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Herodotus: Writings
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In Herodotus' prime, Athens was the dominant naval and imperial power with colonies all over the map. It offered military protection to members of the Athenian (Delian) league in exchange for tributes, euphemistically called contributions♣ - other euphemisms include protection for military occupation, prison was dwelling, an Athenian military defeat was to have a misfortune. Athenian citizens were granted homesteads in the colonies, cementing further their hold on them and squelching any moral objection from the participants. Many of the colonized though, even when they resented the politics of Athens, found its popular culture irresistible. But unlike the Roman empire, the benefits of citizenship were restricted to the progeny of Athenian citizens, exacerbating further the psychological gap between the rulers and the ruled. The professed objective of Athenian foreign policy was to aggressively promote democracies abroad in direct opposition to the more muted Spartan confederacy's preference for oligarchies.
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[One] way in which Herodotus' presentation of foreign languages resists an over-deterministic schematism is on the subject of the structure of language. The Greeks tended to see differences between languages as being differences in names. Learning a language was merely a process of 'learning names' (Dissoi Logoi DK B90 6 (12)). A sentence, in the phrase of Denyer, was merely a 'dollop of names'.[90] The same idea of 'language as nomenclature' is perhaps reflected in the characterisation of foreign languages through sounds, in the Homeric language of the gods, itself just a series of separate names, or in the remark of Hermogenes in Plato's Cratylus that 'different cities use different names for the same things' (Pl. Crat. 385d-e).[91]
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Herodotus did not remain in Thuria.... He probably returned to Athens sometime around 430. On at least three occasions Herodotus refers to incidents in the opening phases of the Peloponnesian War that tie up loose ends from earlier in the History.<48> These events, however, would have been too minor for someone living in southern Italy to have known about.<49> The city at this time was at the highest point of glory, and yet at the pinnacle of disaster, as it moved closer to war with Sparta. It is believed that he stayed in the city from 431-430, but the city was probably starting to loose its luster to the aging historian. Herodotus had already written about one war, he had little desire to write about another.
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Herodotus mentions an interview with an informant in Sparta, and almost certainly he lived for a period in Athens. In Athens, he obviously became familiar with the oral traditions of the prominent families, in particular the Alkmaeonidai, (to which Pericles belonged, on his maternal side). However, as the Athenians did not accept foreigners as citizens, Herodotus must have felt distinctly out of place there. Indeed, when Athens sought citizens for the Italian colony of Thurii in 444 BCE, Herodotus' name was, according to the Suda, among the willing. Whether or not he died in his adopted city is uncertain.
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Due to this 'abstract idea' of recording history, Herodotus and his contemporaries were undoubtedly ridiculed at first. just as redundant as a chair amidst a bunch of rocks. Except for a few, it is doubtful the public ever clamored for someone to prepare detailed historical accounts. Besides, or as another explanation, amidst the circulating tales (the common medium in ancient times) historical accounts would have seemed bland in comparison… boring. After all, storytellers are famous for spicing up a story, adding flair. In order to compete with these storytellers might explain why Herodotus spiced up his accounts.
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Herodotus is interested in the causes of the war he reports about, something that Homer was not. To the legendary bard, the Trojan War was nothing but a stage for the real drama, the wrath of Achilles. His wrath caused much grief, because Zeus wanted it so, but the causes of the war itself were unimportant. Homer did not explain how the Greeks and Trojans had come to blows. Herodotus has a lot to say about causality; it has his special interest.
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