Myth Truth and Narrative in Herodotus Hi PDF

2
Myth, Truth,
& Narrative
in Herodotus
r
edited by
Emily Baragwanath & Mathieu de Bakker
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M Y T H , TR U T H , AN D N A R R A T I V E I N
HERODOTUS

Myth, Truth, and

Narrative in Herodotus
Edited by
EMILY BARAGWANATH AND
MATHIEU DE BAKKER
1
3
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Preface and Acknowledgements
In this volume we take as our point of departure the one element on

which all those who seek to define the meaning of ‘myth’ in Herodo-
tus agree: its narrative character, which it shares with all works of the
ancient historiographical tradition. Our present era has witnessed a
kind of rebirth of the appreciation of narrative in historiography. This
may be attested by the work of such writers as Simon Schama, Niall
Ferguson, and Tom Holland, who present their investigations into the
past through an engaging, fluent narrative that appeals to a wider
audience. But the blurring of boundaries between ‘story’ and ‘history’
is visible in other genres too. A. S. Byatt in her Booker Prize winning
novel Possession (1990) employed a historical Victorian setting as a
stage for fictional characters, while the acknowledgements to aca-
demic and scientific institutions in Dan Brown’s mystic detective
novels buttress the authority of an otherwise entirely fictional narra-
tive. Herodotus himself can be considered the father of narrative
historiography. To communicate his story of the past he made use
of literary elements, often through patterns that were associated with
tales known from the Greek legendary heritage. The aim of this
volume is to study such elements in an attempt to contribute to the
ongoing reconciliation of Herodotus the purveyor of fictional tales
and employer of ‘mythic’ paradigms with the historian of the Persian
Wars.
In September 2007 we invited an international group of scholars
who were working in the fields of Greek historiography and myth-
ology to Christ Church, Oxford, for a conference on Herodotus and
Myth. The atmosphere of the conference was congenial and stimulat-
ing, and fresh approaches were measured up against the merits of
more traditional ones. This volume brings together the papers of
eleven of its participants, along with two further contributions soli-
cited in a bid to enrich further the whole. Together, the papers bring
out a variety of ways in which one can deal with the ‘mythical’
material of Herodotus’ Histories, and we hope that they open up
ample possibilities for future theoretical, historical, and philological
debate. Although the editors and contributors have tried to keep the
vi Preface and Acknowledgements

contents of the volume up to date, it should be noted that it was first
submitted to the publisher for consideration in 2009.
The conference would not have taken place, and the volume that
grew from it would not have appeared, were it not for the generous
intellectual, financial, and organizational support of many. First we
would like to thank the participants of the conference for their
numerous observations on individual papers. In particular, we
thank the panel presiders Roger Brock and Robert Fowler, and
Christopher Pelling, Thomas Harrison, and Tom Holland, for liven-
ing up the event with their contributions to the programme. Deborah
Boedeker, Angus Bowie, and John Marincola provided us with sage
early advice and with support in raising funds. Christ Church we
thank for being such a gracious host of the conference. Audiences at
the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania
helped us in sharpening our thoughts about the introduction, as did
valuable observations made by members of the Amsterdam Hellenist
Society, and by Sean Braswell, who read several versions of it. At
various stages we received administrative support from Philippa
Duffin, Eleni Kechagia, John Esposito, Saskia Willigers, and John
Beeby. We also thank the anonymous reviewers of the OUP book
proposal for their careful reading of the manuscript and useful
observations, Hilary O’Shea and the rest of her superb team at
OUP, our splendid copy-editor Hilary Walford, and our proofreader
James Eaton. The department of Classics at UNC-Chapel Hill and its
gracious Chair Cecil Wooten provided invaluable assistance with the
final preparations for publication. Finally, we owe acknowledgement
to the generous sponsors of our conference: the British Academy, the
John Fell OUP Fund, the Christopher Tower Fund, the University of
Oxford Classics Faculty Board, the Craven Committee, the Hellenic
Society, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, and the
Institute of Culture and History of the University of Amsterdam.
We should like to note that the order of our surnames as it appears
on the volume’s title page and introduction was chosen for euphonic
reasons and does not reflect an uneven workload.
E.B. and M. de B.
September 2011
Contents
List of Contributors ix
Introduction: Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus’

Histories 1
Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker
Part I: From Myth to Historical Method

1. Myth and Legend in Herodotus’ First Book 59
Carolyn Dewald
2. Herodotus and the ‘Myth’ of the Trojan War 87
Suzanne Saïd
3. Herodotus’ Proteus: Myth, History, Enquiry and
Storytelling 107
Mathieu de Bakker
4. The Helen Logos and Herodotus’ Fingerprint 127
Irene de Jong
5. ‘Strangers are from Zeus’: Homeric Xenia at the Courts
of Proteus and Croesus 143
Elizabeth Vandiver
6. Herodotus on Melampus 167
Vivienne J. Gray
Part II: Myth and History

7. Herodotus and the Heroic Age: The Case of Minos 195
Rosaria Vignolo Munson
8. Myth and Truth in Herodotus’ Cyrus Logos 213
Charles C. Chiasson
viii Contents
9. Herodotus and Eastern Myths and Logoi: Deioces
the Mede and Pythius the Lydian 233
Rosalind Thomas
10. The Mythical Origins of the Medes and the Persians 255
Pietro Vannicelli
11. Mythology and the Expedition of Xerxes 269
Angus M. Bowie
12. Returning to Troy: Herodotus and the Mythic Discourse
of his own Time 287
Emily Baragwanath
References 313
Index Locorum 343
General Index 357
List of Contributors
Mathieu de Bakker is University Lecturer of Ancient Greek at the

University of Amsterdam. His research concentrates on Herodotus,
Thucydides, and the Greek orators.
Emily Baragwanath is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on Herodotus,
Thucydides, and Xenophon. She is the author of Motivation and
Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford University Press, 2008), which won
Oxford’s Conington Prize and the CAMWS Outstanding Publication
Award.
Angus Bowie is Lobel Praelector in Classics at The Queen’s College,
University of Oxford. He was editor of the Journal of Hellenic Studies
until 2011, and is now Chairman of the Faculty Board of Classics. He
has published widely on the Greek historians, tragedy, comedy, lyric
poetry, and Virgil. In 2007 his commentary on Herodotus Book Eight
appeared with Cambridge University Press, and he is soon to publish
another on Odyssey 13–14.
Charles Chiasson is Associate Professor and Distinguished Teaching
Professor in the Philosophy and Humanities Department at the
University of Texas at Arlington, where he directs the Classical
Studies programme. His research focuses on archaic and classical
Greek literature, and he has published important articles on the
relationship between lyric and tragic poetry and Herodotus’ Histories.
Carolyn Dewald is Professor of Classical and Historical Studies at
Bard College, where she directs the Classical Studies programme. She
has published extensively on the Greek historians and is currently
working on a Cambridge Commentary to Herodotus Book One
together with Rosaria Munson. In 2005 her book Thucydides’ War
Narrative: A Structural Study appeared with the University of
California Press.
Vivienne Gray is Professor of Classics at the University of Auckland.
Her main areas of interest are Herodotus and Xenophon. She recently
edited the Xenophon volume in the Oxford Readings in Classical
x List of Contributors
Studies series (2010) and is the author of Xenophon’s Mirror of
Princes: Reading the Reflections (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Irene de Jong is Professor of Ancient Greek at the University of
Amsterdam. She has published extensively on Greek narrative, in
particular Homer, tragedy, and the Greek historians. She is editor of
the Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative series. In 2011 her
commentary on Homer’s Iliad 22 appeared with Cambridge
University Press.
Rosaria Vignolo Munson is Professor of Classics and Chair of the
Department of Classics at Swarthmore College. She is the author of
numerous articles and books on Herodotus, among them Telling
Wonders: Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of
Herodotus (University of Michigan Press, 2001) and Black Doves
Speak: Herodotus and the Languages of the Barbarians (Center for
Hellenic Studies, 2005). She is currently working on a Cambridge
Commentary to Herodotus Book One, together with Carolyn Dewald.
Suzanne Saïd is Emeritus Professor of Greek at Columbia University.
She has worked on Greek tragedy and comedy, Greek historiography,
and the Greek novel. She is co-author of the Short History of Greek
Literature (Routledge, 1999) and Greeks on Greekness: Viewing the
Greek Past under the Roman Empire (Cambridge University Press,
2006), and in 2011 her Homer and the Odyssey appeared with Oxford
University Press.
Rosalind Thomas is Dyson–Macgregor Fellow and Jowett Lecturer in
Ancient History at Balliol College, University of Oxford. Her research
interests concern Greek history, literacy, and historiography of the
archaic and classical age, and she has published extensively across
these areas. In 2000 her seminal Herodotus in Context: Ethnography,
Science and the Art of Persuasion appeared with Cambridge University
Press.
Elizabeth Vandiver is Clement Biddle Penrose Associate Professor of
Latin and Classics and Chair of the Department of Classics at
Whitman College. She has worked on Herodotus, mythology, and
the reception of classics. In 1991 she published Heroes in Herodotus:
The Interaction of Myth and History, and in 2010 her Stand in the
Trench, Achilles: Classical Receptions in British Poetry of the Great
War appeared with Oxford University Press.
List of Contributors xi
Pietro Vannicelli is Associate Professor of Greek History at Sapienza
Università di Roma. He is the author of Erodoto e la storia dell’ alto e
medio arcaismo (Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale 1993) as well as
various articles on Greek history and historiography and is currently
working on a commentary on Herodotus Book Seven.

Comp. by: PG1891 Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 0001493283 Date:27/7/12
Introduction: Myth, Truth, and Narrative

in Herodotus’ Histories
Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker
The contributions to this volume take as their point of departure the

various ways in which Herodotus dealt with, reflected upon, and was
influenced by the traditional stories that are nowadays collectively
known as myths. The concept of myth, however, is wide-ranging, and
has accumulated various shades of meaning in the course of time.
Herodotus himself uses muthos only twice (2.23; 45.1), to reject the
historiographical value of a story. Those who studied his work after
him, on the other hand, found the term ‘myth’ useful in contemplating
his methodology, principles of selection, and narrative organization,
and thus it found its way into Herodotean scholarship. For this reason
the term merits a discussion that evaluates its meanings and opens up
ways that it might be applied. Moreover, even if ‘myth’ is anachronistic,
it is heuristically valuable as a concept, and can help us describe a
distinction that may indeed be present in Herodotus’ text. Such a
discussion ushers in questions of verifiability, and the equally contest-
able concept of truth. It would appear from the Histories that Herod-
otus believed in the possibility of attaining a truthful reconstruction of
past events, and yet we also find traces of the Protean struggle he
undertook to capture an often elusive past: a past that presented itself
in different forms and versions, and through alternating channels. We
must also reflect upon Herodotus’ methods of presenting his material
and exploiting his storytelling capacities in tying together a string of
gripping narratives according to thematic and chronological principles.
Our introduction focuses on myth and its multiple relationships
with the concepts of truth and narrative, both within the Histories
2 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker

itself and between the work and its context. To begin with, we discuss
the problematic reception in modern history of the material deemed
mythical in Herodotus’ work (}1), and offer some suggestions towards
a definition that makes myth a workable concept specifically in rela-
tion to the Histories (}2). Next, we focus in on the vexed question of
time and knowledge and review the discussion of whether Herodotus
conceived of a spatium mythicum opposed to, or rather continuing
into, a spatium historicum (}3). Debating this question raises issues of
authority and demands reflection upon Herodotus’ historiographical
aspirations in recounting or adapting material deemed mythical (}4).
We also consider the historical context of myth, and probe its parti-
cular capacity to exercise a powerful influence upon the events that
Herodotus narrates (}5). Finally, we pay attention to the literary
tradition that schooled and inspired Herodotus, as it presented itself
in the shape of epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry as well as orally
transmitted stories (}6). But we shall begin with the Histories itself.
1. THE HERODOTEAN ‘PARADOX’
In the opening words of the Histories, Herodotus set out to eternalize

erga megala te kai thōmasta (‘great and marvellous deeds’) in the
footsteps of his epic predecessors, but broke with their tradition of
ascribing authority to the Muses, instead to take personal responsi-
bility for a narrative founded upon historical research.1 His credibil-
ity, no longer sanctioned by a divine institution, depended and still
today depends upon the willingness of his audience to believe in his
sincerity in presenting the records of his enquiries.2 At the same time,
1
For a comparison of the Homeric and Herodotean narrators, see de Jong (1999;
2004b: 101–7). For the proem’s Homeric reminiscences, see inter alia the works of
Krischer (1965) and Erbse (1992: 123–5). E. J. Bakker’s thought-provoking study
(2002) re-establishes the meaning of historiēs apodexis as ‘enactment’ of an enquiry
rather than ‘publication’; his ideas have been further developed by Węcowski (2004).
2
This question was the focus of the heated debate between the so-called Liar-
school and Herodotus’ apologists, their key proponents Fehling (1989) and Pritchett
(1993) respectively. For a critical view on the debate, see Packman (1991: 400–2) and
Kurke (2000: 134), who describes it as ‘sterile’ and observes that ‘both sides apply to
Herodotos an anachronistic standard of accuracy or truth. We must accept the fact
that we simply cannot reconstruct in detail exactly where Herodotos travelled from
his text.’
Introduction 3
his work contains logoi and legomena that fall beyond the reach of
such enquiry, stemming from eras or places too distant to allow
personal observation, rational analysis, and the cross-questioning of
informants,3 and this has impeded a straightforward appreciation of
Herodotus’ self-proclaimed methods. We are confronted, then, with
the paradox that Herodotus at times claims to rely on material
verified by research, and yet the ‘unverifiable’ figures prominently
in his work, especially in the form of stories that are told but cannot
be confirmed. We will provisionally class this material as ‘mythical’.
Herodotus’ successor Thucydides took a different approach and
described the character of his own work as ‘not fabulous’ (mē
muthōdes). Thus he sacrificed entertainment to ‘clarity’ (to saphes,
Thuc. 1.22.4), and, in the view of such scholars as Gomme, Lesky, and
Evans,4 he took distance from his predecessor’s storytelling liberties.5
Cicero later formulated the Herodotean paradox more explicitly in
his On Laws, where he admits that, while history aims at the truth,
innumerable fabulae are to be found in the work of the ‘father of
history’ (Cic. Leg. 1.5).6 These are associated with entertainment
(delectatio), a function that Cicero’s speaker regards as belonging to
poetry rather than historiography.
With the rise of Altertumswissenschaft (‘the scholarship of Anti-
quity’) in nineteenth-century Germany, the Herodotean paradox be-
came a popular subject of scholarly debate, but it was reformulated in a
3
Cf. Herodotus’ research principles of opsis, gnomē, and historiē (as identified at
2.99.1). For a detailed treatment of these issues, see Verdin (1971), Schepens (1980),
and Marincola (1987).
4
Gomme (1945: ad loc.), Lesky (19632: 518), and Evans (1968: 12–13), following
the scholia on Thuc. 1.22.4. Their views were elaborated by Lendle (1990), who read
Thucydides’ entire proem as an uncompromising polemic against Herodotus. Cf.
Flory (1990: 201), relating muthōdes to patriotic stories that seek to aggrandize the
events of, e.g., the Persian Wars.
5
Not all share this belief that Thucydides targeted Herodotus. Thus Wardman
(1960: 404–6) holds that his remarks have been misunderstood and Herodotus’ own
critical views on myths overlooked (see below, pp. 13–14; cf. n. 45. In R. L. Fowler’s
view (1996: 76–7), Thucydides is targeting contemporary (local) historians and
mythographers other than Herodotus. Cf. Scanlon (1994: 165). That Thucydides’
general attitude to his predecessor is more complex and certainly not condescending
is clearly brought out by Rood (1999). See also Hornblower (1992), Rogkotis (2006),
and now Foster and Lateiner (2012), the introduction of which (pp. 1–9) summarizes
ancient and modern scholarly responses to the relationship of Herodotus and
Thucydides.
6
Cicero names Theopompus too. Cf. de Divinatione 2.115–16, where he disputes
the historicity of the oracle to Croesus about the invasion of Persia (Hdt 1.53).

more scientifically charged fashion. It was felt that Herodotus had not
merely juxtaposed the results of his research with the unverifiable, but,
by sacrificing the former to the latter, had considerally weakened,
even undermined, his historiographical enterprise. ‘Although sober
historical accounts are not altogether absent, they pale into insignif-
icance beside the lively elaborated mythical and novelistic stories
so characteristic of his work. For their sake he has frequently brushed
completely aside the historical data.’7 This scholarly Zeitgeist expressed
itself, in relation to Herodotus, in three interdependent ways.
First, there was a strong historicist tendency that sought to ascribe
every piece of information found in the Histories to a particular
source. It was above all in Quellenforschung (‘the study of sources’)
that modern scholarship distinguished itself from its ancient counter-
part, and found in Herodotus’ Histories—with its many source refer-
ences—a welcome object of study. To identify Herodotus’ sources—
to reconstruct, as it were, the iceberg below the visible tip—scholars
paradoxically envisaged a historian who collected his data in a mod-
ern, empiricist fashion, and presented it to his audience directly and
uncritically. Even Jacoby, the father of modern Herodotean scholar-
ship, could not free himself from this incongruous conception, as he
argued that Herodotus knew only how to string together particulars,
without having a ‘proper understanding’ of, indeed even a ‘proper
interest’ in, their causal coherence.8
Second, a strong analytic tradition tended to classify some of
Herodotus’ logoi as ‘novellae’ or, more ideologically, ‘Volksmärchen’
(‘folktales’).9 In the wake of the Grimm brothers’ collections of Ger-
man fairy tales, and the growing interest in folkloric heritage, such
7
E. Meyer (1892–9: 233). This and subsequent German quotations are translated
from the original by the editors. Cf. Jacoby (1913: 478), who suggested that Herod-
otus’ historical methods were still in their infancy. Pohlenz (19612: 216) later qualified
this view, arguing that Herodotus’ investigative faculties matched his abilities as a
teller of stories.
8
Jacoby (1913: 483). Cf., in this respect, E. Meyer (1892–9: 209).
9
The concept of the ‘Ionian Novella’ was invented by Erdmannsdörffer (1870); its
most important advocate was Aly (19692). Within Herodotean scholarship, the term
is also employed by Schmid and Stählin (1934: 604–10, 640–1), L. Solmsen (1944:
241), Trenkner (1958), Regenbogen (1961), Lang (1968: 32), Stahl (1968),
K. H. Waters (1970: 504–5), Cobet (1971), Chapman (1972: 559), Cooper (1974:
41), Oliva (1975: 175), Erbse (1981, 1991, 1992), and Nielsen (1997: 59). Some
scholars have used the term ‘novella’ in purely formal ways and thus sought to lessen
its association with fiction. See, e.g., Reinhardt (1982: 326).
Introduction 5
scholars as Aly analysed the Histories and divided it into thin slices of
fictional, ‘novelistic’, or ‘folktale’ material, on the one hand, and
‘truthful history’, on the other. In the ‘historical’ parts, Herodotus
was believed to have relied on a wide variety of sources, many
trustworthy.10 The ‘novelistic material’, by contrast, was claimed to
originate from ‘novellae’: short, folktale narratives with an underlying
historical kernel that were orally delivered in the Ionian world and
had served Herodotus as a literary model.11 Stories such as those of
the youth of Cyrus (1.107–22) and Xerxes and the wife of Masistes
(9.108–13) were regarded as typical Herodotean novellae.12
Third, in the discussion of Herodotus’ position in relation to fifth-
century intellectual and sophistic developments, various scholars
based their arguments on similarities between (the fragments of )
the works of the sophists and the Histories. These similarities then
served as a point of departure for drafting Herodotus’ intellectual
biography. Thus Maass used the Constitutional Debate (3.80–2) to
illustrate the relationship between Herodotus and the sophists,13
whereas Meyer compared him to Sophocles and made the two of
them representatives of archaic religious views, as opposed to those of
closer contemporaries.14 Still others pointed to the heterogeneous
nature of the Histories’ source material and denied Herodotus a
10
The locus classicus here is Jacoby’s lengthy book-by-book discussion (1913:
392–467) of Herodotus’ sources. For a more recent approach based on comparative
anthropological research, see Murray (2001a).
11
Oriental influence was assumed by others; cf. E. Meyer (1892–9: 237).
12
These were considered historically less significant, and so they received less
attention in the commentaries of Stein (1881–1901) and How and Wells (1928). For
the preconceived idea of the ‘Ionian Novella’, see de Jong’s convincing discussion
(2002: 257–8). Kurke (2011) has recently revived the idea that Ionian storytelling, and
Aesopic fable in particular, is an important background to Herodotean narrative (chs.
10–11, noting her debt to Aly at 361 n. 2 and 368–9).
13
Maass (1887: 581–5). The origins of the Constitutional Debate have remained
disputed in subsequent scholarship. Following Maass, the debate is often read as a
reflection of sophistic theories. See Pohlenz (19612: 107, 185–6), Hornblower (1987:
16), and Lachenaud (2003: 230–1, though cf. 333–4). Protagoras is frequently referred
to as the key influence: see Kleber (1890: 4), Nestle (1940: 292–5, cf. 509–10),
Morrison (1941: 12–13), Ryffel (1949: 64–73), Stroheker (1953: 385–9), Sinclair
(19592: 36–9), Dihle (1962), Kennedy (1963: 45), von Fritz (1967: 316–18), Lasserre
(1976: 69), Evans (1981: 83–4), and Thomas (2000: 18, 266). Other sophists men-
tioned in this connection are Gorgias (Dihle 1962), Hippias (Podlecki 1966: 369–71),
and Antiphon (Aly 19692: 107).
14
Regenbogen (1961: 96) compared Herodotus’ religious views to those of Aeschy-
lus and Sophocles.

fixed Weltanschauung (‘world view, outlook’) altogether: ‘In fact, he
has neither political understanding nor historical sense nor a solid
and proper Weltanschauung, but rather oscillates between rational-
ism and superstition. The Ionian science is entirely alien to him.’15
In the decades that followed, scholars such as Jacoby, Aly, Pohlenz,
and Regenbogen qualified this view in Herodotus’ defence.16 And yet
their solution to the Herodotean paradox was equally paradoxical.
For them, Herodotus was inspired by Ionian empiricist trends that
explained the references in his work to sophistic and scientific devel-
opments, but he had not internalized them sufficiently and had not
taken enough distance from the more archaic world view that under-
lay his work. Aly spoke of ‘drops of oil’ that did not mix with the
surrounding liquid.17 In a more historicist vein, Pohlenz surmised
that Herodotus was a Dorian who, despite his empiricism, lacked the
sensitivities an Ionian would have had in the wake of new intellectual
developments.18 This conception of Herodotus as a transitional,
Janus-faced historian gained much influence, for it tied in so well
with Nestle’s ‘rise of the rational’ at the expense of ‘the mythical’,19
the overarching thesis of his Vom Mythos zum Logos (1940). In
his brief chapter on Herodotus, he repeats the assumption of his
predecessors: ‘Herodotus learned and borrowed much material
from the sophists and, at times, also from the Ionian philosophers,
but their thoughts and knowledge remain merely ornaments to his
work, and he does not incorporate them into his personal outlook
on life.’20
In post-war scholarship, the approach to Herodotus and the pro-
blem of reconciling the Histories’ ‘mythical’ and ‘historical’ material
started to change. Important in this process were the views of scholars
such as Momigliano and Immerwahr, who each in their own way
sought to re-evaluate the position of Herodotus in the development of
the historiographical genre. Rejecting the usual, often negative,
15
Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1905: 56). Cf. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf
(19123: 97).
16
Jacoby (1913: 481). A generally more positive verdict was reached by Regenbo-
gen (1961: 100), who saw in the Histories a combination of modern empiricist trends
in Ionia and more traditional Athenian religious views. Cf. Pohlenz (19612: 185).
17
Aly (19692: 292).
18
Pohlenz (19612: 182).
19
The formulation of Buxton (1999: 1), on which see below pp. 9–10.
20
Nestle (1940: 513).
Introduction 7
comparison with his successor Thucydides, they promoted a more
nuanced picture of two complementary historians who, as formidable
representatives of an intellectual community, tried to solve the pro-
blems they encountered in assembling their data and organizing their
logoi in their own, specific ways.21 This shift in attitude had repercus-
sions for the evaluation of Herodotus.
Instead of historicism—with the iceberg reconstructed by gazing
into the murky depths below the surface—the tip itself became the
subject of scrutiny. Thus attention shifted from author to narrator,
from history to presentation, and from progenesis to end product.22 In
tandem with this development, a fierce debate erupted about the
reliability of Herodotus’ source references. Not only were unverifiable
elements questioned, but so too was information that Herodotus
seemed to verify so scrupulously.23
Likewise, the ‘novellae’ theory was queried.24 Although the analytic
approach of distinguishing between ‘novelistic’ and ‘historical’ parts
had the advantage of laying bare aspects of Herodotus’ narrative
artistry,25 the underlying assumption remained unproven. No defin-
ing sample of the ‘Ionian Novella’ was ever identified, and more
importantly, scholars began to realize that the distinction itself
seemed unfamiliar to Herodotus, who used different, more subtle
21
Momigliano (1958) pointed out that Thucydides, in imposing a strict metho-
dology on his material, set a standard for later historians and so made Herodotus a
vulnerable target for criticism—criticism that often overlooked the difficulties he
faced in shaping his work. Cf. Immerwahr (1966: 12): ‘When Herodotus constructed
the first complex prose work in Greek literature—a work rivaling the Iliad in scope—
he had to invent a system that would be intelligible without the help of a strongly
developed tradition.’ Meanwhile, Thucydides’ narrative was subjected to more intense
scrutiny, with the integrity of his claims re-evaluated in the light of a growing
perception of the literary shape of his work. On this see, e.g., Rood (1998a) and
Dewald (2005).
22
As a starting point in this discussion, note von Fritz (1967: 213): ‘Whatever
material Herodotus had at his disposal for his history, there can be no doubt that it
was Herodotus himself who gave it the shape in which we read it’. Cf. Lesky (1977:
230). For the role of the Herodotean narrator, see Dewald (1987, 2002), Marincola
(1987), and de Jong (1999, 2004b). Formal aspects of the Histories’ presentation are
discussed inter alia by Beck (1971), Cobet (1971, 2002), Lang (1984), and Long (1987).
23
A discussion championed by Fehling (1989). See above, n. 2.
24
Pohlenz (19612: 188–9) had already observed that the analytic approach failed to
take on board the wider context, and that individual logoi lost their significance when
studied in isolation.
25
e.g. Stahl (1968) in his analysis of the ‘novella’ of Gyges and Candaules, which, as
he concluded, contained a programmatic message. Cf. Erbse (1981).

methods to indicate his opinion about the historicity of the material
he presented, making use, for example, of source references and
comparative research.26 Scholars meanwhile sought other ways of
explaining the presence and value in the text of Herodotus’ ‘short
stories’—for instance, by arguing for their thematic or even symbolic
relevance to the work as a whole.27
This increasingly prevalent unitarian view went hand in hand with
attempts to contextualize the Histories in its own right. Its quality and
innovation were no longer judged in light of the works of earlier and
contemporary Greek intellectuals.28 Some of these approaches were
empiricist/philological, such as Thomas’ convincing thesis about the
Histories’ affinities with the Hippocratics,29 or Moles’ acknowledge-
ment that the work was written with an eye especially to contempor-
ary political developments of the later fifth century.30 Others were
more theoretical—for example, Hartog’s structuralist enterprise to
determine the value of Herodotean ethnography31 or the linguists’
soundings of language and style that placed the Histories on the cusp
between oral and written grammar.32 In current scholarship the
picture has thus emerged of a historian who developed his work
under the influence of contemporary genres and intellectual devel-
opments, but remained fully in charge of his material and made
conscious choices to exploit all his narrative talents in telling his
stories.33 Rather than accidental drops of oil that have not mixed
with the surrounding liquid, sophistic elements, for instance, can be
considered spices deliberately added with a view to making the text
26
Much good work in this area has been done by Lateiner (1989: 55–75), Packman
(1991), and Shrimpton (1997). Cf. Groten (1963).
27
e.g. de Jong (2002) in her analysis of the structure of the fifth book of the
Histories, challenging others to explain the function of the story of the Gephyrean clan
(5.57–61). Pelling (2007b) and Munson (2007) rise to this challenge. Cf. the approach
of Munson (2001). Gray (2002) surveys Herodotus’ short stories and the shifting
scholarly approaches to them.
28
Momigliano (1958), on which see above, n. 21.
29
Thomas (2000). See also Raaflaub (2002) and Romm (2006), Scullion (2006),
and Thomas (2006).
30
Moles (1996, 2002), whose ideas have recently been developed further by Fearn
(2007) and E. Irwin (2007b, 2011).
31
Hartog (1980).
32
Slings (2002); Bakker (2006).
33
Herodotus’ use of various poetic models in shaping his narrative is discussed
below, pp. 47–53.
Introduction 9
respond to and engage with aspects of contemporary rhetoric in the
Greek world.34
These tendencies in recent scholarship have reshaped the Herodo-
tean paradox. Whereas the unverifiable, ‘mythical’ material in the
Histories was previously deemed an almost accidental remnant of an
archaic mode of storytelling that undermined the work’s historical
value, one is now more inclined to assume that Herodotus either
did not himself experience its presence as paradoxical,35 or, conver-
sely, consciously employed it with a view to enriching his work.
As Griffiths expressed it in the late 1990s in his essay ‘Euenius the
Negligent Nightwatchman’: ‘Herodotus not only rides the two
Phaedrian horses muthos and logos with ease, but he knows it, de-
lights in it, and consciously exploits it. And the listeners collude in
the enterprise.’36 Griffiths was here contributing to Buxton’s edited
volume From Myth to Reason? (1999), which critically re-evaluated
the ‘Rise of the Rational’ theory that had been at the centre of Nestle’s
Vom Mythos zum Logos.37 The theory, nicely summed up by the
editor as the ‘from . . . to’ thesis, was deconstructed from several
directions by contributors who mostly favoured an explanatory
or philosophical model38 in which the ‘mythical’ and ‘the rational’
coexisted, reinforced, or eliminated one another, depending on
author, genre, philosophical school, city, time, and place.39 Whereas
34
Thomas (2000: 122–34, 249–69) offers suggestions in this direction.
35
So, e.g., Vandiver (1991: 9): ‘Most scholars have failed fully to realize that there is a
question about why and how Herodotus used the mythical as opposed to the historical
type of explanation; they have simply assumed that Herodotus did, or did not, differ-
entiate between myth and history, and have based their readings of the Histories on their
assumptions.’
36
Griffiths (1999: 180). Griffiths exploits this idea further in Griffiths (2006),
highlighting especially Herodotus’ artful arrangement of his material.
37
Nestle’s influence could be seen in seminal works like Snell’s Die Entdeckung des
Geistes (its first edition appearing in 1946), and in the works of the French structur-
alists like Vernant (1962), who argued that, together with and owing to the rise of the
polis and the abolishment of monarchy, a new, ‘philosophical’ way of thinking evolved
in Greece that in different ways sought to replace a ‘mythical’ mode of thought.
38
Gould (1999), for instance, pointed out that the mythical discourse of Greek
tragedy provided a multivalent explanatory model that could equally well be called
logos; Most, in his essay provocatively titled ‘From Logos to Muthos’ (1999), showed
how the debate about the significance of Greek myths to the contemporary world
gained impetus in eighteenth-century philosophers’ circles, whereas classicists in
general were content to study them within their historical context. For a recent
evaluation of the muthos/logos polarity see R. L. Fowler (2011).
39
Kirk (1974: 276–303) had undertaken an earlier valuable re-evaluation of the
muthos/logos polarity. Despite his adherence to a more complicated version of the

Nestle had awarded him only a brief chapter at the end of his book,
Herodotus now made a comeback, for it was acknowledged that his
position in any debate about the viability of the muthos/logos polarity
was pivotal—comparable indeed to that of Parmenides and Plato.40
Thanks in large part to Buxton’s volume, the Herodotean paradox
became a ‘paradox’, as what had seemed paradoxical to many of his
students may well have been a self-evident characteristic of the genre
that Herodotus had in mind.
Despite this acknowledgement, nowadays shared by many in the
field of Herodotean studies, the question of how to explain the
unverifiable, ‘mythical’ material in the Histories remains important.
Beyond the findings that continue to surface from the debate about
the context of the Histories, this question retains its relevance pri-
marily as a result of continuing developments in academic thinking—
from antiquity through to more recent times—about the definition,
status, role, and function of ‘myth’ and ‘the mythical’. If such a
disputed and broadly interpreted concept is to serve as a heuristic
tool, we must begin by setting out an acceptable working definition
that can be applied to Herodotus’ text.
2. THE PARAMETERS OF MYTH IN HERODOTUS:

TOWARDS A WORKING DEFINITION
The title of this volume presupposes a belief in the effectiveness of

terms such as ‘myth’, ‘muthos’, and ‘mythology’ in studying and
contextualizing Herodotus’ work. At the same time, they bring with
them a long-standing record of scholarly debate about their defini-
tions and relationships to one another. Thinkers such as Detienne
and Calame go so far as to question the validity and ultimately the
legitimacy of these terms as criteria for the analysis of data from the
‘from . . . to’ thesis, he deconstructed the term ‘mythical thinking’ in opposition to

‘logical, philosophical, systematic reasoning’. He argued that it was the ‘nature and
generality’ of the early Presocratics’ object of study that distinguished them from
authors like Hesiod, but avoided an explanation in terms of ‘a new mode of thinking’.
The Presocratics adopted a genetic model (perhaps derived from myth), whereas
authors like Homer and Hesiod used systematic models to classify their myths
(pp. 295–7, 300–1).
40
Buxton (1999: 18–19).
Introduction 11
ancient world.41 Moreover, in the case of ‘myth’ we are confronted
with definitions that range from denoting anything non-historical42
to, more specifically, traditional tales about the influence of the divine
upon (human) nature and culture.43
It is not our intention to review exhaustively the backgrounds of
these discussions (that would require an entire book, or several44), or
to seek wholly new parameters within which these terms can be
employed. Neither do we wish to impose upon our contributors a
model of muthos and logos in any particular relationship to one
another, for the simple reason that a formal restriction of two terms
with such a wide range of meanings, both in- and interdependently,
would impede rather than stimulate creative thought and interpreta-
tion. We do, however, wish to consider what aspects of the wide-
ranging semantics of these terms may be meaningfully employed as a
heuristic tool in studying the Histories, and to suggest some para-
meters within which they might function.
Our search for parameters should begin with the question of how
Herodotus himself used the term muthos, and whether he conceived
of an opposition between muthos and logos that can be useful for our
purpose. This is not an easy enterprise, for Herodotus uses the word
muthos only twice.45 Thin evidence, then—which does not allow us to
41
See the opening chapter of Calame (1996); cf. Calame (1999), and see also
Detienne (1981, 2000), who claimed that ‘myth’ is essentially an eighteenth-century
construct. Edmunds (1990a) countered Detienne’s radical view and argued convin-
cingly that the Greeks did in fact have a category of traditional tales that corresponds
to our notion of ‘myth’.
42
This definition surfaces from the treatment of myth of McNeill (1986a), who
argues that, since the ultimate truth will never be attained, ‘mythistory’ is the best
compromise any historian can come up with: ‘what seems true to one historian will
seem false to another, so one’s historian’s truth becomes another’s myth, even at the
moment of utterance’ (p. 3). For a different understanding of ‘mythistorical’ narra-
tion, see Chiasson, this volume, Ch. 8.
43
German scholarship in particular sought to differentiate ‘myths’ from ‘folktales’,
assigning to the former category tales in which the divine played an important role.
Seminal in this has been Jolles’ Einfache Formen (19684: esp. 91–125). Cf. Raderma-
cher (1938: 64), who adds a formal criterion to ‘myth’ by implying its ‘poetic’
character: ‘ein ahnendes, dichterisch in Rede gekleidetes Begreifen des Göttlichen
und der Welt’ (‘a foreboding understanding of the divine and the world, clothed
poetically in speech’).
44
For recent discussions that include an overview of different approaches to Greek
myths, see the useful studies of Hübner (1985), Edmunds (1990b), and Dowden (1992).
45
As pointed out by Vandiver (1991: 7), criticizing Wardman (1960) for his
assumption that Herodotus used muthos as a fixed term in opposition to historiē.

reach firm conclusions, though it should be observed that he both
times explicitly rejects the content of the muthos. The first instance
concerns the muthos of the river Ocean, which Herodotus mentions
in the course of discussing the unusual timing of the inundation of the
Nile (2.20–7). In this polemical section of the Egypt book, he rejects
three theories of some Greeks who ‘wish to distinguish themselves in
the field of wisdom’ (episēmoi boulomenoi genesthai sophiēn, 2.20.1).
The second theory explains the behaviour of the Nile as a conse-
quence of its connection to Ocean, which flows around the world:
The second theory is even more ignorant [anepistēmonesterē] than the one
I have just mentioned, though it is more striking in expression; it claims that
it is because the Nile flows from the Ocean that it manages to do what it does,
and that the Ocean surrounds the whole world. (2.21)46
Hecataeus is known to have adopted this Homeric view (FGrH 1,
F. 302),47 and it may well be that he was the target of Herodotus’
polemic.48 Herodotus considers his the least credible theory of the
three on the basis of the criterion of ‘knowledgeability’. Although LSJ
and Powell’s Lexicon distinguish between anepistēmōn as it appears
here, ‘unintelligent’ (LSJ), and as it appears later in the narrative of the
battle of Plataea, where it refers to the ‘lack of skill’ of the Persian
infantry (9.62), this second meaning certainly applies to this passage
as well. The inventor of the Ocean theory lacked the skilful metho-
dology on which Herodotus prided himself. Herodotus returns to this
subject in the ensuing discussion:
It is impossible to argue against the person who spoke about the Ocean,
because the tale [muthos] is based on something that cannot be refuted [ouk
ekhei elegkhon]. I do not know of the existence of any River Ocean, and
I think that Homer or one of the poets from past times invented the name
and introduced it into his poetry. (2.23)
46
The translations in the Introduction are either taken from Waterfield (1998)
(with some modification) or the editors’ own.
47
Il. 18.607–8, 21.195–7, and cf. Hesiod Theogony 338.
48
So A. B. Lloyd (2007: ad loc.). Cf. Corcella (1993: ad 4.36.2). Nickau (1990: 84–7)
points to the presence of the article (ton muthon, 2.23), which implies that Herodotus
refers to a muthos that is known to his audience. He claims that Herodotus in both
instances referred to muthoi in which Hecataeus believed, arguing that gelō (‘I laugh’,
4.36.2) should be seen as an allusion to Hecataeus’ first fragment: hoi gar Hellēnōn
logoi polloi te kai geloioi (‘for the logoi of the Greeks are many and laughable’, FGrH 1,
F. 1).
Introduction 13
Apparently what disturbs Herodotus most is not the content of the
theory, but that it is no theory at all, in that it cannot be refuted (ouk
ekhei elegkhon). How could anyone seeking authority seriously put
forward such an argument? Later on in his Scythian logos he repeats
this objection explicitly, arguing that those who believe that Ocean
streams around the world ‘fail to produce evidence’ (ergōi . . . ouk
apodeiknusi, 4.8.2), and even admits to laughing at these and similar
theories that are exposed as being ‘without intelligence’ (oudena noon
ekhontōs, 4.36.2).
The second instance of muthos appears a little later in the Egypt
book, and again its connection with the criterion of knowledgeability
is made explicit:
The Greek account of Heracles’ birth is far from being the only thoughtless
[anepiskeptōs] thing they say. Here is another silly [euēthēs] tale [muthos] of
theirs about Heracles. They say that when he came to Egypt, the Egyptians
crowned him with garlands and led him in a procession with the intention of
sacrificing him to Zeus. He did nothing for a while, and began to resist only
when they were consecrating him at the altar, at which point he massacred
them all. Now, in my opinion, this Greek story displays complete ignorance
[apeirōs ekhein] of the Egyptian character and customs. For it is against their
religion for Egyptians to sacrifice animals (except for sheep, ritually pure
bulls and male calves, and geese), so how could they sacrifice human beings?
(2.45.1–2)
It appears, then, that Herodotus uses muthos to describe a story that
cannot be accounted for, and can moreover be rejected on other
grounds such as its degree of wondrousness (2.21) or its incompat-
ibility with the customs of the people that it describes (2.45). For
Herodotus, it seems that muthos is semantically more restricted than
logos or legomenon, which can be applied to any story whatsoever and
require explicit qualification if they are to indicate the historian’s
disbelief.49
In Thucydides we find this same connection between muthos
(although the word itself does not occur in Thucydides’ History)
49
Incredible logoi: 7.214.2, 8.119; legomena: 7.209.5. Cf. the expression ou pista
legein: 1.182.1, 2.73.3, 4.5.1, 4.25.1, 4.42.4, 5.86.3, 8.120. Cf., too, Hecataeus’ first
fragment, above, n. 48. Aside from explicit indications, Herodotus can use indirect
speech to indicate that he does not grant full credibility to a certain tradition, though
indirect speech (contrary to what is commonly assumed) need not always imply
scepticism: see T. Harrison (2000a: 248–50), de Bakker (2007: 160–78), and, in this
volume, de Bakker, Ch. 3, pp. 124–5, and de Jong, Ch. 4, pp. 131–2.

and a lack of elegchos. In his methodological chapter he takes distance
from the methods of the logographoi, since they compose stories for
the purpose of pleasure and thus succumb to ‘the fabulous’ (to
muthōdes): ‘Their accounts cannot be tested [anexelegkta] . . . and
most of the facts in the lapse of time have passed into the region of
the fabulous [to muthōdes]’ (1.21.1, trans. Jowett, adapted). Although
many assume that Thucydides is here targeting his predecessor Her-
odotus (see above, n. 5), it may well be that both historians’ under-
standing of muthos is conditioned by the same epistemological
criterion.50 Following this line of reasoning, we could argue that a
logos ou pistos that defies any kind of examination is for Herodotus a
muthos that should be rejected from a historiographical work. For
him, muthos was not then an antonym, but a species, of logos.51 But
such incidental use of the term makes it unsuitable as a point of
departure for a heuristic model: it cannot be proven with certainty
that Herodotus used the word in any terminological opposition.52
Moreover, any model that conceives of a meaning of muthos in
Herodotus that is akin to our modern concept of ‘myth’ ushers in the
problem of how to judge those passages in the Histories that are not
in any way qualified, and yet contain unverifiable elements and (as
we saw above) have so often frustrated those who looked for truth in
a Rankean manner. Adopting such a model would oblige us to
accuse Herodotus of disingenuousness whenever he makes use of
narrative artistry or presents his material in a form that resembles
narratives used to present Greek mythology (on which see below, }6).
Herodotus’ understanding of muthos, we can conclude, does not take us
any further.
A more fruitful approach might then be to take into account
modern, less restrictive meanings of ‘myth’. Kirk defended such an
approach, pointing out that ‘“Myth” is such a general term, and its
50
On knowledge as a key criterion for distinguishing ‘myth’ from ‘history’ in
Herodotus, see }3 below.
51
In fact, before Plato’s Protagoras 320c (on which see below, p. 49), no clear traces
of such a theoretical contrast have been found in Greek literature; cf. Buxton (1994:
12–13). Edmunds (1990a: 2–8), however, points to a passage in Aristophanes’ Wasps
(1174–80), where a distinction is made between logoi and muthoi, the latter clearly
meaning fantasy stories. Nickau (1990: 88–90) uses the same passage to argue that the
antithesis between logos and muthos was already implicit in Thucydides and could be
ascribed to sophists such as Prodicus and Protagoras.
52
Nor is the case for a very specific reading of muthos strengthened by its neutral
meaning ‘utterance’ in epic and archaic poetry; cf. below, n. 63.
Introduction 15
etymology and early applications are so unspecific, that one is com-
pelled to take some notice of contemporary usage’.53 And yet this
approach has its pitfalls, too. In the first place, it was in the nineteenth
century that the term ‘myth’ came to be connected to stories about the
divine as a causative factor, as opposed to such terms as ‘legend’ (a
story about humans that supposedly has some historical kernel),
‘saga’ (applied to tales about heroes), and ‘folktale’ (specifically asso-
ciated with the stories of ‘the ordinary people’ as opposed to those
that circulated among the elites).54 The shortcomings of these dis-
tinctions are immediately apparent when one tries to apply them to a
work like the Iliad, with its complex layers of human and divine
causation and its humanized heroes set against the backdrop of a
contested historical setting in Troy.55 Applying such terminological
distinctions would lead to a hairsplitting analysis of the Homeric
narrative—is it a legend, a saga, or a myth after all?—and the needless
imposition of a model that seems entirely unfamiliar to it. In the case
of Herodotus, such an analysis would be even more problematic, in
view of the various literary models that inform his text, each of them
employing mythical subject matter in its own particular way.56
The strong connection of ‘myth’ with the divine led to an approach
that was based on anthropological studies and sought to explain
‘myth’ as a product that emerged from and should be considered
in connection with ritual. This so-called Cambridge school of myth
53
Kirk (1974: 25). Cf. von Reden (1999: 69), arguing that mythology is a category
largely created by Western thought and anthropological scholarship.
54
See, e.g., Aly (19692: 7–10, 238–9): ‘Das Märchen wird zum Mythos, wenn
Götter seine Personen, kosmisches Geschehen sein Inhalt wird.’ (‘A fairytale becomes
a myth when gods become its characters and cosmic events its content’). Cf. Jolles
(19684) for the general distinctions between the different categories. ‘Legend’ as a term
goes back to legenda, which was first used in the thirteenth century to refer to stories
about saints. ‘Saga’ was introduced in nineteenth-century scholarship to describe
specific Icelandic traditions about local clans and kings. ‘Folktale’ is a translation of
German Märchen. Recent scholarship generally acknowledges the anachronistic char-
acter and limited usefulness of these distinctions; e.g. Day (1984: 17–20), Bremmer
(1987: 1–9), Dowden (1992: 6–7), and Buxton (1994: 13 n. 19).
55
For the uniquely realistic presentation of the heroes in Homeric epic, in parti-
cular the Iliad, in comparison with the Epic Cycle, see Griffin (1977), with many
references to earlier scholarship. For the vexed question of the historicity of the Trojan
War and its relationship to the Homeric epics, witness the fierce debate between
believers like Latacz (2004) and sceptics like Kolb (2010: ch. 1). For a summary of the
debate, and a balanced view that tends towards that of the sceptics, see Grethlein
(2010a).
56
On this, see below, }6.

and ritual57 became highly influential over the course of the twentieth
century, with repercussions also for studies of Herodotus’ Histories. It
was established, for instance, that mythical narratives often reflected a
Rite de Passage58 and that elements that seemed unintelligible at first
glance could be accounted for once they were placed in the context of
ritual. In this way, stories such as that of Lycophron and Periander
(3.50–3) could be explained as being based upon or informed by
patterns related to initiation rituals.59 Be that as it may, the Histories’
content is again too diverse for a purely ritualistic definition to work.
In a story like that of Cleobis and Biton (1.31) the ritualistic context
cannot be overlooked;60 but how is one to reconcile this type of story
with the fantastic, ‘mythical’ stories about the inhabitants of the
fringes of the known world, such as the Ethiopians and the Hyper-
boreans? Once again, the wide variety of Herodotus’ material defies
too restrictive a concept.61
Nor does it much help to reason the other way around and—by
deconstructing wholesale the myth/history opposition—admit that
any narrative can be classed as ‘myth’.62 To do so would be to render
‘myth’ virtually equivalent to its ancient Homeric meaning of muthos
in the sense of ‘speech’,63 ‘utterance’; and we could no longer employ
the term as a heuristic tool, for it would imply the study of each
individual story along with the Histories’ entire narrative, and would
lead to further terminological confusion among classical scholars.
In seeking a means of demarcating the boundaries of our terrain, it
is probably wisest to look to adjacent scholarly traditions. Our
57
Important representatives of this school include J. E. Harrison (1912), Hooke
(1935, 1958), and Burkert (1966, 1972, 1983). The latter recognized ‘programs of
action’ that were grounded in human biology and found a dramatized continuity in
ritual, which was in turn reflected and paralleled in mythology. See the discussion in
Edmunds (1990b: 25–90).
58
Van Gennep (1908).
59
As exemplified by Sourvinou-Inwood’s suggestion (1988) that one read this
story as a reflection of a failed ephebeia, a coming-of-age initiation ritual; cf. below,
p. 55, with n. 226.
60
As Chiasson (2005) has recently argued.
61
Cf. Kirk (1974: 25–6) and Burkert (1999), who point out that a significant
number of the stories that we tend to consider ‘myths’ have nothing to do with the
sacred, and even fewer myths concern the divine as a creative force.
62
See McNeill (1986a), cp. n. 42 above.
63
The basic meaning as given in the Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos under
muthos, whereas Kirk (1974: 22–3) translates it as ‘utterance’. For a detailed study of
the semantics of muthos in the Homeric epics, see Martin (1989).
Introduction 17
understanding of myth will then take its point of departure from the
work of Kirk and Buxton, who have sought to restrict the meaning of
‘myth’ so as to make it a useful tool in analysing a text like the
Histories. They deemed this a necessary step in part because the
body of narratives that encompasses ‘Greek mythology’64 was simply
too diverse to allow for a distinction between a ‘divine myth’ and a
‘heroic tale’65 (Kirk indeed suggested avoiding altogether the singular
‘myth’ as a definable category66). Kirk and Buxton considered such
restriction valuable also because they preferred (in contrast to the
French structuralists) to study Greek mythology in its own right,
taking into account its particular characteristics—for instance, the
prominent role of humanized heroes in comparison to other mytho-
logical traditions, and the features that were typical of time, place, and
genre.67 They identified the following three defining elements in their
description of ‘myth’:
1. The subjects of myths, regardless of the narrative form in which
they appear, are gods and heroes. The first to employ this criter-
ion were collectors from later antiquity such as Pausanias and
Apollodorus, but the forms and functions of stories of gods and
heroes in earlier genres (often in the shape of ainos/praise para-
bles68) are discernible enough for it to be applied to them, too.
2. Myths are ‘traditional’, in that they may appear across different
works or genres, and cannot be attributed to a particular in-
venting author. Notwithstanding the variations that individual
authors could introduce in employing myths, they were always
to some extent bound by traditions that determined the skeleton
of the narrative and the limits within which motifs could shift.
Thus one could tell the story of Troy in endless ways, but it was
not possible to ignore the presence of Priam or the sack and fall
64
Itself an ambiguous expression, as it can imply the entire collection of mythical
stories as well as the study of those stories. See Kirk (1974: 21–2) and Buxton (1994: 12).
65
Thus Kirk (1974: 26–9) resists a distinction between ‘divine myth’ and ‘heroic
saga’, since the latter implies a historical kernel, which many Greek hero-tales lack.
66
Kirk (1974: 18–19).
67
e.g. the transition from an oral to a literate society and the influence of historical
events such as the victory over the Persians. See Buxton (1994: 14).
68
Cf. the role of myth as ainos in Pindar, tragedy, elegies such as Simonides’ on
Plataea, and funeral orations such as Lysias 2. Cf. Nagy’s argument (1990) in relation
to Herodotus.

of Troy itself. To alter these traditional elements would generate
parody.
3. Myths had ‘collective significance to a particular social group or
groups’69 in that they were not uniquely connected to a single
individual, but part of a larger network of stories that could,
for example, shape Greek consciousness of their history and of
the relationships between various groups. One can think of the
foundation stories of colonies and the tales of mythical ancestors
of royal genealogies, or myths connected to polis hero-cult that
could be used by citizens in constructing their identity vis-à-vis
other Greeks.
An important advantage of a discussion of myth based upon the
above three parameters is that it allows for a variety of approaches.
It can, for example, sidestep difficult questions of belief and historicity
and focus entirely on the presentation of the material, as do several of
the contributions of Part I of our volume (‘From Myth to Historical
Method’). A related question is that of how historians such as Her-
odotus reconciled the content of myths with the epistemological
criteria they imposed upon themselves (a problem we return to
below, }}3–4). For Herodotus, in whose Histories heroes played a
larger part than in Thucydides’ contemporary historiography, stories
had to conform to a certain extent to the principle of plausibility or
probability, to oikos.70 Thus his rationalized versions of the Trojan
War story (1.1–5 and 2.112–20)71 avoid the miraculous and omit any
reference to the opposing divine powers that control the battlefield in
Homer’s Iliad.72 One can also explore the function of mythical
material within the wider narrative in which it is embedded. To
69
Kirk (1974: 28–9), Burkert (1979: 1–5), and Buxton (1994: 15–16). Buxton,
however, takes distance from Kirk’s distinction (1970: 31–41; 1974: 30–7)—which is
followed by Lowry (1982: 14–15)—between ‘myth’ and ‘folktale’, on the basis of the
former’s concern with the aristocracy and the latter’s with ordinary people, rightly
noting that the concept of ‘folk’/ordinary people as opposed to aristocracy dates back
only to the eighteenth century.
70
For detailed discussion of the epistemological criteria that Herodotus imposed on
his material and used to determine its truth value, see D. Müller (1981) and Thomas
(2000: 168–212), and below, pp. 22–3 and n. 85, for Herodotus’ use of the argument
from probability.
71
See Asheri (2007: ad 1.1–5), A. B. Lloyd (2007: ad 2.112–20).
72
On the proem’s rationalized accounts, see below, p. 27, and, further in this
volume, Dewald, Ch. 1, }1, Vandiver, Ch. 5, pp. 151–2 and Munson, Ch. 7,
pp. 198–200.
Introduction 19
what extent do mythical references supply meaningful backdrops
against which more recent events are staged? Alternatively, one may
analyse the material from a more historical angle, as do several of the
contributions of Part II (‘Myth and History’), and ask how and in
what guise mythical material found its way into the Histories. We
might even speculate about what its presence tells us of Herodotus’
own beliefs.73 Herodotus chose to ‘demythologize’ the mythical tales
that he incorporated, apparently in accordance with his epistemolo-
gical criteria.74 But he did not omit them completely. This brings us to
the complex issue of whether and in what ways Herodotus conceived
of material we label ‘myth’ or ‘legend’ as belonging to a different
category from that of recent history, and the related question of where
it then stands in terms of the historian’s primary objective of truth-
fully memorializing actual past events (ta genomena ex anthrōpōn).
Did Herodotus conceive of a separate spatium mythicum or assume
(some form of) continuity over the course of time?
3. TIME AND KNOWLEDGE
Time is the most obvious criterion that distinguishes ‘myth’ from

‘history’ in the Histories. Ancient history, myth, legend—all are en-
compassed by to palaion and its cognate expressions, which denote
events of long ago, in contrast with those of more recent times. As
Herodotus frequently emphasizes, the passing of time produces
change. In his preface he declares he will cover small and large
human settlements alike, since
of those that long ago [to palai] were great, the majority have become small,
and those which were great in my own time were small in times past.
Knowing, then, that human prosperity never resides in the same place
[oudama en tōutōi menousan], I will make mention [epimnēsomai] of both
alike. (1.5.4)
73
Cf. Veyne’s disputed theories (1983) on the different mode of belief the Greeks
attached to their myths; cf. below, n. 156 with text.
74
On demythologization, or rationalization, in the Histories, see Stern (1989),
S. West (2002), and below, pp. 26–7; also in this volume, see Gray, Ch. 6,
pp. 176–8, on Herodotus’ demythologizing of Melampus, and Saïd, Ch. 2, }2, for
more general discussion of Herodotus’ process of rationalization.

The potential for change is one of the few constants of the historical
process, and an important part of what impels Herodotus to memor-
ialize the past. This principle of change infuses the entire Histories. It
is encapsulated by Solon’s wisdom on the human condition—‘look to
the end, to see how it will turn out’—and is implied by the historian’s
search for causes and origins (announced already in his proem: di’
hēn aitiēn . . . ).75
Change is particularly likely to have occurred through the longue
durée that separates the present time of the historian from ancient
times, and, for this reason, continuity across time may not be taken
for granted, whether in customs, identities, or character—and per-
haps even in the very nature of individuals.76 Herodotus models this
important point in his proem (1.1–5), where Io, Europa, and Medea,
each the king’s daughter in her natal country, ‘become cultural icons
of the countries of their eventual appropriation’ and are thus ‘meta-
phors for and embodiments of the potential instability of race and
culture’, as Dewald has expressed it.77 Medea reappears as metaphor
for ongoing cultural change in the catalogue of Xerxes’ forces at
Doriscus, when Herodotus reports the Medes’ account that long ago
(palai) they were called Arians, ‘but when Colchian Medea came from
Athens to these Arians they, too, changed their name’ (7.62.1), in
parallel to the Persians, who at some point adopted their present
name from Perses, the son of Andromeda (7.61.3).78 This catalogue
may indeed be read as a study of discontinuities over time, and the
fluidity of identities. It demonstrates that apparently clear signs of a
people’s history—the signs of origins and identity embodied for ex-
ample in names—may only obliquely reflect what was in reality a more
complex historical development. Truth may be appreciable only after
deeper investigation. This tentative approach allows no room for the
man!uvre of a Thucydides, whose bold assumption of broad diachro-
nic continuities—of to anthrōpinon (human nature/culture) ‘remaining
the same or similar’ across time (1.22.4)—could justify his construction
of a detailed history of sea power in early Greece purely on the basis of
75
On the Histories’ principle of change, see van der Veen (1996). Thomas (2000:
ch. 4) exposes Herodotus’ emphasis on the mutability of ethnic character and chan-
ging nomoi, bringing out the stress in his explanatory scheme on operative factors that
are ‘transient, flexible and mutable’ (p. 123); cf. Thomas (2001a).
76
See below, pp. 22–3, and Munson, this volume, Ch. 7, on Minos.
77
Dewald (1990: 220).
78
On this passage, see also Vannicelli, this volume, Ch. 10, pp. 263–8.
Introduction 21
present-day realities. As Munson observes, it is unlikely that Herodotus
would have approved of Thucydides’ Archaeology, ‘as brilliantly ra-
tional as it appears now to us’.79
As well as effecting societal change, the passage of time is respon-
sible for wearing away human memories. It renders human events
exitēla, ‘effaced’—like a monument whose inscriptions have worn
away over time and thus become difficult to read, as in the metaphor
Herodotus evokes in his opening sentence.80 The evanescence of oral
and material sources of information means that early events may lie
wholly beyond the reach of human knowledge. Herodotus frequently
reminds his readers of this state of affairs—for example, with his
characteristic qualifier of superlative claims, tōn hēmeis idmen (‘of
which we know’—that is, have direct historical knowledge about81).
Herodotus distinguishes carefully between what can be known with
certainty through historical enquiry, what tradition holds but histor-
ical enquiry cannot verify,82 and what is wholly unknown. Material
concerning early history (where it is available), whether preserved in
the oral traditions of local communities, transmitted by the poets, or
evoked by fragmentary material remains,83 is frequently unverifiable
(see above, }1).84 The situation is further complicated by the way that
skeletal information attracts elaboration over time, whether partisan
or imaginative. The fact of the missing hands of the female statues
associated with Mycerinus (the third Egyptian king after Proteus) has,
for example, drawn some (tines) to conclude that they represent
maidservants punished for allowing him to rape his daughter—a
foolish tale (phluēreontes, ‘they talk nonsense’), Herodotus observes,
79
Munson, this volume, Ch. 7, p. 198. Cf. Hunter (1982: 105–7).
80
On the inscriptional nature of the Histories’ opening sentence, see Svenbro
(1993: 149–50), Moles (1999), and Bakker (2002: 29–32).
81
Shimron (1973); cf. Lateiner (1989: 118): ‘the modification reminds the reader
of the author’s great separation from his data, the increasing inadequacy of sources
as inquiry is pushed back to the limits of known time,’ and Rood (2010: 53).
82
Cf. 7.20, where he contrasts military campaigns ‘of which we know’ (tōn hēmeis
idmen) with others including the Trojan expedition that ‘according to tradition’ (kata
ta legomena) have occurred. See Moles (1993: 97) on this passage (which suggests an
attitude to Homer that is ‘critical in both senses, depreciatory and discriminating’),
and also Bowie, this volume, Ch. 11, pp. 272–3.
83
See just below for Herodotus’ sceptical treatment of current interpretations of
certain fragmentary Egyptian statues.
84
Rood (2010: 65–6) highlights Herodotus’ recognition that the possibility of
attaining accurate knowledge about the past depends on the type of knowledge
concerned.

since the hands have clearly fallen off over the course of time (hupo
khronou), and in fact they are still there visible on the ground (2.131).
Here, the physical ravages wrought by the passage of time have
combined with careless human interpretation to generate dubious
verification. In this instance, as elsewhere, Herodotus stages the
problems and limitations even of material evidence as a witness to
the early or ‘mythical’ past.
Occasionally, however, Herodotus must sacrifice the principle of
change that underlies his work: for his project frequently entails
assuming continuity and resemblance, in dealing with early times as
with other elusive matters (such as distant terrains, the divine, and
hidden human motivations). By analogizing from the known to the
unknown, and by employing the criterion of probability,85 the histor-
ian can broaden and enrich his account, and make it more convincing
and accessible to his readers. Several modern studies thus address
assumptions of continuity between past and present in the Histories,
investigating how Herodotus uses myth to contextualize the Persian
Wars in the wider complex of the known past and to provide chron-
ological reference points, and in other ways employs myth to help
readers understand current phenomena.86 An assumption of conti-
nuity in human psychology across time, is, for example, implied by
Herodotus’ conjecture that Priam would have given Helen back had
she really been in Troy—a conjecture which adds to the cumulative
argument that Helen never was in Troy at all. Likewise his refutation
of the Greeks’ foolish (euēthēs) story that the Egyptians tried to
sacrifice Heracles, and he then massacred them—how could men
for whom it is impious to sacrifice most animals ever sacrifice
human beings?87—assumes stability in Egyptian national character
85
For Herodotus’ connections with the sophists and use of ‘sophistic’ techniques
such as these, see Thomas (2000); for his use of the probability argument in particular,
see A. B. Lloyd (1975: 162–3), D. Müller (1981: 307–11), Romm (1989) (on prob-
ability arguments regarding distance places), and Thomas (2000: 168–90). See below,
p. 35, for an example of Herodotus constructing arguments about early history from
probability.
86
See inter alia Vandiver (1991: passim, e.g. 233), Calame (1999: 135) and, in this
volume, esp. Dewald, Ch. 1, Saïd, Ch. 2, Vandiver, Ch. 5, Munson, Ch. 7, Chiasson,
Ch. 8, and Bowie, Ch. 11.
87
The passage is quoted above, at p. 13. Cf. Munson (2001: 142): here as elsewhere,
Greek inexperience with Egyptian national character contrasts with Herodotus’
experience of it. Piérart (1983) observes that Herodotus, along with all ancient
authors, works on the assumption that the past is qualitatively similar.
Introduction 23
across time. Deduction from generalization is a vital tool in historical
interpretation, even as it stands in tension with Herodotus’ emphasis
elsewhere (noted above) on the mutability of national character and
identity. Something important is at stake here, which trumps the
impulse for consistency: for the logic helps debunk a Greek miscon-
ception about foreigners. The reasoning underpinning Herodotus’
second rhetorical question (how could Heracles—a single human
being—have had the ability (phusis) to slay a multitude?) assumes
that the phusis of a human individual has not changed over time.88
Yet notwithstanding the desire in certain contexts to work out
knowns from unknowns, the way Herodotus highlights the episte-
mological criterion—the unverifiable nature of myth—issues a tacit
challenge to assumptions of qualitative continuity. And at one point
his text may be read as articulating explicitly the possibility that more
radical qualitative discontinuity separates the world as we know it
from the mythical age. Taking the opportunity to underline Poly-
crates’ historical significance, as he rounds out the account of
Oroetes’ plot against his life, Herodotus declares:
Polycrates is the first of the Greeks whom we know to have set his mind on
ruling the sea, excluding Minos of Knossos and if indeed someone else before
him ruled the sea; but of the geneē called human [geneēs anthrōpēiēs lego-
menēs], Polycrates was the first. (3.122.2)
This locus classicus in discussions of whether Herodotus conceives
of a ‘mythological’ period separate from the ‘historical’ attracts
translations that press in two different directions. The term geneē
may be construed exclusively temporally, as ‘era’ or ‘period of time’89
(or, in close connection with that, as the ‘generation’ in which the
gods were still involved with humans90), in keeping with many uses
in the Histories. Alternatively, as occasionally in Herodotus and
very commonly in Homer, it may be construed as ‘race’ or ‘nation-
ality’.91 On either reading the qualifying participle legomenēs allows
88
Piérart (1983: 48) observes these two varieties of argumentation from plausi-
bility.
89
Cf. Powell (19602): s.v. ª!"!# 1: ‘generation, as chronological unit’; 6: ‘era’ (and
here Powell locates only 3.122). Liddell and Scott: ª. I"Łæø%Å&Å the historical, opp. to
the mythical, age, Hdt. 3.122.
90
Most (1997: 112–13).
91
Cf. Powell (19602): s.v. ª!"!# 5: ‘nationality’, and Munson, this volume, Ch. 7,
n. 4 with text and n. 6.

Herodotus a measure of distance from the distinction, presenting it as
one that is either accepted by tradition, or (a possibility Irwin raises92)
employed ‘by Herodotus’ more sophisticated contemporaries’. Espe-
cially striking is the dismissive tone in which Herodotus here leaves
aside Minos in favour of Polycrates93—or rather, perhaps, leaves aside
any tradition that would like to put Minos on a par with Polycrates,
without realizing that he belongs to a completely different era.
The divergent translations of geneē encapsulate the long-debated
question of whether the Histories presents a spatium mythicum dis-
tinct from a spatium historicum—or, in the celebrated formulation of
Vidal-Naquet, a ‘temps des dieux’ separate from a ‘temps des
hommes’.94 The debate on this question—for which evidence may
be adduced in arguing on either side, as Boedeker has observed—has
been fruitful, attuning us further to Herodotus’ methods and to his
sensitivity to this issue.95 And yet ultimately the binary framework of
92
E. Irwin (2007a: 214).
93
Cf. E. Irwin (2007a: 213–14): ‘not only are %'æ!( )*"ø+, and the implication in
‘human’ dismissive, but Herodotus does further injury to any model that privileges
the Cretan king by granting the possibility that some nameless -Ø, might possibly have
a claim to priority.’ See Munson, this volume, Ch. 7.
94
Vidal-Naquet (1960).
95
Boedeker (2002: 110). On the debate as to whether Herodotus conceives of a
spatium mythicum separate from a spatium historicum, see, inter alia, answering in the
affirmative: Jacoby (1909: 99), Shimron (1973), Finley (1975a), Erbse (1979b: 83),
Fornara (1983: 6–8) (separation of the two spatia from Hecataeus onwards), Darbo-
Peschanski (1987: 25–38) (with the qualification that Herodotus avoids dwelling upon
the distinction, e.g. refusing to supply a genealogy himself at 2.143, and remaining
evasive on the question of how humans came to appear; genealogical notices serve as
chronological markers, no more), Nickau (1990), and Canfora (1991: 5–6); answering in
the negative: Hunter (1982: 93–115) (since Herodotus, like Thucydides, ‘consider[s] the
mythological period a temps des hommes, a time of real, historical personages’ (p. 103)),
Raubitschek (1989), T. Harrison (2000a: 203–7), Murray (2001a: 20), and Cobet (2002:
405–11). Hunter (1982: 93–115) suggests that these terms are misapplied to the
Histories; there is no spatium mythicum in Egypt (since the priests preserved accurate
memory), and Herodotus ‘reject[s] . . . the entire temps des dieux in Greece as a creation
of the poets’ (p. 87). R. L. Fowler (2010: 327) proposes the existence rather of a spatium
divinum in Herodotus (‘draw[ing] the line between the two qualitatively different spatia
not between us and the heroes, but between heroes and gods’ produces a ‘tolerably
consistent’ result). Lateiner (1989: 123–4) observes a threefold distinction between
epochs. Williams (2002: 178) deems Vidal-Naquet’s formulation (1960) misleading in
that it conceptualizes the distinction too much in terms of eras and implies that the
worlds of gods and humans are separate. Feeney (2007a: 69–86) finds a sensible middle
ground: ‘the activity of demarcating between myth and history mattered in the ancient
historiographical tradition, though not necessarily in ways that might correspond
closely to any of our current modern divisions between myth and history’ (p. 69),
Introduction 25
the discussion is too reductive to do justice to the breadth and
complexity of Herodotus’ vision.96 It may be expressive that the
ambiguity reflected in translations of 3.122 mirrors the broader
ambiguity about the status of mythological material that suffuses
the Histories: elsewhere too Herodotus’ presentation sensitizes read-
ers to the difficult question of whether the difference between mythi-
cal figures and individuals of recent history—between Minos and
Polycrates—is purely temporal, or whether it runs deeper than
that;97 or, indeed, whether we simply cannot know. Ambivalence in
Herodotus’ linguistic choices can be expressive: at the level of syntax
and semantics he invites readers to wrestle with problems and ten-
sions, just as he does on broader levels of theme and story.98 Her-
odotus’ subtle and deliberate exposure of the ‘problem with Minos’
(to borrow Williams’ phrase99)—the problem of whether our ignor-
ance or his status is at issue—would be in keeping with Herodotus’
more general staging of uncertainty about the terrain of myth. As
Darbo-Peschanski has remarked in relation to Herodotus’ treatment
of mythical genealogies: ‘Toutes les Histoires sont placées sous le signe
de ce balancement entre le refus de s’aventurer dans le récit des vies
divines ou héroïques du premier temps et la reconnaissance de leur
and highlights the chronological dimension of the distinction. See also Rood (2010:
65–7) and Saïd, this volume, Ch. 2, pp. 88–90.
96
Cf. E. Irwin (2007a: 214), observing the damaging consequences in the case of
3.122 of interpreting the passage solely in terms of a myth/history distinction (with
perceptive discussion of 3.122 at 213–15). Feeney (2007a: 72–6) likewise emphasizes
the need for recognition of Herodotus’ sophistication on this score.
97
In Minos’ case, E. Irwin (2007a) offers a fresh focus on the adjective ‘human’,
suggesting that it is precisely this that Polycrates represents in Herodotus’ narrative
(exemplifying the typically human change of fortune). Cf. Vandiver (1991: 150):
Herodotus could both distinguish between heroes and the heroic age, and consider
heroes as real historical personages. Herington (1985: 59) draws attention to the
‘delicate balance between imaginative acceptance and hard-headed realism which is
so characteristic of the ancient Greeks’ attitude to their divine and mythical world’.
See also Munson, this volume, Ch. 7, passim.
98
On how patterns on the level of sentence in Herodotus are replicated on the
highest level, see Immerwahr (1966: 47). Expressive syntactic ambiguity in Herodotus:
e.g. 8.3.1–2, on the Athenians’ attitude towards their allies, yielding leadership to
Sparta mekhri hosou karta edeonto autōn (‘for as long as the allies had great need of
the Athenians’, or ‘for as long as the Athenians had great need of the allies’):
Baragwanath (2008: 199–200, with further examples discussed at 168, 209–10, 262);
cf. 5.97.3, arkhē kakōn (‘beginning/empire of evils’): Irwin and Greenwood (2007: 10
n. 20, with text).
99
We borrow from the title of ch. 3 of Williams (2002)—a nuanced and illuminat-
ing analysis, though to our mind not persuasive in its conclusions.

antériorité, donc leur existence.’100 Brillante has observed more gen-
erally that the complexity of functions projected by the Greeks onto
the heroic world does not allow for simplifications and univocal
interpretations, or for drawing sharp oppositions between human
and heroic worlds.101
The deliberate and thoroughgoing way in which Herodotus dis-
plays his awareness of historical time suggests that the ‘indeterminacy
about the past’ that his text displays102 is studied. It challenges
Williams’ suggestion that Herodotus was only beginning to be an-
xious about these questions, whereas Thucydides first engaged with
them rigorously, ‘inventing historical time’ and ‘discovering’ objec-
tivity as a stance.103 In fact, Herodotus continually reminds us of the
methodological and epistemological barriers that stand in the histor-
ian’s way as he seeks to access accurate knowledge about the distant
past. As Irwin insists, his sceptical stance in relation to Minos is an
attitude that permeates the Histories.104 Indeed, the most striking
feature of Herodotus’ Histories is its concern with the veracity ques-
tion, with the problem of sources: as Fowler has reminded us, it is in
its critical approach to the past, acknowledging (rather than eliding)
the distance that separates past from present, that historiē is most
markedly different from its poetic and prose predecessors.105
At the very outset of the work Herodotus stages a refusal to settle
for a rationalized version of the events that tradition has preserved,
where further verification is not possible. Rather as he takes a
100
‘The entire Histories is located under the sign of this balancing act between the
refusal to venture into reciting the lives of divine or heroic figures of earliest times, and
the recognition of their anteriority, and therefore their existence’ (Darbo-Peschanski
1987: 33).
101
Brillante (1990: 117).
102
Williams’ characterization (2002: 175) of Herodotus’ outlook.
103
Williams argues that Thucydides ‘invented historical time’ by applying to early
material the same standards of truth and falsity as to recent history (see, e.g., 2002:
162), cf. Saïd (2010: 167–9). Von Leyden (1949/50) and Vandiver (1991: 237) likewise
recognize Herodotus’ steps forward in acknowledging the methodological difficulties
in dealing with early material, but regard Thucydides as responsible for the true
advance.
104
E. Irwin (2007a: 212). Feeney (2007a: 243–4 n. 34) likewise notes that Williams
does not fully appreciate Herodotus’ achievement in this respect. Cf. Griffiths (1999:
180) on the sceptical add-on to the tale of Euenius, which serves to distance the author
from the improbable material he has been narrating. For Herodotus as ‘Vater des
Empirismus’ (‘father of empiricism’) see D. Müller (1981).
105
See R. L. Fowler (1996, 2001: 113, 2006).
Introduction 27
distanced stance vis-à-vis Minos, so he caps his account of Phoenician
and Persian versions of how the Trojan War came about by taking
distance—‘I am not going to say that this happened in this way or
some other’—and turning instead to Croesus, a figure of the sixth-
century BCE ‘whom I myself know [ton de oida autos] first began to
commit injustices against the Greeks’ (1.5.3). Verification is, of
course, doubly unattainable so far as the gods are concerned, and in
the proem Herodotus has also taken the ‘deliberate and amazing step’
of writing them wholly out of the traditional story.106 Whereas
Hecataeus settled on a principle of rationalization in accordance
with probability—reducing the daughters of Danaus down from
fifty to a more plausible twenty (even as his proem’s criticism of the
plurality and ridiculousness of the Greeks’ stories implies an aware-
ness of the existence of a more intractable problem than this method
could unravel107)—Herodotus’ epistemological awareness reaches a
more sophisticated level in his insistence that we simply cannot know.
He may transmit rationalized but unverified accounts, like those of
the proem, or the most plausible account of several available, as in the
story of Cyrus’ death (where the logos he selects is ho pithanōtatos);
and these may play a valuable role in inviting readers to consider a
wider sweep of history and different perspectives, or in encapsulating
broader themes. But, in the absence of the opportunity for proper
historiē, Herodotus avoids claiming as truthful what he transmits, or
vouching for it in his own voice.108 As he reminds readers at 7.152.3,
‘I report what is said, but I am not obliged to believe it: and that
applies to the whole of my logos’ (cf. 2.123).
In Egypt the priests’ records, in the context of the heightened
sensitivity to the past of the Egyptians in general and Egypt as locus
of tekmēria (‘signs, proofs’),109 cause human time to stretch so far
106
R. L. Fowler (2010: 327 n. 22), and see Saïd, this volume, Ch. 2, pp. 90–1.
107
Fr. 1, R. L. Fowler (2001: 101).
108
Chiasson, this volume, Ch. 8, addresses Herodotus’ nuanced presentation of
different levels of truth in his presentation of Cyrus.
109
Cf. Herodotus on Heracles, 2.43: many tekmēria were available to Herodotus in
support of the idea that the name of the Greek Heracles came from Egypt to Hellas
(and to the Greeks who then gave the name to Amphitryon’s son), including the fact
that Amphitryon and Alcmene were of Egyptian descent; and Herodotus’ own
enquiries in Egypt (2.44) corroborate this by proving the existence of two separate
Heracles. The account demonstrates that (a) Egypt is a locus where you can do historiē
in relation to myth; and (b) even in the early history of Egypt one may discern
chronological layers: it is not a ‘timeless’ realm like the mythic realm in Greece.

back that even events contemporary with the Trojan War may belong
in the realm of verifiable history. It is for this reason that in Egypt
Herodotus’ methods of enquiry into the distant past most closely
resemble those he employs in dealing with the recent past.110 Egypt
thus plays a crucial role in the investigation of Herodotus’ approach
to myth. Herodotus’ personal receptivity to foreign expertise, and
admiration in particular for the Egyptian historical awareness, may well
help explain his sophistication in grappling with this complex issue.
Moyer suggests that the Late Period Egyptian traditions about the past
gave Herodotus a framework on which he could compare traditions
about specific events, thus extending human time back and historicizing
aspects of Greek collective memory, but also a field in which to compare
on a theoretical level ‘approaches and relations to the past’.111
Where Thucydides adopted the perhaps already conventional
practice of giving exact dates to mythical events—the Dorians in-
vaded the Peloponnese ‘in the eightieth year’ after the Trojan War
(1.12.3)—Herodotus stuck with dating by generations, ‘for the sake of
honest indefiniteness when the exact time-interval was unknown’.112
Again, by contrast with Thucydides and other Greek and Roman
successors, who tended to organize their accounts of history in terms
of clear temporal divisions (such as Varro’s adēlon—‘unclear’, muthi-
kon—‘mythical’, and historikon—‘historical’) connected to key events
such as the Trojan War or the founding of the Olympic Games,
Herodotus’ notion of chronological demarcation is fluid.113 It is not
that as an ‘outrider of the song culture’114 he is oblivious to linear
110
See, in this volume, de Bakker, Ch. 3, and de Jong, Ch. 4. Shimron (1973)
observes that the two counter-examples to his interpretation of idmen in the Histories
(as referring to events that occurred ‘within the period of the two or three generations
from Croesus’ time to [Herodotus’] own’, p. 48) refer to Egyptian history: p. 49. See
Hunter (1982: ch. 2) (on Herodotus’ display of how the reliability and longevity of
tradition in Egypt allows him to discover objective truth spanning back more than
10,000 years) and the important discussion of Vannicelli (2001). Munson, this
volume, Ch. 7, p. 210, compares the Cretans’ long historical memory, which likewise
renders their heroic age accessible to historiē.
111
Moyer (2002: 87).
112
Mitchel (1956: 53–4, 57), bringing out well how dating by generations could
also have greater literary appropriateness. See also Lateiner (1989: 114–25).
113
These traditional demarcations are discussed by Piérart (1983: 49–51) and
Feeney (2007a: esp. 77–86), who highlights the more fluid temporal demarcations
in Herodotus. Varro’s divisions are transmitted by Censorinus, De die natali 21.1.
114
Cf. Herington (1985: 62). Herodotus does nonetheless share close affinities with
the poets: see below, }6.
Introduction 29
chronological distinctions. Rather, with the scope of his enquiries
stretching beyond the limits of Greece, and attuned as he is to all
varieties of cultural difference, Herodotus is mindful of the fact that
different communities have different relationships to their respective
pasts; and he is mindful too of the profound ramifications this has for
his task as enquirer after historical knowledge. The way the episte-
mological criterion—the fact that information of different quality is
available in different contexts of early history—intersects with the
temporal criterion implies a flexible notion of the extent of the
spatium historicum. Herodotus’ deliberate memorializing of recent
history—of the Persian Wars—lest it, likewise, become effaced over
the course of time also implies the fluidity of boundaries in terms of
the epistemological criterion between known and unknown: without
being recorded in history, more recent events, too, may one day be
unknown.
4. HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AUTHORITY IN
RECOUNTING MYTH
Discussing time and knowledge in the Histories raises issues of

historiographical authority. As Herodotus’ presentation underscores,
the reach of human time depends in any instance on the commu-
nity—and particularly on that community’s wise men (logiōtatoi)—
responsible for transmitting the information.115 How then did Her-
odotus position himself vis-à-vis the heritage of traditional, mythical
material?
In Greece—as opposed to Egypt—knowledge about the mythical or
early past was transmitted by poetic and prose traditions far less
concerned with history’s objective of recounting accurately ta geno-
mena. According to Herodotus, Homer deliberately rejected the
truthful logos of Paris’ and Helen’s delay in Egypt on their way to
Troy because it was not so ‘appropriate to epic’ (es tēn epopoiiēn
115
Cf. Cobet (2002: 391): ‘Herodotus’ narrative reflects the different ‘historical
times’ inherent in the various cultural traditions he draws on’; Cobet brings out well
the different statuses of time across the Histories’ various collectivities (ethnē, poleis,
empires, etc.). Historical knowledge depends also on the type of item or source
material: Lateiner (1989: 115–16), Pelling (1999: 333 n. 30).

euprepēs) as the version he chose (2.116.1).116 Poets more generally
make exaggerated claims: ‘not even Aristeas, in his poetry, claims to
have gone northwards of the land of the Issedones’ (oude gar oude
Aristeēs, . . . , oude houtos prosōterō Issēdonōn en autoisi toisi epesi
poieōn ephēse apikesthai, 4.16): if such an exaggerated claim is to be
expected of anyone, it is to be expected of a poet.117 The same point
comes out in Herodotus’ adoption of a narrator persona with limited
access, rejecting the omniscient and omnipresent vantage point of the
Homeric primary narrator (who claims reliance on the perfect knowl-
edge of the Muses).118 Thus, besides the criteria we considered above
of memory and knowledge, Herodotus highlights the fact that one’s
disposition towards the material affects its ultimate expression.119 But
it is the Greek oral culture generally, not only the poets,120 that
Herodotus presents as insensitive to or unconcerned with history’s
objectives: Herodotus uses Egypt as the backdrop for staging the
ridiculousness of the claims of his prose predecessor Hecataeus—
claims that reflect wider Greek traditions and assumptions—that he is
merely sixteen generations removed in descent from the gods. Again,
whereas Athenian funeral orations and public architectural sculpture,
and Greek epinician poetry, could present mythic events alongside
recent ones without marking any difference, Herodotus invites
116
On Herodotus’ attitude to Homer (and 2.116.1 in particular), see de Bakker,
this volume, Ch. 3, n. 44 with text.
117
See further S. West (2004) and Chiasson (forthcoming: ch. 1) on Herodotus’
attitude to Aristeas’ hexameter poem Arimaspeia and use of it as a source. Before
Herodotus, there existed no firm notion that poetry was not a suitable medium for
recounting early or recent history, as Simonides’ Plataea Elegy, for example, bears
witness: Boedeker (2001a); E. L. Bowie (2001); cf. below, pp. 47–53.
118
For Herodotus’ adoption of a human narrator persona closer to Odysseus’ than
Homer’s, see de Jong (1999: 220–3), Marincola (2007a: esp. 13–15, 35–7, 61–5), and
Baragwanath (2008: ch. 2); cf. above, n. 1.
119
In other contexts besides that of poetry Herodotus likewise exposes the fact that
sources for early or mythical history, just like those for recent history, do not always
record information transparently. Transmitters of information may, for example, be
implicated emotionally: the Egyptians ‘out of hatred’ are loath to name Cheops and
Chephren (2.128), with the result that the pyramids built by those kings are inaccu-
rately named after the shepherd Philitis. Propaganda—a stronger form of this phe-
nomenon—is addressed below, p. 41, and esp. in Baragwanath, this volume, Ch. 12,
n. 26 with text.
120
Stadter (1997) reminds us of the close intertwining in Ancient Greek oral
culture of poetic and prose media and traditions (noting, e.g., the intrusion of song
into Herodotus’ prose text). Nagy (1990: chs 8–11) views Herodotus as part of the
poetic tradition. Thucydides, however, lays out an interesting distinction between
prose and poetic genres, in contrasting poiētai with logographoi (1.21.1).
Introduction 31
readers to contemplate possible divergence.121 We may wonder
whether his emphasis on potential obstacles to analogizing between
present and remoter events is partly a reaction against the increasing
tendency in the period after the Persian Wars to see the present as
analogous to the past.122
Herodotus builds up his own narrator persona against the foil of
other purveyors of mythical material—poets, mythographers, geogra-
phers, orators, artists—as one who is methodologically cautious in
dealing with myth, and yet attentive to the cultural significance of
people’s mythological traditions, and the role of such traditions in
shaping history. Just as in his treatment of religious experience his
presentation succeeds in conveying people’s strong belief in epipha-
nies123 and in the efficacy of sacrificial ritual and oracles, while
nonetheless framing the material in such a way as to avoid verifying
in his own person what historiē is unable to verify, so too with his
treatment of myth. Herodotus commonly describes myths in great
detail, conveying communities’ commitment to them as aetiologies,
and their role in the present in informing identities and motivating
(and justifying) action. His meticulous treatment, frequent inclusion
of variant versions of a particular myth, and generally respectful tone
where myths are espoused by particular communities or indivi-
duals,124 convey a sense of the narrator’s modesty in dealing with
this material that parallels his position on ta theia: ‘everyone knows
equally about these things’ (2.3.2).125 At the same time his framing
techniques (notably the use of indirect discourse, and the juxtapos-
ition of different versions of mythical accounts) signal that mythical
narratives are not to be taken as historically verified.
A fascinating example is Herodotus’ presentation of three
accounts of the origins of Scythia, which also suggests the degree of
121
Grethlein (2010b: chs 7–8) argues that Herodotus and Thucydides define the
new genre that they developed both explicitly and implicitly against other commem-
orative genres such as epideictic oratory.
122
Boedeker (1998a: 189) observes that the way of seeing the present as analogous
to the past was heightened by the experience of the Persian Wars.
123
Cf. the epiphany to Pan (7.189), with Hornblower (2001: 143–5).
124
There is the occasional exception—e.g. Herodotus’ treatment of Hecataeus,
2.143 (where mild polemic is in order, to challenge this mistaken rival view).
125
pantas anthrōpous ison peri autōn (in reference to ta theia, ‘divine things’, or
perhaps ta ounomata, ‘(divine) names’) epistasthai: see Darbo-Peschanski (1987:
35–7) for possible interpretations of this passage, which either refers to equal positive
knowledge or suggests that everyone knows equally little.

corroboration needed for him to accept traditions about early history
as potentially truthful. In the first account, the Scythians themselves
tell how Targitaus—offspring of Zeus and a daughter of River Bory-
sthenes—appeared in the then empty land and fathered three sons,
the youngest of whom took possession of golden objects that fell
from the sky and with them, the kingship (4.5–7). In the second
account, the Greeks of Pontus say that the youngest of the three
sons of Heracles and the snake woman claimed the kingship by
carrying out Heracles’ tasks (4.8–10). In the third version, ‘Greeks
and foreigners’ claim that the Massagetae pressed the nomadic
Scythians into the land of the Cimmerians, who—threatened by the
Scythians’ advance—debated what course of action to take. The kings
desired to stay and fight, but the people to flee, with the upshot that
one group fought each other to the death, while the other departed,
and the Scythians took over their land (4.11–12). Each of these
accounts can be considered mythical in referring to ancient history
and in the involvement of superhuman beings.
In the case of the first version, Herodotus does not accept the
account as true (he explicitly rejects the divine aetiology),126 and yet
supplies detail that conveys the Scythians’ commitment to the infor-
mation they give:
Thus then the Scythians say they came to be; the whole amount of years since
they came to be, from the first king Targitaus to the crossing of Darius
against them, they say is a thousand, not more but exactly this many [ou pleō
alla tosauta]. (4.7.1)
While not affirming the account of the origins of the gold, Herodotus
points to the strength of the Scythians’ belief in the story by high-
lighting the role of the gold in their present-day rituals:
This sacred gold the kings guard as much as possible [es ta malista], and
every year [ana pan etos] they placate it by propitiating it with great sacrifices
[thusiēisi megalēisi]. The Scythians say that anyone who has the sacred gold
and falls asleep out in the open during the festival will die within a year, and
that is why [dia touto] they give him as much land as he can ride around on
horseback in a day. (4.7.1–2)
126
‘This Targitaus’ parents, they say—I don’t believe it, but it’s the story they tell
[emoi men ou pista legontes, legousi d’ ōn]—were Zeus and a daughter of the river
Borysthenes’ (4.5.1).
Introduction 33
The sacred character of the gold in the present is thus affirmed (with
its description several times as ‘sacred’ and the sketch of the commu-
nity’s regard for its power), even as Herodotus takes distance from the
Scythians’ aetiology (that is, as fallen from the sky, presumably as a
gift from Zeus). Similarly, elsewhere in the Histories, Herodotus offers
a detailed account of the contemporary festival of Rhampsinitus but
explicitly refuses to affirm the mythical aetiology the priests supply
for the festival’s origins: the story that Rhampsinitus played dice in
Hades (2.122.2). Herodotus thus includes this myth in his account—
for it is a story that is important in terms of Egyptian beliefs and
identity, the Egyptian imaginaire—even as he explicitly and empha-
tically refuses to confirm its historicity (as event and as origin of the
festival) (‘I cannot, however, say whether it is actually because of
this that they celebrate’: ou mentoi ei ge dia tauta hortazousi ekhō
legein).127
After next recounting the more fabulous story of Heracles’ affair
with the Scythian snake-woman (which Herodotus finds the most
amusing, even as he will not vouch for it), it is the third account of
Scythian origins (of the nomadic Scythians, pressed by the Massage-
tae, gaining Scythia through conquest) that he inclines towards (tōi
malista legomenōi autos proskeimai). This is evidently because of the
confirmation given by visible material remains,128 the corroboration
of sources (Greek and foreign), and the less fantastical nature of this
account: it is plausible on the human level,129 and actually encapsu-
lates important truths about human behaviour that mirror behaviour
and choices elsewhere in the Histories.130 But, though he frames the
case for this third explanation quite emphatically,131 Herodotus
127
Cf. Haziza (2009: 137–46) on Rhampsinitus in the context of a discussion about
the Egyptian imaginaire.
128
‘And the kings’ burial place is still evident. And to this day there are in Scythia
Cimmerian walls, and a Cimmerian ferry’, etc. (4.11.4–12.1).
129
It accords with how people might be expected to act under such circumstances:
‘(they say that) the Cimmerians—when the Scythians were attacking [epiontos]—
planned on the grounds that a great army was attacking [hōs stratou epiontos mega-
lou]’ (4.11.2).
130
e.g. the choice of dying honourably or escaping and surviving; the difficulty of
persuading others: the people fail to persuade the kings, and vice versa; human
intransigence; irreconcilable objectives. Cf. Saïd, this volume, Ch. 2, pp. 91–2, on
the factors that for Herodotus confirm the historicity of the Egyptian priests’ account
of the Trojan War (2.112–20).
131
‘And now there is . . . and there is . . . and there is . . . and the Cimmerians
clearly [phainontai] in fleeing the Scythians into Asia founded also the Chersonese,

nonetheless presents it in terms of his inclination rather than firm
knowledge, and he retains the use of indirect discourse.
Likewise in presenting his enquiries into the origins of the oracle of
Zeus at Dodona and of Zeus Ammon in Libya, Herodotus lays out
alternative accounts (2.54–5), flagging the fact that the veracity ques-
tion remains key (though it may not be resolvable) even in approach-
ing such early material, while conveying the commitment of his
informants to their respective versions. The priests of Egyptian
Thebes relate that Phoenicians abducted two priestesses, selling one
to Greece and one to Libya; and the enslaved women then founded
the oracles in each of those two countries. The account is reported in
indirect discourse, and in wrapping it up Herodotus highlights the
issue of verifiability by staging his own scepticism about the possibi-
lity of knowing such information: he describes himself interrogating
the priests on this very issue (eiromenou de meu hokothen houtō
atrekeōs epistamenoi legousi, ephasan . . . : ‘when I questioned them
as to whence they knew so accurately, they said . . . ’, 2.54.2). In the
absence of an authorial evaluative gloss, readers are left to weigh for
themselves the credibility of the priests’ explanation. Next Herodotus
recounts the Dodona priestesses’ version, that black doves flew from
Egypt to Libya and Dodona and instructed that these oracles be
established. He wraps up this version with the observation that the
three priestesses of Dodona (each of whom he names) say this, ‘and
the other Dodonians connected with the shrine agree with them’—
thus affirming the absolute agreement of all those connected with the
sanctuary.
Detlev Fehling concluded that Herodotus thus ‘provid[ed] the
miraculous story at Dodona . . . with an enhanced Confirmation’,
‘giv[ing] the names of three priestesses as witnesses and add[ing]
that the people living round about likewise confirm the story’.132
But Herodotus does not verify the story himself, and his hard-nosed
scepticism at the far less fantastical earlier account of the priests
in which now the Greek city Sinope is founded. And evident also [phaneroi de . . . kai]
are the Scythians, that they pursued them and invaded the Median land, missing the
path . . . And this other account, which is told in common by Greeks and by foreign-
ers, I have now told’ (4.12.1–3). This also seems to dovetail with Herodotus’ own
previous firm knowledge (which he reports directly): ‘For the Cimmerians fled always
by the coast, but the Scythians—keeping the Caucasus on the right—were fleeing to
the point where they invaded the Median land, turning in their route inland’ (4.12.3).
132
Fehling (1989: 69).
Introduction 35
suggests rather that this tale is so improbable as to require no refuta-
tion at all133—but equally that Herodotus is respectful in shrinking
from outright disagreement with the priestesses, and leaves possibil-
ities open in the case of such unverifiable matters.134 The detailing of
the names of the individual priestesses and the mention of the
collective Dodonians puts a more personal face to those who are
committed to this story and transmit it—which in itself brings out
further its worthiness for inclusion in the Histories. At the same time,
Herodotus’ warnings elsewhere of the partial and partisan nature of
storytelling135 might well induce a glimmer of recognition in the
reader that this account serves the interests of the priestesses and
Dodonians who recount it: divinely sent dove founders heighten the
charisma of the shrine in a way that slave-girl founders might not.
Herodotus’ recording of these two accounts then—so far from repre-
senting a strategy of evoking dovetailing sources that instils audience
persuasion, ‘maintaining the veracity of these two reports’ and pro-
ducing a ‘perfect harmony between the two accounts and their
sources’136—serves rather as a reminder of the variation in traditions,
and the difficulty in ascertaining the truth. The difficulty is accentu-
ated by the possibility in this instance of divine intervention, about
which humans cannot have secure knowledge.
Finally Herodotus borrows from both accounts in constructing
himself, in accordance with principles of likelihood, a possible ac-
count:
I [egō de] hold about these things the following opinion [gnōmēn tēnde]: if
truly [ei alētheōs] the Phoenicians carried away the sacred women and sold
one of them in Libya and the other in Greece, it seems to me [dokeei emoi]
that this woman [the one sold in Thesprotia in Greece] . . . while working as a
slave established in that place a temple of Zeus under an oak tree which was
growing there, for it was likely [hōsper ēn oikos] that she—after serving the
shrine of Zeus in Thebes—would remember it in the land where she arrived;
and that she said that her sister had been sold in Libya by the same
Phoenicians by whom she too had been sold. (2.56, excerpts)
133
Moreover, Herodotus goes on to model the use of the probability criterion in
his ensuing hypothesis about the matter (cf. below, hōsper ēn oikos).
134
He does not shrink from exposing corruption scandals surrounding the
Pythian prophetess, as at 5.63 (bribery by Alcmaeonids) and 6.66 (by Cleomenes)—
but these are a matter of recent events about which the sordid truth has surfaced.
135
Dewald (1999); cf. below, nn. 157 and 158.
136
So Fehling (1989: 65–70; quotations at pp. 66, 70, respectively).

With alētheōs we are reminded that the truth criterion remains a
concern for the historian even in dealing with this early mythical
material (a higher goal than the ‘agreement’ that the priestesses and
neighbours reach in the second version). Herodotus’ account is
emphatically speculative: it stems from a hypothetical condition
(‘If the Phoenicians did in truth . . . ’), and is the product of his own
personal judgement (egō d’ ekhō . . . gnōmēn tēnde; dokeei emoi).
Herodotus thus reminds us that he is exercising his historical imagi-
nation, and the results are not to be taken as verified and true. And
yet, even as he situates the account firmly in the realm of the spec-
ulative, he constructs a pièce de résistance in his vivid, detailed, and
persuasive narrative of a possible way in which the oracles’ establish-
ment might have occurred, which is a narrative that is no less
comprehensive and lucid—with no less impact on the reader—than
equivalent accounts of more recent history.
Herodotus goes on to offer a rationalizing explanation likewise for
the story of doves (peleiades de moi dokeousi klēthēnai . . . , 2.57),
proposing that the name—and the story told by the Dodonians—
arose from the women’s unintelligible speech. As Pelling has ob-
served, this is ‘a story about how a story could develop, it explains
away a legend’—and is thus to be contrasted with the sort of
rationalization Thucydides engages in in his Archaeology (Thuc.
1.1–19),137 where he is content (in less rigorous manner than Her-
odotus: cf. above, pp. 20–21) to rationalize the mythical account by
taking it literally. Herodotus’ story exposes ‘the mythopoetic power
of names’: how the process of transmission has turned the woman
into a literal dove.138
The influence of Herodotus’ model is evident four centuries later,
when a similarly careful balancing strategy in the treatment of reli-
gion and myth surfaces in the Roman historian Livy. In narrating
divine action, Livy’s careful use of indirect discourse allows him to
avoid making direct claims of historical verification; and yet at the
same time he persuasively conveys the possibility of divine
137
Pelling (2002a: 174).
138
Munson (2005: 69, with discussion of this narrative at pp. 67–9). In the story of
the handless statues (above, p. 21) we encountered another instance of Herodotus
modelling the way in which stories develop over time, and thus staging a warning of
the care needed in approaching mythical material. On Herodotus’ account of the
foundation of the oracles at Dodona, see also S. West (2002: 39–46) and Gray, this
volume, Ch. 6, p. 184.
Introduction 37
involvement, and its significant role in the unfolding of history.139
Equally in recounting mythical material, Livy remains distanced and
sardonic yet ‘contrives to let the glamour and power of the myths
leak into his narrative’ (as Feeney remarks of his account of the
foundation of Rome).140 Praef. 6–9 displays his sensitivity to generic
distinctions—which are related to the epistemological concerns that
Herodotus underscores (see below, pp. 50–1)—while defending the
inclusion of mythical elements.141 Livy’s observation that if it belongs
to any nation to claim divine ancestry, then the claim of the warlike
Romans to Mars as their founder will be tolerated (praef. 7), corre-
sponds to Herodotus’ occasional acceptance of myths on the grounds
of their appropriateness and plausibility, regardless of the possibility of
proving their literal truth. Thus in Herodotus’ judgement the miracu-
lous nature of Cyrus’ survival implies that there must have been a
measure of divine involvement in it:142 to this extent he allows cre-
dence to the (otherwise overblown) legends that circulate about Cyrus’
birth. Perhaps his refraining from refuting the story of the black doves
in part represents a similar allowance to its manifest appropriateness
as an explanation for such austere and significant shrines.
5. THE TRUTH OF MYTH: ITS HISTORICAL

CONTEXT AND THE HISTORIES
The stories that we collectively refer to as mythology had an enormous

impact upon the world that Herodotus described. This went beyond
the realm of literature and poetry—in fact myths sprang forth from
this world, as it were, for they were intimately connected to the land-
scape that the Greeks saw around them. They accounted for all kinds
of natural phenomena, but were also tied to cultic sites where
139
See Levene (1993) on indirect discourse as a framing device. Feldherr (1998:
51–81) brings out Livy’s use of authority figures (esp. representing their firm belief) to
strengthen his accounts. Feeney (2007b: 185–6) highlights the influence of Herodotus’
example.
140
Feeney (2007b: 186).
141
He initially appears to be upholding the generic distinctions that ought to
exclude such legends from a history, but ultimately differentiates his work from
traditional models and justifies its inclusion of myth: Feldherr (1998: 75–6).
142
See Chiasson, this volume, Ch. 8, pp. 218–19.

communities would gather to participate in shared rituals and confirm
their identity vis-à-vis one another, their ancestors, and the outside
world. In places such as Eleusis and the Acropolis of Athens, these
rituals took place upon the remains of Bronze Age settlements that had
been abandoned at the end of the second millennium BCE, but none-
theless kept an aura of past glory.143 Clearly the Greeks of the Archaic
and Classical Age sought to connect themselves, through cults, genea-
logies, and the reconstruction of their remote past, to the heroes who
were felt to belong to these ancient settlements, and whose tales they
had inherited.144 The fact that these tales portrayed a world that was
not geographically or culturally dissimilar to their own facilitated
identification and stimulated the Greeks to use them in explaining
events or legitimizing actions in their contemporary world.145
Thus their prominence guaranteed them a place among the geno-
mena that were the subject of the Histories. We may take as a salient
example the anti-Argive politics of Cleisthenes of Sicyon. Cleisthenes
first banned the performance of the Homeric epics on the grounds
that they exalted heroes associated with Argos. Subsequently—foiled
by the Delphic oracle in his attempt to get rid of the cult of the Argive
hero Adrastus—he introduced from Thebes the cult of Adrastus’
most hated adversary, the hero Melanippus, and transferred to him
the offerings and rituals normally due to Adrastus (5.67). The myths
of the Theban and Trojan cycle were apparently meaningful enough
to be put to use for propagandistic purposes. Not simply entertaining
stories from the past, they had such relevance that they continued to
influence and give shape to political affairs in Herodotus’ world, not
only directly—supporting Cleisthenes the tyrant in his political re-
forms—but also indirectly: Cleisthenes’ reforms inspired his Athe-
nian namesake two generations later and led to a reorganization of
the tribal landscape in Athens whose consequences were felt down to
143
Cf. Grethlein (2010a: 132).
144
The Homeric epics played an important role in this as well. Grethlein (2010a:
130–1) summarizes the debate and himself assigns multiple functions to the Iliad in the
Archaic Age: the poem provided ‘a basis of aristocratic self-assertion’, but also played a
complex, symbolic role in the subtle negotiations between various parties within the
emerging polis communities.
145
Dewald, this volume, Ch. 1, pp. 70–1, considers the resonance of mythic
elements connected to local geography in the context of Hdt. Book One. See
further below, p. 43 on Herodotus’ portrayal of the role of myth in the contem-
porary world.
Introduction 39
Herodotus’ own time (5.69).146 Stories such as these are in keeping
with references to Greek mythical heroes that surface in speeches147
and with traditions surrounding their mysterious roles during the
Persian Wars.148 Herodotus displayed notable sensitivity to this ma-
terial, for he was aware of its influence, even though it belonged to a
domain that could not be subjected to his methodological standards.
It was the ongoing presence and pervasiveness of myth in Herodotus’
world that ensured its prominence in a work that sought to memor-
ialize the past.149
And yet, as a historian, Herodotus can question the status of
mythical stories. ‘Enough about deeds of long ago’, he has the Athe-
nian spokesman at Plataea declare in countering the Tegeans’ evoca-
tion of their legendary exploits in a dispute about the prestigious
position on the left wing (9.27.5). This passage echoes Herodotus’
own approach in the Histories’ opening chapters, where he rejects the
traditional tales of the Persian logioi about the rapes and counter-
rapes of women, and chooses (as we saw above) to start with Croesus
(1.5.3).150 But Herodotus did not ban these unverifiable stories en-
tirely from his work. Instead, he presented a version of the events
leading up to the Trojan War that allowed him to introduce themes of
great relevance for his entire work, such as reciprocity, the role of
women, and the escalation of conflict over time.151 In the same way,
the Athenian spokesman at Plataea objects to his opponent’s recourse
to mythical exploits only after listing Athenian counter-examples that
were as heroic as they were legendary.152
146
Cf. the story of the bones of Orestes in relation to Sparta’s power (1.65–8), on
which see Boedeker’s classic essay (1993).
147
e.g. in the Gelon episode (7.157–62), discussed in this volume by Saïd, Ch. 2,
p. 94, and Bowie, Ch. 11, pp. 281–2.
148
e.g. the story of Phylacus and Autonous (8.39).
149
For a parallel instance, see E. Irwin’s discussion (2011: 397–414) of the Aeacid
heroes of Aegina during the battle of Salamis, who play a role, she argues, in the
Aeginetans’ heroic self-fashioning.
150
Masaracchia (1978: ad loc.), Flower and Marincola (2002: ad loc.), and Lache-
naud (2003: 241).
151
Cf. Dewald’s narratological study (1999) of Herodotus’ proem, which
argues that the shifting focalizations of Herodotus’ preface expose the partial
and partisan nature of storytelling. On Herodotus’ proem, see also, in this volume,
Saïd, Ch. 2.
152
9.26–7 with Baragwanath (2012: 40–43), and, in this volume, Saïd, Ch. 2, p. 95,
and Bowie, Ch. 11, }2.2.

Despite his reluctance to embrace mythological aitiai as truth,
myth—in a more general sense—wins an important place in Hero-
dotus’ narrative in part because of its capacity to exercise a powerful
influence on events. Cyrus’ belief in his ‘superhuman’ birth is part of
what motivates his final campaign into the territory of the Massagetae
(1.204.2).153 Elsewhere the same myth exerts its effect through its
rhetorical function: Cyrus invokes the tale of the divine favour that
attended his birth in persuading the Persians to revolt from the
Medes (‘I think that I myself was born by divine chance to take in
hand this task’, 1.126.6). Individuals and communities are motivated
by their knowledge or understanding of mythical episodes, in carry-
ing out contemporary rituals (as in the Scythians’ case: 4.7), in claims
to territory (as in the dispute of Athenians and Mytileneans over
Achilleum: 5.94.2), and in justifications for war (including in Xerxes’
and Mardonius’ interpretation of the war against Greece as justice for
Troy).154 Yet, as Herodotus’ careful framing devices remind us, myth
is not to be received by his readers in the same way as more recent
history can be, as approaching an accurate and literal truth.155 This is
not a matter of there being different epistemological categories for
myth versus history, different ways of believing (as Veyne conceived
of the ancient Greek approach to myth156): rather, there is a spectrum
of certainty in terms of the clarity and reliability of available evidence.
Whereas the processes of historiē can produce a reasonable con-
vergence of evidence in constructing a narrative of recent history—as
153
On this passage, see Dewald, this volume, Ch. 1, p. 74, and, for a detailed
discussion of the story of Cyrus’ death in the war against the Massagetae, see
Chiasson, this volume, Ch. 8, pp. 227–32.
154
For the role of myth in contemporary political and colonizing discourse, see
esp. Malkin (1994); cf. Saïd, this volume, Ch. 2, }3. See also, in this volume, Baragwa-
nath, Ch. 12, on Xerxes’ and Mardonius’ use of myth, and Dewald, Ch. 1, Bowie, Ch. 11,
and Baragwanath, Ch. 12, on Herodotus’ awareness of the power of myth to shape
behaviour.
155
Myths in the context of Egypt present something of an exception: see above,
pp. 27–8.
156
Veyne (1988), on whom see esp. Brillante (1990: 116–17). R. L. Fowler (2000)
observes that, while a category of tales we call ‘myth’ was recognized (p. xxviii, cp. n.
41 above), the mythographers did not necessarily confine themselves to it: ‘in parti-
cular, the authors of local and regional history started in the mythical period and
carried on into the historical without any thought that they were crossing generic
boundaries’ (p. xxix). The practice of the Atthidographers of roaming between
mythical and fifth-century material suggests that they were not working with such
an epistemological distinction (nor was Plutarch in his use of this material and
material of the first century BCE: Pelling (2002b: 188)).
Introduction 41
in the account of Thermopylae, where Herodotus stages the diver-
gence of sources (of Spartan and Thessalian traditions157) and yet
achieves a largely coherent and unitary account—alternative accounts
of the same mythical episode are frequently incommensurable, as in
the case of those of Scythian origins (discussed above, pp. 31–4). The
contested and rhetorical nature of myth contributes to the elusive
character of its historicity. For, while Herodotus’ treatment of myth
emphasizes the epistemological issues, as we have seen—its distance in
time from the present, and the consequent difficulty for the historian in
affirming or refuting it—he also underlines this rhetorical function.158
Myths are an especially contested category of logoi. The poets
and orators relished displaying dexterity in exploiting and reshaping
traditional stories to suit the particular argument and occasion.159
Herodotus reveals this situation, highlighting what modern scholarship
has underscored: that myth is never neutral. Myths have an argumen-
tative function and serve a purpose. Like oral tradition more generally,
they exist in their particular form because they meet the needs of an
individual or community in a specific context in the present.
Thus, in his treatment of the mythical origins of Medes and Persians,
discussed by Vannicelli in this volume (Ch. 10), Herodotus includes
both eponyms (Perses/Perseus and Achaemenes: each of which derives
from a separate strand of oral tradition), rather than being content to
transmit just the (Spartan) propaganda against Argos in the wake of
the Persian Wars that exploited the Perseus eponym to associate
Argives with Persians. Here as elsewhere the Histories bears witness
to Herodotus’ commitment to seeking out alternative sources
that promote contrasting views, avoiding relying on a single, poten-
tially propagandistic account.160 Hence the ‘flagrant incompatibility’
scholars have come up against in seeking to reconcile the Histories’
157
Vannicelli (2007).
158
As Rood (2010: 67) observes: ‘The Histories as a whole are shaped by an
awareness of the manipulation of the past.’ See Baragwanath, this volume, Ch. 12,
on the problematic qualities of Mardonius’ use of myth, Dewald (1999 and this
volume, Ch. 1, pp. 61–7) on Herodotus’ staging of contested versions of myth in his
proem; cf. Munson, this volume, Ch. 7, pp. 198–9.
159
See Griffith (1990) on the poets.
160
As Thomas (1989: 280) observes in a related context: ‘Far from parroting the
family tradition, Herodotus was able to pick up . . . [alternative] traditions and treat
them with considerable independence of mind.’

diverse genealogies: Herodotus’ desire to preserve variant accounts and
to draw attention to the sources that transmit them here outstrips his
desire for system.161 Herodotus brings out how individuals’ and com-
munities’ commitment to mythical accounts shapes identities and
influences action—for which reason myth plays an important role in
the record of genomena ex anthrōpōn (cf. proem)—even as he refrains
from making truth claims about the content of unverifiable stories.
The truthfulness of myth in the Histories can be akin, then, to that
of archaic poetry, ‘a-lētheia’ as ‘not-forgotten’—as remembered and
transmitted across time—rather than alētheia in its alternative (and
generally later) sense of a firmer, more absolute truth (that stands in
starker opposition to competing claims).162 Assertions of such an
absolute truth (or opinion that comes as close as possible to truth)
occur quite frequently in the Histories,163 in the context of more
readily grasped knowledge relating to recent events or scientific
phenomena. In the case of myth, on the other hand, what is signifi-
cant may not be its literal truth, but that it is said and believed (as in
the example of the Dodonian priestesses’ story, 2.55)—or at least
effective in inducing persuasion. Thus in the case of myth we may
more readily take at face value Herodotus’ claim ‘to say what is said’
(legein ta legomena, 7.152.3), which is manifestly not the whole story
when it comes to his treatment of recent history.164 In this tension in
approach we see reflected the double character of Herodotus (a
doubleness invoked below by Dewald165), as well as the transitional
nature of his project. For in certain respects Herodotus presents
himself as an Archaic Age storyteller, preserving traditions and
161
See esp. Mitchel (1956). ‘Flagrante incompatibilité’: Darbo-Peschanski (1987:
31; cf. 29–32) (underlining the lack of system, while observing that it none the less
furnishes the Histories with a broad chronological framework). A. B. Lloyd (1975:
171–94) attempts to reconcile the chronology of the Histories’ most prominent heroic
genealogies. More generally, see Cobet (2002) and (with a focus on Egypt) Vannicelli
(2001).
162
Detienne (1996) discusses archaic truth in terms of the semantic field of
a-lētheia. See Veyne (1988) for myth as believed in differently from history, and
above, n. 156 with text.
163
See T. Harrison (2004) on the nature of truth in the Histories, and Baragwanath
(2008: 19) for Herodotus’ striving towards opinion that is as close as possible to truth.
164
In the case of recent history, we may not take this claim entirely at face value,
for Herodotus aspires to more than this. See inter alia Lateiner (1989: 79, 82–3), Moles
(1993: 95–6), and Thomas (2000: 188 n. 47 with text).
165
Dewald, this volume, Ch. 1, pp. 78–82.
Introduction 43
sustaining memory; in others, he seems more akin to a (late-)fifth-
century, sophist-like seeker after truth.166
Herodotus is acutely aware of deliberate processes of memory: of
the human inclination to shape stories in a bid to shape reality—for
example, when Egyptians knowingly fabricate a connection with
Cyrus to bolster their pedigree (3.1).167 Thus he is alert to the
significance of myth as ‘intentional history’ (intentionale Geschichte),
serving to bolster claims and cement identities.168 Indeed, as Bowie
observes, in the Histories ‘we see . . . how stories are not innocent
tradition, but weapons in the selective creation of an identity, the
claiming of a privilege, or the justification of an act’.169 Throughout
the work Herodotus stages people’s conscious use of the mythic past
in the present, and in particular the role of mythic discourse in
persuasive rhetoric that can shape events. Dionysius in urging the
Ionians to train seriously enlarges his rhetoric and highlights the
urgency of the situation by employing the Homeric expression ‘on
razor’s edge’ (6.11.2). Leonidas’ expressly heroic choices and action at
Thermopylae aim to secure the kleos of the Spartans and inspire other
Greeks. Mardonius’ and Xerxes’ mythic discourse seeks to justify and
heroize the campaign in a way that will rally Persians as well as Greek
communities to the cause.170
Such use of myth by characters in the Histories comes as no
surprise: mythic exempla were a stable ingredient of argumentation,
from Homer through the archaic poets down to the fifth-century
tragedians and fourth-century orators. Myth remained an important
ingredient in contemporary sophistic epideixeis (display perfor-
mances): Prodicus, for example, employed the myth of the choice
166
Cf. Thomas (2000: 267–9) on his combining of Homeric and sophistic aspects,
Baragwanath (2008: ch. 3) for the doubleness of his narrator persona, and Kurke
(2011: chs 10–11), who reads this doubleness in terms of a clash of (high) Homeric
and (low) Aesopic narrative modes. Grethlein (2010b: ch. 7) offers an assessment of
the tension between tradition and innovation in Herodotus’ work in relation to other
genres of memory.
167
The conscious aspect of such a process is highlighted at 2.77, where Herodotus
observes that the Egyptians of the cultivated country ‘most of all men toil at preserving
[epaskeontes] memory [mnēmēn]’.
168
Cf. Gehrke (1994, 2001: esp. 297–8).
169
Bowie, this volume, Ch. 11, p. 286.
170
See Boedeker (2002: 100–1) and Pelling (2006a: 80–1) for ‘on razor’s edge’, and,
in this volume, Saïd, Ch. 2, pp. 95–6, and Baragwanath, Ch. 12, on Xerxes’ and
Mardonius’ use of Greek myth.

of Heracles.171 This persuasive function of myth should prompt us to
consider whether the historian, too, employs it in this way: does
Herodotus, like the characters in his text, use myth to buttress his
own authority, to make his story more persuasive, and to support
particular ideologies? Mythic material that evokes the epic tradition
certainly assists in elevating his new prose project and establishing its
authority. Homeric resonances heighten the tone and enlarge the
significance of the events recounted, as when the twenty Athenian
ships lending support to the Ionian revolt are described as ‘the
beginning of evils’ (5.97.3; cf. Iliad 5.62–3).172 So too does the
aetiology for the place name ‘Aphetae’ that Herodotus includes in
his account of Xerxes’ fleet dropping anchor there on the way to
Greece (7.193): here Heracles was left behind by the Argonauts on
their voyage to Aea to fetch the fleece, after he went for water to
stock up before they steered for the open sea. The detail sets Xerxes’
more recent expedition westwards in line of the mythical voyage
east.173 The effect is stronger still when mythical figures such as
Protesilaus step into the pages of Herodotus’ text and exert an
influence on events.174 The model of mythical episodes thus lends
stature—and perhaps also credence175—to aspects of Herodotus’
own account of the Persian Wars.176 Herodotus’ text borrows also
(particularly via his informants) from the authority and majesty of
traditional stories and story patterns, with their close associations
with the heroic world. The favourable augury before Mycale, pre-
sided over by Deiophonus, issues in the story of the seer Euenius
(Deiophonus’ alleged father), which, with its elements of divine
involvement, its mythemes177 reminiscent of tragedy, and its
171
Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1.21–34.
172
See Irwin and Greenwood (2007: index s.v.) for the epic overtones and ambi-
guity of arkhē kakōn; cf. above, n. 98, and, in this volume, Vandiver, Ch. 5, and Bowie,
Ch. 11 (e.g. pp. 271–8: Iliadic resonances in the account of Xerxes’ march give a sense
of the significance of the conflict).
173
See Dewald, this volume, Ch. 1, pp. 70–2, on the resonance in the Histories of
mythic names.
174
9.116, 120 with Boedeker (1988).
175
Pelling (1999: 344) (on Herodotus’ borrowings from Homer): ‘the story is
simply more believable if it corresponds to the audience’s expectations, more or less
conscious, of how stories work’. Cf. below, n. 228 with text.
176
Thucydides’ account likewise derives authority by evoking Homer’s war, but
with a view to presenting his own as surpassing it—even though he explicitly rejects
the fabulous element; cf. above, n. 4 with text.
177
See below, pp. 53–5, for the term.
Introduction 45
foundation on the oracular authorities of Dodona and Delphi, ele-
vates the end of the Mycale narrative and elicits heightened emo-
tional engagement in readers (9.92–5).178 In this case myth serves as
a mode of explanation and interpretation in the narration of recent
history, in parallel to the analytical or ‘historical’ mode that marks
the preceding Mycale narrative.179 The world of myth in a certain
sense supplies ‘a realm of heightened, “truer” reality’ (as Chiasson
expresses it180)—a reality that is different from, but certainly no less
valuable than, run-of-the-mill actuality.181
In these ways myth certainly has a rhetorical and persuasive func-
tion in the historian’s text. But, at the same time, Herodotus’ care to
keep readers alert to its unverifiable and contested nature—keeping
various possibilities in play rather than emphasizing one in particu-
lar—works against the idea that he uses it to press a distinct ideology
above all others (unless we are to regard such general promotion of
dialogism as an ideology). Herodotus’ practice in the Histories of
selecting traditions demonstrates a general concern to promote addi-
tional and less obvious viewpoints, problematizing the communis
opinio, as Munson brings out.182 More important to Herodotus’
own narrative than the rhetorical function of myth is the role it
plays in explaining history and rendering it intelligible to readers (as
several contributions to this volume illustrate). References to mythical
paradigms promote intelligibility by enabling readers to contextualize
recent history against the background of what is already familiar.
Xerxes’ dream, for example, becomes more understandable and plau-
sible for an audience who is reminded of Homer’s account of Aga-
memnon’s, and can consequently contextualize the new material
within an existing frame of reference. As Vandiver has observed,
myth frequently serves as a tool to make foreign peoples intelligible
in Greek terms.183 Then again, it is also available for modelling in a
more theoretical way historiographical truths—such as the presence
178
On the Euenius story, see Griffiths (1999) and further above, p. 9.
179
Cf. Dewald, this volume, Ch. 1, pp. 61–5, on the combination in Herodotus’
opening sentence of both mythic and realistic resonances, and Griffiths (quoted below
at p. 48) on the ‘change of gear’ between the Mycale and Euenius narratives.
180
Chiasson, this volume, Ch. 8, p. 226.
181
Cf. Finley (1975a).
182
Munson, this volume, Ch. 7. See also Baragwanath, this volume, Ch. 12,
pp. 289–93, on Herodotus’ use of the Theseus myth at 9.73.
183
Vandiver (1991: 81); cf. Chiasson, this volume, Ch. 8, pp. 216–17.

of barriers to intelligibility across cultures.184 At times the mythical
element may proliferate explanatory possibilities in a more associative
way. Thus the account of Euenius just mentioned contributes to and
enriches the texture of historical explanation by suggesting the possibility
of divine involvement equally in the recent Greek victory.185
Dionysius of Halicarnassus observed that the histories written
before Thucydides’, including that of Herodotus, are interspersed
with to muthōdes (‘the fabulous’), like the tales of female monsters,
unions of mortals and divine beings—‘histories that seem to us
nowadays unbelievable [apistous] and quite senseless [polu to anoēton
ekhein]’ (Th. 6). Herodotus’ Histories certainly contains a good mea-
sure of incredible material: Herodotus draws into his work such items
of cultural significance as genealogies leading back to encounters with
heroes and gods, aetiologies for festivals and rituals, speaking doves, and
so forth. But, aside from its inherent cultural noteworthiness, such
mythical material—as the contributions to this volume bring out—
helps to contextualize the historical narrative and convey its importance
and meaning to readers. Thus it serves the historian’s key objective of
preserving the past from becoming effaced by time (cf. proem).
Besides using myth to enlarge recent events, to grid them onto the
wider sweep of human experience, and to promote intelligibility, in
Herodotus’ hands it becomes a tool to engage readers in thinking
more deeply and reflectively—about past history but also the pre-
sent.186 In the fifth century, the Trojan War, for example, was fre-
quently used for thinking about acquisitive imperialism. In the
Histories it serves repeatedly as an analogy for the Persian Wars,
and one that Herodotus puts to use also in promoting his readers’
reflection on contemporary international relations, and particularly
the Peloponnesian War.187 But all the while, Herodotus takes great
care to signal that mythical, early events are beyond the bounds of
verification by historiē; and indeed he even uses mythological
184
See Thomas, this volume, Ch. 9.
185
Cf. the ‘leaking in’ of heightened elements in Livy: Feeney (2007b: 186), and
above, n. 140 with text.
186
Cf. Lachenaud (1978: 641) on myth serving to ‘agir sur les contemporains’
(‘to act on contemporaries’).
187
Baragwanath, this volume, Ch. 12, pp. 289–93 considers Herodotus’ use of the
myth of Theseus’ abduction of Helen in this way; it may even (so Biraschi 1989) supply
a stimulus to collaborative Greek action. Saïd, this volume, Ch. 2, }4, discusses the
Trojan War as a paradigm that deepens the understanding of recent historical events.
Introduction 47
examples to make points about historical processes and historiogra-
phical methodology.188 For him at least as much as for Thucydides,
then (to borrow Dionysius’ expression: Th. 8), ‘history is the high
priestess of Truth’.
6. MYTH AND HERODOTUS’ NARRATIVE:

MODES, GENRES, AUDIENCES
Underlying the disputed status of the mythical material in Herodotus’

work is the question of the extent to which he himself as a narrator
was influenced by the models handed down to him by predecessors
and contemporaries who derived their subject matter from the mythi-
cal past. In his choice of topic and his aetiological approach (Croesus
as ‘the first’ to commit unjust deeds), for instance, Herodotus fol-
lowed a pattern familiar from Homer, who sang about klea andrōn
that were the consequence of a conflict that found its origin in the
rape of a slave-girl by the Greek commander-in-chief.189 Further-
more, as de Jong has shown, Herodotus found an important model in
the voice of the omniscient Homeric narrator and—though ulti-
mately rejecting the latter’s omniscient and omnipresent vantage
point—used it in much of his narrative without accounting for his
omniscience.190 Nor did epic alone supply an important model. The
emphasis in the Histories’ proem on preserving human deeds from
oblivion also recalls epinician poetry,191 which frequently drew from
the stores of traditional myth, and in its structure it follows that
of the poetic priamel.192 Indeed, there are points of contact in parti-
cular with the famous priamel of Sappho Fragment 16,193 where
she deploys the mythical exemplum of Helen’s departure for Troy.
188
The Helen logos is a case in point (2.112–20). See Grethlein (2010b: 151–8),
and, in this volume, de Bakker, Ch. 3, and de Jong, Ch. 4.
189
Węcowski (2004: 154); cf. Dewald (1999: 151).
190
See above, nn. 1, 116, and 172 with text, and below, n. 211.
191
Cf. Nagy (1990: 221–5, 329), Chiasson (2012). Nagy (1990: ch. 10), Crane
(1996), and Kurke (1999: ch. 4) consider points of contact and divergence between
Herodotus and epinician poetry in their treatment of Croesus. See more broadly Nagy
(1990: chs 9–11) for comparison of Herodotus and Pindar.
192
On the classical priamel, see Race (1982).
193
Race (1982: 111), Pelliccia (1992) (preferring the term ‘false-start recusatio’ for
the device in Herodotus’ proem), and Chiasson (2012: 129–37).

Herodotus quotes another lyric poet, Simonides, for his epigrams
commemorating the fallen at Thermopylae (7.228), and appears to
have been influenced by aspects of his Plataea Elegy, including his
depiction of the agency of gods and heroes, in crafting his own account
of the battle.194 In drawing a parallel between the Persian Wars and the
Trojan War, Simonides is a forerunner for Herodotus (if one among
others, which included Athenian monumental sculpture). Important
points of contact surface also with tragedy, which almost always
took mythological themes as its subject.195
A key issue to bear in mind in considering the effect of the
Histories’ mythical elements on Herodotus’ original audience are
the distinctions between myth as general cultural referent, more
specific (storytelling/epic/tragic/lyric) emplotments of mythic mate-
rial, and occasional allusions to particular texts or enactments. The
level of detail and choice of vocabulary give some sense of which of
these may be at issue, even as the diverse nature of the original
audience makes it likely that their response will have been anything
but monolithic: what one listener takes as a traditional element might
in another listener activate a specific allusion.196
Griffiths has remarked upon the striking ‘change of gear’ between
‘historical’ and ‘mythic’ modes in the account of Mycale (mentioned
above) and also elsewhere in the Histories.197 Certainly, beyond its
mythic exempla and paradigms, we may regard the Histories as
infused with the mode associated with myth—a timeless, generalizing
mode, or in Griffiths’ formulation ‘a discourse whose construction is
dominated by traditional components, and whose expression and
final shape are thus to a large extent predictable’, which presents a
contrast with a discourse ‘in which elements are individually selected
and disposed in a compositional process which is not fundamentally
determined by inherited routines’.198 (Again, from the point of view
194
Boedeker (2001a), E. L. Bowie (2001, 2010), and Hornblower (2001) discuss the
influence on Herodotus of Simonides’ Plataea Elegy; cf. also below, n. 209 with text.
195
On Herodotus and his poetic heritage, see Herington (1991a), Calame (1995:
ch. 3), and, in this volume, de Bakker, Ch. 3, Vandiver, Ch. 5, Gray, Ch. 6, Munson,
Ch. 7, Chiasson, Ch. 8, and Baragwanath, Ch. 12; and see below, pp. 50–3, for the
importance of epic and tragedy as sources and models.
196
Cf. Pelling (2006a: 80 n. 17 with text).
197
Cf. Chiasson, this volume, Ch. 8, pp. 221, 223 on such changing of gears in the
story of Cyrus.
198
Griffiths (1999: 169 n. 2). On the timeless, generalizing mode of myth, see
Finley (1975a).
Introduction 49
of the present, the distant past, in the absence of more detailed
knowledge, does have a timeless aspect.) The mythic mode was a
valuable tool in the historian’s hands, structuring oral material in a
way that listeners could more readily grasp it, and underscoring the
universal significance of particular occurrences.199 Recent events and
personalities could be more clearly and memorably portrayed on the
model of the already-familiar patterns of thought and action that this
mode evoked.200 Then again, the mythic mode could in certain
contexts convey significant messages more charmingly and obliquely.
It was regarded by ancient thinkers as connected with pleasure.
Herodotus’ contemporary Protagoras offered the choice to his listen-
ers of framing his account in a muthos or a logos, with the stories in
mythical mode making the same point as the hypothetical logos but in
a more pleasurable way (as Protagoras says: dokei . . . moi . . . kharies-
teron einai muthon humin legein, Plato, Protagoras 320c).201 Thucy-
dides famously observed that the absence of to muthōdes (‘the
fabulous’, whether to be understood in terms of content or mode)
risks diminishing the pleasurable quality of his narrative but allows a
stricter focus on the truth.
But pleasure was by no means inevitably felt to compromise truth;
Thucydides (as so often) is something of the odd man out. In the
Histories, Solon’s use of both more and less analytical modes in
advising Croesus stages the way a more pleasing mode might further
in this case the adviser’s didactic objectives, aiding him in conveying
an important truth. The timeless aspect and distant location (in
Greece) of the examples of Tellus and Cleobis and Biton allow them
to hover between the specific/historical and universal/mythic,202
heightening their instructive function (and conveying to readers a
sense of universal significance), as well as allowing the encapsulated
wisdom to reach the Lydian king more indirectly and agreeably. It is
199
Cf. Wesselmann (2007).
200
See Wesselmann (2007: 33), pointing, for example, to how the mythical model of
Oedipus informs Herodotus’ characterization of Demaratus, and E. Irwin (2011) for the
way in which the Aeacidae are used to reflect upon the role played by the Aeginetans in
the battle of Salamis.
201
‘It seems to me that it is more agreeable to tell you a muthos.’ For a different
interpretation of Solon’s mode of argumentation, as less diplomatic, see Dewald, this
volume, Ch. 1, p. 79.
202
Tellus is connected with a historical incident (a war between Athens and
Eleusis), but one that is only vaguely placed in time (as occurring at some point in a
generalized past). As Rood (2007: 130) observes, the story is a ‘timeless paradigm’.

Croesus’ incomprehension that prompts Solon to adopt the more
direct and specific mode of arithmetic calculations to convey the same
message, which spells out explicitly the implications for the ruler—
and provokes his anger. The charming, proverb-style mode of com-
munication employed by Croesus’ earlier advisers likewise challenges
the idea that the presence in the Histories of a non-analytical mode
could compromise its seriousness in striving after historical truth.
The proverbial wisdom uttered by Bias (or Pittacus: 1.27) and other
wise advisers matches that of Aesop’s fables, which extremely effec-
tively (and charmingly) encapsulate universal moral truths in fic-
tional tales about the animal world.203
Besides general ‘mythic modes’, particular poetic genres or mod-
els204 may be at issue as we address the Histories’ mythic material.
Feeney frames the discussion in terms of literary genre, and empha-
sizes the deliberate manner in which Herodotus exploits the dialectic
of mythic/poetic versus historical models.205 The Histories thus
‘skirmishes’ with the epic and tragic genres associated with mythical
material206—for example, in appropriating poetic vocabulary that
comes ready laden with wider intertextual associations. In view of
the way in which Herodotus signals the distance between the objec-
tives of the historian, on the one hand, and of poets (and other
purveyors of ta palaia), on the other, such a move might once again
draw to the attention of engaged readers the problem of historicity.
The historian’s sensibility about genre (which we have already
203
Cf. Kurke (2011: passim) on Herodotus’ connection with Aesop, and (at
pp. 131–4) the pleasurable character of indirect fable narrative. More generally, too,
as Kowalzig (2007: 2) observes, ‘myth’s entertainment value may complement rather
than contradict its serious content. Is it not precisely the excitement of myth that
makes religion accessible to the Greeks themselves and so omnipresent in their
society? . . . it is myth that makes ritual interesting, and perhaps meaningful.’
204
Rosenmeyer (1985: 81) observes that ancient writers practised model criticism
rather than genre criticism; Pelling (1999: 331) agrees in the case of Greek historians
down at least to Xenophon, and highlights the undetermined and provisional nature
of reader expectations in approaching Herodotus’ text. But, even as particular models
(Homer, Hecataeus, etc.) are certainly important, and notwithstanding the fact that
the term historia meaning ‘history’ occurs first in Aristotle (Hornblower 1987: 9–11),
Herodotus sets up the poets collectively as a foil for his own practice (cf. below, p. 51).
205
Feeney (2007b: 177–82).
206
Cf. Feeney’s observation (2007b: 185) that Livy ‘follow(s) Herodotus and
Thucydides in setting up a strategy of skirmishing with opposing genres’. See Chias-
son (1982, 2003), Avery’s discussion (1979) focusing on Herodotus’ use of the tragic
term epairō, and, in this volume, Chiasson, Ch. 8, and Baragwanath, Ch. 12.
Introduction 51
encountered above, in Livy, p. 37) is indeed closely bound up with—
and perhaps stems from, in its Herodotean origins—the epistemolo-
gical concern: the awareness of the limits to human understanding of
certain aspects of history, and the consequent need to take an ap-
proach that differs sharply from the poets’.207 Herodotus supposes
that the poiēsis (‘fabrication’: creation, poetic composition) of Homer
and Hesiod was responsible for teaching Greeks their genealogies of
the gods, and the divine epithets, attributes, and forms.208 The histor-
ian’s claimed authority derives not from the Muses but from the more
limited powers of human observation and judgement, and thus in
historical works, by contrast with poetry, gods and heroes are by and
large not directly depicted in a ‘characterful narration of divine
action’.209 And yet—even as Herodotus calls attention to the fact
that poetry must be used with great caution as historical source—
poetic material and vocabulary are pervasive in the Histories, as are
direct hexametric quotations of Delphic oracles and lines from
Homer. The historian is occasionally even caught shaping his narra-
tive in distinctly poetic form.210
Of the different poetic sources and models available to Herodotus
as he set about framing his narrative, Homer—his main narrative
model, and the celebrated heritage of all the Greeks—was certainly
the most important and evocative.211 With Homer Herodotus could
207
As Feeney (2007b: 179) remarks: ‘The question of what can be known and what
cannot be known readily spills over into the question of what can be narrated and
what cannot be narrated.’
208
Cf. Histories 2.23, on which see above, p. 12. Mythological stories thus test
the limits of human knowledge of far-flung places (Ocean was believed to flow around
the edge of the earth) as well as distant times.
209
Feeney (1991: 261) (in reference to epic poetry); cf. Feeney (2007b: 182, 197:
‘the strongest line of demarcation between formal history and other literary forms is
that history does not introduce gods as characters into the narrative, while a strong
but less watertight demarcation is to be found in historiography’s regular distancing of
other “fabulous” or “mythical” material’). For Herodotus’ awareness of (and self-
production of) budding generic criteria see further Baragwanath, Ch. 12 in this
volume, n. 24 with text, and Marincola (1999) on the need for a dynamic concept
of genre in approaching ancient historiography.
210
The epiphany of Pan in particular ‘looks like a poetic epiphany’, and is perhaps
‘a deliberate and daring [generic] crossover, a real epic feature in a real historian’
(Hornblower 2001: 144); yet even here Herodotus presents the information as the
account of Philippides, rather than narrating it directly: cf. Feeney (2007b: 179). See
above, n. 195, for Herodotus and his poetic heritage.
211
On the importance of Homer to the ‘most Homeric’ author Herodotus (as
Longinus 13.3 describes him), see inter alia Huber (1965), Strasburger (1972), de Jong

assume an intimate familiarity on the part of his audience. Even
subtle allusions will have been discernible by many.212 But Attic
tragedy—the true inheritor of epic—was also important, and a rich
source of mythological material for Herodotus.213 Though Attic in
dialect and style, and close enough to contemporary speech to be
easily accessible, the plays were at the same time ‘identifiable, through
their manifold links with epic and lyric poetry, as part of a large, rich,
and extremely self-conscious tradition with a strong Panhellenic
pedigree’.214 In its broad pan-Hellenic familiarity, but equally its
democratic qualities, it probably appealed to Herodotus as he set
about creating his inclusive and dialogic text. Aeschylus is among
the very few authors that Herodotus mentions by name (2.156).
Herodotus knew and used Persians (which is an important intertext
for the account of Salamis) and doubtless other plays, as well, by the
famous dramatist and Marathon man.215 Likewise he will certainly
have known the work of his own contemporaries Sophocles and
Euripides. The Histories has affinities with tragic poetry, as in its
‘themes of horror’, depiction of fearful and inescapable moral deci-
sions, and use of ironic discourse. And at times it expressly evokes
tragedy.216
(1999), and Boedeker (2002: 97–109). See, in this volume, esp. de Jong, Ch. 4, and
Vandiver, Ch. 5, for Herodotus’ engagement with and reworking of Homeric material.
212
Cf. Grethlein (2006a) on Herodotus’ subtle use at 7.153–63 of the Iliadic
embassy scene. Boedeker (2002: 97–109) and Pelling (2006a) bring out the complexity
of the question of Homeric citations/intertextuality.
213
Easterling (1997: 25) describes tragedy as the inheritor of epic; see Herington
(1985) for tragedy as the culmination of the earlier song culture/Greek poetic art; cf.
Nagy (1990). See Raubitschek (1993: 143) for Herodotus’ knowledge of mythological
material from tragedy, but his suggestion that myth was best known to Herodotus
through this material overstates the matter; there were ‘forests of myth’ available to
Herodotus in various forms, through literary and oral transmission but also visual: see
above, pp. 37–8, with Herington (1985: ch. 3).
214
Easterling (1997: 25), with the further suggestion that ‘when allied and foreign
ambassadors, businessmen, and visitors saw performances at the City Dionysia they
may have been implicitly encouraged to view the plays as the modern equivalent of the
greatest literature of the past and therefore of great interest and importance to the
whole Greek-speaking world’.
215
The Oresteia as a possible intertext for Herodotus is considered by Baragwanath,
this volume, Ch. 12, pp. 304–8.
216
Affinities with tragedy: Laurot (1995), S. West (1999), Saïd (2002), and Griffin
(2006: 48–54, ‘themes of horror’ at 48). Among other examples, Griffin singles out the
story of Xerxes: ‘The whole story of the expedition of Xerxes itself is, in one vital
aspect, the story of divine temptation, superhuman presumption and aspiration, and
eventual defeat and despair (7.17; 8.109.3). That is very Aeschylean’ (pp. 49–50).
Introduction 53
We might expect that myth inflected through the genre of tragedy
would be highly emotionally and cognitively engaging, and powerful
in its effect on an audience steeped in the genre.217 And there is no
reason to imagine that such an audience was confined to Athens. In
the latter half of the fifth-century non-Athenians could see Attic
tragedy—new works as well as Aeschylus in re-performance—when
they visited Athens, but also closer to home, thanks to the spread of
dramatic performance to other regions of the Greek world.218 Cele-
brated scenes might be familiar even to audience members who had
not seen them directly.219
Finally we turn from addressing such deliberate use of myth and
the mythic mode to glance briefly at the problem of Herodotus’
unconscious or reflexive employment of the mythical paradigms of
Griffin acknowledges the ‘cultural and rational approach’ the historian brings to such
stories (referring here to that of Cambyses’ death), which ‘marks his treatment off
from the normal style of tragic poetry’ (p. 52); cf. esp. Chiasson (2003) on how the
historian makes use of ‘tragic’ material but stamps it as history. Herodotus’ presenta-
tion of Xerxes glances at ‘tragedy’ in the ‘one vital aspect’ Griffin observes, though it
contains quite un-tragic elements too, to be contrasted with Aeschylus’ presentation
of Xerxes in Persians: see Romm (2006), Scullion (2006), and Baragwanath (2008:
ch. 8). Cf. R. Rutherford (2007), pointing to affinities with tragedy even as the effect of
a historical work is finally quite different from that of a tragic drama. Herodotus’ use
of ironic discourse as related to the conventions of tragedy: Schellenberg (2009). It
remains more difficult to establish the extent of Herodotus’ affinities with historical
narrative in elegiac poetry of the Archaic Age. For an overview and some suggestions,
see E. L. Bowie (2009).
217
Cf. Chiasson (2003: 19). See, in this volume, Chiasson, Ch. 8, and Baragwanath,
Ch. 12, }4, for the tragic emplotment of myth in Herodotus and its possible effect on
his audience.
218
The expectation of re-performance in Aeschylus’ time (or at least in Herodo-
tus’: cf. Taplin 1999: 37) is evident from its being forbidden in the case of Phrynichus’
Capture of Miletus (Hdt. 6.21). On re-performance at Athens and beyond already in
the fifth century, see Dearden (1999), Taplin (1999, cf. p. 37: ‘Once good quality
productions with quasi-professional performers are going round the Attic demes, we
have a plausible scenario for a rapid and easy spread to other parts of the Greek
world’, 2007: 6–7), Csapo (2004: 66–7), laying out evidence that the process of the
expansion of the theatre beyond Attica began already in the mid-fifth century. The
classic Attic tragedians were frequently restaged in the fifth century in western Greece
in particular (to which Herodotus moved himself in 443 BCE, if we accept as historical
his involvement in the foundation of Thurii); cf. Stella (1994: 16–17). Among the
literate classes in and outside of Athens we may think also in terms of the circulation
of texts, and the closer familiarity that facilitated; see further Baragwanath, this
volume, Ch. 12, n. 61.
219
e.g. from oral accounts or vase depictions. Cf. how a twenty-first-century
individual can build up a good idea of a famous movie scene—from, say, Casablanca
or Spartacus—even without having seen it.

oral tradition. For the Histories’ mythic past is infused with para-
digms and patterns that reflect wider patterns of Greek (and non-
Greek) thought, patterns that have infused and shaped the oral and
poetic traditions that underlie the Histories. Motifs such as that of
blindness followed by wisdom in Herodotus’ story of Euenius, or the
‘bargain’ in the story of Tisamenus,220 surface across much extant
Greek literature. Structuralist scholarship has coined the term
‘mytheme’ to denote the irreducible, unchanging kernel elements
that are found across various myths.221 Such mythemes, or mythic
schemata, are a function and reflection of wider cultural realities and
thought-patterns, and inevitably find reflection in the Histories,
though in any instance there is considerable uncertainty as to how
far Herodotus himself is responsible for shaping the material he
transmits, and how far the ‘deformation’ of oral tradition.222 Struc-
turalist diachronic analysis of patterns common to Herodotus and
other Greek texts and performance illuminates ways in which they
reflect wider societal and ritual patterns, and thus bear an oblique
relationship to reality.223
Again, several of the Histories’ mythemes have broader, or cross-
cultural parallels, such as that of the miraculously saved child, in
Herodotus’ stories of Cyrus and Cypselus and elsewhere in the stories
of Romulus, Moses, and others. Comparative studies have brought
out ways in which various paradigms and motifs in Greek literature
including the Histories also surface in eastern contexts, and has raised
220
See, in this volume, Gray, Ch. 6, on Tisamenus, and Dewald, Ch. 1, more
generally on the presence of traditional plots in Book One.
221
On Lévi-Strauss and the structuralist approach to myth, see Csapo (2005: ch. 5,
esp. 217–26, with mythemes discussed at pp. 220–3).
222
For example in the case of the shaping of the Thermopylae account on the
pattern of the duel to turn it into a story of moral victory: Dillery (1996). On
Herodotus and oral tradition, see the classic article by Murray (including the term
‘deformation’) (2001a), his reconsideration of the topic (2001b), and Thomas (1989:
esp. 247–51, 264–81).
223
For a recent overview of the relationship of myth and ritual, with further
references, see Kowalzig (2007: 13–23). Scarpi (2009) considers the salient differences
between mythic account and ritual (and their respective relationships to historical
reality), each of which operates on a different plane and should by no means
necessarily be brought into direct association with the other. Buxton (1994: 5)
addresses the ‘distance and interplay between the imaginary world of the stories
and the (real?) world of the tellers’. See above, pp. 15–16, for ritual-centred definitions
of myth and their influence on Herodotean scholarship.
Introduction 55
the possibility of shared Indo-European origins.224 These mythical
paradigms thus represent a most complicated facet of the problem of
the historicity of Herodotus’ narrative.
To borrow Dougherty’s helpful formulation of this problem of
historicity, in a different but related context: Greek colonial legends
(many of which are found in the Histories) ‘are not clear, untroubled
reflections of some historical truth but rather are literary representa-
tions of that truth, they stand in a complicated relationship to the
events they relate’. That relationship, Boedeker observes, ‘must be
analysed for each case, bringing to bear all the kinds of evidence
that exist’.225 Sourvinou-Inwood has explored the possibility that
certain events in the Histories usually dubbed ‘historical’ may have
mythical schemata beneath, and no ‘historical core’ whatsoever—
such as Lycophron’s expulsion to Corcyra (3.50–3, mentioned
above, p. 16). The story pattern in this instance, she suggests, displays
the father–son hostility schema (cf. Theseus–Hippolytus) familiar
elsewhere in initiatory paradigms widely reflected in Greek texts.226
But the question remains as to whether tradition has fashioned the
episode in accordance with the familiar pattern, or whether the
episode actually occurred in accordance with the mythic schema
and is intelligible in terms of ritualized behaviour. Certain paradigms
or schemata may be so deep-rooted that they not only influence the
exposition and reception of the past, but also shape how it is actually
lived—a phenomenon that may help explain how recent history may
play out on the model of mythic events. In the fascinating case of the
literary representation of the Greek seer, we must recognize a combi-
nation of factors: on the one hand, the historian’s shaping of his
portrait on traditional, Homeric models, but, on the other hand, the
seer’s modelling of his own conduct on that of the eminent seers of
tradition.227 A related modern phenomenon to which Pelling draws
224
e.g. M. L. West (2007). For ‘international’ or ‘migratory’ story types/motifs, see
Calame (1990, 1996) and, with a survey of the modern scholarship, Hansen (2002:
1–31). For eastern parallels for specific Herodotean story patterns, see inter alia
S. West (2007) on Rhampsinitus, and, in this volume, Thomas, Ch. 9.
225
Dougherty (1993: 3), Boedeker (2002: 114, with helpful discussion at 111–14).
226
Sourvinou-Inwood (1991: 244–84), cf. above, n. 59.
227
See Flower (2008: 19–20). In this volume, Gray, Ch. 6, and Bowie, Ch. 11, }2.3,
discuss Greek seers in Herodotus. Cf. Thomas’ observation, this volume, Ch. 9, p. 237,
that one must consider the possible impact of Greek storytelling on ritual actions (like
the one she considers, of cutting a victim in half and marching an army between the
halves).

attention is the way juries tend to find more plausible those patterns
of behaviour that conform to models familiar to them from television
and popular culture: which is not so unreasonable, since art can shape
life, and people do imitate art all the time.228 Again, modern sociology
has demonstrated how people live within particular structures and
reproduce them, and how everyday habits may become the very fabric
of society itself.229 At the same time we must not lose sight of the fact
that certain mythical patterns are also a historical phenomenon, as
Dewald reminds us: the ‘thoughtless ruler’ motif, for instance, reflects
a reality of human history.230 Thus Herodotus responded on a con-
scious and unconscious level to mythical material that presented itself
in diverse guises, ranging from well-known traditional tales to more
general underlying truths about human behaviour. As such, myth
found its place in all kinds of forms in his vast and varied narrative
and will continue to challenge his readers in current and future
generations.
***
Our introduction has scratched the surface of the challenging and
still-relevant issues that swirl about the subject of Herodotus and
myth. The chapters that follow explore in more detail the role of
‘mythical’ elements in Herodotus’ narrative, exposing further the
complexity and nuance of his treatment of myth, across a range of
studies, some with a literary/narratological focus on the presentation
of the text (Part I), others taking a more historicist perspective that
addresses the question of the source materials Herodotus had to
hand, and his attitude to truth (Part II). Our aim is thus to elucidate
further the relationship of ‘mythical’ and ‘historical’ elements in this
first work of history, and the question of whether and in what ways
Herodotus displays awareness of such a distinction. In different ways
all contributions bring out further how, far from being unrelated to or
removed from the ‘historical’ aspects of Herodotus’ text, the ‘mythic’
elements are vital to Herodotus’ presentation of history.
228
Pelling (1999: 344), cf. Dershowitz (1996).
229
See Giddens (1984) for the concept of ‘structuration’ and Bourdieu (1984) for
the way the habitus (a system of dispositions) reproduces social structures and
stratifications.
230
Dewald, this volume, Ch. 1.
Part I
From Myth to Historical Method
The chapters that follow address Herodotus’ application of historical

method to the form and content supplied by the traditional legendary
heritage. A first chapter examines the dense legendary and mythic
framework Herodotus has constructed and woven into the fabric of
the human events that he seeks to preserve through historiē (Carolyn
Dewald). Three chapters then investigate his application of historical
method to his Homeric heritage—Herodotus’ most important source
of myth—addressing his strategies of demythologizing and rationa-
lizing agenda (Suzanne Saïd) and his reshaping of the heroes and
narratives of epic to fit his historiographical narrative and bolster his
authority as historian (Mathieu de Bakker, Irene de Jong). A fifth
chapter considers his use of the Homeric concept of xeinia in con-
structing his historical narrative (Elizabeth Vandiver). A final chapter
examines how he applies another significant heritage, that of tradi-
tional storytelling (Vivienne Gray). In situating Herodotus (with his
mixed literary and scientific heritage of enquiry, poetry, and story-
telling) as a transitional figure between the world of myth and a world
of proofs and rationalization of the fifth century BCE, this chapter
supplies a bridge to the second part of the volume.
Part II
Myth and History
The chapters that follow explore the crucial issue (anticipated by

Carolyn Dewald in Chapter 1 and Irene de Jong in Chapter 4) of
the status of myth in relation to historical truth, as source for history
and in historical explanation. Four chapters examine Herodotus’
nuanced demarcation of different levels of truth and his treatment
of myth as historical source, for Greek history (Rosaria Munson) as
well as Persian (Charles Chiasson, Rosalind Thomas, Pietro Vanni-
celli), employing Greek myth (Munson, Chiasson) as well as Persian
stories (Thomas), or a combination of traditions (Vannicelli). Heroic
myth may indeed have served Herodotus and his audience as a source
and guarantee of the truth of his narrative, rather than as a sign of its
falsehood (Chiasson). Subsequent chapters (anticipated by Dewald’s
important observation in the opening chapter that Herodotus’ mythic
thinking is in fact historical) explore the interplay in Herodotus’
presentation of myth with more recent events, about which he had
more solid factual knowledge, in the accounts of Xerxes (Angus
Bowie) and Mardonius (Emily Baragwanath).
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Myth, Truth, and

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Preface and Acknowledgements

In this volume we take as our point of departure the one element on

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vi Preface and Acknowledgements

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Introduction: Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus’

Part I: From Myth to Historical Method

Part II: Myth and History

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Mathieu de Bakker is University Lecturer of Ancient Greek at the

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Introduction: Myth, Truth, and Narrative

The contributions to this volume take as their point of departure the

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2 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker

1. THE HERODOTEAN ‘PARADOX’

In the opening words of the Histories, Herodotus set out to eternalize

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6 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker

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10 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker

2. THE PARAMETERS OF MYTH IN HERODOTUS:

The title of this volume presupposes a belief in the effectiveness of

‘from . . . to’ thesis, he deconstructed the term ‘mythical thinking’ in opposition to

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OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, 27/7/2012, SPi

16 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, 27/7/2012, SPi

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, 27/7/2012, SPi

18 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, 27/7/2012, SPi

3. TIME AND KNOWLEDGE

Time is the most obvious criterion that distinguishes ‘myth’ from

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, 27/7/2012, SPi

20 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, 27/7/2012, SPi

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, 27/7/2012, SPi

22 Emily Baragwanath and Mathieu de Bakker