How Coherent a Work Are The Histories - Essay Example

How coherent a work are The Histories? Herodotus lived and wrote in the 5th century BCE, at the intersection of Greek and Persian cultures and duringa time of extraordinary intellectual curiosity and change. Successive generations have acclaimed him as the world’s first historian and sometimes also the first anthropologist, and have judged him based on their respective concepts of these disciplines in their time. There has been copious praise as well as criticism but regardless of their position, those who sat in judgement over Herodotus throughout the centuries, have often seen his work as fragmented and digressing into fable and even those who were prepared to step outside the confines of the thinking of their own era, were often not prepared to make more than small concessions about the possible motives, expertise and literary devices found in The Histories. More recent research , however, suggests that, if understood within the intellectual climate of their time, The Histories reveal themselves as the multi-faceted work of a highly intuitive and progressive thinker, who used the past and the present, to record and draw parallels with the complexity of his own time, and who used a plethora of tools at his disposal to inform of the consequences of reliving the past - these were definitely not the rather clumsy, ‘anachrostic’ efforts of an ancient teller of tall stories (De Jong, I. J. F., 2003). Viewed with an appreciation of 5th century philosophy, science, epic heritage, political currents and literary know-how, The Histories is a historical record of high intellectual quality and significance, largely coherent in its aims and with considerable unity, once literary structures and devices have been understood in their ancient context. Although there is perhaps still much to be discovered, evidenced by the considerable amount of research that is continuing to offer new possibilities of understanding this important text. This on-going curiosity is now extending into a much broader field of inquiry and includes research into the uses of language, narration, moral, ethical and judicial concepts, as well as general themes, although the focus of the research has shifted and is no longer done to establish coherence, but aims instead to demonstrate the multiplicity of creative devices that Herodotus had at his disposal. Interest in The Histories has continued throughout the ages and the critiques of Thucydides and Aristotle were followed by others, classical scholars of the first few centuries CE and again, after the so-called dark ages. Given the large body of work that has accumulated around The Histories, it is somewhat surprising that it has taken more than 20 centuries to arrive at a fuller understanding of the work. The reason for this must be sought – post enlightenment - in the slow development of historiography, or better, a philosophy of history. Kirk, Raven and Schofield give a good account of the struggle that preceded the ‘prising loose’ of history from the rigid and self-centred grip of non-historic science and Nietzsche’s role in its liberation (Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E., & Schofield, M., (1999), p. 155-56). History as Nietzsche understood it did not come into its own until the 19th century, with Ranke, to become a scientific discipline that was read at universities and had theoretical underpinnings. Despite this positive development, it was still a big step from the naïve belief that it is possible for historians to ‘show how it as really was’ (Ranke, L., 1824, in Carr, E. H., 1965) to Carr’s 20th century attempt to look at history objectively, from a variety of perspectives. Carr does not disagree openly with Ranke, but he does point out that historians must move beyond mere fact (giving rise to his famous question of what a historical fact is) and try to investigate past events “on (their) own terms” (Carr, 1965 in Cox, M., 2000, p. 286). This cannot have been an easy task and overall it is clear, that 19th and even 20th century historical research suffered from a lack of recognition of the importance of the historical context in understanding past events. But changes did take place and when Carr published his research in the middle of the 20th century, he was doing so in response to developments that were already taking place within the discipline of history. This becomes clear when we look at research conducted by Aly and others, in a new approach to Herodotus searching for a unifying principle in The Histories (Aly in De Jong, I. J. F., 2002, p. 246). It is not clear from de Jong whether or not Aly and his contemporaries acknowledged the existence of an aim in Herodotus, but, if they did, they clearly did not believe that this aim constituted a unifying principle. Aly did indeed look to literary structures outside his own historical period and to other genres to deal with the frequent ‘excursions’ Herodotus makes into historical, geographical or moral stories. He believed to have discerned some similarity with ‘framing narratives’ from folktales and proposed that the tales in The Histories function as a framing device for the entire work. This was not particularly helpful as it still left Herodotus, in the words of de Jong, as “a naïve story teller who got carried away by his own stories” (De Jong, I. J. F., 2002, p. 250). Nevertheless these attempts do show that historiography was becoming more creative in looking for solutions, and that scholars were dissatisfied with identifying Herodotus as a mere storyteller, seeking to reconcile possible aims with potentially unifying elements. It is strange that both aim and unifying elements should have so puzzled scholars, few apparently being able to discern any clear objective at all within the text. This had already been the case closer to the time of Herodotus, with the first one among these being a contemporary, Thucydides, who suggested that Herodotus had failed to produce a ‘ktēma es aei’, a possession for all time’ (Thucydides 1.22.4 in Bakker, E. J., 2002, p. 31), who believed that it was impossible to write a history of even the most recent past and that only eyewitness reports were reliable records (Thucydides 1.1). This suggested that The Histories were lacking in serious aim because they were based on a faulty understanding of the tools available to the historian by believing that it was possible to produce reliable evidence of the past – when indeed it was not. Thucydides was also concerned at the absence of a chronology, though this may be explained by the fact that he was, a generation after Herodotus, competing with the dead master for recognition as the foremost historian of his times. It is conceivable that perhaps not a lot of effort went into this analysis, although perhaps not, since despite the total rejection of historical facts (as produced by Herodotus), Thucydides quoted a great many Herodotean historical details of the past in his speeches (Hornblower, S., in De Jong, I. J. F., 2002, p. 384), which seems to point to the fact that he was extremely familiar with them. A century later, Aristotle stigmatised Herodotus as ‘a spinner of tales ‘(Aristotle’s Rhetorica, III, 9.2 (1409a) in Irwin, 1989, p. 120), again suggestive of ‘aimless’ dissemination of information. And yet, the large body of work that constituted The Histories, had in fact a very clear aim, as Herodotus himself tells us at the very beginning, in Book I. In the opening lines of his proem he states that… “… his researches are … set down to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of our own and of other peoples; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict.” (I.1, Penguin Classics 1972 translation, introduction by A R Burn) Bakker (2002, p. 8) points out that this not only represents the scope of the work but that it also foreshadows a heavy emphasis on the past. In fact, Bakker suggests that Herodotus is asking his readers to join him in investigating the past to ascertain the reasons for the conflict, which is, as we understand later, between the Persians and the Athenians. His main aims then are to produce a record of the past, of the ‘wonders’ created by Athenians and others, and to investigate what happened to bring them into conflict with each other. What he does not explicitly spell out, and which later becomes evident from the text, is that he also aims to demonstrate that, if it happened once, it can happen again. Jacoby, writing 20 centuries after Herodotus’ ancient critics, at roughly the same time as Aly, whilst accepting the existence of an aim, still makes every effort to disprove unity of The Histories rather than attempting to prove it. He allowes Herodotus to have originally planned his work, but then shows him to have failed to execute this plan, producing instead a piece of work that lacked a unifying subject as well as unifying structure (Jacoby in De Jong, I. F. H., 2002, p. 245). Jacoby’s view was influential for many decades, and although some defence was mounted, by Aly and others, this trivialised The Histories more than it assisted in clarification. It was not until Pohlenz put his views forward, that there was some scholarly agreement that both aim and unifying element existed, namely the preservation of past deeds on both sides, and the confrontation between ‘Greeks and barbarians’ (Pohlenz in De Jong, I. F. J., 2002, p. 249). But there were other difficulties with The Histories, the most prominent ones being the Herodotean digressions, which Aly had tried to reconcile, with small success. Here too, however, the breakthrough came with Pohlens who posited that these ‘anecdotes’ had the purpose of explaining background, geography, physical features and political undercurrents. Far from being haphazard additions, they were in fact essential for the reader in understanding past and future events (Pohlenz in De Jong, I. F. J., 2002, p. 248). Much more needs to be said about the ‘asides’, their function and own structure, but suffice it here to comment that, far from being random additions, these ‘logoi’1 serve vital purposes. Pohlenz’ research appears to have opened the floodgates. Once there was a serious different interpretation of The Histories out there, scores of scholars attempted to ‘discover’ the unity in Herodotus in all its facets. Of those, Immerwahl was influential because of additional unifying narrative devices he believed Herodotus had used. He discovered ‘ring compositions’ among the logoi, which themselves may have been made up of other logoi – stories within a story, paratactic2 in nature, and something that had previously been dismissed by Fraenkel as ‘unstructured mentality’. Now they were heralded as sophisticated literary devices (Immerwahr; Fraenkel in De Jong, I. J. F., 2002, pp 250-51). Thus Immerwahr had solved the puzzle of those digressional tales that had caused so much consternation among critics. More recently, de Jong has added to these insights by separating the stories into ‘flashbacks’ and ‘flash forwards’, and also by identifying that Herodotus deliberately increased scale and complexity of these ‘asides’ by putting them into the mouth of different orators, thus heightening complications, suggestive of having been composed for a highly sophisticated audience. A particularly good example of the whole strata of narrative devices employed in the narrative units come from De Jong’s analysis of Athenian history 514-499BCE. The total narrative insert is contained in 5.55-97. The historical core element is a short time span in Athenian history, 514-499BCE. Surrounding it is a ring composition “Being compelled to leave, Aristagoras goes to Athens”(97.1), filling in the much needed details on why characters act as they do. Within this framework operates another ring composition, surrounding a core, namely ‘How the Athenians got rid of their tyrant (65.5), providing details of just what the title promises. A further enclosed analepsis3 refers to a dream of Hipparchus, who is subsequently murdered, with the flashbacks triggered by “when Hipparchus had been slain…”, providing the much needed information on what happened before Hipparchus was murdered. Thus, consistently, Herodotus provides information and historical background through the use of these narrative devices (De Jong, I. J. F., 2002, p. 252). De Jong here also clarifies the chronological aspect of the analepsis, seemingly chaotic but in fact highly organised and, if removed from their current resting place and sorted in chronological order, would yield some amazing chronological results. There are some tensions though, between this modern interpretation of ‘chronology’ and the understanding Herodotus might have brought to it. Cobet points to the 5th century BCE unfamiliarity with ‘absolute’ chronology, the way it was later understood in the Christian era. He compares the time of Herodotus to the era of the Old Testament, where time was much more specific to a particular social group and less abstract. Such understanding of chronology was therefore not easily transferable from one event to the next, retrospectively throwing light on the ‘apparent’ absence of the kind of ‘time frame’ that puts peoples and places into mutual context (Cobet p 387- 389, in Bakker, 2002). A previous study by Mosshammer (1979, p. 85, in Cobet, p. 390 op. cit.) on chronology in Eusebius, does in fact start with Herodotus, placing his method of timing between simple genealogy and chronology, although as early as 1956, Strasburger acknowledged that Herodotus had got it right and had managed to reconcile mythical time with real time and placed them into a workable relationship with each other.(Cobet, p. 392, op. cit.). This complexity does to some extent explain the failure of successive scholars to detect a chronological unity in Herodotus, although they may be forgiven when examining the ‘false starts’ at chronology, with rather nebulous time for the ‘heroic’ elements, a short attempt at logging time for a series of abductions and eventually the real start of chronology with Croesus (Cobet, p. 395, op. cit.). But time, as Herodotus understood it, remains complex. Some chronological strands are dealt with in perfect order, such as well-documented dynasties, others are only relevant through their contact with Athens and the ‘touching points’ of cultures, and then there are the ehtne4, for whom time is about beginnings and not relevant otherwise Cobet, pp. 403-404, op. cit.). A detailed analysis of this clearly very complex concept in Herodotean terms is beyond the scope of this paper; suffice it to say that indeed, Herodotus was a competent chronographer who used his understanding of time to draw together strands of history and predictions of the future, all circling to some extent around the main focus - Athens in his own time. Thus it has been conclusively proven that, far from chaotic, The Histories have been crafted by a master, who holds the threads of unity lightly in his hands, threads of aim, of theme and of narrative preparation for a variety of purposes. Redfield has added to this repertoire with his identification of symmetry in Herodotus, but only after a severe struggle. However, once he had combated his initial antipathy towards Herodotus – what he calls his own ethno-centric expectations – he recognised a number of devices that run through The Histories and give it coherence. One of these has to do with elements of culture and Redfield proposes that Herodotus uses diaita, eithea and nomoi5 consistently, to such an extent that they may function as a unifying element. This opinion is tempered, however, by the fact that Redfield initially only interprets this as ‘collecting’ nomoi, and that the relativism arising from the use of these concepts only serves to “reinforce the tourists own norms”. It is only after he has re-evaluated the term theoria as a philosophical concept (rather than as ‘tourism’), that he acknowledges that the tourist can also travel in order to think (Redfield, 1995, page 27-30). No doubt emboldened by this new insight, Redfield went further and examined the use of wonder and symmetry, which he also consistently found as systems in Herodotus. As a particularly interesting example, Redfield cites wonder about ‘cannibalism’, for which he discoveres parallels in a modern text (Redfield, 1995, p. 34). All this is important to Redfield; however, it is how Herodotus treated the contrasts that interests him most. In this device Redfield sees a clear unifying function, in particular in relation to the ‘big’ contrasts, such as hard and soft people. For Redfield this ties in with the main concerns of The Histories, real people on a real map of the world of Herodotus. This helped the writer to identify the dynamics of the different worlds he dealt with, Redfield believes, mythical people of ‘long life’, unchanging, beyond influence and therefore stable, live at the edge of the world, whereas by contrast the centre is a melting pot of cultures, with reciprocal influence upon each other (Redfield, 1995, pp 39-40). He sees this contrast appearing most prominently in “the four generations of the Persian monarchy, which provide the Histories with an integrating chronology” (Redfield, 1995, p. 41). Thus, Redfield acknowledges not only unifying principles but also a chronology in The Histories. There have been other elements in the narrative of Herodotus, which have exited scholars, one of which is ‘reciprocity’. Gould suggests that reciprocity plays a role of such importance in The Histories, that he considers it to be a central and unifying element. Reciprocity allows Herodotus, according to Gould, to connect different elements within the narrative over time, as well as giving him a way to “apportion responsibility”, in the way of an ancient ‘who dunnit’ (Gould, 1989 in Gill, Postlethwait & Seaforth, 1998, 165 pp.), permitting an analysis of causation and offering explanations. Gould places his insights within the context of reciprocity as a 5th century concept of justice and considers it to be the ‘key to Herodotus’ narrative’. What this analysis has aimed to show is that The Histories is a coherent and cohesive work if it is approached from the perspective of a 5th century reader, and that many of the elements which, in previous times, have been criticized and maligned, are in fact highly sophisticated devices that not only hold the story together but lead it, by twists and turns, where the writer wants them to go. Rather than ‘events that have a merely casual relation to each other (Aristotle, Poetics, 23, cf. 9, in de Jong, 2002, p. 265), we are served up finely nuanced parallel worlds, which interact at a prompt, almost giving the impression of a digital matrix, where one false move triggers another and where predictability exists only on a higher plane. Works cited Primary Sources: Penguin Classics 1972 version, with an introduction by A R Burn Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Rex Warner, with an introduction by M. L. Finley (1954) Other Sources: Bakker, E.J. (Ed.). (2002). E. J. Brills Companion to Herodotus. Leiden: Brill. Carr, E. H. (1965). What is History? Hammondsworth: Penguin. Cox, M. (Ed.). (2000). E. H. Carr: A critical Appraisal. London: Palgrave. De Jong, I. J. F., (Ed.). (2002). E. J. Brills Companion to Herodotus. Leiden: Brill. Gould, Gill, C., Postlethwait, N. & Seaford, R., (Ed.). (1998). New Work: Clarendon Oxford Press Hornblower, S., (Ed.). (2002). E. J. Brills Companion to Herodotus. Leiden: Brill. Irwin, T. (1989). Classical Thought: A History of Western Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E., & Schofield, M., (1999). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. London: Cambridge University Press Redfield, J. (1985). Herodotus the Tourist, originally published in Classical Philology 80 (1985), 97 – 118, accessed 1.11.2010 on http://www.shc.ed.ac.uk/classics/undergraduate/ancient/documents/Handout8Herod otusPDF_000.pdf Read More