Bakker, Egbert J. "The Making of History: Herodotus’ Historiēs Apodexis." Pages 3-32 in Brill's Companion to Herodotus. Edited by Egbert Bakker, Hans van Wees, and Irene de Jong. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
In "The Making of History: Herodotus’ Historiēs Apodexis," Egbert Bakker publishes his inquiry into the proem of Herodotus’ Histories, specifically setting forth the meanings and connotations of the words ἀπόδεξις and ἱστορίης.
For Bakker, the problem of interpreting the proem is reflected in present controversies over the nature of the whole of Herodotus’ work. Bakker notes that Herodotus’ Histories does not appear to exhibit a consistent methodology, which, if it had, could inform our understanding of Herodotus’ own classification of his work: Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε. Certainly, the modern notions of "publication" and "history," which are sometimes applied to ἀπόδεξις and ἱστορίης respectively, are anachronistic. In view of these anachronisms, Bakker summarizes the work of two recent scholars, Rosalind Thomas and Gregory Nagy, who have attempted to recover the original intellectual context in which the proem, and thus Herodotus’ methodology and work, ought to be situated.
On the one hand, Rosalind Thomas argues, on the basis of semantic and methodological affinities, that Herodotus’ proem belongs to the emerging scientific, medical discourse of the time, exemplified in the Hippocratic corpus. In that context, Herodotus’ work could be classified as a scientific inquiry published in "sessions at which knowledge was transmitted, and contested, orally" (9); the inquiry as ἱστορίης and the sessions as ἀπόδεξις. On the other hand, Gregory Nagy argues that Herodotus’ proem draws on "the general Greek preoccupation with the past" (10). Nagy concludes, on the basis of thematic and semantic affinities, that the Histories share an essential continuity with the Homeric tradition such that ἀπόδεξις denotes a public performance to proclaim the great or glorious deeds of the past (n.b. ἔργα μεγάλα and ἀκλεᾶ in the proem). Moreover, in Nagy’s view, ἱστορίης is a juridical concept in which opposing claims are presented and subjected to a judgment.
While Bakker finds merit in both views, he is ultimately more sympathetic to the views of Nagy. Specifically, Bakker opts to build upon Nagy’s idea of ἱστορίης as a juridical concept, noting that Herodotus is often interested in the difference resulting from the interrogation of informants. For Bakker, ἱστορίης connotes an investigation of the difference between competing views as well as the application of "the power of judgment and discrimination" (15) in order to inform and shape present knowledge and future investigation. Bakker also argues against Thomas’ interpretation of ἀπόδεξις, again choosing to build upon Nagy’s definition of the term and, in addition, drawing his own thematic connection between the term and ἱστορίης. For Bakker, ἀπόδεξις conveys accomplishment or achievement, a definition he defends by appealing to the usage of the word within the Histories itself. Furthermore, Bakker suggests that Herodotus employs the word in the proem to convey two ideas. First, as Nagy suggests, that his inquiry uncovers the glorious accomplishments of the past and, second, emphasized by the presence of the deictic pronoun ἥδε, that his inquiry represents a monumental accomplishment in its own right. Bakker concludes that this latter sense invites the audience, ancient and modern, to engage in their own ἱστορίης.
While Bakker flirts with the etymological fallacy in arriving at his interpretations of ἀπόδεξις and ἱστορίης, he supports his argument with solid exegesis of the Histories. By drawing on internal evidence, Bakker formulates a strong and persuasive case from the words of Herodotus himself. The article also contributes, in more general ways, to understanding the development of the Greek historiographical traditions and the relationship between Herodotus and Thucydides.
Bakker on Herodotus' Proem and Method
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