12:16 Dec 14, 2005
. diversions digressions. , . :
'There arrive in Sardis, at the peak of her wealth, all the sophistai there happened to be at this time... and above all Solon, and Athenian' (1.29). This setting involves both spatial and temporal dislocations. Corrupt Greek 'sophists' flock east, to the capital that subjugates Greeks. Their numbers are vastly exaggerated. They are ambiguously associated with the incorruptible Solon, who represents (among much else) Herodotus himself, Odyssean wonderer, sightseer, visitor to Egypt, and Solonian moralist. This anachronistic encounter is fabricated after Odysseus and the Phaeacians and dramatizes the arrival of Herodotus and numerous sophists in Athens, self-proclaimed imperial and cultural capital of Greece. | 
peer agreement (net): +3
