"On the Malice of Herodotus" or "On the Malignity of Herodotus" ( grc-gre, Περὶ τῆς Ἡροδότου κακοηθείας) is an essay by

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

criticizing the historian

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

for all manner of prejudice and misrepresentation in the latter's '' Histories''. It has been called the "first instance in literature of the slashing review." The 19th-century English historian

George Grote George Grote (; 17 November 1794 – 18 June 1871) was an English political radical and classical historian. He is now best known for his major work, the voluminous ''History of Greece''. Early life George Grote was born at Clay Hill near B ...

considered this essay a serious attack upon the works of Herodotus, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch calls his malignity." Plutarch makes some palpable hits, catching Herodotus out in various errors, but it is also probable that it was merely a rhetorical exercise, in which Plutarch plays devil's advocate to see what could be said against so favourite and well-known a writer. Some scholars however have dismissed the essay as the work of a

Pseudo-Plutarch Pseudo-Plutarch is the conventional name given to the actual, but unknown, authors of a number of pseudepigrapha (falsely attributed works) attributed to Plutarch but now known to have not been written by him. Some of these works were included in s ...

, "full of the most futile accusations of every kind", in which the author merely establishes his own malignity, and whose "calumnious fictions" were inspired by wounded Theban patriotism (Thebes is treated unflatteringly in ''The Histories''). According to another Plutarch scholar, R. H. Barrow, Herodotus' real failing in Plutarch's eyes was to criticize the city-states that saved Greece from Persia. "Plutarch," he concluded, "is fanatically biased in favor of the Greek cities; they can do no wrong."

References

External links

Morals online
Complete William W. Goodwin translation 1878. Herodotus Works by Plutarch Criticisms {{criticism-stub