Anankein Herodotus

Abstract

This paper examines Herodotus' use of words of the ἀνάγκη family in order to determine which external or internal constraints the historian represents as affecting the causality of events. M. Ostwald's Ἀνάγκη in Thucydides (1988) provides a foundation for examining the more restricted application of these terms in Herodotus (85 occurrences vs. 161 in Thucydides). In Herodotus, divine necessity (absent in Thucydides) refers to the predictable results of human wrongdoings more often than to a force constraining human choices. This represents an especially ambiguous Herodotean category, however, and is expressed by a wider range of terms than those with ἀνάγκη-stems. The analysis of natural ἀνάγκη yields more clear-cut results. (1) In Herodotus (and not in Thucydides) ἀνάγκη often qualifies an aggressive compulsion applied by a personal agent. (2) Victims of this despotic ἀνάγκη are partially excused, but those who resist it earn Herodotus' praise. (3) Most importantly, Herodotus (unlike Thucydides) never in turn applies ἀνάγκη words to circumstances that motivate imperialistic actions, especially starting a war. (4) Whereas in Thucydides agents are ‘compelled’ to act also by fear and other internal impulses, the only psychological factor to which Herodotus applies ἀνάγκη words (and this time mostly in a positive sense) is moral obligation.Herodotus' concept of ἀνάγκη is moralistic, and consistent with his unwillingness to justify imperialism, his practice of assigning responsibility, and his high regard for nomos, on the one hand, and freedom on the other. The narrator's involvement in these principles is reflected in Herodotus' use of ἀνάγκη terms in self-referential statements of the type ‘I am compelled/not compelled to say x.’ These statements represent the narrator as the opposite of an imperial subject and analogous to the most admirable of his characters on the receiving end of compulsion. He is a free agent, who disregards political pressure and is exclusively compelled by the rules that apply to him as researcher and truthful recorder.

The Marketplace of Ideas and the Agora: Herodotus on the Power of Isegoria

“…This suggests that Athenian imperialism is a choice; it is a project authorized by the self-governing people of isegoria. As Munson has observed, the Scythian narrative shows a possibility of freedom without domination (Munson 2001a, 212–4): in the Histories , “an invasion is an act of the will and an unnecessary choice” (Munson 2001b, 41). Athens’ success at war is not an unmitigated good—Herodotus calls war an evil (8.3).…”

A Socratic History: Theology in Xenophon's Rewriting of Herodotus’ Croesus Logos

“…12 'Divine justice' in response to human hybris (for example Lloyd-Jones (1983) 63-64, 67-68, 69-70;Darbo-Peschanski (1987) 54-72), cosmic balance/δίκη (for example Lloyd (2007) 233) or the 'ethically rational' divine punishment of gratuitous human crimes (for example Munson (2001)…”

“…The relationship between tisis ('vengeance', 'repayment') and nemesis is similarly vexed; the two have often been assimilated by scholars who take nemesis as a synonym for divine justice (for example Macan (1895) cxiv, n.4), though the equation is questionable (cf. Munson (2001)…”

DRESS AND UNDRESS IN HERODOTUS' <em>HISTORIES</em>

“…14 On the vocabulary of necessity in the Histories, see Munson 2001. xr÷n gˆr Kandaoel+ gensyai kak™w ("in fact there was a need for Candaules to be led into misfortune," 1.8.2); t_ d kak™w gˆr Ádee panoik'+ gensyai ("in fact there was a need for her to be led into misfortune as well as all of her family," 9.109.2). Further thematic convergence is produced by Herodotus' recurring use of words with the same root.…”