Herodotus and Ethnicity 351has been materially and ideologically transformed—even partially formed—by geopolit-
ical factors (see 1.71.2–4).
When we recognize that Herodotus regards customs as the main criterion of ethnic
identity, two issues come to the fore that I would like to reformulate and set aside. The
first is the extent to which Herodotus’ description of different practices is the product of
a predetermined framework of Greek assumptions and values—what structuralists call a
cultural “grid.” Important work has been done on this topic (Rosellini and Saïd 1978,
Hartog [1980]1988, Redfield 1985), but for the purposes of the present discussion, let
us stipulate that Herodotus saw and heard about different ways of doing things—eating,
sacrificing, burying the dead, and so on—and wrote them down, learning from his ethno-
graphic subjects rather than inventing them (Moyer 2002). Let us also stipulate that there
is always a grid, and that replacing his with our own is not always the best interpretive
solution.
We also need to move beyond the issue of whether Herodotus’ description of cultural
difference is or is not a discourse about the superiority of Greeks over barbarians.
Herodotus’ own ethnocentrism, such as it is, cannot at any rate be separated from
his formulation of the principle of universal ethnocentrism (1.134.2, 2.91.1, 2.158.5,
3.38.4, 4.76.1). Cultural difference remains an incontrovertible fact, regardless of
how Herodotus or we, bound as we are by the prison of our own culture, represent
or interpret it. Herodotus’ goal is to display the limits, range, and effects of cultural
difference. In doing so, he takes every opportunity to point out unsuspected similar-
ities, equivalences, and connections among different societies (Munson 2001, 2005).
However, he also shows that, to the extent that culture defines the identity of an
ethnos(“The Lydians...Babylonians...Egyptians, etc. have the following customs”), it
also constitutes, in many cases, the principal area of divisiveness and mutual contempt
amongethnea.
Herodotus’ most effective practical lesson on the subject of this kind of ethnic incom-
patibility is perhaps represented by his two case studies of Anacharsis and Scyles embed-
ded in the Scythian logos of Book 4. These are uniquely interesting for us, because
they represent the porous nature of cultural boundaries and the experience of finding
the stranger in our midst. In the first narrative of this sequence, the Scythians turn
against their well-traveled countryman Anacharsis when he celebrates the rites of the
Great Mother, which he had learned in the Greek Hellespontine city of Cyzicus (4.76).
The murder of Anacharsis comes through as a shocking case of cultural and religious
intolerance, but Herodotus’ second story, about Scyles (4.78–79), provides a thicker
context for the same issue. Scyles is the son of the Scythian king and of a Greek woman
from Istria who taught him to speak and read Greek. His mixed parentage (or his bilin-
gualism) is not however a problemper se: when his father dies, no one seems to object to
his inheriting both his wife and the Scythian throne. It is only when he crosses over cul-
turally to the other side and begins to lead a double life in the nearby Greek city of Olbia,
where he wears Greek clothes, builds himself a fancy house, and—especially—celebrates
the rites of Dionysus, that he becomes a threat to the society whose values he is supposed
to represent. As with Anacharsis, Scyles ends up killed by his own people, but this time
Herodotus focalizes the story through the Scythians, who are disgusted and heartbroken