カンビュセス・エピソードについて : Hdt. III36

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  • Kambyses' Treatment in the Episode of Herod. III 36.
  • カンビュセス・エピソードについて--Hdt.336
  • カンビュセス エピソード ニ ツイテ Hdt 3 36

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That the Histories of Herodotos contains those episodes which are narrated apparently m the historical context, but, in fact, belong to folkliterature or fiction by Hdt., has been pointed out from various points of view. In this paper, the present writer attempts to demonstrate some episodes not to be the historical facts in the light of the comparative study of folkliterature. The episode of III 36 runs as follows: Kambyses, offended at Kroisos' admonition, was about to kill him. But the servants who had been ordered to kill Kroisos sheltered him, calculating that if Kambyses should miss Kroisos, they would produce him for a reward, and that if the king should show no sign of regret, they could kih him thereupon (36, 5). Soon afterwards, when they noticed Kambyses missing Kroisos, they announced that he was still alive. Kambyses rejoiced at Kroisos' existence but executed the men who had saved his life (36, 6). While the first section of this episode is said to be based on the motif of the Story of Ahikar (W. Aly), the second part may be regarded as a fiction by Hdt. for several reasons: 1) Ancient testimonies differ extremely as to Kroisos' career after the fall of Sardis, so that his survival may be doubted. 2) A similar story is told in Sima Qian's Shiji(司馬遷,史記). In this story, however, the man who had been ordered to kill a loyal retainer was in a dilemma and killed himself. As compared with this pathetic story, the Herodotean episode of Kambyses sounds ratherlike the one that aims at displaying the narrator's wit. 3) "While in its original, the Story of Ahikar, the man who hides and preserves the sage is simply praised, Kambyses, in the Herodotean version, was pleased to know that Kroisos was safe, but punished the men who had saved him. The divergence from the archetype was probably due to Hdt.' own device. 4) Kambyses' treatment contradicts the account of I 137, where it is said that Persians never punish a man for a single offence, and that the normal Persian way is to balance faults against services. Indeed, for Dareios, services and offences of Sandoces offset each other (VII 194). 5) Hdt. reports another account containing a similar treatment. Taking a stormy passage over the Aegean, Xerxes was compelled, according to the captain's opinion, to let many passengers jump overboard to lighten the ship. On landing at the Asian coast, Xerxes rewarded the captain with a gold crown for saving the King's life, but beheaded him as being responsible for the death of a number of Persians (VIII 118). In this motif (to rejoice but punish or to praise but punish) , Hdt. imitates himself. 6) Ailianos, too, informs us of an interesting Persian custom, according to which if a man advises the king and proves to be serviceable, he is awarded the gold brick on which he stood advising, but at the same time, is flogged for his hybris (V. H. 12, 62). This account suggests that the Greeks including Hdt. took the Persians for a legally rigorous nation. And perhaps such a presumption caused Hdt. to invent the humorously rigorous treatment of Kambyses. In a more orlesssimilarway examined are I 21f, I 27, II 107, III 85ff, V 12, VI 52, VI 125 and III 31, III 34, III 119, IV 3f. In these cases, thepresentwriter believes, we must see in Hdt. a folklorist who picks up folktales and retells them rather than a historian who collects historical events and interprets them.

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