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TRUTH, TRUTHFULNESS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHY: A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO BERNARD WILLIAMS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2025
Abstract
This article offers a critical evaluation of Bernard Williams’s influential account of ancient Greek historiography and the place of ancient Greek thought in the early history of ideas in his last book Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton, 2002). It argues that such an evaluation is warranted now not only because Williams’s stance continues to influence how Herodotus and Thucydides are viewed by scholars outside of classical studies; more importantly, it also opens up the field of classical studies itself to a much needed engagement with those ideas from Williams’s influential study that can be productively applied to the study of Herodotus and Thucydides.
The first part consists of a critical appraisal of Williams’s views in light of current classical scholarship on early Greek historiography. The second part makes the case for why Herodotus rather than Thucydides would have served as the better example for Williams to explore the historical conditions and intellectual milieu that led to the emergence of truth and truthfulness as a problem in the Western historiographic tradition. Drawing on recent classical scholarship, the article shows that it was Herodotus, rather than Thucydides, who first conceived of the truth as a problem; that it was him rather than Thucydides who first grappled with sincerity and accuracy as the values that Williams identifies as fundamental to the truth-claims embedded in the historiographic tradition.
The article thus suggests that the history of truthfulness as a relational concept that binds together author and audience in a mutual contract of trust should start with him rather than Thucydides. It shows how Williams’s account of truth as a social value that binds author and audience together in a mutual contract of trust can be productively applied to the study of Herodotus’ Histories. A conclusion focuses on the role that has typically been attributed to the ancient world in genealogical accounts of the history of ideas.
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
References
1 B. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton, 2002).
2 C. Koopman, ‘Bernard Williams on philosophy’s need for history’, RMeta 64 (2010), 3–30, at 4. The broad appeal of Truth and Truthfulness is evident from its accrual (according to Google Scholar) of well over 3000 citations to date.
3 Koopman (n. 2), 3. On the significance of Williams’s conceptions of truth within and beyond philosophy see also (both with further literature): D. Callcut, Reading Bernard Williams (London, 2008), 1–6; M. Jenkins, Bernard Williams (London, 2006), 121–48 (‘truth, objectivity and knowledge’).
4 See below with references.
5 On genealogy as a method derived from Nietzsche, Foucault, and others see M. Bevir, ‘What is genealogy?’, Journal of the Philosophy of History 2 (2008), 263–75.
6 Sincerity and accuracy as the virtues of truth and truthfulness: Williams (n. 1), 84–122 (‘sincerity’), 123–48 (‘accuracy’).
7 Time in Thucydides: E. Greenwood, Thucydides and the Shaping of History (London, 2006), 42–56; J.L. Moles, ‘Truth and untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in J. Marincola (ed.), The Collected Papers of J. L. Moles (Leiden, 2023), 2.159–89, at 179.
8 Time in Herodotus: e.g. J. Cobet, ‘The organization of time in the Histories’, in E.J. Bakker, I.J.F. de Jong and H. van Wees (edd.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden, 2002), 387–412; T. Rood, ‘Mythical and historical time in Herodotus’, in K.S. Kingsley, G. Monti and T. Rood (edd.), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge, 2022), 62–8.
9 Williams (n. 1), 157.
10 See e.g. Thuc. 3.88.3, 4.24.4, 6.2.1.
11 Thucydides’ use of myth: R.V. Munson, ‘Thucydides and myth: a complex relation to past and present’, in R. Balot, S. Forsdyke and E. Foster (edd.), The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides (Oxford, 2017), 257–65 (with further literature).
12 Williams (n. 1), 155–71.
13 Hdt. 3.122.2.
14 Williams (n. 1), 155.
15 Minos as a semi-divine figure: e.g. Hom. Il. 13.445, 14.321, Od. 11.568, Diod. Sic. 5.78.
16 Thuc. 1.4 (transl. Mynott).
17 Williams (n. 1), 162.
18 See Hdt. 3.122.2 with E. Baragwanath and M. de Bakker, ‘Myth, truth, and narrative in Herodotus’ Histories’, in E. Baragwanath and M. de Bakker (edd.), Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 1–56, at 23–9.
19 See E. Irwin, ‘The politics of precedence: first “historians” on first “thalassocrats”’, in R. Osborne (ed.), Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution. Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Politics 430–380 bc (Cambridge, 2007), 188–223 for the suggestion that Herodotus is referring to contemporary thinkers here.
20 See e.g. F. Jacoby, s.v. ‘Herodotos’, RE Suppl. 2 (2013), 205–520, at 335; M. Pohlenz, Herodot, Der erste Geschichtschreiber des Abendlandes (Leipzig, 1937), 7; W.M. von Leyden, ‘Spatium historicum’, Durham University Journal 11 (1962), 89–104; K. von Fritz, Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung: von den Anfängen bis Thukydides (Berlin, 1967), 1.208–9.
21 See e.g. Williams (n. 1), 152 with n. 2. Williams at Balliol: S. Blackburn, ‘Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (1929–2003)’, PBA 150 (2007), 335–48, at 335–6.
22 To support his point that it was Thucydides rather than Herodotus who first separated myth from history Williams (n. 1), 296–7 n. 7 points to G. Thomas, ‘Between literacy and orality: Herodotus’ historiography’, MHR 3 (1988), 54–70 and to the discussion of myth and history in J. Goody and I. Watt, ‘The consequences of literacy’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 5 (1963), 304–45.
23 References to Hulme and Hobbes: Williams (n. 1), 151–2. Hobbes like Williams elevated Thucydides over Herodotus in terms of reliability: see N. Morley, ‘The anti-Thucydides: Herodotus and the development of modern historiography’, in J. Priestley and V. Zali (edd.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond (Leiden, 2016), 143–66, at 147.
24 See also D. Grene (transl.), Herodotus. The History (Chicago, 1987) (‘first of the human race’); R. Waterfield (transl.), Herodotus. The Histories (Oxford, 1987) (‘first member of what we recognize as the human race’). See also R.V. Munson, ‘Herodotus and the heroic age: the case of Minos’, in E. Baragwanath and M. de Bakker (edd.), Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 195–212, at 196–7. See also T. Harrison, Divinity and History. The Religion of Herodotus (Oxford, 2000), 203–5 (with further scholarship in n. 86).
25 Thus A. de Sélincourt (transl.), Herodotus. The Histories (Harmondsworth, 1954), left unchanged in subsequent revisions. See also R. Thomas, Herodotus in Context. Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion (Cambridge, 2000), 266 who translates ‘but of the so-called human generation’ and Cobet (n. 8), 407 who has ‘within the so-called human generation’.
26 See Williams (n. 1), 155.
27 On this tradition see Morley (n. 23) and the chapters collected in E. Foster and D. Lateiner (edd.), Thucydides and Herodotus (Oxford, 2012).
28 Baragwanath and De Bakker (n. 18), 25.
29 R. Strassler (ed., transl. A.L. Purvis, intr. R. Thomas), The Landmark Herodotus. The Histories (Cambridge, MA, 2009), 264 has ‘in what is told about the human race’ with the corresponding note declaring that ‘by “the human race”, Herodotus means the historical period rather than mythical times’. T. Holland (intr. P. Cartledge), The Histories. Herodotus (London, 2014) translates ‘the first of what we would term the fully mortal race of men’, pointing to a footnote by Cartledge which suggests that Herodotus ‘here divides up the past into two great tranches—the mortal—i.e. the non-mythical and empirically verifiable—and the mythical’ (page 666, n. 84). Both translators/commentators thus take the categorical argument to also include a temporal one; both take the passage as evidence that Herodotus sought to distinguish myth from history.
30 On Minos see also Hdt. 1.171, 1.173, 7.170. In Thucydides, Minos features in 1.4, 1.8.2–3. See E. Irwin, ‘Herodotus and Samos: personal or political?’, CW 102 (2009), 395–416 on how Minos fits into the larger account of Samos of both Herodotus and Thucydides.
31 See Williams (n. 1), 162 and 154 respectively.
32 Williams (n. 1), 162–3. It does not follow that myth should be characterized as being outside of such temporal structures. After all, many myths are at least partially grounded in past reality. Burkert’s influential definition of myth as ‘a traditional story with something of collective significance’ (W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual [Berkeley, 1979], 23), for example, does not make any reference to the question of veracity.
33 Hdt. 1.1–5. On Herodotus’ self-representation in the proem see M. Węcowski, ‘The hedgehog and the fox: form and meaning in the prologue of Herodotus’, JHS 124 (2004), 143–64.
34 See Hdt. 1.1–6, with Croesus being introduced in 1.7.
35 Hdt. 1.5.
36 All translations from Herodotus are grounded in Godley’s from the Loeb Classical Library. I have made changes to ensure that translations reflect the language around truthfulness more literally.
37 See e.g. K. Wesselmann, Mythische Erzählstrukturen in Herodots Historien (Berlin, 2011), 316–35.
38 Hdt. 2.23 (in the context of information on the river of Ocean) and 2.45.1 (in the context of false tales about Heracles).
39 See Hdt. 2.113–20. On Herodotus’ criticism of Homer see in particular the articles collected by B. Currie on Herodotus as a Homeric Critic, Histos Suppl. 13 (2021).
40 See Hdt. 2.120.
41 Hdt. 2.118.
42 The earliest account of this myth is in Stesichorus’ first Palinode: frr. 90–1 Finglass.
43 Hdt. 2.116. On the ‘untrustworthiness of epic’ elsewhere in the Herodotus’ account of Egypt see A. Ellis, ‘Fictional truth and factual truth in Herodotus’, in I. Ruffell and L.I. Hau (edd.), Truth and History in the Ancient World. Pluralising the Past (London, 2017), 104–29, at 109.
44 The ‘rationalizing agenda’ in this passage and on other references to the Trojan War: S. Saïd, ‘Herodotus and the “myth” of the Trojan War’, in E. Baragwanath and M. de Bakker (edd.), Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 87–212. For the rationalization of myth and other stories see also Hdt. 2.45.1, 2.54–7, 4.36.1, 8.8.3.
45 See e.g. Hdt. 1.5.3–4 with Moles (n. 7), 164.
46 Hdt. 4.5.1.
47 See Dion. Hal. Pomp. 3; [Longinus], Subl. 13.2–3 with the articles collected in I. Matijašić (ed.), Herodotus—The Most Homeric Historian? (Oxford / Edmonton / Tallahassee, 2022). The relationship between Homer and Herodotus (and Thucydides): J. Marincola, ‘Odysseus and the historians’, SyllClass 18 (2007), 1–79, at 13–5; Moles (n. 7).
48 Herodotus’ indebtedness to oral culture and his conception of the truth: Moles (n. 7), 181–2. See Marincola (n. 47), 51–66 on truth and falsehoods in Homer’s Odyssey and their impact on Herodotus.
49 Ellis (n. 43).
50 On the complex concept of hybris in the Histories and its link to nemesis see P. Demont, ‘Hubris’, in C. Baron (ed.), The Herodotus Encyclopedia (London, 2021), 2.711–12.
51 Truth as a historical category in Herodotus’ Histories: C. Darbo-Peschanski, Le discours du particulier. Essai sur l’enquête hérodotéenne (Paris, 1987), 25–38; Marincola (n. 47), 51–66; Moles (n. 7); Baragwanath and De Bakker (n. 18); C.C. Chiasson, ‘Myth and truth in Herodotus’ Cyrus logos’, in E. Baragwanath and M. de Bakker (edd.), Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2012), 213–32; Ellis (n. 43).
52 Cobet (n. 8), 405–11.
53 I thank CQ’s reader for pointing this out to me.
54 For Thucydides’ vagueness about his methods and especially his method of selectivity see S. Hornblower, Thucydides (London, 1987), 42–3, 77–83 (on Thucydides’ use of evidence).
55 When Herodotus performed and composed the Histories, notions of factual truthfulness and authenticity only started to be applied to the writing of the past and history-telling emerged from a much broader engagement with the past in song and oral culture.
56 See Ellis (n. 43), 105–10 for a list of examples on how the critically attuned narrator presents his own role in the generation of true knowledge.
57 Hdt. 4.77.1.
58 Herodotus’ authorial voice: e.g. J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge, 1997), 3–12; R. Thomas, ‘Truth and authority in Herodotus’ narrative: false stories and true stories’, in E. Bowie (ed.), Herodotus – Narrator, Scientist, Historian (London, 2018), 265–84. Herodotus and the ‘problem of the sources’: R. Fowler, ‘Herodotos and his contemporaries’, JHS 116 (1996), 62–87, at 86.
59 Hdt. 1.95.1.
60 Williams (n. 1), 127 defines accuracy as implying ‘the notion of effective investigation’ and adds that ‘this itself implies that there is a genuine property which some methods of inquiry have and some others lack, the property of leading to true belief’.
61 See respectively Hdt. 3.102, 2.156.
62 On the ancient and modern reception of Herodotus see J. Priestley and V. Zali (edd.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond (Leiden, 2016).
63 Williams defines sincerity as follows: ‘Sincerity consists in a disposition to make sure that one’s assertion expresses what one actually believes.’ In this definition sincerity does not necessarily result in the conveying of true information as it allows for false beliefs to result in wrong information.
64 Hdt. 2.29.1–2.
65 The status of autopsy in relation to other forms of knowledge in Herodotus and other ancient historians: Marincola (n. 58), 63–86.
66 D. Fehling (transl. J.G. Howie), Herodotus and His ‘Sources’. Citation, Invention and Narrative Art (Leeds, 1989 [1971]), 100–1 considers this passage to be articulating a falsehood. But even Fehling acknowledges that Herodotus here strove for credibility. He just does not believe in the sincerity of Herodotus’ claim of autopsy but dismisses it as a literary trope.
67 There are numerous similar examples in the Histories; see e.g. 9.84, where Herodotus firmly states that Mardonius’ body was buried but adds that he cannot say by whom due to the fact that several people claimed to have done so.
68 Hdt. 1.136.
69 Hdt. 1.138.
70 Balance and imbalance in the Histories: H.R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland, OH, 1966), 50, 152–4, 172, 312–14.
71 This does not mean that there is also an appreciation for what T. Harrison (‘Truth and lies in Herodotus’ Histories’, in V. Karageorghis and I. Taifacos [edd.], The World of Herodotus [Nicosia, 2004], 255–62, at 257) refers to as ‘Odyssean tricksterishness’ as evident, for example, in Herodotus’ depiction of Darius.
72 Harrison (n. 71), 257.
73 Hdt. 3.72.4−5.
74 Here and below see Hdt. 1.107–19.
75 On this story pattern see e.g. P.J. Finglass, Sophocles. Oedipus the King (Cambridge, 2018), 63–70 (on ‘foundling narratives’), 49 (with reference to Cyrus).
76 Harrison (n. 71), 257.
77 See Harrison (n. 71), 259, with examples.
78 See Hdt. 6.86.
79 Hdt. 6.86.2.
80 Further passages that thematize the truth (or its absence): e.g. Hdt. 1.30, 2.106, 3.17, 3.27–8, 3.66–7, 7.9, 7.234, 8.8.
81 See e.g. Williams (n. 1), 20–2 and, in particular, 38–40. The ‘state of nature story’ offers a ‘cumulative’ and ‘fictional’ account of truth as a general human value. As such it both precedes and supplements the historical account which provides insights into the specific historical circumstances and ‘motivations’ that drive the emergence of notions of truth and truthfulness in a particular time and place. Both perspectives come together in genealogy.
82 See Williams (n. 1), 39–40.
83 Williams (n. 1), 40.
84 Genealogy and ‘real history’: Williams (n. 1), 39, 151.
85 Williams (n. 1), 40.
86 In doing so he follows a sustained scholarly tradition which seeks to represent Herodotus and Thucydides as two antithetic poles in larger narratives about the history of historiography. See Morley (n. 23), and Foster and Lateiner (n. 27).
87 The ‘developmental model’ in the study of the history of historiography: Morley (n. 23), 155–9.
88 Morley (n. 23), 159.
89 Thuc. 1.21.1. Marincola (n. 58), 117–27 shows that despite this juncture, myth retained an important (but contested) place in the later Graeco-Roman historiographic tradition.
90 F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals. A Polemic (New York, 2014; German original 1887); M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 4 vols. (New York, 2019–23; French original 1976–2018).
91 K. Vlassopoulos, Unthinking the Greek Polis (Cambridge, 2007), 1.
92 Williams (n. 1), 40.
93 The intellectual milieu of Herodotus: Thomas (n. 22).