CHRIMES - 1930 - Herodotus and the Reconstruction of History

Herodotus and the Reconstruction of HistoryAuthor(s): K. M. T. ChrimesSource: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 50, Part 1 (1930), pp. 89-98Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/626164 .

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HERODOTUS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY

IN selecting for the purpose of illustrating Herodotus' conception of the proper relation of drr68sot< to

io-ropil his account of the Lydian emigration to

Italy, I have not had in mind the requirements of the Etruscologist alone. The Lydian setting of the story raises the whole question of the sources for the reconstruction of the Dark Ages of Aegean history which Greek historians, at the time of Herodotus and earlier, had at their disposal.

It is well known that from the point of view of Etruscologists this migration story, which is usually accepted by them as a genuine tradition of origin, is dated five centuries too early; 1 and although the arguments of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which mainly stress the total dissimilarity of Etruscan and Lydian culture, are insufficient reason for discrediting Herodotus after the lapse of so many centuries and in an age when philology was not a science, to suppose without further investigation a mistake of 500 years is not only unfair to Herodotus, but may remove whatever basis of fact the tradition originally contained. The following attempt to explain the discrepancy involves the rejection of the whole story in Herodotus (I. 94) as having any bearing upon the Etruscan problem. It should, however, be borne in mind that this does not necessarily dispose of the Lydian hypothesis altogether, but merely calls into question its claim to preferential treatment among the various traditions which, from the time of Stesichorus onwards, brought Trojans or other non-Greek inhabitants of Asia Minor to settle in Italy.

The ultimate origin of that part of Herodotus' story which deals with the migration is not likely to be traceable to definite information obtained by him about Lydia. For it can scarcely be doubted that Herodotus and all his con- temporaries had inherited a general supposition with regard to the origins of the non-Greek population of Italy and parts of Sicily, which was based on no definite evidence, but merely on the desire to explain what became of the Trojans and their allies expelled from the coasts of Asia Minor, or of the Pelasgi expelled by the first Achaean invaders at a still earlier period. It was a generally accepted belief-accepted, for example, by the Cretans at Praisos 2-that the Trojan war had resulted in a general famine and in the depopulation even of the great Aegean islands as well as the Asiatic coast; and the evicted populations had to be, and still have to be, accounted for somehow. But the theory of a

1 The arrival of the Etruscans in Italy is dated by Randall MacIver ( Villanovans and Early Etruscans) at the end of the ninth century B.C., by Ducati (Etruria Antica, p. 48) a century later. Herod. i. 7 dates the

migration from Lydia at least 505 years before Gyges, i.e. thirteenth century B.C., at the latest.

2 Herod. vii. 171.

89



90 K. M. T. CHRIMES

general exodus to the west is probably on a level with the Cretan belief that the eviction of Minos (i.e. the destruction of the palace at Cnossos) had its sequel in a Cretan exodus to Sicily.3 All these stories are simply Greek versions of the puzzle of the lost tribes of Israel: the survivors are located wherever there is thought to be room for them. Civilised barbarians-the claim of the Maxyes of North Africa who painted themselves vermilion could scarcely be taken seriously 4-such as the

Tupao'voi and other tribes of Italy north of Magna

Graecia were recognised to be, were readily identified as Trojans, Phrygians, or Lydians. Thus arose the various genealogies, invented to explain the connexion, which afterwards found their way into the comprehensive pages of

Lycophron; and of these genealogical poems we have an example of Herodotus' own time in the Phoronis of his friend 5 Hellanicus of Mitylene. According to the Phoronis, the Tupoaivoi were descended from Pelasgi, who came probably from the district between the Caicus and the Hermus, founded Spina on the Adriatic, and thence penetrated inland to found Cortona, the metropolis of the Etruscans. This version, which agrees with the story of Herodotus in

bringing Tupoavoi from this part of Asia Minor is 'OcppiKOi;s, but builds the whole story on Homeric genealogies,6 strongly suggests a common origin for both in commonly accepted belief as to what became of the original inhabitants of the part of Asia Minor overrun by Achaeans in the Trojan war or earlier.

But if I am right in supposing that it was part of the general purpose of Herodotus to obtain further information on this subject of the dispersal of the

pre-Achaeans of Asia Minor, it follows that the specific connexion between

Lydians and Tupcrnvoi was an accidental consequence of inquiry into the ancient

history of Lydia; for the general hypothesis had up to this time 7 no reason for

supposing Tuponvoi to be Lydians rather than any other non-Greek people of western Asia Minor. Indeed, when the sources of the actual narrative in Herodotus are examined, it will be found that this story has no specifically Lydian foundation whatever, and that, although the information obtained by Herodotus should have enabled him to draw certain legitimate conclusions about the earliest history of Lydia, this story of the immigration into Etruria is not one of them.

Herodotus has quite clearly found it hard to obtain information on Lydian history of any period. For the history of the Mermnad dynasty he seems to have relied chiefly on Milesian sources, to judge from the disproportionate part which Miletus plays in the story of the exploits of these kings. When Miletus

fails, Herodotus is first thrown back upon information to be derived from the

priests of Cybele at Sardis, and the result is a jumble of Phrygian cult-myths. He then turns apparently to Persian informants, who were ready to give a broad

general outline of the history of i' &va "'Acir- before the rise of Persia, but scarcely

3 Herod. vii. 170. 4 Ibid. iv. 191. 5 Suidas, s.v. 'EA.avtKos. 6 Hellanicus, ap. Dion. Hal. i. 28. Cf.

Lycophr. Alex. 1242-1249. 'Teutamides,' the father of their leader Nanas, is faked from

fl-exayo0 TEwracpiSao of II. ii. 843. For

the location of his kingdom between the Caicus and Hermus, cf. Strabo, xiii. 3. 2.

SWhereas Myrsilus of Lesbos (?) follows

approximately the genealogy given by Herodotus, tracing the descent of Lydus and Tyrrhenus from Manes and Cotys (ap. Dion. Hal. i. 27).



HERODOTUS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY 91

competent to deal with the earlier history of a country with which they did not come into contact until the time of Cyrus. Reliable guidance in chronological matters was obtainable from Egyptian records; but since the Ramessid empire had no more had direct contact with Asia Minor west of the Halys than the Assyrian, it is hard to see how Egyptian chronology could contribute anything to the knowledge of the internal history of Lydia. The question of how Hero- dotus, who can be proved to have used these sources and no others, has contrived to assemble so much outwardly convincing information on early Lydian history will be best answered by a brief examination of the contribution made to his story of the famine in Lydia and the consequent emigration to Italy by each of these sources in turn.

THE SOURCES OF HERODOTUS 1. 94.

I. Phrygian folk-tale.--Herodotus nowhere directly mentions the priests of Cybele at Sardis as authorities for any part of his Lydian history. But the exaggerated importance which he attaches, throughout his history of the Persian wars, to the burning during the Ionian Revolt of the temple of 'the local goddess Cybebe' (V. 102) at Sardis puts it beyond a doubt that these priests supplied him with much of the material for his 'history' of Lydia; and part of the same genealogical tree presently to be discussed as the foundation of Lydian history is referred to by Herodotus later, in another connexion, in such a way as to make clear its Sardian origin.8

The result is what might be expected-the incorporation of a set of cult- myths connected with the Mother Goddess in what purports to be an historical narrative dealing specifically with Lydia. The story of Adrastus, the Phrygian from the country of Midas and Gordias,9 and Atys the son of Croesus at the boar hunt, is a glaring example; for obviously Adrastus is a perversion of the Milrp "A8pc'a-ros or Cybele herself,10 who has undergone a metamorphosis to suit Greek notions of the meaning of the name, while Atys is no son of Croesus, but the god Attis, who according to one legend was slain by a boar. Similarly, when we find the story of the Lydian migration introduced by Herodotus with the words 'in the days of Atys the son of Manes,' it is clear at once that his informants really meant the Phrygian gods Men and Attis. A new 'dynasty,' beginning with the suggestive name of "Aypcov To00 Nivov Too Bijov (I. 7) really marks the advent of a new religion with a 'hunter-god' of supposed Assyrian and Babylonian or Phoenician antecedents. The dynasty of the Heracleidae is, however, probably not the contribution of the priests of Sardis, but comes from a similar Persian source.

This method of reconstructing 'history' can be elaborated, and was elaborated, within the limits of the cult. Relatives were invented for the greater

8 Herod. iv. 45 : . . . Auvof, Trpevot rrl '"Aac 0roo K6rtoos 7ro Md&vec KsKMiaOal tirv 'Aarv . . .

d&r' 6reu Kal Trv Iv I•p8tao' qpubjV K<EKxAfiaOa

'Aa•td8a. 9 i.e. the Pessinus region. Cf. Strabo

xii. 5, 3. 10 Cf. B.C.H. xi. (1887), p. 349. On the

temple of Adrasteia at Cyzicus cf. Strabo, xiii. 1. 13.



92 K. M. T. CHRIMES

gods in the shape of minor local deities of various Phrygian towns. Thus 'Cotys,' the god of Cotiaeon, a town located by the Peutinger Table near Acmonia in the upper Maeander valley,"1 appears as a brother of Atys in Herodotus; while Xanthus, the KocrropOcoTrlS of Lydian history and a con- temporary of Herodotus, calls one of the sons of Atys ' Torrhebus.' Torrhebus, like Cotys, is a god, this time of a town of the same name somewhere in the Middle Maeander valley. The existence of the town 'named after Torrhebus,' who was famous as the inventor of Toppilfia Arl, is attested by Stephanus of Byzantium (s.v. T6ppripos) and confirmed by the appearance of the lyre-playing god, together with his name, on the coins of Phrygian Hierapolis.12 When Xanthus is further quoted as explaining that while the true Lydians were descended from Lydus (who also appears as one of the two sons of Atys in Herodotus), the descendants of Torrhebus were the Torrhebians, a tribe who spoke a language 'differing from Lydian as Ionian from Dorian,' it becomes still more evident that his informants were really speaking of the god of this

Phrygian town. How are we to explain the discrepancy between the pre-Heraclid dynasty

of Lydia as reported by Xanthus and as reported by Herodotus ? The name of the second son of Atys according to Herodotus was not TopprIp6s but Tvpaoiv6s, and he migrated to Italy and founded the cities of the Tvpaoivoi. Herodotus has not, however, been guilty of misquoting the traditional name in order to fit the theory, for Tvpoalv6S also has the best Phrygian credentials, being simply a cult-name of Attis. In the excavations of 1886 at Pergamon a letter of Attalus II was discovered, granting dcThEia TrrpopdCrcov to the priests of' Apollo Tarsenos' there; 13 and from the occurrence of the same cult-title attached to

Cybele ('Meter Tarsene') at Kula near the river Hyllus on the borders of

Phrygia and Mysia, it appears that the Hellenistic cult at Pergamon belongs to the original Phrygian stratum of religion centred round the worship of the mother goddess. We can scarcely doubt that the Tvpaoiv6s of Herodotus is identical with the Taparlv6S and Taparonvi of the inscriptions, as also with what are apparently the alternative forms Tarsios and Tarseus in the same locality of Kula, pointing to a survival of a tribe-name which gave rise to the epithet (cf. Zeus Karios, and Apollo Torrhebos above) in the people of Tarsus in Cilicia.

II. Persian Sources.-We have seen that the first Lydian 'dynasty' is an invention of Phrygian priests at Sardis. No less certainly is the second

dynasty, that of the ' Heracleidae,' the invention of T-Epa~cv oi hA6ylol, who, to

judge from the nature of their information, were probably priests too. For the

genealogy of 'Agron the son of Ninus the son of Belus the son of Alcaeus the son of Heracles' (I. 7) is part of the same tree as the official Persian account of

11 Cf. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Vol. ii. p. 588 n.

12 Head, Hist. Num. p. 565 (M6Oos and

T6pprla(?)os), and Drexler's note (in Neue Jahrb. Phil, cxlv. (1892), p. 842) on a similar inscribed coin. Boethius, Inst. Mus. 20, has the name ' Coroebus Atyis filius,' but cf. Plut. Mus. 15, Xanthus ap. Dion. Hal. i. 28.

13 For Apollo Tarsenos at Pergamon cf. A th.

Mitt. xxiv. p. 213; for Meter Tarsene at Kula, Keil, Die Kulte Lydiens, in Anatolian Studies

presented to Sir W. Ramsay, p. 251, and Mu8de Belge, xi. p. 133; for Apollo Tarsios and Apollo Tarseus at Kula, Keil loc. cit.; for the possible connection of all these cult-names with Tarsus, v. p. 94 and note 22 below.




their own descent through ' Cepheus son of Belus' (VII. 61) and' Perses son of Perseus' (vii. 150). The whole genealogy was given as follows :

Heracles

Alcaeus

Belus (i.e. the god of Babylon)

Ninus Cepheus Danae (eponymous hero I I

of Nineveh) Andromeda = Perseus

Perses

Just as Perses the son of Perseus and grandson of Danae is tacked on at one end as a political bait to Argos (cf. ov-rco &v E11IpEV OpITrEPOt &ri6yovot, in Herod. VII. 150), so Heracles and Alcaeus were attached at the other, pre- sumably to persuade Sparta of Persian good-will. The germ of truth in the genealogy is probably the merging of the various religions of the Land of the Two Rivers into one Assyrio-Persian worship of Aphrodite Urania (i.e. Ishtar) according to the process of syncretism described to Herodotus and reported by him.14 'Agron the son of Ninus the son of Belus' can then be none other than the consort of Ishtar, correctly enough described as 'the Hunter-god.' 15

But what has this to do with Lydia ? Clearly, nothing whatever, except that it is true enough that the Assyrio-Persian religion did spread into Lydia as the Assyrian conquests advanced westwards.16 We can only suppose that Herodotus obtained this part of his story from Persians resident in the Lydian capital. Whoever they were, they were unable to give him any idea of dates, but fired him with so intense a zeal to find out more about this Asiatic ' dynasty ' of Heracleidae that he not only made exhaustive inquiries about the antiquity of the temple of Aphrodite Urania at Askalon,17 but undertook special journeys to Tyre, and afterwards to Thasos, for the express purpose of finding out the 'date' of the Phoenician god to whom his informants gave the Greek name of Heracles.s1

III. The Egyptian Evidence.-Whatever the order of his journeys, Hero- dotus came to Egypt with his problem of the Heracleidae still unsolved. But when he came to Egyptian Thebes, he came without knowing it to the fountain- head of all the widespread traditions-Cretan included-about the dispersal of the inhabitants of the coasts and islands of the Aegean at the time of the Trojan war. The basis of them all must have been the Theban records of the sea-raids on Egypt in the reign of Rameses III.

This conclusion I shall now attempt to establish from the following

14 Herod. i. 131. 15 On this subject see Eisler's work,

Orpheus the Fisher.

16 Keil, op. cit., p. 250 (on worship of Anaitis and Persike Thea).

17 Herod. i. 105. 18 Id. ii. 44.



94 K. M. T. CHRIMES

considerations :-(1) Herodotus actually saw the temple of Rameses III in Thebes, together with the reliefs which still remain on its walls, and heard from the priests in charge of the records a description of the scenes represented. (2) He proceeded to establish the chronology of his supposed Lydian dynasties, on the basis of the descent upon Egypt, from these Egyptian sources.

Now Herodotus, while at Thebes, had every chance of being told the story of the invasions under Rameses III; and, in fact, it would have been very strange if he had not heard it, seeing that he was shown all the other sights of

Thebes, and that this temple, built by Rameses III as the great national memorial of his exploits against the invaders, was one of the most famous. Further, his chief informants, the priests of ' Hephaestus,' must actually have been the priests of this very temple. This is clear from the description which Herodotus gives of their temple, with its double propylaea on east and west, and of the colossi said to represent summer and winter before the entrance on the west.19 The ascription of the priests and temple to 'Hephaestus' is easily explained, for Herodotus' description of the dryaA~pa of this god in question as

-Truypaiou vav~pb i pipTrlS (III. 37) completes the identification with Ptah, the

Egyptian god of smiths, in his later form as a bandy-legged dwarf indistin-

guishable from Bes; and we know that Rameses III, although he actually dedicated the temple to Amon, paid special honours to Ptah in its construction, and also placed a statue of Ptah, with a dedication to him, in a prominent place at the entrance to the first court of the temple, the first statue which a visitor would see.20

Herodotus, then, was shown over the very temple on the walls of which Rameses III (' Rhampsinitus ') had had the records of his exploits against the invaders carved in relief : in fact, the historian expresses his special admiration of the reliefs on the east end of the same temple, wrongly ascribing them, however, to Mycerinus, who is apparently one of the Pyramid-builders. He was also taken to see the treasure-house of ' Rhampsinitus,' which adjoins the south side of the temple, and still stands; and it is evidently the wonders of this

building, and the evidences of stupendous wealth which he saw there, which

prevented the traveller from gauging the relative importance of the various

pieces of historical information he had received from the priests. A more detailed account of what they told him would have been a notable contribution to the historical knowledge of his time.

The importance and the contents of the records of the Rameses temple have been too often discussed to need repetition here.21 It is sufficient to notice that the account of the Syrian war undertaken by Rameses III late in his reign mentions as his enemies the same 'peoples of the sea' who together invaded Egypt from Asia Minor in the reign of Merneptah and again gives a prominent place to Shardina (people of Sardis ?), Shakalsha (Sagalassians of

Pisidia ?) and 'T'r'sh,' who are not Tuprlvoi, but most probably 'men of

19 Id. ii. 121, 136 init. Cf. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, iv. 16, 191. The colossi have now disappeared.

20 Breasted, loc. cit. 21 Cf. e.g. Breasted, op. cit., iii. ? 580,

and iv., p. 3 ff.




Tarshish.' 22 The cause of their invasion had been widespread famine: 'they spend their time going about the land fighting to fill their bodies daily; they come to the land of Egypt to seek the necessities of their mouths.' 23

It remains to be shown that this is the famine which Herodotus has pro- jected into his history of Lydia, and made the cause of an emigration (via Egypt as one of the ' many countries ') to Italy. If it can be proved that in the dating of his early Lydian history Herodotus has used a characteristically Egyptian and un-Greek system of chronology which actually dates the Lydian famine to the period of these sea-raids, the story of the sources of this early Lydian history will be complete.

Now it is odd that Herodotus, who elsewhere invariably reckons three generations to a century,24 should ascribe to the twenty-two Heracleidae in

Lydia a dynasty lasting only 505 years, which allows them a negligible fraction under 23 years each. This seems doubly peculiar in that he gives the five Mermnadae who follow them an average reign of exactly a third of a century each, 170 years altogether, counting the 'three extra years' which Apollo allowed to Croesus. One is tempted to think that the chronology of the two

Lydian dynasties comes from the same source and should therefore be reckoned on the same system; the more so, in that in the case of the Mermnadae the method of Herodotus makes the dynasty begin a generation too early, as com-

parison with Assyrian records will show. If we assume the date 546 for the fall of Croesus (since this particular controversy does not affect the

general argument), Gyges, according to Herodotus, begins his 38 years' reign in 716; according to the annals of Ashurbanipal he sends troops to help Psammetichus; and Psammetichus, on Herodotus' own reckoning, supported by Egyptian chronology, cannot have 'shaken off the yoke of

my lordship' (to quote Ashurbanipal) until 669. If, on the other hand, we allow an average of 23 years for the Mermnad kings, the dynasty will begin in 661, which agrees with the other evidence, and the reigns of the twenty-two Heracleidae 505 years earlier, in 1166 instead of 1221. On this reckoning the rise of the Heracleid dynasty would be precisely dated from the end of the reign of Rameses III (1197-1167); for the Theban priests would naturally assume that the population of Lydia changed as a result of famine and emigration,25 and that this new 'dynasty of the Heracleidae ' (i.e. the anachronistic contribution of the Persians) mentioned by Herodotus was a consequence of the repopulation. Even the duration of the famine in Lydia for eighteen years (I. 94) before the

22 T'r'sh = 'men of Tarshish ? ' i.e. of Tarsus in Cilicia. Cf. Joseph. Ant. Jud. i. 127, eapa~eds oOrco yap KaaIT-ro T6b raaort6v fh KilKia' OUpdiOV 86. TapTa6 y& p "rap' ctrroiS r&5v

?rr6XAEov ~f &dzoXoyca-rd6rrn KcITG-raz, vTpirp6rrohXi OOaa,

T6 7aO 7rp6s "ri1v KYaficV &vrT "roO EOrc r-rca- Pa\6vrcav (i.e. because the native word was impossible for Greeks to pronounce). Tuparlvoi or Taparlvof looks like another attempt (cf. above p. 92 and note 13). Cilicians are suitable 'brothers of Kittim' (Cypriotes) and ' Rhodanim ' (Rhodians, cf. Genesis, x.

4), and their ancestors, perhaps from further north, may well have taken part in this invasion of Egypt.

23 Breasted, iii. ? 580; cf. iv. ? 129. 24 Herod. ii. 142 : yeveaa y)p TpEiT &v8pWv

xarr6v -r E laort.

25 Hence Herodotus (i. 7) supposes the 'Maeonians' to change their name to Lydians in the generation of the migration. The significance of the change was a contro- versial question later. Cf. Strabo, xii. 8. 3.



96 K. M. T. CHRIMES

final departure for Italy seems to fit the story of the Egyptian priests, for it would thus date the beginning of the raids from Asia Minor and Syria in 1194

B.c., Eratosthenes' date for the fall of Troy and the famine associated with it. The priests thought that the records of the defeat of Shardina threw light on Lydian history, but however correct their own astronomical data, could only convey the date of the defeat approximately in generations to a Greek.26

We now appear to have found the right clue to the relation between Hero- dotus' famine in Lydia and the invasion of Egypt, for an examination of the

Egyptian system of chronology, as reported by Herodotus, reveals the signi- ficant fact that in the fifth century B.C. they actually did reckon a generation at about 23 years.

Herodotus says that he was shown 341 statues of kings, and as many of

priests, in the temple of 'Hephaestus' at Thebes, each pair representing a

generation. He goes on to say 27 that the reign of the last of these kings, Setho, was ended by the invasion of Sennacherib, i.e. soon after 667 B.C. Herodotus, on the Greek reckoning of three generations to a century, therefore takes the

beginning of the Theban kingdom back 11,340 years (sic), beyond 12,000 B.c., with the further startling information that during that time-' according to the priests '-the sun had four times changed its course, and had 'twice risen where it now sets and set where it now rises.' That this ad4ition is due to

misunderstanding of an explanation of Sothic 1460-year cycles has long been

recognised.28 It is, of course, impossible to decide from the words of Hero- dotus alone-since he has recorded so preposterous an interpretation of the account he received--whether the priests referred to four ends of cycles, or to four cycles completed during the reigns of the 341 kings, during only two (A and C) of which (according to Herodotus' version) the sun appeared to travel from east to west, and during two (B and D) from west to east, changing again to its east- to-west course before the fifth century B.c. If the priests referred to ends of

periods, the first ending-point would fall in 5701 B.C.; 29 if to completed cycles, the first would begin 1460 years earlier, in 7161 B.c. In either case the list of kings was made up to begin before the date in question. If, however, it was

supposed to begin between 7161 and 5701, the average royal generation would be reckoned, at its maximum, at the improbably low figure (even for unhealthy Egyptian royal houses) of about 19 years; if between 8621 and 7161, the estimate would lie between rather under 24 and about 20 years.

We thus arrive at a result which supports the contention that the 23-year generation was an Egyptian chronological principle in the time of Hecataeus and Herodotus and not before; for there is good reason to suppose that the Egyptian

26 ' Yarsu (?), a certain Syrian,' on the evidence of the Harris Papyrus. Cf. Breasted, Ancient Records, iv. ? 398.

27 341 in Herod. ii. 142. The number 345

given to Hecataeus (id. ii. 143) who must therefore have visited Thebes before the death of Amasis, includes also the first four Saite kings. Cf. also Herod. ii. 43, IS "Apaaow

PaatrhEVaavTa, 'to the beginning of A.'s

reign,' referring apparently to the same con- versation with Hecataeus.

28 Poole, Horae Aegyptiacae, p. 94. 29 According to Censorinus, a cycle ended

in A.D. 139 (Petrie, History of Eqypt, p. 250). The preceding cycles would therefore end in 1321 B.C., 2781, 4241, 5701, 7161 . . .




chronographers themselves arrived at their principle by averaging the reigns of the Saite kings.30

Herodotus, then, has reconstructed early Lydian ' history ' out of Phrygian and Persian pseudo-genealogies, the content being supplied from Egyptian history, and the whole strung together on an Egyptian system of dating.

How far was his method universal, and to what extent has it influenced Greek tradition ? To one aspect of this question the adoption of the same

Egyptian chronology for the dating of the Minos story in Crete, and also apparently by Hellanicus and the Sicilian historians on the subject of the arrival of Pelasgi in Italy,31 suggests an answer. We must suspect that all the earlier Greek tradition goes back, after the fashion of the more specialised researches of Herodotus, to Egyptian sources, and could therefore draw also upon Hittite records at second-hand.

To the further question of how far Herodotus and his immediate successors realised the basis of truth which lay beneath the type of information they received from Phrygian and Persian priests-namely, the fact of the spread of religion and culture by a dominant race-only further study of the Greek authors can give an answer. This rationalist view of the genealogising habit may not indeed have been altogether lost on Herodotus; otherwise it is hard to see why he attached so much importance to the' age' of the Tyrian Heracles. But although he has put the ' dynasty' of the Assyrio-Persian religion after the emigration from (and consequent weakening of) Lydia, we can see that he has probably done so on the advice of the Egyptian priests, so that all uncensored genealogies of the same type in the Greek historians should be treated with the greatest suspicion.

K. M. T. CHRIMES.

ADDENDUM

ON THE METHOD OF DATING EMPLOYED BY HERODOTUS' EGYPTIAN INFORMANTS

The reigns of the six Saite kings between 651 and 525, counting Psamtik III, who lost his kingdom after one year, average exactly 21 years; without Psamtik III, exactly 25 years. To split the differences between the two results, thus arriving at a 23-year average, would seem to the chronographers a fair estimate. Cf. also p. 96, note 27. But the argument only becomes cogent when taken in connexion with the deliberate application of the principle to early Egyptian chronology. The early chronicles do not, in fact, warrant the assumption of a 23-year generation; for example, the well-authenticated XIIth Dynasty list of eight kings gives 228 years, averaging 281 years each (cf. Breasted,

30 Cf. Addendum. 31 Herod. vii. 171 (Cretans). The 'third

(Egyptian) generation' before the Trojan war gives approximately the date of the destruction of Cnossus. Cf. also Hellanicus

J.H.S.-VOL. L.

and Philistus, ap. Dion. Hal. i. 22, and for transference of Cretan tradition into Italian history, cf. Vergil, Aeneid, iii. 142 (famine after the Trojan war), with Herod. vii. 171.

H



98 HERODOTUS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY

Records of Ancient Egypt, I. p. 222); in the XIXth Dynasty the average is about 25 years, in the XXth 27? years. In view of the long period of foreign domina- tion and universal destruction lasting for over 400 years before the Saites, most of the gallery of royal statues shown to Hecataeus and Herodotus must have been late forgeries; and their informants, being rather astronomers than historians, apparently knew very little about any other ancient records than the reliefs carved on their own temple. The calendars among the inscriptions of the Medinet Habu temple did in fact enable them to determine the dates of events in Rameses III's reign exactly; but precise Egyptian astronomical records could not well be communicated to Hecataeus and Herodotus.

K. M. T. CHRIMES.



CHRIMES - 1930 - Herodotus and the Reconstruction of History

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