A Greek of Caria, born a Persian subject, one generation after the war he recounts — close enough to question the veterans' children, too late to have seen it himself. He traveled the record's own map — Egypt to Elephantine, Tyre, the Black Sea coasts — and gathered the rest by ear, in the sanctuaries and market-places where the stories were kept.
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
c. 484 – c. 425 BCE · life dates approximate · 1 work served · 1,578 episodes · 233,815 words receipt — the witness cards
Both years are the tradition's arithmetic, not anyone's record: the birth date rests on a late citation, and the commentary's own audit reads such literary dates as reckonings backward from famous events. His book knows the opening years of the Peloponnesian war and nothing later.
The life the tradition hands down is late and thin: its main source is a Byzantine lexicon compiled some fifteen centuries after him. The commentary serves it as tradition, never as record.
The main source of our information as to H., apart from his works, is the notice in SuidasHow & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 1 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
The birth year everyone repeats — 484 — is a late citation of a citation, and the commentary's own footnote says what such dates are worth.
Greek chronology, especially so far as it concerns private persons, has always been a matter of calculation, not of definite record.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 2 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
Rawlinson opens his Life of Herodotus by refusing to pretend one can be written.
The data are so few — they rest upon such late and slight authority; they are so improbable or so contradictory, that to compile them into a biography is like building a house of cards, which the first breath of criticism will blow to the ground. Still certain points may be approximately fixedRawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. I (2nd ed., 1862), p. 1 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
He states the edge of his own knowledge like a surveyor: he went as far as Elephantine himself; past it, question and hearsay.
I was unable to learn anything from anyone else, but this much further I did learn by the most extensive investigation that I could make, going as far as the city of Elephantine to look myself, and beyond that by question and hearsay.Hdt. 2.29 The Histories · Herodotus
The commentary's audit of his evidence: mostly oral tradition, gathered a generation after the events — the war as the combatants told it to their children.
The fact that his evidence was largely oral has a very important bearing on the character of the narrative; this represents the popular traditions of the past, whether the remote past of Egypt, as told in the streets of Memphis or in connexion with the shrines of Ptah (cf. App. X. 10), or the recent story of the Persian wars, as narrated by the Greek combatants to their children.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 28 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
Three informants get names in nine books; the commentary reads the three as three kinds of evidence, and can go no further.
gives us the names of his informants ; these are Archias the Spartan (iii. 55. 2), Tymnes at Olbia (iv. 76. 6)How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 29 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
The program, sentence one: memory against time, glory Greek and barbarian both, and the cause of the war.
This is the display of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus , so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, and that great and marvelous deeds, some displayed by the Hellenes, some by the barbarians, not lose their glory, including among others what was the cause of their waging war on each other.Hdt. 1.1 The Histories · Herodotus
Offered rival national versions of the oldest quarrels, he declines to referee myth and starts from what he himself can know — the record's founding act of source criticism.
For my part, I shall not say that this or that story is true, but I shall identify the one who I myself know did the Greeks unjust deeds, and thus proceed with my history, and speak of small and great cities of men alike. For many states that were once great have now become small; and those that were great in my time were small before.Hdt. 1.5 The Histories · Herodotus
His three instruments, named in one line — sight, judgment, inquiry — and the exact seam where hearsay begins, marked for the reader.
So far, all I have said is the record of my own autopsy and judgment and inquiry. Henceforth I will record Egyptian chronicles, according to what I have heard, adding something of what I myself have seen.Hdt. 2.99 The Histories · Herodotus
The reporting law of the whole book: record the telling, withhold the belief.
As for myself, although it is my business to set down that which is told me, to believe it is none at all of my business. This I ask the reader to hold true for the whole of my historyHdt. 7.152 The Histories · Herodotus
The Histories came through entire — nine books, filed by later readers under the names of the nine Muses. The founding shelf of this house, and of the craft.
Nine books came through entire; the tradition knows their span and even their starting point.
wrote a history in nine books, beginning with Cyrus the Persian and Candaules king of the LydiansHow & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 1 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
Thucydides never names him — and continued him: the next history on the shelf begins where his ends.
it is also pretty clear that he underestimated him; but he wrote his own history to continue that of H., taking up the story at the capture of Sestos.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 36 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
The next generation split over him: Ctesias built a career on attacking him; Xenophon paid him the quiet compliment.
the virulence of Ctesias’ mendacious attack. On the other hand, Xenophon pays H. the compliment of imitating his phrases.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 37 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
The referee's summary of the whole reception: the fame has never stopped being a fight.
The fame of H. has continued to be a battle-ground ever since, wherever classical literature has been studied.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 37 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
On the standing charge of malice, the commentary's audit opens from his fairness to the enemy.
A striking proof may be found in his fairness to foreigners and to enemies ; he is free from the ordinary Greek contempt for barbariansHow & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 37 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
Where the bias actually lives, by the audit: gratitude to the cities that housed him, and a readiness to believe his hosts.
His very simplicity predisposed him to place a ready confidence in his authorities and to accept as trustworthy the stories and beliefs current among the men with whom he lived. This leads him to palliate the treachery of the Samians at Lade (vi. 13), and, more frequently, to become the mirror of Athenian prejudice.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 39 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
Plutarch wrote a whole essay against his 'malice' — the house now serves the attack beside the attacked; the commentary files it as evidence for the defense.
the De Malignitate, in fact, is valuable if indirect testimony to H.’s good sense and fairness.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 39 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
The served record pushes back in person: Plutarch, at Plataea, refusing him the last word.
Astonishing, therefore, is the statement of Herodotus, where he says that these one hundred and fifty nine represented the only Hellenes who engaged the enemy, and that not one of the rest did so. Surely the total number of those who fell, as well as the monuments erected over them, testifies that the success was a common one.Plut. Aristides 19 Aristides · Plutarch
The second standing charge — the marvels — the commentary grants, without letting it void his testimony on the war.
The second charge against H. is that he has a foolish fondness for the marvellousHow & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 44 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
The audit's bottom line: he had criteria, and used them — by his own century's standard, a critical historian.
the fact remains that he had criteria, and that his narrative was a critical one, as judged by the standard of his own day.How & Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, vol. I (1912), p. 34 cited, never reprinted — the apparatus shelf
audit
How & Wells refereeing Herodotus — 1912
read by W. W. How & J. Wells
attack
Plutarch against Herodotus — 1st–2nd century CE
read by Plutarch of Chaeronea
defense
Rawlinson defending Herodotus — essays first published 1858–60; 2nd ed. 1862
read by George Rawlinson
the record itself
He also stands inside the record — named by the other witnesses. Herodotus, the figure.
The record here: 166 works · 12,119 episodes served · profiles carry claims, claims carry grounds — episode, page, or an honest open
lives · deeds · times · the shelf · sources & licenses