Answer by Jessica Priestley
Well, this is the first time I’ve heard the claim made that Herodotus died while a guest of Archelaus I! However, he may have been a guest of an earlier king of Macedonia, and there was certainly a tradition that Herodotus died at Pella.
The evidence for Herodotus’ death at Pella comes from the Suda, a Byzantine lexicon compiled in the 10th century CE. In the Suda’s entry for ‘Herodotus’, the author comments: ‘he left [Halicarnassus] of his own freewill for Thurii, which was being settled by the Athenians, and he died there and was buried in the agora. Some say, however, that he died in Pella’. The connection with Pella is not encouraged by Herodotus’ text: there is only one passing reference to Pella in the Histories, in relation to the route taken by Xerxes’ fleet (7.123.3).
In another Suda entry, this time for ‘Hellanicus’ (the fifth century BCE historian and mythographer from Lesbos), we are told that ‘… Hellanicus spent time with Herodotus at the court of Amyntas, king of Macedon …’. There are some textual problems, however, with this Suda entry. Most obviously, the reference to Amyntas cannot be correct, since Amyntas I’s reign ended with his death in the early years of the fifth century BCE, c.495. Leone Porciani has argued that the king with whom Hellanicus and Herodotus should instead be associated is Alexander I, who succeeded Amyntas and ruled until c. 452 BCE.
What we have, then, in the Suda,is evidence of two traditions (perhaps not independent) that connect Herodotus with Macedonia. The ultimate source of these traditions is uncertain, but we do know that there was growing interest in literary biography between the fourth and second centuries BCE, and these traditions may be as old as that. Porciani connects the synchronisms in the Suda entry on Hellanicus with the second century BCE Chronicle of Apollodorus, and suggests the Peripatetic philosopher Praxiphanes as an even earlier source for the story about Herodotus and Hellanicus visiting the Macedonian court.
The tradition that Herodotus died and was buried at Pella is problematic. Pella was only developed as a royal centre at the very end of the fifth century BCE: the court was relocated there from Aegae c. 406 BCE. While we do not know the date of Herodotus’ death for certain, it is unlikely (but not impossible) to have been as late as this. Although Herodotus lived to see the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, it is generally assumed that he had died, at the latest, by the beginning of 413 BCE, since the text of the Histories indicates that he was unaware of the Spartan occupation of Decelea (see 9.73). It might be objected that the reason for the omission (if Herodotus did live beyond 413) was simply that the elderly historian was not revising his Histories anymore so late in his life. However, modern historians have usually assumed that Herodotus’ death was sometime in the 420s BCE.
There is another reason to view the tradition about Herodotus’ death at Pella with some scepticism: in addition to the tradition that Herodotus died at either Thurii or Pella, there is another story that places his tomb in the Attic deme of Koile, at the Melitian Gate (Marcellinus, Life of Thucydides, 17). It seems that Herodotus’ bones were hot property, with different places around the Greek world laying claim to them. There was cultural prestige to be gained from association with the historian, and that may be part of the reason why the story about Herodotus dying at Pella arose in the first place.
Why else might such a story have circulated? If Herodotus had spent time at the Macedonian court—and there is no particular reason to doubt that he did—that might have helped the story about dying in Pella to gain traction. But Herodotus’ own writings may have given the story momentum too.
Herodotus’ view that the Macedonian kings were Greek and claimed descent from the Heraclid Perdiccas (5.22, 8.137-9) presumably met with Macedonian royal approval. There is also early evidence for Macedonian approval of the way Herodotus portrayed Alexander I in the Histories. In the fourth century BCE Letter of Speusippus, addressed to Philip II of Macedon, Plato’s nephew Speusippus mentions Herodotus and Alexander in a part of the letter that outlines the benefactions of Philip’s ancestors (sections 3-4). Speusippus refers to the following supposed services of Alexander I to the Greeks during the Greco-Persian Wars: ‘when Xerxes sent ambassadors into Greece demanding earth and water, Alexander killed the ambassadors’ and ‘Alexander informed the Greeks of the treachery of Aleuas and the Thessalians’ (Letter of Speusippus, 3). Speusippus goes on to comment, approvingly: ‘Indeed it is right that … Herodotus and Damastes have remembered these benefactions …’ (Letter of Speusippus, 4). As Anthony Natoli has explained, there is rhetorical manipulation of Herodotus’ text here. But, importantly, Herodotus’ portrait of Alexander I was ambiguous enough that there was some scope to read it as flattering.
So, the biographical connections drawn between Herodotus and Macedonia may owe something to the way the Macedonian kings were portrayed in the Histories. In the Hellenistic period, it is tempting to think that the Ptolemaic dynasty perhaps also encouraged the connections. The court-poet Posidippus, who himself came from Pella and at times draws on Herodotean themes in his poetry, calls the Ptolemies ‘Argead kings’ (AB 31.3). And if we can accept the testimony of Athenaeus, Herodotus’ Histories were declaimed in the Great Theatre of Alexandria, perhaps as early as the third century BCE (Deipnosophistae 14.12, 620d). If only we knew which passages were picked for performance!
Further reading
The works by Porciani and Natoli cited above are these:
Porciani, L. 2001. Prime forme della storiografia greca: prospettiva locale e generale nella narrazione storica. Stuttgart.
Natoli, A.F. 2004. The Letter of Speusippus to Phillip II. Stuttgart.
The first chapter of my book Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture (Oxford, 2014) includes some further discussion of the biographical connection between Herodotus and Macedon.
On Herodotus’ life and the ancient traditions about his life, you could also try:
Bichler, R., and R. Rollinger. 2000. Herodot. Hildesheim, 111–13.
Flower, M.A., and J. Marincola, (eds.) 2002. Herodotus: Histories Book IX. Cambridge, 1–3.
Asheri, D., A. Lloyd, A. Corcella. 2007. A Commentary on Herodotus Books I-IV. Translated by B. Graziosi et al. Oxford, 1–7.
West, S. 2007. ‘Life of Herodotus.’ In Herodotus. Histories, Book VIII, edited by A.M. Bowie. Cambridge, 27–30.
On Herodotus’ portrayal of Alexander I of Macedon:
Scaife, R. 1989. ‘Alexander I in the Histories of Herodotus.’ Hermes 117, 129-37.
Badian, E. 1994. ‘Herodotus on Alexander I of Macedon: A Study in Some Subtle Silences.’ In Greek Historiography, edited by S. Hornblower. Oxford, 107-30.
On the performance of Herodotus’ Histories in Alexandria:
Matijašić, I. 2019. ‘Herodotus in the Theatre at Alexandria? On Athenaeus 14.620D.’ Journal of Hellenic Studies 139, 83-93.
Herodotus Helpline 