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The Children of Herodotus:

Greek and Roman Historiography


and Related Genres

Edited by

Jakub Pigoń

Cambridge Scholars Publishing


The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres,
Edited by Jakub Pigoń

This book first published 2008

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data


A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2008 by Jakub Pigoń and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-0015-5, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0015-0


CHAPTER FOUR

FRIENDS OR FOES?
HERODOTUS IN THUCYDIDES’ PREFACE∗

MAREK WĘCOWSKI

My aim in this chapter is to offer a brief tentative answer to two


interconnected and rather simple questions, disquieting nonetheless, I
think, a big part of scholars who deal with Herodotus and Thucydides.1
We all feel pretty confident that the latter draws extensively on the former.
But it is difficult to point our fingers on any particular issue involved in
this relationship, save for some very general aspects of Thucydides’
thought and literary technique and for some passages wherein an
indifferent and indeed unfair criticism against his predecessor can
(arguably) be found. Whence my first question: what were the nature and
the degree of Thucydides’ indebtedness to Herodotus? Now, the students
of Greek historiography who think that this intellectual debt was indeed
substantial must face a second question. To put it briefly: why was
Thucydides so intolerant of Herodotus, who was most probably so
important to him? An additional question may be appended to this set of


I am particularly indebted to Benedetto Bravo, Robert L. Fowler, Kurt A.
Raaflaub, Stephanie West, and Aleksander Wolicki for their critical insights and
comments; needless to say, I am the sole responsible for all the mistakes that
remain. I would also like to express my gratitude to the organizers of the Wrocław
“Children of Herodotus” conference, not only for this inspiring intellectual venue
and for their hospitality, but also for their humane indulgence for the lateness of
the present contribution.
1
Of the immense bibliography on the relationship between Herodotus and
Thucydides, see in particular Jacoby 1913a, 505f. and Hornblower 1996, 122-37
(Annex A: “Thucydides’ Use of Herodotus”); cf. also Pelling 1991 and esp.
Tsakmakis 1995. I have not found Rogkotis 2006 very useful for my present
purpose.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 35

problems already at this stage of my enquiry: why is Thucydides’ severe


polemics against Herodotus so implicit? The name of Herodotus never
being mentioned in such a polemical context, unlike, famously, that of
Hellanicus of Lesbos (in Thuc. 1.97.2).2
These questions seem appropriate to the book devoted to “the children
of Herodotus.” In answering them, the ancient biographical tradition is of
limited use unless we are content with a pseudo-psychological diagnosis
(cf. already [Marcellinus] Vita Thuc. 54) that Thucydides might have
suffered from the “Love-and-Hate” syndrome in his difficult relationship
with the Father of History. What is at stake when we raise these questions
is actually the problem of how different to one another would both
historians look in the eyes of their contemporary readers (including
themselves)—and not of their disciples, imitators and critics in later Greek
and indeed European historiography (including ourselves). Ultimately,
such an enterprise amounts at attempting provisionally to bridge one of the
greatest divides in the history our discipline, namely that between the
“Herodotean” and the “Thucydidean” model in ancient historical writing.
It must be said right away that this is hardly a virgin territory: there
have been quite a few scholars who tried to minimise the distance
separating, in our post-Thucydidean perspective, our both historians. To
simplify a little, what they did was trying to make Herodotus look more
“modern” than it is usually assumed or to make Thucydides sound more
“archaic” than we ordinarily think. Alternatively, and in a more traditional
vein, one could also try to put the problem of the relationship between our
both writers in evolutionary terms, positing a gradual development of an
adolescent Tucidide erodoteo towards a self-conscious (and anti-
Herodotean) Thucydides of the (bulk of the) Peloponnesian War. There
was some element of arbitrary thinking involved in all these approaches
that drew too much on general assessments of the first Greek historians.3
Only quite recently, we witness a fresh slant in classical scholarship
focusing this time on the contemporaneous intellectual context of
Herodotus and Thucydides.4 It would be worthwhile, I think, to supplement

2
Cf. below, p. 48 with n. 39.
3
This is not to deny, of course, that these approaches, divergent as they are,
produced many highly valuable studies. To mention only a few: Canfora 1982;
Hunter 1982; Stahl 1983. Cf. already Cornford 1907.
4
Cf. esp. Raaflaub 1987b and 2002b; Fowler 1996; Thomas 2000; Corcella 2006;
Rood 2006; Schepens 2007, esp. 42-8. But cf. already Hunter 1982.
36 Chapter Four

this approach by a detailed parallel analysis of how and what they both tell
us about their respective projects.5

It has been observed long ago that the opening sentences of


Thucydides’ prologue echo, in many ways, the incipit of Herodotus.6 True,
what survived of early Greek prose writing is too poor to call for far-
reaching generalizations;7 but it seems clear that our two extant prologues
have much in common. Let me briefly restate the issue here.
Simon Hornblower observes that Thucydides’ “reference to the ‘war
between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, how they fought against
each other’ (i. 1. 1) seems…clumsier in its context than the equivalent
phrase at the very beginning of Herodotus, a phrase which is thus
presupposed.”8 I must admit I am not sure of this clumsiness, but as
Stephanie West points out to me (per litteras, 15 January, 2008) these
words, hardly adding anything but focusing our attention on his strict view
of his subject, might invite “comparison with Herodotus’ immensely
hospitable outline of his project.” For the present purpose it is important to
note that besides (a) this phrase [scil. τὸν πόλεμον] ὡς ἐπολέμησαν πρὸς
ἀλλήλους (in any case reminiscent of Herodotus: δι’ ἣν αἰτίην
ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι, “for what reason did they fought against each
other”), in Thucydides’ incipit we find some other verbal echoes and
indeed some other fundamental ideas echoing the first sentence of
Herodotus.9 Both historians introduce (b) the notion of greatness of their
subject matters ([πόλεμον]…μέγαν…καὶ ἀξιολογώτατον τῶν
προγεγενημένων, “[the war that was going to be] great and more worthy
of recording than all the previous ones”; cf. ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ
θωυμαστά, “great and wondrous achievements”, in Herodotus) stated,
what is more, in a very peculiar way. Namely, they both define this
greatness by (c) stressing the all-inclusive character of their respective

5
In what follows, I will base on the results of an earlier paper of mine on the form
and thought in the prologue of Herodotus (Węcowski 2004a), but I do not
necessarily assume for my readers any acquaintance with this previous study.
6
See e.g. Jacoby 1913a, 505f. What I deliberately leave outside the scope of this
paper is the issue of the relationship between Thuc. 1.1-23 and Hdt. 7.19-21, the
so-called “second preface” of Herodotus.
7
In general, cf. Fehling 1975. For a thorough interpretation of Thucydides’
prologue, see e.g. Erbse 1970.
8
Hornblower 1996, 125.
9
See also Moles 1993, 99.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 37

narratives, encompassing both the Greeks and the barbarians (…τοῖς


Ἕλλησιν…καὶ μέρει τινὶ τῶν βαρβάρων [“the greatest disturbance for
the Greeks and for a part of the barbarian world”]; cf. [ἔργα] τὰ μὲν
Ἕλλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα [“achievements produced both
by Greeks and barbarians”] in Herodotus). What they do by that is in fact
bringing in (d) a novel idea of “humankind” as the ultimate source of the
importance of a historian’s narrative (…ὡς δὲ εἰπεῖν ἐπὶ πλεῖστον
ἀνθρώπων [“…so to say, for the majority of humankind”] in Thucydides;
cf. τὰ [note the article!] γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, “the human events”, in
Herodotus). When passing to the demonstration of his superior historical
skills, Thucydides famously emphasizes (e) the difficulty of getting a
precise knowledge of past events “because of their remoteness in time”
(…σαφῶς …εὑρεῖν διὰ χρόνου πλῆθος ἀδύνατα ἦν; trans. by R.
Warner, adapted); yet, he says he would be perfectly able to conjecture the
(relative) insignificance of the past based on the available evidence
(τεκμήρια). His mastery in the field of remote history will further be
evidenced in the so-called “archaeology” (1.2-19). No doubt, Thucydides
comes to terms here with Herodotus’ self-proclaimed task of recording (e)
past human deeds that would have otherwise been effaced by time (τῷ
χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα…), but also with Herodotus’ ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, “the
display of the inquiry,” as such. Needless to say, the whole incipit looks
like a deliberate and detailed answer by Thucydides to the opening claims
of his predecessor. Furthermore, some incongruities of Thucydides’ claims
(such as “the majority of humankind” as arguably involved in the
Peloponnesian War) may witness to the depth of his indebtedness to
Herodotus. Hence, I think it is worthwhile to read the incipit of
Thucydides not only as reflecting some traditional competitive attitude of
the writer towards his predecessors (one of the obvious strategies intended
to grab the attention of the public),10 but also as a deliberate polemic
against Herodotus.
On the other hand, it is revealing to observe, which elements of
Herodotus’ proem have been passed into silence in Thucydides’ authorial
self-presentation. Two of Herodotus’ keywords are conspicuously absent:
the epic-laden adjective ἀκλεᾶ (extremely rare in prose-writing) and the
adjective θωυμαστά, so important for Herodotus’ narrative. Conceivably,
the underlying notions, namely that of “renown,” κλέος, and that of
“marvellous,” θαυμαστόν, seemed to Thucydides old-fashioned and
unsuitable for a serious historical enquiry; as we shall see shortly, he will
elaborate on the two ideas at the end of his prologue, in 1.20.

10
For this issue, cf. recently Corcella 2006, esp. 53-6.
38 Chapter Four

However, this is not only a matter of close verbal correspondences


between the two prologues. Immediately after having mentioned his name
and his war, as if in the same breath, Thucydides briefly appends two ideas
that will be substantiated at length in the course of the “archaeology”: (a)
“beginning my account at the very outbreak of the war…” (ἀρξάμενος
εὐθὺς καθισταμένου κτλ.) and (b) “believing it was going to be great…”
(ἐλπίσας μέγαν τε ἔσεσθαι κτλ.). I would argue that both developments
bring a polemical message. What is implied here is a criticism (1) of those
among Thucydides’ predecessors who were unable to watch their
respective wars closely all along their course as well as (2) of those who
lacked the unfailing judgement enabling Thucydides to foresee the future
scope and the exceptional importance of the Peloponnesian War. The first
shortcoming made some of his predecessors rely on unreliable hearsays,
the second made some of them focus on what in fact did not deserve the
attention of a serious writer. This set of ideas will of course be voiced
explicitly at the end of Thucydides’ prologue (1.20-3), but in a nutshell it
is foreshadowed as early as in the very first sentence of his book.
Now, the only serious candidate who fulfils both conditions, i.e. who
combined both (arguable) handicaps was Herodotus. Not surprisingly, the
“flaws” explicitly stigmatized by Thucydides at the end of his prologue
refer the reader to the work of Herodotus.11 If so, the sheer position of the
first Herodotean references in Thucydides (including the aforementioned
verbal echoes) is highly revealing. In fact, they appear long before the
unprepared reader could understand Thucydides’ intentions based on the
material gathered in the “archaeology” and on the authorial
methodological claims. At the very beginning of his work, when first
asserting its superior qualities and first imposing his authority on the
reader, Thucydides assumes a public for which Herodotus seems an
obvious point of reference of a grand historiographical work.12

11
Cf. the voting prerogatives of the Spartan kings and the problem of the famous
Pitanate lochos (1.20.3) as well as the disputable greatness of the Persian Wars
(1.23.1). The mention of the Athenian tyrants (for the traditions regarding the
liberation of Athens from the Pisistratid tyranny, cf. in general Thomas 1989, 238-
82) is a more complicated issue for the present state of this passage (1.20.2) may
be due to a late interpolator, as B. Bravo warns me. Cf. also below, pp. 40f.
12
Whether such a public really existed these days or not cannot detain us here, but
I do believe it was more that a virtual reader conceived in Thucydides’ mind.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 39

As it has been observed long ago, the whole prologue of Thucydides’


Peloponnesian War (1.1.1-23.6) assumes the form of a large-scale ring
composition,13 the nutshell ideas of the incipit (1.1.1-3) being
substantiated in the “archaeology” and then restated, developed and
sometimes generalized at the end of the proem (1.19-23). But before
looking at the end of it in order to see the outcome and the meaning of
Thucydides’ argument, let me first take a look at what stands in the
middle.
As John L. Moles once observed, prefaces of both Herodotus and
Thucydides share a “sandwich” structure, as he puts it, “consisting of
initial preface, narrative of past events, resumed preface.”14 According to
Moles, Thucydides’ “sandwiched” “narrative of earlier periods,” i.e. the
“archaeology,” “is concerned to depreciate Homeric subject matter and the
historical accuracy of Homer” (1993, 100) and this would be “a further
imitation of Herodotus” and his Persian (and Phoenician) stories by the
oriental λόγιοι, or “wise men.” Furthermore, in narratological terms,
putting the “filling” in both “sandwiches” is in fact making a “false move”
of the narrative, “a move apparently away from the announced topic, the
war,” as Carolyn Dewald has it.15 For both Herodotus and Thucydides, this
is also an epideixis, subtly advertising their subject matter, their analytical
and/or literary skills and dismissing earlier competitors in the respective
fields. Of course, there are numerous marked differences between
Herodotus’ and Thucydides’ “sandwiches,” consisting not only of the
more humane and good-humoured attitude of the former as compared with
his austere and stern successor.
I could not agree more with this view, but there is much more to this.
As I have tried to show in my analysis of the oriental λόγιοι stories about
the mutual kidnappings of (mythical) women in Herodotus’ preface, this
amusingly ironic section of the Histories has also a serious goal, namely to
criticize implicitly a very peculiar type of causality that must have been
popular in post-Homeric epics.16 In Herodotus, great wars break out not
because of women, but for political and indeed psychological reasons,
most often because of greed or desire for “having more” (πλεονεξίη):
more power, more wealth, more land or more subjects. Individual and
highly “personalized” episodes do occur in his Histories, but form just

13
See already Hammond 1952. Incidentally, in that, he clearly followed Herodotus
(recently, cf. Węcowski 2004a, esp. 146-8), but not only him, for this structure is
also present e.g. in the opening sections of the Iliad.
14
Moles 1993, 98.
15
Dewald 1999, 236.
16
Węcowski 2004a, 149-55.
40 Chapter Four

links in the chain of serious events leading to monumental crises such as


the Persian Wars. In his preface, the way he deals with the popular and
naïve explanation of great conflicts is ironic, dismissive, but far from
domineering. His good-humoured digression is light-heartedly abandoned
on his way to a more serious history; his sophistic display-piece, which at
the same time shows his mastery in the field of erudite mythography and
genealogy, is easily dropped back. After all, the whole section is confined
to two or three pages of our modern editions. The serious message remains
implicit and none of Herodotus’ predecessors and contemporaries is
criticized specifically; it is rather a certain intellectual tendency that was
amusingly repudiated.
Thucydides’ initial digression is several times longer. It is also more
severe in tone, more serious, and closely linked with the argumentative
lines of his prologue. In fact it illustrates and evidences the methodological
claims of the historian and does it in a fairly explicit manner. It looks as if
Thucydides, unlike his predecessor, did not like to waste his time, the
“archaeology” being an utilitarian and functional preparatory section of his
work with only a minor element (brilliant though it is) of disinterested
antiquarianism. Of course, it is also a display of the author’s skills in the
realm of archaiologia, including interpretation of ancient poetry, i.e. in the
field deliberately left outside the scope of Thucydides’ work.17 As if he
explicitly said: look what I can do, even in this utmost difficult sphere,
wherein only dim traces of evidence are available.
This methodological line of the “archaeology” culminates in the
“resumed prologue,” i.e. in the famous methodological chapters 1.20f.
Here, Herodotus is unambiguously, although anonymously, defied by
Thucydides. First, as one of those who, within the field of more distant
history, give false information about the past even to those who happen to
live in the cities concerned, as it allegedly is in the case of the Athenians
who rely on Herodotus for their wrong stories about the Pisistratidae
(1.20.2; cf. esp. Hdt. 5.55).18 Secondly, Thucydides mentions two of his
(arguable) errors regarding “what does not belong to dimly remembered
past” but to the contemporary history: the voting prerogatives of the
Spartan kings and the very existence of the Pitanate lochos in Sparta
(1.20.3; cf. respectively Hdt. 6.57.5 and 9.53.2). The coda of the section is
very striking indeed: “thus, finding out the truth is not a matter of concern

17
Two among the outstanding experts in the realm of archaiologia, more or less
contemporaneous with Thucydides, deserve special attention: Hellanicus of Lesbos
(FGrHist 4) and Hippias of Elis (see esp. FGrHist 6 T 3). For the latter, cf. my
forthcoming commentary in BNJ.
18
But cf. above, n. 11.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 41

for the most people, but they rather turn to what is at hand” (1.20.3 ad
fin.). It is not easy to say whether Herodotus is counted among “the
majority,” οἱ πολλοί, that does not care for striving for the truth, ἡ
ζήτησις τῆς ἀληθείας, or whether he serves here just as the (or one of the)
author(s) of τὰ ἑτοῖμα, “the most easily available stuff.” One way or
another, he and primarily he seems to be targeted here.19
So far so good, and I think almost everybody is prepared to accept this
aspect of Thucydides’ polemics against Herodotus. Things become more
complex and equivocal when another line of the “archaeology” comes to
the fore. In his incipit, Thucydides announces his intention to demonstrate
that his war was in fact much greater that any one before. This claim, as
substantiated in the “archaeology,” has long been stigmatized by modern
scholars as a bold rhetorical exaggeration. Let us think about the casuistic
argument in favour of the relative insignificance of the Persian Wars
(1.23.1): true, it was the biggest “feat,” or ἔργον, of the past, but
incomparable with the Peloponnesian War because the former conflict was
decided in just four battles—two of them naval and two on land. It is hard
indeed to imagine another way of arguing for the superiority of the
Peloponnesian over the Persian Wars. Or take Thucydides’ “proof” for the
relative insignificance of the Trojan War (1.11): true, it lasted for ten long
years; it would have been settled faster, but the Greeks were too weak and,
what is more, Hellas was too poor (cf. the notion of ἀχρηματία
throughout the chapter) to wage a solid full-scale siege of Troy. Ergo, the
Trojan War must have been rather unimportant just because of its length.
What a neat paradox, isn’t it!20
By contrast, and this used to be taken by modern critics as a prime
example of Thucydides’ rhetorical amplificatio,21 his positive arguments in
favour of the primacy of his war strike a note of utmost pathos. The
superiority of the Peloponnesian War is evidenced not only by the sheer
length of the conflict, but also by the “sufferings” throughout its course,
unprecedented in earlier Greek history (1.23.1-4), including natural
phenomena such as earthquakes, eclipses of the sun, droughts, famines and
the Athenian plague (23.3). For our modern taste, this is too much. But to
understand it properly, I think we need, first, to comprehend the notion of
“greatness” as developed throughout the preface and next to grasp the
nature of Thucydides’ overall argument there.

19
If the latter is the case, this sentence might throw some interesting light on the
issue of the popularity of Herodotus those days.
20
Cf. in detail Luraghi 2000.
21
See e.g. Woodman 1988, esp. 28-32.
42 Chapter Four

Now, some modern scholars used to take the whole “archaeology” as


following a positive process, namely the gradual progress of power and
preparedness in Greece and culminating in the pre-war and polarised
Greek world.22 In fact, however, what Thucydides tells us in this section is
not so much the story of some material advance of the Hellas in positive
terms. It is rather a negative perspective that dominates the picture. Every
stage of the process is rendered in very peculiar terms; what the narrator
does at almost every juncture of his argument is enumerating and
analysing, as he puts it (1.16.1), “obstacles to growth,” κωλύματα μὴ
αὐξηθῆναι (cf. {1.1.6?}; 1.12.1). It was only after the Persian Wars, when
both future enemies, Sparta and Athens, consolidated their alliances and
their own power, that the Greek world reached the peak of its development
(1.19 ad fin.). From this standpoint, the main body of the digression forms
a sophisticated diptych with the so-called Pentekontaetia (1.89.1-118.2),23
which is in fact the mirror image of the “archaeology.” This time, the key-
notion of the excursus, as well as its openly stated subject, is the positive
“growth,” αὔξησις, of the Athenian power. Incidentally, that is why this,
rather impressionistic, narrative culminates in the Samian War and
actually disregards even quite important events that took place between
this war and the beginnings of the Peloponnesian War (1.116.1-117.3).
Our historian most probably thinks that it was then, in the morrow of the
Samian victory of 439 BC, that Athens reached the summit of its power
and preparedness.24 By no means was he going to recount the story of the
fifty years between the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars.
It is fundamental to note that this very perspective, the—so to say—
“growth-oriented” vision of Greek history, has been announced as early as
the first sentence of his work. His decision to watch closely and ultimately
to narrate the Peloponnesian War was born at the very beginning of this
conflict, when he realized that both sides “had entered the war at the very
peak of all their powers” (τεκμαιρόμενος ὅτι ἀκμάζοντές τε ᾖσαν ἐς
αὐτὸν ἀμφότεροι παρασκευῇ τῇ πάσῃ κτλ.). The ensuing sentence had
long been enigmatic,25 before Joachim Latacz rightly, to my mind, took
the phrase κίνησις γὰρ αὕτη μεγίστη κτλ. (“for it was indeed the

22
For a well-balanced view, see already Romilly 1966; cf. Hunter 1982, 17-49 and
Meier 1990, ch. 10.
23
For the Pentekontaetia in general, see recently Stadter 1993.
24
I think this judgement was to a large extent based on the message of the funeral
speech delivered at this occasion by Pericles and on Pericles’ vision of the
Athenian empire in general. Cf. below, p. 44 with nn. 29 and 30.
25
See already Schwartz 1929, 178f. and Classen and Steup 1919, ad loc.; for
earlier scholarship, cf. Latacz 1994, 400f.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 43

biggest motion etc.”) as referring to a “pre-war motion” (“eine


Vorkriegsbewegung”).26 In fact, in keeping with his usual tendency,
Thucydides introduces here a quasi-medical abstractum, the term κίνησις,
to render the impressive process of “growth” leading to the ἀκμή, or
“peak,” of both parties and to the κρίσις, or “turning point,” of their
rivalry.
The “greatest παρασκευή” of the Athenians is depicted in detail as late
as the outset of Book 2 (2.9),27 and the sections that fall in between are
organised to a large extent by this “growth-and-peak” pattern. Both the
“archaeology” and the Pentekontaetia culminate at the point when Athens
reach the summit of her (and her allies’) παρασκευή (1.19 ad fin.), the
peak of her ἀρχή and her power, including her ναυτικόν, or “naval
forces” (cf. 1.89.1 init.; 97.2 ad fin.; 99.3; 118.2).28 What is more, the
whole process leading to the war is explicitly explained in the prologue
when the narrator states the “truest cause,” or ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις, of
the conflict in these very terms: the real source of the war was the fear of
the Spartans facing the irresistible growth of the Athenians (1.23.6). In the
crucial debate in Sparta, when the Athenian imperialism was put on trial
by the Peloponnesians, the Corinthian “prosecutor” depicts this “growth,”
partly in psychological terms, and accuses Sparta of not having reacted
timely to stop it (1.69.4). Responding to that, the Spartan ephor
Sthenelaïdas encourages immediate voting for war, so as to prevent further
Athenian “growth” (86.5) and the vote is in fact determined by the fear of
this “growth” (1.88 ad fin.). Next, the Pentekontaetia begins (89.1): οἰ
γὰρ Ἀθηναῖοι τρόπῳ τοιῷδε ἦλθον ἐπὶ τὰ πράγματα ἐν οἷς
ηὐξήθησαν, “for here is how the Athenians have reached the position
enabling them to grow.”
But even this is not the whole story. The “growth-and-peak” pattern
goes as far as the Funeral Speech, where Pericles, after having explicitly
dismissed the rhetorical elevation of the Athenian past αὔξησις (2.36.4),
turns to his grand picture of the πολιτεία and the τρόποι that made the
unprecedented ἀκμή of Athens possible. Then, famously, comes the
Plague with its social and moral dissolution and, consequently, with its
ideological disillusion. In his last speech, Pericles views the Athenian
“growth” from the other side of the hilltop, so to say. The “peak” of the
Athenian power is away, the troubles come, and the reward the Athenians
can count for is the posthumous glory of their city. As he puts it himself,

26
Latacz 1994, 422.
27
Cf. also Latacz 1994, 424-6.
28
In general, cf. Kallet-Marx 1993.
44 Chapter Four

“it is part of the nature of all things to decline” (2.64.3: πάντα γὰρ
πέφυκε καὶ ἐλασσοῦσθαι).
Now, as I tried to show elsewhere, this “growth-oriented” vision of the
Peloponnesian War, its preliminaries, and its first phase, was deeply
rooted in the ideology of the Periclean Athens. Thucydides’ Pericles uses
the slogan of αὔξειν τὴν πόλιν, or “enhancing the country”, several times,
but we know it also from Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Xenophon,
and some fourth-century writers rethinking the Athenian empire and its
ideology, including Plato and Isocrates.29 And I hope to demonstrate at
some other occasion that the historical Pericles, in another epitaphios
logos of his, honouring the heroes of the war against Samos, proudly
declared that it was time to “abandon the toils” (πόνων παυσόμεθα)
because the “apex,” or ἀκμή, of the Athenian power had been reached.
Incidentally, for a Greek this must have been a shocking idea, but
thinkable in the generation, so brilliantly analysed by Christian Meier, that
believed in unlimited possibilities offered by this exceptional epoch to
human mind, courage, and inventiveness.30
Of course, this “growth-and-peak” pattern was deeply rooted in earlier
Greek thought (just think about Solon and archaic Greek wisdom in
general). But Thucydides’ decision to organise in this very way not only
the preliminaries of his war, but his whole account up to the, to put it in
Aristotelian terms, περιπέτεια, or sudden reversal of the plot, namely to
the description of the Plague—all this is highly revealing. The Periclean
“ἀκμή-ideology” was no doubt crucial for Thucydides’ interpretation of
the logic of the Peloponnesian War and of the fate of Athens in general.
However, he was not the first to interpret the preliminaries of a war and
indeed the whole history of Athens in these very terms. It was Herodotus
who organised his monumental narrative of the “cause of hostilities
between Greeks and barbarians” in two parallel developments he
systematically, although at times implicitly or periphrastically, dubs
“growth,” or αὔξησις. On the one hand, the irresistible (to a certain point)
march of the Persian tyranny crushing one oriental kingdom after another.
On the other, the difficult, uneven, and capricious development of Greece,
incarnated in Sparta’s “good political order,” or εὐνομίη, and in her

29
In my unpublished Ph.D. Diss. Hérodote, Thucydide et un aspect de l’idéologie
athénienne du Vème siècle (Paris, École des hautes études en sciences sociales,
2000); for the time being, see my Polish paper (with a summary in English)
Węcowski 2004b.
30
Meier 1990, ch. 10.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 45

hegemony over the Peloponnesus and in the first triumphs of the Athenian
ἰσηγορίη, or democracy.31
Furthermore, Herodotus ends his story at Sestos, where the Athenians
begin to substitute Persians as the would-be cruel “tyrants of the Hellas”
(9.114-21).32 The point is that throughout his work Herodotus gives
enough hints and clues for his public to extrapolate the future course of
events, growing hostilities between the former anti-Persian allies, and
ultimately the fratricidal war between Athens and Sparta.33 But the most
important thing is that this implicit message of Herodotus stems above all
from, and is foreshadowed by, the idea of the parallel αὔξησις of the two
cities in the course of their history before the Persian Wars. This two-fold
line of the narrative subtly structures the whole work of Herodotus,34
investing it with a contemporary meaning. To put it briefly, the two lines
of parallel “growths” of Athens and Sparta go beyond the boundaries of
Herodotus’ book, on a collision course with one another, towards the crush
that was well known to the historian and to his public from their life-time
experience. No doubt, Herodotus must have been very proud of this
extrapolated contemporary meaning encoded in his narrative about the
glorious Greek past.
Well, it is by no means a coincidence that in the Pentekontaetia
Thucydides picks up the Greek and in particular the Athenian history
exactly where Herodotus once dropped it behind, namely at Sestos
(1.89.2).35 Furthermore, he goes on recounting the Fifty Years period
precisely in terms of (the Herodotean) αὔξησις. The goal of this excursus
is to continue, but even more to outclass, Herodotus. And we are not far
from this in the “archaeology” neither. Here again the Herodotean
principle of αὔξησις is used, but in a negative manner. Herodotus is
bettered, so to say, through the systematic, at times pedantic, but always
ingenious and erudite exposé of the “obstacles to growth.” In a word,
Herodotus is defeated on his home turf and using his own weapon.
With all this in our minds, let me briefly return to the incipit of
Thucydides’ work. As I tried to argue before, in the two initial participial
clauses (“beginning at the very outbreak of the war” and “expecting that it

31
For this interpretation, see briefly Węcowski 1996.
32
For this political catchword (and idea), cf. esp. Raaflaub 1979 and Tuplin 1985.
33
As regards the political message in Herodotus, see already the pioneering work
by Strasburger 1955; cf. Fornara 1971, 46-58 and 79-91; recently, see e.g.
Raaflaub 1987b and 2002b, esp. 164-83; Stadter 1992; Moles 1996 and 2002;
Węcowski 1996; Fowler 2003.
34
Cf. already Bornitz 1968, passim.
35
Cf. also below, n. 53.
46 Chapter Four

would be great etc.”) we find a polemical hint at Herodotus. The third one
(τεκμαιρόμενος ὅτι ἀκμάζοντές τε ᾖσαν κτλ.), on the one hand, explains
how did the narrator come to believe, at the very outset of the war, in its
future greatness; on the other, it forms a starting point of the subsequent
argument in favour of the idea of the relative insignificance of the previous
conflicts. But among other things it also introduces the “αὔξησις-and-
ἀκμή” pattern, which draws from, and elaborates on, the organising idea of
Herodotus. Thus, in the opening statement of his work, Thucydides
proudly declares he will focus on the true “summit” and on the highest
concentration of power thus far, unlike those who, having well grasped the
nature of the pregnant political “growth,” turned their backs on what really
mattered and dealt instead with some distant history. In the phrase to
which the participial clause in question is subordinate, Thucydides makes
a deadly stroke against Herodotus: the superlative ἀξιολογώτατος (lit.
“the most worthy of writing”), clearly corresponds with the idea of the
“peak” of power and preparedness, of the ἀκμή prepared by the αὔξησις
analysed and foreshadowed by Herodotus.36
Let us not forget that Herodotus was still active, even at the height of
his career during the first decade of the Peloponnesian War. Hence,
Thucydides’ charges against the Halicarnassian must have been all the
more severe: “Herodotus should have known better!”
As we shall see shortly, this tentative reading of what is implied in
Thucydides’ incipit will be corroborated by my interpretation of the final
chapters of the prologue (1.21-3). But already at this stage of my
argument, I would posit that his polemic with Herodotus assumes so
monumental and so intensive a form just because he did understand and
did adopt Herodotus’ view of earlier and contemporary Greek history. In
the eyes of his successor, however, the “teacher” got it all wrong when
choosing his subject. In sum, the (implied) charge is that he badly realized
in practice his most perspicacious insight.

36
One more thing must be said about the way Thucydides used the Herodotean
notion of auxesis. What was implicit, allusive and required “extrapolating” in
Herodotus, is now explicit and duly restated time and again. The sheer number of
straightforward references to this idea in Thucydides makes it very tempting to
infer that he severely disagreed with this peculiar literary technique of Herodotus
who offered to his public a “coded message” beneath, and going far beyond, his
narrative. Is this disagreement tangible in the opposition between the useless
“ornament” and “pleasure” (τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον,
21.1) allegedly offered to the readers by his predecessors and the “non-
entertaining” (cf. ἀτερπέστερον and τὸ μὴ μυθῶδες) “usefulness” (cf. ὠφέλιμα,
22.4) of his own work? I think so.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 47

There are some fundamental difficulties in our interpretation of the


three crucial chapters of the Peloponnesian War: 1.21-3. Most
importantly, the logic and the argumentative lines of this section are far
from evident. What is the battlefield of Thucydides’ attack against the
“poets” and the λογογράφοι (21.1)? Is it his whole historiographical
project, i.e. his entire work, or just the distant history (τὰ παλαιά or τὰ
ἀρχαῖα), deliberately left outside the scope of this work? If the latter was
the case (and such an interpretation might at first seem preferable given
the logic of his preceding argument) the weight of the comparison, and
contrast, between the two classes of his predecessors on the one hand and
his own achievement on the other would be negligible. Yet, Thucydides
dwells on this contrast when presenting his methodological principles
regarding, strikingly, the contemporary history (22.3f.). And here, again, it
is not clear how could he make such a comparison at all, for he juxtaposes
two incomparable things. On the one hand, his predecessors’ unreliability
not as far as the actual course of the Trojan or Persian Wars is concerned
(he just takes Homer’s numbers for granted!), but as to the relative
significance, i.e. as to the general judgement, of the wars of the past. On
the other, the best possible method he used himself in order to establish the
true course of events, ἔργα, and to render speeches. And all this gives way
to the famous statement regarding the practical utility of his account (22.4)
and, moreover, to the aforementioned rhetorical amplificatio, wherein
diverse “sufferings” are accumulated (23.1-3). I cannot help getting the
impression that Thucydides’ argument was a cumulative one and there is
no point in dissecting it into atomic logical units or classes of
argumentation. Greatness of war(s), historical method, utility of an
historical account—all this goes together. In a similar vein, ποιηταί,
λογογράφοι, and Thucydides go hand in hand along the same path,
although his war, his method, and the utility of his work are better by far.
Now, the question is who the ποιηταί and the λογογράφοι are.
Traditionally, scholars used to understand both terms as rendering mainly,
if not exclusively, Homer and Herodotus, but this interpretation has been
challenged in recent decades. On the one hand, some of “Herodotus’
contemporaries,” i.e. sixth- and fifth-century prose writers dealing with the
past, could stand for as possible candidates for Thucydides’ λογογράφοι.
On the other hand, not only other epic poets beside Homer, but also
48 Chapter Four

elegiac poets singing glory of quite recent historical events, as Simonides


in his Plataean Elegy did,37 could be taken into account.
I believe there are good reasons to stick to the traditional interpretation,
most of all in view of the overall impact of the aforementioned cumulative
argument. It would not be easy to find another prose writer who would
have produced a large-scale narrative of a military conflict of the past.38
Local historians more or less briefly dealing with wars in the history of a
given city (Hellanicus’ Atthis?) or land (diverse Persika, Lydiaka etc.)
cannot count in this category. We can be sure of this, given the
(dismissive) manner Thucydides mentions Hellanicus of Lesbos (1.97.2).39
For the very same reason, epideictic oratory of “archaeological” interests
is out of the question, too.
The same can be said of the so-called “historical elegy,” and of the
commemorative elegy, as well as of playwrights such as Phrynichus with
his Sack of Miletus or Aeschylus with his Persians. It is massive narratives
about massive wars, and not particular battles (or series of battles) that
seem to comply to the logic of Thucydides’ argument thus far. As for the
so-called “Epic Cycle,” it is true that throughout his “archaeology” the
narrator gathers his material from all available sources, including non-
Homeric epic poems. However, whenever he needs a solid point of
reference and/or goes for a detailed polemic with previous accounts about
great wars, he turns to Homer at once (1.3.3; 1.9.4; 1.10.3-5; cf. also 1.11
passim). The authority, not necessarily to rely upon, but certainly to come

37
See esp. Boedeker 1995 and 1996. Cf. in general Bowie 2001. Here, one could
also mention the “historical” plays by Phrynichus and Aeschylus.
38
I am aware of the risk of overstating my case here and in particular of leaving
Dionysius of Miletus, with his Events after Darius and his Historical Cycle
(FGrHist 687 T 1 and T 2, for his contemporaneity with Hecataeus of Miletus; the
latter work might have in fact belonged to Dionysius of Samos), beyond the scope
of this enquiry. As Robert Fowler suggests (per litt.): “one could argue...that the
cumulative understanding…would go well with an understanding of logographoi
as a kind of composite picture, in which Hdt. looms large but for this or that
particular aspect of the composite might not in fact be the most apposite
example...(this is one of the places where, if a name is needed, Dionysios could be
a candidate).” However, I am not optimistic about the early date (based only on the
Suda entry on Hecataeus) for Dionysius (in general, cf. von Fritz 1967, vol. 2, 78
[n. 97]). Of course, such authors of Hellenika as Charon of Lampsacus (FGrHist
262) and (probably) Damastes of Sigeion (FGrHist 5) seem to have preceded
Thucydides, but I assume they were not responsible for narratives comparable to
Herodotus’ one in its grandiosity and philosophical outlook (cf. below, esp. p. 55).
Cf. also below, n. 41.
39
In general, cf. Lendle 1964 and Smart 1986.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 49

to terms with, is Homer. And the same is true of Herodotus, in the


aforementioned pedantic polemic in ch. 1.20, although, again, he is by no
means the main source of Thucydides’ information in the “archaeology.”
It is also clear from the way he concludes this step of his reasoning that
the target of his criticism, and the competitors he has chosen for himself,
are authors of the authoritative, indeed monumental, accounts of great
wars of the past (1.21.2): whenever the current war is over, even those
who used to think of it as of the greatest one of all, turn again to τὰ
ἀρχαῖα.40
In a word, then, in my opinion ποιηταί stand above all for “Homer,”
just as λογογράφοι stand for “Herodotus” in 1.21.1.41 The question is
how should we understand it within the framework of Thucydides’
prologue and what does it mean for his historiographical project as such.
The most obvious interpretation would associate the polemics against
his both great predecessors and rivals with Thucydides’ methodology and
with his tools to deal with the past and contemporary evidence,
impressively deployed in detail in 1.22.1-3.42 His rivals lack these tools
and in general do not care for the truth; they exaggerate and embellish
their accounts to make them pleasant to the public instead of reliable. I
think that the idea of τὸ μυθῶδες, “myth-like” (21.1; 22.4), covers, among
other things, the realm of κλέος, “renown,” and θαυμαστόν,
“marvellous,” the two aspects of Herodotus’ prologue conspicuously
absent from the incipit in Thucydides, and—in his eyes—it can be applied
both to Homer and to Herodotus as representatives of a quite similar
intellectual attitude. However, as I already mentioned, this is a cumulative
argument that counts for him; hence, the historical method including the
distance in time—both issues amounting to the idea of “uncertainty” (τὸ
ἄπιστον) of previous treatments of great wars—is not enough. We should
take into consideration other elements of the reasoning, namely the
greatness of war and the utility of the account. And this brings us in the
end to the ἀγώνισμα vs. κτῆμα issue and to the awkwardly exaggerated
vision of the Peloponnesian War in the closing chapter of the prologue.

40
We are perhaps entitled to link this idea with τὰ ἑτοῖμα, “the most easily
available stuff” (1.20.3 ad fin.) mentioned earlier, as the main source of
information for those interested in the recent and the more remote past. Cf. above,
pp. 40f. with n. 19.
41
This is of course not to deny that, for Thucydides, Homer and Herodotus
represent just how inferior to his own achievement poetry and, say, earlier
historiography are. The point is that he (implicitly) chooses the two authors as
those deserving (for the reasons studied below) his attention and his criticism.
42
Recently, see the illuminating comments in Rood 2006.
50 Chapter Four

Thucydides’ “argument from sufferings” (1.23.1-3), so to say, has long


been disquieting the scholars. In the seventies and the eighties of the
previous century, it became one of the capital “proofs” that he was in fact
not a true historian, but an “artful reporter” at best.43 Now, as Hermann
Strasburger demonstrated long ago in his magisterial study of Homer and
historiography, the παθήματα we find here belong to the epic heritage of
Thucydides.44 On the other hand, when trying to prove the superiority of
his project, he also feels obliged to match and better Herodotus, who—
within the same ‘epic’ paradigm—also measured in terms of “more
intensive sufferings” (cf. 6.98.2: πλέω κακά) the peculiar status of the
period he narrated, but also foreshadowed, in his account (the times of
Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes). But the question is how did Thucydides
(and his public) understand the meaning of the παθήματα section.
There can be no doubt that it was supposed somehow to contribute to
the definition of the importance of his subject and his work in general.
However, it forms but a supplementary argument—never touched upon in
the “archaeology,” which is striking indeed—only after having “proven”
the superiority of the Peloponnesian War. In a word, it is not directly nor
logically linked with the foregoing demonstration of this “greatness.” If so,
the rhetorical amplificatio of the war needs to be understood within the
context of Thucydides’ cumulative argument.
The concluding section of the last paragraph of ch. 22 is perhaps the
best-known phrase in Thucydides and one of the most notorious in Greek
prose in general. It is the famous opposition between, to put it for a while
in traditional terms, a “work done to last forever” (κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί) and a
“display piece designed to meet the taste of an immediate public”
(ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν, trans. by R. Warner, adapted).
Now, in modern scholarship these words have generated a bunch of
misunderstandings, especially when scholars began to press their own
philosophical and anthropological theories on Thucydides.45 A widely
accepted and more traditional reading takes κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί as referring to
the author’s turn towards the posterity and to his disdain for the
contemporary audience.46 This is no less anachronistic, because based on
our modern literary aesthetics.

43
Cf. above, n. 21.
44
Strasburger 1972.
45
Witness the utterly anachronistic, but once very popular, “Great Divide”
opposition between the written (cf. κτῆμα) and oral (cf. ἀγώνισμα) modes of
communication as allegedly present in 1.22.4.
46
Cf. e.g. Malitz 1982.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 51

In 1990 Otto Lendle brilliantly observed that it is superfluous to


interpret our sentence otherwise than in terms of the simple opposition
between, on the one hand, the short-lived pleasure one gets at truth’s
expense and, on the other, the lasting advantage at the expense of pleasure.
If we impute to Thucydides the notion of unspecified posterity, both ideas
lose their logical correlation because the former one would refer to the
exceptional intellectual gains of a virtual member of some indefinite
audience in future, whereas the latter one would pertain to the pleasure of
any conceivable member of the real contemporary public of some ad hoc
performances. As a matter of fact, both elements of the opposition elicit
two alternative possibilities open to the writer and to his contemporary
audience. Thus, we should render the κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί more or less as “the
durable possession for the rest of life” of any sensible reader of
Thucydides.47 His superiority is based on far superior standards of his
inquiry and his excellent analytical tools. This is all he says. That his great
predecessors are targeted here is obvious, but since here too some other
candidates for those responsible for ἀγωνίσματα have been proposed,48
my own answer must wait until the whole Thucydides’ argument is
clarified.
Recent debates surrounding the meaning of the κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί-phrase
have made us less sensitive to the fact that the real clue of the sentence and
the culmination of the whole Thucydidean argument we have been
analysing thus far reads as follows (1.22.4; trans. by Ch.F. Smith):
“…whoever shall wish to have a clear view both of the events which have
happened and of those which will some day, in all human probability,
happen again in the same or a similar way—for these to adjudge my
history profitable will be enough for me.” In a paper on the meaning of
Herodotus’ prologue, I elaborated on the key-position of the idea of τὰ
γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων at the very beginning of Herodotus’ incipit as
well as the coda position of the notion of ἡ ἀνθρωπηίη εὐδαιμονίη at the
end of the prologue (1.5.4). What I tried to show was that Herodotus’
ambition to present himself as a σοφός, or “sage,” was grounded in his
self-proclaimed knowledge of the instability of human affairs, based on his
research, ἱστορίη, into human past in all its variety, but especially on his

47
Lendle 1990.
48
Cf. recently Thomas 2000, esp. 267: “It [scil. 1.22.4] should perhaps be
understood more widely [scil. more widely than as “a narrow jab at Herodotus
alone, or at the sophistic epideixis in its extreme form alone,” ibid.] as a rejection
of the agonistic, confrontational and rhetorical mode of intellectual discourse and
argument that became popular in the latter part of the fifth century and which Plato
also rejected” (cf. in general Thomas 2000, 249-69).
52 Chapter Four

enquiry into the (relatively) recent history of a monumental military


conflict: Persian Wars and their antecedents. He also proved his
superiority by dismissing the mythical war par excellence, i.e. the Trojan
War in the amusing digression about the kidnappings of mythical women.
By that, Herodotus imposed his authority on the reader and opposed his
wisdom to other genres of wisdom literature and to other Greek “sages.”
To put it briefly (let me quote the aforementioned paper), he suggested
“that the ‘truth about man,’ and thus the ‘paradigmatic’ value of wisdom
literature (be it poetry, philosophy, medicine, history etc.), can only be
achieved if founded on the firm ground of ‘historical’ times accessible to
diverse tools of ‘inquiry,’ namely in his narrative of a great recent war and
its close antecedents.”49
If we turn now to Thucydides’ prologue, it is very striking that his idea
of the utility of his work as a safe ground for political conjecture in future
(κατὰ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον, “human nature being what it is”) was put in the
corresponding section of his preface; Herodotus also puts his comments on
ἡ ἀνθρωπηίη εὐδαιμονίη at the end of the proem. Thucydides could not
refer his reader to his predecessor more explicitly. What he did in his
“archaeology,” continued and concluded by his polemic in 1.20f., and by
his methodological chapter 22, was to clear the ground for his own
authoritative statements, namely to get rid of his predecessors in much the
same way as Herodotus did in his λόγιοι-digression.
If we put together the whole introductory argument of his prologue, it
becomes clear, I think, that Thucydides shares Herodotus’ conviction of
the paradigmatic value of great wars: it is then that human nature can best
be perceived. The bigger the war, the better and more representative, to
put it anachronistically, the “sample” we get of human condition and of
human φύσις. He also endorses Herodotus’ opinion that what we need to
grasp it is reliable information about such a conflict based on good
analytical tools.50
Responding to Herodotus, he only radically sharpens his standards. His
method will be much more efficient as such, but also applied to a more
apprehensible subject, or to the only cognizable one, namely to
contemporary events. This is the only way to meet his high standards of τὸ

49
Węcowski 2004a, 158.
50
Thucydides also thinks, as Herodotus did, that one of the most obvious tests of
the efficiency of the historian’s analytical tools and of the historical knowledge as
such is the capacity to disclose the mechanisms of historical causation. Starting in
1.23.5f., and throughout the rest of Book 1, he produces a multidimensional and
clearly anti-Herodotean vision of the causes, origins, and antecedents leading to his
war.
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 53

σαφές, or “certainty,” of our knowledge and hence of our historical


explanation. By a happy stroke of luck, this subject happens to be not only
the best researchable, but also the greatest one, and hence the most
representative, of all.
The slightly uneasy logic of the prologue is due to the fact that his two
main ideas—τὸ σαφές and, say, τὸ μέγεθος (or “greatness” [of the
war])—are interwoven and repeatedly intersect in the course of his
argument. That is why his overall argument is cumulative. Witness the
uneasy logic of the “archaeology,” but also his amplificatio of the war
(1.23.1-3). In the latter case, the “sufferings” not so much demonstrate the
greatness of his war. They rather belong to a complementary register of
Thucydides’ reasoning; the παθήματα are to be linked, I would argue,
with the status of this “greatest war” as the best possible “sample” of the
human nature and of the human condition. For παθήματα, ἄλγεα, or
κακά form a nutshell of the human condition, as shown against the
background of great wars, ever since Homer, and do it still in Herodotus.
We can still deem this section exaggerated, but it is by no means a direct
“proof” of the scope and sheer dimensions of the Peloponnesian War; it is
a part of a larger set of ideas.
The case of Thucydides’ polemical strategy should be interpreted
along these very lines. From the perspective of the true sense, and utility,
of his work, it becomes understandable why those targeted in his prologue
are personally, although anonymously, Homer and Herodotus. I would
argue that he considers them his predecessors and rivals in the field of
paradigmatic accounts of great wars. He views both of them as
authoritative writers striving in their works for a truth about the human
condition. For him, they are both unable to provide their (and his) public
with the truth, but still worth debating with. Homer comes out of this
polemic (relatively) unhurt, since the main target is Herodotus. Given the
scope of Thucydides’ debt to Herodotus as evidenced by the preface and
by the organisation of the opening parts of the Peloponnesian War, the
latter fully deserves to be regarded as the “teacher” of the former.
However, it is shocking indeed how unfair Thucydides can be. It is not
only the matter of some minor details stigmatized in ch. 20. Throughout
the “archaeology” and more explicitly in his parallel criticism of the
“poets” and “logographers,” he ostentatiously measures both categories by
the same stick. Both groups devote themselves to the remote past and
hence produce only myth-like accounts (cf. τὸ μυθῶδες), excessively
embellish their works disregarding the truth altogether. Thucydides totally
ignores Herodotus’ historical method when pointing to the “hearsays” the
latter (allegedly) relies on and further shamelessly publicize among his
54 Chapter Four

poor public.51 The most striking is the fact that by criticizing Herodotus
and Homer side by side Thucydides intentionally disregards one of the
most important and most spectacular accomplishments of the earlier
historical writing, namely the qualitative difference between what is
adopted κατὰ τὰ λεγόμενα (or from ἀκοαί), usually consisting in
particular of the evidence of the “good old poetry,” and what is known
(cf., in Herodotus, τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν) based on one’s research into the
matter (as, for instance, in Hdt. 7.20.2). This is by no means a coincidence
since establishing this dichotomy was one of the main goals of Herodotus’
preface (see esp. 1.5.3).52 For Thucydides, any cognition but that gained
through a personal observation of events or through impartial cross-
questioning of actual witnesses is mere hearsay as opposed to (his)
“accuracy” (ἀκρίβεια), the only solid basis of knowledge (1.22.2). From
this standpoint, both Homer’s and Herodotus’ endeavours,
notwithstanding their ambition to provide deep insights into the human
condition, deserve to be called ἀγωνίσματα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν.
The only “durable possession” for the Greek public, or κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί, is
Thucydides’ own work.

Thucydides’ polemic with Herodotus as deployed in the preface,


although in fact highly “personalized,” is kept in anonymous terms—
which forms a striking contrast with the reference by name to Hellanicus
(1.97.2), precisely, I believe, because the latter issue was a minor one and
the latter author’s achievements were intellectually negligible from the
standpoint of Thucydides’ overall project.53 The anonymity of the
criticism, both openly stated and implied, may be due to a more serious
and ultimately even respectful attitude towards his rivals and predecessors,
already “classic” in the field.
I believe the intensity of this polemic can only be accounted for in
view of a massive “common denominator,” so to say, linking Thucydides
and Herodotus, of a deep intellectual proximity as felt, reconsidered, and

51
And Thucydides does this following very closely in his “archaeology” (as well
as in his “archaeology” in Book 6) Herodotus’ language and technique, including
the “markers of Herodotus’ voice,” as Fowler 1996, 76f. (with n. 106) puts it.
52
Cf., famously, Hdt. 2.99.1.
53
Cf. also the brilliant passing remark by Gomme 1954, 116: “he [Thuc.] paid him
[Hdt.] the compliment that later historians were to pay to himself of beginning
where he left off, not attempting to do again what he had once done, whereas he
must do again what Hellanikos had attempted.”
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 55

conceptualised by the former. What they both monumentally share is their


notion of historiography. The ultimate goal of a historical work is to
provide the reader, based on a thorough enquiry, with a well-grounded
insight into the human condition and human nature. In that, emerging
historiography consciously embarks on a rivalry against other genres
(wisdom poetry, medicine, philosophy etc.) likewise supposed to offer
“wisdom” to their audiences. For both Herodotus and Thucydides, in order
to impart a certain vision to the public, a historical work does not resort to
openly stated generalisations or programmatic philosophical statements,
but rather assumes a meaningful structure as far as the organization of the
whole account, or its large sections, is concerned.54 Witness the notion of
auxesis underlying and organising large compositional units in both
writers, but also the Thucydidean meaningful contrasts between speeches
and narrative and other suggestive traits of his literary accomplishment.55
In a word, both historians stand shoulder to shoulder within the realm of
what I would be tempted to call “paradigmatic historiography.”
Needless to say, we are entitled to posit that those days, at the turn of
the fifth century BC, there must have been a public capable of grasping
and appreciating the “philosophical” (in pre-Platonic terms) message
conveyed by grand historical works. In this perspective there is, however,
a marked difference between the two historians. As compared with
Herodotus, Thucydides is more explicit, as we have seen, e.g., in his
straightforward way of deploying the notion of political “growth” in the

54
In the discussion following my talk during the Wrocław conference, Kurt
Raaflaub drew my attention to the fact that when presenting his subject matter in
the incipit and in the whole prologue Thucydides limits himself to a pre-war
perspective. From my point of view it is intriguing that he stresses the “growth-
and-peak” (see above) pattern but without hinting at the (all too well known to his
public) outcome of the story, so without presenting the whole “growth-peak-and-
collapse” model, typical of archaic and classical Greek ethics. The reason for that
is not the (to some extent) unrevised state of his work, neither the need for a brief
introductory advertisement for the book, but a conscious literary strategy resulting
from Thucydides’ ambition to join in the earlier wisdom tradition. His reader will
progressively be inculcated with the historian’s view of the human nature based on
his detailed narrative of consecutive historical events (signposted at that with
revealing speeches or “debates”). This principle of, so to say, cumulative
instruction of the reader was characteristic of Herodotus, too.
55
More trivially, we should also mention meaningful selection of episodes, their
meaningful temporal order, telling juxtapositions etc. These characteristics do not
disappear, of course, with Thucydides. In general, see Romilly 1990; cf. also
Rawlings 1981.
56 Chapter Four

introductory sections of the Peloponnesian War56—a contrast to


Herodotus who relied on his (implied) audience’s skill of extrapolating
from the data (and patterns) of a more distant history. This, I would argue,
is yet another trace of a new kind of literary public as envisaged by
Thucydides. We can assume that he found himself in a new situation,
facing a new post-sophistic “literary contract” between the writer and his
audience. Also in these terms, Herodotus’ practice was clearly not enough.
On the other hand, Thucydides felt like a member of the old tradition of
wisdom genres, although he thought he beat all his predecessors. In this
respect, he was still within the frames of the same, say, Herodotean,
paradigm. Hence, among other things, the heat of his polemic against, and
his rivalry with, Herodotus.
Despite and beyond some profound differences between them, they
share their place on the same side of a Great Divide in the history of
Greek, and indeed Graeco-Roman, historiography. The dimensions of this
divide can fully be appreciated if we turn to Xenophon, in his Hellenika
one of the continuators of Thucydides. Clearly, there is no “paradigmatic
historiography” of the kind after Thucydides and no envisaged public of
such a historiography.57 A famous passage of ch. 9 of Aristotle’ Poetics
points to the same phenomenon (Arist. Poet. 1451b 4-11; trans. by S.
Halliwell, adapted):

The real difference [between a poet and a historian] is this, that one tells
what happened and the other what might happen (τὸν μὲν τὰ γενόμενα
λέγειν, τὸν δὲ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο). For this reason poetry is something more
philosophic and serious than history (διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ
σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν), because poetry tends to give
general truths while history gives particular facts (ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις
μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ’ ἱστορία τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστον λέγει). By a “general
truth” I mean the sort of thing that a certain type of man will do or say
either probably or necessarily (…κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον)…By
“particular facts” I mean what Alcibiades did or suffered.

But this is precisely how we could characterize Herodotus and especially


Thucydides, the two writers chosen by Aristotle as negative examples of
how inferior historiography is to poetry!58

56
Cf. above, n. 36. The same is true of Thucydides’ explicit statements about his
method and of many other characteristics of his writing, but of course not about his
implicit dealing with Herodotus, which belongs to another facet of his work.
57
At least for the time being; cf. K.A. Raaflaub in this volume.
58
What is more, our historians clearly comply to Aristotle’s view of the usefulness
of tragedy: they do offer mimetic structures of human action embodying the
Friends or Foes? Herodotus in Thucydides’ Preface 57

It seems highly probable that Aristotle responds in this passage to


Thucydides, who stressed the superiority of (his) historiography over
poetry, and to his claims of offering to his public a “durable possession”
based on the profound understanding of how τὸ ἀνθρώπινον works.
Aristotle inverts the earlier hierarchy by deliberately dismissing the
Thucydidean notion of factual truth for the sake of a general (or better:
generic) truth of man, τὰ καθόλου. Evidently, Aristotle was unable to
grasp the “philosophical” aspect of our historians.59 However, this is not
due to a superficial reading of Thucydides. On the one hand, he was
determined by the practice of the new historiography, which made
Thucydides’ claims to superior knowledge of “human affairs” look rather
naïve (just think here of Xenophon). On the other hand, a totally new
notion of philosophy emerged in the meantime and Aristotle feels obliged
to come to terms with Thucydides’ self-proclaimed wisdom as encoded in
a historical work.60
At the end of this story philosophy properly speaking strikes back. Let
me conclude that it is regrettable that Aristotle ultimately succeeded in
persuading the Greeks that historiography by its very nature must be un-
philosophical. And it is deplorable indeed that he was able to persuade
historians, too. Once their philosophical “common denominator” lost of
sight, Herodotus and Thucydides started to drift apart in the eyes of their
ancient successors and in our modern perception. The time was ripe for the
“Herodotean” and the “Thucydidean” models to hold sway in the field.

generalised patterns of universals and are open to the contemplative mind able to
perceive the plot as the dramatic communication of universals (for the Aristotelian
mimesis, cf. Halliwell 1986, 79). For this passage in general, cf. also Else 1967,
302-14. For my present purpose, Gomme 1954 (passim) still remains an
indispensable commentary on Arist. Poet. 1451b.
59
Did he understand that Alcibiades in Thucydides is not only a historically
determined individual, but also incarnates Athens’ energies and drawbacks? I do
not think so.
60
One can reasonably ask oneself in more general terms what has happened in the
meantime and it is here, after Thucydides, that we may also postulate a
hypothetical change in a wider cultural paradigm influencing Greek historiography
(and its later assessment)—involving especially the social role of the intellectual
and the fora of the communication with his audience (in general, cf. Wallace
1995).

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