1.2 Herodotus’ opening pitch (1.1.1)

The Wikipedia entry which you read in Activity 2 informed us that Herodotus is known as ‘the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events’. You’ll begin by examining this claim, by thinking about what kind of (ancient Greek) literature came before Herodotus. To better understand what Herodotus is doing, you’re going to compare Herodotus’ introduction to the beginning of Homer’s Iliad.

Homer’s Iliad is a poem on an epic scale (it is 15,693 lines long!). One of the first complete works of ancient Greek literature to have come down to us, in fact the Iliad stands at the end of a long oral tradition of song stretching back centuries. These songs star a mythical generation of hero men and preserve their exploits for future fame (kleos). At the same time, epic poetry provided Greek audiences with a shared past and a sense of how their current world came into being.

From around a generation before Herodotus (i.e. some time in the sixth century BCE), two of these epics, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, became incorporated into the repertoire of an important panhellenic (‘all Greek’) festival put on by the Athenians every four years: the Great Panathenaia – an ‘all Athenian’ cultural festival of sport, dance, drama and poetry. Soon after, both Homeric poems become fixed in form and content by being written down, which is why they have survived and other epic poems have not. With the advent of writing, there was an information explosion in the Greek world, as a new wave of thinkers took to recording in prose all kinds of things: how the natural world worked; how and why people got ill; what different lands and peoples looked like, etc. Among this group of radical thinkers is Herodotus.

Figure 4 The Trojan Horse. Pithos (a large storage container) found at Mykonos, about 670 BCE, Archaeological Museum of Mykonos, ID: 2240.

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Close up of the clay storage container (dark red in colour), which has been pieced back together. The image shows a large horse, in which there are seven windows, revealing (Greek) fighters inside, carrying arms (helmets, shields, and swords). Around the horse are at least six other warriors (Trojans), appearing to lead the horse (into the city).

Figure 4 The Trojan Horse. Pithos (a large storage container) found at Mykonos, about 670 BCE, Archaeological Museum of Mykonos, ID: 2240.

In the next activity you will read a short passage from the Iliad. There are many aspects that may well appear odd or confusing. For example, Homer refers to several gods worshipped by the ancient Greeks – Hades, the god of the underworld; Zeus, the leader of the gods; and Apollo (‘the son of Leto and Zeus’). Homer also uses unfamiliar terms – labels such as ‘the Achaeans’ to mean the Greeks who fought at Troy or the ‘son of Atreus’ to mean Agamemnon.Try not to let these unfamiliar aspects put you off: your task is about extracting specific information.

Don’t worry if you didn’t get all of these points or found different ones. The beginning of the Iliad in particular is quite a challenge. (Who are these people?, you might be asking. If you’d like to learn more, see the ‘Taking it further’ section of this course.) Perhaps the most striking thing of note is the lack of any author: there’s no name (no Homer!) and no place associated with them. Instead, there’s an appeal to the ‘goddess’. Contrast this to the Histories, where we learn not only who has put this together (Herodotus) but also where they’re from (Halicarnassus). Yet, you may also have noticed some points of correspondence. Both beginnings describe a conflict and set out to provide the origins for it.

By placing himself at the beginning of his account – in the Greek, ‘Herodotus’ is literally the first word – Herodotus was doing something new and radically different from poets like Homer who had gone before him. At the beginning of the Iliad, the poet appeals to a ‘goddess’ (the Muse) for information about the Troy story (the war between the Greeks and Trojans over Helen of Sparta). Herodotus’ opening gambit is revolutionary because he takes ownership of the account that we are about to read. His authority doesn’t come from an external source; he’s going to be personally responsible for this account.

Equally, however, you may also have noticed aspects of Herodotus’ preparatory remarks that are what we might call ‘epic adjacent’, meaning that Herodotus draws on epic, even as he marks his departure from it. So, for example, when Herodotous writes that he’s keen that important actions don’t lose their recognition, he uses the epic term kleos (glory or fame), while, like Homer, he too ends with a question and, specifically, an interest in the cause of conflict. That is to say, right from the outset, Herodotus is also making the claim that his ‘enquiry’ will have similarities with epic: it is grand in scale and importance; it recounts famous past actions; and, fundamentally, it is interested in finding out why a particular conflict happened. Doing history is moving on to the ground that had previously been occupied by poems like the Iliad.

Figure 5 Helen on the Ramparts of Troy. Oil on canvas, by Gustave Moreau, late nineteenth century. Musee Gustave Moreau, Paris, France.

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A portrait representation of a richly attired woman. With a blank expression on her face, the woman holds a flower in her crossed arms as she gazes into the distance. Her pale face (matching the pale sky behind) contrasts with the detail of her brightly coloured patterned robes, which cover her from her head down to the floor.

Figure 5 Helen on the Ramparts of Troy. Oil on canvas, by Gustave Moreau, late nineteenth century. Musee Gustave Moreau, Paris, France.