The Dynamics of Time

The paper starts with re-assessing Fornara’s thesis that that the account of the Persian Wars in the Histories ought to be seen in light of the intra-Hellenic conflicts of the second half of the fifth century. There is irony in that a thesis which proved path-breaking for Herodotean scholarship at the end of the twentieth century was actually part of an investigation engaged with a question of nineteenth-century scholarship. The paper then takes up Fornara’s seminal observations about Herodotus and contemporary Athens and develops them further into a direction which ultimately leads to a Herodotus very different from Fornara’s Herodotus. The Histories’ concern with contemporary events, it is proposed, also reveals Herodotus’ profound understanding of the temporal dynamics of writing history. The oblique fashion in which Herodotus comments on Zeitgeschichte reflects an awareness that it is impossible to narrate events which are still in flux. Moreover, due to the dynamics of time historical meaning is inherently instable. Acknowledging that historiography itself is part of history, Herodotus historicizes himself.