Some Stylistic Variations in Herodotus

Abstract

The thesis lists the number of verbforms in each l0 lines of the Histories as printed in the Oxford Classical Text. Each of the nine Books has its own statistics, beginning with Mean and Standard Deviation. Verb counts for all the l0-line Blocks are set out, with indications of where Chapter numbers mesh with them. The time series experts in the University's Institute of Statistics and Operations Research have provided for each of the 9 Books a Histogram, a table of Autocorrelations and a CUSUM plot of the deviations from the Mean of numbers of verbs per Block, Each one is reproduced here on a page to itself. Commentary A follows the CUSUM graph through the 9 Books, relating its contour to the text, comparing high and low count passages with ones of similar rating in other Books, looking for a link between textual content and input of verbs, noting the effect of oratio recta and oratio oblique on verb numbers and the tendency of dramatised sequences to climax at a high point in the CUSUM graph. Noting also that pre-battle discussions tend to use up more verbs than the battles do. Commentary B extrapolates all passages persisting for 80 lines or more within the first Standard Deviations. They are looked at to see whether they are alike enough in content to be set up as a separate style, intermediate between the high verb count of the novelle and the low input of ethnographic passages. It is suggested that although the input of verbs depends partly on the material, Herodotus uses them also in preference to abstract words; he mints many new ones. Verbs make troublesome syntax for any writer; his high verb count sequences are mostly very polished. The various Tables are used as a guide to where he took this trouble, which areas he thought sensitive and which information he transmitted without guarantee in various forms of oratio obliqua (always a high density area for verbs), and how long each of his different phases of style lasted at any given point.