ABSTRACT
Linguistic interpreters feature only rarely within the Histories’ narrative, despite their implicit importance to Herodotus’ ethnographic project. This chapter analyzes their subsequently marked appearances in Persia (Hdt. 3.38; 3.140), Egypt (2.154; 2.164), and Scythia (4.24) before considering more closely the role of interpreters in the interview between Cyrus and Croesus (1.85-90), the Ethiopian embassy of the Ichthyophagoi (3.18-23), and Herodotus’ interactions with his own translator in Egypt (2.125). These episodes demonstrate the limited ethnographic value of the linguistic information offered by interpreters and the superiority of the kind of careful cultural positioning offered only by Herodotus himself, the Histories’ arch-interpreter.
