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valuable document the fact could have been inferred from the tradition that Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 257-180 BCE) de- vised the colometry which makes clear the metrical units of the poetry (Dion. Hal. de comp. verb. 156, 221). It is to be noted that the difficulties facing the reader of an ancient book were equally troublesome to the man who wished to transcribe his own copy. The risk of misinterpretation and consequent corruption of the text in this period is not to be underestimated. It is certain that a high proportion of the most serious corruptions in classical texts go back to this period and were already widely current in the books that eventually entered the library of the Museum of Alexandria (Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, 3rd ed. [1991], pp. 4-5).
Herodotus, who wrote circa 450-420 BCE, expected his Histories to be read aloud. He began his Histories with a sentence that has been translated in various ways: “Herodotus of Halicarnassus here presents his research so that human events do not fade with time.” Another translation reads, “What fol- lows is a performance of the enquiries of Herodotus from Halicarnassus.” According to The Landmark Herodotus,60 from which the second translation was taken, “This almost certainly implies that Herodotus performed (read aloud) his text, in whole or in part, to an audience gathered to hear him.” Whether or not Herodotus himself “performed” his text, it is reasonable to assume that since all reading was done aloud at this time Herodotus would have expected his Histories to be read aloud in both private and public read- ings. Such public readings could have been appropriately characterized as performances.
In this transitional period in which oral and written cultures overlapped, it is believed that Herodotus relied primarily on oral sources and oral tra- dition for his Histories. He cites short inscriptions or epigrams mainly as illustrations of his narrative rather than the basis for his narrative.61 It is also
60 Strassler (ed.) (2007), p. 3, Proem.b.
61 Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (1989), p. 4.
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