AuthorBenardete, Seth. author
TitleHerodotean Inquiries [electronic resource] / by Seth Benardete
ImprintDordrecht : Springer Netherlands, 1969
Connect tohttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3161-5
Descript VII, 217 p. online resource

SUMMARY

Herodotus has so often been called, since ancient times, the father of history that this title has blinded us to the question: Was the father of history an historian? Everyone knows that the Greek word from which 'history' is derived always means inquiry in Herodotus. His so-called Histories are inยญ quiries, and by that name I have preferred to call them. His inquiries partly result in the presentation of events that are now called 'historical'; but other parts of his inquiry would now belong to the province of the anthroยญ pologist or geographer. Herodotus does not recognize these fields as distinct; they all belong equally to the subject of his inquiry, but it is not self-evident what he understands to be his subject: the notorious difficulties in the proemium are enough to indicate this. If his work presents us with so strange a mixture of different fields, we are entitled to ask: Did Herodotus underยญ stand even its historical element as we understand it? Without any proof everyone, as far as I am aware, who has studied him has assumed this to be so


CONTENT

I. Herodotus -- II. Egypt -- III. Persia -- IV. Scythia and Libya -- V. Athens -- VI. Sparta -- VII. Persia and Greece


SUBJECT

  1. Linguistics
  2. Greek language
  3. Linguistics
  4. Greek