“Lo so, ma preferisco non dirlo”. Silenzi e strategie etnografiche in Hdt. II

“Why they do this, I do not feel like saying” (Hdt. II 3.2); “Although I know it, it is not appropriate for me to say it” (Hdt. II 47.2). Despite expressions such as these, which also occur in other passages of Book II, Herodotus does indeed provide a great deal of information about the lands he explores, on the journey southwards by which he leads listeners and future readers to the north coast of Africa. In this paper, I intend to investigate more closely the instances in which reticence becomes a tool of ethnographic account and emerging historiographical practice, as well as other technical verbs in Herodotus’ vocabulary. More in particular, I will focus my attention on cases where the reticence concerns specific rituals and festivals, the invention of which Herodotus attributes to the Egyptians. The festivals and cults thus become one of the possible parameters around which the historian constructs his performative practice, which is particularly interesting when the author states that – if something he does not want to say will be said instead – this will happen “constrained by the necessity of narration” (Hdt. II 65.3).