‘One might rightly wonder’ – marvelling in Polybios Histories
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Lisa Irene Hau
Abstract
This paper investigates the use of θαῦμα (thauma) and its cognate verbs and adjectives in Polybios’ Histories. It argues that this word group is used in four basic ways: 1. The expression ‘I wonder at so-and-so’s stupidity/absurdity/other undesirable quality’ is used very frequently as a rhetorical opening of speeches, both the ones orginally delivered in Greek and those originally delivered in Latin. 2. Thauma and its adjectives are used to designate natural and ethnographical marvels, but only occasionally, and Polybios generally seems to associate these with a less serious and investigative type of historiography than his own since an investigation into causes will most often dispel the wonder. 3. In methodological passages Polybios posits his own historiographical project and its topic as a marvel, placing him in the tradition of historiographers who stress the greatness of their topic and achievement. 4. The most frequent use of thauma-words in the Histories is to designate human qualities - moral and intellectual - as marvels. The article concludes that Polybios redefines thauma and its cognates in order to further his own historiographical agenda: partly to demonstrate that it is human beings who make history happen, not supernatural powers, and partly to exhort the reader didactically to imitate marvellous human beings of the past in order to become marvellous himself. Polybios could only do this because the category of the marvellous had considerably inbuilt flexibility, but it was only worth doing because the marvellous was a powerful conceptual category which immediately signalled that its content was not just interesting, but also important, and worth remembering.
Abstract
This paper investigates the use of θαῦμα (thauma) and its cognate verbs and adjectives in Polybios’ Histories. It argues that this word group is used in four basic ways: 1. The expression ‘I wonder at so-and-so’s stupidity/absurdity/other undesirable quality’ is used very frequently as a rhetorical opening of speeches, both the ones orginally delivered in Greek and those originally delivered in Latin. 2. Thauma and its adjectives are used to designate natural and ethnographical marvels, but only occasionally, and Polybios generally seems to associate these with a less serious and investigative type of historiography than his own since an investigation into causes will most often dispel the wonder. 3. In methodological passages Polybios posits his own historiographical project and its topic as a marvel, placing him in the tradition of historiographers who stress the greatness of their topic and achievement. 4. The most frequent use of thauma-words in the Histories is to designate human qualities - moral and intellectual - as marvels. The article concludes that Polybios redefines thauma and its cognates in order to further his own historiographical agenda: partly to demonstrate that it is human beings who make history happen, not supernatural powers, and partly to exhort the reader didactically to imitate marvellous human beings of the past in order to become marvellous himself. Polybios could only do this because the category of the marvellous had considerably inbuilt flexibility, but it was only worth doing because the marvellous was a powerful conceptual category which immediately signalled that its content was not just interesting, but also important, and worth remembering.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments V
- Table of Contents VII
- Introduction: In search of the Miraculous IX
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I. Miracles
- Ctesias’ Indica and the Origins of Paradoxography 3
- The Epidaurian Iamata: The first “Court of Miracles”? 17
- Medicine and the paradox in the Hippocratic Corpus and Beyond 31
- ‘One might rightly wonder’ – marvelling in Polybios Histories 63
- Omens and Miracles: Interpreting Miraculous Narratives in Roman Historiography 85
- Miracles and Pseudo-Miracles in Byzantine Apocalypses 111
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II. Workings of Miracles
- Wonder-ful Memories in Herodotus’ Histories 133
- Wonder(s) in Plautus 153
- Telling Tales of Wonder: Mirabilia in the Letters of Pliny the Younger 179
- Paradoxographic discourse on sources and fountains: deconstructing paradoxes 205
- Lucian’s Alexander: technoprophecy, thaumatology and the poetics of wonder 225
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III. Believing in Miracles
- Perceiving Thauma in Archaic Greek Epic 259
- Turning Science into Miracle in the Voyage of Alexander the Great 275
- ‘Many are the wonders in Greece’: Pausanias the wandering philosopher 305
- Miracles in Greek Biography 327
- Apuleius on Raising the Dead Crossing the Boundaries of Life and Death while Convincing the Audience 353
- Recognizing Miracles in ancient Greek Novels 381
- List of Contributors 417
- Index Nominum et Rerum 423
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments V
- Table of Contents VII
- Introduction: In search of the Miraculous IX
-
I. Miracles
- Ctesias’ Indica and the Origins of Paradoxography 3
- The Epidaurian Iamata: The first “Court of Miracles”? 17
- Medicine and the paradox in the Hippocratic Corpus and Beyond 31
- ‘One might rightly wonder’ – marvelling in Polybios Histories 63
- Omens and Miracles: Interpreting Miraculous Narratives in Roman Historiography 85
- Miracles and Pseudo-Miracles in Byzantine Apocalypses 111
-
II. Workings of Miracles
- Wonder-ful Memories in Herodotus’ Histories 133
- Wonder(s) in Plautus 153
- Telling Tales of Wonder: Mirabilia in the Letters of Pliny the Younger 179
- Paradoxographic discourse on sources and fountains: deconstructing paradoxes 205
- Lucian’s Alexander: technoprophecy, thaumatology and the poetics of wonder 225
-
III. Believing in Miracles
- Perceiving Thauma in Archaic Greek Epic 259
- Turning Science into Miracle in the Voyage of Alexander the Great 275
- ‘Many are the wonders in Greece’: Pausanias the wandering philosopher 305
- Miracles in Greek Biography 327
- Apuleius on Raising the Dead Crossing the Boundaries of Life and Death while Convincing the Audience 353
- Recognizing Miracles in ancient Greek Novels 381
- List of Contributors 417
- Index Nominum et Rerum 423
