Herodotus and an Egyptian mirage: the genealogies of the Theban priests

Abstract

AbstractThis article re-evaluates the significance attributed to Hecataeus' encounter with the Theban priests described by Herodotus (2.143) by setting it against the evidence of Late Period Egyptian representations of the past. In the first part a critique is offered of various approaches Classicists have taken to this episode and its impact on Greek historiography. Classicists have generally imagined this as an encounter in which the young, dynamic and creative Greeks construct an image of the static, ossified and incredibly old culture of the Egyptians, a move which reveals deeper assumptions in the scholarly discourse on Greeks and ‘other’ cultures in the Mediterranean world. But the civilization that Herodotus confronted in his long excursus on Egypt was not an abstract, eternal Egypt. Rather, it was the Egypt of his own day, at a specific historical moment – a culture with a particular understanding of its own long history. The second part presents evidence of lengthy Late Period priestly genealogies, and more general archaizing tendencies. Remarkable examples survive of the sort of visual genealogy which would have impressed upon the travelling Greek historians the long continuum of the Egyptian past. These include statues with genealogical inscriptions and relief sculptures representing generations of priests succeeding to their fathers' office. These priestly evocations of a present firmly anchored in the Egyptian past are part of a wider pattern of cultivating links with the historical past in the Late Period of Egyptian history. Thus, it is not simply the marvel of a massive expanse of time which Herodotus encountered in Egypt, but a mediated cultural awareness of that time. The third part of the essay argues that Herodotus used this long human past presented by the Egyptian priests in order to criticize genealogical and mythical representations of the past and develop the notion of an historical past. On the basis of this example, the article concludes by urging a reconsideration of the scholarly paradigm for imagining the encounter between Greeks and ‘others’ in ethnographic discourse in order to recognize the agency of the Egyptian priests, and other non-Greek ‘informants’.