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Collection Highlights

Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture Literary Studies in the

Reception of the Histories 1st Edition Jessica Priestley

Decolonising Geography Disciplinary Histories and the End

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Series 1st Edition Craggs

A Guide to Reading Herodotus Histories Sean Sheehan

Animals and the Shaping of Modern Medicine: One Health and

its Histories 1st Edition Abigail Woods
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Statehood Dean Itsuji Saranillio

My Mountain Man Bodyguard A Short Steamy Instalove

Romantic Suspense with a Curvy Beauty and a Sexy Mountain
Man Mountain Men Alphas Book 1 1st Edition Candie Clarke
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The Geography Nature and History of the Tropical Pacific

and its Islands 1st Edition Walter M. Goldberg

The leadership genius of Julius Caesar modern lessons from

the man who built an empire 1st Edition Barlag

Coastal Nature Coastal Culture Environmental Histories of

the Georgia Coast Environmental History and the American
South 1st Edition Paul S. Sutter
Dedication

Shaping the Geography of Empire: Man and

Nature in Herodotus' Histories
Katherine Clarke

Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780198820437
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198820437.001.0001

Dedication
Katherine Clarke

(p.v) For Chris, Charlie, and Scipio (p.vi)

Page 1 of 1
Preface

Shaping the Geography of Empire: Man and

Nature in Herodotus' Histories
Katherine Clarke

Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780198820437
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198820437.001.0001

(p.vii) Preface
Katherine Clarke

This is a book about the Herodotean world, or rather about Herodotean worlds,
since a key proposition will be that Herodotus creates multiple worlds in his
narrative. The constructed landscape in Herodotus’ work incorporates his own
literary representation of the natural world from the broadest scope of
continental divisions, through features such as seas and mountain ranges, down
to the individual setting of specific episodes, and furthermore his own ‘charging’
of those settings through resonant mythological associations or spatial parallels.
The physical landscape of the Histories is in turn manipulated and changed by
characters within the narrative, whose interactions with the natural world on
both the smaller scale of engineering works and the large scale of imperial
campaigns form one of the subjects of Herodotus’ inquiry. The element of man’s
interaction thus adds another dimension to the meaning imparted to space in
Herodotus’ work, bringing together the notions of landscape as physical reality
and as constructed reality. Geographical space is not a neutral backdrop to be
described by the historian, nor is it even simply to be seen as his ‘creation’, but
it is brought to life as an active player in the narrative, the interaction with
which reinforces, or maybe even determines, the placing of the protagonists
along a spectrum of positive or negative characterizations.

The narratological tool of focalization is embedded in this study of Herodotean

geography in complementary ways—firstly, in the varied configurations of space
that result from viewing the world from different standpoints; and secondly, in
the diverse opinions about human interaction with geographical space which
emerge from the different voices within the narrative, including that of the
author himself. The multivocal nature of the narrative, which lends it depth, in
turn complicates whether we can identify a ‘Herodotean’ world at all, still less
one in which moral judgements are reliably cast in one voice and according to

Page 1 of 4
Preface

consistent criteria. Hence, the distinctively negative characterization of the

Persians with regard to the natural world, which I argue is built up through a
combination of context, comparison, and above all a language of passionate
desire to control both peoples and places, nevertheless remains contestable and
(p.viii) provisional. Furthermore, the mutability of fortune makes it impossible
to see Herodotus’ world as static, as the stepping of one imperial power into the
shoes of another underlines. The acquisition and exercise of political power, or
dynamis, manifested both metaphorically and literally through control over the
natural world, results in a constantly evolving map of imperial geography.

This book enjoyed its first incarnation as an undergraduate essay, written over
twenty-five years ago. I owe a great debt to my Ancient History tutor at St John’s
College, Oxford, Nicholas Purcell, who not only tolerated, but positively
encouraged my unconventional approach to the narrative of the Persian Wars
and oversaw its conversion into a Finals dissertation. Since then it is a topic to
which I have always wished to return, and six months of sabbatical in 2010–11,
following maternity leave, provided the perfect opportunity. Nevertheless, work
and family commitments have made the process of transforming a set of draft
chapters into a monograph a protracted one, during which a large number of
relevant new works of scholarship has appeared, forcing me to keep refreshing
my own thinking.

Many people have assisted greatly in the production of this book. Hilary O’Shea,
former Classics editor at Oxford University Press, encouraged me from the
outset, a role that was ably taken over by Charlotte Loveridge, generously
supported by Georgina Leighton. All have provided quick, clear, and helpful
advice at all stages, as well as general encouragement. I should also like to
thank my project manager, Kavya Ramu, and eagle-eyed copy-editor, Donald
Watt, both of whom provided excellent and prompt support through the
production process. In preparing translations of Herodotus for this book, I have
benefited greatly from a range of existing translations, notably A. D. Godley’s
Loeb (1920) and D. Grene, Herodotus. The Histories (Chicago, 1987). The
typescript was considered by three readers on behalf of the Press, all of whom
provided extensive comments and two of whom did so for two successive
versions of the book. Due to their anonymity, I have not been able to thank them
personally, but I should like to take this opportunity to express my warm
gratitude for their exceptionally close engagement with my work at the level of
concept, argument, and detail. Their feedback has been challenging in the most
constructive sense and has unquestionably resulted in a significantly revised and
improved monograph, for whose shortcomings I still retain, of course, full
responsibility.

(p.ix) Practical assistance was provided by my college, St Hilda’s, which

allowed me a further term of sabbatical leave in 2013, as well as offering a
supportive and intellectually stimulating environment in which to work. My

Page 2 of 4
Preface

colleagues there in a variety of subjects have been the source of many a thought-
provoking conversation, quite apart from their even more deeply appreciated
friendship and support. Of none could this be said with greater warmth and
affection than my Classical colleagues, Rebecca Armstrong and Emily Kearns,
with whom I have worked for many years in the happiest collaboration
imaginable. More recently, Amber Gartrell has made an excellent and lively
addition to the College team, as has Calypso Nash. Calypso has, furthermore,
proved an exceptionally valuable research assistant, checking the ancient
references in this book with great expertise, intelligence, and attention to detail,
and spotting a multitude of errors and infelicities along the way, and providing
much needed help with indexing. Her assistance was kindly funded by the
Humanities Division of the University of Oxford and by St Hilda’s College, and
has greatly facilitated the final stages of the book’s production.

Many individuals have lent their support in various ways, from stimulating
conversations and feedback on seminar papers, to quiet encouragement and—at
decent intervals—gentle enquiries after Herodotus. More specific debts are
owed to Irad Malkin, who has on many occasions lent an encouraging ear and
offered enriching responses to my ideas. Conversations with him have always
left me eager to get back to the book, intellectually reinvigorated. Richard
Rutherford kindly provided valuable feedback on Chapter 1, while Chris Pelling
gave early versions of Chapters 2 and 5 his customarily rich and highly
productive scrutiny. Some of the material in Chapter 5 received helpful
comments from Stephanie West, Tim Rood, Rhiannon Ash, and Judith Mossman
in another context. To all of these friendly critics I am immensely grateful. I also
owe a considerable debt to Lyndal Roper, whose warm encouragement to allow
my own work to regain some priority was instrumental in bringing the project to
its conclusion. Following on from Nicholas Purcell’s inspirational teaching,
Fergus Millar, my doctoral supervisor, has not only remained a dear friend, but
also, with great generosity, retained an interest in my work, characteristically
reading and commenting on the entire finished typescript within a miraculously
small number of days. His ongoing support and encouragement mean a great
deal.

(p.x) My husband, Chris Burnand, read the entire typescript some years ago in
what I thought was a relatively finished state. His exceptionally detailed and
insightful reading at the level of clarity, logic, argument, specifics, and concept
led me to the quick realization that the work was, in fact, far from finished. In
particular, his advice that I should ‘look more carefully at who says what’ was
responsible for the development of one of the two major strands in the resulting
book, requiring a fairly fundamental rethinking and rewriting, which I believe
has greatly benefited the whole. For Chris’s support in this and so many other
ways I remain always grateful. The domestic front has also been enhanced
throughout the life of this book by the figure of Scipio. His demands for frequent
and lengthy walks around the South Oxfordshire countryside have served to
Page 3 of 4
Preface

clear the brain on many an occasion and the presence of a perpetually relaxed
and, walks aside, mostly somnolent creature whether in College or at home has
a markedly beneficial effect on the stress levels of all around. Finally, this book
has grown up alongside Charlie, the development and nurturing of the latter
mostly at the expense of the former. Charlie’s ever-demanding, but upliftingly
loving, inquisitive, and engaged character has grown to encompass a touching
and persistent interest in the progress of the book itself, a compelling incentive
to bring the project to fruition. The book is dedicated to this delightfully life-
enhancing home team.

Page 4 of 4
‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

Shaping the Geography of Empire: Man and

Nature in Herodotus' Histories
Katherine Clarke

Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780198820437
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198820437.001.0001

‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

Katherine Clarke

DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198820437.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter explores two major Herodotean contexts. One is the Greek literary
tradition of which he was a part, ranging from Homer, through the periegetic
texts, through ethnographic writings, and other early historians, such as
Hecataeus. After considering these literary and intellectual milieus within which
Herodotus operated, this chapter moves on to sketch out the modern scholarly
context of recent work on Herodotus, particularly that which relates to the two
chosen strands of analysis—the depiction of geographical space and the
application of narratological tools, particularly those with a direct bearing on the
articulation and viewing of space, such as the distinction between bird’s-eye and
travelling viewpoints. This makes it possible to mark out more clearly the new
direction and distinctive contribution of the current monograph within the
scholarly landscape.

Keywords: narratological, tradition, ethnographic, geographical, Herodotus, Hecataeus, periegetic

The apparent contradiction between the title of Part I and that of this chapter
encapsulates a key tension in the study of Herodotus. On the one hand, some,
like Momigliano, who provides the chapter title,1 focus on the unprecedented
nature of Herodotus’ work and, on the other, scholars such as Robert Fowler and
Rosalind Thomas2 have brought Herodotus in from the cold, from the isolated
and unique position implied by his status as ‘father of history’,3 and
complemented this picture of ground-breaking inventor of a genre with a sense
of intellectual context and literary tradition.4 Keeping in mind the value of
thinking about Herodotus and his extraordinary narrative (p.4) in the light of
predecessors, such as Homer and Hecataeus, and contemporaries, while

Page 1 of 40
‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

primarily focused on examining this historical text as an innovative creation in

terms of both concept and execution, will be one of the tasks of this book. While
certainly not wishing to reinstate Herodotus as the father of history, nor indeed
to reclassify him as the ‘father of geography’, I shall argue that his historical
narrative incorporates and is in turn embedded in a complex spatial framework.
This involves viewing geographical space in a fluid way from multiple angles,
ranging from the bird’s-eye view of the all-seeing author down to the
experiential view of the traveller, while simultaneously evoking fixed viewpoints
which are associated with specific moral judgements or focalizations. The
constantly shifting focalization of Herodotus’ narrative, has sometimes been
analysed in terms of source criticism. It can, however, alternatively or
additionally be viewed as part of a complex web of spatial relationships which
applies both to the creation of a narrative made up of different voices from
different viewpoints and to the viewing of and interaction with the world in
which that narrative is located, on the part of both the author and the characters
in the text.5 In terms of innovation, geographical space is conceived and
articulated in this narrative to a degree that lifts Herodotus’ whole composition
to an unprecedented level of sophistication and richness.

I have argued elsewhere that the relationship between temporal and spatial
matrices, or historical and geographical ways of thinking, is particularly marked
in certain works of ancient literature, not least those which take as their subject
a period of change in the configuration of power over territory, that is, empire.6
The phase of Roman expansion, in which the shape of the world was
dramatically altered, generated a cluster of literary works in which the new
world was redrawn. The historical work of Polybius and the geographical work
of Strabo, for example, offered differently focused representations of this world,
one ordered primarily according to time, the other to space, but both attempting
to depict the dynamic world of Roman (p.5) power as one in which space was
configured differently across time. Historical processes and events inevitably
take place in a real physical context. However, I shall argue that, like the writers
who took on the rewriting of the world brought by the Roman Empire,
Herodotus too, as a historian of Persian imperialism and one writing at the time
of Athens’ bid to alter the map of its own power over mainland Greece and the
Aegean, had a particular interest in the conception, representation, and
articulation of geographical space in his work. As I shall discuss in this chapter,
and seek to demonstrate in the later parts of this book, Herodotus’ spatial
representations go beyond the careful and vivid depiction of a geographical
backdrop and context for the narrative of his work. Rather he shapes and
‘creates’ a landscape full of meaning and resonance, a morally charged entity
with which characters in the narrative interact along a scale from positive to
negative, thereby generating a significant layer of characterization, and with it a
new level of historical interpretation.7

Page 2 of 40
‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

A) Treading in the Footsteps of Giants

Let us first consider briefly the literary and intellectual backdrop against which
Herodotus was composing his picture of the world. In spite of Momigliano’s
stance on the uniqueness of Herodotus,8 a great deal of work has already been
done on his relationship with mighty predecessors such as Homer and
Hecataeus, as well as on other intellectual contexts—the world of Ionian science
and that of the tragic stage being just two. Here, then, I shall present only a
broad sweep of the range of literary influences and a glimpse of the vast modern
scholarship on the subject, with a view to appreciating what is innovative and
distinctive in Herodotus’ own conception of space.

(p.6) It seems only right to start with Herodotus’ own opening literary allusion
to Homer.9 The public display of great deeds, promised by Herodotus at the
opening of his work,10 inevitably encourages us to read his text in the light of
Homeric epic, and the challenge has been taken up by countless scholars.11 The
focus of this interest has ranged between the shift from oral poetic tradition to
written prose text, the identification of Herodotus himself with the figure of
Odysseus, the subject choice suggesting an Odyssean start to Herodotus’ work
and an Iliadic second half, and the influence of catalogue forms on Herodotus’
own presentation of large quantities of information.12 Nagy’s brief but important
contribution argues that Herodotus is not content to work within a Homeric
framework of storytelling, but competitively and ambitiously attempts to outbid
Homer with his collection of logoi, the master of oral tradition in prose, as
opposed to Homer’s role as aoidos in verse. By subsuming the epic conflict of the
Trojan War under the even greater conflict between Hellenes and barbarians,
the framework of the Histories encompasses and surpasses that of the Iliad, and
‘The history of Herodotus the logios is in effect incorporating, not just
continuing, the epic of Homer the aoidos.’13 The death of oral epic at the hands
of Herodotus is proposed also by Murray, who sees Herodotus as the heir to the
whole tradition of oral logopoioi, but argues that the writing down of these tales
in relation to a new and greater theme, as the logographos, destroyed that very
tradition.14 More positively, a similar sense of (p.7) competition and innovation,
in spite of the obvious overlaps of ethnographic and martial subject matter and
the stress on fame, is noted by Boedeker, who argues that resemblances with
Homer may have been quite a deliberate way for Herodotus to stress his Persian
Wars as the new epic.15 Perhaps a similar sense of one-upmanship underpinned
Herodotus’ striking claim to write under his own authority, following Hecataeus’
model, rather than giving first mention in his work to the inspiration of a Muse.
Or, more radically with Marincola,16 one might see Herodotus’ engagement
being not with his literary rivals, but with their actual logoi, thus erasing the
literary figures altogether. Nevertheless, Herodotus was famously celebrated in
his home town of Halicarnassus as ‘the pedestrian [i.e. prose] Homer of
historiography’,17 suggesting that this particular affinity was widely perceived,
at least during the Hellenistic period from which this inscription dates.18 At the

Page 3 of 40
‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

very least, even though it is hard to know precisely how to interpret Homeric
echoes and allusions in Herodotus, as Marincola notes, ‘they certainly seem to
invest the scenes in which they appear with solemnity or at the very least
suggest a sense of something extraordinary or noteworthy’,19 or, in Pelling’s
words, the Homeric allusions bring ‘all the glamour, all the wonder of a grand
expedition on that scale, all the peculiarly visible role of the gods’.20

Homeric epic is clearly not the only poetic form to offer a backdrop or context
for Herodotus’ work.21 The fact that Aeschylus had also (p.8) chosen an
episode from the Persian Wars as the subject for a tragedy clearly reinforces the
overlap in subject matter between poetic and prose composition, and, as we
shall see, the similarities and variations between the Persae and Herodotus’
Histories bear productive exploration.22 In the field of lyric poetry, Ewen Bowie
has examined the fragments of early poetic works which he sees as
genealogically prior to Herodotus’ Histories. The precise relationship between
the development of poetic and prose versions of large-scale historical accounts is
fraught with complexity, but, as Bowie notes, ‘Whatever happened in prose
works, the extant evidence for this sort of verse suggests movement from
accounts of single poleis to an account putting together some sort of overarching
narrative—of course we do not know what sort, and it could have been wholly
mythographic—concerning several poleis.’23

Nevertheless, the Homeric epics offer an especially resonant point of reference

for future literature and for Herodotus in particular, given both the Iliadic and
Odyssean elements in his Histories. I shall turn in more detail in the next section
to the question of focalization, where the association of Herodotus the travelling
historian with the figure of Odysseus himself entails a shifting and internal
perspective on the world. But first we might note the geographical resonances of
the Odyssey in particular. Besides the Odyssey’s interest in peoples, places,
customs, and lands, which, as Marincola notes, clearly offers a rich inspiration to
Herodotus’ own ethnographic descriptions, the figure of Odysseus bequeaths to
Herodotus a long first-person narrative of adventures and tales as the
framework within which this world is depicted.24 The mapping out of the
Odyssean world through his encounters with different peoples, often
characterized and distinguished by their diets, helps to generate a geographical
image that is both detailed and broad-brushstroke, both recognizable and
decidedly un-Hellenic, providing some modes of spatial configuration which are
easy to discern in Herodotus too. Not only do Odysseus’ hosts eat foods that are
strange or indeed magical, such as (p.9) the amnesiac lotus (Odyssey 9.82–104)
or the human fare of the Cyclopes (9.105–566) and Laestrygonians (10.80–132,
especially 124), but the eating of these foods creates a dietary map which forms
just one of many layers of non-Greek behaviour. The Cyclopes, with their lack of
laws, assemblies, and social structure, and the absence of agriculture and
seafaring, fail to adhere to many aspects of a Greek lifestyle, a fact which is
epitomized by the feast they make of their guests, thereby subverting the whole
Page 4 of 40
‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

notion of guest-friendship. The Phaeacians, by contrast, seem superficially to be

remarkably Greek, with orchards and meadows, women sitting spinning in the
palace, renowned sailors, feasts and games, and bards to entertain them; they
believe in Zeus and respect the rules of xenia (7.159–66). But the Phaeacians
could be said to inhabit a fantasy land, in an ideal, not a real city. Their gardens
produce fruit all year round (7.117–19); they were moved to their newly built
city in the land of Scheria as a means of escape (6.7–8). In terms of conceptual
mapping in the currency of Greekness and non-Greekness, Odysseus cannot be
said to have left the world of his adventures until he has returned to Ithacan soil,
and finds himself waking up under a familiar Greek olive tree.25

Although some aspects of altérité of the Odyssean landscape are manifested in

geographical ways,26 attempts to ‘map’ the world that Odysseus explored seem
doomed.27 Homer’s ethnography, as indeed that of the later Greek
ethnographers, is not formulated in those terms. Indeed, whether his characters
reside anywhere except in the imaginative worlds of the author and his
audiences is debatable. It is perhaps instructive that Odysseus falls asleep for
the final leg of his journey back to Ithaca, leaving us to wonder whether it was
all a dream. Mapping in terms of ‘otherness’ is inextricably linked to the
question of authorial perspective, to which I shall return below (in section b. ii).
By what standards is the world outside being assessed? (p.10) What counts as
alien? But it also offers a strongly visual way in which to articulate and configure
the world of the narrative, which implies a fixed viewpoint to complement the
internal, experienced, travelling one of the Odyssean historian.28

We shall consider in more detail later (in this chapter and Chapter 2) the linear
perspective of the traveller through experienced space that Herodotus adopts
from time to time either in propria persona or through the eyes of characters
within the text.29 But I should like now to note the significance of periegetic
writing more generally in foregrounding certain types of mental mapping or
conceptual geography that are common in Herodotus. In spite of Odysseus’
impatience with the idea of extended journeying, his role as the first describer of
peoples and places, from the perspective of the traveller, cements his place
within this tradition of conceptualizing space, notwithstanding the obvious
differences between the world of epic myth and that of the period of the Persian
Wars and beyond.30 The worlds depicted by other periegetic writers such as
Pytheas of Massilia and Hanno of Carthage in some respects bear close
resemblance to that of the Odyssey in terms of their approaches to mapping out
space and their use of increasing strangeness to indicate increasing distance
from home. But, quite apart from the obvious methodological difficulty in using
texts, some of which are clearly later in date, to suggest anything about the
context and consequent novelty of Herodotus’ geographical thinking,31 the
nature of these ‘texts’ themselves is problematic.

Page 5 of 40
‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

The voyage of Hanno II of Carthage at least has the advantage of being

undertaken prior to Herodotus’ time of writing, in the early fifth century BC, but
the text known to us is primarily a Greek translation of the Punic inscription
reportedly set up in the temple of Ba’al Hammon (p.11) in Carthage.32 It is this
translation which was known to writers such as Pliny the Elder and Arrian, and
significant doubts about the authenticity of the ‘document’ abound.
Warmington’s idea that discrepancies between the account of the west coast of
Africa offered here and the reality on the ground might be explained through a
deliberate policy of manipulation by Carthaginians protecting their trading
interests is intriguing,33 but even the very notion of an official inscription set up
to commemorate the voyage may overlook the possibility that the entire voyage
and its commemorative plaque were a later invention. Just as some would argue
that Herodotus never left his library seat, so too has it been proposed that
Hanno’s voyage is just a literary construct, a mental exploration of ‘otherness’.34
In some ways this fits well the schematic increase in danger and lack of
familiarity as the text proceeds down the west African coast. The Ethiopians in
§7 are decidedly unfriendly; the land is full of wild beasts, and, in a disturbing
echo of the Odyssey, there are men of a strange shape, called Troglodytes, who
can run more quickly than horses. After coming across some humans dressed in
animal skins (§9), and passing some crocodiles and hippopotami, Hanno and his
companions hit a language barrier. The Ethiopians they meet (§11) speak a
language which even the interpreters cannot understand. By §15, Hanno has
gone so far from the Mediterranean world that he enters a geographically
indistinct zone: ‘We passed a land full of fire and incense. From it streams of fire
flowed into the sea. Because of the heat it was impossible to land.’ By the final
chapter of the account, the dividing line between man and beast is obliterated,
when Hanno comes across a lake on an island:

On the lake there was another island full of wild people. By far the majority
of them were women with hairy bodies. The interpreters called them
Gorillas. When we chased them, we were unable to catch the men, for they
all fled from our hands…We captured three women, however, who bit and
scratched those who led them and didn’t want to follow. So we killed them
and flayed them and took the skins to Carthage.

The author of this text, like Herodotus, clearly wants to give the impression of
reality. There is additionally a stated practical purpose to the voyage, to found
Liby-Phoenician cities. Furthermore, the air of verisimilitude is enhanced by the
fact that witnesses bring back (p.12) visible, tangible proofs of their
experiences in the form of gorilla skins, a means of authenticating the
ethnographic tale until it could be validated by its permanent record in an
inscription. Whether or not the journey did actually happen, in narratological
terms, the focalization is consistently that of a real traveller.

Page 6 of 40
‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

The issue of reality and fiction recurs with a later example of the periegetic
genre, Agatharchides of Cnidos.35 But leaving truth claims aside, it is possible to
identify certain modes of ethnographic and spatial articulation, which again
provide comparative material for our reading of Herodotus and of his
geographical conceptions. In particular, Agatharchides’ account of the peoples
who live in southern Egypt and Ethiopia, in which he distinguishes them in
terms of their food, offers a striking form of conceptual mapping to set alongside
Herodotus’ ethnographies (§30):

In the region south of Egypt there are four main population groups: one
that lives by the rivers and cultivates sesame and millet; one that dwells
near the marshes and feeds on reeds and soft vegetable matter; one that
wanders at random and bases its way of life on meat and milk; and one
that lives on the coast and catches fish.

Beyond the Fish Eaters, Agatharchides continues to more peoples, characterized

by their eating habits—those who eat reed cakes, the Fibre Eaters, Seed Eaters,
Hunters, especially Elephant Hunters, then the Locust Eaters, and culminating
in the people the Greeks call Dog Milkers, ‘but in the language of the
neighbouring barbarians they are “savages” (ἀγρίοι)’ (§60).

Agatharchides’ ethnography is one in which the primary distinguishing feature is

diet.36 We might note the varied focalizations (p.13) through which the
increasingly exotic peoples are viewed—the authorial voice is informed by the
perceptions of not just Greeks, but also those who must themselves qualify for
inclusion in the ethnography.37 Furthermore, as we shall see with Herodotus,
exoticism may be subtly infused with elements of familiar Hellenism. Just as, in
the Odyssey, the hero’s return home is marked by the presence of an iconic olive
bush, but his arrival at the intermediary land of Phaeacia is marked by his falling
asleep under a canopy of standard olive and wild olive intertwined (Odyssey
5.476–81), so too is the map of Agatharchides’ world complex and carefully
differentiated. In amongst the exoticism of the far south is a region full of olive
trees, but these are ‘not the same as ours, but the sort that grows there’ (§91)—
Hellenic but simultaneously alien. Herodotus’ own fascination with the
geographical, ethnographic, and cultural diversity of the world, combined with a
sense of common humanity and similarity, is neatly mirrored by Agatharchides’
own wonder at the fact that, in spite of the ease and speed of communication
and travel, relatively accessible parts of the world could encompass such
diversity of peoples and places (§67):

A ship can travel from the Maeotian marsh to Ethiopia in twenty-four days,
yet move from the utmost cold to the utmost heat, and encounter huge
cultural differences.

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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

The lands and peoples of the Arabian Gulf are envisaged and mapped out, just
like those of the west coast of Africa in Hanno’s account, in terms of the animals,
geography, people, and their customs, here particularly through diet. The Lotus
Eaters and cannibals of the Odyssey are replaced by Sesame Eaters, Fish Eaters,
and Dog Milkers, bringing the world to the mind’s eye in terms of diet. As we
shall see (Chapter 2), Herodotus’ mapping of various peoples who inhabit the
outer reaches of his world is at times framed in similar currency to that used in
the account of Hanno’s voyage or in Agatharchides’ description of the Arabian
Gulf, if not food, then other aspects of lifestyle and customs, suggesting another
mode of spatial articulation with which he is fully engaged.

(p.14) These periplus texts, in spite of the predominantly linear sense of space
associated with the coasting voyages which articulate the description,
nevertheless evoke a much broader sense of whole regions, so that the line of
the journey is complemented by the two-dimensional image of cartographic
space. In terms of focalization, these periegetic texts thus combine the viewpoint
of the traveller who experiences the landscape as he moves through it with the
more distanced viewpoint of the external spectator, de Jong’s ‘panoramic’ and
‘close-up’ viewpoints mentioned above (n. 5). As we shall see, the coexistence of
multiple angles with their complementary modes of geographical representation
is strongly characteristic of Herodotus’ narrative too.

The periegetic approach to mapping out space thus forges a close bond between
Homer and Herodotus, as well as evoking a wider tradition of geographical and
ethnographical writing which is embedded in the world of travel and mobility.38
But one obvious contrast with Homer is the claim of Herodotus to be addressing
real geographical problems. In spite of the importance for Herodotus too of
altérité and some of the forms of ethnographic mapping that we have already
identified in the world of Homer and later periegetic writers, nevertheless I shall
argue that Herodotus was at pains to find ways accurately to represent the
reality of the world on every scale from the global to the local. It is worth
recalling that, although Odysseus’ travels in Homer may strike us as fantastical
and imaginative rather than enjoying a close correlation to any specific
geographical reality, at least some readers in antiquity came to Homer’s epics
with a quite different set of expectations.39 Strabo, for example, set out explicitly
to defend Homer’s geography against the criticisms of Hellenistic scientists such
as Eratosthenes, and sought to prove the authenticity of the Homeric landscape.
This was partly with a view to establishing Homer as the first member of a
geographical genre which Strabo was attempting to retroject, and partly
because there was a certain general appeal to enhancing the prestige of a place
through credible Homeric (p.15) association.40 But, although Strabo offers an
illuminating insight into how Homer might be picked up and embraced by a
geographical tradition in a very literal way,41 it seems that Herodotus’

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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

geographical inheritance from Homer may have been more subtle and indirect
than this.

In any case, for an explicit and critical engagement with attempts to solve real
geographical problems we need to look elsewhere. Hecataeus of Miletus cuts a
figure of considerable influence over Herodotus, at the same time as being a
player within the narrative,42 an interesting double position vis-à-vis the text
from a narratological point of view. As West notes, it is hard to know precisely
what use Herodotus made of Hecataeus’ work, although there are occasional
instances of almost incontrovertible contact.43 Pearson focuses on the fact that
our fragments of Hecataeus are by no means restricted to single place names
cited by Stephanos of Byzantium, and that we can make some progress towards
a fuller understanding of what his geographical descriptions might have
encompassed, at least to the extent of knowing that he was interested in
establishing ethnographic details and relative location, often expressed in the
terms of experienced itinerary,44 just as we will see is characteristic of some
passages in Herodotus. Romm, however, notes that nothing which survives of
Hecataeus’ work suggests a developed narrative form, for which Homer is the
only identifiable model for Herodotus,45 and West is (p.16) right to stress the
difficulty in knowing quite how these two great figures in the history of
historiography, Hecataeus and Herodotus, relate to each other. In a sense, the
unease of modern scholars in gauging the literary relationship is mirrored in the
encounters between Herodotus the author and Hecataeus the historical figure in
his text. For West the problems in teasing out the attitude of Herodotus to this
great predecessor are exemplified in the difficulty of the encounter between
Hecataeus and the extreme antiquity of Egypt (2.143), a scene which she sees as
driven less by historical accuracy than by the opportunity to present it as
another Solon–Croesus-like moment in which Greek intellect and another mighty
civilization or power come into contact.46 Again, a Greek intellectual is taken
seriously in the wider world in this showcase encounter, even though Hecataeus’
display piece is ultimately exposed as trivial. It is clear that, in spite of his
criticisms of Hecataeus, Herodotus has considerable admiration for this figure.

Armayor’s arguments concerning Herodotus’ use of Hecataeus as a source for

the Persian Wars and for his description of remote parts of the world also
assume Herodotus’ critical admiration for and heavy indebtedness to Hecataeus,
but also playful irony. Armayor observes the huge overlap between the
fragments of Hecataeus and the contents of Herodotus’ catalogues of the
Persian Empire.47 Furthermore, he argues strongly for the map of Aristagoras
being based on Hecataean geography, perhaps even a Hecataean map, and
indeed for certain passages put forward in Herodotus’ own authorial voice, such
as his army and satrapy lists, being strongly visual in their presentation of space,
and therefore probably indebted to the cartographic enterprises of either
Hecateaus or Anaximander or both.48 Armayor even goes so far as to imply that
the title ‘father of history’ should be ascribed to Hecataeus rather than to
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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

Herodotus, arguing that it was not the Persian Wars, but Darius’ expedition to
Scythia that gave rise to Greek historiography, because it led to Hecataeus’
proto-historical enquiries on Darius’ empire and the exercise of dynamis.49 (p.
17) The possibility that Herodotus’ work too might most satisfactorily be
interpreted as a study in the abuse of dynamis, particularly within the context of
the ever-evolving imperial geography of the Mediterranean world, is one to
which we will return (Chapter 7).

But admiration does not lead to blind following, and it seems clear that
Herodotus wants to move forward from Hecataeus and build on his work. One
manifestation of this is the competitive one-upmanship in which Herodotus
engages, almost certainly in the specific instance of his depiction of the Pontic
region,50 and more generally in his handling of matters geographical. Even the
mere fact of Herodotus’ narrative containing Hecataeus as a character gives
Herodotus a certain control over his intellectual rival. Armayor suggests that
Hecataeus is subject to mildly ironic treatment by Herodotus, not least since
Herodotus has the warmonger Aristagoras arguing on the basis of the luxurious
bronze map drawn up by the peacemonger Hecataeus—a scene which is
inherently ridiculous, since all Cleomenes actually wants to know is how far
away the seat of Persian power is.51 Such a reading would be in keeping with the
playful scene examined by West (above) in which gentle fun is poked at the
wisdom of Hecataeus. Armayor questions whether Herodotus really understands
Hecataeus’ own humour and irony,52 but one could argue conversely that
Herodotus’ playful picture of the intellectual whose ideas on chronology are
mocked by the barbarians of Egypt precisely pinpoints one of the striking
insights of a literary figure who had himself claimed that the ideas of the Greeks
were laughable, and illustrates the truth of that very insight through the figure
of Hecataeus himself, now not a free speaker, but a character in Herodotus’ own
text.53

(p.18) In any case, such a picture of close engagement with Hecataeus has
various implications. Armayor’s insistence on the Ionian poetic, literary, and
intellectual scene as the context in which to find Herodotus’ sources of
information, polemical engagement, literary form, and inspiration,54 may seem
at first to sit well with the stress placed by Thomas on Ionian scientific thought
and literature as the most significant backdrop against which to read Herodotus’
work.55 Indeed Thomas herself characterizes Herodotus in part as deeply
engaged with preceding traditions, particularly through his self-styling as heir
and rival to Homer, at the same time as being in dialogue with new ideas and
theories.56 However, Thomas importantly lays a quite different stress on
Herodotus’ intellectual affiliations, steering our attention away from the late
sixth- and early fifth-century world of the pre-Socratic philosophers and of
Hecataeus himself, and more towards the mid-to-late fifth-century scene of
writers and thinkers who were contemporary with Herodotus himself, notably
the Hippocratic writers and the sophists.57 Her argument that antecedents
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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

known to us, such as the Homeric epics and the dry fragments of Hecataeus on
geography and genealogy, cannot suffice to explain Herodotus’ extraordinary
achievement seems to me convincing and exciting in that it invites a reading of
Herodotus which is (p.19) focused primarily not on how he relates to pre-
existing traditions, but on his own creativity and vibrant interaction with the
intellectual trends of his own day.58 This idea of lively and ongoing engagement
helpfully liberates Herodotus from too strictly linear a set of connections to key
predecessors, just as moving away from seeing him as the ‘inventor’ of a genre
frees up new opportunities to appreciate him and his work from multiple
perspectives.59

But the question of literary influence and sources does have a direct bearing on
arguments concerning Herodotus’ own travels. The figure of Hecataeus here
acts as a link, since he was himself deemed a ‘much-travelled man’ (ἀνὴρ
πολυπλανής), setting the model for the Odyssean historian.60 Here, perhaps, we
have a point of contact between Bakker’s polar characterizations of ‘Thomas’
modern scientific Herodotus, firmly rooted in contemporary intellectual debate’
and ‘Nagy’s conception of a prose storyteller who subsumes the preceding epic
tradition’.61 But if we are really to see Herodotus as shaped by the impact of
literary predecessors and intellectuals, then perhaps we may need to look no
further than the figure of Herodotus in the library, rather than pursuing
Herodotus the traveller and primary researcher. Armayor has argued along
these lines with regard to Herodotus’ knowledge of the Pontic region,
suggesting that apparent glimpses of autopsy are really better explained as
critical engagement with literary predecessors, such as Hecataeus.62 He
contends that Herodotus’ claims about finding the descendants of Sesostris’
army (p.20) still living around Colchis fit plausibly into a logographic tradition,
in spite of Herodotus’ claims to autopsy, and that Herodotus’ expressed
connections between the rivers Nile and Phasis can be explained in terms of
Ionian geography rather than reflecting real travel.63

Here, as elsewhere, Armayor follows clearly in the tradition of Fehling in

preferring to see Herodotus’ travels as a fiction, or at least not the simple basis
for autoptic accounts. Indeed the controversial ideas of Fehling concerning the
‘imaginary’ nature of Herodotus’ travels have been extensively picked up,
developed, and criticized.64 Whether or not Herodotus actually travelled remains
an open question, but from the point of view of his authorial pose, it is clear that
the travelling perspective remains firmly embedded as one of many focalizations
within the work.

I opened this section by alluding to Rosalind Thomas’s reading of the Histories

against the intellectual backdrop of scientific thought and sophistic
argumentation, but this is only one of many contexts and traditions against
which one might choose to locate Herodotus’ work. The volume of essays edited
by Luraghi illustrates a wide range of literary and intellectual interfaces, from

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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

the world of the logopoioi to those of the poets, scientists, local historians, and
indeed contemporary politics.65 This sense of multiple contexts and the need to
carve out a niche is clearly relevant not only to Herodotus, but to us (p.21)
also, and leads us to the question of how this book might be located and what it
might offer in terms of progress.

B) Finding Space in the Study of Herodotus

Just as Herodotus has to place himself amongst a range of literary predecessors
and contemporaries, so too does any modern scholar need to carve out a place in
a crowded and competitive environment which both takes account of and tries to
move on from existing accounts.66 One contribution that I hope to make to the
host of existing scholarship on Herodotus lies in the exploration of focalization
within the work, that is, the viewpoint adopted when describing the world or
relating the narrative, and the perspective from which judgement is passed on
the actions of characters therein. Closely linked to and intertwined with this
focus on viewpoint is what I hope to be my other major contribution to the
appreciation of Herodotus’ text and his skill as a historian and narrator: namely,
the close examination of an aspect of the text which is deeply embedded in the
historical narrative at all levels: the conception and presentation of geographical
space.

i) Herodotus’ Spaces, Peoples, and Places: The Scholarly Landscape

The latter is far from being a terra incognita in terms of academic analysis.
Romm, for example, has written extensively on the presentation of space in
Herodotus, firstly in The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought,67 and
subsequently in Herodotus,68 where the geographical aspects of the work and
man’s interaction with the landscape (p.22) are both important themes.
Indeed, Romm stresses in his preface (xiv–xv) Herodotus’ interest in the broad
spatial context for his narrative, stating that ‘Herodotus surveys, in a vast,
sweeping circuit, the arena that surrounds his great war and, indeed, all of
human history’,69 as well as identifying throughout his analysis various points at
which humans clash with the natural world upon which Herodotus looks down
from his bird’s-eye position. It will become clear in what follows that I share
many of Romm’s views on the Herodotean world, its description and narrative,
and that I am much indebted to his work.70 Following immediately in Romm’s
wake appeared Harrison’s treatment of Herodotean geography, covering a wide
range of stimulating ideas within a small compass. The question of geographical
units, the rootedness or otherwise of people in their homelands, varying scales
and viewpoints, ethnocentricity, and, importantly here, the significance of
crossing geographical boundaries and exercising abusive control over the
natural world all find a place in this thought-provoking chapter.71

In addition to general treatments of space in Herodotus, this more specific idea

of human interaction with the natural world has also attracted some scholarly
attention. In particular, the theme of ‘natural limits’ has been central in many

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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

scholarly works on Herodotus. Sixty years ago, Immerwahr was already highly
alert to this aspect of Herodotus’ text.72 Many of his ideas on the Persian
transgression of natural limits, the associated moral outrage, and the near
inevitability of retribution for these acts establish a clear link between
Herodotus’ presentation of characters in his work and their behaviour with (p.
23) regard to the natural world, with hybris being manifested in relation to the
landscape as well as against people. The importance of structure and limits in
Herodotus’ narrative, not only in the physical space of Herodotus’ world, but
also more generally, has been addressed also by Lateiner.73 His discussion of key
natural limits, such as the continental divisions, and distinctions between land
and water, argues for a Herodotean landscape in which certain types of
movement will be morally transgressive.74 The theme of natural boundaries has
remained prevalent in more recent treatments. Romm again has offered a
compact but rich contribution on this topic,75 in which he frames Herodotus’
interest in the physical world, its flora and fauna, largely in terms of a battle
between divinely inspired landscape and abusive Persians, and reads the
imperial quest of Persia as a transgression of the natural order. Originally my
own reading of Herodotus chimed harmoniously with many of the observations
of the scholars noted above. However, the larger scale of a monograph allows
more flesh, greater complexity, and more angles to be built onto these
arguments. Taking into account the focalization of different key episodes in
which man interacts with the natural world reveals a greater degree of nuance
in this relationship. In particular, it encourages us to question whether
intervention in a ‘divinely ordered’ landscape is per se transgressive at all.

A considerable amount of work has been done on the specific spatial structuring
devices of Herodotus’ world, including those which depend on particular
viewpoints, such as the concept of centre and periphery. I shall assess below
(Chapter 2) how dominant or otherwise a means of articulating space this is for
Herodotus, but it is worth noting here its place within the scholarly landscape.
The important observation that the Persians themselves adopt an ethnocentric
view of the world makes (p.24) a helpful and much used starting point for
thinking about Herodotus’ own notions of centre and edge:

They honour most of all those who live nearest them, then those who are
next nearest, and so going ever onwards they assign honour according to
this principle: those who dwell farthest off they hold least honourable of
all; for they think that they are themselves in all regards by far the best of
all men, and that the rest have only a proportionate claim to merit, until
those who live farthest away have least merit of all.76

The idea of difference, in this case increasing inferiority, as a direct function of

distance underpins a common model in conceptual geography, which is relevant
to, although not identical with, the way in which Herodotus approaches other
cultures. From which viewpoint, in what spirit, and with what sense of alienation

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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

or similarity does Herodotus approach what we might term ethnography? Does

he himself subscribe to the conceptions of and attitudes towards others that he
ascribes to characters within his narrative?

A great deal of scholarly attention has been devoted both to studies of specific
peoples and places77 and to the conceptual and methodological difficulties in
pinning down Herodotus to even such broad structures as centre and periphery
in his presentation of different peoples.78 Such an approach to the Herodotean
world view is immediately reminiscent of some of the issues discussed in the
previous section on the propensity of the periegetic tradition to map out space in
terms of altérité.79 Meanwhile, the work of Hartog has proved fundamental to
the idea that Herodotus invents a new rhetoric to describe ‘otherness’,80 partly
in Greek terms and partly with an appreciation that the ‘other’ may have its own
ways of articulating its peoples and places.81 Munson’s (p.25) important study
of ethnographic discourse in Herodotus also addresses key questions of
perspective and paints a picture of complexity, differentiation, and considerable
tension between different ethnographic models in the text.82 The presentation of
Egypt in the Histories offers a case study for some of the complexities in working
out a consistent approach on the part of Herodotus even to one region, let alone
a coherent and stable picture of centre and periphery in the world as a whole.
Harrison notes the difficulty in pinning down the location of Herodotus’ Egypt—
partly distanced as the reverse of the normative Greek world and a land of
extraordinary marvels, partly the familiar breeding ground for many Greek
ideas83—a stark reminder of the inextricable link between ethnographic
description, authorial perspective, and the consequent geographical conception
and articulation of space. Our sense of where Egypt is oscillates depending on its
perceived nature. Harrison’s observation of the way in which Herodotus elevates
Egypt, thereby rejecting a crude Hellenocentric chauvinism (153), must be right,
but it is partly counterbalanced by his further suggestion that the Egyptians
have somehow turned themselves into a museum, cut off from other influences.
Thus, we may wonder how far Herodotus’ gaze can be transferred to this ‘other
worldly’ viewing point; how far his focalization can stray from the Greek.84

Study of the ethnographic tradition within which Herodotus operated, and of

modern scholarly work on that tradition, has been more recently brought up to
date by Skinner. His illuminating analysis of the emergence of ethnographic
discourse in a variety of genres, together with a sense of how these views of non-
Greeks might be mapped out in conceptual geographical terms, continues the
trend towards questioning polarity and defying definitions of various kinds.85 In
particular, the view of Jacoby that ethnography was easy (p.26) to define
because Greek identity in turn could be readily formulated comes in for
significant challenge.86 For Skinner, the Greek ethnographic tradition has a
strongly geographical slant, being more concerned with what he terms
‘populating the imaginaire’, that is, imaginative mapping of peoples into more or
less distant and exotic locations, than with a deep interest in the characteristics
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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

of other peoples. There is thus much rich work on Herodotus’ ethnographic

interests and the closely connected spatial configuration of ‘home’ and ‘away’,
‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’.

ii) Sharpening the Lens: Bringing Focalization into Play

Work has moved on inexorably in other directions too in the reading of ancient
historical texts and there seems to me room to take these ideas on the
conception and articulation of geographical space forward in combination with
other scholarly preoccupations such as the question of focalization or
perspective. As I have argued elsewhere at length,87 historical narratives are
naturally configured along the matrices of both time and space, all the more
obviously so when covering a vast geographical scope.88 In line with this, the
stimulating work of Purves applies to Herodotus among other figures of Greek
literature a narratological approach focused on the conceptual configuration of
time and space.89 This not only offers new insights into the geographical thought
of Herodotus,90 but also suggests a fascinating reading of this and other texts in
a way which brings the (p.27) question of focalization to the fore. This is
indeed, in my view, the most significant and valuable contribution of Purves’s
monograph to the study of this text. She gives a strong sense of the different
perspectives offered, on the one hand, by the panoramic viewpoint of Homer’s
Muse-inspired Iliad,91 and witnessed in the cartographic allusions in, for
example, Herodotus’ map of Aristagoras and in Herodotus’ use of panoramic
passages to create pauses in the narrative92 and, on the other hand, by the
hodological viewpoint of travelled, experienced space in texts ranging from
Homer’s own Odysseus to the many travellers through the space of Herodotus’
narrative.93 Of the two, Purves finds hodological space dominant over the bird’s-
eye view in Herodotus. I do not entirely agree with this assessment, preferring
to see the two types as complementary, or more accurately part of a spectrum of
focalizations,94 but Purves must be right at least to distinguish between them,
not least in their quite different relationships to time (146).95 The elision in
Purves’ work between the space in a text and the space of a text is sometimes
confusing,96 although potentially eloquent as an illustration of her attempt to
collapse the gap between texts and their content, or rather to see texts as
reflective of their subjects. Her view that both the Odyssey and the Histories (p.
28) align their geographical subject matter with the metaphor of the narrative
as a path (123) captures an important aspect of both works.97

Purves’ overall approach is productive and enriching and is taken still further by
Rood in his important study of space in Herodotus from a narratological angle.98
Rood moves from a survey of different scales of geographical space in
Herodotus’ narrative to a more explicitly narratological analysis of the key
episode in which Aristagoras displays a map to Greek poleis in order to garner
support against Persia. Rood’s work is particularly rich in setting out the
interpretative consequences of different focalizations and articulations of space,
for example the contrasting views of Asia offered by Herodotus and Aristagoras,
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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

or the varying accounts of space and place offered by the Paeonians, seeing
these competing visions as important for understanding the imperialist themes
of the work.99 The shifting geographies associated with imperialism will form
one of the major strands of thought in Chapters 5 and especially 7.100

The application of more recently developed aspects of the study of Classical

texts, such as the question of focalization or narrative perspective,101 is one of
the ways in which a reading of Herodotus’ natural world may be taken forward.
Taking our cue from here, we might shift our gaze from the impact of different
viewpoints on the articulation of space in the narrative to think in turn about
viewpoints within the text itself.102 We might consider, for example, the way in
(p.29) which Herodotus combines his own authorial persona with constant
reference to the different perspectives of his informers, thereby immediately
creating a multi-focused, spatially complex account.103 The relationship between
‘local stories’ and the ‘grand narrative’ is here at stake.104 I have already
touched on the relationship between Herodotus and the Homeric epics in more
general literary terms, but, as Purves illustrates well, some more specific
narratological approaches that have been applied liberally to the Homeric epics
can also open up new ways of reading Herodotus, particularly in ways which
reveal the conceptual complexity of space in his work.105 The interplay between
Herodotus’ own voice and the voices of his informers has major implications. It
is significant not only for the multilocational spatial map evoked, with different
voices representing diverse locations, but also for the further important question
of what judgements we can actually attribute to Herodotus himself. In this
particular study, those judgements will concern man’s relationship with nature,
but the methodological issue is much farther-reaching than that.

Purves’ eusynoptic Iliad, in which the divinely inspired poet adopts a magisterial
and lofty perch, looking down on the world from afar, lends itself to contrast
with the dominant focalization of the Odyssey through the figure of the traveller,
involved in and experiencing the world as he goes.106 As we have seen, earlier
phases of scholarly (p.30) debate have focused on the reality or otherwise of
Herodotus’ travels. But, regardless of the truth or falsity of either explicit or
implicit claims to have been to this or that place, the real or imaginary viewing
of the world through the eyes of the traveller-historian has attracted a good deal
of attention in its own right. In particular, Marincola’s study of the Odyssean
nature of historiography opens a treasure trove of insights into the authorial
persona and perspective(s) of the historian.107 Although Marincola highlights a
whole range of correspondences between the Odyssey and Greek historians,
such as the role of suffering in learning, or the lying and deception of
Odysseus,108 it is the relationship between traveller-historian and his subject
matter which is of primary interest to us here, in trying to pinpoint an authorial
perspective for Herodotus, locating him within his world. The clear connection
made in the Odyssey between travel, inquiry, and knowledge is mirrored in
Herodotus’ text through figures such as Solon and Anacharsis (on which, see
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‘…there was no Herodotus before Herodotus’

Chapter 2), but also in the figure of the historian himself.109 And the Odyssey’s
great interest in peoples, places, customs, and lands makes it unsurprising, as
Marincola observes (36), that it is in Egypt, the land of marvels, that Herodotus
takes on most strikingly the narrative manner of Odysseus, presenting himself as
the primary viewer of the exotica on display there, and actually appearing as a
character in his own work.110

The Odyssean figure of the traveller-historian and its implications for the
association of travel with wisdom and for the interpretation of travellers in
Herodotus’ own text, including Herodotus himself, alights upon an important
aspect of the narrative. There is, however, a danger in overprivileging the
Odyssean viewpoint at the expense of (p.31) other, more distanced
perspectives.111 An important corrective exists in Redfield’s influential article
(noted above, n. 78) on Herodotus’ travels in search of wisdom and ethnographic
diversity, as well as natural and man-made wonders. Redfield distinguishes
carefully between the processes of tourism, in which he argues Herodotus
engages, and ethnography, with its special claims to participant observation of
the subjects.112 His study has at least two interesting contributions to make to
the question of focalization in Herodotus: first, the proposal that Herodotus
views his world from a Hellenocentric perspective, and secondly, the connected
idea that this more distanced and externalized standpoint from which Herodotus
maps out a world of oppositions, symmetries, and ordered structure is
concurrent with and even dominant over Herodotus’ touristic stance as the
Odyssean historian.113 This sense of real complexity in the multifaceted
focalization of Herodotus’ work captures, in my view, an essential feature of the
text more accurately than accounts which rely on a stark polarity between Iliadic
bird’s-eye distance and Odyssean hodological experience in the conception and
articulation of space.114 I shall argue (in Chapter 2) for a whole spectrum of
standpoints from which Herodotus views his world and encourages his readers
to do the same, ranging from the most distant survey of whole continents and
river systems, through the eyes of those who travel through and experience
those same mighty, even epic landscapes on great expeditions, down to the
viewpoint of the individual traveller, including Herodotus himself. One
contribution that I hope to make to the wider discussion of focalization in
Herodotus is this sense of a full spectrum of levels of involvement and
detachment, which both reinforces the (p.32) strongly spatial nature of any
form of authorial perspective, and also focuses attention on the rich variety of
ways in which geographical space can be perceived and articulated.115 The
multiplicity of voices in the Histories emanating from the different sources and
speakers in the text combines with the multiple standpoints of even just the
authorial voice, viewing the world from different angles and at different levels of
remove, to produce a hugely complex range of perspectives.

Page 17 of 40
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