In the aftermath of his account on the Ionian revolt, Herodotus briefly digresses on the outcome of the Milesian tyrant Histiaeus, who, inter alia, subdued the Chians in a sea-battle (6.26ff.). At this point Herodotus stops the flow of his narrative and reflects on the various calamities that have struck the Chians. He writes that
it is often the case that some sort of sign is given whenever great evils are about to befall a city or a race; for before all these things great signs had been sent to the Chians. (6.27.1).25
Then, after relating an ill-fated expedition to Delphi and the collapse of a school roof, causing all but one of the children to perish, Herodotus reiterates that ‘the god showed these signs to them’ (ταῦτα μὲν σφι σημήια ὁ θεὸς προέδεξε, 6.27.3).26 Statements like these are not atypical in Herodotus, who is far from unlikely to espouse supernatural explanations for a chain of human events. Indeed they mirror his penchant for including oracles, prophecies and omens as aetiologies of many significant incidents in the Histories. As David Asheri noted, oracles ‘are used to explain and justify the origins of certain actions or historical, political, and military events, and in cultic or expiatory procedures.’27
If one is to uncover a general statement by Herodotus on the validity of oracles as true sources of knowledge, it is necessary to turn to a much discussed passage in Book Eight, in which he quotes one of numerous oracles recorded by the prophet Bacis (8.77).28 Here Herodotus begins stating that ‘I am not able to refute the oracles as being untruthful (Χρησμοῖ σι δὲ οὐκ ἔχω ἀντιλέγειν ὡς οὐκ εἰ σὶ ἀληθέες), nor do I wish to discredit them when they speak clearly.’29
To illustrate this point, he then goes on to quote a particular
25 Φιλέει δέ κως προσημαί νειν, εὖτ᾽ ἂν μέλλῃ μεγάλα κακὰ ἢ πόλι ἢ ἔθνεϊ ἔσεσθαι: καὶ γάρ Χί οισι πρὸ τούτων σημήια μεγάλα ἐγένετο; cf. Scott (2005) ad loc. who argues that κως probably reflects certain doubts on Herodotus’ part about the causal connection his local sources have made.
26
See further Harrison (2000a) ch.6. 27 Asheri (2007) 41.
28 Cf. also 2.18 (see 5.3 below). As Bowie (2007) 111 notes, Herodotus is our principal source for Bacis’ oracles [Bacid oracles at 8.20, 77; 9.43]; on the problems of identifying the historical chresmologue from the different individuals who share the name Bacis, see further Asheri (1993). For a general analysis on collections of oracles in antiquity, cf. Parke & Wormell (1956) 165-79; Fontenrose (1978) 145-65.
29 Herodotus is certainly aware of the possible abuse or corruption of divinatory knowledge. Indeed both the Alcmeonidae (5.63.1, cf. 5.91.1) and Cleomenes (6.66.3, cf. 6.75.3, 84.3) are reported to have bribed the Delphic Oracle. As Harrison (2000a) 141-3 points out, however, this does not in any way damage the reputation of the oracle itself, rather, it seems to ‘offer a convenient ‘let-out clause’ by which belief in divination is sustained’ (142), cf. Parker (1985) 302.
Bacid oracle, which he interprets as being a lucid anticipation of the recent Graeco-Persian hostilities. The oracle reads:
When the sacred headland of golden-sworded Artemis and Cynosura by the sea they bridge with ships,
After sacking shiny Athens in thoughtless hope,
Divine Justice will extinguish mighty Greed the son of Insolence Lusting terribly, thinking to devour all.
Bronze will come together with bronze, and Ares
Will darken the sea with blood. To Hellas the day of freedom Far-seeing Zeus and noble Victory will bring.30
He then cautiously concludes that ἐς τοιαῦτα μὲν καὶ οὕτω ἐναργέως λέγοντι Βάκιδι
ἀντιλογίης χρησμῶν πέρι οὔτε αὐτὸς λέγειν τολμέω οὔτε παρ᾽ ἄλλων ἐνδέκομαι (‘on account of this, I dare to say nothing that contradicts Bacis when he gives oracles that speak so plainly, and nor do I accept them from anyone else’, 8.77.2).31 So it follows from this that the oracle, when in the hands of a capable researcher such as Herodotus, is ready to be interpreted clearly; and if done so, the truth will be revealed. It is also worth noting Herodotus’ extraneous remark that the oracle was a statement of Bacis, since it suggests that Herodotus’ audience were familiar with broader discourses on a number of Bacid pronouncements.
Another unambiguous display of Herodotus’ faith in the validity of oracles is embedded at the end of his account on the battle of Salamis. Herodotus writes:
So the prophecy was fulfilled, not only all the prophesying by Bacis and Musaeus about the sea battle, but also what was said many years before these events about the wrecks that were brought ashore there, in an oracle by Lysistratus, an Athenian oracle- monger (χρησμολόγῳ),32 which all the Greeks had forgotten.33
30 Bowie 166-7 expunges this entire chapter, following the recommendations of Krueger. Asheri (1993) however, rather ingeniously argues that this is a recycled oracle (Herodotus is himself aware of the possibility of a recycled oracle at 9.43) originally used in the context of Marathon, and then subsequently re-shaped with the somewhat jarring addition of περςάντες to make it appropriate for its new Salaminian context. Though I am not entirely convinced by Asheri’s proposition, whose solution relies on certain, unverifiable textual conjectures, it is nonetheless clear that a complete excision of this chapter is ideologically driven by those who wish to de-emphasise Herodotus’ belief in prophetic statements, and is thus methodologically insupportable.
31 On this as a possible echo of ‘the famous Protagorean development of antilogiai’, see Thomas (2006) 68.
32
For χρησμολόγος in Herodotus, see: 1.62.4; 7.6.3, 142.3, 143.1, 143.3; 8.96.2; and for its meanings in antiquity, see Bowden (2003) 261.
Herodotus thus suggests that there are many oracular notices which could be cited as proof that the outcome of the battle was long ago foretold, the implication being that Herodotus could just as easily cite other prophetic statements on this matter—a subtle indication, therefore, of his extensive inquiries. Similarly, at the closing stages of his account on the Ionian revolt, Herodotus states that the city of Miletus was reduced to slavery, thus fulfilling the prediction of the Delphic Oracle (6.18-19). He proceeds to report that when the Argives had consulted the Pythia, they received a message which partly concerned them, but partly the Milesians.34 The section directed towards Miletus reads:
You then, Miletus, contriver of evil deeds,
Shall be a banquet for many, and a splendid prize; Your wives shall wash the feet of many long-haired men, And our shrine at Didyma shall be the care of others. (6.19.2).
Herodotus rounds off this account with his own holistic reading of the oracle:
This is just what happened to the Milesians, since most of the men were killed by the Persians who wear their hair long; the women and children became slaves, and the temple at Didyma, both shrine and Oracle (καὶ ὁ νηός τε καὶ τὸ χρηστήριον), was plundered and burnt. (6.19.3).
So both this passage and the Lysistratus oracle discussed above show that Herodotus intentionally seeks out oracular literature which aids his interpretation of significant historical events, and in turn affirms the validity of numerous mantic institutions operating in the Greek world—a clear display of his faith in Oracles as valuable sources of knowledge. We shall see below that his forensic analysis of the Milesian oracle is in fact one of myriad occasions in the Histories where Herodotus is at pains to emphasise the inner coherence of an oracular message.
The process of testing the accuracy of Oracles is itself a familiar motif recurring throughout Herodotus’ text. Alongside Croesus’ testing of many different oracles (see below), there is Mardonius (8.133), who, whilst wintering in Thessaly, sent a man named Mys from Europus to visit τὰ χρηστήρια, ἐντειλάμενος πανταχῇ μιν χρησόμενον ἐλθεῖ ν, τῶν οἷ ά τε ἦν σφι
ἀποπειρήσασθαι (‘charging him to go everywhere and consult the Oracles, so that he could
test the their responses’). (Herodotus adds to this that he is not able to relate the reason for this test, οὐ γὰρ ὦν λέγεται.) Earlier in his account of the Egyptian king Amasis II (2.174.1-2), Herodotus reports that when he was just a commoner, Amasis was a frivolous individual who would steal if he ran out of drinking supplies. Whenever it was possible, the people who he had stolen from would take him to an Oracle, where he was sometimes exonerated and sometimes convicted. So later, when he became king, Amasis would only support the upkeep of those sanctuaries in which the gods had correctly found him guilty of theft, since he concluded that they were the authentic gods who bestowed upon mankind true oracles (ἀψευδέα μαντήια).35
Although oracles play a vital role throughout Herodotus’ work, a significant number of prophecies are not recorded verbatim and/or are not analysed to the same extent as others are by our historian. It is often these oracles which seem to be less opaque and more easily (and successfully) negotiated in Herodotus. For instance, after a crop failure, the Epidaurians go to the Delphic Oracle to enquire about how they might remedy their troubles (5.82.1).36 After being advised to set up statues of Damia and Auxesia, ‘made from the wood of the cultivated olive’,37
Herodotus states that they sought the permission of the Athenians to fell some of their peculiarly sacred olive trees. After gaining Athenian consent, having promised to offer annual sacrifices to Erechtheus and Athene Polias, Herodotus swiftly concludes that they erected the statues and that their harvests improved (5.82.3).
But beyond such episodes in which oracles feature only briefly, the successful negotiation of an oracle’s manifold complexities has a far more profound impact on the overall texture of the Histories. If an individual, or a group of individuals, misreads, forgets or neglects an oracular pronouncement, then some kind of divine punishment will likely follow. For instance, the Euboeans are condemned as the creators of their own destruction, since they ‘[mistakenly] neglected an Oracle of Bacis, believing the oracle to be meaningless’ (παραχρησάμενοι τὸν Βάκιδος χρησμὸν ὡς οὐδὲν λέγοντα, 8.20.1). When the Samian tyrant Polycrates arrogantly sails to Oroetes, in spite of the foreboding caveats issued by oracles and friends alike, as well as a troubling divinely-inspired dream sent to his daughter, he is slaughtered in an unmentionable manner and then crucified (3.124-5). Moreover, in the most well-known oracular passage in Herodotus, Croesus’ Lydian empire is destroyed by the
35 ὅσοι δέ μιν κατέδησαν φῶρα εἶ ναι, τούτων δὲ ὡς ἀληθέων θεῶν ἐ όντων καὶ ἀψευδέα μαντήια παρεχομένωντὰ μάλιστα ἐπεμέλετο.
36 Fontenrose (1978) Q63 does not consider this to be authentic, but rather, ‘a non-Aeginetan origin myth of the cult of Damia and Auxesia on Aigina’ (289); cf. Crahay (1956) 75-7: ‘la récit fait une large part au merveilleux et constitue le préambule légendaire des événements historiques’ (75). 37 5.82.2. Cf. 1.167.1-2 and 4.149 where similar advice is given by an oracle to establish a temple or a cult in order to placate the god.
Persian king Cyrus, but only after the outcome has been enunciated in an esoteric oracle, which is delivered to Croesus at Delphi.38 In the following pages, I will consider those occasions in the Histories whereby an oracle is successfully decoded, addressing the extensive benefits that Herodotus associates with this form of close, textual reading.