Herodotus and the Reconstruction of History

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Abstract
In selecting for the purpose of illustrating Herodotus' conception of the proper relation of ἀπὀδεξις to ἱστορίη his account of the Lydian emigration to Italy, I have not had in mind the requirements of the Etruscologist alone. The Lydian setting of the story raises the whole question of the sources for the reconstruction of the Dark Ages of Aegean history which Greek historians, at the time of Herodotus and earlier, had at their disposal.It is well known that from the point of view of Etruscologists this migration story, which is usually accepted by them as a genuine tradition of origin, is dated five centuries too early; and although the arguments of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which mainly stress the total dissimilarity of Etruscan and Lydian culture, are insufficient reason for discrediting Herodotus after the lapse of so many centuries and in an age when philology was not a science, to suppose without further investigation a mistake of 500 years is not only unfair to Herodotus, but may remove whatever basis of fact the tradition originally contained.

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