Herodotus and the Question Why

Christopher Pelling was Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University from 2003 to 2015 and is now an Honorary Fellow of University College; he is also a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. He has held visiting positions at Utah State University, Washington and Lee University, and the University of North Carolina. His numerous previous books include Literary Texts and the Greek Historian and Plutarch and History. Most recently, he coauthored Twelve Voices from Greece and Rome: Ancient Ideas for Modern Times and a commentary on Herodotus 6.

Abbreviations
Preface
1. Why did it all happen?

(a) “Mother, what did they fight each other for?”
(b) The words
(c) Narrative: Show, not tell
(d) Explanation: A game for two
(e) Historical consciousness
(f) Reconstructing mentalities


2. To blame and to explain: Narrative complications

(a) The proem
(b) The exchange of abductions (1.1–5)
(c) Payback and its complications
(d) Whose fault is it anyway?
(e) Them and us


3. How can you possibly know?

(a) Putting in the working
(b) Scientific and historical explanation
(c) Stories in cahoots


4. Adventures in prose

(a) Something different?
(b) Hecataeus
(c) Other peoples and their past
(d) Rhetorical finger-pointing
(e) Sameness and difference


5. Hippocratic affinities

(a) Medical science
(b) Harmonious balancing
(c) Corroboration and revision


6. Explanations in combination

(a) Hippocratics
(b) Herodotus


7. Early moves

(a) Croesus and Candaules
(b) Croesus: Pride, aggression, downfall


8. Empire

(a) Croesus again
(b) From Cyrus to Xerxes
(c) Blame?


9. Herodotus’ Persian stories

(a) The world of the court
(b) Biography?
(c) Be careful what you say . . .
(d) Overconfidence?
(e) But are we so different?


10. The human and the divine

(a) Divine perspectives
(b) Enigmatic divinity
(c) Historical explanation?


11. Explaining victory
12. Freedom

(a) Inspiration
(b) The unruly free
(c) Freedom from and freedom to


13. Democracy

(a) Democracy and freedom?
(b) Characterizing the dēmos
(c) Democracy in and out of focus


14. Individuals and collectives

(a) Self-expression?
(b) Narrative shape
(c) Individuals and communities
(d) An Athenian virtue?
(e) National characteristics?


15. Then and now: Herodotus’ own day

(a) Shadows of the future
(b) Thinking backwards and forwards
(c) Back to the future


16. Why indeed?
Notes
Bibliography
Passages in Herodotus
Passages in Other Authors
General Index