Interpreters and Linguistic Difference in Herodotus and Beyond

Abstract

Herodotus sometimes breaks the general rule in Greek literature by which the whole world converses in effortless Greek. The most notable way he does this is through the presence of linguistic interpreters or other multilingual intermediaries. Less remarked on but similar in effect are situations in which the historian explicitly notes what language (Greek or otherwise) a conversation took place in and episodes in which language barriers prevent communication altogether. This paper examines how such acknowledgements of linguistic difference serve as a distancing device to highlight other kinds of differences between characters, including the political distance between kings and royal subjects, cultural differences between Greeks and others, and, during Croesus’ encounter with Cyrus on the pyre, philosophical differences between the wise and the foolish. It considers examples from Herodotus’ Histories alongside similar episodes in Xenophon’s Anabasis, with a coda on the reuse and adaptation of the device in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.