36 An Excursus on What Might Have Been (§170)

It is Blaise Pascal, I think, who is credited with the invention of hypothetical history, when he mused that the history of the world would have been different had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter (Pensees Sect. II, No. 162). Yet Herodotus is more anciently the father of hypothetical history, as is evidenced by his speculation of what might have been if the Ionians had taken the advice of either Bias of Priene or of Thales of Miletus.^[1] There are two layers of “what might have been”: the advice of Bias, given after the fall of Ionia to the Persians and the advice of Thales, given before the fall. As neither advice was actually taken, the discussion of it in the History can serve only to promote speculation; as speculation on the past is vain, its point would doubtlessly be to promote speculation on the state of affairs current in Herodotus’s Greece.

The very useful advice (χρησιμωτάτην) of Bias, according to Herodotus, would have enabled the Ionians to be the happiest of the Greeks (παρεῖχε ἄν σφι εὐδαιμέει Ἑλλήνων μάλιστα). Bias counseled all the Ionians to sail together to Sardinia and to found one city there. Free from slavery, they would be happy, having the greatest island in the world and ruling over others. In Ionia, they should have no hope of freedom.

Earlier, when Solon had conversed with Croesus about Tellus, the happiest of men, Solon had enumerated the constituent elements of Tellus’s happiness: a good city, good and beautiful sons, grandchildren all living, a prosperous life into old age, and a glorious death. Now Herodotus himself enumerates the conditions that would make the Ionians the happiest of all Greeks: a unified city of all related Greeks, freedom for themselves, a large island, and rule over others. As most other Greeks are not unified, as many do not enjoy freedom, as many do not enjoy the protection that an island—especially a large one—would afford, and as most do not rule over others and only barely rule over themselves, the benefits of Bias’s plan are obvious. The judgment should resonate with Herodotus’s contemporary audience. A moment of unity, it will remember, was sufficient to save the Greek world from the Persians. That moment had preserved and increased Greek freedom (winning back the thrice-lost freedom of the Ionians), and it had won them rule over others.

The advice of Thales, given before the fall of Ionia to the Persians, was for all the Ionians to unite, to establish the city of Teos, mid-point of lonia, as their capital, and to treat the various cities as mere administrative units, or demes. The advice stresses the idea of political unity. How and Wells suggest that Thales chose Teas as the capital because as an insignificant city it would not arouse the envy of the other cities. The motive Herodotus attributes is along the same lines: the mid-point would not be a point arbi­trarily chosen to exclude anyone. As Herodotus tells the story, there is a melancholy in the choice of Teos, for we have just read how Teos moved her population to Thrace. It is not too late, however, for Herodotus’s listeners, and the structure of his tale, I think, is designed to impress upon the audience the need for unity. If Athenians and Spartans and the rest of the Greeks go on bickering, disaster looms. The Ionians ignored the good advice of their two sages-and thus missed their opportunity to be happy-but the same need not be true of Herodotus’s generation.