11. The Ainos as Song or Speech: Pindar and Herodotus III

§1. On the level of content, we have seen some striking similarities between Pindaric song and Herodotean prose in conveying a moral message about the realities of wealth, power, and prestige. The actual tradition of such a moral message can be summed up in one word, ainos, a premier term of self-reference in the epinician medium of Pindar. Though we find no attestations of this term in the Histories of Herodotus, it is by now clear that this work is shaped by the principles of the ainos. Moreover, these principles are cognate with those of historiā ‘inquiry’, the medium of Herodotus. The authority of Herodotus is based on the traditional thought patterns of historiā, just as the authority of Pindar is based on those of the ainos. This relationship of historiā and ainos can best be seen wherever the prose of Herodotus, in order to demonstrate its authority, makes direct use of song, poetry, and other kinds of prose.

§2. I begin with an example where Herodotus deploys an actual ainos, in the specific sense of ‘fable’. We find it in Herodotus’ narrative of the overtures made by Persia to Argos, a passage that we have already considered in connection with the Persian manipulation of an Argive myth that would entitle Argos to hegemony over the Peloponnesus (7.150.1–2). [1] In this narrative Herodotus leaves open the possibility that Argos, in its ambition to achieve hegemony and gain the upper hand over its rival, Sparta, cooperated with the Persians and thus betrayed the Hellenes allied against Persia. After giving {314|315} the Argive version of what really happened (7.148.2–149.3), Herodotus reports three opposing versions.

§3. The first and least damaging of these versions is that Argos, in order to remain neutral toward Persia, deliberately set impossible terms for cooperation with Sparta (7.150.3). Second, Herodotus reports a version derived from Athenian sources, to the effect that the Persian king Artaxerxes, around the time of the Peace of Kallias, declared that no city was more dear to him than Argos (Herodotus 7.151). Then, after declaring that he is not certain whether these two versions are true, he exculpates the Argives by saying that even if these reports were true, the Argives would not thereby be guilty of the very worst deeds imaginable. In support of this thought Herodotus now speaks in a mode of ainos that is characteristic of Aesop’s Fables: [2] if all men, he says, were to bring to one place all their kaka ‘evils’, they would surely, upon seeing what the other man has, take back home whatever they had brought (Herodotus 7.152.2). [3] This formulation is strikingly similar to the attested fable of Aesop known as “The Two Packs,” likewise concerning the topic of one man’s perception of another man’s kaka ‘evils’ (Aesop Fable 266 Perry, Πῆραι δύο). Immediately after speaking in the mode of an ainos, Herodotus continues in the mode of one who conducts a historiā: It is only after exculpating the Argives in the mode of an ainos and after making this all-inclusive statement about his procedures in historiā that Herodotus gets around to the third and final negative version about the Argives: that they themselves, in their rivalry with the Spartans, had invited the Persians to invade Hellas (7.152.3).

§4. Having thus cushioned his negative reports about Argos, Herodotus assumes the stance of a fair and impartial arbitrator. This stance is obviously no longer evident to Greeks of later times, as when Plutarch, in his essay On the Malice of Herodotus, singles out this particular passage of Herodotus about Argos as a prime example of the author’s malicious disposition (Plutarch On the Malice of Herodotus 863b–864a). The equitable but always diplomatic approach of Herodotus to the varied interests and prejudices of the city-states in the period after the Persian Wars is lost on Plutarch, who {315|316} fails to observe the juridical dimension of what Herodotus has to say in the capacity of conducting a historiā ‘inquiry’. In order to appreciate this dimension, we would do well to compare the surviving Greek texts of international, that is, inter-polis arbitration.

§5. Let us consider, for example, an inscription recording the arbitration by King Lysimachus of Thrace, shortly before 281 B.C., of a territorial dispute between the states of Samos and Priene. [4] We may note in particular the phraseology that describes how the people of Priene presented their arguments: We may compare the phraseology used by Herodotus in describing a conflict of claims between the people of Sybaris and the people of Kroton: In this case, as in his account of the policies of Argos at the time of the Persian Wars, Herodotus goes so far in his impartiality as not even to express his {316|317} own opinion. [10] It suffices for him merely to conduct his historiā ‘inquiry’. Technically the historiā of Herodotus corresponds to the process of arbitration, not to the actual outcome.

§6. Even in actual cases of juridical arbitration, the procedures do not necessarily lead to a juridical outcome: the given dispute may in the end be settled out of court if the arbitrator finds a successful formula for mediation, that is, if he can induce the two parties to agree mutually to an out-of-court settlement. [11] Otherwise the arbitrator must resort to a juridical verdict as he pronounces a final assessment or award. As one expert puts it, “An arbitrator may mediate, but a mediator as such has no arbitral authority, and in the cases before us, where a solution could not be reached by mutual agreement, the court had the right and the duty of pronouncing an award which was binding upon both parties.” [12] In the dispute between Priene and Samos the verdict of the arbitrator, King Lysimachus, has aptly been described as follows:

§7. The status of the arbitrator may vary considerably, as we see from this description of a verdict rendered in yet another dispute between Priene and Samos: [14]

§8. The evidence used by the arbitrator also varies. In the case of the latter dispute between Priene and Samos, the records show that the arbitrators heard testimony in neutral territory, as also at the disputed territory, [16] whereupon, as they declare, ‘we arrived at our decision in accordance with what we have seen’ (ἐπο[ιησάμεθα τὰγ] κρίσιν κατὰ τὰ ὑφ’ | [ἁμῶν ἐφ]εοραμέ[να). [17] This figurative sense of ‘seeing’, clearly attested here in its juridical context of ‘knowing’, corresponds closely to the etymology of oida ‘know’ as ‘have seen’ and of histōr ‘witness, arbitrator’ as ‘he who has seen’. [18] The arbitrator is a superwitness who builds an all-encompassing knowledge of a situation by bringing together the knowledge of all those who bear witness, no matter what their status may be. The crucial factor is the witness’s knowledge of the facts, as we see strikingly illustrated in an inscription recording the arbitration of a dispute between Condaea and an unknown state, [19] where we are fortunate enough to have the actual deposition of an elderly shepherd who has known the disputed territory from boyhood:

§9. The juridical sense of ‘seeing’/‘knowing’ as the foundation of evidence in the process of inquiry must be kept in mind as we consider references to the use of historiā as evidence in inscriptions recording arbitrations. In some cases such historiai can be identified as known literary works, such as the Histories of Duris of Samos. [21] Even here, however, the juridical heritage of the word historiā comes through: in the eyes of the law, historiā as ‘inquiry’—even if it also happens to be a literary achievement—is a juridical process. This is as it should be, if indeed the concept of historiā is derived from the juridical concept of arbitration, as still reflected in the noun histōr ‘witness, arbitrator’. This legal point of view, that historiā even as “history” is still a juridical process, can best be seen in the phraseological combination of apo-deixis ‘public display’ with historiographoi ‘writers of histories’ in an inscription recording admissible evidence for an arbitration. [22] We are reminded that the historiā of Herodotus is technically the apodeixis of his historiā (Herodotus prooemium). As for the inscription that we are now considering, there is more to the interesting phraseological combination of apo-deixis ‘public display’ with historiographoi ‘writers of histories’: besides ‘writers of history’, we see poiētai ‘poets’ also mentioned in the same context, so that the apo-deixis of historians is parallel to that of poets in the eyes of the law.

§10. In this context we may recall the explicit association of the concept of apo-deixis with both logioi ‘masters of speech’ and aoidoi ‘masters of song’ in the traditional phraseology of Pindar. [23] For another interesting illustration of such parallelism, I cite the report of Tacitus on the arbitration of a territorial dispute between Sparta and Messenia by the Roman Senate in A.D. 25: the envoys of the Spartans had used as evidence the annalium memoria vatumque carmina ‘records of annals and the songs of poets’ (Annals 4.43), while the Messenians countered by pointing to the presence of certain ancient statues as evidence for the division of the Peloponnesus among the Herakleidai, the Sons of Herakles (ibid.), and added that si vatum, annalium ad testimonia vocentur, plures sibi ac locupletiores esse ‘if they were to cite the evidence of poets and annals, they would have at their disposal more and richer sources’ (ibid.).

§11. It is clear that the juridical value of historiā, as something parallel to poetry, is not confined to the furnishing of factual evidence in our narrowest {319|320} sense of the word: the admissible evidence to be used in the process of arbitration can include traditional myths as attested by both historiā and poetry. So also in the Oratio Deliaca of Hyperides, a speech delivered on behalf of Athens’ claim to the administration of the Delian Sanctuary in a case of international (again in the sense of inter-polis) arbitration: here the author’s copious treatment of myths about the wanderings of Leto and the birth of Apollo and Artemis can be connected with the remark of Maximus Planudes to the effect that Hyperides, ‘desirous of proving that the Delian sanctuaries belonged of old time to the Athenians, has made great use of mythology’ (Maximus Planudes ad h.l.t. V, p. 481 Walz, = Oratores Attici ii, p. 392 ed. Didot).

§12. For further examples of the use of myths as evidence in cases of arbitration, we have not only the testimony of inscriptions (e.g., SIG 665.35–36) but also such specific anecdotes as the one about Solon’s citing two verses from the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Iliad II 557–558) to the Spartan arbitrators of a territorial dispute between Athens and Megara over the island of Salamis in 519/518 B.C. (Plutarch Life of Solon 10). [24] In Plutarch’s account the specific word that designates Solon’s actual citing of the given verses is apo-deik-numai, the verb of apo-deixis ‘public display’ (Solon 10.3). Again we see that poetry, the voice of myth, is a source of authority compatible with the juridical process of arbitration.

§13. There is even an instance where the poetic voice can become the vehicle of arbitration. Thucydides reports that the Corcyraeans, in their dispute with the Corinthians, were willing to submit this dispute to arbitration by the Delphic Oracle (1.28). [25] The choice of the Delphic Oracle as an arbitrator was entertained as a course of action only by the Corcyraeans, not by the Corinthians, and the Corcyraeans did so only as a last resort, so that the choice was in fact unusual. [26] This distinctness of the Delphic Oracle as arbitrator is a function of its poetic mode of communication. In a standard book that surveys the attestations of arbitrations, we find only one instance where the Delphic Oracle actually served as arbitrator, in a dispute between Klazomenai and Kyme over the territory of Leuke, [27] and we can see immediately the distinctness of the situation: “no board of judges is appointed, no inquiry is held, no witnesses are heard.” [28] Instead the Oracle simply issues a poetic {320|321} utterance: in the paraphrase of Diodorus, the Oracle says that it awards Leuke to ‘whichever state is the first to sacrifice at Leuke, but each must start out from their own territory at sunrise on the same day, which should be fixed by common agreement’ (15.18.2). The utterance left considerable room for interpretation: the citizens of Klazomenai quickly founded a settlement that was closer to Leuke and thereby gained the necessary head start to arrive at this destination before the citizens of Kyme (Diodorus 15.18.3).

§14. Despite its authority, then, the utterance of the Delphic Oracle is ambiguous even in cases of arbitration: like the ainos, the spoken word of the Oracle here again functions as a code containing at least two messages, as the citizens of Kyme must have discovered to their distress. [29] The ambiguity of the Oracle may account for its apparently limited use as a court of last resort, but it diminishes in no way its actual authority in upholding the process and even the ideology of arbitration: in fact the sanctuary of the Delphic Oracle was a traditional site for inscribing the records of awards in cases of interpolis arbitration. [30]

§15. I have gone into all this detail in considering the Hellenic institution of inter-polis arbitration because its juridical procedures match so closely the methods used by Herodotus in conducting his historiā ‘inquiry’. As in a case of arbitration, he consistently records divergent as well as convergent testimony and declares his duty to report whatever is being said. A particularly striking illustration is the stance that he takes in considering charges of collaboration between Argos and Persia. [31] As in a typical case of arbitration, moreover, Herodotus too admits as evidence the testimony of historians and poets. We see him, for example, critically examining the findings of his predecessor, Hecataeus of Miletus (e.g., Herodotus 2.143.1, 6.137.1). [32] Also, we see him frequently referring to poetry and song: besides Homer (2.23, 2.53.2; 2.116, etc.) and Hesiod (2.53.2, 3; 4.32), he manages to mention in one context or another such figures as Archilochus (1.12.2), Anacreon (3.121.1), Sappho (2.135), Alcaeus (5.95), Simonides (5.102.3, 7.228.4), Pindar (3.38.4)—whom he explicitly paraphrases (= Pindar F 169.1 SM)—and Aeschylus (2.156.6). Even more frequently Herodotus refers to and quotes the poetic utterances of oracles, especially of the Delphic Oracle.

§16. In view of the established authority of the Delphic Oracle as the repository for recording awards in actual cases of arbitration, it is important to note again the function of the Oracle in the Histories of Herodotus as the ultimate {321|322} authority in assessing who was aitios ‘responsible, guilty’ in the ultimate conflict that he narrates. The guilt of the tyrant Croesus is determined immediately by the authority of Herodotus, who ‘indicates’ (verb sēmainō) who is guilty as he conducts a historiā ‘inquiry’, and ultimately by the authority of Apollo, who is described by Heraclitus as ‘indicating’ (again, verb sēmainō) his messages through his ambiguous but authoritative Oracle, and whose true message becomes in the end manifest through the narration of Herodotus. [33] In the end the ambiguous code of Apollo arbitrates the conflict between Europeans and Asiatics through the historiā of Herodotus.

§17. Though Plutarch does not recognize the juridical stance inherent in the narrative of Herodotus, [34] he does observe condescendingly that this narrative is delivered in a mode that resembles that of Aesop’s fables. Moreover, Plutarch is making this specific observation in the context of condemning what he deems to be the malice of Herodotus in his use of the utterances of the Delphic Oracle. After quoting a passage in the Histories where Herodotus is paraphrasing an utterance of the Oracle in favor of the Aeginetans and at the expense of the Athenians (Herodotus 8.122–123), Plutarch goes on to say: This observation about Herodotus, pejorative though it is, hits the mark in calling our attention to an affinity between his form of discourse and that of Aesop. Technically a fable of Aesop is an ainos, [36] and the Life of Aesop tradition shows that fables of Aesop, as he is said to have told them, were {322|323} delivered in the ambiguous manner of the ainos, where whatever he says has both an explicit and an implicit meaning—the implication to be derived from the context in which he speaks. [37]

§18. For example, Aesop tells his fable of “The Wolves, the Dogs, and the Sheep” [38] to the citizens of Samos, with the implicit meaning that the Lydian king Croesus is like the wolves, that he is like the dogs, and that the Samians are like the sheep. [39] At the moment Croesus is demanding that the Samians extradite Aesop, who had saved them as a dog saves sheep from the wolf, by having already told them another fable, “The Path of Freedom and the Path of Slavery.” [40] According to this fable the path of freedom is harsh [41] at the beginning and pleasant at the end, while the path of slavery is the opposite. The path of slavery is characterized specifically by its initial truphē ‘luxuriance’, to be followed later by harshness. [42] In response to this fable the Samians had decided to accept the path of freedom [43] and had rejected the earlier demand of Croesus that they pay him tribute. [44] We are reminded of the lessons to be learned from the Croesus story of Herodotus, who authoritatively accuses the Lydian tyrant of being aitios ‘responsible’ for the ultimate conflict between Hellenes and Asiatics (1.5.3 in the context of 1.1.1, 1.2.1, and 1.3.4) precisely because he was the first barbarian, according to Herodotus, who reduced Hellenic cities to the status of tributaries (1.6.2). [45]

§19. Later on in the same Life of Aesop narrative, Aesop voluntarily visits the court of Croesus and warns the king not to kill him, on account of the blame that would be incurred through such a deed; he reinforces this warning by telling the Lydian tyrant the fable of “The Poor Man and the Cicada”: [46] a poor man, who resorts to eating locusts in order to stay alive, happens to catch a cicada, who pleads for his life on the grounds that he does not harm {323|324} men by robbing them of their possessions, as locusts do, but instead benefits them through his song, ‘and you will find nothing more in me than my voice’. [47] The last phrase amounts to a warning: in a fragment of an earlier master of the ainos, Archilochus, [48] we see that the cicada is a master of blame whenever he is wronged (F 223 W). [49] Croesus responds to the warning by sparing the life of Aesop and offering to grant him a favor; Aesop then asks for and is granted a peaceful settlement between the Lydians and the Samians. [50]

§20. In this way further meaning comes to light from the sēmeion ‘sign’ [51] that Aesop had partially interpreted at the beginning of his dealings with the citizens of Samos. [52] At a meeting of the Samian assembly, an eagle had seized and flown away with a ring to be worn by whoever was to be newly elected as ‘guardian’ of the city’s laws. [53] Then the eagle had returned and dropped the ring in the lap of a slave. At the beginning Aesop had interpreted the sēmeion ‘sign’ [54] by drawing a parallel connecting the eagle with Croesus and the transfer of the ring to the slave with the shift from autonomy to tributary status for Samos. [55] As a reward for his interpretation, however, Aesop demands and is granted emancipation from his own status as slave. [56] In the end, then, the chain of events leads to the further interpretation that Aesop himself has effectively become the true guardian of the laws of the Samians. This quasi-juridical stance of Aesop should be kept in mind as we approach the topic of parallelisms between Aesop and Solon in the stories of their encounters with Croesus of Lydia. [57]

§21. With these examples of Aesop’s fables in mind, we return to the proposition that Plutarch’s pejorative comparison of Herodotus with Aesop is apt. Herodotus too, as we have seen, can speak in the manner of the ainos, occasionally even telling an outright fable [58] and frequently manipulating the {324|325} Hellenic perspective, as Plutarch charges, by applying to Scythians, Persians, or Egyptians what really applies to Hellenes (On the Malice of Herodotus 871d). [59] In fact the language of Herodotus himself provides testimony that his own tradition of discourse and that of Aesop are related: in an incidental mention of Aesop, Herodotus refers to him as a logopoios ‘artisan of speech’ (Αἰσώπου τοῦ λογοποιοῦ Herodotus 2.134.3). [60] This word logopoios is used by Herodotus to refer to his own predecessor, Hecataeus of Miletus (e.g., Ἑκαταίῳ τῷ λογοποιῷ Herodotus 2.143.1). [61] Moreover, in the same context where Herodotus incidentally mentions Aesop as a logopoios ‘artisan of speech’, he mentions the poet Sappho as a mousopoios ‘artisan of song’ (Σαπφοῦς τῆς μουσοποιοῦ Herodotus 2.135.1), and the juxtaposition here of logopoios/mousopoios in the language of Herodotus seems perfectly parallel to the juxtapositon of logios/aoidos ‘master of speech/song’ in the language of Pindar. [62] In fact we have seen that Herodotus is by implication a logios, a ‘master of speech’ whose function is parallel to that of a Pindar as aoidos, a ‘master of song’. [63]

§22. Mention of this juxtaposition not only brings us back to the starting point of our discussion, where we had considered the comparative evidence of {325|326} Pindar’s language in investigating the essence of Herodotus’ historiā. It also brings us to a confrontation with a crucial difference between Aesop and Herodotus, Plutarch notwithstanding: whereas the ainos of Aesop the slave, in line with Aesop’s own social position, is lowly, [64] that of Herodotus is elevated. As such, the implicit ainos of Herodotus as logios has more in common with the ainos of a figure like Pindar, whose epinician lyric poetry overtly refers to itself as ainos. [65] Though Plutarch may begrudge Herodotus the quoting of oracles as a way of conveying a message (again On the Malice of Herodotus 871d), such a procedure seems perfectly in keeping with the lofty stance of a man who himself sēmainei ‘indicates’ from a superior position of knowledge akin to that of the oracles. [66] In fact the prose of Herodotus can combine with the poetry of oracles to convey the same sort of message that is conveyed by the uninterrupted lyric poetry of Pindar.

§23. I close this part of the presentation with an illustration of this principle, where we juxtapose a given Herodotean passage with a corresponding Pindaric one. It seems fitting that the message of both the Herodotean and the Pindaric passages about to be quoted concerns an admonition about the evils of hubris. First, let us look at the passage taken from Herodotus, where the sequence of thought runs through a stretch of prose/poetry/back to prose: Now let us examine the analogous passage taken from Pindar, where the sequence of thought runs through a stretch of uninterrupted lyric poetry:

§24. This juxtaposition of passages from Herodotus and Pindar, revealing important convergences in theme as well as divergences in style, leads to a fundamental observation about both the logioi ‘masters of speech’ and the aoidoi ‘masters of song’, who are both treated as conveyors of kleos ‘glory’ in the words of Pindar. [71] We can see from these juxtaposed passages that the logios and the aoidos are parallel not only as masters of kleos: they are parallel also in what they have to say, that is, in the message that they impart. As for the code of this message, it is explicitly designated as ainos in the diction of the aoidos ‘master of song’ as exemplified by Pindar. [72] In the diction of the logios as exemplified by Herodotus, however, the corresponding designation is reserved for only one aspect of the code, and that is the poetry, not the prose. In the code of the logios, the explicit message is in prose, while the implicit message is to be found in the poetry as bracketed or paraphrased by the prose. A positive example of this code, as presented by Herodotus, is the sum total of his own Histories, which consistently bear out the messages of the Delphic Oracle and other such sources of authority. A typical negative example on the other hand is evident in the narrative of Herodotus about the collaboration of Onomakritos, singer of oracular utterances, with the Peisistratidai and Aleuadai, tyrants respectively of Athens and Thessaly: Onomakritos is pictured in the act of ‘singing oracular utterances [khrēsmoi]’ for the purpose of persuading the Great King of Persia (χρησμῳδέων 7.6.5), with the active support of the Peisistratidai and the Aleuadai, who reinforce what he sings by publicly presenting their own supporting judgment (γνώμας ἀποδεικνύμενοι ibid.). [73] The kind of poetry that is bracketed or paraphrased by the prose of the logios qualifies as ainigma, derivative of ainos, as we see in the use of ainissomai ‘utter riddles’ in the expression αἰνίσσεσθαι τάδε τὰ ἔπεα ‘to utter in a riddling way the following words’ at Herodotus 5.56.1, the end of a prose sequence introducing the quotation of an utterance, in dactylic hexameters, of an oracular dream. [74] Once the poetry of the ainigma is {328|329} quoted, Herodotus can return to a mode of explicit communication; he therefore reverts to prose.

§25. Herodotus then is like Pindar not only in his self-professed intent to convey kleos. [75] He is also like Pindar in his mastery of the ainos, though his medium is not ainos: rather, it contains ainos. For Herodotus, the heritage of ainos is to be found in the traditions of poetry and song making as they are contained and applied in his Histories by way of quotation, paraphrase, or mere reference.

§26. Even if the medium of Herodotus cannot be called ainos in form, it is parallel to the ainos of a poet like Pindar in both function and content. Just as the songs of Pindar profess the function of upholding kleos, bringing the values of the heroic past into the present, [76] so too the Histories of Herodotus, as he declares in his prooemium. [77]

§27. This observation about the function of the traditional forms represented by Pindar and Herodotus can be extended to the level of content as well: just as Pindaric song dwells on the mystical possession of the lyric moment by the epic past of heroes, so too the narrative of Herodotean inquiry falls under the spell of active interventions by the heroes of cult and epic. Let us begin with Pindar: in his songs the heroic past is at times represented as literally intervening into the present through the epiphany of a hero, as when the voice of the poet says that he “met” the hero Alkmaion on the way to Delphi (Pythian 8.56–60). [78] In such a context the poet is possessed by the epiphany, in that the intent of his words is controlled by the spirit of the hero. Thus the subtitle of this book, The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past, cuts two ways: while lyric possesses epic as its property, as we have seen from the programmatic assertions of lyric authority to appropriate the content of epic, [79] lyric is also mystically possessed by epic, in that the heroes of epic assert their will, which becomes the content of lyric. [80] So too with Herodotus: the content of his Histories, the narrative, is allowed to be controlled, or at least affected, by the will of heroes. The outcome of a given narrative is frequently marked by an intervention, perceived by the characters within the narrative, of a hero who mystically manifests himself on the scene, as when Herodotus narrates the reports about an epiphany by the local heroes Phylakos and Autonoos in defense of Delphi from the invading Persians (8.34–39). At the very end of the Histories, the first hero who died in the primary epic setting of the Trojan War, Protesilaos, figuratively comes back from the dead to exact retribution {329|330} and gives meaning to the portent of the preserved fish that come back to life: with this portent the hero Protesilaos literally sēmainei ‘indicates’ the power of the divine apparatus in bringing about an ultimately just outcome (Herodotus 9.120.2). Meanwhile, the narrative of Herodotus is conveying the same message, that the Hellenes were in the right when they struggled with the common enemy in the Persian War: thus not only the hero gives a sēma ‘sign’ here, but Herodotus too, as the narrator of this sēma, who already at the very beginning of his inquiry sēmainei or ‘indicates’ that the Asians started it all (again Herodotus 1.5.3). [81]

§28. Although Herodotus veils the divine apparatus that is at work in his narrative, habitually distancing himself from expressing his own adherence to a world view that is predicated on the gods and heroes of the Hellenes, he nevertheless allows that divine apparatus to work its will in the narrative so that the program of themes in his Histories matches what we find in actual poetry and song. Thus, for example, in his narrative of the sea battle at Artemisium, Herodotus notes that the wind that scattered the Persian fleet before the battle was known to the local Greek population as the Hellēspontiēs ‘the one from the Hellespont’ (1.188.2), a detail that conjures up the idea that the divine apparatus was at work in this event. This idea can be reconstructed from two interconnected themes. First, from the standpoint of epic, the Hellespont is associated with Achilles, whose tomb is prominently located there (e.g., Odyssey xxiv 80–84; called sēma at Iliad XXIII 257). [82] Second, the Persians react to this detail of the name Hellēspontiēs by associating it with Achilles, by way of his mother Thetis: after the naval disaster they supplicated Thetis for fear that they had angered her since Thetis had been abducted by Peleus—and thus Achilles had been conceived—near the very locale where their fleet had been scattered by the wind (7.191.2). [83] The linking of the wind that scattered the Persian fleet before the sea battle at Artemisium with the divine apparatus of poetic traditions is reinforced by another detail reported by Herodotus, namely, that the Athenians on this occasion sacrificed and prayed to Boreas the North Wind and his consort Oreithyia to scatter the fleet of the Persians (7.189). This detail in the narrative program of Herodotus links it with the narrative program of a composition by Simonides, The Sea Battle of Artemisium (PMG 532–535), which seems to have featured prominently the theme of the divine intervention of Boreas and Oreithyia in the Battle of Artemisium (cf. PMG 534). [84] {330|331}

§29. The similarities between Herodotus and a master of choral lyric like Simonides extend beyond such parallel treatments of themes linked with the divine apparatus of gods and heroes: even the modes of treating these themes are parallel. As in the songs of figures like Simonides and Pindar, we can see in the prose of Herodotus an approach to myth that shades over local features while it highlights the Panhellenic ones. Even on the level of diction, we have already noted the common pattern of avoidance, in both Pindar and Herodotus, of the word mūthos ‘myth’ with its connotations of surviving links between local myth and local ritual. [85] In dismissing the authority of a tradition that happens to have been accepted by his predecessor, Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus refers to this particular tradition as a mūthos (2.23.1). [86] Just as Hecataeus asserts the Panhellenism of his own discourse by simultaneously claiming control of alēthea ‘truth’ and dismissing the reports of his predecessors as localized myths tied to localized rituals (FGH 1 F 1), so also Herodotus aims at an ever higher degree of universalism by undermining his own predecessor, Hecataeus. [87]

§30. Like Pindar, Herodotus not only dissociates himself from mūthos: he also consistently highlights the more Panhellenic aspects of the Greek mythmaking traditions, while shading over the more localized ones. For example, he mentions at 5.94.2–95.2 a conflict between Athens and Mytilene over a disputed territory in the region of Troy, where the focal points are the “Trojan” Sigeion (cf. Herodotus 4.38.2), an outpost of Athenian power, and the Akhilleion, a rival outpost controlled by Mytilene (Herodotus 5.94.1–2), but he avoids in this context a local narrative tradition, native to Lesbos, concerning a victory of Mytilene over Athens in the form of a duel to the death between Phrynon of Athens, an Olympic winner, and Pittakos of Mytilene, tyrant and lawgiver, as recorded in Diogenes Laertius 1.74 and Strabo 13.1.38 C599–600, where Pittakos succeeded in slaying Phrynon (cf. Plutarch On the Malice of Herodotus 858ab). In their reports of the tradition, Diogenes Laertius and Strabo agree that the Mytilenaeans won in this particular conflict, only to lose later in an arbitration undertaken by Periandros, Tyrant of Corinth (this aspect of the tradition is not omitted in Herodotus 5.95.2). [88] While omitting the story about the victory of Pittakos, as a representative of Mytilene, over the Athenians, Herodotus includes a story that he says he knows from a poem of Alcaeus: the speaker of the poem declares that he has abandoned his armor when he fled after a battle between Mytilene and Athens, a battle won by the Athenians, and that this armor is now hanging as a trophy in the precinct of Athena at the Athenian outpost of {331|332} Sigeion (Herodotus 5.95.1–2; see Alcaeus F 401B V). Instead of using a story about the defeat of Athens by Pittakos of Mytilene, Herodotus chooses a story about the defeat of Mytilene by Athens, as experienced by Alcaeus of Mytilene, who happens to be the self-declared enemy of Pittakos (e.g., Alcaeus F 70, 348, 429 V).

§31. In fact one aspect of the Panhellenic stance of Herodotus is the frequency of his cross references to poets who had become or were becoming canonical by the fifth century B.C. Besides Alcaeus (5.95), Herodotus also mentions Archilochus (1.12.2), [89] Anacreon (3.121.1), [90] Sappho (2.135), Simonides (5.102.3, 7.228.4), and even Pindar (3.38.4), whom he explicitly paraphrases (= Pindar F 169.1 SM). [91] To this list we may add figures like Arion, master of the dithyramb at Corinth (1.23), [92] and Aeschylus, master of the medium of tragedy at Athens (2.156.6). The Histories also include cross-references to Homer (2.23, 2.53.2, 3; 2.116) and Hesiod (2.53.2, 3; 4.32). [93]

§32. Besides the numerous cross references to canonical poets, we have observed another Panhellenic trend in Herodotus, that is, the even more numerous cross references to the poetry of oracles, especially the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. [94] The oracular poetry that is bracketed or paraphrased by the Histories of Herodotus qualifies as ainigma, derivative of ainos: we have seen this in the use of ainissomai ‘utter riddles’ in the expression αἰνίσσεσθαι τάδε τὰ ἔπεα ‘to utter in a riddling way the following words’ at Herodotus 5.56.1, the end of a prose sequence that introduces the quotation of an utterance, in dactylic hexameters, of an oracular dream. [95] To repeat: once the poetry of the ainigma is quoted, Herodotus can return to a mode of explicit communication, and he therefore reverts to prose. Alternatively Herodotus may stay within the medium of prose as he paraphrases the messages that can elsewhere be found in poetic wisdom, as we see in his central story of the encounter between Solon the Sage and Croesus the Tyrant. [96] Even in such situations, however, the direct quotations of Solon as he addresses Croesus, though in prose, function as the equivalent of the direct quotations of Solon in the poetic tradition that is attributed to him. [97] {332|333}

§33. The use of traditions in oracular poetry and wisdom poetry in the Histories of Herodotus, where the form of prose coexists and interacts with forms of poetry, [98] is analogous to such forms of expression as represented by the Lives of the Seven Sages tradition. [99] The traditions about Solon, described as the wisest of the Seven Sages in Plato (Timaeus 20d), [100] follow this pattern of ad hoc poetry bracketed by prose that situates the supposedly historical contexts of the Sage’s advice, as reflected for example in Diogenes Laertius 1.49, with the reworked prose narrative bracketing the poetry of Solon F 10 W. [101]

§34. The Panhellenic character of the very concept of the Seven Sages is reflected not only by their canonical status but even by the collectivization of their sayings: as we know from the testimony of Plato, it was believed that they were collectively responsible for such sayings as γνῶθι σεαυτόν ‘know yourself’ and μηδὲν ἄγαν ‘nothing in excess’, which were inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi (Protagoras 343a-b). In light of such Panhellenism inherent in the Seven Sages theme, it is worthy of note that the cross references in Herodotus to figures eligible for inclusion in the canonical grouping of the Seven Sages are even more frequent than his cross references to the canonical grouping of lyric poets: [102]

• Thales of Miletus: 1.74.2, 75.3, 170.3
• Solon of Athens: 1.29.1, 30.1, 31.1, 32.1, 34.1, 86.3, 5; 2.177.2; 5.113.2
• Khilon of Sparta: 1.59.2, 3 (as warner about Peisistratos the Tyrant), 7.235.2
• Pittakos, Tyrant of Mytilene: 1.27.2 (as foil for Solon)
• Bias of Priene: 1.27.2 (as foil for Solon), 170.1, 3
• Anacharsis the Thracian: 4.46.1, 76.1–6 (γῆν πολλὴν θεωρήσας καὶ {333|334} ἀποδεξάμενος κατ’ αὐτὴν σοφίην πολλὴν ἐκομίζετο ἐς ἤθεα τὰ Σκυθέων ‘having made a theōriā [103] over many lands and having publicly presented [= verb apo-deik-numai] throughout these lands much skill in discourse [= sophiā], he brought it back [i.e., the sophiā] to the tribes of the Scythians’ 1.76.2) [104]
• Periandros, Tyrant of Corinth: 5.95.2 (as arbitrator between Athens and Mytilene; omission, in this context, of Pittakos, Tyrant of Mytilene); also 1.20, 23, 24.1, 24.7; 3.48.2, 49.1, 50.1, 50.3, 51.1–3, 52.1, 3, 6, 7, 53.1, 2, 6, 7; 5.92ζ1, 2, 3; η1, 2, 3, 95.2.

§35. The close association of the sayings of the Seven Sages with the sayings of the Delphic Oracle, as emphasized in Plato’s Protagoras (again 343a-b), is parallel to the association of Solon’s message with the message of the Oracle in the Croesus narrative of Herodotus. The warnings of Solon the Sage to Croesus the Tyrant combine with the warnings of the Oracle of Apollo in conveying the overall ethical message of the Croesus story in Herodotus, which is encoded in the mode of an ainos. [105] The use of oracular poetry in the prose of Herodotus was condemned by Plutarch as akin to the fable making of Aesop (On the Malice of Herodotus 871d), [106] and in fact the utterances of Aesop as framed by the Life of Aesop tradition function in the mode of ainos. [107] Plutarch’s pejorative comparison of Herodotus with Aesop is justified to the extent that Herodotus too can speak in the manner of the ainos, occasionally even telling an outright fable. [108] In this connection I cite again the distinction, made by the scholia to Aristophanes Birds 471, between Aesopic and ‘Sybaritic’ fables: whereas the Aesopic discourse concentrates on animals, the ‘Sybaritic’ concentrates on humans. [109] Inasmuch as Herodotus is said to have settled, died, and been buried in Thourioi (Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Θούριοι), a polis founded ostensibly as a Panhellenic venture, with the involvement of both Athens and Sparta (Diodorus 12.10–11), at a site where once stood the city of Sybaris, that ultimate symbol of luxuriance and the hubris that goes with it, [110] I have argued that the setting of Thourioi as a reborn and reformed Sybaris would have been an ideal context for a reaffirmation of the values that bind Hellenes together in an ultimate {334|335} conflict against hubris. [111] In this kind of context, the composition of ‘Sybaritic’ discourse could serve the purpose of ethical instruction for the body politic in an exalted sense of including all Hellenes, and we may note again that the reference in Aristophanes Wasps 1258–1260 to two kinds of discourse appropriate for learned merriment, the Aesopic and the ‘Sybaritic’ (Subaritikoi), includes the specific point that both kinds are to be learned at the symposium. [112]

§36. The language of Herodotus provides indirect testimony that his own tradition of discourse and that of Aesop are related: in an incidental mention of Aesop, Herodotus refers to him as a logopoios ‘artisan of speech’ (Αἰσώπου τοῦ λογοποιοῦ Herodotus 2.134.3), and this same word logopoios is used by Herodotus to refer to his own predecessor, Hecataeus of Miletus (e.g., Ἑκαταίῳ τῷ λογοποιῷ Herodotus 2.143.1). [113] Moreover, in the same context where Herodotus mentions Aesop as a logopoios ‘artisan of speech’, he mentions the poet Sappho as a mousopoios ‘artisan of song’ (Σαπφοῦς τῆς μουσοποιοῦ Herodotus 2.135.1), and this juxtaposition parallels that of logios/aoidos ‘master of speech/song’ in the language of Pindar. [114]

§37. The parallelisms between the discourse of Herodotus and that of such masters of ainos as Aesop on one extreme and Pindar on the other bring to mind yet another example of the Herodotean use of ainos, that is, the frequent references throughout the Histories to the symbol of the hēmionos ‘mule’, as introduced in an oracular utterance of Apollo, addressed to the tyrant Croesus of Lydia, concerning the birth of Cyrus, the once and future founder of the Persian Empire: like a mule—born of a socially superior mother, the horse, and of an inferior father, the donkey—so also Cyrus is born of a mother who is a Mede and a father who is a Persian (Herodotus 1.55.2, 1.91.5).

§38. I have saved for last this particular example of ainos-making in Herodotus because it resonates simultaneously with the social loftiness of Pindar and the lowliness of Aesop. Let us consider Aesop as he is represented in Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Sages (150a): at the banquet held in the banquet hall of the Tyrant-Sage Periandros of Corinth, Aesop is given a place next to Solon, but he is seated on a diphros ‘low chair’; it is in this context that Aesop tells the fable of “The Lydian Mule”: a mule, seeing his own image reflected in a river, is struck with self-admiration and starts galloping like a horse, proudly tossing his mane, but then, suddenly realizing that he is the son of an ass, he stops running, and his spirit is broken for good (ibid.). [115] {335|336}

§39. The symbol of the mule in Greek traditions of myth and ritual serves to define, as a negative foil, the very essence of political power and legitimacy. Let us consider again the ideology of the Olympic Games, that ultimate symbol of power and sovereignty. [116] In line with this ideology, it is tabu to breed mules within the territory that serves as the setting for the Games, the region of Elis, and in fact it is said to be impossible to do so (Herodotus 4.30.1); for that reason, during the season when the female horses of that region are in heat, they are herded outside Elis to be mated with male donkeys (4.30.2; Pausanias 5.5.2; Plutarch Greek Questions 52, 303b). The breeding of mules outside Elis, setting for the Olympics, is a foil for the implied breeding of thoroughbred horses inside Elis, as conveyed by the name of Hippodameia, containing the theme of horses and their taming or domination. The marriage of this figure Hippodameia to Pelops constitutes the archetype of political domination in the Peloponnesus. [117] By extension, the symbol of the mule as applied to Cyrus, founder of the Persian Empire and archetypal threat to Greek civilization, serves as a foil for the purebred legitimacy of Pelops as the dynastic prototype of the Hellenes and, in that capacity, as the preeminent hero of the Olympic Games. [118]

§40. Such a foil of illegitimacy does not have to be foreign: the symbol of the mule is a traditional theme for testing the essence of sovereignty in Hellenic myths native to the Peloponnesus. There is, for example, a story native to Elis about one Oxylos, described as the driver of a mule, whose advice to the Herakleidai was the key to their occupation of the Peloponnesus (Pausanias 5.3.5–6). In return for his advice Oxylos was awarded possession of Elis (ibid.), which is the setting of the Olympic Games. This same Oxylos is credited with the invention of the astrabē ‘mule saddle’ (scholia to Pindar Pythian 5.10b Drachmann). In view of the Spartan connections of Oxylos (Pausanias 5.4.1–2), we may note the riddling story in Herodotus 6.67–69 about the Spartan hero Astrabakos, whose name means something like ‘the one with the mule saddle’. [119] In this complex story as reported by Herodotus, {336|337} the hero Astrabakos took the place of King Ariston of Sparta in impregnating the queen, begetting King Demaratos, according to the story within a story told to Demaratos by his mother (6.69.1–5); according to the detractors of King Demaratos of Sparta, in contrast, he was begotten not by Ariston, nor by the hero Astrabakos, but by some onophorbos, a ‘stable boy who tends donkeys’ (6.68.2, 69.5). Now hēmionoi ‘mules’ are known to be sterile, and they are said to give birth only by miracle (e.g., Herodotus 3.151.2–153.2). Moreover, before King Ariston married the queen who gave birth to Demaratos, he had two previous wives with whom he had failed to produce children (Herodotus 6.61.1–2). It seems then that the theme of the stable boy who tends donkeys is linked with the meaning of ‘mule’ implicit in the name of Astrabakos. There is an air of illegitimacy conjured up by this name. [120] There is also an air of illegitimacy about Demaratos, which seems connected with the themes of his formal disqualification as king (Herodotus 6.65.3–67.3), his subsequent escape from Sparta (6.70.1–2), and, most important, his role as a prominent advisor of Xerxes when the Persians invade Hellas (e.g., 7.101–104). [121] There is room for speculation that had Xerxes succeeded in conquering the Greeks, Demaratos would have been installed by the Persians as an unconstitutional tyrant of the Peloponnesus. [122] Since Astrabakos belongs to the royal patriliny of the Agiadai (Pausanias 3.16.9), while Ariston stems from the Eurypontidai, it has even been suggested that “a Eurypontid king with an Agiad divine father would seem ideally suited for replacing the Spartan dual kingship by a monarchy.” [123] In this connection we may note the remark of Herodotus that Demaratos was the only Spartan king up to that time ever to have won in the chariot races at the Olympic Games (6.70.5). Such a feat promotes the kind of legitimation that is sought by tyrants. [124] While giving such feats their due, the narrative of Herodotus, consistently inimical as it is to the institution of tyranny, undercuts the legitimation that goes with it.

§41. This theme brings us finally to the glorification of such legitimation, as conferred by the epinician themes inherited through the songmaking traditions of Pindar. Just as Herodotus parallels the lowly Aesop with themes of ainos reminiscent of the fable, so also he parallels the lofty Pindar, again {337|338} with themes of ainos, this time reminiscent of the epinician ode. But these themes are used by Herodotus not to promote the legitimation of those who seek or already possess power. Rather they are there to undercut such legitimation; thus the themes are consistently historicized and therefore demystified. Let us take, for example, the exalted theme of phuē ‘nature’, which is contrasted with the foil of artificial glorification in order to convey “a natural and spontaneous enthusiasm that is divinely inspired” in epinician songmaking (as in Pindar Olympian 2.86, Nemean 1.25). [125] In contrast, the concept of phuē in Herodotus is presented in an ambiguous context, where the resources of culture, of artifice, are being used by the tyrant in order to manipulate nature. In a celebrated story of Herodotus about the seizure of political power by Peisistratos of Athens, Phuē is the name of a stunningly beautiful woman, three finger-lengths short of four cubits in stature, whom Peisistratos dresses up in full armor and with whom he then rides from the countryside into the city of Athens (1.60.4). Heralds have prepared the way, announcing the news that Athena herself is installing Peisistratos as the supreme power; the populace, when they see Phuē on the chariot, recognize her as Athena and accept the domination of Peisistratos (1.60.5). [126] The natural endowments of a beautiful woman have been manipulated by the artifice of a tyrant—an artifice comparable to the strategies of epinician ainos. In his public presentation of Phuē, Peisistratos has brought to life a central metaphor of the epinician tradition. [127] In the ideology of epinician songmaking, phuē ‘nature’ represents those spontaneous occasions when “the subject must speak for itself.” [128] In the ideology of Herodotean ainos, such a spontaneous occasion is in fact an illusion created through artistry, through the artifice of the tyrant. [129] {338|339}