Herodotus and The Growth of Greek Historiography

Herodotus and the Growth of Greek Historiography
Author(s): Kurt von Fritz

Source: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 67
(1936), pp. 315-340
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Vol. lxvii] Herodotus and Greek Historiography 315
XXIII.-Herodotus and the Growth of Greek

Historiography
KURT VON FRITZ
REED COLLEGE
This article is summarized in the last paragraph.
Herodotus is called the father of history. Yet whereas the

work of Thucydides corresponds rather exactly to our con-
ception of historiography, the work of Herodotus does not. It
certainly is rightly called htoroplt. For lo-roplh in early Greek
meant knowledge of all sorts which was not based on specula-
tion, demonstration, intuition, practice, or the like, but on
personal experience. It meant all that a man could tell, be-
cause he had been a l-rcp, a personal witness, to it, or because
the knowledge of it had been handed down to him, either
directly or indirectly, from other witnesses.
The main subjects of t-ropl-q therefoire were the knowledge of
foreign countries and remote ages, as this is the kind of
knowledge which ultimately cannot be gained except from
personal witnesses. Or, to state it shortly, the main subjects
of horopht were geography and historiography. But in the
widest sense of the word, myth too might be called lo-roplt, if
the assumption was made that the knowledge of mythical
events was based on tradition-or revelation, the revealing
gods in this case being the witnesses.
The conception of to-roplt1 therefore was very far from the
modern conception of history and historiography. For what
we expect of a historical work is: (1) it should be critical, that
is, the author should not accept without careful examination
the information handed down to him through the chain of
tradition, (2) it should put things into their real order, one of
the means of doing so, though not the only one, being an
elaborate chronology, (3) it should not only state facts, but
also elucidate the causal connection of events, (4) and here the
316 Kurt von Fritz [1936
artistic element comes in-it should make visible the living

forces which are working in the progress of history.
From the observance of these four points there will result a
special form of composition. For as there is an artistic
element in historiography, the narrative may sometimes
quicken to dramatic tension and then again slow down; but as
every single event in history is only one link in the chain of the
progress of life, no single part of a historical work can ever
become a separate unit complete in itself as a play or a short
story would be; nor can the work itself ever have an absolute
end, but it will always be open to continuation.
If these are taken as the essential qualities of historiography,
one look at the work of Herodotus makes it clear that of all the
works of Greek literature earlier than Thucydides it comes
nearest to this conception, but is still rather far from it, and in
some of its parts more than in others. So naturally the
question arises whether this is mere coincidence, or whether we
may be able to show how Herodotus gradually became
conscious of these requirements of true historiography.
But before going deeper into the subject it will be necessary
to cast a glance at the antecedents. The form in which the
early Greeks had been conscious of their past was the saga.
Their sagas and legends had been full of life and sometimes
marvellous from the artistic point of view. But of course they
were no critical history. They were split up into different
groups having little connection or none with each other. They
therefore originally had no common chronology. They had a
causality of their own, but a poetical one and not that of
history. And if the nearer and nearest past had not yet
become so completely legendary, yet the numerous tales and
stories in the work of Herodotus itself bear witness how rapidly
legends of all kinds were cropping up.
There is, however, one predecessor of Herodotus who had
already taken an important step toward true historiography,
Hecataeus of Miletus, who in some sense may even claim the
fame of being the first Greek historian. His subject, no less
than that of Herodotus, had been taropl-j-geography and

historiography. In one direction he had even gone farther
than Herodotus. For he seems to have written two different
works, one geographical and one historical, whereas Herodotus
again has mixed up both subjects in one work of 1o-ropltq.
Nor is there any doubt that Hecataeus was also critical.
But his criticism was of a rather curious kind. He tried to
convert legend into history, and he thought that it was
sufficient to take the miraculous element out of the saga in
order to get hold of the historical facts. So, for instance, when
the legend told that Aegyptus had had 50 sons, Hecataeus
would say that probably he had less than 20.1 When the
legend had been that the cattle of Geryon had browsed at the
western end of the world, Hecataeus would say that this really
happened at the western coast of Greece, at the bay of Ambracia,
and he would add that even so it was a fine achievement of
Heracles to get hold of them and to bring them thence to
Eurystheus.2 And in the same way he maintained that
Cerberus in fact had been a big snake which at first had been
called "AL0ov KVWV only metaphorically, because the people that
had been bitten by him died suddenly, and so went straight to
hell. It is obvious that by this method Hecataeus was bound
to deprive legend of all its life without getting historical facts in
return.
Nevertheless it was very important that there was introduced
some kind of criticism, and it was of even greater importance
that Hecataeus was also the first to create something of a
chronological system. For he tried to fix the date of Heracles
and of the Trojan war by means of the list of the Spartan kings,
and then to derive all the other dates of the different legendary
events from that. And it may well be noticed that he tried to
give a similar order to geography by dividing the whole surface
of the earth into continents of equal area, and the continents
and minor countries into zones, quadrilaterals, and squares.
I Fr. 19 Jacoby Fragm. der griech. Hist.

2 Fr. 26 Jacoby.
Both orders, of course, were

facts. The real countries did not fit in with his geometrical
designs. But though thus far he was violently distorting the
facts, yet by doing so he laid the foundation for the system of
degrees of longitude and latitude on which since Eratosthenes
all geographical topography is based. And in the same way,
since there was no tradition about the length of the reigns of
the different Spartan kings, he arbitrarily assumed that the
average length had been 40 years. But it was of the utmost
importance that he had become aware of the fact that a
chronological system is the indispensable foundation of all
historiography.
Thus, to put it shortly, one may state that Hecataeus had
created some of the most important instruments of historio-
graphy, but did not yet know how to make proper use of them.
Consequently in his work there is little which even in the
widest sense of the word may be called historiography. And
so we may again ask the question what were the steps by which
Herodotus gradually got beyond this stage, and eventually
came so much nearer to our conception of history.
Every attempt to find the traces of a development of the
method of Herodotus in his work must start from the few
events in his life the date of which can be fixed within certain
limits. The most important of these are: (1) his sojourn in
Athens, which must be earlier than 443 B.C., as his lectures
influenced the Antigone of Sophocles, which was performed in
this or the following year,3 (2) his journey to Egypt, which
must be earlier than his sojourn at Athens and later than the
year 448, when there was peace in Egypt and Persian garrisons
were located in different places,4 (3) his journey to the borders
of the Black Sea, which must also be earlier than his stay at
Athens, and therefore probably earlier than the journey to
Egypt, since there is not very much time left between the two
events. And the assumption that this is the chronological
3 Cf. Herodotus III 118f with Soph. Ant. 904ff.
4 Herodotus iI 30 and II 99.
order of his journeys is confirmed by the comparison of the

Egyptians and the Kolchians in II 103f, which seems to presup-
pose that Herodotus had seen the Kolchians before he came to
Egypt.
As therefore these two journeys are the earliest dates
obtainable, the analysis must start from those parts of his work
which are connected with them. But before going into details,
a remark about method has to be made. One has to make an
absolute distinction between the first origin, that is, the first
drafting of the different parts of the work and their moulding,
final composition, and insertion into the whole of the work.
Nothing but what is based on autopsy, what is connected with
the historical and geographical inquiries made by Herodotus
can be considered as evidence concerning the first origin of any
particular part of the work. Nothing belonging to the literary
composition, no statements which by their nature may have
been taken from literary sources, no allusions to other parts of
the work-as distinct from allusions to previous personal
experiences of the author himself-can be considered as proofs
concerning the relative chronology of the first drafting of those
parts. Most of the arguments by which Bauer I and Macan 6
tried to prove that Books iv-vi were written later than Books
vII-ix vanish at once as soon as this distinction is made.
Now there are two parts of the work of Herodotus which are
closely connected with his journeys, one the first half of the
fourth, the other the whole of the second book. So the
question arises whether by an analysis of these parts we can
find out the purpose and object of the two great journeys of
Herodotus. Was it to gain first hand information about the
history of the Scythians and the Egyptians, or to get a geo-
graphical foundation for this history, or both-or was it
merely to get n-ropltX in the earlier sense of the word, and
what was the kind of lo-ropLh he principally wanted to get?
6 Das Herodotische Geschichtswerk 1878.
6 Herodotus: the fourth, fifth and sixth books with introduction, notes etc.,
London, Macmillan and Co., 1895, vol. I.
As to the journey to the Black Sea the first, possibility can be

discarded at once. For the historical parts of the fourth book,
the history of the war of Darius against the Scythians, and
even those chapters which give a geographical background to
this history (iv 47-58 and 99-101) show not the slightest trace
of personal inquiry on the spot. It even can be proved that
Herodotus has not visited them.7 Those parts on the other
hand in which Herodotus again and again affirms that he has
made his inquiries personally are entirely disconnected from
the historical narrative (iv 13-35). They contain in iv 5-11
a somewhat prehistorical element in the account given of the
legendary origin of the Scythian people. But this part is
perhaps open to a special explanation.8 They contain in
iv 13-35 a thorough discussion of the geography and ethnogra-
phy of northern Europe together with a rather disorderly
though vivid account of the laws and customs of the northern
nations; and they contain in iv 36-45 an elaborate criticism of
the general geographical theory of the 'Jonians,' who divide
the surface of the earth into three continents of equal extent,
and make the river Okeanos flow round a circular earth.
Furthermore, this criticism is based (a) on the geography and
ethnography of northern Europe which has been expounded
previously (13-35), and (b) on an account of the explorations
made by Egyptian and Persian expeditions (42-44), and a
short abstract of the geography of Asia (37-40), both of which
certainly have not the faintest relation to the history of the
Scythians.
What then was the purpose of this journey? Two sug-
gestions have been made. One that Herodotus was collecting
toropLM of all kinds in the earlier sense of the word, without
making at that time any discrimination between geography
and historiography-the other, that of Jacoby, that when he
went to the north, Herodotus had the intention to write a
7rEpL7rXOVS or a 7Ept -yflqLS yis after the example of Hecataeu
7 See p. 320, notes 9-12.
8 See pp. 328-30.
that is, a purely geographical treatise containing geog-

raphy in the narrower sense as well as ethnography, but no
historiography.
But even these suggestions give rise to some difficulties.
Matzat,9 Hildebrand,'0 and Jacoby 11 have proved, and it
seems to be confirmed by the results of more recent inquiries in
Southern Russia,'2 that Herodotus sailed from the Bosporus
(a) along the western coast of the Black Sea to Olbia and
thence went up the Hypanis or Bug to Exampaios, and
perhaps-but this is not certain-the Borysthenes or Dnjepr to
Gerrhoi, (b) along the southern coast of the Black Sea up to
the mouth of the river Phasis or Rion immediately to the south
of the Kaukasus (ii 103f), but that he certainly did not visit
any of the parts of the coast or the hinterland between Olbia-
or perhaps, though this is very doubtful, the Kimmerian
Bosporus-and the southern borders of the Kaukasus. This
confirms the view that his purpose was not to get a geographical
foundation for his history of the Scythian war. For the scene
of this war included the area to the north of the Sea of Azov
(iv 125 and lOOf).13 And in addition to that (a) his description
of it in iv 99-101 is separated from the general geographical
account in 46-58, and (b) as far as Herodotus makes use of his
personal acquaintance with its western parts, those chapters
contain mainly a shorter repetition of what he has set forth
before.
But the route of his journey is no less strange if his purpose
was to write a 7-EptLrXOvs or a rEpLfl7y-qats -yfis, or even to collect
material for whatsoever kind of ltcropLt. For those parts of the
borders of the Black Sea he travelled over were much better
known by the work of Hecataeus as well as by the accounts of
the Olbian tradesmen than those which he left out. So he
9 Hermes VI, 302ff.
10 De itineribus Herodoti Europ. et Afric., Diss. Leipzig, 1883.
1" Pauly-Wissowa, Suppb. II 257f.
12 M. Rostowzoff, Die Skythen und der Bosporus 20.
13 The fact that recent inquiries have made it very probable that the war
really did not reach this part of southern Russia confirms the view that Herodo-
tus made no investigations on the spot.
seems not to have been very much of an explorer either, and

the suggestion of Jacoby must also be discarded. But what
then was the purpose of his journey, if it was neither history
nor ICTopi'i nor geography? For it is not very likely that he
had no purpose connected with his work at all.
What his real or at least his chief purpose was can be
gathered from the chief inquiries he made and the chief results
he obtained. He collected different legends about the origin
of the people of the Scythians. For this there is perhaps a
special explanation which can be given later on. He further
collected some material about the laws and customs of the
Scythians and certain other nations of northern Europe. But
this is just the sort of knowledge which any man travelling with
open eyes-much more a Greek and Ionian-would bring
home. And even so the investigations made in those regions
by Herodotus were less systematic than his investigations into
the laws and customs of the Egyptians set forth in the second
book; and the account he gives of them is much less well-
disposed and systematic than, for instance, his account of the
laws and customs of the Persians in I 131-140. On the other
hand Herodotus made the most careful inquiries from all
obtainable sources about the nations that dwell successively to
the north of the Scythians right to the northern borders of
Europe. Now on this, as well as on the account given by him
in iv 42-44 of the expeditions sent out by king Necho and those
undertaken by Sataspes and Scylax, his criticism of the general
geographical system of the 'Ionians' and of Hecataeus is based.
One of the chief objects of this journey at least, if not the only
one, therefore, seems to have been to find out whether this
system was true.
This assumption derives confirmation from an analysis of the
geographical parts of the second book. Here too, just as in the
fourth, a theory is criticised, that makes the earth circular
ws a-ro ropvov, that makes the river Ocean flow around it, and
that divides it into continents of equal extent. And there is
another striking similarity between both accounts. The
geography of the north is mixed up with an account of the

exploration of the coast of southern and western Africa by
Necho and Sataspes. In the geography of Egypt on the other
hand there is inserted a chapter about the sources of the
Danube (ii 33f). This shows that the inquiries about Europe
and about Africa are closely linked up with each other. But
there are also some very strange facts - connected with the
journey of Herodotus in Egypt. C. Sourdille in his excellent
book, Sur la duree et l'etendue du voyage d'Herodote en Egypte,'4
has pointed.out that Herodotus at the beginning of his journey
went rather straight up to Elephantine and in any case visited
most of the cities of the Delta later on. There is some doubt
about Memphis as he must have passed this place twice. He
certainly had some intercourse with the priests there on his
way to upper Egypt. But it is doubtful whether he got the
bulk of his information on his way to or from upper Egypt.
In any case it is certain that he spent very little time at
Thebes, that he saw only the precincts of the great temple
there, that the information he got in this place was extremely
superficial-much more so than that which he obtained later
on in any of the Delta towns-that he did not visit and was not
even so much as aware of the existence of the famous and
gigantic buildings at Karnak and Luksor, and, what is strangest
of all, when he was at Elephantine, he did not notice that he
was also at Syene which lies immediately opposite the island
and forms with it one single town. For when later on in Sais
he was told about Syene he thought that it was situated far
from Elephantine to the south (ii 28).
Here therefore again it becomes clear that even during the
first part of his journey in Egypt Herodotus took very little
interest in history-he actually knows nothing about the
Theban kings-nor even very much in special geography.
But again his main object is obvious. He tells us himself
(ii 29) that he went up to Elephantine in order to get informa-
tion about the sources of the Nile. This again is a problem
about which he made thorough investigations and tried to get
14 Paris, Leroux, 1910.
information from all obtainable sources-and it is a problem

which is closely connected with the questions of general
geography.
For the Nile was considered by Hecataeus and the 'Jonians'
as the boundary between the two continents Asia and Africa, or
Libye, as it was called by the Greeks. This theory is vehe-
mently impugned by Herodotus in ii 16-19. And here again
he fights against the systematisation of geography by his
predecessors. In iv 45 he says that the division of the earth
into three continents of equal area is utterly ridiculous; for in
length, he says, Europe stretches along both Asia 'and Africa,
and in breadth it is immensely superior to both of them, since
the northern boundaries of Europe are so far away that they
have not even been found out by the most careful investi-
gations, whereas the southern and northern boundaries of Asia
are very well known; and Africa has been completely circum-
navigated, so that it cannot be so very large after all.
But no less ridiculous according to his opinion is the con-
ception of the Nile as the boundary between Asia and Africa
(1) because in this way Egypt would belong to two continents
-or if the Delta alone is Egypt, as some of the 'Jonians'
suggested in order to solve the difficulty, it would belong to
none, as it is surrounded by the arms of the Nile, nor would
there have been any Egypt at all before the Delta arose out of
the sediments of the Nile, which in his opinion is at variance
with Egyptian history (ii 15), (2) because-well, because the
Nile takes its origin not from the ocean as his predecessors
suggested, but has its sources within the continent. This, at
least, Herodotus tried to confirm by his investigations. But
unfortunately nobody could tell him anything reliable about
the sources of the Nile. So finally he is reduced to a very
desperate argument (ii 33f). He argues on the basis of special
information that the Nile divides Africa into two rather equal
parts, and that the Danube does the same with Europe, that
therefore the Nile will be of equal length with the Danube, and,
furthermore, that whereas the mouth of the Nile is immediately
opposite the Cilician coast of Asia Minor, the mouth of the

Danube is opposite Sinope on the northern coast of Asia Minor,
that Sinope itself is straight to the north of Cilicia, and that
thus there is a straight line to the north from the mouth of the
Nile to the mouth of the Danube. Consequently the Danube
is in all respects the complete analog of the Nile in the northern
hemisphere. Now the sources of the Danube are known-
Herodotus thinks that they are situated at the foot of the
Pyre'nees. The reason why they are known is that the country
along the Danube is inhabited, whereas the shores of the upper
Nile are not. So in his opinion it is mere coincidence that the
sources of the Nile are not known. The inference therefore is
obvious, and it would be as mistaken to think that the Nile
comes from the ocean as that the Danube does.
The investigation then into the sources of the Nile was also
undertaken in order to solve a problem, not of special, but of
general geography; and thus it can be easily understood why in
the beginning of his journey in Egypt Herodotus hurried up the
Nile to Elephantine, the point from which the caravans to the
Sudan and to more central Africa started, and where the
caravans coming from there arrived. This point being made,
the course of the northern journey of Herodotus may also be
easily understood. He went to Olbia because this was the
centre of the trade with northern Europe, just as Elephantine
was the starting-point of the caravans to central Africa. He
went up the Hypanis in order to see Exampaios, but also in
order to get more information about the northern limits of
Europe. He stayed for some time at Prokonnesos and at
Kyzikos in the Propontis, in order to make investigations about
Aristeas who of all the previous authors had written most
about the nations of northern Europe, and he went to the
mouth of the river Phasis, because this river was supposed to
be the boundary between Asia and Europe, and was considered
as one of the connections between the mediterranean seas-
comprising the Mediterranean in the proper sense as well as the
Black Sea-and the ocean, just like the Nile.
To sum up, therefore, one may say that all the real inquiries
(I am not speaking of casual information such as any traveller
would bring home) which Herodotus made during his journey
to the Black Sea-except those about the origin of the Scythian
people-and in the first part of his Egyptian journey, concerned
problems of general, not of special, geography, and that like-
wise all the important points he visited in these journeys are
also important for general geography.
But so far only the material side of the problem is involved.
It will perhaps be of even greater importance to analyze the
method followed by Herodotus at that time. Now it is
obvious that he criticises the general geographical system of
Hecataeus and his followers and is revolting against the whole
rationalistic and systemizing spirit of Hecatean geography
from a more empiristic point of view. Thus from the outset
the often remarked empiricism of Herodotus seems to stand
out against the rationalism of Hecataeus. But this is only
part of the truth. For not only is it true that in the inferences
which he draws when comparing the length of the Danube
with the length of the Nile, he himself indulges in a systema-
tisation which is perhaps worse than any that can be found in
the fragments of Hecataeus, but his view of the extent of
Europe to the north also is based on a generalisation no less
rash than Hecataeus' conception of a circular earth composed
of three continents of equal area. For the thought of Herodotus
seems to have been that since most of the things on earth are of
irregular and non-geometrical shape, the same would probably
apply to the earth itself. But here, as well as in his estimate
of the relative extent of the continents, the systemizing and
geometrical apriorism of Hecataeus turned out to be at least a
little nearer to the truth than the empiristic generalisations of
Herodotus.
These discordant elements in the method of Herodotus can
be observed not only in his treatment of the theory of conti-
nents or the problem of the sources of the Nile, but it has been
pointed out long ago by Bauer and Macan that throughout the
first part of the fourth and the whole-not only the first part-
of the second book there is a very strong element of rationalism
which is not found in the other parts of the work. This has
even become one of their chief arguments for the theory that
the fourth and the second books must have been written
towards the end of the career of Herodotus. For they
thought that this fact could only be explained by the assump-
tion that Herodotus had already written all the other parts of
his work as ein naiv gldubiger Mann, to quote Bauer, when he
began to imbibe rationalism in Egypt. This assumption,
however, is inconsistent with all the results of the present
analysis of the work; and the facts on which it is based will
be explained otherwise.
But before trying to give an explanation of this kind it is
necessary to turn back to our investigation into the method of
Herodotus. It seems to have been a strange mixture of
empiricism and rationalism, an empiristic rationalism, if such a
paradoxical expression may be allowed And in its origin it
was closely connected with a special criticism of Hecatean
geography. But here a further observation can be made.
The criticism of Hecataeus himself had been merely ration-
alistic and had been directed against the sagas and legends as
well as against the poets by whom they had been told. The
second part of this characterisation however applies also to the
criticism of Herodotus. For the conception treated by him
with the utmost contempt is that of the river Ocean flowing
round a circular earth. And here he says expressly that he
thinks that this conception was an invention of Homer (ii 23).
Nor is it mere coincidence that at the beginning of his geo-
graphical treatise in the fourth book (iv 32) he also criticises
Homer and Hesiod. So this perhaps may give us a deeper
insight into his motives and a better knowledge of his starting
point.
The conception of a circular earth surrounded by the river
Okeanos is very old and a product of that very early and
primitive rationalism or apriorism which arises out of the
irresistible desire of man to have a somewhat complete and

easily comprehensible conception of the universe. Hecataeus
had criticized old legendary tradition from a rationalistic point
of view and so had destroyed all the artistic, the poetical, and
the vital elements in it. But the more a priori elements in
legend had appealed to his systemizing spirit. So he accepted
them and tried to make them even more systematic still.
Herodotus in his criticism of early legend and of cosmological
and geographical myth is in a way only the legitimate successor
of Hecataeus, who continues and brings to perfection what
Hecataeus had begun. But as his criticism is chiefly directed
against the a priori elements in legend and myth, it becomes a
criticism of Hecataeus as well. Yet stress must again be laid
upon the fact that, as is shown by the discussion of the Nile and
the Danube, rationalism and empiricism at this stage of his
development were still rather unbalanced in his mind. It was
the empiristic element, as we shall see, that predominated
later, and thus became most important for his work, as it
allowed him to take in those wonderful stories which make its
incomparable charm and of which a great deal certainly would
have been destroyed by the dry and systemizing rationalism of
Hecataeus.
And now, to draw the conclusion, I think one may say that
the development of Herodotus from the rather unbalanced
mixture of rationalism and empiricism and the rash generali-
sations of the fourth and the second book to the mature
skepticism and abstention from judgement in some other parts
of his work that can be inferred from the analysis given, is
much more consistent in itself and much more probable from a
psychological and historical point of view than the conception
of a Herodotus who, after having written the whole history of
the Persian monarchy and of the Greek and Persian war as ein
naiv glaubiger Mann, in his old age begins to imbibe rationalism
in Egypt, the land of wonder.
So, as far as the first stage of the development of Herodotus
is concerned, only one difficulty remains unsolved. It is not
yet explained why in the course of his journey to the Black Sea
he made not only very careful inquiries into the geography of
northern Europe, but also into the origin of the people of the
Scyths. But this can now also very easily be explained. The
problem of the origin of the Scythians is closely connected with
the problem of the origin of mankind; and this is a problem of
exactly the same kind as that of the shape of the earth. It has
always and everywhere been one of the chief objects of primitive
speculation; accordingly it had been dealt with by the more
speculative spirits among the early Greek poets like Hesiod and
Pherekydes of Syros. Furthermore, the account given of it by
Herodotus in the fourth book (5-10), as in the case of his
geographical criticism there, has- its analogue in a passage of
the second book (2f), where he tells the story how the Egyptian
king Psammetichos tried to find out which people was the
oldest one in the world, and by a very ingenious device came to
the conclusion that it was the Phrygians. The method of
inquiry followed by Herodotus in this case is of course a little
different from the method of which he makes use in his geo-
graphical investigations, since the problem is concerned with
the past, and therefore no testimony of personal witnesses
could possibly be available. But, apart from that, the story of
the curious experiment made by king Psammetichos reveals the
same mixture of a very naive rationalism with real or imaginary
experience as that which is the most characteristic feature of
his criticism of legendary and Hecatean geography. In a way
it comes even nearer to the rationalism of Hecataeus himself.
A similar observation can be made as to the story told by
Herodotus about the origin of the Scythian people itself. He
tells us that the Scythians considered themselves the youngest
people of all. This is very curious. For almost all nations
have a natural tendency to regard themselves as very old
Herodotus himself says that the Egyptians had been convinced
that they were the oldest people in the world until Psammetichos
found out that this could not be true-and it is not very li-kely
that the Scythians should have been so very different from all
other nations in this respect. But it is very easy to see how

the story of Herodotus came about. According to his own
account the Scythians told him that Targitaos, their first king,
who at the same time was their ancestor, had lived exactly one
thousand years before the time when Herodotus questioned
them about their origin. Now a thousand years in the
language of a primitive people means just an immense time.
This is quite consistent with the view that the Scythians, like
all other peoples, looked upon themselves as the first-born of all
nations. But Herodotus with the same mixture of empiricism
and rationalism as characterizes his geographical system, at
once drew the conclusion, not only that they were, but even
that they considered themselves, the youngest people, since
they said that their common ancestor had lived only a thousand
years ago. So the account given by Herodotus of his inquiries
into the origin of the Scyths, far from being at variance with
any part of the previously given analysis of the geographical
chapters of the fourth and second books, confirms the view that
the two great journeys of Herodotus originally were undertaken
in order to find out the truth about the speculative elements in
ancient saga which had not been destroyed or had even been
accepted by Hecataeus.
As the first stage of the development of Herodotus comprises
only the first part of his journey to Egypt, the next step of the
present inquiry must be an analysis of the second part of this
journey. Here one can at once begin with the most historical
part, that is, the history and chronology of the Egyptian kings.
In II 100 Herodotus says that from Menes, the founder of the
first united kingdom of upper and lower Egypt and thereby of
the so-called first dynasty, up to Moiris, the king who built the
Labyrinth, there had reigned 330 kings, none of whom did any
memorable deed except the one queen Nitokris, who revenged
her brother and killed a great many of her subjects.
Of Moiris he says in ii 13 that he died nearly 900 years before
the time when he, Herodotus, came to Egypt, that is, between
1350 and 1340 B.c. How and why this date was obtained by
Herodotus is obvious. It is not given in connection with the

history of Egypt, but with the statement that in the course of
these 900 years the surface of lower Egypt rose by seven to
eight yards in consequence of the sediment deposited by the
Nile. Hence this date is obviously obtained from an Egyptian
source; yet the inquiry was not made through historical, but
through geographical interest, as the growth of lower Egypt
and especially of the Delta by the deposit of sediment by the
Nile plays also an important part in the general geographical
theory of Herodotus.
From Moiris onwards up to Amasis and his son Psam-
metichos, the last Egyptian king before the Persian conquest,
Herodotus enumerates all the Egyptian kings by name. The
names he gives are: Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus, Rhampsinitos,
Cheops, Chephren, Mykerinos, Asychis, Anysis, Setho, Psam-
metichos, Necho, Psammis, Apries, and finally Amasis, the
famous friend of the Samian tyrant Polykrates.
In this enumeration there is a break between Setho and
Psammetichos. For here Herodotus inserts a chapter about
general chronology. This is very significant. For the kings
from Psammetichos to Amasis are all historical. They are
enumerated in their true chronological order, and the dates
given for the length of their reigns are approximately right.
This, on the contrary, is not the case with any of the previous
kings from Sesostris to Setho. For some of them, like Cheops,
Chephren, Mykerinos, and probably Asychis, are historical, it
is true; but in their case the true chronological order is com-
pletely disarranged in the account of Herodotus.15 All of them
belong to the fourth dynasty which reigned approximately
from 2800 to 2600 B.C. They therefore lived much earlier than
900 years before the time of Herodotus and even earlier than
15 The attempt made by Petrie (The Journal of Hellenic Studies xxviii 275ff)
to solve the difficulty by the assumption that the chapters 124-36 of the second
book have been displaced in the manuscripts and originally were inserted after
II 100, so that the names of the kings of the fourth dynasty were enumerated
immediately after Menes, does not help at all. For in II 142 Herodotus says
that from Menes to Setho there reigned 341 kings, which number is only obtained
if all the kings mentioned in ii 101-141 are added to the 330 kings of II 100.
queen Nitokris (Neit-Aqert). Accordingly they should have

been counted among the 330 predecessors of Moiris who are
mentioned by Herodotus in ii 100. Some of the other kings of
this group like Rhampsinitos and Sesostris owe their existence
to the fact that the popular tradition, of which Herodotus here
makes use, had telescoped different kings with similar names
and similar achievements into a single person. Pheron has
arisen out of a misunderstanding. For his is the name not of
an individual king, but the general title of all Egyptian kings.
Proteus is mythical and of Greek origin. He has nothing to do
with real Egyptian history at all. And Anysis and Setho are
of even more complicated origin.
But more important than this is the question how their
chronological grouping in the work of Herodotus came about.
As to the kings of the second group, from Psammetichos to
Amasis, Herodotus gives the exact number of the years of their
reigns. According to these dates the reign of the first of them,
Psammetichos, began in 671 B.C., which, within a limit of some
5 or 6 years, is in harmony with the Egyptian documents.
Moiris, as stated above, is supposed to have died some 900
years before Herodotus, that is about 1340, or as Herodotus
says that it was not quite 900 years before his journey to
Egypt, about 1330 B.C. Proteus, as the rescuer of Helen
when she was stolen by Paris (ii 114), is connected with the
Trojan war, which according to Greek saga and to the chrono-
logical system of Hecataeus that was based on it, took place in
the second generation after Herakles. Herakles himself ac-
cording to ii 145 lived-not died, like Moiris-about 900 years
before Herodotus, that is, he belonged to the generation after
Moiris. Three generations according to the calculation of
Herodotus (ii 142) are 100 years. The generation of the
Trojan war is the second generation after Herakles or the third
after Moiris. If Moiris died in 1330 B.C. the date of his
generation will be 1363-1330 and that of the generation of t
Trojan war 1236-1230. But this, as Eduard Meyer 16 pointed
out long ago, is exactly the date given by Hecataeus. The
16 Forschungen zur alten Geschichte I, 170.
inferences to be drawn from this are obvious. There is only

one date which is obtained from Egyptian sources, that of
Moiris, and this was not obtained through historical, but
through geographical interest. The date of Proteus is derived
from Greek sources and in fact the same as that given by
Hecataeus. Two kings had to be put in between Moiris and
Proteus, because there were two generations between them,
and the chronology by generations itself is completely artificial
and, though not exactly the same as that of Hecataus-for
Hecataeus used generations of 40 years-yet very near akin
to it.
Note furthermore that the generation of Proteus and the

Trojan war, as shown above, will end in 1230 B.C. The reign
of Psammetichos begins in 671. Between Proteus and
Psammetichos, according to Herodotus, there are seven kings
(ii 121-141). The length of the reigns of four of these kings is
given by Herodotus either precisely or approximately. The
dates are: Cheops, 50 years (ii 127), Chephren, 56 years
(ii 127), Mykerinos, between six and seven years, or if these
years are counted from the death of his daughter-but the
context makes it very likely that they are intended to mark the
whole length of his reign-a little more than seven years
(II 133). Anysis, who flees into the swamps of the Delta, when
Egypt is invaded by the Ethiopian Sabakos, and who comes
back after 50 years, must have reigned a little more than 50
years. If these numbers are added together, ample allowance
being made for the reign of Anysis after the withdrawal of the
invader, the highest number which can be reached still does not
exceed 180 years. Now from the death of Proteus in 1230 to
the beginning of the reign of Psammetichos in 671 B.C., 560
years have lapsed. If from these the 180 years of the four
kings Cheops, Chephren, Mykerinos, and Anysis are sub-
tracted, there still remain 380 years for the reigns of Rhampsi-
nitos, Asychis, and Sethos, a quite impossible length of reign
for only three kings-the more so, as there is not the slightest
hint in the account of Herodotus that their reigns were of
unusual length. In addition to that, there is another perhaps

even more striking inconsistency in his Egyptian chronology.
In ii 149 Herodotus says that after the death of Anysis up to
Amyrtaios the Egyptian kings tried for more than 700 years in
vain to rediscover the island where Anysis had sought refuge
from the Egyptian invader. Now Amyrtaios, a contemporary
of Herodotus, lived about 450 B.C. So the death of Anysis
according to this calculation must have occurred earlier than
1150 B.C., that is, less than 100 years after the death of Proteus.
But on the other hand, between the death of Proteus and that
of Anysis, there are the reigns of the four kings mentioned
above with at least 162 years plus the reigns of Rhampsinitos
and Asychis, the duration of which is not known. So here
again the numbers do not fit in with each other.
To sum up, thus far, therefore, one may say: There are three
elements in the Egyptian chronology given by Herodotus.
The first one consists of the dates obtained by Herodotus in
Egypt. Of these the dates of Cheops, Chephren, MVykerinos,
and Anysis are essential to the stories told about those kings,
but just for this reason originally were not meant to be
historical at all. They are of the same kind as, for instance, in
Greek legend the number of the years spent by Herakles in the
service of Omphale. The 900 years from Moiris to Herodotus
were obtained from Egyptian sources through geographical
interest. The 700 years from the death of Anysis to Amyrtaios,
on the other hand, are based on one of those rough estimates
given at random, of which the 1000 years from the origin of the
Scythian people are another example, and really just mean a
very long time. So none of those dates collected during the
journey in Egypt-apart from the dates of the Saitic kings-
was obtained in the course of really historical investigations.
The second element is the date of Proteus, which is derived
from Greek chronology. The third element is the chronology
of generations set forth in ii 142-6. All these three elements
are mixed up in the beginning of Herodotus' account of the
eleven kings who reigned between the 330 kings, whose names
he does not know, and the Saitic dynasty. And here he

obviously tries to make his general system applicable to
Egyptian history and to build up an Egyptian chronology by
means of it. But from Rhampsinitos onwards only the raw
material collected in Egypt is given, and this does not fit in
with the system set forth afterwards and applied before.
To this the following observations may be added:
(1) As Eduard Meyer (Forschungen i 151ff) has pointed out,
Herodotus in his account of the Assyrian kings in i 7 as well as
in that of the Lydian dynasty in i 7-14, and of the Median and
Persian in i 95 and i 107, just as in his account of Herakles and
Proteus in the second book, makes use of the chronology of
Hecataeus in a slightly altered form. In all those cases the
dates of Herakles and the Trojan war are 1330-1296 and
1263-1230 correspondingly. In all these cases, furthermore,
the reigns of the different kings are of reasonable length, and
no such difficulties as in the case of the Egyptian kings arise.
This is very important. For if this were not the case, there
would be nothing significant in the inconsistency of Herodotus'
Egyptian chronology.17
(2) Of all the Egyptian kings whose names are mentioned at
all, Herodotus has a story to tell, and generally a very fine and
finished story from the artistic point of view. This he does
not do in the case of the earliest Assyrian and Lydian kings.
(3) As C. Sourdille, on evidence completely different and
disconnected from the present analysis has proved, the sojourn
of Herodotus at Sais where he got information about the Saitic
dynasty, that is, the only really historical information contained
in his whole Egyptian history, was one of the latest stages of his
journey.
It is not very difficult to draw conclusions from these
observations. When Herodotus collected his material about
the Egyptian kings, he was not yet interested in chronology,
much less in a chronological system. For if that had been the
case he would have been at least as inquisitive about that as he
was about the sources of the Nile, the peoples of northern
17 See appendix.
Europe, and some other subjects which chiefly interested him

at that time. Nor can there be any doubt that, though he
might not have been able to get a complete and accurate list of
the Egyptian kings-and even that to some extent might not
have been entirely impossible-he certainly would have been
able to fill in the gap in his chronological system.18 So we can
be quite sure that this system was not made up before he had
left Egypt and had consequently lost the opportunity of
getting further information on the spot.
From this statement some further inferences may be drawn
as to the development of Herodotus during his journey to
Egypt. When Herodotus came to that country he at first was
chiefly interested in exactly the same problems as at the time
when he visited the borders of the Black Sea, that is in the
shape of the earth, in general geography, and to a certain
extent in the origin of the different nations and ultimately of
mankind. For the first purpose he went up to Elephantine, he
questioned the priests and other people in lower Egypt and
afterwards in Cyrene, and he made his observations in the
Delta. For the second purpose he made some inquiries at
Memphis, Heliopolis, and Thebes.
But his interest in all other subjects was still very faintly
developed at that time. The shortness of his sojourn at
Elephantine and Thebes, and the enormous errors he com-
mitted in his account of them bear witness to that. The
18 It may perhaps be noticed that Diodorus became aware of the gap in the
chronology of the Egyptian kings given by Herodotus and that-still following
Herodotus in the main line-he tried to supplement his account, partly from
other sources, partly by inserting seven generations of unnamed kings after
Rhampsinitos whom he calls by the name of Remphis (I 63). But this cannot
be taken as evidence for the assumption that in our manuscripts of the work of
Herodotus there is a lacuna due to mechanical causes and that this accounts for
the seeming gap in his chronology. For the numbers given by him in ii 142
make it quite clear that there never had been any additional kings in his account.
Apart from that, I have come to consider it possible to explain in every detail
how Herodotus was induced to put the eleven kings into their present order,
and to some extent also how the account of Diodorus came about. But as this
analysis would require a special paper of almost equal length with the present
one I cannot, give it here, but I hope to be able to publish it separately later on.
turning point is probably marked by his visit to the Fayum

where the so-called Lake of Moiris and the Labyrinth made an
overwhelming impression on his mind (ii 148). From this
moment he seems to have developed a very keen interest in
Egyptian customs and religion. The whole first half of the
second book, apart from the geographical digressions, is full of
it. And this is also important for the reason that, when in a
later stage of his journey he made his inquiries at the great
religious centres of lower Egypt, above all at Memphis and
Sais, he began to extend his method of examining different
witnesses, which he had acquired in connection with geo-
graphical problems, to this new field of knowledge.
At the same time an entirely new element seems gradually to
have come in. In those towns he was told the stories about the
early kings of Egypt. These stories were not historical in the
modern sense of the word. Yet they, no less than Greek saga, 19
were the form in which a people-in this case, as Spiegelberg 17
has shown, chiefly the lower classes of the Egyptian people-
was conscious of its past. It was perhaps a particularly
fortunate chance that Herodotus should come upon them just
at a moment when his rationalism had already been con-
siderably impaired and his sense of true historiography not yet
strengthened enough to make him reject them, so that he could
freely develop his wonderful gift of telling and retelling stories.
There may have been still another step of his development
during his journey in Egypt, for eventually at Sais Herodotus
seems to have got some truly historical information about the
latest kings of Egypt. And the chapters of the second book
which deal with them are the only really historical part of his
account of Egypt. But though there can be no doubt that the
bulk of his information was collected at Sais, this part of the
Egyptian history is so closely connected with the history of
Kambyses that it is very doubtful how much of its elaboration
belongs to a later date.
19 Die Glaubwiirdigkeit von Herodots Bericht jiber Agypten im Lichte der
dgyptischen Denkmdler, Orient und Antike iII (Heidelberg, Winter, 1926).
So to sum up one may say: The journey to Egypt certainly

marks an epoch in the development of Herodotus. Materially
his interest widened from the chiefly geographical interest to
the interest in foreign customs and religion, in tales which were
connected with history, and ultimately in history itself. The
development of his method at the same time is characterized
by a gradual weakening of unmethodical hyper-rationalism and
hypercriticism and by a corresponding strengthening of the
empirical element. Or to state it perhaps more accurately, the
empirico-rationalistic criticism of his first period is replaced by
some kind of empirical skepticism. He no longer rejects any
stories on account of their being strange or miraculous. He
just tells them, rather frequently adding that he doubts them,
at other times leaving it to the hearer whether he will believe
them or not. But even at the end of his journey he seems not
yet to have been aware of the necessity of a chronological
order. He had not yet found out that this was an indispensable
foundation of true historiography.20
Appendix. In order to show the difference between the com-

pleteness and consistency of Herodotus' chronology of the Median,
Persian, Assyrian, and Lydian kings and dynasties on one side and
the inconsistency of his Egyptian chronology on the other, I add
here a short survey of the different applications of his chronological
system. The first column gives the names of the dynasties as well
as of the kings mentioned by Herodotus, the second column contains
the figures given by Herodotus to indicate the duration of their
reigns. The third column gives the dates in our chronological
system at which one arrives starting from the historical date of
the latest king mentioned by Herodotus and then successively
adding the years, according to Herodotus, of the duration of this
reign as well as of the reigns of his predecessors. The last column
indicates the chapters of the work, where the corresponding figures
are found.
A. Persians
1. Kambyses 7 529-522 III 66

2. Kyros 2 558-529 I 214
20 Editor's Note.-This article, which presents but a small part of the

author's material on Herodotus, is offered for criticism as one step in a much
larger undertaking.
B. Medes
1. Astyages (preceding Kyros 35 593-558 I 107

in the rulership of
Asia)
2. Kyaxares (the 40 years of 40 633-593 I 106
his reign comprise the
28 years during which
the Scyths are supposed
to have kept Asia sub-
jected to their ruler-
ship)
3. Phraortas 53 686-633 I 102 21
Total period of the sover- 128 686-558 I 130 21
eignty of the Medes
over Asia
C. Intermediate epoch, when the Medes have freed themselves from the Assyrian
yoke, but the Assyrians are still ruling over the other nations of Asia.
1. Deiokes reigns as an inde- 22 708-686 I 102 21

pendent sovereign over
the Medes
D. Assyrians
1. Rulership of the Assyrians 520 1228-708 I 95

in Asia from the foun-
dation of the Assyrian
empire to the liberation
of the Medes
E. Mythical forefathers
1. Belos, father of Ninos, the one generation: 33 1261-1228 I 7

founder of the Assyrian
realm
2. Alkaios, father of Belos one generation: 33 1294-1261 I 7
3. Herakles, father of Alkaios one generation: 33 M 1328-1296 I 7
So this calculation ends almost exactly with the date of Herakles which can be
gathered from II 143 and which is also the date given by Hecataeus.
The chronology of the Lydian dynasties in Herodotus is quite

similar and also derived from Herakles:
21 The figures given for Phraortas and Deiokes in I 130 have to be exchanged
in order to make them fit in with the figures given for the whole length of the
reign of the Medes in I 130. Also 53 years would be an unreasonable figure in
the case of Deiokes itself, since he is supposed to be already a rather old man
when his reign begins. But this exchange of two special figures does not affect
the result of the calculation.
A. Dynasty of the Mermnadai
1. Kroisos 13 558-546 I 86
2. Alyattes (contemporary of Kyaxares, 57 615-558 I 25
against whom he has to defend his
realm)
3. Sadyattes 12 627-615 I 16
4. Ardys 49 676-627 I 16
5. Gyges 38 714-676 I 14
(The duration of the whole reign of the dynasty of the Merm-

nadai is given in I 91 as of five generations plus the three years
accorded to Kroisos by Apollo. This, according to the chronology
of generations expounded in 11 143, would be 5 X 3313 or 167 + 3
- 170, which is only by one year different from the sum of the
numbers given for the single kings. This small difference can be
easily accounted for by the assumption that some of the kings
reigned a few months longer than the exact number of years given
by Herodotus.)
The dates for the whole dynasty then will be:
Mermnadai 170 716-546 I 91

B. Dynasty of the Herakleidai
1. 22 generations in 505 years beginning 505 1221-1188 I 7
with Agron the son of Ninos.
(On this two observations may be made:

1. As 22 generations according to the system of Herodotus would
be more than 700 years, it is obvious that the number of the genera-
tions in this case was obtained from some independent source. Yet
they are made to fit in with the general system by the assumption
that in this case the reign of 22 successive kings lasted only 505
years. So the attempt to reconcile different traditions with the
general chronological system is here manifest.
2. There is a slight difficulty in the fact that the reign of Agron
the son of Ninos here is made to begin not much later than the reign
of his father if the Assyrian chronology is to be accepted, though,
as his son, he should belong to the succeeding generation. But this
can be easily explained by the assumption that Ninos handed over
part of his newly conquered realm to one of his sons when he himself
was still alive. This is in full harmony with the assumption made
by Herodotus himself that the Lydian Herakleidai reigned at the
same time as the Assyrian line; and Herodotus may have had the
intention of telling in full the story in his chapters on Assyrian
history.)

Herodotus and The Growth of Greek Historiography

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Herodotus and the Growth of Greek Historiography

Author(s): Kurt von Fritz

XXIII.-Herodotus and the Growth of Greek

KURT VON FRITZ

This article is summarized in the last paragraph.

Herodotus is called the father of history. Yet whereas the

artistic element comes in-it should make visible the living

than that of Herodotus, had been taropl-j-geography and

I Fr. 19 Jacoby Fragm. der griech. Hist.

Both orders, of course, were

order of his journeys is confirmed by the comparison of the

As to the journey to the Black Sea the first, possibility can be

that is, a purely geographical treatise containing geog-

seems not to have been very much of an explorer either, and

geography of the north is mixed up with an account of the

information from all obtainable sources-and it is a problem

opposite the Cilician coast of Asia Minor, the mouth of the

irresistible desire of man to have a somewhat complete and

other nations in this respect. But it is very easy to see how

Herodotus is obvious. It is not given in connection with the

queen Nitokris (Neit-Aqert). Accordingly they should have

inferences to be drawn from this are obvious. There is only

Note furthermore that the generation of Proteus and the

unusual length. In addition to that, there is another perhaps

he does not know, and the Saitic dynasty. And here he

Europe, and some other subjects which chiefly interested him

turning point is probably marked by his visit to the Fayum

So to sum up one may say: The journey to Egypt certainly

Appendix. In order to show the difference between the com-

1. Kambyses 7 529-522 III 66

20 Editor's Note.-This article, which presents but a small part of the

1. Astyages (preceding Kyros 35 593-558 I 107

1. Deiokes reigns as an inde- 22 708-686 I 102 21

1. Rulership of the Assyrians 520 1228-708 I 95

1. Belos, father of Ninos, the one generation: 33 1261-1228 I 7

The chronology of the Lydian dynasties in Herodotus is quite

A. Dynasty of the Mermnadai

(The duration of the whole reign of the dynasty of the Merm-

Mermnadai 170 716-546 I 91

(On this two observations may be made:

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