There was no Herodotus before Herodotus

The title of my blog is a saying of the great Italian historian of Antiquity Arnaldo Momigliano. Its header image is a picture of the statue of Herodotus at the building of Parliament in Vienna. This is the blog of a leftist Greek male with pictures and videos that I like, with takes on history and politics ... and with many posts on Herodotus, the Father of History. My blog-archive of my political interactions on tumblr in the past is thegreekstranger.

[aboutanancientenquiry]

A Study on Rhetoric in Herodotus

Vasiliki Zali The Shape of Herodotean Rhetoric. A Study of the Speeches in Herodotus’ Histories with Special Attention to Books 5-9, Brill 2023

In The Shape of Herodotean Rhetoric, Vasiliki Zali offers a fresh assessment of Herodotus’ rhetorical awareness. Redressing the usual view that considers Thucydides as a significant jump from earlier authors in the rhetorical tradition, Zali attempts to find a place for Herodotus. The volume explores the direct and indirect speeches in Herodotus’ fifth to ninth books, focusing in particular on the ways in which they highlight two major narrative themes: the fragility of Greek unity and the problematic Greco-Persian polarity. Through discussion of case studies and Herodotus’ literary background, Zali brings Herodotus’ sophisticated rhetorical system to life, examines the ways in which this system affects Herodotus’ authority, and demonstrates that Herodotus occupies a crucial place in the development of rhetoric.

[japaneseaesthetics]

Itō Jakuchū, Coquilles, 1761-1765, Tōkyō, Musée des collections impériales (Sannomaru Shōzōkan), Agence de la Maison impériale.

[didoofcarthage]

Details from a terracotta psykter (vase for cooling wine) with hoplites mounted on dolphins, attributed to Oltos

Greek (from Attica), Archaic Period, c. 520-510 B.C.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Time in Herodotus' narrative on Darius' conspiracy

Herodotus’ conspiracy narrative: time episodic, relative, and absolute

I’ve been meaning for a while to write a blog about the current episode in British political life (relatively awful or absolutely the pits?)

Tim Rood Herodotus’ conspiracy narrative: time episodic, relative, and absolute (from the blog Anachronism and Antiquity, December 15, 2018)

Tim Rood is British Classicist, Professor of Greek Literature, University of Oxford .

[didoofcarthage]

Philae, Outer Court of the Temple of Isis by Francis Bedford

English, dated March 13, 1862

albumen print mounted on card

Royal Collection Trust

[aboutanancientenquiry]

To clarify my latest ask regarding the NT — esp. the Gospels — as part of Greco-Roman tradition written within of a tradition Hellenized Judaism and represented by figures like Paul, I guess my main question is how much influence do you think certain Greek and Roman ideas had compared to the Jewish influence? Are the theories of Walsh and MacDonald really the stuff of new, groundbreaking consensus within New Testament studies? Now, I tend to see their work as revolutionary and important. But it is true that even MacDonald doesn’t challenge Jewish influence, he just mentions that Homer and the Iliad played a role, in his Homeric and Mark book…

Sorry for my so delayed answer to your ask.

The truth is that I am not a New Testament scholar and I hesitate to risk to advance an answer which could be totally wrong. Moreover, I have not read MacDonald or Walsh.

It is however obvious, I think, that the New Testament has a very close relation with the Jewish tradition, but as a radical reinterpretation of the latter, by a group of more or less Hellenized Jews of the 1st century CE. Thus, the New Testament is presented as the fulfillment of the Torah and there is no doubt, I believe, that the existence and the role of a Messiah and the resurrection and the final judgement of all are ideas of Jewish origin (although not all the groups of Jews of that time believed in the idea of resurrection). On the other hand, the existence of God the Son, his embodiment in human form, his passion, his identification with the Divine Logos, the abolition of the Mosaic law, the emphasis on the equality of all nations before God are, I think, notions of Hellenistic origin, even remote, although again the borrowings from Hellenism and more generally the paganism are radically transformed in a new synthesis.

Personally I tend to see the beginning of this new synthesis in the emotional reaction of the original Christian community to the suffering and humiliating death of their beloved Master and, to put it bluntly, in their denial to accept these facts, as later this emotional reaction was interpreted and intellectually reworked by a group of Jews of the Diaspora and of double culture, symbolized in the New Testament by the figure of Paul.

But I repeat that these are just personal thoughts of someone who has no qualification in the field of New Testament studies.

[smsomah]

Mongolia. Roger Chapman

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 6188, Stardust

[aboutanancientenquiry]

The two upcoming seminars of Herodotus Helpline, with very interesting subjects:

20 May: Pietro Vannicelli (La Sapienza, Rome)

Debating political regimes (Hdt. 3.80-83)

17 June: Roger Brock (Leeds)

Herodotus the Naturalist

[ehmerapunjab]

A beautiful winter morning at the Darbar Sahib in 1976. Amritsar • Punjab

[aboutanancientenquiry]

“The historian (and for that matter the philosopher) is not God, looking at the world from above and outside. He is a man, and a man of his own time and place. He looks at the past from the point of view of the present: he looks at other countries and civilizations from the point of view of his own. This point of view is valid only for him and people situated like him, but for him it is valid. He must stand firm in it, because it is the only one accessible to him, and unless he has a point of view he can see nothing at all.” R. G. Collingwood "The Idea of History"

Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943) was British philosopher, historian, and archaeologist.

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Crucifixion, Deposition from the Cross, Lamentation and Resurrection (Anastasis) of the Christ in Byzantine Art

Crucifixion from templon beam with twelve feast scenes, 12th century, Cyprus or Sinai, tempera and gold over fine textile ground on panel, 44.1 x 118.3 x 3.1 cm (The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt)

Deposition fresco, 1164, Saint Panteleimon, Gorno Nerezi, North Macedonia (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Threnos fresco, 1164, Saint Panteleimon, Gorno Nerezi, North Macedonia (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Anastasis fresco, c. 1315–1321, Chora Monastery, Constantinople (today Istanbul)

Sources: https://smarthistory.org/christ-virgin-byzantine-art/, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chora_Anastasis1.jpg

[aboutanancientenquiry]

I am of Christian Orthodox background, but I am not a Christian myself. I believe, however, that the story of the Pathos and the Anastasis of the Christ has a broader symbolic meaning which transcends denominations and religious and philosophical creeds.

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Pier Paolo Pasolini The Gospel according to St Matthew (1964)

[bestiolin]

Cat finger ring made of faience, dating to the New Kingdom of Egypt, 18th Dynasty, c. 1390 BC.

[hellenicgoddess]

Detail of the “Saffron Gatherers” 3,675-year-old fresco from Akrotiri, the Bronze Age city of Santorini entombed by volcanic ash.

© Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini, Greece

[aboutanancientenquiry]

"On the Spot: Shadi Bartsch

‘Classics is the playing field for some very important questions.’

History Today | Published in History Today Volume 71 Issue 4 April 2021

Why are you a Classicist?

I want to understand the conceptual roots of the way I think.

What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? 

That when it repeats itself, no one notices. 

Which history book has had greatest influence on you?

A History of Science in World Cultures by Scott Montgomery.

What book in your field should everyone read?

Virgil and the Moderns by Theodore Ziolkowski.

Which moment would you most like to go back to?

None look too good to me as a woman.

Which historian has had the greatest influence on you?

Herodotus, for showing the cultural side of morality.

Which person in history would you most like to have met? 

Paul of Tarsus, so I could steer him off the road to Damascus.

How many languages do you have?

Too many; when I speak Italian, Chinese comes out.

What historical topic have you changed your mind on?

The reign of Cyrus the Great. "

Source:

Shadi Bartsch, Professor at the University of Chicago, is American Classicist of Iranian origin

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Grethlein, J. & C. B. Krebs (edd.): Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography: The ‘Plupast’ from Herodotus to Appian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)

"Historians often refer to past events which took place prior to their narrative’s proper past – that is, they refer to a ‘plupast’. This past embedded in the past can be evoked by characters as well as by the historian in his own voice. It can bring into play other texts but can also draw on lieux de memoire or on material objects. This volume explores the manifold forms of the plupast in Greek and Roman historians from Herodotus to Appian. The authors demonstrate that the plupast is a powerful tool for the creation of historical meaning. Moreover, the acts of memory embedded in the historical narrative parallel to some degree the historian’s activity of recording the past. The plupast thereby allows Greek and Roman historians to reflect on how (not) to write history and gains metahistorical significance. In shedding new light on the temporal complexity and the subtle forms of self-conscious reflection in the works of ancient historians, the book significantly enhances our understanding of their narrative art."