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THE CYRUS ANECDOTE IN HERODOTUS 9.122
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2020
Extract
The Cyrus anecdote recounted in the final chapter of Herodotus’ Histories (9.122) has received the frequent notice of critics, with particular attention paid to the anecdote's relation to the work as a whole. Scholars have long since noted that the episode involves ‘the intersection of two basic narrative modes on which Herodotus has relied throughout the Histories: ethnographic description and detailed accounts of political activity and decision-making’. Thus scholars have illuminated the significance of the anecdote by comparing it to other thematically related passages in the Histories. Reading the closure of the Histories in terms of didactic enterprise, recent treatments of the anecdote tend to view Herodotus’ use of it as a moral lesson to his contemporary Athenians.
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References
1 Dewald, C., ‘Wanton kings, pickled heroes, and gnomic founding fathers: strategies of meaning at the end of Herodotus’ Histories’, in Roberts, D.H., Dunn, F.M. and Fowler, D.P. (edd.), Classical Closure. Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton, 1997), 62–82, at 72Google Scholar; see already Pohlenz, M., Herodot der erste Geschichtschreiber des Abendlandes (Leipzig, 1937), 163–7Google Scholar. The thematic similarity between 9.122 and the Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places 23–4 has been well known since Stein, H., Herodotos: erklärt von Heinrich Stein, fünfter Band, Buch VIII und IX (Berlin, 1882), 219Google Scholar; for a recent account of this issue, see Thomas, R., Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion (Cambridge, 2000), 107Google Scholar with n. 5. The Greek text quoted in this article is taken from the Oxford edition of Wilson, N.G., Herodoti Historiae (Oxford, 2015)Google Scholar, unless otherwise indicated. Translations are adopted from Waterfield, R., Herodotus: The Histories (Oxford, 2008)Google Scholar, with modifications.
2 Bischoff, H., Der Warner bei Herodot (Marburg, 1932), 78–83Google Scholar; Glaser, K., ‘Das Schlußwort des Herodot’, Commentationes Vindobonenses 1 (1935), 12–20Google Scholar; Cobet, J., Herodots Exkurse und die Frage der Einheit seines Werkes (Wiesbaden, 1971), 174–6Google Scholar; Herington, J., ‘The closure of Herodotus’ Histories’, ICS 16 (1991), 149–60Google Scholar; Pelling, C., ‘East is east and west is west—or are they? National stereotypes in Herodotus’, Histos 1 (1996), 51–66Google Scholar; Dewald (n. 1), 67–73. The scholarly works cited above stand in stark contrast to the earlier thesis that the final chapter of the Histories is not the intended closure by the author; see Lipsius, J.H., ‘Der Schluss des Herodotischen Werks’, Leipziger Studien zur classischen Philologie 20 (1902), 195–202; Pohlenz (n. 1), 163–7Google Scholar.
3 Glaser (n. 2), 12; Moles, J., ‘Herodotus warns the Athenians’, Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 9 (1996), 259–84Google Scholar; Pelling (n. 2); Desmond, W., ‘Punishments and the conclusion of Herodotus’ Histories’, GRBS 44 (2004), 19–40Google Scholar; Welser, C., ‘Two didactic strategies at the end of Herodotus’ Histories (9.108–122)’, ClAnt 28 (2009), 359–85Google Scholar. However, Cobet (n. 2), 76 n. 705, criticizing Glaser (n. 2), 12, rightly argues: ‘Das letzte Kapitel und von da aus das ganze Werk “als eine einzige große ‘Warnrede’ an die Adresse Athens” zu verstehen, geht aber viel zu weit.’
4 Cf. Pelling (n. 2), 61: ‘Such elaborate and suggestive flashbacks are not unknown elsewhere, but we find them in speeches, not presented in the narrator's own voice. This is special, something (surely) held back for a very special position.’
5 On this episode, see Boedeker, D., ‘Protesilaos and the end of Herodotus’ Histories’, ClAnt 7 (1988), 30–48Google Scholar.
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7 Contra, Dewald (n. 1), 67–8, who speaks of ‘a conversation between Artembares, an ancestor of Artayctes the wicked governor of Sestos, and Cyrus the Great’; cf. also Erbse, H., Studien zum Verständnis Herodots (Berlin and New York, 1992), 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Cf. Burn, A.R., Persia and the Greeks (London, 1984), 61Google Scholar. I agree with Krischer, T., ‘Herodots Schlusskapitel, seine Topik und seine Quellen’, Eranos 72 (1974), 93–100Google Scholar and Erbse (n. 7), 43, who point out that the final chapter of the Histories informs us of the compositional intention of the historian rather than the historical Cyrus. But both Krischer and Erbse seem to have failed to recognize the large-scale links between 9.122 and the other short stories about Cyrus in the Histories.
9 Narratologically speaking, the Cyrus anecdote at 9.122 is an internal completing analepsis that takes us back to Herodotus’ Cyrus logos in Book 1. For a narratological account of the Histories, see Jong, I. de, ‘Aspects narratologiques des Histoires d'Hérodote’, Lalies 19 (1999), 217–74Google Scholar. On the Cyrus logos in general, see Avery, H.C., ‘Herodotus’ picture of Cyrus’, AJPh 93 (1972), 529–46Google Scholar; Chiasson, C.C., ‘Myth and truth in Herodotus’ Cyrus logos’, in Baragwanath, E. and de Bakker, M. (edd.), Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 213–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 For the meaning of ἡγεμονίη as ‘empire’, see Wickersham, J., Hegemony and the Greek Historians (Lanham and London, 1994)Google Scholar. See also Stein (n. 1), 218; Asheri, D., Lloyd, A. and Corcella, A., A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–IV (Oxford, 2007), 108Google Scholar.
11 Flower, M.A. and Marincola, J., Herodotus Histories Book IX (Cambridge, 2004), 313Google Scholar.
12 The cited text is C. Hude's Oxford edition (Oxford, 1935). In his critical apparatus ad loc. Hude suggests κατελόντι for the transmitted reading κατελών that he takes as referring back to the dative σοί in the preceding part of the sentence. By contrast, Powell, J.E., ‘Notes on Herodotus–II’, CQ 29 (1935), 150–63, at 163CrossRefGoogle Scholar considers the reading σύ from the MSS DS superior to the reading σοί in two regards: ‘Not only does it secure all that Hude wished by his suggestion of κατελόντι, but it first gives ἀνδρῶν a proper meaning, in opposition to Zeus (θεῶν μὲν Ζεύς). Were σοί correct, ἀνδρῶν would be pointless, and we should desiderate Περσέων in its stead.’ Powell obviously did not know Richards's conjecture, to which Wilson, N.G., Herodotea (Oxford, 2015), 195Google Scholar recently drew our attention: ‘transfer the comma that is usually printed after διδοῖ to follow ἀνδρῶν, and then supply <Περσέων>’. None of these three textual suggestions is convincing. The dative form κατελόντι suggested by Hude is not needed, since the participial construct κατελὼν Ἀστυάγην is better understood as grammatically connected to the vocative Κῦρε rather than to the phrase ἀνδρῶν δὲ σοί. Powell's preference of the reading σύ from the generally less valuable manuscript groups DS is based on his interpretation that the juxtaposition meant in the opening sentence of the proposal is that of gods and men (i.e. Zeus among the gods and Cyrus among the men). But the narrative framework of the anecdote speaks for another kind of juxtaposition that has been rightly understood by Richards: the juxtaposition of a collective group and the group's leader (i.e. the Persians and Cyrus). Most recently, accepting Richards's conjectural suggestions, Wilson printed in his edition ἐπεὶ Ζεὺς Πέρσῃσι ἡγεμονίην διδοῖ ἀνδρῶν, <Περσέων> δὲ σοί, adding the genitive form Περσέων into the text. However, Wilson's conjecture is not compelling either. The transmitted word ἀνδρῶν at 9.122.2 is less puzzling when we take it as an abbreviated form of ἀνδρῶν Περσέων; the abbreviation, it seems, serves to avoid the repetition of Πέρσῃσι in the preceding part of the sentence. One notes that at 1.126.5–6, a passage thematically relevant to the anecdote, Cyrus addresses his fellow Persians as ἄνδρες Πέρσαι.
13 As rightly pointed out by Pelling, C., ‘Educating Croesus: talking and learning in Herodotus’ Lydian logos’, ClAnt 25 (2006), 141–77, at 147Google Scholar, ‘“O king” is the regular mode of address at the court.’ Intimacy is implied in the address ‘O Cyrus’ here, in stark contrast to the emotional address ἄπληστε αἵματος Κῦρε ‘O you bloodthirsty man, Cyrus’ (1.212.2) by the Massagetan queen Dickey, Tomyris. E., Greek Forms of Address (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar provides no comment on our passage.
14 For the interrelationship between the ‘we’-identity and the shared past in terms of ‘intentional history’, see Gehrke, H.-J., ‘Mythos, Geschichte, Politik: antik und modern’, Saeculum 45 (1994), 239–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 See Avery (n. 9), 532–3, who reads 1.125–6 and 9.122 together with special reference to the theme of freedom.
16 Sammons, B., ‘Narrative doublets in the epic cycle’, AJPh 134 (2013), 529–56, at 532–3Google Scholar. Important works on the theme include Otterlo, W.A.A. van, Untersuchungen über Begriff, Anwendung und Entstehung der griechischen Ringkomposition (Amsterdam, 1944)Google Scholar; Groningen, B.A. van, La composition littéraire archaïque grecque: Procédes et realisations (Amsterdam, 1958)Google Scholar; Schadewaldt, W., Iliasstudien (Berlin, 1966), 150–1Google Scholar; Fenik, B., Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad: Studies in the Narrative Techniques of Homeric Battle Description (Wiesbaden, 1968)Google Scholar; Fenik, B., Studies in the Odyssey (Wiesbaden, 1974)Google Scholar.
17 Rutherford, R.B., ‘Structure and meaning in epic and historiography’, in Foster, E. and Lateiner, D. (edd.), Thucydides and Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 13–38, at 25Google Scholar. See already Reinhardt, K., ‘Herodots Persergeschichten’, Geistige Überlieferung. Ein Jahrbuch 1 (1940), 138–84Google Scholar.
18 This point has been made by Stein (n. 1), 218.
19 Flower and Marincola (n. 11), 312.
20 Macan, R.W., Herodotus: The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Books (London, 1908), 828Google Scholar. Cf. also Demand, N.H., Urban Relocation in Archaic and Classical Greece (Norman and London, 1990), 184 n. 11Google Scholar.
21 Asheri, D., Erodoto, Le Storie Libro IX La battaglia di Platea (Milano, 2006), 343Google Scholar: ‘che si ricollegasse all'inizio dell'epopea achemenide, o che strutturasse l'intera opera come un'opera di Persika’.
22 Immerwahr, H.R., Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland, 1966), 146 n. 190Google Scholar.
23 Dewald (n. 1), 72.
24 See Chiasson (n. 9).
25 Flower and Marincola (n. 11), 311–12: ‘There is something of disparity between the Persians’ choice in this story, and those they make elsewhere. In 1.126.5 H. portrays Cyrus as inciting the Persians to win their freedom so that they may have countless pleasures without the need for servile labour. This is not so much a contradiction with the present passage as a recognition that empire brings certain benefits.’
26 Summarized in Asheri (n. 21), 344.
27 Sandanis’ advice displays exact verbal parallelism (χώρην ἔχοντες τρηχέαν, 1.71.2; ὀλίγην καὶ ταύτην τρηχέαν, 9.122.2); see Pelling (n. 2), 62.
28 Baragwanath, E., Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2008), 289CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Pelling, C., ‘Speech and narrative’, in Dewald, C. and Marincola, J. (edd.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge and New York, 2006), 103–21, at 113–14; Baragwanath (n. 28), 235–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 The use of the term is coined by Bischoff (n. 2) and Lattimore, R., ‘The wise adviser in Herodotus’, CPh 34 (1939), 24–35Google Scholar; the latter distinguishes between ‘The Tragic Warner’ and ‘The Practical Adviser’. Both Bischoff and Lattimore describe Cyrus in the final chapter of the Histories as a ‘warner’.
31 Flower and Marincola (n. 11), 313; Asheri (n. 21), 343.
32 Avery (n. 9), 541.
33 I do not claim that in Cyrus’ last expedition Croesus can be blamed for his downfall. On the interpretation of this episode, see Stahl, H.P., ‘Learning through suffering? Croesus’ conversations in the history of Herodotus’, YClS 24 (1975), 1–36Google Scholar; Shapiro, S., ‘Learning through suffering. Human wisdom in Herodotus’, CJ 89 (1994), 349–55Google Scholar; Pelling (n. 13).
34 Stahl (n. 33), 22.
35 Avery, H.C., ‘A poetic word in Herodotus’, Hermes 107 (1979), 1–9, at 4Google Scholar.
36 Jacoby, F., ‘Herodotos’, RE Suppl. 2 (1913), 205–520, at 376Google Scholar: ‘Am Schluss eines Werkes, das uns zeigen soll, wie die Macht dieses Reiches zerschellt ist an dem Nationalgefühl und der Macht Athens … wäre diese Anekdote nicht bloss unpassend, sondern unmöglich und eines denkenden Menschen unwürdig. Also ist das Werk unvollendet.’
37 The phrase is quoted from Immerwahr (n. 22), 76. This theme has been well demonstrated in Herodotean scholarship. Cf. Immerwahr, H.R., ‘Historical action in Herodotus’, TAPhA 85 (1954), 16–45Google Scholar; Immerwahr (n. 22), 76–8; Stahl, H.P., ‘Herodots Gyges-Tragödie’, Hermes 96 (1968), 385–400Google Scholar; Stahl (n. 33); Stadter, P.A., ‘Herodotus and the Athenian Arche’, ASNP 22 (1992), 781–809Google Scholar; and Saïd, S., ‘Herodotus and tragedy’, in Bakker, E.J., de Jong, I.J.F. and van Wees, H. (edd.), Brill's Companion to Herodotus (Leiden and Boston, 2002), 117–47Google Scholar.
38 Glaser (n. 2); cf. the scholarly works quoted in n. 3.
39 Moles (n. 3), 277; cf. Raaflaub, K., ‘Herodot und Thukydides: persischer Imperialismus im Lichte der athenischen Seebundpolitk’, in Ehrhardt, N. and Günther, L.-M. (edd.) Widerstand- Anpassung-Integration: die griechische Staatenwelt und Rom: Festschrift für Jürgen Deininger zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 2002), 11–40Google Scholar.
40 Irwin, E., ‘The end of the Histories and the end of the Atheno-Peloponnesian Wars’, in Harrison, T. and Irwin, E. (edd.), Interpreting Herodotus (Oxford, 2018), 279–334, at 280Google Scholar.
41 Irwin (n. 40), 279 suggests that ‘the last logoi of Herodotus’ Histories have been designed both to allude to the end of the Atheno-Peloponnesian Wars, that is, to Athens’ devastating defeat at Aegospotami, and to function as a retrospective on Pericles, the figure whose policies and ambitions were most responsible for the war's outbreak and also for Athens’ ultimate defeat owing to the Athenians’ commitment to them long after his death.’ While her first point entails a radically late date of the Histories which seems to me unlikely, her second point is enlightening. For the date of the Histories, cf. also Irwin, E., ‘The hybris of Theseus and the date of the Histories’, in Dunsch, B. and Ruffing, K. (edd.), Herodots Quellen—Die Quellen Herodots (Wiesbaden, 2013), 7–84Google Scholar, with a good bibliography on the theme.
42 I would like to thank the CQ anonymous reader and Professor Patrick Finglass for their constructive criticisms. I also thank Dr Lydia Lee for polishing my English. An earlier version was read in a lecture delivered at Peking University, in October 2017, and I thank all those who gave feedback on that occasion. I am grateful to Dr Wei Cheng for inviting me.