The Historian as Hero: Herodotus and the 300 at Thermopylae*

I

among the many brilliant narratives to be found in herodotus’s Histories, that of the battle of Thermopylae is surely one of the most famous and most moving. Although scholars have hardly ever thought of Herodotus as a great military historian, he has managed nonetheless to infuse many of his battle narratives with a profound sense of excitement and pathos simultaneously. The narrative of Thermopylae follows a pattern familiar from Herodotus’s other battle narratives and is, like so much in the first historian, modelled on Homer: the use of prophecy to give a sense of foreboding to the events; the movement between individuals and groups, with the narrator now taking the close-up view, now the panoramic; the concentration on individuals, and in particular on worthy or noteworthy actions during the heat of battle; and, finally, an interest in unusual or inexplicable events that occurred before, during, and after the battle. I say “modelled on Homer,” but it is more accurate to say that Herodotus has retained some elements of Homeric battle narrative while doing other things in a very different way.¹

One of his most marked differences from Homer, as scholars have long noted, is his use of the first-person pronoun throughout,² and it is from one of these that I begin. The remark I shall focus on is, so far as I can tell, unique, and it occurs in the course of Herodotus’s narrative of the battle of Thermopylae, indeed at the point that may be thought to be the climax. Narrating the Spartans’ last stand on the final day of the battle, when they move out into the more open space, after they realize that they are surrounded, but yet still wish to display great deeds of prowess, Herodotus says that they were killing great numbers now at close quarters, since their spears were broken and they were using their swords, and he continues (7.224.1–2):

καὶ Λεωνίδης τε ἐν τούτῳ τῷ πόνῳ πίπτει ἀνὴρ γενόμενος ἄριστος, καὶ ἕτεροι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ ὀνομαστοὶ Σπαρτιητέων, τῶν ἐγὼ ὡς ἀνδρῶν ἀξίων γενομένων ἐπυθόμην τὰ οὐνόματα, ἐπυθόμην δὲ καὶ ἁπάντων τῶν τριηκοσίων. καὶ δὴ Περσέων πίπτουσι ἐνθαῦτα ἄλλοι τε πολλοὶ καὶ ὀνομαστοί, ἐν δὲ δὴ καὶ Δαρείου δύο παῖδες Ἀβροκόμης τε καὶ Ὑπεράνθης, ἐκ τῆς Ἀρτάνεω θυγατρὸς Φραταγούνης γεγονότες Δαρείῳ.

And in this struggle Leonidas falls, having proven himself a brave man, and with him other renowned Spartiates, whose names I have learned as those of men who deserve to be remembered, and I have learned in fact the names of all the three hundred. And of the Persians too there fall here many others, renowned men, among whom were two children of Darius, Habrocomes and Hyperanthes, borne to Darius by Phratagune, the daughter of Artanes.

Scholars have noted the apparent oddity of Herodotus remarking that he learned the names of the 300³ but then failing to give those names, and indeed some have faulted him for not doing so.⁴ Yet it is hard to see how such a list would have worked, for we have no parallel in Herodotus for a long string of personal names (which would presumably have included patronymics) without comment. When we think of “catalogues” in Herodotus, we think possibly of his account of the revenues of Darius where the various nations are listed, but something is also said about their contributions; or, perhaps more famously, the catalogue of Persian forces to be found in Book 7 as Xerxes is on the march, which likewise lists a great number of peoples, but also includes some description of the peoples themselves, especially the armament they carry.⁵ It is difficult to imagine that Herodotus would simply give a list of three hundred names with nothing else but the names. The point of the remark, therefore, seems not to be that he was intending to record the names for his audience.

Nor is this exactly the kind of remark, of which we have many examples in Herodotus, where the narrator employs an intentional silence and says that he knows something but will not tell, as he does, for example, when speaking of the Delphian who falsely cut Croesus’s name from a dedication in order to please the Spartans;⁶ or when he says that he will “deliberately forget” the name of the Samian who stole the wealth of Sataspes’ eunuch.⁷ In cases such as this, the whole point...