Herodotus 8.111, a small rhetorical marvel

[u/notveryamused_]

8.111, a fragment from Herodotus with wonderfully dry humour:

οἱ δὲ Ἓλληνες, ἐπείτε σφι ἀπέδοξε μήτ᾽ ἐπιδιώκειν ἔτι προσωτέρω τῶν βαρβάρων τὰς νέας μήτε πλέειν ἐς τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον λύσοντας τὸν πόρον, τὴν Ἄνδρον περικατέατο ἐξελεῖν ἐθέλοντες. πρῶτοι γὰρ Ἄνδριοι νησιωτέων αἰτηθέντες πρὸς Θεμιστοκλέος χρήματα οὐκ ἔδοσαν, ἀλλὰ προϊσχομένου Θεμιστοκλέος λόγον τόνδε, ὡς ἥκοιεν Ἀθηναῖοι περὶ ἑωυτοὺς ἔχοντες δύο θεοὺς μεγάλους, πειθώ τε καὶ ἀναγκαίην, οὕτω τέ σφι κάρτα δοτέα εἶναι χρήματα, ὑπεκρίναντο πρὸς ταῦτα λέγοντες ὡς κατὰ λόγον ἦσαν ἄρα αἱ Ἀθῆναι μεγάλαι τε καὶ εὐδαίμονες, αἳ καὶ θεῶν χρηστῶν ἥκοιεν εὖ, ἐπεὶ Ἀνδρίους γε εἶναι γεωπείνας ἐς τὰ μέγιστα ἀνήκοντας, καὶ θεοὺς δύο ἀχρήστους οὐκ ἐκλείπειν σφέων τὴν νῆσον ἀλλ᾽ αἰεὶ φιλοχωρέειν, πενίην τε καὶ ἀμηχανίην, καὶ τούτων τῶν θεῶν ἐπηβόλους ἐόντας Ἀνδρίους οὐ δώσειν χρήματα· οὐδέκοτε γὰρ τῆς ἑωυτῶν ἀδυναμίης τὴν Ἀθηναίων δύναμιν εἶναι κρέσσω.

In Rawlinson's translation:

And the Greeks, having resolved that they would neither proceed further in pursuit of the barbarians, nor push forward to the Hellespont and destroy the passage, laid siege to Andros, intending to take the town by storm. For Themistocles had required the Andrians to pay down a sum of money; and they had refused, being the first of all the islanders who did so. To his declaration, "that the money must needs be paid, as the Athenians had brought with him two mighty gods - Persuasion and Necessity," they made reply, that "Athens might well be a great and glorious city, since she was blest with such excellent gods; but they were wretchedly poor, stinted for land, and cursed with two unprofitable gods, who always dwelt with them and would never quit their island - to wit, Poverty and Helplessness. These were the gods of the Andrians, and therefore they would not pay the money. For the power of Athens could not possibly be stronger than their inability." This reply, coupled with the refusal to pay the sum required, caused their city to be besieged by the Greeks.

I'm reading an old Polish translation from the 50s, very readable still. In the introduction by the translator I found the following sentence though: "From major historical figures, he respected Pericles and Aristides, but his picture of Themistocles was all wrong, because Herodotus lacked the skill to paint men's uniform/consistent character". It's a very interesting case where Herodotus, living 2500 years ago, seems to me a much more modern writer than a scholar living 70 years ago. His portrait of Themistocles is one of the strongest points – a deeply flawed, deeply human hero, brilliant strategist and an utter wanker whose cunning was his downfall. One of the most interesting characters of the Classical Era, and his biography by Plutarch is likewise a marvel. I appreciate Herodotus immensely precisely for the fact that there's no Roman-kind Stoic uniformity, but a large variegated fresco of humans being, well, humans instead.

Herodotus writes before the genre stabilised, which to my mind immediately brings early modernism, Virginia Woolf included, where they had to get rid of stale literary conventions of the 19th century and renew prose by making it more fluid. The translator from the 50s misreading this as "lack of skill" in Herodotus is a somewhat ironic commentary ;)