From Hecataeus to Arrian, Greek historians approached myths in many different ways. One can roughly distinguish three periods: the first historians who flourished before the Peloponnesian War; the classical historians of the fifth and fourth centuries; and the historians who lived during the Hellenistic period and Roman empire.
According to Strabo (1.2.6), ‘‘the first historians who flourished... before the Peloponnesian War preserved most of the qualities of poetry’’ (Acusilaus even claimed, like the epic poet, to owe his knowledge ofgenealogies to an external source, the written bronze tablets bequeathed to him by his father: FGrHist 2 T 1). Like the poets, they intended to ‘‘bring to common knowledge whatever records or traditions were to be found among the natives... and to deliver these just as they received them, without adding thereto or subtracting therefrom, rejecting not even the legends which had been believed for many generations nor the sudden reversals of the action that are characteristic of the stage, and seem to men of the present time to have a large measure of silliness” (D. Hal. Thuc. 5). Actually, according to Josephus (Ap. 1.16), ‘‘Acusilaus often corrected Hesiod’’ and as far as we can tell from the meager fragments we have, he was right.
The Classical Era
The scientific historiography of the classical period was characterized by ‘‘critical analysis (historie) and authorial self consciousness’’ (Gehrke 2001: 298). Beginning with Hecataeus, who writes ‘‘what seems [to him] to be true,’’ historians selected or often constructed a probable version of the mythical past, suppressing from the tradition traits that were contrary to nature, incredible, or improbable. In short, they were the first to ‘‘describe persons and events...of the most remote past as if they belonged to the present time’’ (Jacoby 1949: 133) and systematically apply what has been aptly labeled by Veyne (1988: 14) ‘‘the doctrine of current things.’’
It is well known that Hecataeus eliminated the miraculous elements from ancient myths to make the stories more credible: he made Geryon a king in Ambracia, substituting a place from mainland Greece for the fabulous Erythia (FGrHist 1 F 26), and reduced the number of Aegyptus’ sons from fifty to twenty (F 19). According to Pausanias (3.25.5 = F 27), ‘‘he found a likely account (logon eikota) for Cerberus’’ by saying that it was in fact ‘‘a terrible serpent... called the dog of Hades because anyone bitten by it was killed immediately by the venom,’’ one of the first instances of rationalization relying on an ambiguous metaphorical use of language. But this rationalization has its limits, for Hecataeus did not object to the talking ram of Phrixus and Helle, the bitch giving birth to a stalk (F 15), or to Zeus making Danae pregnant.
Herodotus’ strategy is more complex. He often disclaims any responsibility for the mythical stories he reports and refers to various sources. Sometimes these are left undefined: ‘‘as it is said’’ (7.20) or ‘‘there is also a story’’ (4.179.1) which introduces the account of the Argonauts in Libya. When he names his sources, he usually refers to population groups, the Greeks in general or the inhabitants of some polis, major (e. g., 6.52, the Lacedaemonians) or minor (e. g., 4.8, ‘‘the Greeks who live on Euxine sea’’), but also barbarians such as Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, Lydians, and Scythians. Sometimes he alludes to a collectivity of ‘‘well-informed’’ people, the logioi among the Persians or the Egyptian priests (e. g., 2.120). Explicit allusions to written sources such as ‘‘a poet’’ (e. g., 3.115; 6.52), ‘‘the poets’’ (2.56), ‘‘the epic poets’’ (2.120) or Homer (2.23; 2.116-117), Aeschylus (2.156), or mythical Aristeas (4.13-16) are exceptional. In his prologue, after echoing contradictory reports of lo’s departure to Asia, he refuses to vouch for their truth and concludes: ‘‘I am not going to say about these matters that they occurred one way or another’’ (1.5.3).
A closer reading of the prologue also demonstrates that he did attempt, like Hecataeus, to rationalize myth, by dismissing all supernatural elements: Zeus is replaced by a Phoenician ship’s captain (lo) or ‘‘some Greeks’’ (Europa). Concerning Medea’s abduction, the wording is kept deliberately vague: the Argonauts become ‘‘the Greeks’’ and their conquest of the golden fleece becomes ‘‘the achievement of the objectives they had in coming’’ (1.2). As for Helen, her abduction is no longer the consequence of the judgment of the goddesses. If Paris decided to get her, it is only because he had heard what happened in the past and knew for sure that he would not have to pay for this kidnapping, since the earlier kidnappings have gone unpunished (1.3). Accordingly, in the rest of his Histories, Herodotus only mentions Heracles’ mortal father, Amphytrion (2.43, 44, 146; 6.53) and refuses to trace the genealogy of the Spartan kings further back than Perseus, ‘‘since no name is known for him for a mortal father’’ (6.53). Minos, who is identified only as ‘‘the son of Europa’’ (1.173), becomes a powerful king who did not impose any tribute on the Carians, but used them to man his ships (1.171) and got the upper hand in a dispute against his brother Sarpedon (1.173).
Moreover, Herodotus often openly relies on his judgment (gnome) to dismiss or validate some myths. If in 2.45 he contemptuously dismisses as ‘‘silly’’ (euethes) the story ( muthos) of Heracles who, at the last moment when he was led to the altar to be sacrificed by the Egyptians, killed thousands of them, it is because it is not plausible: first, it demonstrates a complete ignorance of the national character (phusis) and the customs (nomoi) of the Egyptians, which Herodotus was able to observe (implying that these customs were always the same as they are now): the Egyptians who consider the sacrifice of animals unholy cannot have indulged in human sacrifices. Second, the story is psychologically unlikely, since one does not wait until the last moment to react, as did Heracles. Last comes the killer argument: it is a physical impossibility for a man to accomplish such a feat (and at this time Heracles was still a man). Conversely, Herodotus accepts the story that Helen, instead of going to Troy, spent some time in Egypt in the palace of Proteus. First, he finds believable that after being driven by a tempest to the Canobic mouth of the Nile, Paris and Helen took refuge in a sanctuary of Heracles (this agrees with what he has seen, since the sanctuary still exists and the custom that suppliants there cannot be touched has survived unchanged from its ancient origins right up to his own day). He also believes this story, even if it is belied by Homer because he quotes - out of context - some lines that demonstrate that Homer had some knowledge of this journey, but chose to discard it as ‘‘less suitable (euprepes) for epic’’ (2.116). Moreover, he trusts the priests’ careful investigation and questioning of Menelaus himself. But his major reason for siding with the Egyptian version, which is suspiciously close to a rationalized version of Stesichorus’ ‘‘Palinode’’ (only the phantom is missing!), is here also psychological verisimilitude: ‘‘If Helen had been in Ilium, she would have been returned to the Greeks with or without Alexander’s [i. e., Paris’] consent. For Priam and the rest of his family would have been completely insane (phrenoblabeis) to choose to put themselves, their children, and their city in danger just so that Alexander could live with Helen’’ (2.120).
In the Histories myth can be used as an argument. Herodotus’ Persians systematically exploit myths (Nesselrath 1995-1996: 283-288) either to shift the blame for the beginning of evils to others (Phoenicians or Greeks in the prologue) or to persuade the Argives that it would be wrong for them to wage war against the Persians who are their offspring via Perseus, father of Perses (7.150). But the Greeks also know how to use the mythical past. When the Tegeans and the Athenians argue over the command of the left wing before Plataea, they bring forward not only the recent but also the most ancient past: the Tegeans boast about the victory of their king over Hyllus (9.26), whereas the Athenians list the exploits that will be treated at greater length in the Athenian funeral oration, that is, their reception of the Her-aclidae, their recovery of the bodies of the Seven, their campaign against the Amazons, and their contribution to the Trojan War (9.27). Yet the Athenians conclude in a typical Herodotean way with a dismissal of arguments from the most ancient past, given the fundamental uncertainty of human life.
Like Herodotus, Thucydides puts the heroic tales in quotation marks. However, unlike Herodotus, he never precisely identifies his sources but uses expressions such as ‘‘as we know by hearsay’’ (akoe: 1.4.1) or ‘‘it is said’’ (legetai: 2.14.5; 2.102.5; 4.24.5; 6.2.1). When he reports the story of Alcmeon in a digression devoted to the Echinades islands, he carefully frames it by ‘‘it is said’’ (2.102.5) and ‘‘this is the story told to us about Alcmeon’’ (2.102.6).
Usually he radically historicizes the myths he reports, dismissing any detail that does not agree with his own experience and giving a reinterpretation of the heroic tales strongly influenced by contemporary events. This is the reason why, in spite of the tradition that links the legendary Tereus, who married Procne the daughter of the
Athenian king Pandion, to Thrace, he relocates him in Daulis, relying on the authority of the poets - ‘‘many of them referring to the nightingale [Procne] call it ‘the Daulian bird’ ’’ (2.29.3) - and even more on probability and a realistic definition of alliance: ‘‘Also it was likely (eikos) that Pandion, in making an alliance for his daughter, would have an eye on the possibilities of mutual aid. This would be more practicable in the case of such a short distance than in the case of the many days’ journey between Athens and the Odrysae’’ (2.29.3). In the ‘‘Archaeology,’’ according to the same principle, he transforms Minos into a prototype of Athenian maritime imperialism, whose power relies on the control of the sea and the ‘‘revenues,’’ who puts down piracy in order ‘‘to ensure that the revenues might reach him more easily’’ (1.4); makes the story of Pelops into a demonstration of the essential role of money in the creation of a dominion (1.9.2); and explains the leadership of Agamemnon by his naval power and the fear it inspires (1.9.3-4) - all interpretations obviously influenced by Thucydides’ own understanding of contemporary events and the motivations underlying them (Kallet 2001: 25-26). This becomes even clearer in his explanation of the protracted length of the Trojan War, ‘‘written on the basis of his observations about the Sicilian expedition’’ (Kallet 2001: 99). Such an interpretation of heroic tales is not limited to the ‘‘Archaeology,’’ as demonstrated not only by the story of Tereus but also by the portrait of Theseus, who becomes a precursor of Pericles because of his cleverness (2.14.2), and the reinterpretation of a synoecism achieved by force and compulsion (ananke), as was the Athenian empire.
Like Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Thucydides, the authors of Atthides often attempted to ‘‘convert into the stuff of history the archaeology’’ (Jacoby 1949: 133). They rationalized the ancient legends by eliminating more or less thoroughly the miraculous. In contrast to Hellanicus, who kept the legendary Minotaur (FGrHist 4 F 14), Cleidemus (323 F 5) gets rid of him: his Theseus, after a violation of an international agreement of Minos about the use of warships, secretly built a fleet, captured the harbor by surprise and vanquished the Cretans ‘‘before the gates of the Labyrinth,’’ killed the son of Minos, who succeeded his father to the throne, and ended the war by a treaty signed by his successor Ariadne. Both Philochorus (328 F 3) and Demon (327 F 17) transformed the monster into a general of Minos called ‘‘the bull.’’
When Ephorus deals with mythology in his extensive digressions, he is close to the Atthidographers, as far as we can judge from his fragments. Like them, he historicizes myths: he transforms Rhadamanthus and Minos into human legislators who ‘‘alleged’’ or ‘‘pretended that they brought from Zeus the laws they promulgated’’ (FGrHist 70 F 147), and makes the mythical Python shot by Apollo into a man ‘‘nicknamed the serpent’’ (70 F 31b).
The Post-Classical Era
As well pointed out by Gabba (1981: 53), at the end of the classical period and in the Hellenistic period ‘‘the mythical and legendary phases of Greek prehistory and protohistory with their store of divine and heroic genealogies. . . recovered a role and function in works of history.’’ Theopompus’ Hellenica and Philippica were full of countless myths according to Cicero (Leg. 1.5), but far from historicizing the myths by eliminating the miraculous, Theopompus acknowledged them as such. This is obviously the case for his most famous myth, the narrative of the meeting between the Phrygian king Midas and Silenus (FGrHist 115 F 75). This description of utopian places located beyond the Ocean combines an ethical lesson (the description of two cities, the warlike and the pious, Hyperboreans and the Meropis) with sheer fantasy, the serpent fighting against a warship (F 296).
Timaeus gave pride of place to legends in his attempt to create a distinct western Greek mythology by associating wandering heroes such as Heracles, the Argonauts, Odysseus, and other survivors from Troy with Italy and Sicily. Like the Hellenistic poets, he often supports the historicity of his narrative by resorting to the authority of ancient writers and/or by pointing out present traces of this remote past such as survivals of customs, existing cults, place names, or still extant objects. He displaced the rape of Core to the Sicilian Enna in a meadow still remarkable for its beauty (Diod. 5.3.1-3) and made Sicily (instead of Attica) into the birthplace of agriculture, ‘‘the first place where grain grew because of the fertility of the soil’’ (Diod. 5.2.4). As evidence he relies on the authority of Homer, who praised the fertility of the land of the Cyclops (later identified with Sicily) as well as the doctrine of present things: ‘‘even to this day, the so-called wild wheat grows in the plains of Leontini and throughout many parts of Sicily’’ (FGrHist 566 F 164).
Polybius, who is well known for his rejection of melodramatic history (Walbank 1955, 1960), explicitly leaves aside stories such as the fall of Phaethon (matter better suited for tragedy, 2.16.13-15), chooses to omit the fabulous origins of families, colonies, and cities (9.2.1), refuses to rely on the testimony of poets and mythog-raphers (4.40.2), and harshly criticizes historians such as Timaeus who fill their narrative with ‘‘dreams, prodigies, and incredible myths, in one word, ignoble superstition and womanish love of the marvelous’’ (12.24.5).
Still, he sometimes reminds his readers of legends associated with place names (Clarke 1999a: 94-95), carefully placing them in inverted commas. On the Asiatic coast, the promontory called the ‘‘Cow’’ is the place where lo landed after her crossing of the Hellespont ‘‘as the myths say’’ (4.43.6). He agrees that the Homeric poems are not to be read as fictions: even if some fabulous elements have been added by the poet, on the whole the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus are historical facts (34.2.9-11). Like his predecessors, he also rationalizes ancient legends: Aeolus becomes a man who gave sailing directions for the seas near the Straits of Messina and who was said to be, ‘‘because of his knowledge, ‘the steward of the winds and their king’ ’’ (34.2.4). Moreover, his history demonstrates that myth was still used as argument: the inhabitants of Ilium rely on their kinship with the Romans to spare the Lycians and their request is met (22.5.3-4).
Diodorus, Strabo, and Dionysius all make lavish use of myths and share many characteristics. First, instead of criticizing the polyphony of Greek mythology, like Hecataeus, they accept it as a given (Diod. 4.44.4):
As a general thing we find that ancient myths do not give us a simple and consistent story; consequently it should occasion no surprise if we find, when we put the ancient
Accounts together, that in some details they are not in agreement with those given by every poet or historian.
They even seem to relish ‘‘the multiplicity and the diversity of the stories handed down by historians and mythographers’’ (Diod. 6.1.3) and the opportunity to display their erudition by reporting as many versions as possible (Diodorus explicitly says that he does not want ‘‘to leave aside anything which is recorded about Dionysus,’’ 3.66.5). Moreover, the nature of the sources has changed: they mostly rely on written reports and the extant works of poets, mythographers, and historians, privileging antiquity (e. g., Diod. 4.8.5) and reputation (e. g., Diod. 5.2.4; D. Hal. AR 1.11.1).
Not only do they put various versions side by side, they also explicitly refuse to choose, and give the choice to the reader. Were there golden apples or golden sheep in the garden of the Hesperidae? ‘‘With regard to such matters, it will be every man’s privilege to form such opinion in accord with his own belief’’ (Diod. 4.26.3). In the same way Dionysius, after giving various versions of Aeneas’ flight beginning with the one he considers as ‘‘most reliable (pistotatos)" and following with others which he regards as ‘‘less convincing (pithanous),’ concludes: ‘‘Let every reader judge as he thinks proper’’ (1.48.1). Actually this kind of juxtaposition followed by a refusal to choose is characteristic of the Roman Antiquities.
Like the Hellenistic poets, these authors are interested in aetiology and report how various peoples support their mythical claims by pointing out some traces left by the mythical past into the present (Diod. 3.66.2):
The Teans advance as proof that the god was born among them the fact that, even to this day, at fixed times in their city a fountain of wine of unusually sweet fragrance flows on its own accord (automatons) from the earth; and as for the peoples of the other cities, they point out in some cases a plot of land which is sacred to Dionysus, in other cases shrines and sacred precincts which have been consecrated to him from ancient times.
In the same way, the Armenians support a genealogy that traces their origin back to one of the Argonauts, the Thessalian Armenus, by saying ‘‘that the clothing of the Armenians is Thessalian. . . and the style of horsemanship is Thessalian. The Iasonian monuments also bear witness to the expedition of Jason’’ (Str. 11.14.12). Dionysius substantiates the story of the arrival of Aeneas and the Trojans in Italy by existing festivals and sacrifices (1.49.3), and uses as ‘‘proofs’’ (tekmeria, 1.53.1) of their landing in Sicily the altar and the temple they constructed. All these ‘‘proofs'' matter, since myths are still used as arguments for political claims.
Like the classical historians, they are prone to reconstruct the most ancient past along the lines oftheir present. Thucydides transformed his Minos into a blueprint of Athens' thalassocracy. Diodorus assimilates the campaign of Dionysus against the Titans to the ‘‘just’’ wars waged by Roman generals: like them, the god knew how to transform former enemies into faithful allies by his dementia (3.71.5): ‘‘he gathered a multitude of captives. . . who suspected that they would be executed, but got them free from the charges and allowed them to make their choice either to join him in his campaign or to go scot free; they all chose to join him.’’ In the same way, ‘‘the more truthful (alethesteros)’ version of the arrival of Heracles in Italy, according to
Dionysius (1.41.2), portrays the hero as a general ‘‘at the head of a great army, after he had already conquered Spain, in order to subjugate and rule the people in this region.’’ And it has been convincingly suggested that in Strabo’s Geography (10.4.8), the administrative divisions of Crete established by king Minos are a retrojection of the contemporary situation created by the Romans in 67 bce (Stergiopoulos 1949).
They go on correcting and rationalizing myths using the same well-proven methods: ‘‘Tradition has recorded that the head of Ammon was shaped like that of a ram,’’ because ‘‘as his device he had worn a helmet of that form in his campaigns’’ (Diod. 3.73.1-2). Dionysius, before relating the fabulous version of the conception of Romulus and Remus - their mother was made pregnant by the specter of a god (1.77.2) - reports the most believable (pithanotata) one: she was raped by a human being, either one of her suitors or by her uncle Amulius in disguise (1.77.1).
In contrast with classical historians, who were only interested in constructing the historical narrative by deconstructing myths, Diodorus also attempts to explain the creation of fabulous stories. He echoes the explanation given by the Egyptians of the Greek myth of Hades (1.92.3): according to them, it was Orpheus who combined an existing custom of the Egyptians, which he had seen ( theasamenon) and reproduced (mimesamenon), and a fiction he invented (plasamenon). In 4.34.3 anonymous poets transformed a real fact (the diversion of a river by Heracles) into a myth (muthopoiesai), the fight between the hero and the Achelous metamorphosed into a bull, since the result of Heracles’ feat was the recovery of a large amount of fruitful land, metaphorically assimilated to the legendary horn of Amaltheia. The most complex instance of muthopoiia, which could be very well compared to the exemplary tale of Fontenelle about the golden tooth, is to be found at 1.23.4-8. The starting point of the myth that locates the birth of Dionysus at Thebes is a real fact: Semele happened to give birth to a child who looked like Osiris/ Dionysus. Relying on this appearance, Cadmus, motivated by self-interest (he wanted to avert slander from his daughter who had been raped), ‘‘attributed this birth to Zeus.’’ At a later time, Orpheus, who was then held in high regard by the Greeks, transferred the birth of Osiris to more recent times, in order to please the descendants of Cadmus who had lavishly entertained him. The common people, deceived both by their ignorance and by Orpheus’ reputation, believed it. And last but not least came ‘‘the mythographers and the poets who took over this genealogy.’’ As a consequence, ‘‘the theaters were filled with it, and among following generations faith (pistin) in it grew strong and immutable.’’
World History
