Herodotus and Pseudo-Herodotus in the Vita Herodotea*

summary:

This article analyzes the construction of “Herodotus” in the Pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer, furthering recent work on ancient reception and authorial lives. Rather than focusing on the historical authenticity of the text’s content, I instead analyze narrative features that figure the text as Herodotean, and I explore the interpretive consequences of its Herodotean pose. I suggest that the biographer played to a learned audience by exploiting comparisons drawn in antiquity between Homer and Herodotus. I also propose that Pseudo-Herodotus adopted a problematic narratorial mode well-suited to the problems of the Homeric biographic tradition.