In the transition from oral poetry to Herodotus’ written Histories, Herodotus kept many of the story telling narrative forms, most notably the habit of telling a story within the larger work, which is a device he uses more than Homer did. Herodotus presents his Histories as a series of tales explaining the circumstances leading to the Persian War.
In the opening statement of his Histories, Herodotus states that the reason he had conducted and composed this research was “in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feud.” (Histories, 1.0) He is continuing in the same vein as the Iliad and the Odyssey, works that had already successfully preserved and glorified a past war, shaping Hellenic culture. All three stories are about war: the context …show more content…
In his Histories, Herodotus soon makes it clear to us that this is a collection of peoples’ opinions on what happened, which is at least as important as a true account of precisely what really happened: “The Persians claim that this is how it happened, and they find in the sack of Troy the origin of their hostility toward the Hellenes. But the Phoenicians disagree with the Persians about Io. … These are the stories told by the Persians and the Phoenicians. I myself have no intention of affirming that these events occurred thus or otherwise.” (Histories, 1.6) In Book 8 of the Odyssey, Demodocus sings his divinely inspired vision of “the building of the wooden horse which Epeius made with Athena’s help, the horse which Odysseus led up to Troy as a trap, filled with men who would destroy great Ilion.” (Od. 8.532-536) This leads into Odysseus’ recounting of how after that he came to find himself enjoying King Alcinous’
In the opening statement of his Histories, Herodotus states that the reason he had conducted and composed this research was “in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feud.” (Histories, 1.0) He is continuing in the same vein as the Iliad and the Odyssey, works that had already successfully preserved and glorified a past war, shaping Hellenic culture. All three stories are about war: the context …show more content…
In his Histories, Herodotus soon makes it clear to us that this is a collection of peoples’ opinions on what happened, which is at least as important as a true account of precisely what really happened: “The Persians claim that this is how it happened, and they find in the sack of Troy the origin of their hostility toward the Hellenes. But the Phoenicians disagree with the Persians about Io. … These are the stories told by the Persians and the Phoenicians. I myself have no intention of affirming that these events occurred thus or otherwise.” (Histories, 1.6) In Book 8 of the Odyssey, Demodocus sings his divinely inspired vision of “the building of the wooden horse which Epeius made with Athena’s help, the horse which Odysseus led up to Troy as a trap, filled with men who would destroy great Ilion.” (Od. 8.532-536) This leads into Odysseus’ recounting of how after that he came to find himself enjoying King Alcinous’