Plutarch's polemical essay accusing Herodotus of malicious bias against Boeotia, Corinth, and other Greek states in his History.
De Herodoti Malignitate ("On the Malice of Herodotus") is one of the most combative essays in Plutarch's Moralia: a sustained prosecutorial brief against the historian Herodotus, whom Plutarch accuses of disguising slander as plain, unaffected narrative. Plutarch's thesis, stated at the outset, is that Herodotus's famously simple and charming style is itself the crime's cover: it is easier to seem fair than to be fair, and Herodotus's soft, ingratiating manner of storytelling makes his libels against Thebes, Corinth, and other cities harder to detect than the openly harsh invective of a historian like Theopompus.
Plutarch proceeds case by case. He sets out a taxonomy of the rhetorical tricks a malicious historian uses -- choosing the harshest available word for an act, inserting irrelevant scandal into a narrative, dwelling on someone's cowardice while passing briskly over their courage -- and then applies this checklist to episode after episode in Herodotus: the conduct of the Corinthians and Boeotians during the Persian Wars, the Alcmaeonid family's alleged treachery at Marathon (the shield-signal story), Herodotus's account of the Athenians' behavior, and above all his treatment of Thebes and the other Boeotian cities as collaborators with the Persians. Plutarch, himself a Boeotian from Chaeronea, has a personal and civic stake in this defense, and he repeatedly argues that Herodotus contradicts himself -- accusing the Alcmaeonids of treason in one place and then defending them in another, a move Plutarch likens to the fable of "stay, crab, and I will let you go."
The essay matters less as objective historiography -- modern scholars generally regard Herodotus's account as far more even-handed than Plutarch allows, and Plutarch's own local patriotism visibly distorts his reading -- than as a document of ancient literary criticism and of how later Greek writers fought over the memory of the Persian Wars centuries after the fact. It shows Plutarch practicing close textual argument, quoting Herodotus verbatim and cross-examining his wording, and it preserves details of Greek civic and religious memory (annual sacrifices, inscriptions on victory trophies, dedicated shields) that supplement or contest Herodotus's own record.
“it is not only, as Plato says, the extreme of injustice to seem just without being so; it is also a mark of the utmost malice to imitate good nature and simplicity in a way that is hard to detect”
— De Herodoti Malignitate · read this chapter →
“malice is, to be sure, smoother and softer than Theopompus's, but it takes hold”
— De Herodoti Malignitate · read this chapter →
“a certain proverbial saying: "Stay, crab, and I will let you go"”
— De Herodoti Malignitate · read this chapter →
“he has the Lacedaemonians themselves prove no better in courage than the barbarians, but win only because they fought armed and armored”
— De Herodoti Malignitate · read this chapter →
“as one must beware of the blister-beetle hidden among roses, so one must beware of his slander and malicious speech, concealed beneath a smooth and gentle style”
— De Herodoti Malignitate · read this chapter →
It is an essay in Plutarch's Moralia arguing that Herodotus's famously plain, charming prose style disguises deep-seated bias against several Greek cities, especially Boeotia and Corinth. Plutarch goes through Herodotus's History episode by episode, accusing him of slanted word choices, gratuitous insertion of scandal, and self-contradiction, most notably in the story of an Alcmaeonid shield-signal at Marathon.
Plutarch was from Chaeronea in Boeotia, and Herodotus's History portrays Thebes and other Boeotian cities as having sided with the Persians during the invasion. Plutarch treats this as a slander on his own ancestors and writes the essay explicitly to defend Boeotian and Corinthian honor, calling it a defense of both his ancestors and the truth.
Generally no. Modern scholarship views Herodotus as a relatively balanced source for the Persian Wars, and sees Plutarch's essay as driven by local patriotism and rhetorical point-scoring rather than dispassionate source criticism, even though it remains valuable evidence for how later Greeks debated the war's memory.
Herodotus reports that a shield was displayed to signal the Persians after Marathon, implicating the aristocratic Alcmaeonid family in treachery, then later defends the family against the same charge. Plutarch seizes on this reversal, comparing Herodotus to someone who says "stay, crab, and I will let you go," accusing him of both making and retracting the slander.
No -- Plutarch openly grants that Herodotus is a vivid, pleasing writer with a graceful, charming narrative style, comparing him to a bard. His complaint is precisely that this charm makes the underlying malice toward certain Greek cities harder for readers to notice and resist.
He concentrates heavily on the Battle of Marathon and the Alcmaeonid affair, then works through Artemisium, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea, arguing in each case that Herodotus downplays Greek courage and achievement -- for example claiming the Spartans at Plataea won only because their Persian opponents were unarmed.
Moralia: Ad Principem Ineruditum · Moralia: Adversus Colotem · Moralia: Amatoriae Narrationes · Moralia: Amatorius · Moralia: An Recte Dictum Sit Latenter Esse Vivendum · Moralia: An Seni Respublica Gerenda Sit · Moralia: An Virtus Doceri Possit · Moralia: An Vitiositas Ad Infelicitatem Sufficia · Moralia: Animine An Corporis Affectiones Sint Piores · Moralia: Apophthegmata Laconica · Moralia: Aquane An Ignis Sit Utilior · Moralia: Bruta Animalia Ratione Uti