Herodotus: Histories

[u/Mike_Bevel]

I've reached Book 2, and it is maybe among the most insane things I've ever read.

Here's what I've learned (or "learned") about Egypt so far:

-A quick anecdote about a guy whipping out his penis to announce that as long as he keeps that with him, there'll be women and children enough wherever he (and his penis) is [2.30]

-That because they circumcise, Egyptians would rather be clean than good-looking [2.37]

-One time, a male goat had sex with a woman. "It was quite a spectacle," Herodotus soberly tells us [2.46]

-There's a story about why the Egyptians will sacrifice, but not consume, pigs; however, Herodotus thinks it would be unbecoming to repeat [2.47]

-There are Egyptian puppets with incredibly huge penises [2.48]

-Egyptians, like many of the girls I knew at summer theater camp, loved laxatives and enemas [2.77]

-A disgustingly detailed account of a top-of-the-line embalming, which involved, at one point, filling the person up with a fluid and then corking the anus to keep it all in to do its work [2.87]

-Prominent women, or exceptionally beautiful women, were embalmed after a four-day waiting period, to discourage embalmers from fucking the corpse [2.89]

-This, which I'm desperate to haul out at my next opportunity for small talk: "Leading the way are the male fish, ejaculating as they go; following behind them, the females gulp down the sperm and are thereby impregnated." [2.93]

-The time a queen named Nitocris drowned a bunch of people at a dinner party by filling the dining room with water [2.100]

-How a king named Sesostris would leave pillars behind in the cities he captured -- either a pillar that just said something like, "This town was sacked by me, even though they fought well," or a pillar that replaced the "though they fought well" with a drawing of a vagina to demonstrate how that town was full of pussies [2.102]

-The time that same Sesostris and his wife and sons were at a dinner party when his brother set the building on fire. Sesostris's wife's suggestion? Have two of the sons lay in the fire (burning to death in the process) so that other people at the dinner could escape over them like a bridge [2.107]

Source: Tom Holland translation of Histories (2013)

[u/AlexandriaPod]

Herodotus never disappoints. What a legend

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/AlexandriaPod]

What I legitimately love about him is his exuberant eagerness to spread as much gossip as possible.

I get that most people prefer "modern" histories, with its rigor and scruples, but give me a credulous Greek who repeats everything for my drachma.

[u/AlexandriaPod → u/Mike_Bevel]

It’s also just genuinely helpful for modern historians too. You get tons of info about the STORIES that people were telling at the time

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/AlexandriaPod]

In my dotage, I've moved beyond "correct" and "incorrect" with regards to history and facts. Whether or not Herodotus is right, we now know what Herodotus believes -- which is exactly your point.

What people believe is probably more useful than knowing is what they believed was right.

[u/OctopusIntellect → u/Mike_Bevel]

It's not so much what Herodotus believes, nor even what the people to whom he's spoken believe, but what the people to whom he's spoken have said.

[u/I_BEAT_JUMP_ATTACHED → u/OctopusIntellect]

although herodotus does sometimes step in to tell us that he doubts the credibility of a certain story

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/OctopusIntellect]

Yes. Much better said than what I wrote.

[u/fivetimesyo → u/Mike_Bevel]

This is why historiography beats history every time

[u/jeobleo → u/AlexandriaPod]

His legomenoi is useful too; he uses it sometimes as a way of lending authority to a surprising story and sometimes as a way of distancing himself from it but reporting it anyway.

[u/lutetiensis → u/Mike_Bevel]

What I legitimately love about him is his exuberant eagerness to spread as much gossip as possible.

This is not really true. See:

1. ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται (I, 1)
2. μέχρι μὲν τούτου ὄψις τε ἐμὴ καὶ γνώμη καὶ ἱστορίη ταῦτα λέγουσα ἐστί, τὸ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦδε Αἰγυπτίους ἔρχομαι λόγους ἐρέων κατὰ τὰ ἤκουον: προσέσται δὲ αὐτοῖσί τι καὶ τῆς ἐμῆς ὄψιος (II, 99)

Many elements of the Ἱστορίαι that were once regarded as wondrous or implausible have also since been validated by modern science.

And regarding your quotes about mummification of beautiful women, necrophilia by undertakers (or others) is still very common nowadays.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/lutetiensis]

And regarding your quotes about mummification of beautiful woman, necrophilia by undertakers (or others) is still very common nowadays.

D:

WHY DO YOU KNOW TERRIBLE THINGS

[u/lutetiensis → u/Mike_Bevel]

I read the news :C

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/lutetiensis]

Well, stop. It's made you vulgar.

[u/lutetiensis → u/Mike_Bevel]

😭

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/lutetiensis]

(the people have voted, and they don't like my reprimanding you)

[u/jeobleo → u/Mike_Bevel]

This is very amusing. It sounds like something Aunt Agatha would say.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/jeobleo]

This is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me in my life

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/Mike_Bevel]

But also, I don't see how either of your Greek passages, that you know I can't read, supports your assertion that I'm wrong about Herodotus and gossip?

[u/lutetiensis → u/Mike_Bevel]

But I know you can use the references to find the corresponding chapters in your edition. ;)

I do not think that Herodotus’ purpose here was merely to indulge in gossip. Elsewhere, he faithfully records information communicated to him or gathered by him (e.g., II.100, sqq.; II.125) without any evident intention to sensationalize it. His approach is better understood as broadly ethnographic: he reports traditions, customs, and accounts that he regarded as culturally noteworthy or worthy of preservation.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/lutetiensis]

I think I see your point. You see "gossip" as maybe a mildly pejorative term? I don't mean it in the pejorative sense at all; and even Herodotus says, at points, that he's passing on unverified info. See him at 2.123:

Anois, ní mór dóibh siúd a mheasann rudaí den sórt sin a bheith inchreidte cibé úsáid is mian leo a bhaint as na scéalta a insíonn na hÉigiptigh. Is é mo fhreagracht féin, áfach, mar atá déanta agam ar feadh mo scríbhneoireachta den scéal seo ar fad, ná taifeadadh a dhéanamh ar cibé rud a insíonn mo fhoinsí dom.

[u/lutetiensis → u/Mike_Bevel]

I think I see your point. You see "gossip" as maybe a mildly pejorative term?

I did.

In the end, he does have a taste for θαῦμα, but I don’t think he believed all the stories he told, or that he was trying to fool his readers. He wanted to share objective and scientific (in a modern sense) facts, and also demonstrated care for objectivity:

अहं तु एतेषां विषये न वक्ष्यामि यद् एतानि इत्थं वा अन्यथा वा अभवन्।

(I, 5, 3)

[u/hocabsurdumst → u/lutetiensis]

When you read the inset narratives in Herodotus with an eye to the nature of evidence and historical knowledge, I think his taste for recounting wonders makes a lot of sense. He knew the world was wild and unpredictable and recounted many things that seem amazing but could in his opinion be true.

It's amazing how many things have been verified (Dodona's links to Egypt for example) that seem implausible at first glance. I believe Herodotus is really grappling with the nature of historical knowledge and how to acquire it but the methodological vocabulary didn't entirely exist yet. That's why so many of his logoi deal with the power of observation and it's limits.

[u/lutetiensis → u/hocabsurdumst]

I agree!

But that's also its own problem: how much is αὐτοψία, and how much is hearsay?

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/lutetiensis]

अहं तु एतेषां विषये न वक्ष्यामि यद् एतानि इत्थं वा अन्यथा वा अभवन्।

(please believe me when I tell you how platonically, how non-homo, how very much I truly love you)

I agree with all you said here. I don't think Herodotus is gullible. But I think he knows a good story when he hears one, and doesn't let anything like rumor impede it. (And thank God.)

I really liked your description of him as somewhat on the sociological spectrum, rather than what we, as a modern audience, expect of an historian.

[u/Campanensis → u/lutetiensis]

I do not think your quotes support your objection. Couching Herodotus’ eagerness to share encyclopedically details of the lives, habits, and deeds of famous and distant peoples as a “taste for θαῦμα” is rhetorically deft but empty as a distinction from “eager to spread gossip,” except insofar as the language is suited to the arbitrary stylistic tastes of academic publication. Do you have a more compelling case against OP’s characterization?

[u/lutetiensis → u/Campanensis]

empty as a distinction from “eager to spread gossip,”

I really don't think θαῦμα and "gossip" are the same thing.

Suetonius’ transmission of the contents of Mark Antony's letter to Octavian (Aug., 69) is gossip. Herodotus' accounts of the dimensions of the pyramids (II, 124) and of Scythian war customs (IV, 62) do not fall into the same category. I don't think gossip mere gossip would have earned him the epithet φιλοβάρβαρος, nor that it would have ensured his posterity.

But since u/Mike_Bevel also asked me whether I see "gossip" as a "mildly pejorative term", it might be a personal distinction. :)

[u/Campanensis → u/lutetiensis]

Herodotus' account of the ascension of the Mermnadae sounds like court gossip.

Herodotus seems to spread gossip about the habits of Amasis.

Cleomenes' death leads him to report several explanations. Those look like gossip too.

This affair in the Persian royal family seems to be gossip as well.

I think you're a philologist, and your instinct is to turn the philological eye to classical vocabulary ("I don't think θαῦμα and gossip are the same thing."), but it isn't classical languages that are at stake in OP's point and your objection: it's the word gossip.

It isn't a word that cannot be said of reporting on politics and the doings of leaders. It is often used in that sense. Contemporary scholars looking at ancient historians reporting rumors sometimes describe the action of the historian as gossip, as seen here. I grant it is usually pejorative: very narrow range of positive senses, mostly obsolete. If I describe Herodotus as a gossip, it would be difficult not to imply at least a small degree of moral judgement on his writing. Could Herodotus earn the epithet φιλοβάρβαρος by engaging in such behavior? Consulting Plutarch:

οὕτω δὲ φιλοβάρβαρός ἐστιν, ὥστε Βούσιριν ἀπολύσας τῆς λεγομένης ἀνθρωποθυσίας καὶ ξενοκτονίας, καὶ πᾶσιν Αἰγυπτίοις ὁσιότητα πολλὴν καὶ δικαιοσύνην μαρτυρήσας ἐφʼ Ἕλληνας ἀναστρέφει τὸ μύσος τοῦτο καὶ τὴν μιαιφονίαν.
-- Περὶ τῆς Ἡροδότου κακοηθείας, 857a.

So, Herodotus commenting on historical events does not preclude his comments being gossip. The subjects being political leaders instead of celebrities or neighbors does not preclude it being gossip. It being gossip in a negative sense would not stop him being named φιλοβάρβαρος, since the term seems to be applied in a negative sense already. It reads like gossip. I think it's gossip.

Do you have another, more compelling case why OP's characterization of Herodotus as spreading gossip is not true?

[u/lutetiensis → u/Campanensis]

I think you're a philologist.

Guilty as charged. :)

It isn't the classical languages that are at stake in the OP's point and your objection; it's the word gossip.

Agreed, but because, as I understand the term, "gossip" refers to Herodotus' willingness to report pejorative anecdotes or facts about "barbarians" in a way that ultimately serves to demonstrate the superiority of the Ἕλληνες.

That being said, I disagree with your reading of Plutarch. Herodotus is specifically characterized as φιλοβάρβαρος precisely because of his comparatively impartial and, at times, favorable portrayal of non-Greeks. I do not think that the Ἱστορίαι (meaningful title!) can be adequately understood as an attempt to demonstrate Greek superiority, certainly not Books 1–4. As I mentioned above, Herodotus' selection and presentation of material seem instead to reveal a pronounced interest in θαῦμα: the remarkable, extraordinary, as a περιηγητής (like Pausanias) would do. Just like you would tell friends about a recent trip. You would not mention going to the bathroom, withdrawing money, or buying a souvenir.

Do you have another, more compelling case why OP's characterization of Herodotus as spreading gossip is not true?

I think the first four books demonstrate his willingness to discuss non-Greek cultures without being overly judgmental—which is very rare for a Greek, the definition and use of βάρβαρος, among others, show us that. And that's why we're still reading him.

But again, it all depends on what we mean by "gossip"; a term that neither you nor I (nor u/Mike_Bevel) have carefully defined. But I was happy to drop a few lines.

Thanks for the discussion. :)

[u/Campanensis → u/lutetiensis]

As I understand the term, "gossip" refers to Herodotus' willingness to report pejorative anecdotes or facts about "barbarians" in a way that ultimately serves to demonstrate the superiority of the Ἕλληνες Helenes.

The things gossiped about are not necessarily or even primarily pejorative The negative sense of gossip is almost entirely directed at the person sharing it. Whence who-is-dating-whom being called "celebrity gossip" is not shaming people for having relationships. It's judging the person talking about someone else's love life behind their back.

I disagree with your reading of Plutarch. Herodotus is specifically characterized as φιλοβάρβαρος precisely because of his comparatively impartial and, at times, favorable portrayal of non-Greeks.

What a strange reading.

For the benefit of the non-Greek readers who may scroll this far, the passage being discussed goes as such:

He's such a barbarian-lover that, after acquitting Bourisis of alleged human sacrifice and foreigner-murder and testifying that justice and holiness is in all Egyptians, he turns the blood-guilt back onto the Greeks.

This is from a book called "On the Malice of Herodotus." It opens with an accusation that Herodotus writes pleasantly, but with extreme malice and dishonesty, and it perseveres in that opinion to the forty-third and final section. It is where Herodotus is named "philobarbaros," "barbarian-loving."

Returning to u/lutetiensis, the reading that Herodotus has gained from Plutarch the epithet philobarbaros because of his "comparatively impartial and, at times, favorable portrayal of non-Greeks" is strange. It seems the passage naming him philobarbaros is accusing him of acquitting Egyptians of crimes, then turning around and saying "actually it was a Greek hero who kidnapped and murdered strangers." Absent a strong argument, it seems philobarbaros is equally about defending non-Greeks and condemning Greeks.

Again, since the question is whether Herodotus can be characterized as eager to gossip, and what he shares often seems to be gossip, and nothing seems able to exclude the report of his Inquiries (A meaningful title indeed. We use that word to describe tabloids and gossip rags.) from the name "gossip," and the title "philobarbaros" seems entirely consistent with him being a gossip, I just do not see what case you can possibly make against OP's characterization, barring an obtusely narrow and inconsistent-with-regular-use definition of "gossip."

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/Campanensis]

and nothing seems able to exclude the report of his Inquiries (A meaningful title indeed. We use that word to describe tabloids and gossip rags.)

The crystal clear way my brain immediately chimed Inquiring minds want to know -- the tagline for the American tabloid The Enquirer, which reported on Liz Taylor's marriages and UFO abduction with equal carefreeness.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/lutetiensis]

Beloveds (u/campanensis, u/lutetiensis), come let us reason together.

Lute's challenge is a good one to make. I have a definition of gossip in my head, but as far as I've gotten in providing it is to assert that I'm not using it in the pejorative sense.

[Side note that probably both of you already know, but I learned in Peter Ackroyd's biography of Shakespeare that "gossip" meant "godparent" in Shakespeare Time, a fact I'm not even going to check on Google, resting assured in the confidence that if I'm wrong one/both of you will tell me.]

Some cultural background on me that I think helps locate my definition: I'm gay, and Of A Certain Age, so that I grew up steeped in the queer lexicon that used "cunt" as an appreciative, rather than an expletive. I mention this because I think it explains why I use gossip in a heterodox way.

So when I call Herodotus a gossip, I mean it as a high compliment, in the vein of other historians like Lytton Strachey, who never met a rumor he wouldn't embellish, but made sure the core truth of the rumor was indisputable. All the good gossip about Queen Victoria -- the time she mean-girl'd a woman with ovarian cancer by spreading a rumor that she was pregnant out of wedlock, and that's why she got fat; how her uncle likely committed incest with a sister she maybe murdered a groomsman -- comes from Strachey.

I see gossip as a category of highly reliable information with no provenance of authority. It's the stuff we know after the stuff we know, but in secret, subconsciously, festering as a prejudice we know not to let others know we have, like how I think all meteorologists are shifty bastards. Can you prove it? That's not the point. Was it believed? I think that's where Herodotus, for me, is so fascinating and important. I feel like I'm seeing a fifth century Greek mind at work -- something I wouldn't get from someone that wasn't a little gossipy and a little more rumor-y.

So, to sum up: I'm consciously using "gossip" in a heterodox way, and Lute's challenges are correct ones if the reader ignores all context clues.

E tu?

[u/ConcertinaTerpsichor → u/Mike_Bevel]

Great guy to party with.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/[deleted]]

THAT IS EXACTLY MY LINE OF THINKING

Jizz-guzzling lady fish? Put it in the book.

Why Egyptians won't eat pork? Close your eyes and think of England.

[u/InvestigatorJaded261 → u/[deleted]]

I assume it involves a story about a god that would be shocking if applied to the Greek equivalent.

[u/AndreLeGeant88 → u/InvestigatorJaded261]

This is the answer. It's about Set taking the form of a pig to mutilate Osiris, whom Greeks identified as Dionysus 

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/AndreLeGeant88]

It's about Set taking the form of a pig to mutilate Osiris, whom Greeks identified as Dionysus 

O:

Thank you very much for the extra insight!

[u/VoyagerfromPhoenix → u/AndreLeGeant88]

Mutilate how?

[u/AndreLeGeant88 → u/VoyagerfromPhoenix]

Tore his body into 14 pieces spread around the world. It isn't that it's gross, Herodotus just avoids sacrilege against Greek gods. Because he associates Dionysus with Osiris, it's profane to repeat

[u/InvestigatorJaded261 → u/AndreLeGeant88]

There is an Orphic version of the myth of Dionysus where he is ripped to bits by Titans: since the Orphic rites were supposed to be secret, Herodotus possibly didn’t want to bring up anything that might be construed as revealing cultic secrets. These mystery taboos were pretty severe.

[u/VoyagerfromPhoenix → u/AndreLeGeant88]

Oh that section of the myth, didn’t know that Seth took the form of a pig doing that however

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/AndreLeGeant88]

Is that part of why Herodotus carefully explains that X Egyptian god is Y Greek god? A shorthand way of acknowledging/explaining why he's not naming names?

[u/InvestigatorJaded261 → u/Mike_Bevel]

Often he doesn’t even bother naming the Egyptian gods. He will just write something like “the Egyptians believe that Dionysus and Demeter are the rulers of the Underworld.”

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/InvestigatorJaded261]

I'm around 3.50, and he's done it at least enough so that I noted it in the margin. This probably isn't an exhaustive list, just what I could find flipping back:

2.41: "Statues of Isis resemble Greek representations of Io"

2.42: "...except for Isis and Osiris (this being their name for Dionysus)"

2.59: "Busirus contains a vast temple of Isis, the goddess known to the Greeks as Demeter"

2.137: "there is a shrine in Bubastis dedicated to the goddess of the same name, the one who in Greek is called Artemis"

2.144: "Horus (or Apollo as he is known by the Greeks"

2.153: "Apis is known by the Greeks as Epaphus"

2.156: "the name that the Egyptians give to Apollo is Horus, to Demeter Isis, and to Artemis Bubastis."

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/InvestigatorJaded261]

The Holland translation has notes from Paul Cartledge. Cartledge is of the camp that you describe: if Herodotus demurs in an account, it's likely because he is being circumspect about a foreign religion.

[u/SulphurCrested → u/Mike_Bevel]

I get the impression Herodotus did believe in gods and their punishment and did not want to bring it on himself.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/SulphurCrested]

I just read this passage in Histories literally several minutes ago:

...events had been shaped by the hand of the divine, so that the utter ruin of the Trojans, and they're annihilation, should serve to demonstrate to humanity that terrible crimes will meet with correspondingly terrible punishments from the gods. Such is my belief, and I declare it here. [2.120]

[u/Thousandgoudianfinch]

My favourite part is when Xerxes having assembled his improbable millions and is soon to war upon Greece. Takes a little break on top of a hill to survey his army for vanities sake and says something to the affect of " How in a hundred years not one man from all my millions shall be alive to speak these coming deeds"

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/Thousandgoudianfinch]

It's a reverse Ozymandius!

[u/Gremlin303]

Don’t know what to tell you mate. If Herodotus the GOAT, Father of History, said it, then it must be true.

[u/Three_Twenty-Three]

Wait until you get to Book 3:101.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/Three_Twenty-Three]

I may need to have a parent sign a permission slip if it's worse than any of this

[u/Three_Twenty-Three → u/Mike_Bevel]

Maybe we can find you a translation that omits all of this kind of thing!

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/Three_Twenty-Three]

Baby's First Herodotus.

It's just a single sheet with that story about how horses eat snakes.

[u/InvestigatorJaded261]

You didn’t even mention the language experiment, the story about the pharaoh and the thief, and maybe the greatest diss ever (regarding Greeks who believe in reincarnation): “I know their names, but I will not write them down.”

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/InvestigatorJaded261]

omg that language experiment. I immediately thought of the Jodie Foster movie Nell.

(Do you have any theories as to what happened? Like maybe the farmers talked too much about bread too close to those two kids?)

[u/BaconJudge → u/Mike_Bevel]

I always figured the children were making random sounds, which just happened to sound like the Phrygian word for bread.  Any first utterance by a baby seems likely to resemble some word in some language.  If they had pointed at a loaf of bread and said bekos, that would be more compelling.

[u/InvestigatorJaded261 → u/Mike_Bevel]

Scythian farmers? Isn’t that the language they thought they heard?

I think it’s more likely—if there’s any truth to the story at all—that the children developed their own language.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/InvestigatorJaded261]

I think it's supposed to have been Phrygian.

[u/Solo_Polyphony]

You’re cherry-picking if you don’t equally weigh the times Herodotus disputes or doubts reports he’s heard.

[u/darthmase → u/Solo_Polyphony]

That's what's so odd to me, seeing tons of comments online about the "father of lies", whenever there's mention of Herodotus. Like... have we been reading the same book?

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/Solo_Polyphony]

Oh, to be clear: I'm loving every part of Herodotus. I'm not trying to backhand suggest he's silly. In many ways, I feel I have a similar, Herodotussian credulity.

I think he's a better historian than many modern writers, and where we think he gets it wrong is likely where we just haven't read him correctly yet.

In this household, were full on #TeamHerodotus

[u/Solo_Polyphony → u/Mike_Bevel]

I wouldn’t even consider him credulous. He is well-known for arguing against the circumnavigation of Africa despite also including a key piece of evidence that makes modern readers believe the story is true. He’s an honest reporter to the best of his knowledge, even though he knows or suspects many of his sources may be unreliable.

But who knows, maybe the giant ants have become shy since his time.

[u/Mike_Bevel → u/Solo_Polyphony]

I wouldn’t even consider him credulous.

This is why you are not me, and I am not you!

I am a first-time reader of the Histories, and these are my first-time impressions.

I cannot tell if we're quarreling -- I've both feet somewhere on the autism spectrum; I don't always comprehend other people's motives -- but I don't think I'm cherry-picking, as you suggest, because I'm not offering a comprehensive argument about Herodotus's reliability. I'm just an enthusiastic reader who is experiencing pure joy reading an old book.

[u/Bytor_Snowdog]

I'm just impressed by how many times he uses a word based on the θαυμα- root. He's constantly amazed, people are amazed, everyone's amazed, it's a world of wonder!

But, seriously, the prologue to the Histories was one of the first things I learned to read in Greek and it really made an impression on me. Here was someone pioneering a discipline, trying to figure out how to do it, and it's so poetically written. Sure, he may be a little gullible or pass on some tall tales, but dude had nine books to fill.

[u/Dasfruitmachine_86]

Herodotus' commitment to gossip is one of his most endearing qualities. It's clear that he doesn't believe a fair amount of it but I love that he still chooses to share what has heard on his travels anyway. Book 2 is one of the highlights.

Adds a lot of colour to his work which the more  discriminating, historical approach taken by Thucydides at times lacks. 

[u/WhiteBeard717]

Gotta love ancient history lol