我们可以从好几个方向来探讨悲剧与希罗多德的问题。[10]像悲剧诗人们一样,希罗多德也从神话(myths)开始;英雄们经常出现。[11]他的历史以希腊人和亚细亚从对方那里拐走神话中的女主角们——伊俄(Io),欧罗巴(Europa),美狄亚(Medea),海伦(Helen)——开场;这也是两块大陆之间纷争的开端(1.1–5)。戈麦(Gomme)称之为“幽默的引言”,但雅可比(Felix Jacoby)很早就严肃的表示,希望人们尽快停止在那里搜寻幽默故事。[12]在这些传说中的王妃中间,有三位都出现在现存的悲剧中,被缚的普罗米修斯(Prometheus Vinctus),美狄亚(Medea),海伦(Helen)和特洛亚妇女(Troades);而第四位,即欧罗巴,则至少出现在一部失传的作品中。[13]我们能找到阿尔戈号的船员们(Argonauts,4.145, 179);铁美诺斯(Temenus)的三个儿子,其中最小的取得了王国(8.137–8);希巨昂(Sicyon)僭主克莱司铁涅斯(Cleisthenes)贬黜阿尔戈斯(Argos)英雄,进攻忒拜的七将之一的阿德拉托斯(Adrastus),而代之以他的敌人,忒拜人美兰尼波司(Melanippus)的崇拜仪式(5.67)。斯巴达人声称他们作为阿伽门农(荷马从未把他称作斯巴达人)的继承者是伯罗奔尼撒的首领;他们发现并取回了其子奥瑞斯忒斯的遗骨(1.67–8),[14]而且他们告知叙拉古(Syracuse)僭主盖隆(Gelon),如果斯巴达人听命于一个叙拉古人,阿伽门农将无法安息(turn in his grave)(7.159)。[15]普拉提亚之役(Plataea)前,雅典人和铁该亚(Tegea)人的首领争论该由谁来占据阵线的一翼,双方都引据他们传说时代的先祖[16]的业绩(9.26–7)。[17]
同悲剧作家一样,这位史家也偏好包含可怕的道德抉择的场景。其中之一是自我牺牲:欧里庇得斯的乞援人(Supplices)中的艾法德涅(Evadne),伊菲革涅亚在奥利斯(Iphigenia in Aulis)中的伊菲革涅亚,腓尼基妇女(Phoenissae)中的美诺埃克乌斯(Menoeceus),赫拉克勒斯的儿女(Heracleidae)与埃瑞克透斯(Erechtheus)中高贵的公主们;而在希罗多德那里,克桑托斯人的骨肉相残(1.176),阿米尔卡斯(Hamilcar)投身于祭火之中(7.166),地米斯托克利(Themistocles)劝告优利比亚戴斯(Eurybiades)坚守萨拉米司(8.60-3),尤其是列欧尼达司(Leonidas)(7.205)和占卜师美吉司提亚斯(Megistias)(7.219,221)英勇地选择死在铁尔摩披莱(Thermopylae)。[22]
在克洛伊索斯的故事里充满了神谕,在德尔斐,他也是重要人物。这使他对希罗多德这位熟知德尔斐,关注神谕,并且为此不惜笔墨的史家更具吸引力。[45]这也是悲剧的一个重要特征;在俄狄浦斯王中,所有的情节都被德尔斐事前预告出来就是一个极端的例子。神谕的言辞在大多数现存的剧本中都是非常重要的。先知和预言经常出现,伴随着梦[46]、预兆和诅咒。在悲剧和希罗多德那里,所有这些超自然的手法都有双重功能。它们一方面使情节变得意味深长,不仅仅是就这么发生了的事情,而是被预言过,使人担忧,想要逃避,却最终无法逃避的事情;另一方面则展示了神的旨趣[the interest of the divine],并说明了它是如何起作用的。
所有这些不那么光明正大的东西玷污了“我们最伟大的时刻”的光辉,即使数世纪之后的普鲁塔克(Plutarch)仍然对此感到不快;[58]埃斯库罗斯的剧作则没有去探究这些东西,他把希腊人描绘为团结一心奔赴战场(Persae 384–411)。对于悲剧来说,争论与纠纷过于复杂了,过于“政治化”[too ‘political’ in the wrong sense];它们模糊了希腊人与野蛮人之间的明确对立,以及天神的旨意。[59]因此在波斯人中,希腊舰只没有像在希罗多德笔下那样,使用倒划桨和复杂的战术:他们径直冲向敌人。个人成就的细节并不符合悲剧的朴素审美,因此这部悲剧根本没有提到地米斯托克利的名字。关于给波斯人的消息,“报仇神或恶魔现身发动了这灾难:一个人从雅典营中带来了这个消息……”(353–68),[60]在埃斯库罗斯那里,这位信使在夜幕降临之前到来,而在希罗多德那里,则是在夜里(8.75)。[61]
此处出现的人名,据Perseus Digital Library中的希腊文本(Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.),应为Ἀμίλκας,中译亦如此。
[38] So Page (1951), an influential publication; the fragment is now in TrGF II, F 664.
The editors do not commit themselves on the question of the date: ‘You would not be more surprised by the survival till the second or third century of a play from the age of Aeschylus than by that of one by a member of the [Hellenistic] Pleiad’, they observe, guardedly.
[39] Lesky (1953).
[40] Plato, Republic 359c-e. On these stories see Schadewaldt (1934) 409–13 = Marg (1982) 112–17.
[41] The narrative: Nicolaus of Damascus, FGrHist 90 F 47.
[42] Jacoby (1913) 338.55. He explains it by assuming that originally Herodotus composed a separate account of Lydia, a Lydian logos, only later incorporating it in the present Histories. That recalls the fashion in Germany in the late nineteenth century for supposing that the first four books of our Odyssey originally were a separate Telemachy: an epic poem in which no heroic event occurred. . . . But it is fair to see Herodotus distinguishing mere temporary raids for booty from permanent occupation and regular taxation.
[43] Hellmann (1934); cf. Gould (1989) 121–5, who is good on the importance of the resemblance between the Croesus and Xerxes narratives, allowing for the fact that Herodotus has more, and more accurate, information about Xerxes, who is so much nearer his own time.
[44] Compare Waters (1971) 86–100.
[45] Kirchberg (1964); Asheri (1993).
[46] Frisch (1968).
[47] OT 1186–96: ‘O generations of men, how I count your lives as amounting to nothing! . . . . Taking your destiny as a paradigm, poor Oedipus, I call no mortal man happy.’
[48] Soph. Ajax 748–82; Diller (1950) 10–11.
[49] Soph. Trach. 1164–72. The oracle is slightly different at 76–81, and 165–70, where it takes the form: at this time, either the end of his life or delivery from toil. It is noticeable that Sophocles includes many more oracles than were ‘necessary’ for the plot.
[50] Herodotus says he ‘sobered up’, a rare thing indeed in his account of this maniac king; but we need him to sober up at this moment, or he will not understand the point of the divine trick.
[51] Further references in tragedy in Wilkins (1993) ad loc.
[52] Thus Solon to Croesus, 1.32.4; Croesus to Cyrus, 1.207.2: ‘There is a cycle to the affairs of men, which does not allow the same people to be fortunate forever.’ Compare Amasis to Polycrates, 3.40.3; Artabanus to Xerxes, 7.10ε, and again at 7.49.3: Events, not men, are the masters.
[53] For example, Eur. Andromache 109ff., Hecuba 349ff., 475ff., Troades 577ff.
[54] Page (1951) 7–12. Compare above, nn. 3 and 38.
[55] See above, n. 29.
[56] For example, Duchemin (1968); Lloyd (1992).
[57] See Pelling (1997a); Hall (1996) 5–10.
[58] Plutarch, On the Malignity of Herodotus 37–40 = Moralia 869c–71e.
[59] Aeschylus does not mention, as Herodotus does, the contingents from Greek states which served in the Persian fleet: Hall (1996) on vv. 21–58.
[60] Contrast 8.85, where Herodotus tells us of two Phoenician captains who distinguished themselves against the Greeks; 8.87, a clever exploit of Queen Artemisia of (Herodotus’ own city of) Halicarnassus; and so on.
[61] Pelling (1997a) 2–3 on Aeschylus’ symbolic use of light and darkness.