The Rhetoric of Otherness in Herodotus Histories (EN)

Bourntouli, Sofia (EN)

School of Humanities, MA in Black Sea & Eastern Mediterranean Studies (EL)

Xydopoulos, Yiannis (EN)

This dissertation was written as part of the MA in Black Sea Cultural Studies at the International Hellenic University. The dissertation is composed of two main parts. The first part deals with Herodotus, his life in general and his travels that played the most important role for the enrichment of his work .It also gives elements about his historical method, the sources, the way of writing and the language that he used. Continuing, it also gives some information about the first publication of the Histories and the circumstances under which the craft was created, analyzing the content of each Book. Finally, it mentions the nomos or custom, which constitutes the core of the rhetoric of otherness that is described in Histories. It is claimed that the ethnic character of a person is developed being based on the customs of the society that he belongs in and not on the environment and that the nomos is the “king” of all in each society. In the second part the dissertation deals with the rhetoric of otherness that dominates in Histories. It refers that the Histories are also connected with the science as they include geographical and ethnographic elements, medical or philosophical and were written after being examined and proved to be closer to the truth. There are also referred the methods that Herodotus uses to transmit the customs of the others, like for example the inversion, the comparison and the analogy, the measuring scale of thoma, the translation, naming and classifying, the description of what is seen and make it seen by others and finally, the excluded middle part, using in each case examples from the Histories. Then, follow two chapters related to tribes that were closely connected with the Black Sea region, the Thracians who according to Greeks were barbarians but they treated them with tolerance and none Thracian logos was devoted to them and the Massagettae with their ferocious customs. (EN)

masterThesis

Διεθνές Πανεπιστήμιο της Ελλάδος (EL)

International Hellenic University (EN)

2016-01-30

https://repository.ihu.edu.gr//xmlui/handle/11544/14541

IHU (EN)