Herodotus

Collection of contributions on the reception of ancient historiography in Early Modern Culture and Intellectual History. 

INDICE
INTRODUZIONE
I. G. Mastrorosa (Università di Firenze)
Oltre ‘riscoperte’, Nachleben e ‘fortuna’: considerazioni introduttive
ARCHETIPI
L. Porciani (Università di Pavia)
La parola orale. Erodoto e la costruzione del discorso politico
M. Lentano (Università di Siena)
L’eredità di Serse. Suasoria retorica e discorso storiografico a Roma
INTERPRETI E MODELLI
S. Gambino Longo (Université de Lyon III)
Erodoto nel Rinascimento: dalla riabilitazione a un nuovo modello storiografico
J.C. Iglesias-Zoido (Universidad de Extremadura-Cáceres)
La ‘actualización’ de los discursos de Tucídides en las antologías renacentistas de contiones: los argumenta del epitafio (2.35-46)
A. Raffarin (Université Paris-Est-Créteil)
D’un antiquaire à l’autre : Varron source et modèle de Flavio Biondo
P. Ponzù Donato (Università di Firenze)
Interpretazione, divulgazione, attualità: Pier Candido Decembrio volgarizzatore di Cesare
I. G. Mastrorosa (Università di Firenze)
Livio e Machiavelli fra passato e presente: tendenze demagogiche, aspirazioni tiranniche e strumenti di tutela della ‘riputazione’
A. Severi (Università di Bologna)
Dalla Roma imperiale alla Bologna principesca: la vocazione attualizzante del commento beroaldiano a Svetonio
L. Claire (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
Sur quelques évolutions des commentaires aux Annales de Tacite dans les années 1580: Lipse, Muret, Pasquali, Scotti
LABORATORI FIORENTINI
L. Bernard-Pradelle (Université de Limoges)
L’historien en son laboratoire: Leonardo Bruni Aretino (ca. 1370-1444) et le travail sur les sources antiques
V. Pineda (Universidad de Extremadura-Cáceres)
The Memory of the Ancients in the Florentine Genre of epistole e dicerie
CONCLUSIONI
U. Roberto (Università Europea di Roma)
‘Attualizzare il passato’: alcune riflessioni sulla rilettura dei testi antichi tra l’età tardoantica e l’Europa del Rinascimento
ABSTRACTS

Dünyaya ilk adımını attığı andan itibaren insan için en önemli mesele hayatta
kalmak ve türünü devam ettirmek olmuştur. Bunun için tıpkı diğer canlılar gibi üreyen
insan, genlerini türevlerine aktarmış ve soyunu devam ettirmeye çalışmıştır.
Ölümsüzlük isteği tüm insanların hayatlarında ve amaçları arasında görülür. Ölümsüz
olma çabalarının yanında insan ırkı, tarih boyunca bilinmeyenden korkmuş ve onu
gizemli addetmiştir. Nitekim Eskiçağ’da İstros (Tuna Nehri)’un kuzeyinin kötü
ruhlarla dolu bir yer olarak nitelendirilmesi bu gizemin bir yansımasıdır. Ölüm de tıpkı
İstros’un ötesi gibi bilinmeyen bir olgu olduğu için insan, bu gerçekten de korkmuş ve
ölümü olabildiğince az düşünerek yaşamaya çalışmıştır. Her ne kadar hiç
ölmeyecekmişçesine hayat sürse de insanın bilinçaltında ölüm olgusu var olagelmiştir.
Bu olguyu zihninde en gerilere iten birey, ölümsüzlüğü elde etmek uğruna dünyada
birtakım çabalara girişmiştir. Kimi kişi bir şaheser niteliğinde binalar inşa ederek
ölümsüzlüğü aramışken kimisi de olabildiğince çok çocuk yaparak adını ve genlerini
yaşatmaya, bir nevi kendini ölümsüzleştirmeye çalışmıştır. İnsanlık tarihi bilhassa
soyunu devam ettireceğini düşündüğü için erkek çocuk sahibi olmaya çalışan; ancak
bu isteği karşılayamayan kadınlarını boşayıp başka bir kadınla evlenen erkeklerle
doludur. Ancak şu vardır ki bir insanın adını hatırlayan ve onu tanıyan son kişi
öldüğünde o insanın da ölecek olması tarih boyunca göz ardı edilen bir gerçek
olmuştur.
Ölümsüz olma çabalarından biri de bir eser ortaya koymaktır. Bu eser, bir bina,
katedral, manastır vb. gibi yapı olabileceği gibi tarih metni, şiir, roman gibi edebi bir
eser de olabilmiştir. Nitekim Herodotos da yazdığı eserle ölümsüzlüğü arayan bir insan
olmuştur. “Tarihin Babası” olarak anılan ünlü tarihçi Thukydides’in dediği gibi bir
araştırıcı meraklılığıyla konularını takip edip araştırmış; ancak geleceğe yararlı bilgiler
sunmak amacıyla değil, merak uyandırarak daha fazla okunmak ve ilgi çekmek
amacıyla yazmıştır. Bu yüzden her ne kadar “Tarihin Babası” olarak anılsa da onun
yazdığı tarih bilimsel değil, rivayetçi geleneğe ait olmuştur. Tarihin bilimsel temele
oturmasının ilk yapı taşını atansa sonraki yıllarda yaşamış Thukydides olmuştur.

This article proposes a function for the dates in the Behistun inscription of Darius I: that alongside its telling of an authorised story of righteous accession it made possible, and perhaps even established, a calendar of historical commemoration. The article makes observations about DB’s internal chronography – its synchronisation of the Persian and Babylonian calendars, the function of its single-year container for the battles’ day-month dates, and the stability, panimperial distribution, and continued availability of this information; it establishes parallels for annual victory calendars in Mesopotamia and Judea; and it identifies good, if infrequent, testimony to an Achaemenid concern with the institution of anniversary celebrations and battle commemorations.

This paper focuses on the portrait of Miltiades in the sources between 4th cent. B.C. and 1st A.D., thus after Herodotus and before Plutarch and the Second sophistic. After the first paragraph, devoted to an introduction to the issue, the second one considers sources of the 4th century: the orators usually praise Miltiades and therefore they rehabilitate his reputation after he died in disgrace (par. 2.1); then his figure is analysed in authors like Plato, Aristotle (par. 2.2) and Theopompus and Ephorus (par. 2.3). The third paragraph focuses on the sources between 1st cent. B.C. and 1st A.D.: the only Greek-writing author is Diodorus (par. 3.1), but we have a number of Latin sources, like Nepos, Cicero, Seneca the Elder, Valerius Maximus and others (par. 3.2). In the fourth paragraph it is provided a list of rare pieces of information preserved by the sources, concerning the battle of Marathon (par. 4.1), the events after the battle (par. 4.2) and other episodes (par. 4.3): the aim of this section is not to ascertain the reliability of these pieces of news, that is usually very low, but to use them in order to understand which portrait of Miltiades these sources intended to provide. The fifth paragraph offers final remarks and suggests that, notwithstanding Miltiades’ rehabilitation, due both to Cimon’s propaganda and to the new conditions of 4th century Athens, his imagine remains at least partly controversial: criticisms are attested (e.g. by Plato), but also ambivalent judgments, such as that of Nepos, who wrote the only biography of Miltiades.

A careful reading of Herodotus (Hdt. 4. 76. 5-6) and review archaeological "illustrations" to him allows us to conclude about the possible historicity of Anacharsis (more precisely, what can be called "anacharsism" - the mutual perception of the Scythians and of a "collective Scythia" by the Hellenes, and, accordingly, of the Hellenes and of a "collective Hellas" by the Scythians). But they do not confirm the "knowledge" of Anacharsis in Scythian society (for all the conventionality of the term), and they do not confirm its inclusion in the circle of stable symbols of the historical memory of the Scythians. Herodotus in Olbia, he only clarifies some details known to him in at least one version of the stories of the Scythian sage; Greek stories, from which begins since then the continuous ancient tradition of Anacharsis, the Scythian sage, as a phenomenon of Hellenic, but not Scythian culture.

Although it is stated that the history of religions started to be formed as a discipline in the 19th century, when Max Müller lived, it is stated by religious scholars that researching other religious traditions is dates back to earlier times. In this respect, it is stated that Herodotus, who is described as the father of history because of his work titled History, can be considered as the father of the history of religions because he has a comparative study of the religions of foreigners and includes religious phenomena in research on the societies he studied. Therefore, in this study, within the framework of the approach which bases the research on beliefs of others on Herodotus in the literature of History of Religions, answers are sought for the questions such as what the basic features are that made Herodotus gain this position, whether it is possible to accept Herodotus as a historian of religions and whether it is possible to accept his work as a work history of religions. Therefore, to find answers to these and similar questions by putting forth the parameters of Herodotus’s method, the importance and value of the way he dealt with the religious phenomena, which he used as a research subject, are examined in terms of the History of Religions.

Syllabus and Reading Schedule for The Rise and Fall of Popular Rule—Athens (Integrated Humanities Program, History Module, Fall 2018, UVM). Course Description: America's founders, when establishing our political institutions, took elements from those of ancient Athens and Rome, which pioneered representative government in various (and changing) forms. It is natural, after nearly two-and-a-half centuries, to think of our democracy as unshakeable and eternal. But independent popular rule in Athens—the focus of this class—lasted for less than two centuries, during which the city, after playing a leading role in the liberation of Greece from foreign control (The Persian Wars, 490–479 BC), grew into an Empire that imposed democracy on its subjects—some willing and others not—as a means of enriching and empowering itself. Athenian expansionism finally forced Sparta to lead a coalition against her rival (The Peloponnesian War, 431–404). Athens was eventually defeated. Though the city endured as an independent democracy until the conquest of Greece in 338 by Philip of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great), its defeat in the Peloponnesian War marked the end of the Athenian Golden Age. Through key ancient texts we shall follow the rise and fall of this political experiment, and examine the social and economic forces that led to the establishment and gradual corruption of Athenian democracy.

This companion to the two-volume Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library edition and translation of The Histories by Laonikos Chalkokondyles is the first book-length investigation of an author who has been poorly studied. Providing biographical and intellectual context for Laonikos, Anthony Kaldellis shows how the author synthesized his classical models to fashion his own distinctive voice and persona as a historian. Indebted to his teacher Plethon for his global outlook, Laonikos was one of the first historians to write with a pluralist’s sympathy for non-Greek ethnic groups, including Islamic ones. His was the first secular and neutral account of Islam written in Greek. Kaldellis deeply explores the ethnic dynamics that explicitly and implicitly undergird the Histories, which recount the rise of the Ottoman empire and the decline of the Byzantine empire, all in the context of expanding western power. Writing at once in antique and contemporary modes, Laonikos transformed “barbarian” oral traditions into a classicizing historiography that was both Greek and Ottoman in outlook. Showing that he was instrumental in shifting the self-definition of his people from Roman to the Western category of “Greek,” Kaldellis provides a stimulating account of the momentous transformations of the mid-fifteenth century.

En 555 avant J.-C., Pisistrate prend le pouvoir à Athènes grâce à une fausse rumeur assurant qu’Athéna le ramène en char dans sa cité. La sotte naïveté des Athéniens devant le stratagème du tyran ouvre des pistes de réflexion utiles pour éclairer le rapport des Grecs à la rumeur et à l’opinion. Soumise à trois niveaux de lecture, l’anecdote rapportée par Hérodote, I, 60-61 montre combien le phénomène rumoral ancien a partie liée avec le vraisemblable (eikos). Replongée dans son contexte archaïque, la réaction des Athéniens permet de comprendre comment Pisistrate agit en maître du vraisemblable afin de passer pour un Maître de vérité aux yeux de ses contemporains. Envisagée dans son présent de production, la remarque d’Hérodote à l’égard des Athéniens introduit au débat consacré à la véracité des traditions orales qui agite les Grecs à l’époque classique : aux premières enquêtes d’Hérodote et de Thucydide qui soumettent les rumeurs à leur sagacité critique s’oppose la réhabilitation des on-dit comme source de connaissance entreprise par Isocrate, Eschine ou Aristote. Replacée dans les structures annulaires de L’Enquête, l’anecdote montre enfin comment Hérodote met la rumeur de Pisistrate au service d’une démonstration morale qui utilise, elle aussi, le vraisemblable pour donner à penser l’histoire de la démocratie impérialiste athénienne.

Link to download: https://hdl.handle.net/11299/220694

This article makes three arguments regarding the Battle of Thermopylae. First, that the discovery of the Anopaea path was not dependent upon Ephialtes, but that the Persians were aware of it at their arrival and planned their attacks at Thermopylae, Artemisium, and against the Phocians accordingly. Second, that Herodotus’ claims that the failure of the Phocians was due to surprise, confusion, and incompetence are not convincing. And third, that the best explanation for the Phocian behavior is that they were from Delphi and betrayed their allies as part of a bid to restore local control over the sanctuary.

Resumo
No primeiro livro de Histórias, três episódios da vida de Creso ilustram as principais
características do gênero trágico presentes na narrativa herodotiana. O primeiro trata do
encontro de Sólon com Creso (I, 30-33), depois o de Creso com Adrasto, o futuro assassino
de seu filho (35-45) e, por fim, do encontro de Creso com Ciro (85-90). A nosso ver, tais
episódios podem ser interpretados como uma versão reduzida, em prosa, de uma trilogia
trágica. Portanto, neste artigo, demonstramos como Heródoto delineou sua interpretação
da vida de Creso a partir de elementos estruturais da tragédia.
Palavras-chave: Heródoto; Creso; Sólon; Adrasto; Ciro; tragédia grega
Abstract
In the first book of Histories, three episodes of the life of Croesus evidence the main
characteristics of the tragic genre present in the Herodotean narrative. The first deals with
the meeting between Solon and Croesus (I, 30-33), then Croesus with Adrastus, the future
murderer of his son (35-45), and, finally, the meeting of Croesus with Cyrus (85-90). In our
view, such episodes can be interpreted as a reduced prose version of a tragic trilogy. The
aim of this paper is to examine how Herodotus drew his interpretation of Croesus' life from
the structural elements of tragedy.
Keywords: Herodotus; Croesus; Solon; Cyrus; Greek tragedy

Die Geschichte des Ionischen Aufstandes und der Perserkriege (5. Jh. v. Chr.) ist von dem antiken Geschichtsschreiber Herodot überliefert worden. Eine unreflektierte Übernahme seiner Erzählung ist jedoch nicht möglich. Allerdings läßt sich nicht ignorieren, daß zahlreiche seiner Behauptungen überprüft werden können, so etwa die Angaben zu Schlachtfeldern an der realen Topographie. Den Wahrheitsgehalt der von Herodot überlieferten Erzählung aufzuspüren, haben sich die Autoren dieses Bandes zur Aufgabe gestellt.

Pericles has had the rare distinction of giving his name to an entire period of history, embodying what has often been taken as the golden age of the ancient Greek world. “Periclean” Athens witnessed tumultuous political and military events, and achievements of the highest order in philosophy, drama, poetry, oratory, and architecture. Pericles of Athens is the first book in more than two decades to reassess the life and legacy of one of the greatest generals, orators, and statesmen of the classical world.

In this compelling critical biography, Vincent Azoulay provides an unforgettable portrait of Pericles and his turbulent era, shedding light on his powerful family, his patronage of the arts, and his unrivaled influence on Athenian politics and culture. He takes a fresh look at both the classical and modern reception of Pericles, recognizing his achievements as well as his failings while deftly avoiding the adulatory or hypercritical positions staked out by some scholars today. From Thucydides and Plutarch to Voltaire and Hegel, ancient and modern authors have questioned the great statesman’s relationship with democracy and Athenian society. Did Pericles hold supreme power over willing masses or was he just a gifted representative of popular aspirations? Was Periclean Athens a democracy in name only, as Thucydides suggests? This is the enigma that Azoulay investigates in this groundbreaking book.

Pericles of Athens offers a balanced look at the complex life and afterlife of the legendary “first citizen of Athens” who presided over the birth of democracy.

"This study gathers and interprets the earliest extant references to architects in ancient Greek philosophy, as found in select works of Plato and Aristotle.  Throughout this review, Plato and Aristotle [are] shown to consistently present architectonic agents as exemplary civic and intellectual leaders, acting in awareness of their own (and others’) limits, with knowledge of the most appropriate archē, and with a view to the most comprehensive aims—the common good. This discloses an alternative and more accurate etymology of architects: not as master-builders but as leaders and makers of beginnings (archai). The aim of this essay has been not only to rediscover the discursive beginnings for a renewed philosophy of architecture, but to suggest how these philosophical 'archai' might help present-day architects reimagine the full relevance of their still contested role."

On the Narrative Nature of Herodotus' Histories. In this paper, I survey the nature and the style of Herodotus' Histories. I aim to show that by analysing the text via narratological concepts and by interpreting it from the constructivist's point of view, we can reach a better understanding of the Histories. I draw on the works of Carolyn Dewald, Emily Baragwa-nath, and Egbert J. Bakker to expose how several aspects of Herodotus' style (namely: parataxis, the shape and focus of narrative account, and associative thinking) fit together with the main purpose and the mission of his work which is to prevent the traces of human achievements from being erased by time and to investigate the cause/causes of human actions. Finally, I conclude that Herodotus' style of doing history is in full cultural accordance with contemporary notion of truth (alétheia) as disclosure or un-forgetfulness.

Kinship in Thucydides is a new contribution to the study of Thucydides and the social history of the ancient Greek world. Drawing on modern anthropological enquiries on kinship and sociology of ethnicity and emotions, and scholarly work on kinship diplomacy and Greek ethnicity, it argues that intercommunal kinship has a far more pervasive importance in Thucydides than has been acknowledged so far. It revisits the stereotype of Thucydides as an ancient theorist of Realpolitik, and seeks to reveal new aspects of his authorial sophistication. Through close reading, contextualization in a variety of sources, and special attention to ancient and modern audiences, Fragoulaki explores the whole spectrum of intercommunal kinship in the ancient Greek world, by studying the various ways in which ancient Greek communities could be related to each other (colonization, genealogies, membership of the same ethnic group, socio-cultural symbols, political mechanisms and institutions) and the preponderantly cultural, emotional and ethical character and expression of these ties.
Kinship in Thucydides provides a fresh and up-to-date discussion of Thucydides’ kinship terminology, and has wider implications for our understanding of terms such as syngeneia and oikeiotes. Through test-cases, organized in terms of geography, ethnicity and kinship categories, it reveals a complex web of intercommunal ties and their interaction with the practical aspects of the War. The kinship theme offers an excellent angle from which to study Thucydides’ artful construction of his narrative, his technique of significant understatement, his challenging silences, his interaction with other genres, and his intense engagement with Herodotus. New readings of much discussed parts of the History are provided, and the problem of Athenian kleruchies is re-opened in Appendix I. Appendix II substantiates the complementary relationship in the amount and distribution of kinship information in Thucydides and Herodotus in the form of a table.

Pero de Magalhães de Gandavo redigiu pelo menos quatro versões de sua obra sobre o Brasil: dois tratados e duas Histórias. A principal alteração realizada na passagem dos tratados para as Histórias foi a supressão de elementos disfóricos na descrição da colônia portuguesa e a inclusão de lugares comumente empregados por cronistas ibéricos nos relatos sobre o Novo Mundo. Este trabalho pretende analisar como a descrição da natureza e dos povos nativos do Brasil se equilibra entre a experiência do viajante e os topoi clássicos retirados, por exemplo, de Heródoto e mesmo da poesia bucólica. Para tanto, partirei dos emblemas-poemas de Oswald de Andrade no livro Pau-Brasil, que se apropriaram e recriam frases da História da província Santa Cruz, de Gândavo.