Greeks and Persians in Cyrenaica: the Campaigns Towards the Greek Cities

The oldest, though not the only, written account of the Persian campaign against Libya is given by Herodotus, and surely one cannot comment upon it without first describing the series of events that it delineates. But in fact, are we faced with 'events'? What if traditions do not simply report events, but construct them? How are we to understand the relationship between traditional narratives and the events that both they and Herodotus' text claim to report and explain? The Persian expedition against Libya is a suitable case-study for investigating such a relationship. The history of Cyrene at those times has been reconstructed on the grounds of Herodotus’ reports, and yet the tendency of his narration, the nature of the tradition on which he bases himself, and the literary patterns on whose basis Herodotus reshapes tradition have remained largely unobserved. Moreover, the more recent scholarship has been inclined to underestimate the importance of another report of Pheretime’s story and the Persian campaign, namely that of Menekles of Barke (FGrHist 270 F 5). It seems reasonable to presume that his account is not simply an inaccurate rendering of Herodotus’, has its own logic and does not contain any contradictions. One should admit that Menekles' version appears preferable and may reflect historical reality more than the tradition followed by Herodotus.