Deceptions and Delusions in Herodotus

Abstract

NOT EVERY SELF-INTERESTED charlatan is condemned in any society that values ingenuity. The Hellenes admired the lies of shrewd Odysseus, worshipped Hermes, patron of thieves and sharp entrepreneurs, and found admirable the hedgehog deceits and shams of Aristophanes' comic heroes.' Greek epic, tragedy, and comedy describe cheats and their dupes. After the development of history, philosophy, biography, and the later genres of the novel and hagiography at times would explore popular delusions and false prophets. History proper, from Herodotus on, supplies examples, large and small, of political, religious, and other entrepreneurs who hatch schemes at the expense of the credulous. Frauds require a knowing agent, usually one who works for his own profit or advance. On another hand, we have unplanned delusions, as when groups share a belief in a natural or supernatural event without anyone's being the richer for it. Individual or mass delusions and panics enrich the fabric of historiography and implicitly provide lessons for the attentive audience. Herodotus certainly plays to his Greek audience's pleasure in descriptions of deception and delusion, allowing the listener's or reader's amused perception of a different reality. The responsible historian tried to separate fact from fiction, sham from truth, charla tan from dupe and clearheaded exposer of deceit.