Was Herodotus Over Dramatic? An analysis of literary craft in Herodotus’ Histories

Herodotus’ Histories presents itself as a foundational work of Greek historiography, while simultaneously incorporating narrative strategies characteristic of Attic tragedy. Throughout the text, Herodotus shows clear engagement with the mythological themes and literary devices of tragedy; while this does not make him less of a historian, it could make his craft appear more closely aligned to that of a tragedian. The narrative craft and style of Herodotus’ Histories have been the source of modern scholarly debate for many years: whilst Jaspar Griffin (2006) argued tragic modes of storytelling provide an important model for Herodotus’ narrative practices, others have suggested that what Herodotus does is adapt tragic frameworks to strengthen his own historiographical voice (Munson, 1991: 59; Chiasson, 2003: 7).  This essay will argue that Herodotus does not write tragedy instead of history; rather, he creates tragic narratives from history by turning myth and literary devices into modes of inquiry. It will demonstrate Herodotus’ historiographical craft first by assessing Herodotus’ commitment to history through close reading and comparison with Aeschylus’ Persians, before moving on to assessing how Herodotus uses tragic motif and the extent to which this impacts his narrative craft.

Herodotus’ account of Salamis demonstrates that, despite superficial similarities to tragic narrative, his craft remains fundamentally historiographical in method and purpose. This is best conveyed through a comparison between Aeschylus’ Persians with Herodotus’ account of Salamis in book 8.

Herodotus and Aeschylus differ in how they present the narrative of the Persians hearing of their defeat. Herodotus only briefly mentions that there is a messenger sent to the Persians by Xerxes at 8.97 and uses the remainder of the narrative space to discuss the mechanics of communication between the Persians at home and those on campaign. Xerxes’ fear about the aftermath of the battle at Salamis is only an afterthought and is used by Herodotus to emphasise the power of the Greeks rather than to encourage audiences to feel any sympathy for the Persian leader.

The importance of Xerxes’ envoy being sent to Persia cannot be understated in the narrative of the Persians, as it is when the messenger enters the court at Susa when the tragic climax of the play is established. Before this point in the text, Aeschylus’ narrative is merely anxious speculation. When the messenger enters, the performance of worry is realised in a narrative of catastrophe, leading to the culmination of pity and fear. This is emphasised by the choral song following the messenger’s departure: ‘Xerxes took them—popoi [oh shame!]! Xerxes lost them—totoi [woe!]! Xerxes handled everything unwisely, he and his sea-boats’ (Aesch. Pers. 550ff.). The use of repetition here emphasises the pain of the chorus, a new layer to the narrative that is added by the revelation of Xerxes’ defeat. The impact of the realisation of catastrophe piques the emotional response of the audience: in this moment, they are experiencing the grief of the chorus and Atossa alongside them.

Additionally, these two accounts of Salamis also differ in the scope of their narration. Herodotus’ historiographical text has a greater temporal scope than Aeschylus’ tragedy does, so the historian is able to add more ethnographic details into his narrative. This is exemplified at 8.42-49 when Herodotus begins to list the different contingent forces that have docked at Salamis (Hdt. Hist. 8.42-49). The purpose of this catalogue is to provide the reader with context for the vast scale of the war, whilst also emphasising key ideas about the mighty powers of Hellas. This emphasis on the vast number of Greek contingents at Salamis shifts the narrative away from tragic affect (i.e., emotional impact of Salamis) and towards historiographical authority, which demonstrates that Herodotus’ craft prioritises knowledge accumulation through inquiry (ἱστορία) over emotional immersion.

This use of cataloguing contrasts with how Aeschylus treats the events of Salamis. In the messenger speech of Aeschylus’ Persians, the words spoken are not concerning ethnographic details of the Greek contingents at Salamis: rather, they function to communicate a narrative of pathos for the defeated Persians. The messenger states that the reason for Xerxes’ defeat is not his own error, but the fact that Xerxes was ‘reading the future badly’, a claim that subtly points to the tragic motifs of delayed recognition and misunderstanding (Aesc. Pers. 457). Misunderstanding and delayed recognition are catalysts of tragic action in Greek drama and are especially common in scenes where the future is misunderstood by the tragic hero (Griffin, 2006: 122). What is significant here is the impact of Xerxes’ misunderstanding of the future: Aeschylus presents audiences with a catastrophic and necessary collapse in the worldview of the Persians as the narrative of the play switches from the diegetic messenger speech to the mimetic choral song once the messenger leaves.

Through this comparison between Herodotus’ historiographical account of Salamis and Aeschylus’ tragic account of Xerxes’ defeat, it becomes evident that Herodotus’ authorial identity is that of a historian rather than a tragedian. This is emphasised through his commitment to ἱστορία over emotional intensity, and through his focus on human authority rather than supernatural mechanics. While Persians transforms Salamis into an experience of collective suffering, Herodotus’ insistence on logistical detail appears deliberate, marking his refusal to allow catastrophe to replace explanation.

Whilst the comparison between Aeschylus’ Persians and Herodotus’ account of Salamis outlines that Herodotus’ craft is historiographical, it is important to note that Herodotus’ use of tragic motif is also a significant facet of his narrative craft. His use of tragic motif is evident throughout the narrative of Cyrus ad Astyages in Book 1. Herodotus’ initial narrative of Cyrus and his succession of Astyages integrates the tragic motifs of prophecy and the fulfilment of fate, which are apparent in Sophoclean tragedy[1]. This shared tragic framework is evident in Oedipus Tyrannos as the audience is presented with a king learning that his future as monarch would be endangered by the birth of a male heir. Both fate-conscious leaders come to the same flawed conclusion: Astyages’ choice to expose the infant Cyrus recalls Laius’ exposure of Oedipus, which fails in both the tragic and historiographical narratives. As a result of this, Astyages is presented with two recognisably tragic errors – the first being that the prophecy of his succession has come true, and the second being that he has wrongly punished Haspargos for not killing the infant himself. If this error was depicted on the Attic tragic stage, then these errors would be read as due cause for the destruction of Astyages and the fulfilment of fate. Yet this is not the case, as Herodotus is not writing Attic tragedy (despite his use of its literary devices).

Unlike the ending of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos, the result of the Herodotean succession narrative is neither ‘necessary or probable’ because Astyages survives and Cyrus is not devastated by the outcome (Ar. Poet. 1451b1-11). Herodotus’ subversion of the familiar necessary and probable outcomes of destruction highlights a significant difference in the authorial intentions of historiographical authors and tragedians. Whereas Sophocles uses tragic motifs for the purpose of evoking feelings of pity and fear from the audience, Herodotus uses them to build suspense (Ar. Poet. 1453a3). By subverting the integral ideas of necessary and probable outcomes intrinsic to tragic motifs in his historical accounts, Herodotus shows that he shares some elements of his narrative craft with the tragedians, but it is how he uses and subverts these that displays his commitment to the historiography, reminding audiences that he is still an author of history.

Although there are examples of Herodotus subverting tragic motifs throughout his narrative of Cyrus’ life, Cyrus’ story is communicated to audiences using a tragic framework. Herodotus uses a rise and fall motif to emphasise Cyrus’ fall from a non-tragic power figure and into hubristic arrogance. This subsequently leads to the quasi-Sophoclean reversal of fortunes. This is done through the trope of the wise advisor at 1.207, when Croesus reminds Cyrus that ‘human affairs are on a wheel’, which does not always ‘permit the same people to prosper’ (Hdt. Hist. 1.207.10). Herodotus’ use of metaphor here (the human experience as turning) represents through imagery the tragic arc that Croesus describes, which foreshadows the tragic fall that Cyrus will go through. This tragic fall is one that characterises many tragic protagonists across the corpus of Greek tragedy – the harmatia of the tragic hero is what causes his downfall.

Through this comparison of the succession narratives of Cyrus and Oedipus, it is evident that Herodotus engages with the narrative craft of tragedians. Though tragic outcomes are avoided in Herodotus’ version, there is still a clear rise-and-fall motif employed in Cyrus’ characterisation, emphasising that Herodotus is clearly influenced by characterisation patterns typical to Attic tragedy. The impact of this use of shared motif and characterisation is that Herodotus’ narrative craft reads as being more tragic than historical. This demonstrates that Herodotus’ craft is not strictly historiographical as the earlier comparison between Hist. 8 and the Persians implies.

Whereas the narrative of Cyrus and Astyages demonstrates Herodotus’ selective engagement with tragic form, the account of Cambyses shows most clearly how tragic structures are absorbed into the methodological aims of historiography. A broad range of tragic motifs can be read through the image of Cambyses presented in the Histories, but most noticeably, it is the slaying of the Apis bull. Herodotus presents his audience with an image of a tyrannical king, instrumental in the collapse of the Egyptian nomos, staging a crime of deep sacrilege (Munson, 1991: 54). Cambyses’ madness is explicitly referenced by Herodotus, and this use of tragic characterisation further emphasises that the choice of religious transgression is a deliberate choice by Herodotus to present the Persian tyrant as a tragic figure (Hdt. Hist. 3.30).  In his study of Herodotus’ portrayal of Cambyses, Truesdell Brown (1982: 387) observes that the narrative of Cambyses and his descent into gradual madness is deliberately structured to represent the fall from strong leader to power-hungry tyrant. This observation suggests that the purpose of Herodotus’ account of Cambyses’ religious transgressions is not to establish a clear-cut history of Cambyses’ reign over Egypt but is to deliberately reshape Cambyses’ character alongside the pre-existing modes of tragic characterisation. This is significant as it shows that Herodotus is using the devices of tragedy to create suspense and drama rather than using historical material to create factual accounts of chronological events. By using the familiar sequence of tragic motifs to characterise Cambyses (such as impiety and hubris), it becomes evident that Herodotus’ aim in this narrative is to build to a tragic climax rather than to deliver historical fact.

However, Herodotus’ deliberate choice to characterise Cambyses along the lines of Attic tragedy may not have such definitive consequences on Herodotus’ narrative style –his use of tragic characterisation does not automatically make him an author of tragedy. Another way of reading Cambyses’ madness and characterisation is that the use of tragic motif functions to strengthen Herodotus’ historiographical voice[2]. Rather than reading the collapse of nomos caused by the slaying of the Apis bull as Herodotus engaging with tragic motif, it can be read as an allegory of imperial power. Cambyses’ act of sacrilege is ultimately coherent according to the internal logic of the character and his role in the text. According to Munson (1991: 59), Cambyses’ transgression against the gods of Egypt is not because he is a mad king who is driven to sacrilege by his own hubris but it is part of his process of inquiry. What Cambyses does by killing the Apis bull is he exposes a difference in his own native Achaemenid culture and the culture of the Egyptians. Unlike Ahuramazda, the god of Egypt has ‘flesh and blood’ and is ‘capable of being harmed with weapons’ (Hdt., Hist. 3.30). Though this sacrilege at first seems to show clear engagement with Attic tragedy, the narrative instead shows that Herodotus uses tragic devices but repurposes them for his own historical narrative.

From this analysis of Herodotus’ engagement with tragic motif through the case study of Cambyses, it becomes clear that Herodotus’ narrative craft remains historiographical rather than tragic even though he clearly engages with tragic motif. The impact of his use of tragic motif is that he can build suspense in his audience, whilst remaining true to the genre conventions of historiography.

Ultimately, Herodotus’ narrative craft resists clear classification as either purely tragic or purely historiographical. While his narratives repeatedly adopt structures familiar from Attic tragedy (such as motifs of hubristic kings, impiety, or the collapse of nomoi), these techniques serve not to dramatise history but to make seemingly tragic historical causation coherent. Tragedy provides Herodotus with narrative form, but ἱστορία remains his broader goal. It is therefore misleading to describe his craft as closer to that of a tragedian or a historian. Instead, Herodotus emerges as a historian who consciously appropriates tragic narrative in order to expand the explanatory possibilities of historiography.