or else from only two generations earlier, if Boardman is right to identify them as
the dead of Marathon.^14
STRATIFYING TIME: HERODOTUS
At the beginning of the historiographical tradition, it is often claimed, Herodotus
first formulates a conception of two different expanses of time, the time of myth
and the time of history, often referred to as spatium historicumand spatium mythi-
cum.^15 Discussion inevitably focuses on three key passages in which Herodotus has
often been seen as distinguishing between two phases of time. In the first, at the
beginning of his work, Herodotus relates what the Persians have to say about who
started the series of injustices that resulted in the Persian Wars (1.1.1 – 5.2). After
telling us the Persian version of Io, Europa, Medea, and Helen and the Trojan War,
with a little footnote on what the Phoenicians say about Io, Herodotus declares
(1.5.3):
tau'ta mevn nun Pevrsai te kai; Foivnike" levgousi. ejgw; de; peri; me;n
touvtwn oujk e[rcomai ejrevwn wJ" ou{tw" h] a[llw" kw" tau'ta ejgevneto,
to;n de; oi\da aujto;" prw'ton uJpavrxanta ajdivkwn e[rgwn ej" tou;" ÓEllhna",
tou'ton shmhvna" probhvsomai ej" to; provsw tou' lovgou.
Well, that ’s what the Persians and Phoenicians say. But as far as these things
are concerned I am not proceeding to say that they happened like this or
maybe some other way, but the one whom I myself know first to have begun
unjust deeds against the Greeks, him I shall point out and then I shall proceed
to the rest of my account.He then begins with Croesus, the king of Lydia some hundred years before the
time of writing.
In his “second preface,” introducing the actual invasion of Xerxes, Herodotus
deploys the same antithesis between what is said about ancient events and what he
actually knows (7.20.2 – 21.1):
stovlwn ga;r tw'n hJmei'" i[dmen pollw'/ dh; mevgisto" ou|to" ejgevneto, w{ste
mhvte to;n Dareivou to;n ejpi; Skuvqa" para; tou'ton mhdevna faivnesqai mhvte
to;n Skuqikovn .Ê.Ê. mhvte kata; ta; legovmena to;n ÆAtreidevwn ej" ÒIlion .Ê.Ê.
au|tai aiJ pa'sai oujdÆ e[terai pro;" tauvth/si genovmenai strathlasivai mih'"
th'sde oujk a[xiai.- Myth into History I: Foundations of the City