Interpreting Herodotus by Harrison Thomas; Irwin Elizabeth; & Elizabeth Irwin

Author:Harrison, Thomas; Irwin, Elizabeth; & Elizabeth Irwin [Harrison, Thomas & Irwin, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 2018-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

10

The Dynamics of Time

Herodotus’ Histories and Contemporary Athens Before and After Fornara

Jonas Grethlein

Fornara’s arguably most important contribution to Herodotean scholarship is the thesis that the account of the Persian Wars in the Histories ought to be seen in light of the intra-Hellenic conflicts of the second half of the fifth century.1 I will start this paper with re-assessing this thesis and its place in scholarship. There is irony in that a thesis which proved path-breaking for Herodotean scholarship at the end of the twentieth century was actually part of an investigation engaged with a question of nineteenth-century scholarship. I will then take up Fornara’s seminal observations about Herodotus and contemporary Athens and develop them further into a direction which ultimately leads to a Herodotus very different from Fornara’s Herodotus. The Histories’ concern with contemporary events, I propose, also reveals Herodotus’ profound understanding of the temporal dynamics of writing history. The oblique fashion in which Herodotus comments on Zeitgeschichte reflects an awareness that it is impossible to narrate events which are still in flux. Moreover, due to the dynamics of time historical meaning is inherently unstable. Acknowledging that historiography itself is part of history, Herodotus historicizes himself.

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