Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

114 Elizabeth Broadwin
This passage directly alludes to Herodotus: “Scythia has a few remarkable features
. . . a footprint left by Heracles. The natives show this to visitors . . . it is
like a man’s footprint, but it is three feet long” (Herodotus, 1954: 4.82). The
presence of an inscription accompanying the footprints and Lucian’s insertion of
his own opinion, “It is my view,” seems to mock Herodotus’ process of
discerning the truth in his Histories. In Herodotus, and thus in Lucian’s text, the
footprints appear to be marked as tourist attractions rather than part of an
archaeological record. Lucian criticizes Herodotus’ acceptance of the footprints
as belonging to Heracles simply because the natives say so, as well as the
reader’s acceptance that these absurdly large footprints exist because Herodotus
records it based on hearsay.
In addition to references to his Histories, Herodotus appears as a figure in
Lucian’s narrative journey. After leaving the Isle of the Blessed, Lucian docks
on an island on which people are tortured for sins committed during their lives:
“The biggest punishments of all were being undergone by those who had told
lies of any sort during their lives or had written down things which were not
true. Among them were Ctesias of Cnidus, Herodotus and many others” (Lucian,
2004: II.31). Herodotus is represented as being the perpetrator of lies because he
presented them as history. Lucian places himself in opposition to Herodotus
when he responds with, “As I looked at them, I had good hope for the future,
since I knew very well that I had never told an untruth” (II.32). Lucian seems to
view his own lies as categorically different from Herodotus’. Lucian, even
though he writes fiction, never portrays it as truth. For this same reason the criticisms
of Herodotus are harsher and more biting than those of Homer. Homer’s
historical and geographic basis is more self-consciously subjective than Herodotus,’
for Herodotus overtly states that his work is one of history: “Herodotus of
Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not be
forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds . . . may not be without glory”
(Herodotus, 1954: 1.1). What accounts for the distinction in treatment between
Homer and Herodotus seems to be the author’s intent. Figures throughout Classical
history such as Pomponius Mela and Strabo have credited the works of
Homer as offering concrete truths about historical and geographical elements.
However, Lucian suggests that these truths have been projected onto Homer’s
work. Homer, unlike Herodotus, does not explicitly state that his works are historical
and therefore Homer remains less accountable. Herodotus deserves his
punishment on the island for purposefully masquerading his fiction as truthful
history.
While Lucian criticizes Homer’s accuracy and status as a historian and
punishes Herodotus’ lies and those who accept his works as history rather than
fiction, his allusions to and inclusion of Aristophanes into A True Story are overwhelmingly
complementary. In addition to visiting places from Homer’s Odyssey
and Herodotus’ Histories, Lucian encounters Aristophanes’ utopian Cloudcuckooville
while en route to the moon. He writes of Aristophanes and Cloudcuckooville,
“For my part, I thought the poet Aristophanes, a wise and truthful