‘I AM GOING TO SAY … ’: A SIGN ON THE ROAD OF HERODOTUS’LOGOS

Abstract

Er ist der Wanderer, der genau weiß, wohin er schließlich kommen will, auch genau die Hauptstationen seines Weges vorher festgelegt hat und innehält, der sich aber dabei Zeit läßt, um alles Schöne und Interessante, das die Gegend bietet, zu betrachten, und selbst lange Seitenwege zu diesem Zwecke nicht zu scheuen braucht, da er weiß, daß er die Hauptstraße am richtigen Punkte wieder erreichen wird. M. Pohlenz,Herodot, der erste Geschichtschreiber des Abendlandes(1937) Anyone familiar with Greek literature knows at once that this can describe no author but Herodotus. As readers have long recognized, travel is a crucial element of Herodotus’ persona not only as an historian and ethnographer but also as a narrator, to the extent that he has been called a tourist and a guide. Pohlenz draws his vivid metaphor from Herodotus himself, who assimilates movement through his narrative to movement through space by several well-known narratorial habits: he points out ‘paths’ oflogoi(1.95.1: λόγων ὁδούς), goes out of his way to justify so-called ‘digressions’ (orExkurse) and frequently uses verbs of movement to return to earlier narratives or to preview upcoming ones. However, most scholars have overlooked one important feature by which Herodotus creates this sense of progress through hislogoi, although it appears in the programmatic sentence that begins his whole network of narrative signposts and recurs in his voice in the first half of theHistoriesand in important speeches in the second.

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