Author: Guo Tao
Source: "World History Editorial Department" WeChat public account
The original article was published in World History, No. 4, 2021
What is the narrative thrust of Herodotus' History? This is almost the first classic problem we face when interpreting Herodotus' texts. Among the many research perspectives, the history of Athens is a unique and important one. In his "Prefaces", Herodotus claimed to explore the causes of the greek-barbarian conflict, so his attitude toward Athens, the pillar of the Greek victory in the Persian Wars, naturally became the key to interpreting the main thrust of the narrative of History. Athens is not only the protagonist of the last five volumes of Herodotus's History, but also the writing of the history of Athens is almost one of the main lines that runs through the entire History.
At the beginning of the 20th century, F. Jacobi (F. The ancient historian represented by Jacoby as a member of the Pericles elite, probably sponsored by Athens, and therefore believed that the History was created to celebrate the great achievements of Athens, and this interpretation was widely accepted by scholars for a long time. However, since the 1970s, more and more scholars have questioned this traditional interpretation. C. Funara Fornara emphasized that Herodotus' attitude toward Athens was fragmentary and discontinuous, and that History was both an ode to democratic politics and a satire of Athenian political leaders, influenced by contemporary hostility to Athenian ideology, and even scholars directly pointed out that Herodotus's narrative thrust was to criticize the enslavement of the allies by the "Athenian Empire" as a whole. However, these doubts focus mainly on the complexity of Herodotus's attitude toward Athens in the account of specific political events, without paying attention to the narrative themes of history that include both "Greeks" and "barbarians".
Meanwhile, F. Altog The research of scholars such as Hartog) focuses on the ethnographic writing of the History, emphasizing that Herodotus's portrayal of barbarian customs and habits is like a "mirror", providing a negative reference for the Greeks to construct their own identity. Many scholars believe that after the Greek-Polish War, the identity of the Greeks underwent a fundamental change, and the "barbarians" were portrayed as the "other" against the Greeks, because the barbarian threat was an important source of legitimacy for the "Athenian Empire", so Pericles's "all-Greek school" athens became the main force in the large-scale "creation of barbarians". Although this interpretation seems to be very consistent with the principle of the "father of history" in our concept of straight writing, and also follows the historical method of reading "historical materials", that is, the Herodotus text is the product of the "history" of "creating barbarians", we have to ask, is the main purpose of Herodotus's narrative of history to construct the opposition between greeks and barbarians? How should we interpret Herodotus' proclamation in the "chapeau" that he would sing the glory of both the "Greeks" and the "barbarians"?
It is worth noting that neither Fornara nor the scholars represented by Artog ignored Herodotus' writing of the "History of Athens" itself. The reason why Herodotus is called the "father of history" is not his judgment of specific political events, nor the portrayal of barbarian customs and habits, but the retrospection and construction of the "historical knowledge" of the Greeks. Compared with other city-states, early Athens was one of the important themes of ancient Greek history writing, and Jacobi even believed that "Atthis" developed into an independent genre of historiography, characterized by combing the historical origins of Athens, originating in Hellanicus of Lesbos in the second half of the 5th century BC and popular in the 4th century BC. Although Herodotus is not listed as an "Atthidographer", in fact, our systematic knowledge of the history of Athens before the time of Pericles comes from history. Unlike recording political events and constructing the barbarian imagination, writing the Athenian "prehistory" not only involves tracing the historical origins of the "Greek" ethnic group, but also is part of Herodotus's "barbarian" writing, a concentrated interpretation of the relationship between the "Greeks" and the "barbarians", so it is the entry point for reflecting on the main theme of the narrative of the entire "History". So, how did Herodotus trace the historical origins of Athens, that is, the "prehistory" of Athens? Where did the Athenian race come from? Born from the barbarians of ancient times, or were they born unique and superior "Greeks"?
Beginning in the 470s BC, the Athenians adopted the "autochthony" as the main paradigm for explaining their own historical origins. Specifically, the Athenians were the original inhabitants of the Attica region, descendants of erechtheus, the "earthly people" fed by the goddess Athena, and not only that, the Athenians had been "native" to Attica since ancient times, never mixed with barbarians, and civilization was never interrupted by migration. Thus, the "native" Athenians were the oldest and purest noble race of blood relative to the early history of the barbarians and other Greek ethnic groups. It is worth noting that Herodotus' Athenian "prehistory", although scattered in different chapters of history, responds precisely to several core ideas advocated by the "myth of the earth": first, the "ancient and great" history of the Athenians. In Herodotus' narrative, the Athenians are ancient, but the "barbarians" are not all primitive and ignorant, the Egyptians are the "barbarians of civilization", and they also have an ancient history, so who is older, the Athenians and the Egyptians? Does the claim to the origin of civilization constitute a direct competition in the Herodotus text? Second, the "nobility and purity" of athenian blood. Herodotus pointed out that the "barbarian barbarians" Pilaski were prehistoric inhabitants of the Attica region like the Athenians, so what was the ethnic relationship between the "native" Athenians and the "Pilaskis of Attica"? Are the two equivalent? Third, the Athenians called themselves a "Ionian" of the Greeks, so the writing of the "prehistory" of Athens is inseparable from the tracing of the Ionian genealogy. In this regard, Herodotus examined the claim that Athens was the "mother state of the Ionians", can the Ionians share the "ancient and great" and "noble and pure" of the mother state? Or were the "native- athenians" superior to the "migratory" Ionics? According to this, this article will start from the "myth of the earth" advocated by the Athenians, from the origin of civilization, the blood relationship between the Athenians and the Atticapiraskis, and whether Athens is the "mother state of the Ionians", we will see that herodotus wrote the prehistoric history of Athens is a kind of "historical knowledge" that is very different from the political propaganda of the "earth myth", beyond the politics of the Athenian city-state, And herodotus's Athenian "prehistory" to "Greeks" and "barbarians" The percussion of ethnic relations is precisely the concentrated expression of the narrative theme of "History".
Athens and Egypt: Who is older?
Loro (N. Loraux) notes that between the 5th and 4th centuries BC, the Athenians "invented Athens" by shaping the early history of the city-state such as the "myth of earth birth". The "myth of the earth" not only created the equal origin of the civil community for democracy, but also gave Athens an "ancient" historical origin. In the "prehistory" advocated by the Athenian orators, the Athenians were the first human beings to appear, conceived by the goddess Athena. Because of the patronage of Demeter, they were the first to master the art of growing grain and took the lead in growing olives. Therefore, while other peoples were still displaced and drank blood, the Athenians took the lead in establishing laws and city-state systems, and thus created human civilization. The "antiquity" of Athens made Athens "great", because Athens was the creator and disseminator of human civilization, so the Athenians were naturally intelligent and deserved to be the leaders of all Greeks, with the responsibility to do justice for the Greeks and barbarians, and even for the disputes of the gods. Thus, Isocrates proudly declared Athens to be "the oldest and greatest" city-state.
Herodotus was very familiar with the "myth of earthly birth". In Herodotus' depiction of the Greeks vying for the leadership of the Allied Forces on the eve of the Persian War, the Athenians, in order to prove their position as commander in the Greek Allied Sailors, declared that "we are not only the oldest people (but also the only people among the Greeks who have not migrated"; Herodotus also mentions that "from time immemorial ( ) the Greeks distinguished themselves from the barbarians, they were wiser and by no means stupid", and "the Athenians were said to be the wisest of the Greeks". In addition, Herodotus even mentioned that Athens was the origin of agriculture, pointing out that Athens was the first to produce olives. But it is interesting that Herodotus did not directly judge the "prehistory" constructed by the Athenians themselves, and the reference to "earth-born myths" was almost always through the third-person "supposedly" or the mouth of the story character, while he himself made another exploration of the origin of human civilization through the narrator "I" in Egypt.
Compared with the "ancient and great" of Athens, Herodotus's record of Egyptian history is particularly remarkable for the ordinary Athenian people. At the beginning of the second volume of History, Herodotus declares that Egypt is "the oldest of all mankind" (the oldest of all mankind). History 2.5-34 depicts in great detail the sediment deposition brought about by the regular flooding of the Nile That created the land of Egypt. Thomas and other scholars emphasize that Herodotus' historical writing here embodies the scientific inquiry method of the Greek intellectual elite in the 5th century BC, but the more important significance of the conclusion of "Gift of the Nile" is that it demonstrates to the audience of the "History" text that the Egyptians really experienced more than 20,000 years of "vicissitudes" of change, and the shells and sea salts on the top of the mountain bear witness to the longevity of Egyptian history. In other words, the regular flooding of the Nile was the cause of the Egyptian land and therefore evidence of the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. The Genealogical memory of the Greeks is not worth mentioning to the Egyptians, who claim to have traced the origins of Greek civilization back to 16 generations, while the Egyptian priests pointed out that the origins of Egyptian civilization can be traced back to at least 354 generations, and the first king of Egypt was 11340 years away. The Athenians were not only children, but also in danger of the destruction of civilization compared to the Egyptians, when the Egyptian priests "learned that all the lands of the Greeks depended on rain, not on the Nile, as they did, and they said that the Greeks would at some point be deceived by excessive expectations and fall into a terrible famine."
In Herodotus' picture of the world, where did the origin of civilization come from? Why did Herodotus emphasize that Egypt was the oldest human being? Although on the surface it is a scattered text of different texts, can we think that the history of Egypt, rendered in the first person, is a criticism and refutation of the "earth myth" and the advocacy of "Athens as the origin of civilization"? Sweeney (N. M. Sweeney points out that recent texts are also capable of preserving true historical information, so if we can prove that there is a definite "intertextual" relationship between the classical texts and Herodotus, then we can use it as a reference to illustrate the main thrust of Herodotus's narrative. Interestingly, Plato's "playing the game of the historian" in Timaeus and Critias also outlines the origins of Egyptian and Athenian history, thus providing excellent evidence for our interpretation of Herodotus' narrative thrust.
In plato's constructed historical knowledge, the development of civilization is not linear, but undergoes periodic destruction and rebirth. Solon learned from Egyptian priests that Athens had been an ancient civilization powerful enough to confront Atlantis, and that Egypt was only established 1,000 years after the Athenians were born from the earth. The "gift of the Nile" is not evidence of Egypt's "antiquity", but only the cause of an accidental escape from the scourge, and the young Egyptians survived the Great Flood because "the water does not fall from the sky, but rises from below", so that the truly ancient Athenians have forgotten the greatness of the past because of the periodic destruction, and Egypt is only the recorder of the ancient history of Athens. Many scholars have found that Plato's Athens "prehistory" is strikingly similar to Herodotus's, and in Plato's story, whether it is the narrative structure of the text, the narrative style of the physical geography of Egypt, or the narrative plots such as "the regular flooding of the Nile" and "the Greeks can only rely on rain", almost all are reproductions of Herodotus. More importantly, many of the names, place names, and special words that appear in the story are never seen in Plato's other dialogues, but they are all from Herodotus' History. According to this, J. Prado (J. Prado) -F. Pradeau emphasizes that Plato did not borrow from, but directly copied Herodotus' historical writings. Nevertheless, plato's narrative thrust is diametrically opposed to herodotus's, by inventing a much older athenian history, declaring that the true origin of civilization can only be Athens, not Egypt. According to this, Plato reassembled Herodotus' language, and then dramatically adapted Herodotus's "old bridge" argument that Egypt was the origin of civilization into a "new story" that proved that the Athenians were even older. Thus, Plato did not merely copy Herodotus, but engaged in a competitive dialogue with Herodotus by means of "plagiarism".
Plato's "plagiarism" of Herodotus can help us reverse the conclusion that Herodotus' rendering of Egypt's ancient history was intended to compete with the historical knowledge of the "earth myth" that the Athenians had shaped themselves. On the contrary, the History's statement that "Athens is the origin of civilization" is only the object of criticism that Herodotus used the rhetorical technique of personal transformation to elicit criticism through the third-person "supposedly" or the mouth of the story character, so it cannot be regarded as a "historical material" to judge the narrative thrust of Herodotus's History. Herodotus emphasized that, like the Athenian logic of being "great" by being "ancient," the "antiquity" of Egypt also made Egypt "great." Specifically, because Egypt is older, greek customs similar to Egypt came from Egypt. Herodotus went out of his way to emphasize that the customs, religious rituals, and even the "names" of the gods worshipped by the Greeks were proven to come from Egypt. Herodotus' historical writing is almost the inversion of the famous declaration in Pericles' funeral speech: the Athenian system was imitated from the customs of its neighbors, and Egypt was the school of the Greeks. Thus, Herodotus declared that the main thrust of History was to record "great and admirable deeds", and that Egypt's "exclamations" and "deeds" (" were the most numerous in the world.
In fact, Herodotus challenged the claim that Athens was the origin of civilization. Discussing the origin and spread of the Dionysus cult ritual, Herodotus said:
I would not say that the ritual of worshipping this god in Egypt was a coincidence with the Greeks... Nor would I say () that the Egyptians copied this and any other ritual from the Greeks.
Here, Herodotus uses two consecutive "I Will Not Speak", contrasting the "ancient and great" of Egypt with his historical knowledge of the "myth of the earth" narrated in the third person. From the object of Herodotus's refutation, it can be found that many of the audiences of the History believe that the Greeks were the true origin of civilization, and that the Egyptian ritual of worshipping Dionysus was plagiarized from Greece. It is not difficult to understand that the Athenians, immersed in the historical knowledge constructed by the "earth-born myths", could not accept Herodotus' conclusion that Egypt was the origin of civilization. In this regard, Plato's criticism of Herodotus once again gives us the best footnote, and the Egyptian priest in Timeo says to the Athenians, "Compare the customs of Egypt to the customs of Athens before the destruction of civilization, and you will find that many examples of customs here now exist in your city-state at that time", because "Athena gave you the most perfect customs first when she built your city-state", so Plato's version of civilization spread in the opposite direction of Herodotus. Whether it is the distribution of social classes or the expertise of various disciplines, the common customs of Egypt and Athens originated in the more ancient Athens. Plato even claimed that Athens was not only the origin of civilization that created the oldest customs, but that the customs of Athens were the best, so that the Athenians were "superior in all respects than all humans" (), and this is undoubtedly the meaning of the inscription of the Athenians' "myth of the earthly birth".
It can be seen that although Herodotus recounted that Egypt and Athens were the "origin of civilization" at the same time, through the transformation of the narrator's personal name, his real narrative theme was to question the political propaganda of the "myth of the earth" of the Athenian city-state. By emphasizing the "antiquity and greatness" of Egypt, Herodotus constructed a historical knowledge that transcended the politics of the Athenian city-state: civilization originated from the "barbarians," and the Egyptians were the creators and propagators of civilization, not the "native" Athenians. Herodotus' criticism of athenian "earth-born myths" was inherited by subsequent "attica local historians", such as Heranikus' pointing out that the Athenians were not the only "native" people, and Philochorus emphasizing that the Athenians were only the first to settle in the early migration of peoples, not the so-called "native birth". However, what has not been surpassed by later historians such as Helanicus and Philocrus is that Herodotus's construction of the "prehistory" of Athens does not stop at the authenticity of the "earth myth" itself, but expands the perspective of inquiry beyond the Greek city-state world, bringing the origin of Athenian history into the grander time frame of the "origin of civilization" of mankind, thus abandoning the racial superiority of the Greeks over the barbarians, and incorporating the early history of the two into the same picture. By contrasting with the barbarians of "Egypt," a civilization that had a glorious civilization, Herodotus warned the Athenians that the Greeks were the learners and beneficiaries of barbarian civilization, and that Athens was not the most "ancient and great" unique race, as the orators advocated.
The Pilaskis: The Barbarian Bloodline of the Athenians?
In the discourse system of the "earthly myth", the Athenians were not only "ancient and great", but also the direct descendants of the goddess Athena, rather than the result of mixing and assembling with other races, and thus Isocrates proudly declared: "Our origins are so noble and pure" (). However, since the beginning of Homer's epics, the prehistoric inhabitants of the Greek continent have often been imagined as barbarian "Pilaskis", and even classical writers have explicitly pointed out that this is a fact that "everyone agrees". So, in Herodotus's "prehistory" of Athens, what is the relationship between the "native" Athenians and the prehistoric barbarians "Pilaski of Attica"? Are they equivalent? Did the "ancient and great" Athenians have a "noble and pure" bloodline?
In Historia 1.56-57, Herodotus focuses on the relationship between the Athenians and the Pilaskis, saying:
[56] Upon inquiry, he (Croesus) discovered that the most powerful were the Lacaimen and the Athenians, the former belonging to the Doris ( ) and the latter to the Ionians. These two groups were distinguished in antiquity, the latter being the Pilaski group, which never migrated, while the former was a Greek group that had drifted through the wanderings. ...... [57] I cannot say exactly what language the Pilaskis spoke. But if it must be judged by the Piracians, who still inhabit the city of Criston above Tyrrhenians, who were neighbors of what is now known as the Dorisites, who lived in what is now called Thessaliotis, and the Prazia and Schilakes, who lived in Hellespent, who lived with the Athenians, and all the other cities of Piráski, who had changed their name, if they had to be judged by these evidences, The Pilaskis spoke the language of the barbarians. If this is the case with all Piláskis, then the Attica, who were once Pilaskis, changed their language while becoming Greek.
This text is often quoted by historians as a key "historical source" for the study of the origins of the "Pilaski" and "Greek" ethnic groups, but the interpretation of the text is widely disputed. The "Pilashians" mentioned at the beginning of the quotation do not match the image of the "Piláskis" who migrated around in the ancient world, so the "Athenians" who were "natives" should be specially listed. In other words, only the Doris were the original "Greeks", while the Athenians were the "barbarians" of the Flood Age, and Herodotus had clearly pointed out that the Athenians were called "the Pilaskis of Cranaoi". After this, Herodotus specifically compared the languages of the two Piracian tribes that had lived with the Doris and the Athenians, respectively. R. Fowler Fowler argues that the expression "Athens lived side by side with the Pilaskis" conflicted with the assertion that Athens was once the Pilaskis, but it should be noted that for the Greeks of the 5th century BC, the "Pilaskis" were not only a title for a prehistoric people, but also a contemporary race. Here, the narrator adopts the rhetorical approach of "polysemy", standing at a contemporary point in time, the "Pilaskis" who once lived with Athens and now inhabit Herestrispoint refer to barbarians who did not convert to Greeks with Athens, but continue to this day. In this regard, C. Sonrvino-Inwood Sourvinou-Inwood accurately points out that "Pilaski" is not an objective, deterministic concept, and that the reference to the family name used by Herodotus varies from context to context.
Meanwhile, Herodotus recounted another version of the "Story of the Pilaskis" in Historia 6.137-149. The Athenians themselves claimed that the Pilaskis had been given land under the Hymettos for the construction of the "Pelagicon Wall" of Athens, but later treacherously insulted and slighted athenian women , and even plotted to attack Athens. Thus, the "violent" barbarians posed a threat to the Greeks and were eventually expelled to the island of Lemnos by the "righteous" Athenians. Jacobi stressed that the political propaganda of this Cimon era to glorify the martial arts of Miltiades was fundamentally in conflict with the claim that herodotus' Athenian origins were barbarians. Thomas and other scholars also believe that the Pilaski expulsion in History 6.137-149 were barbarians opposed to the "Athenians", thus contradicting the statement in History 1.56-57 that "the Athenians were Pilaskis". In this regard, A. Royd (A. B. Lloyd summarizes that Herodotus was trying to synthesize two different "Pilaski theories," while Fowler argued that Herodotus' attempts were unsuccessful.
Is Herodotus' "Pilaski" narrative contradictory? In fact, in the early history of Attica recorded by classical writers, although most of them are only fragments or only words, they can be roughly summarized as the two "Pilaski theories" that Royd called. "Pilaski I" was the original inhabitant of heroic Greece, either from Argos or Arcadia, so the Peloponnese was called "Pelasgia" (meaning "Piracchia"); at the same time, the Piracchi were also distributed in the coastal areas of Asia Minor and nearby islands, according to which Herodotus believed that the places known today as "Greece" were once called "Piracea". In contrast, the image of the "Pilaski II" is of a wandering barbarian. They either originated in Thessaly, or migrated in all directions as a result of the expulsion of the Greeks in the form of whole or scattered tribes; or from Greece to Thessality, which is therefore called "Piracchia", or from Thessaly to Tyrrhenian, or from Thessaly and Tyrrhenians to Athens, Lemnos, Crete, etc. in Greece.
Why, however, did Herodotus narrate two different "Piláski theories" at the same time? Is he merely passively documenting different narrative traditions without integrating them? Interestingly, these two seemingly contradictory narratives collided in History 2.51. Herodotus said:
The Pilaskis lived with the Athenians when they had completed their transformation into the Greeks, and since then they themselves have begun to be considered Greeks... In the past, the Satsuma Thracian region was inhabited by these Piracchi people who lived with the Athenians.
If we compare this quotation with Historia 1.56-57, we will find that Herodotus's historiography creates a confusing and illogical appearance due to the frequent use of the rhetorical technique of "polysemy". Herodotus pointed out that the "Pilaski II" who migrated to Attica and lived with the Athenians came from Samothrace, and the "native" Athenians transformed from "Pilaski I" (i.e., "Attica's Pilaskis") into "Greeks" and then moved into the Attica region, living next to it, and then some barbarians became "Greeks" like Athenians. In other words, Herodotus placed "Pilashian I" before the time of "Pilashian II", thus weaving two terms of synchronicity into a history of the transformation of the "Piráskis": the Athenians were born of the Piláskis and then did not convert to the Greeks, and the barbarian Piláskis migrated everywhere, including the History 1.57 Creston, who lived in Tyrrhenians. Placia and Scylace of Hellespont, and the Pilaskis who built walls for Athens in History 6.137-149 and were expelled. Herodotus' modification of the two "Pilaski theories" is not an isolated case, and the "Attica local historian" Heranikus also accepted Herodotus's method, pointing out that the "Piracians" had two famous heroes of different eras.
It can be seen that Herodotus, through clever rhetorical techniques, integrated the "earth myth" propaganda of the Athenians, as well as the vague understanding of the prehistoric Pilaskis that was popular at the time, into the "prehistoric inhabitants" genealogy of the History, and highlighted the conclusion that the Athenians were of barbarian origin. Thomas argues that Herodotus further rationalized the "earth myth" of Athens in Historia 1.56-57, and that if the Athenians had lived in Attica since ancient times, they must have been equated with the original inhabitants of Attica, the Pilaskis. However, could the Athenians, who professed to be "native-born", accept the "rationalized" explanation of barbarian origins? Although Herodotus ostensibly pandered to the Athenian quest for "antiquity", tracing the origins of the Athenians back to the Prehistoric inhabitants of Attica, the revelation of barbarian origin was essentially a question of the Athenians' self-boasting "nobility and purity": the Athenians were not a unique race of pure blood. In the vast majority of the literature of the 5th century BC, distinguishing oneself from barbarians was a popular common perception in the Athenian city-states. Plato's "Socrates' Funeral Speech" vividly reflects the athenians' eagerness to wash away barbarian blood: "Because we are pure-bred Greeks, there is no mixed blood with barbarians." We are not like the descendants of Pelops, Cadmus, Aegyptus of Egypt, Danaus, and many others who are blood barbarians and customarily Greek. Instead, we are pure Greeks, not bastard barbarians living here. Thus, Herodotus' statement that "the Athenians were barbarians" was very harsh to the proud Athenian people.
Herodotus' critique of the purity of Athenian descent focuses not only on the past, but also on the future. In Historia 1.58, Herodotus summed up his theory of the "Pilaskis" as follows:
And the Greeks, from the time of birth, have spoken the same language, and I think that's obvious. However, when they split from the Pilaskis , the number was very small ( ) , and from the beginning a small group expanded into a large ethnic group accommodating multiple races ( ) , mainly because the Pilashians and many other barbarian groups ( ) joined them. Moreover, I think, the Pilaski group, which is still a barbarian, has never grown on a large scale anywhere ().
The interpretation of this quotation is equally controversial. According to McNeal, the "Greeks" at the beginning of the quotation sentence refer to the Athenians, which is logically related to the statement at the end of Historia 1.57 that the Athenians changed their racial identity and language. Asheri revised this view to refer to the Greek race formed after the Athenians broke away from the Pilaskis. According to this, Herodotus was declaring the fact that the now powerful Athenian race was of Piracchi origin. In contrast, Sonrvino-Inwood and Thomas argue that the first sentence of the quotation and the last sentence of History 1.57 are structures of contrast, and that the so-called "Greeks" refer to the Doris, or The Greek race with doris as the core, so Herodotus is admonishing that even the Doris were evolved from the barbarian Piláskis, emphasizing that both spartans and Athenians were of barbarian origin.
It is important to note that the "" of the first sentence of the quotation and the "" of the second sentence form two consecutive structures of contrast, so that the "Greeks" at the beginning of the quotation sentence are more likely to refer to the "Doris" who originally spoke Greek, and the subject "they" of the word "differentiation" () immediately after them is the "Athenians" in contrast to the Doris. It should be acknowledged that there is some plausibility in each interpretation, but either view acknowledges that the thrust of Herodotus' narrative is to contrast the racial fates of the Greeks with those of the barbarians. Herodotus attributed the strength of the Athenian race (or Greek race) to the absorption and fusion of the barbarians, thus reminding the Athenians that the "barbarians" who were constructed as the antithesis of the Greeks were not only the origin of the Athenian race, but also the reason for the growth and growth of the Athenian race.
If Herodotus's tracing of the "ancient" and "great" history of Egypt extends the Athenian "prehistory" in time to the grand historical vision of the origin of human civilization, then his combing of the relationship between the Athenians and the Pilaskis focuses the lens of historical writing spatially on the historical starting point of attica, a specific region, and through the investigation of the ethnic composition of the "prehistoric" inhabitants of Attica, Herodotus consciously questioned the Athenians' advocacy of "blood purity", claiming to be "natively born" The Athenians were actually of barbarian Piráski origin, rather than possessing the so-called "noble and pure" bloodline. Not only that, but for Herodotus, the openness of ethnic groups determined the fate of different peoples. The "civilized barbarians" Egyptians, though with a glorious and long history, refused to accept any customs of the foreigners, and thus did not change anything, like the "barbarians" Piráskis, who had not been converted into Greeks. In other words, the Athenians were not only of barbarian blood, but also became powerful because of the barbarians, thus constructing an "empire" that brought them glory and benefits, and if the barbarians were regarded as dissident "others", then they would be like the Pilaskis who refused to change, or even like the historic Egyptians, who could only stay on a smaller scale, which was tantamount to a slap in the face for the Athenian people who were immersed in the rhetoric of racial superiority in the second half of the 5th century BC.
Athens: the mother state of the Ionians?
As early as the 6th century BC, Solon claimed that Athens was "the oldest land of the Ionians" (). W. Connor Scholars such as R. Connor point out that although the Ionians were discredited after the Persian Wars, the Athenians did not abandon their Ionian status, but dressed themselves as the "mother state of the Ionians." Therefore, in the depiction of the "prehistory" of Athens, in addition to the "civilized barbarians" Egyptians and the "barbaric barbarians" Pilaski, it is inseparable from the investigation of the origin of the Ionian race. In many cases, the differences from the barbarians were obvious, and on the contrary, the distinction from other Greeks was more conducive to the construction of the unique identity of the Athenians. So, did the Ionians have the same historical origins as the "mother state" Athenians in "ancient and great", "noble and pure"? Or did the Athenians, who called themselves "natives," enjoy the privilege of a "mother state" because they had a superior origin than the Ionians who "underwent migration"?
The Historia is an earlier classical document of the "Athenian colonization of Ionia", and Herodotus mentions that Neileus, the son of the early Athenian king Codrus, led the colonies overseas and established The Ionian states in Asia Minor. Thus, Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, claimed to Athens that "the Miletus had colonized Athens"; Themistocles, in persuading the Ionians in the Persian army to revolt, also stressed that "you are our sons" (your children). Thus, Athens, as the "mother state", had unspoken leadership over the Ionians, which Sparta recognized. Although there are many details differences in the writings of different classical writers, the saying of "Athenian colonization of Ionia" was widely circulated in the ancient world, and many "attica local historians" said it so well that we can even infer the specific era of colonization of Ionia. It is worth noting that Herodotus in Historia 1.146-147 gave a different interpretation of the racial composition of the Ionians:
[146] It would be foolish to say that these Ionians were in any way more noble than other Ionians ( ) . Many of them were from the Abontes of Euboia, and they had nothing to do with Ionia. The Miniei of Orcomenioi lived in a mixed mix of them, as well as the Cadmus, the Deluops, the Pochis, the Molosians, the Pilaskis of Arcadia, and the Doris of Epidolos. Among them, the Plytaneones from Athens, who considered themselves to be the most noble of all( Ionians), did not bring their wives to new places but married the women of The Caria, whose father had been executed by them. ...... [147.2] Since they valued the names of the ethnic groups more than other Ionians, let them be pure Ionians, all of whom were born in Athens and who held the Festival of Apaturia were Ionics , and all Ionians held the festival , except Ephesus and the Koloppens.
J. McKinnani McInerney emphasizes that this quotation contrasts with the common identity standard of "Greeks" proclaimed in Historia 8.144.2, but Asherry's interpretation is more convincing, and Herodotus is criticizing the claim that "Athenian colonization of Ionia" is asserted. The Ionians claimed to be "the most noble" of origins because of Prytaneion from Athens, and according to the same logic, the origins of the 12 cities of Ionian were "more noble" ( ) due to the colonization of Athens. In response, Herodotus retorted that the 12 cities of Ionian were not descendants of pure-blooded Athenian colonists, but rather the result of a mixture of ethnic groups from all over Greece, such as the Peloponnese, Beotia, and Eupenia, with the barbarians of the East, and that the mixed ethnic composition led to their equally mixed cultures and the practice of four different languages. Not only that, but the Ionians chose barbarians as kings, and even the Ionians who chose the descendants of the Athenian kings as rulers of the city-states could not be traced back to the Genealogy of the Athenians, because Herodotus repeatedly pointed out that the Cordrus family itself was not the Athenians "native" of Attica, but the Pylos from the Peloponnese. Here, Herodotus makes aside for the moment the criticism that the Athenians were once Pilaskis, but rather acknowledges the unique origins of the so-called "natives" of the Athenians, but even so, neither the Athenian king who led the "Ionia colonization" nor the 12 cities of Ionian itself had an inevitable genealogical relationship with the Athenians who preached "noble and pure" blood. In other words, Athens was not the so-called "mother state of the Ionians."
Since the Ionian states were not the result of Athenian colonization, why does Herodotus still say at the end of the quotation that "all those who were born in Athens and who held the Apaturia festival are Ionians"? If this quote is seen as Herodotus' definition of the ethnic group of "Ionians", does this contradict Herodotus' previous emphasis on the mixed ethnic composition of Ionians? Didn't Herodotus maintain narrative consistency in such a brief text? As Ratnell (D. Ratnell) As Lateiner points out, Herodotus often used the rhetorical technique of "irony." After revealing the ethnic composition of the Ionians, Herodotus immediately taunted: "Since they pay more attention to the names of the ethnic groups than other Ionians, let them be pure Ionians", ostensibly acknowledging the purity of the origins of the 12 cities of Ionians, but in fact satirizing the "Athenian colonization of Ionia". According to the same logic, here Herodotus ostensibly defines the two criteria of "Athenian origin" and "holding the Festival of Apaturia" in the "Ionic" community, but before this sentence, the criterion I "born of Athens" corresponds to the mixed ethnic composition of the Ionians, and after this sentence, the opposite of criterion II "Holding the Festival of Apaturia" corresponds to the counterexamples of Ephesus and Colophon. Thus, what Herodotus is expressing here is not what G. Nagy considered Athens's emphasis on power over the "mother state of Ionian", but the use of "irony" rhetoric to contrast the fact that Ionian blood did not come from Athens with the claim that "Athenian colonization of Ionia" and mocking the history constructed by the Athenians as "very stupid" (" Athens was not the "father and father state" of the Ionians, as Dimistocle claimed.
If Athens was not the "mother state of the Ionians," then where did the 12 cities of Ionians in Asia Minor originate? In fact, before Historia 1.146-147 refuted the idea that Athens was the "mother state of the Ionians," Herodotus had already clearly explained the true historical origins of the Ionians in History 1.145:
It seems to me that the Ionians founded 12 cities and were reluctant to accept them more because, when they lived in the Peloponnese, they were divided into 12 parts, just as the Achaeans, who had expelled the Ionians, were now divided into 12 parts.
Here, Herodotus recounts a completely different narrative from the "Athenians," who originally came from Achaea in the Peloponnese, not from Athens. In fact, there are many explanations for the origin of the 12 cities of Ionian in the ancient world, and in addition to the Athenian colonial theory, another version that is also widely circulated claims that the Ionians originated in peloponnese, or Pyros, or Epidaurus, Arcadia, the most popular of which is that it was Herodotus's Achaea. Long before the "attica history" genre was born, writers such as Semonides, Bias, and Panyassis from the 7th to the 6th centuries BC had compiled local or "Ionica" histories of individual Ionian city-states. Thus, M. Sacragliu Scholars such as B. Sakellariou have pointed out that this statement, which is diametrically opposed to "Athens is the mother state of the Ionians," stems from the local history of the Ionians, and is the historical interpretation of the origins of their own ethnic groups by the "Panionian" tradition in Asia Minor.
However, why did Herodotus trace the ethnic origins of the Ionians back to the Peloponnesas? In Book 7 of Historia, Herodotus makes a supplementary account of the origins of the Ionians:
The Ionians used to live in the place of the Peloponnese now known as Acaia, and before Daneus and Csutos came to peloponnese, as the Greeks said, they were called the Pilaskis of the Coastal Regions , and the name Ion of Ionia came from Ion, son of Csutos.
Although this quotation is so obscure that we cannot know why Herodotus juxtaposed Danaeus with Xuthus, it is certain that Herodotus claimed that the Ionics originated in the Peloponnese in order to emphasize that they were a branch of the original inhabitants of Greece, the "Pilaskis of the Peloponnese.". After the death of the Athenian king Erechtus, and when Csutos was expelled by the Athenians to the Peloponnese, the Ion became "Ion" by name. Interestingly, Herodotus once pointed out that the "Piráskis"," who lived in Attica," the Athenians, also transformed into "Ionians" after the death of Erechtus for the same reason: "When the Piláskis occupied the place now known as Greece, the Athenians were the Pilaskis, known as the Cranaioes... When Erechtus took over the throne, they changed their names to Athenians, and when Cthutos' son Ion became commander of the Athenians, they were called Ionians by his name. Thus, for Herodotus, the Ionics of the 12 cities of Asia Minor were transformed from the prehistoric barbarians "Pilaskis" to the Greeks named "Ionians" at about the same time as the Athenians. In other words, the Ionians were not only not "sub-states" of Athens, but were also barbarians of the "former Greeks" from Athens, with only the difference between them living in different parts of Greece.
Unlike the Athenian "earth myth" rejection of barbarian blood, the barbarian identity of the "Pelaskis of the Peloponnese" was shaped by the Ionians as a powerful weapon to refute that Athens was the mother state of the Ionians. In the Peloponnese, the Pilaskis were given a symbolic meaning to the origin of civilization. The famous hero "Pelasgus" is considered to be equally "native", or was born in Arcadia and gave birth to the earliest king, Lycaon; or was incorporated into the genealogy of Argos and transformed into the brother of the famous hero of Argos, according to which Pausanias claimed: "Among the Greeks, the most ancient and the most fiercely favored by the gods are the Argos, who compete with Athens for the oldest and most fiercely favored by the gods, Just as the Barbarians among the Egyptians and the Phrygians did. Although the Ionians who "underwent migration" were not "native" like the Athenians, they, like the Athenians, originated from the barbarian "Pilaskis", had the same "ancient" historical origins, and were therefore as "great" as the Athenians, in other words, the Athenians did not have the privilege of ruling the "mother state" of the Ionians.
Thus, Herodotus' refutation of Athens' identity as the "mother state of the Ionians" is actually an extension or extension of the previous assertion that "Athenians were of Piráski origin". Not only were the Athenians of the Attica region of barbarian origin, but the "descendant" of the "Athenians", the Ionians, were also derived from the prehistoric barbarians "Pilaski". On the one hand, the 12 cities of Ionian were not descendants of the Athenians, who professed to be "noble and pure" by blood, and therefore did not have the privileges of the "mother state" advocated after the Greek-Persian War. On the other hand, the Ionics who "underwent migration" had the same "ancient and great" historical origins as the self-proclaimed "native", both of which originated from the "Pilaskis", the prehistoric inhabitants of Greece who were portrayed as "barbarians", so Herodotus claimed that the 12 cities of Asia Minor "glorified the name of Ionians", which was the opposite of the Athenian contempt for the Ionians after the Persian War. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the story of "Athenian colonization of Ionia" has always been regarded by scholars as the standard explanation for the origin of the Ionian states of Asia Minor, but in recent years more and more scholars have found that this historical knowledge was invented by the Athenians in the 5th century BC in order to maintain the so-called "Athenian Empire" rule, in fact, Herodotus's "History" 1.145-157 Investigation of the historical origin of the Ionians is precisely the earliest systematic refutation of "Athens is the mother state of the Ionians" in the known literature. This case of historical knowledge. By revealing the common barbarian origins of the Ionians and the Athenians, Herodotus criticized and warned the proud Athenians and their "empire" after the victory in the Persian War, and the Athenians were no more superior than the barbarians and other Greeks.
The rest of the argument
In the process of dissecting Herodotus' Athenian "prehistory", we find that Herodotus' narrative seems fragmentary. On the surface of the text, he seems unaware of the competition between the Athenians and the Egyptians for the "origin of civilization", and at the same time narrates the "Pilaski theory" of two conflicts, and even the account of the origin of the "Ionian" ethnic group is self-contradictory. From this, we are not surprised to encounter Herodotus' well-known "narrative style": there are hearsay, only rumors. Many scholars emphasize that in the context of oral culture, Herodotus's historical sources are diverse, but can the fragmentation of oral culture be a reason to deny the textual integrity of history? Was Herodotus just a storyteller, or a mature prose writer? In other words, is there a clear narrative theme and a coherent narrative logic in History? As J. Molees (J. Moles put it: The question of attitude toward Athens concerns almost all aspects of Herodotus's study. Therefore, before summarizing Herodotus' Athenian "prehistory" narrative, it is necessary to explain whether it is possible to explain the textual integrity of the Historia?
O. Murray Murray) marked the introduction of anthropological oral theoretical systems into Herodotus' research. Undoubtedly, this helps us to understand many aspects of the text of History. But as Luraj (N. Luraghi's criticism, as it is dangerous to apply oral theories of contemporary anthropology based on a complete lack of written culture to Herodotus' research. One oft-cited evidence is that Herodotus had publicly recited his writings in Olympia, however, this evidence is based on the imagination of Lucian, who lived 7 centuries from the time in which Herodotus lived, and is therefore not sufficient to prove that Historia is merely a collection or compilation of short stories in a variety of immediacy scenes. On the contrary, Herodotus made it clear that his narration was a kind of "writing"; he carefully selected the content of the narrative; although voluminous, he was clearly aware of the logical coherence of the text before and after the History, and when he narrated different statements, he would consciously revise them and return to the main line of the narrative in time; Herodotus repeatedly emphasized the integrity of his text, both reviewing the above and foreshadowing the following. Nash convincingly points out that even the "oral" account of the number of people in Herodotus' stories is based on the fact that it is framed by the medium of writing, and is the creation of writing. It should be pointed out that the textual integrity of history is a very complex issue, and Forara borrows the terminology of Homer's research and summarizes it into two different research paths: "analytic" and "unification", the former advocating that the text is fragmentary, while the latter emphasizes the unity of the text. Although there are many controversies, through the above analysis, we have reason to adopt the "unity" understanding that has been more accepted by Western classical circles in recent years, and regard Herodotus's History as a unified text with a whole.
If we can accept such a premise, then the next question that needs to be answered is: Why did Herodotus's criticism of the Athenian "myth of the earth" not be "straight-forward", as historians do, but adopt a narrative approach similar to "small words"? Did Herodotus, like Leo Strauss's analysis of philosophers such as Socrates and Plato, create a unique technique of writing as a result of persecution by the Athenian city-state? Admittedly, Herodotus realized that some of his comments would cause displeasure to the audience, and even mentioned an extreme example of Phrynichus' play being punished for triggering the grievousness of the Athenians. It is important to note, however, that this "narrative style" of Herodotus is a means of constructing self-narrative authority. Herodotus in the "preface" claimed to sing the same theme of "glory" as the poet, but the "knowledge" of mortals is limited, so historians must prove the authority of their "opinion" without the help of the muse. Unlike the poets, Herodotus's means of constructing the narrative authority of the "historian" is to appeal to the audience, and if "if one is to choose the best of all customs, then they must choose their own"; then the best "opinions" are also chosen by the audience of the text themselves. In the Greek city-state world, especially in the atmosphere of democratic politics, the citizens of the city-state have become accustomed to listening to different opinions and making their own judgments in the process of participating in court trials, voting at the citizens' conventions, and even watching the drama of the conflict.
In order to make his "opinion" more convincing, Herodotus, in writing the "prehistory" of Athens, on the one hand, tried to avoid direct criticism and exhortation, but left different statements to the audience at the same time, as he said: "What I want to do is to narrate the anecdotes (), without fully believing that this applies to my entire history ()"; but on the other hand, he cleverly uses rhetorical techniques such as personal conversion, polysemy, irony, etc., to subtly embed his education and criticism of the Athenians and their "empire" into the narrative process , in turn, giving the text an intrinsic unified logic. This "narrative style" of Herodotus is not so much pleasing to the audience as Thucydides's criticism is showing his criticism in a way that the audience is accustomed to accepting, and accordingly making his "opinion" more acceptable. In fact, historiography was often seen in the ancient world as a branch of oratory and rhetoric, so Ratnell emphasized that Herodotus' "historia" was not a historical writing in the modern sense, but a unique genre with oratorical and rhetorical properties. According to this, we cannot stop at the "historical" way of reading, judging Herodotus's attitude and position toward Athens only on the basis of what the text "said", but must adopt the method of literary criticism, examine the "how" the text is, and reveal the true intention of Herodotus carefully hidden behind the text by dissecting the narrative techniques and rhetorical strategies of the text.
It is not difficult to find that Herodotus's Athenian "prehistory" is scattered in different chapters of history, but when we examine these fragmentary texts as a whole with the help of an analysis of Herodotus's narrative techniques and rhetorical strategies, we find that there is a clear narrative theme: to criticize and respond to the "earth myth" that Athens vigorously rendered after the Hippocratic War, in other words, what Herodotus wants to show is a historical knowledge that is different from the political discourse of the city-state. First, Hillodot stood in the grand time frame of exploring the "origin of civilization" of mankind, comparing the historical origin of the Athenians with the "barbarians of civilization" Egyptians, pointing out that the "ancient and great" of the Athenians' self-shaping dwarfed the barbarians. Herodotus then focuses on the historical origins of attica, a specific region, from far to near, where the Athenians were not "noble and pure", but from the "barbarian" Pilaskis. After examining the relationship between the early history of Athens and the different types of "barbarians", Herodotus finally turned to the perspective of the "Greeks", tracing the historical origins of the "Athenian" sub-state, that is, the 12 cities of Ionian, pointing out that Athens was not the "mother state of the Ionians", but rather that both were "former barbarians". In short, Herodotus' Athenian "prehistory" is a logical and hierarchical textual narrative, whether it is the "civilized barbarians" Egyptians, the "barbarian barbarians" Pilaski, or the "former barbarians" Ionians, Herodotus is questioning the cultural concept of the greeks and barbarians advocated to exaggerate the legitimacy of the "Athenian Empire", which is precisely the embodiment of the narrative theme of "History".
When we re-examine the "prefaces" of Historia, we find that Herodotus's examination of the "causes" was intended to serve a larger goal: "the great and admirable deeds displayed by the Greeks and barbarians will not lose glory", a declaration itself unusual. In the context of the 5th century B.C., whether it is Nash's emphasis on Homer's epics, lyrical poems, and tragedies, or Thomas's emphasis on pre-Socratic philosophy and Hippocratic medicine, the imagination and depiction of exotic barbarians is not uncommon, but only Herodotus's History so clearly states that the achievements of barbarians are as "great and admirable" as those of the Greeks. Herodotus' admiration for the "barbarians" was not only a warning to the Athenians, but also to all the Greeks. For Herodotus, Athens itself was the representative of the "Greeks", and his education and criticism of Athens also applied to other Greek city-states such as Sparta, such as: Sparta, like the Athenians, was of "barbarian" Egyptian or Persian origin, and adopted customs from barbarians. Thus, Herodotus' Athenian "prehistory" was a criticism not only of the Athenians, but also of all Greeks who were immersed in ethnic egocentrism after the Greek-Persian War. It is not difficult to find that the narrative theme of "History" is the same as the opening chapter of Hecateus, "The Greeks have many and ridiculous claims", which is a torture and refutation of barbarian ideas created by the "Athenian Empire" and popular in the Greek world.
By writing the "prehistory" of Athens, Herodotus not only transcends the myths and legends of the heroes of ancient times who hijacked women, but also breaks through the historical memory of Lydia's conquest of the Greek city-states of Asia Minor in the modern era, and traces the main theme of the narrative of "History" back to the prehistoric era of the formation of the Greek ethnic group represented by the "Athenians" in the temporal dimension, and even points to the oldest past that greeks can imagine at that time: the origin of human civilization. According to this, Herodotus stood at the oldest historical starting point, got rid of the limitations of the perspective of the Greek city-state, and gave a bird's-eye view of "what human beings did" ( ) including the Greeks and barbarians , thus constructing a historical knowledge that transcended the politics of the city-state. As a "mirror", the "barbarians" not only reflect the differences and antagonisms with the customs and habits of the Greeks, but more importantly, the warning to the arrogant Greeks after the Greek-Persian War. Herodotus' narrative style was "rambling," but his criticism was one of vitriol, M. Finley. I. Finley points out that many of Herodotus' "opinions" were not recognized and accepted by the Athenian political elite in classical times. It needs to be admitted that it is difficult for the Athenian orators after the Persian War, or the Greek intellectual elite under Roman rule such as Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius, or even in the current era of globalization, to abandon the prejudice of "Greeks" over "barbarians" when understanding disparate civilizations, but it is precisely this knowledge that makes Herodotus's History great.
The author, Guo Tao, is a lecturer at the School of History and Culture of Southwest University
Comments from omitted, the full version please refer to the original text.
Editor: Xiang Yu
Proofreader: Water Life
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