HERODOTUS AND THE 1820 SETTLERS IN SOUTH AFRICA: HISTORIOGRAPHIES OF COLONIZATION AND THE ‘CACOPHONY OF VOICES’

Abstract

The renewal of interest in Herodotus as an effective and creativehistorian within a predominantly oral tradition has been a featureof prolific research during the last twenty years. In the very yearin which the arrival of the 1820 settlers in the east of theformer Cape Colony in South Africa is being remembered, and evencommemorated, I attempt a reading of Herodotus’ celebratedaccount of the Greek colonization of Cyrene in Libya (North Africa)through the historiographical lens of accounts of the arrival of theseBritish settlers, focussing on the narratives of colonization commonto these exempla more than two millennia apart. My intention isto continue the conversation, especially amongst South Africanclassicists, about how to tackle the thorny question of decolonizingthe content and teaching of the Classics in our universities.