Herodotus and Justin 9.2

di Truesdell Brown

The Ancient History Bulletin, 2/1 (1988), pp. 1-3

Herodotus’ account of the Scythians shows some similarity with what we find in Book 9 of Justin’s epitome of the Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus. We may conveniently discuss this under two headings, the first being that of population.

1.   Herodotus tells us that the Indians are the most populous nation in the world, and that next to them are the Thracians (5.3). He implies that the Scythians are very numerous, though he has heard varying reports, some calling them very numerous, others less so — considering that they are Scythians (4.81). His perplexity is understandable because he has no clear picture of just who the Scythians were and where they lived.¹ Lacking reliable information on the total population Herodotus contents himself with a concrete example of how a particular Scythian ruler, Ariantas, took a census of his own. He ordered every Scythian to bring a single arrowhead, threatening anyone who failed to do so with death. The result was a very great number.² Then the king ordered a bronze mixing bowl to be made out of the arrowheads. This Scythian bowl had a capacity of 600 amphoras, and it was 6 fingers thick. This bowl was six times as large as the bowl dedicated by Pausanias at the ’mouth’ of the Pontus.³ Herodotus makes no attempt to determine how many arrowheads were used, but the bowl itself was relevant. It was a fact that needed to be explained. Herodotus had seen it.⁴ Someone in Exampaeus must have told him the story about the bowl and its destruction, along with a plausible explanation of the meaning of Exampaeus in Greek as ιραι οδοι (4.52).⁵ Herodotus may not have believed the story about Ariantas but he followed his usual practise of presenting the evidence and letting the reader make up his own mind.⁶

2.   Herodotus speaks of the αποριη of Scythia (83.1), by which he means that the country was difficult to traverse, thinking specifically of Darius’ Scythian expedition.⁷ However, he does not imply that it would be a waste of time to conquer Scythia if that were possible — emphasizing as he does the great productivity and wealth of a country with so many great rivers (4.53; 58).

Turning now to Justin (9.2), we find that it begins with a Scythian king named Atheas,⁸ who asks Philip of Macedon to help him against the neighboring Histrians, promising to make Philip his heir in return for his assitance. But when the Histrian king dies, Atheas no longer needs Philip’s help so he requests him to recall the troops he had sent him. Philip does so, but at the same time he demands that Atheas pay him for their expenses. Atheas declines on the ground of poverty, saying that it would be better to pay nothing at all rather than to send a mere pittance. Then he brags about the courage and the physical prowess of the Scythians. This makes Philip laugh. He decides to raise the siege of Byzantium and make war on the Scythians. He sends messengers on ahead to tell Atheas that while he was besieging Byzantium he had made a vow to dedicate a statue of Hercules, and that he intends to proceed to the mouth of the Ister to set it up. He asks Atheas to give him peaceful access to the site of the cult of the god, saying he comes as the friend of the Scythians (2.1-11). Atheas bids Philip send the statue on to him, and promises to set it up where it will remain inviolable. And then we come to this interesting statement (2.13):

Ac si invitis Scythis statuam ponat, eo digresso sublaturm versurumque aes statuae in aculeos saggitarum.

What a curious reversal of the story in Herodotus. Can this be dismissed as mere coincidence? For the moment we may turn to the Prologue of Book 9:

ut Philippus a Perintho summotus, Byzantii origines, a cuius obsidione summotus Philippus Scythiae bellum intulit. Repetitae inde Scythicae res ab his temporibus, in quibus illa prius finierant, usque ad Philippi bellum, quod cum Athea Scythiae rege gessit.

Presumably this means that Book 9 picks up the account of the Scythians from where it had left off in Book 2 with the failure of Darius’ expedition. Books 1 and 2 of Pompeius Trogus’ work contained excursuses on the Scythians, perhaps partly inspired by Posidonius but deriving ultimately from Herodotus and Ctesias.⁹

As to the αποριη of Scythia (Hdt. 83.1), we find this also in Book 9 of Justin/Trogus, because like Darius Philip fails to obtain booty from his Scythian war. Instead he is opposed by the Triballi on his way back, wounded severely in the thigh, and forced to abandon all the booty he had taken (Justin 9.3). There is one important difference; Philip is held morally responsible, he is being punished, which cannot be said of Darius in Herodotus.

Returning to the main point: it seems unlikely that Pompeius Trogus deliberately adopted Herodotus’ story of the bronze bowl made out of arrowheads and turned it around into a threat to melt down a dedicated bronze statue in order to make arrowheads. It is equally difficult to dismiss the second story as unrelated to the first. The obvious culprit is Theopompus of Chios, and he has all the necessary qualifications. He was sufficiently interested in Herodotus to write an epitome of the History in 2 books, and he even boasts that he will outdo Herodotus, Ctesias, Hellanicus and the writers on India in the use of myths.¹⁰ He is famous for sharply criticizing Philip for his unprincipled behavior. It is my opinion that the two stories are related and that Theopompus, already thought to have been the source of Justin 9.2, deliberately reconstructed the story he found in Herodotus about the Scythian monarch.¹¹

Footnotes

1     See Gomme, H.C.T., vol. 2, 245f. on both Thracians and Scythians, with particular reference to the statements made by Herodotus and Thucydides. The Greeks found it impossible to distinguish clearly between Scythians and Thracians.

2     χρημα πολλον αρδιον (4.81.6). On Herodotus’ use of the term see LSJ under χρημα II 3b; also Aristoph. Ach. 150. In these examples the number implied by χρημα is marvellously (in Aristophanes, comically) large. A similar system for taking a census was once used by the British government in country districts of India, according to James R. Smith, Spring and Wells in Greek and Roman Literature (New York and London 1922) 527. The author suggests the British may have been influenced by Herodotus.

3     Pausanias’ bowl, which was dedicated to Poseidon, was still there when Nymphis wrote his History (Nymphis, FGrHist 432 F9). His dates are given by Jacoby as c. 310-245 B.C. We would expect Herodotus to cite the Delphic mixing bowl which he mentions earlier (1.51.2) which also held 600 amphoras and was more generally known. B.A. van Groningen suggests that he wrote up the Exampaeus visit right after it occurred, before he went to Delphi (Herodotus’ Historiën, Commentaar op Boek IV-VI, 12th printing [Leiden 1966] 39).

4     Commenting on 4.52.3 How & Wells write: “If he had not visited this place he is convicted of prevarication.” Cf. van Groningen’s remarks on the same passage.

5     For the meaning of Exampaeus cf. How & Wells on 4.52 (who cite the German Pfad for the last part), with van Groningen, who cites Old Persian asa = rein and pathi = weg.

6     See also Stein’s text on Herodotus, 5th ed. (Berlin 1963), note on 4.52.12f.

7     See Legrand, Budé ed., Hérodote (Livre IV) 99, n.4, on twn skuqiwn thn aporihn; for the use of the word in the same sense see Xen. Anab. 5.6.10.

8     Atheas (Ateas) is said to have been over 90 years old when he died in battle against Philip (Luc. Macrob. 10). Strabo (7.3.18) says he was the ruler of the largest number of Scythians. For other references and for the narrative of the campaign see A. Momigliano’s essay, “Della spedizione scitica di Filippo alla spedizione scitica di Dario,” Athenaeum (1933) 3ff.; also his Filippo il Macedone (Florence 1934) 152. He thinks the source of Justin is Theopompus, but that Strabo is following Ephorus.

9     See A. Klotz, RE xxi.2, col. 2309.

10     See FGrHist 115 T1 = Suda s. Θεοπομπος Χιος ρητωρ; and FF 1-4; for his boast, F 381 = Strabo 1.2.35; also my Onesicritus, reprinting of 1949 Los Angeles ed. by Ares (Chicago 1981) esp. 64-66 and 158, n.90.