Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/159

 tantalising question, and the true answer would probably tell us much that is now unknown about Greek life in the fifth century B.C. Herodotus may have travelled partly as a merchant; yet he certainly speaks of merchants in an external way; and he not only mentions-as is natural considering the aim of his book-but seems really to have visited, places of intellectual interest rather than trade-centres. In one place (ii.44) he says explicitly that he sailed to Tyre in order to find out a fact about Heracles. The truth seems to be that he was a professional 'Logopoios,' a maker and reciter of 'Logoi,' Things to tell,' just as Kynaithos, perhaps as Panyasis, was a maker and reciter of 'Epe,', 'Verses.' The anecdotic tradition which speaks of his public readings at Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Olympia, certainly has some substratum of truth. He travelled as the bard and the sophists travelled; like the Homeridae, like Pindar, like Hellanicus, like Gorgias. In Greek communities he was sure of remunerative audiences; beyond the Greek world he at least collected fresh 'Logoi.' One may get a little further light from the fact attested by Diyllus the Aristotelian (end of 4th cent. B.C.), that Herodotus was awarded ten talents (£2400) on the motion of Anytus by a decree of the Athenian Demos. That is not a payment for a series of readings: it is the reward of some serious public service. And it seems better to interpret that service as the systematic collection of knowledge about the regions that were politically important to Athens-Persia, Egypt, Thrace, and Scythia, to say nothing of states like Argos-than as the historical defence of Athens as the 'saviour of Hellas', at the opening of the Peloponnesian War. Even the published book, as we have it, is full of information which must have been invaluable [136]