View source for Logographer (history)

{{Short description|Greek historiographers and chroniclers before Herodotus}}
{{For|professional authors of judicial speeches in ancient Greece|Logographer (legal)}}

{{more footnotes needed|date=February 2019}}
The '''logographers''' (from the [[Ancient Greek]] {{lang|grc|λογογράφος}} {{Transliteration|grc|logográphos}}, a compound of {{lang|grc|λόγος}} {{Transliteration|grc|lógos}}, here meaning "story" or "prose", and {{lang|grc|γράφω}} {{Transliteration|grc|gráphō}}, "write") were the Greek [[historiographer]]s and chroniclers before [[Herodotus]], "the father of history".<ref name=B>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/historiography/Greek-historiography  Britannica website, ''Greek historiography'', article by Richard T. Vann dated 7 March 2025]</ref>  Herodotus himself called his predecessors {{lang|grc|λογοποιοί}} ({{Transliteration|grc|logopoioí}}, from {{lang|grc|ποιέω}} {{Transliteration|grc|poiéō}}, "to make").

Most of their representatives came from [[Ionia]] and its islands,<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105308638  Oxford Reference website, ''Logographers'']</ref>  and their position was most favourably situated for the acquisition of knowledge concerning the distant countries of East and West. They wrote in the [[Ionic dialect]] in what was called the unperiodic style and preserved the poetic character, if not the style, of their epic model. Their criticism makes a crude attempt to rationalize the current legends and traditions connected with the founding of cities, the genealogies of ruling families, and the manners and customs of individual peoples. Of scientific criticism there is no trace whatever and so they are often called "[[chronicle]]rs" rather than "[[history|historian]]s".

The first logographer of note was [[Cadmus of Miletus|Cadmus]] (dated to the 6th century BC), a perhaps mythical resident of [[Miletus]], who wrote on the history of his city. Other logographers flourished from the middle of the 6th century BC until the [[Greco-Persian Wars]]; [[Pherecydes of Athens]], who died about 400 BC, is generally considered the last. [[Hecataeus of Miletus]] (6th&ndash;5th century BC), in his ''Genealogiai'', was the first of them to attempt (not entirely successfully) to separate the [[Greek mythology|mythic]] past from the true historic past,<ref name=B />  which marked a crucial step in the development of genuine historiography. He is the only source that Herodotus cites by name. After [[Herodotus]], the genre declined but regained some popularity in the [[Hellenistic]] era.

The logographers, though they worked within the same mythic tradition, were distinct from the [[Cyclic poets|epic poets]] of the [[Epic Cycle|Trojan War cycle]] because they wrote in prose, in a non-periodic style which [[Aristotle]] (''Rhetoric'', 1409a 29) calls {{lang|grc|λέξις εἰρομένη}} ({{Transliteration|grc|léxis eiroménē}}, from {{lang|grc|εἴρω}} {{Transliteration|grc|eírō}}, "attach, join up"), that is, a "continuous" or "running" style.

==Notable examples==
[[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] (''On Thucydides'', 5) names those who were most famous in the classical world. They are noted with an asterisk (*) in the following incomplete list of logographers:

*[[Acusilaus]] of Argos, who paraphrased in prose, correcting the tradition where it seemed necessary, the genealogical works of [[Hesiod]] in the Ionic dialect. He confined his attention to the prehistoric period and did not attempt a real history.
* [[Cadmus of Miletus]]*
* Charon* of [[Lampsacus]], author of histories of Persia, Libya, and Ethiopia, and of annals of his native town, with lists of the [[prytaneis]] and [[archon]]s, and of the chronicles of [[Lacedaemon]]ian kings.
*[[Damastes of Sigeion]], pupil of [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]], author of genealogies of the combatants before Troy and an ethnographic and statistical list of short treatises on poets, sophists, and geographical subjects.
* [[Hecataeus of Miletus]]*
* [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]]*, provides the earliest known account of the founding of Rome by [[Aeneas]]<ref>*{{citation|last=Rodríguez Mayorgas|first=Ana|title=Romulus, Aeneas and the Cultural Memory of the Roman Republic|journal=Athenaeum|volume=98|issue=1|date=2010|page=93 fn.18|accessdate=14 December 2016|url=http://eprints.sim.ucm.es/24264/1/RodriguezMayorgas.pdf}}</ref>
* Hippys* and [[Glaucus (disambiguation)|Glaucus]], both of [[Rhegium]]; the first wrote histories of Italy and Sicily, the second a treatise on ancient poets and musicians which was used by [[Harpocration]] and [[Pseudo-Plutarch]]
* [[Melesagoras]]* of [[Chalcedon]]
* [[Pherecydes of Athens]]*
*[[Stesimbrotos of Thasos]], opponent of [[Pericles]] and reputed author of a political pamphlet on [[Themistocles]], Thucydides, and Pericles.
* [[Xanthus (historian)|Xanthus]]*, of [[Sardis]] in [[Lydia]], author of a history of Lydia and one of the chief authorities used by [[Nicolaus]] of Damascus.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*''The History of History''; Shotwell, James T. (NY, Columbia University Press, 1939)
*''The Ancient Greek Historians''; [[J. B. Bury|Bury, John Bagnell]] (NY, Dover Publications, 1958)

==Further reading==
*[[Georg Busolt]], ''Griechische Geschichte'' (1893), i. 147–153.
*[[C. Wachsmuth]], ''Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte'' (1895).
*A. Schafer, ''Abriss der Quellenkunde der griechischen und romischen Geschichte'' (ed. [[Heinrich Nissen]], 1889).
*[[J. B. Bury]], ''Ancient Greek Historians'' (1909).
*[[J. W. Donaldson]], ''A History of the Literature of Ancient Greece'' (1858), translation of [[Karl Otfried Müller]] (ch. 18); and W. Mute (bk, iv. ch. 3).
*[[Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Müller|C. W. Müller]], ''Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum'' (1841–1870).

{{EB1911 |wstitle=Logographi |volume=16 |page=919}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Logographer (History)}}
[[Category:Historiography of Greece]]
[[Category:Early Greek historians| ]]
[[Category:Ionic Greek writers]]