Why is the Herodotus Histories Book1 called Clio? doh!

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1

So, I’m a noob :slight_smile: but I have enough sense before posting to hesitate, and avoid where possible obvious questions.. and this occasion found the answer just before posting!

I was going to ask..Why is the Herodotus Histories Book1 called Clio?..
so, for the benefit of any other who search and now find an easy answer..

It seems that the Books are simple named after the Muses.. which is a nice touch

Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), and Urania (astronomy).

Now off to read them and see if the books match those topics.

:sunglasses:

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But why Clio specifically for history? I’ll let others answer.

3

The names of the nine Muses first occur in Hesiod’s Theogony, lines 76ff. The names were simply taken in order from there and given to Herodotus’ books 1 to 9.

ἐννέα θυγατέρες μεγάλου Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖαι,
Κλειώ τ᾽ Εὐτέρπη τε Θάλειά τε Μελπομέενη τε
Τερψιχόρη τ᾽ Ἐρατώ τε Πολύμνιά τ᾽ Οὐρανίη τε
Καλλιόπη θ᾽: ἣ δὲ προφερεστάτη ἐστὶν ἁπασέων.

You should note that the book division and the naming was done long after Herodotus was dead, probably by Alexandrian scholars.

4

I think that mwh’s point about Κλειώ was that the name was from κλείω = κλέω, “I tell of, make famous, celebrate”.

No room for revisionism in Greek history.