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DRESS AND UNDRESS IN HERODOTUS' <em>HISTORIES</em>

2014; Classical Association of Canada; Volume: 68; Issue: 3/4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.7834/phoenix.68.3-4.0222

1929-4883

Carmen Soares,

Classical Antiquity Studies

In this paper I will focus on how Herodotus uses the literary elements of "dressing" (in a particular way) and "undressing" (nudity) to interweave the themes of love, power, death, and gender identity in several of his emblematic short stories.In particular I will study the tales of Gyges and Candaules of Lydia (1.8-12) and that of Xerxes and Masistes of Persia (9.108-113), which are placed, respectively, at the beginning and the end of the Histories.I will then turn my attention to the story of Periander and Melissa (5.92h), which comes precisely in the middle, and the episode of the massacre of Dareios' ambassadors in Book 5 (18-20).In all these episodes, "dressing" or "undressing" play pivotal roles. i.Whether intentional or not, the telling of two short stories with a similar theme at the beginning and at the end of the Histories is an important element that contributes to the cohesion of Herodotus' vast work. 1 Specifically I am referring to the tales of Gyges and Candaules of Lydia (1.8-12) and that of Xerxes and Masistes of Persia (9.108-113).Both these tales hinge on the actions of a monarch who, driven by passion, commits acts of arrogance (hybris) violating socially accepted norms of behaviour.Acts of dressing and undressing provide visible proof of royal misconduct, leading to the shaming of a queen, who then punishes with death the real or imagined transgressor against her honour.As a consequence, elements of the monarch's private life are proven to have public and political implications.In the prologue (1.1-5) we are told how one or more women are responsible (at'a) for the hostility between Greeks and barbarians (i.e., between Asia and Europe; cf.1.4.4) and how they are also the source of the misfortune brought 1 Waters (1971: 82-85), constrained by the theory that no dramatic purposes were contemplated in Herodotus' narrative choices, refuses to recognize the similarities between the two tales; contra Wolff (1964), who first identified a narrative correspondence between the two stories.As this article shows, I follow Wolff in recognizing the unity of the Histories through the thematic and literary parallels of these two narratives.On the subject of the thematic unity of the episodes in question, see