Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T02:53:57.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Herodotus on the Trojan War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

James W. Neville
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Herodotus' reputation as a critical historian has been increased by such a wealth of articles and papers recently that it might seem superfluous to add to the bulk of material already available. There are, however, some radical notions embodied in Herodotus' treatment of the Trojan War to which further attention should be drawn.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , April 1977 , pp. 3 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. Myres, J. L., Herodotus, Father of History (Oxford, 1953), pp. 135–6.Google Scholar The East-West conflict is not totally discarded, nor did Hdt. attempt to do so–see e.g. Immerwahr, H. R., Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland, 1966), on 9. 121.Google Scholar The East-West controversy still rages–H. F. Bornitz (Herodot-Studien, Beiträge zum Verständis der Einheit des Geschichtswerks, Berlin, 1968Google Scholar) argues that the whole work was designed as an answer to the charge that the Greeks were entirely responsible for the Persian Wars (conclusion, Part III), for example.

2. Secondo Contributo alla Storia degli Studi Classici, reprinted in Studies in Historiography (London, 1966), as chapter 7–Causes of Wars.Google Scholar

3. This parenthesis follows the conclusions of Powell, J. E. in CQ 29 (1935), 76–7Google Scholar (after Stein: Einl. xlv. n. 6): 2. 116. 4–5 are clearly unsatisfactory as they stand (Hude brackets them in O.C.T. edition), and Powell's suggestion is that they are an afterthought of the historian himself, which he would have amended by including some such note as that suggested to account for the two Odyssey passages.

4. Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry 2 (Oxford, 1967), p. 109.Google ScholarWaddell's, W. G. edition of Book 2 (London, 1939)Google Scholar (largely a reprint of How and Wells (Oxford, 1928) with few additions) makes the erroneous addition of attaching Stesichorus' name to the Helen-in-Egypt version. J. G. Frazer (on Apollodorus, Epitome 3. 5Google Scholar) implies Hdt. first accepted this version.

5. How and Wells on 2. 113; Alan B. Lloyd's commentary on Book 2 is not yet available, but Vol. I, Introduction (Leiden, 1975), has appeared, and convincingly refutes (pp. 127–38) much that has been imputed to Hecataean origins–although no specific reference to this section is made.

6. The originality of Hdt. is further supported by C. W. Fornara's conclusion (JHS 91 (1971), 32Google Scholar) that Hdt. influenced Euripides (Electra 1280–3; Helen), ‘a momentous and pleasing example of the effect of one great artist on another’.

7. Sayce, A. H. (London, 1883)Google Scholar on 2. 116: ‘A parallel would be that Homer knew of the wanderings of Menelaus in Abyssinia, because Egypt bordered on Abyssinia. The logic of Hdt. is as much at fault as his geography.’ On the thoroughness of Hdt.: Sidon is mentioned only three times in the Iliad (6. 290 and 291; 23. 743–the latter insignificant), Egypt only once (9. 382).

8. That Hdt. had almost encyclopedic knowledge of the poets is apparent from the numerous quotations given, as well as phrases which are ‘merely the spontaneous produce of a mind habitually under Homeric influence’ (Mure, W.), Hist. Gr. Lit. (London, 1853), p. 516Google Scholar

9. Schiller is no fortuitous choice here: one of his important aesthetic theories (in Über die tragische Kunst) maintained that historical events can legitimately be altered and manipulated to achieve a dramatic end.

10. Xenophanes and Heraclitus both critized Homer–but as a theologian.

11. Cf. Fornara, , Herodotus, an Interpretative Essay (Oxford, 1971), p. 20–‘Stesichorus' εἴδωλον is whisked out of its insubstantial existence’, though perhaps we are wrong to call it Stesichorus': Σ Lycophron 822 derives it from Hesiod.Google Scholar

12. Homer V (O.C.T.), p. 103, 10–12.Google Scholar

13. Of seventeen references to Helen by name in the Iliad as the ‘cause’ of the war, nine refer to Helen alone (2. 161, 177, 356, 590; 3. 154; 4. 174; 9. 339; 11. 125; 19. 325), eight mention treasure as well as Helen (3. 70, 91, 282, 285, 458; 7.350, 401; 22. 114).

14. Od, 4. 351 states that Menelaus failed to make the right sacrifices to get home: why should he be detained in Egypt? Surely, Troy would be more likely?

15. I have not yet seen Alan B. Lloyd's commentary.

16. In 2. 157 Hdt. reports an even longer siege (twenty-nine years), but within another section in which responsibility for accuracy is carefully avoided. A ten-year duration for Troy seems to have been the norm, but N.B. Il. 24. 765's nineteen years, only intelligible in the light of Apollodorus, Epitome 1. 18.Google Scholar

17. I calculate some 187 wars mentioned (though any such figure must have a subjective element; e.g. are the nine campaigns of Lydia in 1. 14–17 to be taken as separate wars?), for seventy of which Hdt. gives no explicit reason, though this is very often obvious (e.g. the same Lydian campaigns).

18. Davison, J. A. in Companion to Homer (London, 1962), p. 236.Google Scholar

19. 3. 122, 4. 8 ff., 6. 53.

20. Some textual difficulty here: see Hude's note (O.C.T. ad loc.) and How and Wells, App. XIV. 2.

21. τ⋯ Τρωικ⋯ can hardly be in itself disparaging–cf. τ⋯ Μηδικ⋯, Thuc. 1. 3. 3, etc., though its vagueness, in conjunction with phrases like κατ⋯ τ⋯ λεγ⋯μενα is striking.

22. On the vagueness of Hdt.'s chronology, see especially W. den Boer, Mnemosyne 20 (1967), 30–60, where (p. 37) the deficiencies of a ‘3 generations = 100 years’ system are examined.

23. Allen, T. W. (Homer V, p. 140)Google Scholar suggests Hdt. may have derived some material from Nostoi; Strabo 668 informs us Callinus dealt with some of this. The claim of the Maxyes (in oratio obliqua again) is an interesting antecedent for Aeneas!

24. Mysian invasion after the Trojan War: Macan on 7. 20. 2, summarized by How and Wells, ad loc.; before, Vellay, C., Classica et Mediaevalia 8 (1946), 50–9Google Scholar, followed by Ph. -E. Legrand (Budé) on 7. 20. Additionally, Priam's writ ran as far as the River Axius (Il. 2. 849–50); Paeonians served in Priam's army (Il. 2. 848 and 16. 287; cf. Mimnermus fr. 17); Priam saw service against the Phrygians (Il. 3. 184 f.) and went on embassy to Thrace (24. 235), and received reinforcements from Paeonia (21. 154–6). These references would have been familiar to Hdt., and are here appended in support of Hdt.'s dating the Mysian invasion before the Trojan War.

25. Momigliano: ‘We can say that Democedes' advice [sc. to Darius, via Atossa, 3. 134] does not lead to anything; yet we feel that Hdt. would have been wrong not to mention it; it remains one of those imponderable factors …’

26. Mysians etc.: Pindar, Ol. 9. 70 ff.; Aeschylus wrote two plays (Mysians, Telepbus), Sophocles three (Aleadae, Mysians, Gathering of Achaeans), Euripides a very celebrated Telephus (produced 438). Plutarch (Quaest. Conviv. 3.1= Mor. 645E) ascribes a Mysians to Agathon. Proclus (Homer V, p. 104, 4–11) also tells the story (from the Cypria?).

27. The stress in Hdt. is upon Trojan suffering (cf. Euripides' Troades): for Aeschylus (Agamemnon, passim) both sides suffered, for Thucydides the wars of relevance only as regarded from the Greek point of view.

28. Alcman fr. 73D; Ibycus fr. 3D; Alcaeus fr. 42L–P; Semonides (Edmonds, Gk. Elegy and Iambus, Loeb, vol. ii, 224, 115–18); Sappho fr. 16L–P. Herodotus' own historical view is perhaps echoed in the reference Lycurgus makes (c. Leoc. 62).

29. I must express my great indebtedness to Professor M. I. Finley, without whose interest and encouragement this essay would never have been written, and without whose advice and criticism it would have been much less cogent.