In addition to Homeric phrasing, Herodotus also adapts Homeric episodes and narrative themes in ways that invite the reader to ponder the relationship between the heroic past, the recent past of Greco-Persian conflict, and the postwar experiences of Herodotus’ contemporary audience. Episodes manifesting such intertextuality include the fall of Sardis, where the rapprochement between Cyrus and Croesus recalls that between Achilles and Priam in Iliad 24; the speech delivered by the Corinthian Soclees before Spartan allies, which prevents the re-institution of tyranny in Athens; and above all the narrative of Xerxes’ Greek expedition, which includes his propagandistic visit to Troy and battles with varying degrees of Homeric stylization. Most conspicuous among these is Herodotus’ staging of the fighting at Thermopylae, where Leonidas sacrifices his life to secure kleos for Sparta alone – a goal that evokes both the world of Homeric heroism and a post-Homeric world characterized by fierce inter-polis competition.

Although he criticizes poetic fictions as antithetical to the nature of his own inquiry, Herodotus often qualifies the truth claims of traditions he transmits by means of distancing devices (e.g., indirect discourse). Like Odysseus and the Hesiodic Muses, Herodotus often narrates “falsehoods that resemble true things,” while using rhetorical markers that alert his audience to implausibilities in stories attributed to others. Moreover, analysis of the Helen logos and the story of Cyrus’ upbringing demonstrates that accounts advertised as true may yet include material that is either of Herodotus’ own invention or indebted to traditional (mythical or folkloric) narrative tropes. Finally, the tension between truth and falsehood that Herodotus recognizes as primary narrator is also manifested in such Odyssean characters as Darius (whose lying enables him to overthrow the false Smerdis and seize the throne for himself) and Themistocles (a master of verbal deception and self-aggrandizing cupidity).

The author’s exposition of the gospel message takes the form of a homily addressed in part to an audience located elsewhere, suggesting a comparison with early Christian letters. The author is clearly influenced by the letters of Paul, while comparison with the letters of Ignatius and the fragments of Valentinus’s letters bring to light significant contrasts that help to locate the Gospel of Truth more accurately within the early Christian literary landscape.

Rather than extended historical narratives, extant pre-Herodotean iambic and elegiac poetry contains brief descriptions of past events that may serve as political or military exempla for local audiences in times of crisis. Herodotus also tells stories about the past – at far greater length – in order to educate and inspire his audience; his exhortation is implicit rather than explicit, however, and his audience is Panhellenic. The relationship between Simonides’ “Plataea elegy” (however fragmentary) and Herodotus’ Plataea narrative is especially enlightening. The presence of supernatural beings on Simonides’ battlefield underscores simultaneously both Herodotus’ general reticence in matters of divine and the extraordinary, possibly poetic role played by Demeter in his account of the fighting at Plataea. More broadly, the political realism of Herodotus’ account, which highlights dissension among the Greek forces, suggests tacit rejection of Simonidean encomium, which aims to perpetuate martial kleos as Homer did for the warriors at Troy.

A conspicuous discourse feature shared by Herodotus and Pindar is the constant presence of a first-person narrator, one of whose functions is to assess traditions concerning past events. For example, in Olympian 1 Pindar sanitizes the Pelops myth for piety’s sake and to make Pelops a worthy paradigm for the ode’s honoree, Hieron. This revision illustrates the epinician poet’s intent to portray a mythical past that is not factually true but serves the interests of his local audience (the victor, his family, and community). By contrast, Herodotus’ unflattering but true revision of the Trojan War narrative demonstrates his willingness to challenge the views of his Panhellenic audience. The same conviction characterizes his assessment of the Athenians as the difference-makers in the war against Xerxes – a truth resented by most Greeks in his day (echoing the epinician distinction between the victor’s true worth and the falsehoods spread by his resentful detractors).