| Popis: |
This chapter studies Herodotean evocations in Dio Chrysostom’s Borystheniticus (Or. 36). Although the Borystheniticus has long been recognized as situating itself in the Herodotean mold, this chapter argues that the Herodotean backdrop is far from straightforward; indeed, ambiguous hypotextual activations of Herodotus’s Scythian logos inflect the oration from start to finish and are essential to its meaning. The oration’s climax, in which Dio claims to quote a myth of the Persian Magi on the cycles of cosmic history, presents a world in flux, in echo of the historical cycles of Herodotus’s text, and permits the Magi to speak with historiographic authority. That the myth itself has been shown to be Greek, not Persian, ironizes the whole operation, allowing Dio to sound Herodotean while also rearticulating the Hellenic usurpation of alien wisdom. |
