Hecataeus(Ἑκαταῖος).
1. Of Miletus, one of the earliest and most distinguished Greek historians (logographers)
and geographers. He was the son of Hegesander, and belonged to a very ancient and illustrious
family (Hdt. 2.143). According to Suidas, he was a contemporary of
Dionysius of Miletus, and lived about the 65th olympiad, i. e. B. C.
520. Hence Larcher and others conclude that he was born about 550, so that in B. C. 500, the time at which he acted a prominent part among the Ionians,
he would have been about fifty years old. As Hecataeus further (Suidas, s.
v.
Ἑλλάνικος) survived the Persian war for a short time,
he seems to have died about B. C. 476, shortly after the battles of
Plataeae and Mycale. Suidas tells us that Hecataeus was a pupil of Protagoras, which is
utterly impossible for chronological reasons, just as it is impossible that Hecataeus should
have been a friend of Xenocrates, as Strabo says (xii. p. 550.) Hecataeus must have been
possessed of considerable wealth, for, like many other eminent men of that age, he satisfied
his desire for knowledge by travelling into distant countries, and seeing with his own eyes
that which others learnt from books. We know from Herodotus (l.c.) that
Hecataeus visited Egypt, and from the manner in which later writers speak of his geographical
knowledge, there can be no doubt that he visited many other countries also. (Agathem. 1.1;
Agatharch. De Rubr. Mari, p. 48.) The fragments of his geographical work,
which have come down to us, lead us to suppose that, besides the provinces of the Persian
empire, he visited the coasts of the Euxine, Thrace, the whole of Greece, Oenotria, and even
Liguria, Spain, and Libya, though of the last-mentioned countries he may have seen little more
than the coasts. The time during which he was engaged in these travels cannot be accurately
determined, though it must have been previous to the revolt of the lonians, that is, previous
to B. C. 500, for after that event the war between the Greeks and
Persians, as well as the advanced age of Hecataeus, would have thrown too many difficulties in
his way; and it further appears that he was well acquainted with the extent and resources of
the Persian empire at the time when his countrymen contemplated the revolt from Persia. (Hdt. 5.36.) His geographical work, moreover, must have been written
after the year B. C. 524, since in one of the extant fragments
140,ed. Müller) lie speaks of Boryza in Thrace asa Persian town, which it did not become
till that year.
The only events in the life of Hecataeus of which we have any definite knowledge, are the
part he took in the insurrection of the Ionians against the Persians. When Aristagoras was
planning the revolt of the Ionians, and all those whom he consulted agreed with him, Hecataeus
was the only one who dissuaded his countrymen from such a rash undertaking, explaining to them
the extent of the enemy's empire and his power. When this advice was disregarded, he exhorted
them at least to provide themselves with a naval force, and for this purpose to make use of
the treasures amassed in the temple at Branchidae. But this opinion also was overruled by the
sanguine Ionians (Hdt. 5.36), and the Ionians revolted without
being prepared to meet the enemy or to protect themselves. Subsequently, when Artaphernes and
Otanes had invaded Ionia and Aeolis, and taken the towns of Clazomenae and Cuma, Aristagoras,
who had brought about the misfortunes without the courage to endure them, meditated upon
flight either to Sardinia or to Myrcinus. Hecataeus advised him to do neither, but to take up
a fortified position in the neighboring island of Leros, and there to watch the issue of the
events. (Hdt. 5.124, 125.) This advice
was rejected again, but the conduct of H ecataeus had been throughout that of a wise and
experienced man. Even after the fall of Ionia under the strokes of the Persians, he did not
desert his countrymen ; for we are told that he was sent as ambassador to Artaphernes, and
prevailed upon the satrap to win the confidence of the lonians by a mild treatment. (Diod. Fragm. Vat. p. 41, ed. Dindorf.) After this we hear no more of Hecataeus,
but the little we know of him is enough to justify the high praise which some of the ancients
bestow upon him in mentioning him along with the greatest men. (Eratosth. apud Strab. i. p. 7, xiv. p. 635; Aelian, Ael. VH 13.20;
Hermog. De Gen. dicend. 2.12.)
Works
Hecataeus deposited the results of his travels and studies in two great works; one
geographical, entitled
Περίοδος γῆς, or
Περήγησις, and the other historical, entitled
Γενεαλογίαι, or
Ἱστορίαι.
(Suid.
s. v.
Ἑλλάνικος, where the heading of the article is a
mistake for
Ἑκαταῖος). The passage of Suidas compared
with one of Strabo (
i. p.7 ) clearly shows that Hecataeus wrote
only two works, and that the other names or titles we meet with refer to subdivisions of the
geographical work. The latter consisted of two parts, one of which contained a description of
Europe, and the other of Asia, Egypt, and Libya. Both parts appear to have been subdivided
into smaller sections; thus we find one section belonging to the first part referred to under
the name of Hellespontus (Steph. Byz.
s. v.
Τένεδος), and others belonging to the second part,
under the titles of
Αἰολικά,
Περιήγηρις Αἰγύπτου, and
Περιήγησις
Λιβύης. (Steph. Byz.
s. vv.
Ἀμαζόνειον,
Διηβρις,
Ἐλένειος). It is not easy to
determine the order in which Hecataeus described the different countries, and consequently
also the order in which the fragments still extant should be arranged. The mode in which he
treated his subjects may still be seen from some of the longer fragments : he first mentioned
the name of the people, then the towns they inhabited, and sometimes he gave an account of
their foundation and of any thing that was remarkable in them. The distances of the places
from one another seem to have been care-fully marked. Hecataeus was the first historical
writer who exercised his own judgment on the
matters which he had to record,
and used historical criticism in rejecting what appeared to him fabulous, or endeavouring to
find out the historical truth which formed the groundwork of a mythical tradition (
Paus. 3.25.5; Arrian,
Arr. Anab.
2.16); still he is nevertheless very dependent on Homer and other early poets, whereby
he is led to mix up fables with truth; but wherever he gives the results of his own
observations, he is a correct and trust-worthy guide. Eratosthenes (apud
Strab. i. p. 7) seems to deny that Hecataeus made geographical maps; but if we compare
the statement of Agathemerus (1.1) with Herodotus (
5.49), it is
clear, on the one hand, that Hecataeus corrected and improved the map of the earth drawn up
by Anaximander, and it is probable, on the other, that the map which Aristagoras carried to
Sparta for the purpose of persuading Cleomenes to engage in a war against Persia was either
the work of Hecataeus, or had been drawn up according to his views of the physical structure
of the earth. Callimachus (apud
Athen. ii. p. 70, comp. ix. p. 410),
whose opinion seems to be followed by Arrian (
Arr. Anab. 5.6),
regarded the
Περιήγησις τῆς Ἀσιας, ascribed to
Hecataeus, and belonging to the second part of his geographical work, as spurious, and
assigned it to a
νησιώτης (an islander). It is not
impossible that he may have found in the library of Alexandria a periegesis of Asia ascribed
to the celebrated Hecataeus, but which was in reality a forgery, and had nothing in common
with the genuine work but the name of the author; for such forged title-pages were not
uncommon in the time of the Ptolemies, and literary impostors made a lucrative traffic of
them. (Hippocrat. vol. xv. pp. 105, 109, ed. Kühn.) At any rate, even if we admit that
Callimachus really found a spurious periegesis, it does not follow that the genuine work did
not exist.
The second work of Hecataeus, the Histories or Genealogies, was a prose account, in the
form of genealogies, of the poetical foibles and traditions of the Greeks. From the fragments
which are quoted from it, we see that it must have consisted of at least four sections. The
first contained the traditions about Deucalion and his descendants; the second, the stories
of Heracles and the Heracleidae ; the third, apparently the Peloponnesian traditions ; and
the fourth, those of Asia Minor. The value of this, as well as his other, work cannot be
diminished in our eyes by the fact of Herodotus controverting several of his opinions (6.137,
comp. 1.146, 202, 2.3, 15, 21, 23, 143, 4.8, 36); but, on the contrary, it is evident that
Herodotus looked upon him as a rival, whom it was worth whileendeavouring to refute and
excel, and that he actually did excel him, does not require to be proved in this place.
Herodotus knew the works of Hecataeus well, and undoubtedly availed himself of them ; but the
charge of Porphyrius (apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. x. p. 466), that
Herodotus literally transcribed whole passages from Hecataeus is wholly without foundation.
(Comp. Hermog. De Form. Orat. 2.12; Dionys. Jud. de
Thuc. 5; Diod. 1.37; Strab. i.
p.18; Suidas.) Respecting the style of Hecataeus, Strabo says, that though prose, it
approached very nearly to poetry, and Hermogenes (l.c.) praises it for
its simplicity, purity, clearness, and sweetness, and adds that the language was the pure and
unmixed Ionic dialect.
Editions
The fragments of the Genealogies are collected in Creuzer's Histor.
Graecae Antiquissimorum Fragmenta, Heidelberg, 1806, 8vo. p. 1-86; and
the fragments of both the Periegesis and the Genealogies by R. H. Klausen, Hecataci Milesii Fragmenta, Berlin, 1831, 8vo., and by C. and Th.
Müller, Fragm. Hist. Graec., Paris, 1841, p. 1-31. Each of
these collections is preceded by a dissertation on the life and writings of Hecataeus.
Further Information
Comp. Dahlmann, Herodot. p. 112, &c.; Ukert, Untersuchungen über die Geographie des Hecataeus u. Damastes, Weimar, 1814.)