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Herodotus' sources - Was he reliable?

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 1:56 am
by ficino
Those interested in the problem of ancient writers' sources may find this review of interest. Boris Dunsch and Kai Ruffing edit a volume of conference papers on the sources of Herodotus. The review, by Jan P. Stronk, begins by outlining competing scholarly views of Herodotus' reliability, from -- in the 20th century -- Felix Jacoby, who saw Herodotus as a serious historian, to Detlev Fehling, who considered Herodotus close to a novelist. Now, says Stronk, the leading scholars are just trying to figure out how Herodotus used his sources.

Stronk reports that the longest paper, by Elizabeth Irwin, argues that book IX, on the great Persian invasion of Athens, was written after 413 BCE and is a response to Thucydides. This is quite a late date. I had to smile at this magisterial judgment of Stronk's:

"She adduces a considerable amount of evidence, ingenuity, and scholarship, but at the end she fails to completely convince me, though I admit her theory may be appealing to those who believe in multiple layers hidden in the Histories."

Here's the review:

http://www.bmcreview.org/2015/02/20150205.html

Re: Herodotus' sources - Was he reliable?

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 10:08 pm
by Peter Kirby
This is interesting. We often fail even to ask the question of the ancient historians.

Re: Herodotus' sources - Was he reliable?

Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:40 pm
by DCHindley
ficino wrote:Those interested in the problem of ancient writers' sources may find this review of interest. Boris Dunsch and Kai Ruffing edit a volume of conference papers on the sources of Herodotus. The review, by Jan P. Stronk, begins by outlining competing scholarly views of Herodotus' reliability, from -- in the 20th century -- Felix Jacoby, who saw Herodotus as a serious historian, to Detlev Fehling, who considered Herodotus close to a novelist. Now, says Stronk, the leading scholars are just trying to figure out how Herodotus used his sources.

Stronk reports that the longest paper, by Elizabeth Irwin, argues that book IX, on the great Persian invasion of Athens, was written after 413 BCE and is a response to Thucydides. This is quite a late date. I had to smile at this magisterial judgment of Stronk's:

"She adduces a considerable amount of evidence, ingenuity, and scholarship, but at the end she fails to completely convince me, though I admit her theory may be appealing to those who believe in multiple layers hidden in the Histories."

Here's the review:

http://www.bmcreview.org/2015/02/20150205.html
Some years ago I bought the following book on Herodotus' historical method, which at the time kind of went over my head. Now I can see that it is firmly rooted in postmodern theory (which I prefer over simply assuming we "know" what Herodotus was up to).
Donald Lateiner, The historical method of Herodotus (1989)

CONTENTS

PREFACE ix

ABBREVIATIONS xi

Introduction 3
The Nature of the Investigation
The 'Difference' of Herodotus

PART ONE Rhetoric: How Herodotus Recreates the Past

1 A New Genre, a New Rhetoric 13
The Promise of the Proem
The Rhetoric of History: Narrative and Speech
Nonverbal Behaviours
Talking to the Reader
Beginnings
Endings
Conclusion

PART TWO The Presentation of His Research: The Historian's Power

Introduction to Part Two 55

2 Selection: Explicit Omission 59
Research Problems
Reticence
Inventory

3 Alternative Versions: The Reader's Autonomy 76
Inventory

4 Disputation: Herodotus' Use of Written Sources 91
Hecataeus
Hellenic Views
Hellenic Poets
Barbarian Authorities
Inventory of Herodotean Polemic

PART THREE Poiesis: How Herodotus Makes Sense of Historical Facts

Introduction to Part Three 111

5 The Place of Chronology 114
6 Limit, Propriety, and Transgression:
A Structuring Concept in the Histories 126
'Limit,' 'Transgression,' and Related Metaphors
The Subject of Women
Moral Principles in History

7 Ethnography as Access to History 145
Egyptians
Persians
Scythians
Greeks

8 Historiographical Patterning: 'The Constitutional Debate' 163
Structure and Patterns
The Hypotheses of the Participants
Autocrats in the Histories
Isonomia

PART FOUR Meaning and Method:
How Herodotus Makes Particulars Resonate

9 Event and Explanation: Herodotean Interpretations 189
The Nature of Causal Argument in Herodotus
Analogies in Herodotus and the Concept of Equalization
Five Systems of Explanation
Fact and Explanation in Herodotus

10 The Failure and Success of Herodotus 211
Introduction
The Isolation of Herodotus
Herodotus' and Subsequent Greek Notions of Historiography
Herodotus' Achievement

NOTES 229
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 293
INDEX LOCORUM 305
GENERAL INDEX 308
It gives one (and gave me) a lot to chew on.

DCH

Re: Herodotus' sources - Was he reliable?

Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 2:49 pm
by billd89
Grisly proof he wasn't exaggerating about the Scythians might make one quiver ....
https://www.iflscience.com/ancient-scyt ... mies-72059

Re: Herodotus' sources - Was he reliable?

Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2023 6:05 pm
by DCHindley
billd89 wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2023 2:49 pm Grisly proof he wasn't exaggerating about the Scythians might make one quiver ....
https://www.iflscience.com/ancient-scyt ... mies-72059
Origen even admitted that it was the right thing to do to plot to destroy a ruling power if they ruled no better than Scythians. He was suggesting that the emperors were barbaric, and deserved to be replaced by the Christ of God. In other words, for those of dense thinking, he there admitted that Jesus could have been rebelling against Roman governors and the Herodian client kings (Archelaus, Antipas, Phillip) who ruled in their steads.
Origen, Against Celsus, 1:1 The first point which Celsus brings forward, in his desire to throw discredit upon Christianity, is, that the Christians entered into secret associations with each other contrary to law, saying, that "of associations some are public, and that these are in accordance with the laws; others, again, secret, and maintained in violation of the laws."

And his wish is to bring into disrepute what are termed the "love-feasts" of the Christians, as if they had their origin in the common danger, and were more binding than any oaths.

Since, then, he babbles about the public law, alleging that the associations of the Christians are in violation of it, we have to reply, that if a man were placed among Scythians, whose laws were unholy, [ἀθέσμους] and having no opportunity of escape, were compelled to live among them, such an one would with good reason, for the sake of the law of truth, which the Scythians would regard as wickedness, [παρανομίαν] enter into associations contrary to their laws, with those like-minded with himself;

so, if truth is to decide, the laws of the heathens which relate to images, and an atheistical polytheism, are "Scythian" laws, or more impious even than these, if there be any such.

It is not irrational, then, to form associations in opposition to existing laws, if done for the sake of the truth.

For as those persons would do well who should enter into a secret association in order to put to death a tyrant who had seized upon the liberties of a state, so Christians also, when tyrannized over by him who is called the devil, and by falsehood, form leagues contrary to the laws of the devil, against his power, and for the safety of those others whom they may succeed in persuading to revolt from a government which is, as it were, "Scythian," and despotic.
DCH