Herodotus

I wish it were possible to imitate Herodotus’s other qualities too. I do not mean all and everyone (this would be too much to pray for) but just one of them—whether the beauty of his diction, the careful arrangement of his words, the aptness of his native Ionic, his extraordinary power of thought, or the countless jewels which he has wrought into a unity beyond hope of imitation. But where you and I and everyone else can imitate him is in what he did with his composition and in the speed with which he became an established man of repute throughout the whole Greek world. As soon as he sailed from his home in Caria straight for Greece, he bethought himself of the quickest and least troublesome path to fame and a reputation for both himself and his works. To travel round reading his works, now in Athens, now in Corinth or Argos or Lacedaemon in turn, he thought a long and tedious undertaking that would waste much time. The division of his task and the consequent delay in the gradual acquisition of a reputation did not appeal to him, and he formed the plan of winning the hearts of all the Greeks at once somewhere if he

By this time he was much better known than the Olympic victors themselves. There was no one who had not heard the name of Herodotus—some at Olympia itself, others from those who brought the story back from the festival. He had only to appear and he was pointed out: “That is that Herodotus who wrote the tale of the Persian Wars in Ionic and celebrated our victories.” Such were the fruits of his Histories. In a single meeting he won the universal approbation of all Greece and his name was proclaimed not indeed just by one herald but in every city that had sent spectators to the festival.

The lesson was learnt. This was the short-cut to glory. Hippias the sophist was a native of the place, and he and Prodicus from Ceos and Anaximenes from Chios and Polus from Acragas and scores of others always gave their recitations in person before the assembled spectators and by this means soon won reputations.

But why need I mention those old sophists, historians, and chroniclers when there is the recent story of Aëtion the painter who showed off his

You may well wonder at the quality of his work that induced a chief judge of the games to give his daughter in marriage to a stranger like Aëtion. The picture is actually in Italy; I have seen it myself and can describe it to you. The scene is a very beautiful chamber, and in it there is a bridal couch with Roxana, a very lovely maiden, sitting upon it, her eyes cast down in modesty, for Alexander is standing there. There are smiling Cupids: one is standing behind her removing the veil from her head and showing Roxana to her husband; another like a true servant is taking the sandal off her foot, already preparing her for bed; a third Cupid has hold of Alexander’s cloak and is pulling him with all his might towards Roxana. The king himself is holding out a garland to the maiden and their best man and helper, Hephaestion, is there with a blazing torch in his hand, leaning on a very handsome youth—I think he is Hymenaeus [*](God of marriages.) (his name is not inscribed). On the other side of the picture are more Cupids playing among Alexander’s armour; [*](Botticelli copied this motif in his Mars and Venus in the National Gallery, London.) two of them are carrying his spear, pretending to be labourers burdened under a beam; two others are dragging a third, their king no doubt, on the shield, holding it by the handgrips; another has gone inside the corslet, which is lying breast-up on the ground—he seems to

All this is not needless triviality and a waste of labour. Aëtion is calling attention to Alexander’s other love—War—, implying that in his love of Roxana he did not forget his armour. A further point about the picture itself is that it had a real matrimonial significance of quite a different sort—it courted Proxenides’ daughter for Aëtion! So as a by-product of his Alexander’s Wedding he came away with a wife himself and the King for best-man. His reward for his marriage of the imagination was a real-life marriage of his own.

Herodotus then (to return to him) thought the Olympic festival a suitable shop-window for showing the Greeks such a wonderful historian of the Greek victories as himself. As for me—and in the name of the God of Friendship do not think me mad or that I am comparing my works to his, bless him—I declare that my case and his are alike. When I first came to live in Macedonia, I wondered what should be policy. My dearest wish was to become known to you all and to show off my works to as many in Macedonia as I could; but to go round visiting each city in person at that time of the year seemed an arduous undertaking, whereas I thought that if I took the occasion of this present festival of your nation and made my appearance and gave my lecture then, my prayers must surely be answered.

Here you are then gathered together, the cream of every city, the very epitome of all Macedonia, in the country’s finest city, so different, thank goodness,