins of wdiose reputation he hoped to establish his own. Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. I (2nd ed., 1862), p. 61 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf

The malice charge reversed: the attack 'has rebounded on himself,' certifying how few real errors criticism could find. rebuttal

The unfairness and prejudice of that writer is so manifest that perhaps he has rather done our author a service than an injury, by showing how few real errors could be detected in his narrative even by the most lynx-eyed criticism. His charge of " malignity " has rebounded on himself Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. I (2nd ed., 1862), p. 63 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf

The prejudice charges dismissed on the whole record: not fairly taxable with malignity toward any Greek state. rebuttal

These charges of prejudice and illwill therefore fall to the ground when tested by a general examination of the whole work of Herodotus, and it does not appear that he is fairly taxable with "malignity," or even harshness in his treatment of any Greek state. Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. I (2nd ed., 1862), p. 66 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf

The verdict — the reading's own summary, never the house's

The verdict claimed for modern criticism: 'decidedly against the assailants.'

The writers who have followed in the wake of these two assailants of Herodotus can scarcely be said to have succeeded any better in their attacks on his veracity. The deliberate judgment of modem criticism on the subject is decidedly against the assailants Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. I (2nd ed., 1862), p. 64 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf

The aftermath — how this reading has itself been read

Fifty years on, the next referees weigh him in turn: on the Scythian expedition Rawlinson 'defends with some hesitation' — the defender himself now on the stand.

Rawlinson (iii. 112-14) defends with some hesitation the historical value of the Herodotean narrative. How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 429 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf

The record here: 166 works · 12,119 episodes served · a reception entry asserts that a named reader read the record this way — never that the reading is right · every blow carries its receipt; the struck passages await their serving

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