In this course I wish to focus broadly on two related areas of Herodotean scholarship. First, an essential question: what is the nature of Herodotus’ historiê, that is, what is he trying to accomplish in his researches, how does he go about that task, and, particularly, what means does he employ in the presentation (the apodeksis) of the historiê? This will get us at once into detailed questions of composition, structure, and tradition. We will then,secondly, apply our better understanding of the modes and elements of Herodotus’ composition to various problems in the ethnographical sections of Herodotus. This last will be the stretch: despite much useful work in recent years, including heated quarrels over the "liar school"(ultimately inconclusive, but evidentially fundamental nonetheless) and Hartog’s seminal work on Herodotus’ construction of the "other," there seems much more to be done with these strange and relatively less-studied logoi.

The course is in part designed to complement Jack Davis’ seminar on travelers’ reports in early modern Greece. The similarities between the topics are obvious enough: foreign travelers present their reports on a different culture full of exotic artefacts and customs, but the reports do not always match exactly what we know from archaeology and other "hard" sources. In both cases, scholars in recent years have come to question broadly the accuracy or veracity of the accounts themselves and, more significantly, to query what exactly informs the sorts of "errors" contained in these reports. For our purposes, the modern analogue is deeply interesting since there is significantly better and more detailed evidence about what these travelers in fact saw as opposed to what they wrote.

In the introductory weeks, it is very important to read broadly so as to begin narrowing in upon a research topic, or at least an area of inquiry, as soon as possible. In the case of a large author like Herodotus it particularly helps to have an "angle" of attack as you are reading — that is, an articulated set of questions on which you’re accumulating data.

Course requirements: weekly translations; frequent oral reports, of varying scope; conference presentation; substantial research paper (aim at 15-20 pages).

Essential resources:

A Preliminary Schedule of Events

1. Week of March 28

Introduction

Greek: I.1-5, proem

waj on the first sentence

2. Week of April 4

Prose antecedents: early (Ionian) logographers

Greek: Book I.6-94 (50 pp): Lydian logos; esp. chaps. 1-60

English: Books V-IX by April 18

Secondary: Denniston 1952; peruse either Evans or Gould.

waj on what Her. says about his historiê, oral antecedents (esp. Evans 1991)

ss on Pherecydes, Anaximander, Anaximenes: add H. Fränkel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy (1973); F. Jacoby, "The First Athenian Prose Writer," Mnemosyne ser. 3, 13 (1947) 13-64; W. Krantz, "Gleichnis u. Vergleich in der frühgriechischen Philosophie," Hermes 73 (1938) 111; R. McKirahan, Philosophy before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary (1994); G. Vlastos, "Equality and Justice in Early Greek Cosmologies," CPh 42 (1947) 156-78; U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, "Pherecydes," in Kleine Schriften V,2 (1937) 127-56.

mh on Hecataeus

3. Week of April 11

Construction of the Histories: style, narrative structure archaic poetics

Greek: I.95-130 (20 pp): Cyrus and the Persians

Secondary: peruse Immerwahr 1966; esp. chapter 2 (46-76), the part of chapter 3 on Book I (79-89); also, if possible, chapter 1 (17-45).

waj on large structural elements; logoi and cross references; Fränkel 1960 (Stileigenheit)

jh on Herodotus' Ionian contemporaries (Xanthus, Charon, Hellanicus): Pearson 1939, Toher, Class. Antiquity 1989

mh on Cagnazzi 1975

ss on Lattimore 1958 and Brown 1954

4. Week of April 18

Poetic antecedents: epic, tragedy

Greek: I.131-176 (20 pp): Cyrus and the Persians

Secondary: Thalmann 1984, chap. 1 ("Organization of Thought")

waj on Homer [+ Stileigenheit]

jh on Croesus: Segal 1971

ss on Herodotus and Sophocles: How and Wells 6-7, Webster Intro to Sophocles 10-11, 52-4

5. Week of April 25

Herodotus and native Egyptian sources

Greek: I.177-216 (24 pp): Babylon, Massagetae; esp. chaps. 188-216

English: Book II and III.1-38 (Cambyses & Egypt, to be completed by Tuesday in preparation for the Dillery visit; focus esp. on the start of II and the start of III)