The Herodotus Encyclopedia. Группа авторов
at the same time, in acknowledging that his knowledge is incomplete and provisional, he is also reassuringly modest (Dewald 2002, 286–89).
His credibility is enhanced by the deployment of argument and the language of PROOF (Thomas 2000, 168–212). He appeals to “decisive evidence” (tekmērion: 2.43, 58, 104; 3.38; 7.238; 9.100) and “testimony” (marturion/marturein: 2.18, 22; 4.29; 7.221; 8.120, the last a piece of source‐criticism) in support of his arguments and interpretations (cf. 2.13, 5.45 for others doing so), while tekmairomai is used for analogical inferences about the language of the PELASGIANS (1.57) and the length of the NILE (2.33). As well as inference and ANALOGY, his techniques of argument include deduction, reductio ad absurdum, a fortiori, and probability (eikos) and are most extensively showcased in his discussions of the nature of EGYPT and the flooding of the Nile (2.15–27). This is a notable instance of his engagement with contemporary intellectual debates and so is characterized by a marked element of polemic (Thomas 2000, especially 213–48): like the language of proof, rhetorical questions and appeals to his own experience are concentrated in the account of Egypt (Marincola 1987; Lateiner 1989, 72–73), and Herodotus’ polemic is directed not only at intellectual rivals, but also at Greek beliefs in general, and at earlier writers, notably HECATAEUS (Lateiner 1989, 91–108), the latter again a marked feature of later historiography.
Herodotus’ handling of NUMBERS likewise contributes to his authority. In part this is rhetorical: apparent caution (“five or six” already at 1.1), enumeration of numerical data, for example in army lists (e.g., 6.8; 8.1–2, 43–8; 9.28–30), and elaborate calculations (e.g., 1.32; 2.142; 4.85–86; 7.184–87) all help to create an impression of effort and expertise, but as a visualization of remote locations and the distant past, calculations have an intellectual appeal as well (Sergueenkova 2016).
Finally, and in contrast to his successors, Herodotus makes use of a prominent authorial voice to guide his readers through the complexities of the narrative with its vast geographical and temporal sweep, huge cast, and extensive DIGRESSIONS: it is painstakingly signposted with CROSS‐REFERENCES and progress markers (e.g., 1.94; 3.138; 9.104), as well as RING COMPOSITION, presentation markers, allusions to its forward movement and other articulating stylistic features (de Jong 2002, 259–66; Brock 2003), while explanatory asides are helpfully inserted like footnotes to aid comprehension. By seeming to talk directly to the reader, Herodotus fashions an appealing narrative personality which inspires confidence in readers and draws them on with its charm.
SEE ALSO: Narratology; Prose; Rhetoric; Truth
REFERENCES
1 Brock, Roger. 2003. “Authorial Voice and Narrative Management in Herodotus.” In Herodotus and His World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest, edited by Peter Derow and Robert Parker, 3–16. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2 de Jong, Irene J. F. 2002. “Narrative Unity and Units.” In Brill’s Companion to Herodotus, edited by Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J. F. de Jong, and Hans van Wees, 245–66. Leiden: Brill.
3 Dewald, Carolyn. 2002. “‘I Didn’t Give My Own Genealogy’: Herodotus and the Authorial Persona.” In Brill’s Companion to Herodotus, edited by Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J. F. de Jong, and Hans van Wees, 267–89. Leiden: Brill.
4 Lateiner, Donald. 1989. The Historical Method of Herodotus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
5 Luraghi, Nino. 2006. “Meta‐historiē: Method and Genre in the Histories.” In The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus, edited by Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola, 76–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6 Marincola, John. 1987. “Herodotean Narrative and the Narrator’s Presence.” Arethusa 20: 121–42.
7 Marincola, John. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8 Sergueenkova, Valeria. 2016. “Counting the Past in Herodotus’ Histories.” JHS 136: 121–31.
9 Thomas, Rosalind. 2000. Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
AUTOCHTHONY
MARIA FRAGOULAKI
Cardiff University
Autochthony is a word of Greek provenance (from αὐτός “same” + χθών “land, soil”) designating indigenousness and the idea that a community had always inhabited the same land. Autochthony is one of the most powerful narratives of national pride and racial supremacy, and, like all MYTHS of identity, is adjustable to different contexts and mindsets. Autochthonic myths often represent key ancestors as having a special attachment to the soil, which is transferred to the whole community; these myths often involved gods, HEROES, or natural elements (such as river gods). Οne of the most pronounced autochthony myths in Herodotus’ Histories, and beyond, is that of ATHENS. But, although Herodotus uses the word “autochthon” for a number of Greek and non‐Greek communities, he never does so as a collective designation for the Athenians (nor does THUCYDIDES, who uses the word only once, for the Sicans of SICILY [6.2.2]). Nevertheless, there is one instance in Herodotus where the word is used of an individual of Attica, namely TITACUS of APHIDNA, as part of the mythological justification of the privileged treatment of DECELEA (Attic DEME) by the Spartans in the PELOPONNESIAN WAR (9.73).
In Herodotus’ Histories Athenian autochthony is set against the patriotic background of the PERSIAN WARS. In the Greek embassy to the Syracusan king GELON, the idea of the Athenians as “a most ancient ethnos (ethnic group), the only ones who never migrated’ (7.161.3) is put in the mouth of the Athenian representatives as part of their argument for leadership. The same idea is expressed indirectly in one of Herodotus’ references to the PELASGIANS, the ancestors of the people of Attica, as a group who never migrated (1.56.2). SNAKES, as creatures attached to the earth, were autochthonic symbols. The story of the guardian snake which lived in the temple of the goddess ATHENA on the Athenian ACROPOLIS, but abandoned the temple before the Persian attack on the city, symbolizes the Athenians’ strong attachment to the soil of Attica (8.41.2–3; cf. Thuc. 2.14). It was at times identified with the mythical Erichthonius (Paus. 1.24.7), interchangeable with ERECHTHEUS, who also had a sanctuary on the Acropolis, as Herodotus says, and was “born of the land” (8.55, gēgenes, a near synonym of autochthon: Blok 2009, 257–58, on the distinction between the terms; Parker 1986, 193–96). Snaky CECROPS, half‐man half‐snake, a legendary king of Athens, was another mythical representation of Athenian claims to autochthony. Two of the ten Athenian tribes were named after Cecrops and Erechtheus (8.44.2; Shapiro 1998). But not all Athenian kings were autochthons: those descended from CODRUS and MELANTHUS (who set out to colonize Ionia, 9.97) were outsiders (ἐπήλυδες) originating from PYLOS (5.65.3). From the late sixth and throughout the fifth century BCE, autochthonic claims, in co‐ordination with the ideology of Ionianism (the idea that Athens was the mother‐city of all IONIANS), became increasingly relevant to Athens’ hegemonic ambitions at the inter‐state level, and to the ideology of DEMOCRACY inside the city, since all citizens could be viewed as equal through their common birth from the same earth (Rosivach 1987; Loraux 1993; Zacharia 2003; Isaac 2004, 114–24; Pelling 2009; Hornblower 2011, 132–35; Fragoulaki 2013, 210–28).
There is an overarching contrast between Spartan‐Dorian foreignness and Athenian‐Ionian indigenousness in Herodotus, and the aforementioned passage on Pelasgian immobility is part of this wider agenda. The mention of the ARCADIANS and the CYNURIANS as the only indigenous ethnea of the PELOPONNESE has the same effect: the other five, Herodotus says, came to the land from outside, among them the DORIANS (ἐπήλυδες, 8.73; notice the original Ionian identity of the Cynurians cheek by jowl with their autochthony). Yet in later tradition, even the Spartans themselves feature as autochthons (SPARTA, daughter of Eurotas, son of Lelex, son of the soil: Apollod. Bibl. 3.10.3).
Though autochthony meant close attachment to the soil, this