Hérodote

Hérodote (in Greek old Ἡρόδοτος / Hêródotos ), born towards 484 or 482 av. J. - C. with Halicarnasse (Greek colony located on the territory of the Cariens), currently Bodrum (Turkey), died towards 425 av. J. - C. with Thourioi, is a Greek historian . He was called the “father of the History” by Cicéron ( the Laws , 1), but also of the report; he moreover is regarded as one of the exploring first . It is also the first prosator whose work remained to us.

Biography

Few things are known to us on the life of Hérodote. The main thing of what one knows is drawn from its own works. Notes were devoted to him by Denys d' Halicarnasse, Plutarque, Lucien or Suidas.

Wire of Lyxès, it was undoubtedly born little from time after the beginning of the second medic war (480 av. J. - C.). He is member of an aristocratic family which asserts an ascent dorienne, but whose Greek blood (maternal) is probably mixed with blood carien (paternal). He is undoubtedly the nephew of Panyasis, eminent poet epic, whom one then compared with Homère, but the family ties, reality, are not known with certainty. In its youth, it follows its family, adversary of the tyrant Lygdamis, in exile with Samos.

It is about this time that it is necessary to place the principal voyages of Hérodote of which it returned account in its Enquête : a stay in Egypt (“Egypt is a gift of the Nile”, II, 10) with a displacement with Cyrène and a return by the Syria and Tyr, a summary visit of the Persian Empire, Babylon, the Colchide and Olbia, the Macedonia. None of these voyages seems to have carried out it in the Western Mediterranean.

Of return to Halicarnasse, in Decay, towards 454 av. J. - C., it takes part in the insurrection which reverses the Tyran denies. A little later it is again worried and is established with Athens where it binds with Sophocle, which writes a poem in its honor in 450 av. J. - C. (one preserved of them fragments by Plutarque). It follows then the colonists who, at the instigation of Périclès, leave to found Thourioi, in Grande Greece. It is there that he dies towards 425 av. J. - C.

Works

Single work that we know of Hérodote entitles the Investigation , of the Greek Ἱστορίαι / Historíai - literally “research, explorations”, of ἵστωρ , “that which knows, which knows”. It is one of longest works of the Antiquité. The first paragraph announces:

This beginning shows the will of Hérodote to be placed in the tradition of Hécatée de Milet: it is a question of dealing with all the men as the use of the term indicates it ἀνθρώπων / anthrốpôn and which the complementarity comes to underline: “as well Greeks as Barbarians”. It is also a question of making work of memorialist: “so that time does not abolish work of the men”. Lastly, Hérodote claims to compete with the poet epic, while proposing to commemorate the exploits of the men. Nevertheless, contrary to the Aède, Hérodote does not intend to describe distances events, like the Trojan War, but of the very recent facts, in particular the medic Guerres.

From the point of view of the language, Hérodote wrote its work in the Ionian dialect, Ionian sometimes artificial (and artificially reconstituted by the editors), with which mix with the imitated archaisms epic of Homère.

Hérodote also took part in the development of the list of the Seven Wonders of the world, thanks to its many voyages. He says in particular enclosure of Babylon (in its History): " It is so splendid that we do not know one which one can to him comparer" , and he speaks thus about Babylon: " This city, located in a large plain, is of square form; each one on its sides is a hundred and twenty stages length, which makes for the enclosure of the place four hundred and eighty stages. ".

Composition

the Investigation is composed of nine books, each one bearing the name of a MUSE. This cutting is not the fact of the author: the first mention is due to Diodore of Sicily at the 1st century, and it is probably at the 2nd century, because of grammairiens alexandrines, that the work was thus divided.

Prolog: the removals which have occurred between minor Asia and Greece: Io removed by the Phénicie NS; Europe and Médée by the Greeks; Helene by the Trojan .
Books with V: developments of the Persian Empire:

delivers: (Clio) victory of Cyrus {{II}} over the Lydie N Crésus, conquest of the Assyrie and the people of the Massagètes;
delivers: (Euterpe) conquest of the Egypt by Cambyse {{II}}, wire of Cyrus;
books and V: (Thalie and Melpomène) reign of Darius.

Books and VII: first medic war:

delivers: (Terpsichore) revolt of Ionie, digressions on the history of Sparte and Athens;
delivers VII: (Érato) reaction of the Greeks, victory of Marathon.

Books with: (Polymnie, Uranie and Calliope) second medic war.

Work properly mixes ethnographic elements and historical. One could wonder about this coexistence. One can recognize in this collection of composite elements the heritage of Hécatée, other commentators (Henry R. Immerwahr) on the contrary insisted on the major unity of work.

Posterity of work

The style of Hérodote is simple, pleasant and picturesque, sometimes naive, sometimes poetic. It is an admiror of Homère - Denys d' Halicarnasse describes it as “Zealot of Homère” ( Ὁμήρου ζηλωτής / Homếrou zêlôtếs ). Plutarque, while recognizing these qualities, finds it however great partiality and devoted a whole treaty, Of the bad faith of Hérodote ( Περὶ τῆς Ἡροδότου Κακοηθείας / Perished tês Hêrodotou kakoêtheias ), to show that it is unjust with the Greeks:

“He misused many readers by his simplicity even; it would be necessary many books to review the whole of its lies and its speculations. ”

These charges are exaggerated: the naivety and the credulity of Hérodote, although real, are generally confined with the anecdotes of which it is fond of delicacies. On the other hand, when it does not find any trace of the Hyperboréens mentioned in the Greek legends, it makes a point of mentioning it.

The fact is that the Old ones, far from seeing in him the “Father of the history”, hardly appreciate it. Aristote describes it as “mythologist” in his Poétique , and Aulu-Cold treats it of inveterate liar ( homo fabulator ); Plutarque finds it as for him too near to the Barbares ( philobarbaros ).

The Rebirth, the first, leans again on the work of Hérodote, with a glance much more benevolent this time. Thus, Henri Estienne answers Plutarque by a Apologie for Hérodote . The popularity of Hérodote will go consequently growing. The abbot Barthelemy, author of the Voyage of the Anarchasis young person in Greece (1788), very popular work at his time, writing as it “opened with the eyes of the Greeks annals of the known universe. ”

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