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The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written.
Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,” and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day.
In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.
Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, and women.
Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.
Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,” and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day.
In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.
Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, and women.
Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.
953 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 431
About the author
Herodotus
1,424 books690 followersHerodotus (greek: Ηρόδοτος) was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern-day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BCE (c. 484–425 BCE). He has been called "The Father of History", as well as "The Father of Lies." He was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent, and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful and others inaccurate, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.
It was not until the time of Herodotus that gods began to have less influence upon history that was written, yet it was still implied because of the largely accepted view of the Greeks and the expectations that they may have had of how The Histories would be written. History was becoming more of a “knowledge” rather than an amusement. Because of Herodotus wanting people to accept what he had to write, he implemented stories that may have not directly correlated to gods, but rather implemented the idea that miracles or supernatural events took place. As was the story of Arion and the dolphin. While on a boat the men found out that Arion, who was a musician, was worth lots of money and decided to have him killed. The crew gave him two options, that either he jump ship or they kill him on the spot. Arion flung himself into the water and a dolphin carried him to shore.
Herodotus was more concerned with putting pleasure before knowledge, unless he did not believe that the gods had a dramatic influence on history and was rather just trying to please his audience. Like the story of the king having his servant look upon his naked wife, and when spotting him hiding, asked him to kill her husband.[78] This, like many stories of Herodotus, are told in great detail, and for the simplicity of dramatic effect. This refers back to the way bards used to tell their poems or stories to their audience. Herodotus was accused by many because of such detailed accounts, and even called a liar by some. In his writing we can already see that there was no direct association with gods.
It was not until the time of Herodotus that gods began to have less influence upon history that was written, yet it was still implied because of the largely accepted view of the Greeks and the expectations that they may have had of how The Histories would be written. History was becoming more of a “knowledge” rather than an amusement. Because of Herodotus wanting people to accept what he had to write, he implemented stories that may have not directly correlated to gods, but rather implemented the idea that miracles or supernatural events took place. As was the story of Arion and the dolphin. While on a boat the men found out that Arion, who was a musician, was worth lots of money and decided to have him killed. The crew gave him two options, that either he jump ship or they kill him on the spot. Arion flung himself into the water and a dolphin carried him to shore.
Herodotus was more concerned with putting pleasure before knowledge, unless he did not believe that the gods had a dramatic influence on history and was rather just trying to please his audience. Like the story of the king having his servant look upon his naked wife, and when spotting him hiding, asked him to kill her husband.[78] This, like many stories of Herodotus, are told in great detail, and for the simplicity of dramatic effect. This refers back to the way bards used to tell their poems or stories to their audience. Herodotus was accused by many because of such detailed accounts, and even called a liar by some. In his writing we can already see that there was no direct association with gods.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,627 reviews
June 24, 2011
What I learned from this book (in no particular order):
1. Ancient Greeks are quarrelsome and love to waste each other’s city-states for the pettiest reasons.
2. From all forms of government known to man, democracy is the best. Tyrants and oligarchs suck.
3. The Persian Empire is a mighty barbarian nation, but being cowardly, effeminate and slavish, it is eventually defeated by the quarrelsome but brave and civilized Greeks.
4. Among the Greeks, the Spartans are the bravest.Gerard Butler with a six-pack King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans heroically perished in the battle of Thermopylae. They also have the particularly icky custom of marrying their own nieces.
5. The Delphic oracles are 100% accurate, except when someone manages to corrupt the Pythoness. The Gods are, however, a jealous sort and would strike any mortal who has the presumption of calling himself happiest on earth. Therefore, one should call no man happy until he is dead.
6. Egypt is a country of wonders, but its citizens’ customs and manners are exactly the reverse of the common practice of mankind elsewhere. For example, the women there urinate standing up, while the men sitting down. The country also abounds in strange fauna, among them the hippopotamus --- a quadruped, cloven-footed animal, with the mane and tail of a horse, huge tusks and a voice like a horse’s neigh.
7. The Scythians are a warlike nation that practices human sacrifice. The Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man that he kills in battle and cuts off all of his enemies’ heads, which he must show to the king to get his share of the war booty. They also like to saw off their enemies’ skulls, which they make into fancy gold-plated drinking cups.
8. The manners of the Androphagi, being cannibals, are more savage than those of any other race. Darius the Persian smote them.
9. The Atarantians, alone of all known nations, are destitute of names. The title of Atarantians is borne by the whole race in common, but the men have no particular names of their own. They also like to curse the sun because he burns and wastes both their country and themselves.
10. In the Indian desert live ants that are larger than a fox. They like to throw up sand-heaps as they burrow, which are full of gold. This is why India is so rich in gold. In Arabia, there are sheep that have long tails, so long that the shepherds have to make little trucks for their tails. Really.
BUT SERIOUSLY,
Herodotus is a consummate storyteller who had a fine eye for the fantastical, although to his credit, he always qualified his more improbable assertions by stating that they are based on hearsay or other sources that he could not wholly verify. Much of the pleasure of reading his book is found in the lush descriptions of long lost nations and their exotic customs. His 'Histories' does not concern itself solely with history in the modern sense, but it is also a book of travelogue, ethnography, zoology, geography and botany. He is an excellent raconteur, almost always entertaining, except when he drones about speculative geography. We can easily imagine him, a man of seemingly inexhaustible curiosity, interviewing Marathon veterans for firsthand battle accounts, or interrogating Egyptian temple priests about their country’s history and religion. History for him is not a dry recitation of facts and dates, but an intensely human story acted by a vast cast of monarchs, queens, warriors, tyrants, gods and ordinary citizens. Regicides and rebellions are caused by personal passions, such as in the stories of Caudales and Gyges, and Xerxes and Masistes. Dreams compel Xerxes to invade Greece. Divine intervention decides the course of epic battles.
A skein of tragedy runs through the historical drama that he narrates. The gods are so capricious and jealous that “one should not call a man happy until he is dead.” Xerxes, on beholding his massive force on the Hellespont, laments that “not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.” Yet while man lives his short existence he is capable of epic deeds, and Herodotus chronicled them all.
1. Ancient Greeks are quarrelsome and love to waste each other’s city-states for the pettiest reasons.
2. From all forms of government known to man, democracy is the best. Tyrants and oligarchs suck.
3. The Persian Empire is a mighty barbarian nation, but being cowardly, effeminate and slavish, it is eventually defeated by the quarrelsome but brave and civilized Greeks.
4. Among the Greeks, the Spartans are the bravest.
5. The Delphic oracles are 100% accurate, except when someone manages to corrupt the Pythoness. The Gods are, however, a jealous sort and would strike any mortal who has the presumption of calling himself happiest on earth. Therefore, one should call no man happy until he is dead.
6. Egypt is a country of wonders, but its citizens’ customs and manners are exactly the reverse of the common practice of mankind elsewhere. For example, the women there urinate standing up, while the men sitting down. The country also abounds in strange fauna, among them the hippopotamus --- a quadruped, cloven-footed animal, with the mane and tail of a horse, huge tusks and a voice like a horse’s neigh.
7. The Scythians are a warlike nation that practices human sacrifice. The Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man that he kills in battle and cuts off all of his enemies’ heads, which he must show to the king to get his share of the war booty. They also like to saw off their enemies’ skulls, which they make into fancy gold-plated drinking cups.
8. The manners of the Androphagi, being cannibals, are more savage than those of any other race. Darius the Persian smote them.
9. The Atarantians, alone of all known nations, are destitute of names. The title of Atarantians is borne by the whole race in common, but the men have no particular names of their own. They also like to curse the sun because he burns and wastes both their country and themselves.
10. In the Indian desert live ants that are larger than a fox. They like to throw up sand-heaps as they burrow, which are full of gold. This is why India is so rich in gold. In Arabia, there are sheep that have long tails, so long that the shepherds have to make little trucks for their tails. Really.
BUT SERIOUSLY,
Herodotus is a consummate storyteller who had a fine eye for the fantastical, although to his credit, he always qualified his more improbable assertions by stating that they are based on hearsay or other sources that he could not wholly verify. Much of the pleasure of reading his book is found in the lush descriptions of long lost nations and their exotic customs. His 'Histories' does not concern itself solely with history in the modern sense, but it is also a book of travelogue, ethnography, zoology, geography and botany. He is an excellent raconteur, almost always entertaining, except when he drones about speculative geography. We can easily imagine him, a man of seemingly inexhaustible curiosity, interviewing Marathon veterans for firsthand battle accounts, or interrogating Egyptian temple priests about their country’s history and religion. History for him is not a dry recitation of facts and dates, but an intensely human story acted by a vast cast of monarchs, queens, warriors, tyrants, gods and ordinary citizens. Regicides and rebellions are caused by personal passions, such as in the stories of Caudales and Gyges, and Xerxes and Masistes. Dreams compel Xerxes to invade Greece. Divine intervention decides the course of epic battles.
A skein of tragedy runs through the historical drama that he narrates. The gods are so capricious and jealous that “one should not call a man happy until he is dead.” Xerxes, on beholding his massive force on the Hellespont, laments that “not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.” Yet while man lives his short existence he is capable of epic deeds, and Herodotus chronicled them all.
November 11, 2021
Ἰστορίαι = The Histories, Herodotus
The Histories of Herodotus is the founding work of history in Western literature. Written in 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known in Western Asia, Northern Africa and Greece at that time.
Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the genre and study of history in the Western world.
The Histories also stands as one of the first accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «تاریخ هرودوت»؛ «تواریخ»؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هشتم ماه آگوست سال1972میلادی
عنوان: تاریخ هرودوت؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ ترجمه به انگلیسی: جرج راولین سن؛ تنظیم: ا.ج اوانس؛ مترجم: غلامعلی وحید مازندرانی؛ تهران، علمی، سال1324، در24ص و211ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر، سال1360، در هشت ص و300ص؛ موضوع تاریخ هخامنشیان - جنگهای ایران و یونان - از سده ششم پیش از میلاد تا سده چهارم پیش از میلادی
عنوان: تواریخ؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ مترجم: غلامعلی وحید مازندرانی؛ تهران، دنیای کتاب؛ سال1368؛ در573ص و4ص، مصور؛ شابک9643461637؛ چاپ دوم سال1368؛ چاپ سوم سال1386؛ چاپ دیگر مشهد، خاتم، سال1391؛ در612ص؛ شابک9786006153278؛
عنوان: تاریخ هرودوت؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ مترجم: مرتضی ثاقب فر؛ تهران، اساطیر، سال1389، در دو جلد؛ شابک جلد یک9789643314699؛ شابک جلد دوم9789643314705؛
تاریخ «هرودوت» یا کتاب «تواریخ» یک کتاب تاریخی است، که توسط «هرودوت»، مورخ «یونانی» در سال چهارصد و چهل پیش از میلادی نگاشته شده است؛ این کتاب نخستین کتاب «تاریخ» در جهان به شمار میرود؛ و شامل نه کتاب است (سه کتاب نخست به «آسیای صغیر»، «مصر»، «میانرودان»، «ایران» و «سوریه» و «سرزمینهای مجاور آن»، کتاب چهارم دربارهٔ «سکاها» و کتاب پنجم تا نهم به «جنگهای ایران و یونان» اختصاص دارد)؛ شرح زندگانی چهار شاه ایرانی «کوروش بزرگ»، «کمبوجیه یکم»، «داریوش بزرگ»، و «خشایارشای بزرگ» در این کتاب آرمیده است
شرق شناس پرآوازه، و کاشف خط میخی «هنری راولینسون»، در دوران پادشاهی «محمدشاه قاجار»، مربی نظامی در فوج «کرمانشاه» بودند، ایشان ضمن خدمت، به کاوش و پژوهش برای کشف رموز «خط میخی» نیز همت گماشتند، و سرانجام موفق شدند؛ پس از کشف چگونگی خوانش «خط میخی»، برادر ایشان «جرج راولینسون»، از آن اکتشاف مهم تاریخی بهره گرفتند، و نخستین ترجمه کامل از «تاریخ هرودوت» به زبان «انگلیسی» را، با حواشی و توضیح در چهار مجلد، در سال1858میلادی منتشر کردند، در سال1910میلادی، نسخه ی تازه ای از ترجمه ی مزبور، در دو جلد منتشر شد، در این نسخه بیشتر متن را حفظ، اما حواشی و یادداشتها و مقدمه را، خلاصه کرده بودند، در آغاز جنگ جهانگیر دوم، نسخه ی یک جلدی از ترجمه ی «راولینسون» توسط «ا.ج اوانس» دوباره تلخیص و تنظیم شد، این کتاب برگردان جناب «غ وحید مازندرانی»، از همان نسخه یک جلدی، از زبان «انگلیسی» میباشد، که نخستین چاپ آن در سال1324هجری خورشیدی، توسط انتشارات علمی، در دسترس پژوهشگران قرار گرفته است؛
این فراموشکار نخستین بار متن «انگلیسی» کتاب را خوانده ام، و سپس بارها و بارها نیز آنرا دوباره خوانده ام، و هر بار که فرصتی دست دهد، و حوصله ام برای تاریخ تنگ شود، باز هم تکه ای از متن «انگلیسی» را میخوانم، کاغذ آن نسخه ی کتاب جیبی این فراموشکار کاهی است، و صفحاتش زرد شده، و چشمانم حروف «انگلیسی» ریز را این روزها خوب تشخیص نمیدهند، ولی میخوانم، این نوشته ی «هرودوت» شاهکاری است، که هماره باقی خواهد ماند، تا به آیندگان آموزش دهد که تاریخ را چگونه بنویسند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 19/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
The Histories of Herodotus is the founding work of history in Western literature. Written in 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known in Western Asia, Northern Africa and Greece at that time.
Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the genre and study of history in the Western world.
The Histories also stands as one of the first accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «تاریخ هرودوت»؛ «تواریخ»؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هشتم ماه آگوست سال1972میلادی
عنوان: تاریخ هرودوت؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ ترجمه به انگلیسی: جرج راولین سن؛ تنظیم: ا.ج اوانس؛ مترجم: غلامعلی وحید مازندرانی؛ تهران، علمی، سال1324، در24ص و211ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر، سال1360، در هشت ص و300ص؛ موضوع تاریخ هخامنشیان - جنگهای ایران و یونان - از سده ششم پیش از میلاد تا سده چهارم پیش از میلادی
عنوان: تواریخ؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ مترجم: غلامعلی وحید مازندرانی؛ تهران، دنیای کتاب؛ سال1368؛ در573ص و4ص، مصور؛ شابک9643461637؛ چاپ دوم سال1368؛ چاپ سوم سال1386؛ چاپ دیگر مشهد، خاتم، سال1391؛ در612ص؛ شابک9786006153278؛
عنوان: تاریخ هرودوت؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ مترجم: مرتضی ثاقب فر؛ تهران، اساطیر، سال1389، در دو جلد؛ شابک جلد یک9789643314699؛ شابک جلد دوم9789643314705؛
تاریخ «هرودوت» یا کتاب «تواریخ» یک کتاب تاریخی است، که توسط «هرودوت»، مورخ «یونانی» در سال چهارصد و چهل پیش از میلادی نگاشته شده است؛ این کتاب نخستین کتاب «تاریخ» در جهان به شمار میرود؛ و شامل نه کتاب است (سه کتاب نخست به «آسیای صغیر»، «مصر»، «میانرودان»، «ایران» و «سوریه» و «سرزمینهای مجاور آن»، کتاب چهارم دربارهٔ «سکاها» و کتاب پنجم تا نهم به «جنگهای ایران و یونان» اختصاص دارد)؛ شرح زندگانی چهار شاه ایرانی «کوروش بزرگ»، «کمبوجیه یکم»، «داریوش بزرگ»، و «خشایارشای بزرگ» در این کتاب آرمیده است
شرق شناس پرآوازه، و کاشف خط میخی «هنری راولینسون»، در دوران پادشاهی «محمدشاه قاجار»، مربی نظامی در فوج «کرمانشاه» بودند، ایشان ضمن خدمت، به کاوش و پژوهش برای کشف رموز «خط میخی» نیز همت گماشتند، و سرانجام موفق شدند؛ پس از کشف چگونگی خوانش «خط میخی»، برادر ایشان «جرج راولینسون»، از آن اکتشاف مهم تاریخی بهره گرفتند، و نخستین ترجمه کامل از «تاریخ هرودوت» به زبان «انگلیسی» را، با حواشی و توضیح در چهار مجلد، در سال1858میلادی منتشر کردند، در سال1910میلادی، نسخه ی تازه ای از ترجمه ی مزبور، در دو جلد منتشر شد، در این نسخه بیشتر متن را حفظ، اما حواشی و یادداشتها و مقدمه را، خلاصه کرده بودند، در آغاز جنگ جهانگیر دوم، نسخه ی یک جلدی از ترجمه ی «راولینسون» توسط «ا.ج اوانس» دوباره تلخیص و تنظیم شد، این کتاب برگردان جناب «غ وحید مازندرانی»، از همان نسخه یک جلدی، از زبان «انگلیسی» میباشد، که نخستین چاپ آن در سال1324هجری خورشیدی، توسط انتشارات علمی، در دسترس پژوهشگران قرار گرفته است؛
این فراموشکار نخستین بار متن «انگلیسی» کتاب را خوانده ام، و سپس بارها و بارها نیز آنرا دوباره خوانده ام، و هر بار که فرصتی دست دهد، و حوصله ام برای تاریخ تنگ شود، باز هم تکه ای از متن «انگلیسی» را میخوانم، کاغذ آن نسخه ی کتاب جیبی این فراموشکار کاهی است، و صفحاتش زرد شده، و چشمانم حروف «انگلیسی» ریز را این روزها خوب تشخیص نمیدهند، ولی میخوانم، این نوشته ی «هرودوت» شاهکاری است، که هماره باقی خواهد ماند، تا به آیندگان آموزش دهد که تاریخ را چگونه بنویسند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 19/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
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January 2, 2020What do Herodotus and Tristram Shandy have in common? Progress through digression.
I suppose my first acquaintance with the work of Herodotus was through that technicolor cold war drama The 300 Spartans in which a rampantly heterosexual force of Spartans defends freedom, liberty, and all that good stuff from allegedly ferocious yet ineffective, hordes of freedom hating Persians. The appalling, appealing, simplicity of that film is a grave disservice to the genius of Herodotus – already mauled by Thucydides barely after completing – if complete it is – his surviving work.
Later I was shocked into actually reading the first half of an old Everyman edition of Herodotus by a National Geographic article but it was only now at an advanced age - older quite possibly than many of the protagonists described in the Histories - that I have finally read through the complete Herodotus.
The conflicts between the Persians and the Greeks, culminating in the battles of Marathon, Salamis and Plataea, form a framework in which Herodotus digresses his way round the Greek world: physically , intellectually, culturally, but the eventual war is less the story of the clash of civilisations than the clash of relative inequality of development.
Because one of the things that has struck me reading the whole thing in a linear fashion is not so much the framing narrative structure but the repetition of themes and narrative parallels: the wise advisor to the ruler, that a hard land makes for a hard people, that change follows on from transgression.
One of the early starting points in Herodotus' narrative is the rise of Persia under Cyrus. Then, in the beginning, the Persians are poor. They inhabit a harsh land. By the end of the story the Persians possess a mighty empire, they are rich and rule over wealthy peoples but they make war against the Greeks. They have forgotten Cyrus' warning, which Herodotus kindly reminds us of: "Soft countries...breed soft men. It is not the property of any one soil to produce fine fruits and good soldiers too" (p543). For narrative purposes the Greeks in the time of story - already several generations before Herodotus was composing his work - were poor. In their Olympic Games they compete for Olive Branches and honour, rather than gold, silver or bronze like sensible people , simply because they have nothing better, the contrast between a rich Persian meal and a Spartan one is an occasion for laughter.
There's a criticism of Imperialism in this - what is the point of waging war against people who sleep in tents, wear leather, live in a country so unfruitful that they can eat all they can find but can never eat their fill? The repeated lesson, never learnt, taught through repeated harsh blows is that transgression through aggression that is not sanctioned by God, gods, Fate, or Mandate of Heaven, as expressed variously through the opaque words of Oracles, and really this is about expansion beyond your ecological base, ends in grim failure perhaps in the form of having your decapitated head dipped into a bag of blood - such was Cyrus' fate at the hands of Queen Tomyris - ah, another theme here - call no man happy until his death!
By the time Herodotus's work was completed it is the Greeks who in turn are wealthy and powerful, on the verge of fighting the Peloponnesian war (during which, so much for the eternal clash of civilisations, the Spartans will turn to the Persians for aid in defeating the Athenians, but in Herodotian style, I digress, with purpose). We can read this, whether Herodotus intended this is another question, with irony. Success will lead to wealth, an inevitable softening, and pride leads on to a fall .
Since History didn't exist before Herodotus (or Thucydides depending on your point of view) we can hardly say that history in Herodotus is cyclical rather than linear, instead the philosophy that unfolds is that the nature of existence itself is cyclical. Wisdom is the result of hardship, learnt by riding Fate's wheel in a complete cycle. Alienated in self imposed exile Solon is the wise advisor to Croesus. After defeat in the war which he brought about, Croesus can be a wise advisor to Cyrus. In exile the Spartan King Demaratus is a wise advisor to Xerxes.
To judge Herodotus as a writer of history is a little unfair, this is a transitional work. Part of his approach comes from the epic - he is explicitly looking back to Homer and the Iliad, another part we would think of as folktale and fable which is about moral teachings, traditional wisdom, and tropes , another the travelogue - Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a direct descendent . History, though, as a narrative of events with an analysis of causes is one of his gifts just as Egypt was the gift of the Nile, even if in part on account of Thucydides sharp response to Herodotus.
It also manages to capture the transition that occurs when the past and historical memory slips over into fable. This is not only something we can see in the presentation of Cyrus and Cypselus but more pointedly in the examples of Delphi and Thebes. Already by Herodotus' time Delphi was painting over its prior Persian sympathies and we get some fantastical stories instead of how weapons left in the sanctuary divinely appeared around the temple or how a great loud voice was heard shouting from within all of which conflicts completely with the oracular statements that Herodotus records which instead are defeatist if not actually pro-Persian, the effect is a little like a book about occupied France showing that everybody - even Petain, was actually in the Resistance. The Thebians, despite their contingent dying to a man at Thermopylae, are recorded as pro-Persian - this is attributed to Herodotus making use of Athenian informants. I feel that there is fable and folklore also in the victory at Salamis - the Greeks win by playing a trick upon the Persians, Thermistocles is the Odysseus of the piece, wielding the one not entirely defeatist oracle, maintaining the allies in a threatened position, trying to exploit the potential for division amongst the Persian coalition, and finally mauling the enemy fleet, although the cycle must be completed for him too and eventually he ends up as a wise advisor at the Persian court.
Still, I like how archaeology now confirms Herodotus' stories of steppe women wielding weapons, just as zoology confirms that the genitals of both sexes of camel face backwards . Some historians even take things one stage further and prefer Herodotus' account of Athenian strategy developing in reaction to the Persian advance to the discovered inscription at Troezen which gives the retreat down the coast and the evacuation of Attica as previously agreed strategies.
Unlike in the old film, Herodotus' Persians are gallant and honourable foes (if occasionally given to whipping the sea for it's misdeeds), but then we are in the epic tradition. The enemy has to be worthy of the hero. Herodotus is far more effective here than say Livy in his treatment of the war with Hannibal - there we have to read Punic virtues and attractiveness between the lines to understand the fact that Livy doesn't attempt to explain of Hannibal surviving and thriving in Italy for years on end.
I wondered reading if Herodotus would make for a complete elementary education, Aesop meets Aeschylus with the wonders of Egypt thrown in. Admittedly you would have to deal with questions like "Mummy, Daddy, what does 'refused normal intercourse and lay with her in an unnatural way ' mean?" so this would be no course of action for the fainted hearted - but one only for those prepared to bend the bow of the long-lived Ethiopians and to bring up their offspring to respect the Oracle at Delphi, admire wisdom, and be curious about the customs of other countries.
If I may deviate from my current deviation and recover the thread of my narrative the other point that struck me reading the complete work rather than just the first half was how Murray's Early Greece was in good part a commentary and analysis of Herodotus, drawing its anecdotes about the Oracle at Delphi or Greek Colonies from this work.
On the subject of the latter, pausing to mention the colonists who departing their homeland threw a lump of iron in the harbour swearing never to return until it floated or those told by the Oracle at Delphi to set up a colony in Libya even though they had no idea where Libya was or how to get there, I arrive at the Greek settlers at Miletus who married Carian women after having murdered all their menfolk. The colonists pass a law "forbidding them to sit at table with their husbands or to address them by name" (p60). Later there is a similar story about captured Athenian women whose children born of rape band together to the point that they are all considered dangerous by their captors who put them all to death, this inevitably leads to divine punishment and the need to ask advice of the Oracle at Delphi, but I digress, though before returning to my theme again the pattern of violence as self-destructive behaviour that brings down an entire community - the whole of the Persian wars in Herodotus' account is figured as the culmination of a series of violent abductions that can only ever end in disaster because the human passions can not be stilled until divine retribution forces the community polluted through its violence to offer up propitiation. This reminded me of Michael Wood's point about western Europe having adopted ancient Greece as a forebear - "the glory that was Greece" was not all fine statues and beautiful ruins, heritage isn't a clear cut matter, the baby comes with the bathwater.
The great contrast here in my mind is with the Romans. They have the Sabine women, who despite the violent beginning represent reconciliation and the unity of different peoples. The Romans base an ideology of empire and themselves as an Imperial people on the basis of a myth of reconciliation, the Greeks an ideology of civic distinctiveness on a history of sectarianism enforced beyond the point of self-harm. Something clear from Herodotus' account is how divided the Greeks are, with many supporting the Persians and some opposed, not out of great principals but on account of local rivalries.
Lets finish with the Spartans. Not as laconic, proto-all-American superheroes of the battlefield tanned and oiled fit to star in technicolor, but as examples of Herodotus' style. It is the Spartans and Athenians who breach the norms of international diplomacy by murdering the Persian Ambassadors - Herodotus is no whitewasher (though perhaps his early audiences admired their ancestors precisely for that violation). Best of all is his fascinated treatment of the Spartan King Cleomenes, at once decisive and brilliant, but transgressing acceptable behaviour - for instance having holed up some enemies in a sacred wood he tricks some of them out claiming they have been ransomed and has them slaughtered (pp349-50). The Spartans put him on trial for failing to capture Argos, in his defence he argues that having offered sacrifice at the temple of Hera he saw flame flash from the breast but not the head of the statue he knew from this with absolute certainty that he was not to capture Argos...The Spartans accepted this as a credible and reasonable defence, and Cleomenes was fully acquitted (p350). The outcome of all this is that Cleomenes goes mad, and with a knife, cuts himself into strips while in the stocks. Again: transgression, pollution, and call no man happy until he is dead.
"My business is to record what people say, but I am by no means bound to believe it - and that may be taken to apply to this book as a whole" (p421)
I suppose my first acquaintance with the work of Herodotus was through that technicolor cold war drama The 300 Spartans in which a rampantly heterosexual force of Spartans defends freedom, liberty, and all that good stuff from allegedly ferocious yet ineffective, hordes of freedom hating Persians. The appalling, appealing, simplicity of that film is a grave disservice to the genius of Herodotus – already mauled by Thucydides barely after completing – if complete it is – his surviving work.
Later I was shocked into actually reading the first half of an old Everyman edition of Herodotus by a National Geographic article but it was only now at an advanced age - older quite possibly than many of the protagonists described in the Histories - that I have finally read through the complete Herodotus.
The conflicts between the Persians and the Greeks, culminating in the battles of Marathon, Salamis and Plataea, form a framework in which Herodotus digresses his way round the Greek world: physically , intellectually, culturally, but the eventual war is less the story of the clash of civilisations than the clash of relative inequality of development.
Because one of the things that has struck me reading the whole thing in a linear fashion is not so much the framing narrative structure but the repetition of themes and narrative parallels: the wise advisor to the ruler, that a hard land makes for a hard people, that change follows on from transgression.
One of the early starting points in Herodotus' narrative is the rise of Persia under Cyrus. Then, in the beginning, the Persians are poor. They inhabit a harsh land. By the end of the story the Persians possess a mighty empire, they are rich and rule over wealthy peoples but they make war against the Greeks. They have forgotten Cyrus' warning, which Herodotus kindly reminds us of: "Soft countries...breed soft men. It is not the property of any one soil to produce fine fruits and good soldiers too" (p543). For narrative purposes the Greeks in the time of story - already several generations before Herodotus was composing his work - were poor. In their Olympic Games they compete for Olive Branches and honour, rather than gold, silver or bronze like sensible people , simply because they have nothing better, the contrast between a rich Persian meal and a Spartan one is an occasion for laughter.
There's a criticism of Imperialism in this - what is the point of waging war against people who sleep in tents, wear leather, live in a country so unfruitful that they can eat all they can find but can never eat their fill? The repeated lesson, never learnt, taught through repeated harsh blows is that transgression through aggression that is not sanctioned by God, gods, Fate, or Mandate of Heaven, as expressed variously through the opaque words of Oracles, and really this is about expansion beyond your ecological base, ends in grim failure perhaps in the form of having your decapitated head dipped into a bag of blood - such was Cyrus' fate at the hands of Queen Tomyris - ah, another theme here - call no man happy until his death!
By the time Herodotus's work was completed it is the Greeks who in turn are wealthy and powerful, on the verge of fighting the Peloponnesian war (during which, so much for the eternal clash of civilisations, the Spartans will turn to the Persians for aid in defeating the Athenians, but in Herodotian style, I digress, with purpose). We can read this, whether Herodotus intended this is another question, with irony. Success will lead to wealth, an inevitable softening, and pride leads on to a fall .
Since History didn't exist before Herodotus (or Thucydides depending on your point of view) we can hardly say that history in Herodotus is cyclical rather than linear, instead the philosophy that unfolds is that the nature of existence itself is cyclical. Wisdom is the result of hardship, learnt by riding Fate's wheel in a complete cycle. Alienated in self imposed exile Solon is the wise advisor to Croesus. After defeat in the war which he brought about, Croesus can be a wise advisor to Cyrus. In exile the Spartan King Demaratus is a wise advisor to Xerxes.
To judge Herodotus as a writer of history is a little unfair, this is a transitional work. Part of his approach comes from the epic - he is explicitly looking back to Homer and the Iliad, another part we would think of as folktale and fable which is about moral teachings, traditional wisdom, and tropes , another the travelogue - Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a direct descendent . History, though, as a narrative of events with an analysis of causes is one of his gifts just as Egypt was the gift of the Nile, even if in part on account of Thucydides sharp response to Herodotus.
It also manages to capture the transition that occurs when the past and historical memory slips over into fable. This is not only something we can see in the presentation of Cyrus and Cypselus but more pointedly in the examples of Delphi and Thebes. Already by Herodotus' time Delphi was painting over its prior Persian sympathies and we get some fantastical stories instead of how weapons left in the sanctuary divinely appeared around the temple or how a great loud voice was heard shouting from within all of which conflicts completely with the oracular statements that Herodotus records which instead are defeatist if not actually pro-Persian, the effect is a little like a book about occupied France showing that everybody - even Petain, was actually in the Resistance. The Thebians, despite their contingent dying to a man at Thermopylae, are recorded as pro-Persian - this is attributed to Herodotus making use of Athenian informants. I feel that there is fable and folklore also in the victory at Salamis - the Greeks win by playing a trick upon the Persians, Thermistocles is the Odysseus of the piece, wielding the one not entirely defeatist oracle, maintaining the allies in a threatened position, trying to exploit the potential for division amongst the Persian coalition, and finally mauling the enemy fleet, although the cycle must be completed for him too and eventually he ends up as a wise advisor at the Persian court.
Still, I like how archaeology now confirms Herodotus' stories of steppe women wielding weapons, just as zoology confirms that the genitals of both sexes of camel face backwards . Some historians even take things one stage further and prefer Herodotus' account of Athenian strategy developing in reaction to the Persian advance to the discovered inscription at Troezen which gives the retreat down the coast and the evacuation of Attica as previously agreed strategies.
Unlike in the old film, Herodotus' Persians are gallant and honourable foes (if occasionally given to whipping the sea for it's misdeeds), but then we are in the epic tradition. The enemy has to be worthy of the hero. Herodotus is far more effective here than say Livy in his treatment of the war with Hannibal - there we have to read Punic virtues and attractiveness between the lines to understand the fact that Livy doesn't attempt to explain of Hannibal surviving and thriving in Italy for years on end.
I wondered reading if Herodotus would make for a complete elementary education, Aesop meets Aeschylus with the wonders of Egypt thrown in. Admittedly you would have to deal with questions like "Mummy, Daddy, what does 'refused normal intercourse and lay with her in an unnatural way ' mean?" so this would be no course of action for the fainted hearted - but one only for those prepared to bend the bow of the long-lived Ethiopians and to bring up their offspring to respect the Oracle at Delphi, admire wisdom, and be curious about the customs of other countries.
If I may deviate from my current deviation and recover the thread of my narrative the other point that struck me reading the complete work rather than just the first half was how Murray's Early Greece was in good part a commentary and analysis of Herodotus, drawing its anecdotes about the Oracle at Delphi or Greek Colonies from this work.
On the subject of the latter, pausing to mention the colonists who departing their homeland threw a lump of iron in the harbour swearing never to return until it floated or those told by the Oracle at Delphi to set up a colony in Libya even though they had no idea where Libya was or how to get there, I arrive at the Greek settlers at Miletus who married Carian women after having murdered all their menfolk. The colonists pass a law "forbidding them to sit at table with their husbands or to address them by name" (p60). Later there is a similar story about captured Athenian women whose children born of rape band together to the point that they are all considered dangerous by their captors who put them all to death, this inevitably leads to divine punishment and the need to ask advice of the Oracle at Delphi, but I digress, though before returning to my theme again the pattern of violence as self-destructive behaviour that brings down an entire community - the whole of the Persian wars in Herodotus' account is figured as the culmination of a series of violent abductions that can only ever end in disaster because the human passions can not be stilled until divine retribution forces the community polluted through its violence to offer up propitiation. This reminded me of Michael Wood's point about western Europe having adopted ancient Greece as a forebear - "the glory that was Greece" was not all fine statues and beautiful ruins, heritage isn't a clear cut matter, the baby comes with the bathwater.
The great contrast here in my mind is with the Romans. They have the Sabine women, who despite the violent beginning represent reconciliation and the unity of different peoples. The Romans base an ideology of empire and themselves as an Imperial people on the basis of a myth of reconciliation, the Greeks an ideology of civic distinctiveness on a history of sectarianism enforced beyond the point of self-harm. Something clear from Herodotus' account is how divided the Greeks are, with many supporting the Persians and some opposed, not out of great principals but on account of local rivalries.
Lets finish with the Spartans. Not as laconic, proto-all-American superheroes of the battlefield tanned and oiled fit to star in technicolor, but as examples of Herodotus' style. It is the Spartans and Athenians who breach the norms of international diplomacy by murdering the Persian Ambassadors - Herodotus is no whitewasher (though perhaps his early audiences admired their ancestors precisely for that violation). Best of all is his fascinated treatment of the Spartan King Cleomenes, at once decisive and brilliant, but transgressing acceptable behaviour - for instance having holed up some enemies in a sacred wood he tricks some of them out claiming they have been ransomed and has them slaughtered (pp349-50). The Spartans put him on trial for failing to capture Argos, in his defence he argues that having offered sacrifice at the temple of Hera he saw flame flash from the breast but not the head of the statue he knew from this with absolute certainty that he was not to capture Argos...The Spartans accepted this as a credible and reasonable defence, and Cleomenes was fully acquitted (p350). The outcome of all this is that Cleomenes goes mad, and with a knife, cuts himself into strips while in the stocks. Again: transgression, pollution, and call no man happy until he is dead.
"My business is to record what people say, but I am by no means bound to believe it - and that may be taken to apply to this book as a whole" (p421)
September 25, 2023
I can see why this book is held in such esteem; for the first time the acts of men are looked at through the optics of investigative inquiry - "Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances" is still the lesson we seem to learn and forget every decade - "Circumstance is the hub of the wheel; men are the spokes that provide traction through connection to the felloes of history" is what this book has taught me.
October 16, 2019
Hubris in History: A Recurring Terror
The prime subject of The Histories is the twenty years (499-479 B.C.E) of war between Greece and Persia for domination of the Greek world. However he intersperses this main narrative with plenty of personal interest stories, “wonders” about firsts and bests, historical parallels and occasionally his own biased judgements, but always making it clear that he is interested only in presenting a viewpoint — he leaves the act of judgement to the reader. We can safely say that it was Herodotus who helped create the concept of the discipline of “history,” in part by stressing and criticizing his sources and accepted traditions. My job is to record what I have been told, make of it what you will - that is the dominant warning note wherever H’s authorial voice intervenes in the narrative. That should be the disclaimer all history books should come with.
All the main themes of the book are evident in its beginning and ending, in keeping with the circular narratives that H prefers to adopt. All the intervening incidents act like reinforcements of the overall thrust inherent in the beginning and ending.
The Beginning: The Parallel Rise of Freedom & Empire
We begin with an insecure Hellenic world, just shaking off the shackles of tyranny and tasting real ambition for the first time. Meanwhile in the other end of the world, an existing empire is being shaped into a fearsome tyrannical force by the new Persian rulers. Soon the Persian empire starts to extend ominously outwards and gobbles up most of the known world. This infringes on a core idea of H — the concept of natural limits and over-extension. Persia is meant to fall. “The Small shall become the Big; and the Big shall become the Small.”
As long as empires are driven by ambition, history is doomed to repeat itself.
The gods set limits and do not allow human beings to go beyond them; Herodotus makes it clear that the Persians have to fail in their plan to conquer Greece, because they have overreached their natural boundaries. Xerxes announces his campaign by telling his advisers that he intends to conquer Greece so that ‘we will make Persian territory end only at the sky’ (7.8).
The Middle: The Clash of Civilizations
Then we are taken through the many over-extensions of the Persian empire under a succession of rulers (in Ionia, Scythia, etc), until they are poised to encroach upon the newly non-tyrannical Greek world. Here we enter the climactic middle of the narrative and is drenched in the details of the gory encounter. Many heroes, legends and dramatic material is born here and we emerge on the other side with a clear sense that it was Athens, without the yoke of tyranny, that was able to bring down the fearsome war machine of the Persian empire. David has won out against Goliath. This is achieved due to much luck and much pluck, but in the final analysis H seems to imply that the fault was with the hubris of the Persians.
It needs to be pointed out that: H is quite clear that as human beings Persians are on the whole no better and no worse than Greeks. Structurally, however, Xerxes’ great expedition to Greece stands as a monument to the dangerous blindness of massive empires and grandiose thinking—but it is also the backdrop against which H has been able to present to us the Greeks’ love of their homeland, their valor against incredible odds, and their deep desire to preserve their freedom.
So, even as this main narrative concludes, we are shown what is the inevitable result of Hubris that over-extends its own reaches. And of how tyranny in any form is not going to triumph over people who have tasted what freedom means.
The Ending: A Reenactment of The Beginning
Herodotus could have ended there. But he doesn’t. Instead he takes us to the Ending to rub in the message and to instill that message with its true significance — what is its bearing on the future? For, an investigation of History is meaningless unless it can educate us about the future. And it is the future that H ironically points to as he takes us through the concluding sections of his Histories.
For now it is the turn of the Greeks to over-extend. In the thrill of victory and in the thrall of a thirst for revenge, in the spirit of competition with its own neighbors, Athens and Sparta launch out on its own imperialistic enterprise to mainland Asia. This is to culminate in H’s own day with the Ionians looking upon Athens as the equivalent of a Tyrant.
The beginning of this period saw the triumph of the Greek mainland states over the might of the Persian Empire, first in the initial invasion of 490 and the battle of Marathon, and then in the second invasion of 480/79, with the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, and finally Mycaleb in Asia Mnor.
This unexpected victory against what seemed like the mightiest empire on Earth resonated in Greek consciousness through the fifth century and indeed beyond. The Greeks in general, and the Athenians in particular, because they had played the major part in the triumph of “Freedom”, saw these victories as a triumph of right over might, courage over fear, freedom over servitude, moderation over arrogance. It helped crystallize and reinforce Greeks’ attitudes to their own newfound way of life and values, intensified their supreme distrust of monarchy and tyranny, and shaped their attitude to the Persians. And after what they visualized as the great struggle for freedom, the people of Athens entered upon a spectacular era of energy and prosperity, one of the great flowering periods of Western civilization.
In more practical terms, Athens’ naval success in the Persian Wars and its enterprise immediately after led to the creation of the Athenian Empire, which started as an anti-Persian league and lasted for almost three-quarters of a century (479-404).
H seems to imply that Athens should learn from these investigations of the past, see what Tyranny can do, see the dangers of over-extension, understand the need for balance, respect certain international boundaries, and stay its own overreaching hand.
And indeed within fifty years of the Persian defeat the dream had faded, and before the end of the century Athens, over-extended abroad and overconfident at home, lay defeated at the mercy of her enemies, a Spartan garrison posted on the Acropolis and democracy in ruins. Much in the intervening years had been magnificent, it is true, but so it might have remained if the Athenians had heeded Herodotus. He had portrayed the Greek victory as a triumph over the barbarian latent in themselves, the hubris that united the invader and the native tyrant as targets of the gods. The Persian downfall, or at least the defeat of their imperialistic ambition, called not only for exultation but for compassion and lasting self-control.
As should be quite obvious, there is much to learn in this for modern times too, but with an added twist. For Hubris did not end its romp through history there. It took on new wings once history started being recorded. Now every new emperor was also competing with history. Alexander had to outdo Xerxes. Caesar had to outdo Alexander. Britain had to outdo Rome. Germany had to outdo Britain. USA had to outdo Britain, etc. A never-ending arms-race with imperial history and the accompanying Hubris that powers it.
So Herodotus, even as he recorded History so as to blunt its devastating force on the lives of men, also unwittingly added new impetus to its influence, by adding the new flavor of recorded glory to the existing receptacle of legendary glory. Hubris drank it up.
“The conversion of legend-writing into the science of history was not native to the Greek mind, it was a fifth-century invention, and Herodotus was the man who invented it.”
~ R.G. Collingwood
The prime subject of The Histories is the twenty years (499-479 B.C.E) of war between Greece and Persia for domination of the Greek world. However he intersperses this main narrative with plenty of personal interest stories, “wonders” about firsts and bests, historical parallels and occasionally his own biased judgements, but always making it clear that he is interested only in presenting a viewpoint — he leaves the act of judgement to the reader. We can safely say that it was Herodotus who helped create the concept of the discipline of “history,” in part by stressing and criticizing his sources and accepted traditions. My job is to record what I have been told, make of it what you will - that is the dominant warning note wherever H’s authorial voice intervenes in the narrative. That should be the disclaimer all history books should come with.
All the main themes of the book are evident in its beginning and ending, in keeping with the circular narratives that H prefers to adopt. All the intervening incidents act like reinforcements of the overall thrust inherent in the beginning and ending.
The Beginning: The Parallel Rise of Freedom & Empire
We begin with an insecure Hellenic world, just shaking off the shackles of tyranny and tasting real ambition for the first time. Meanwhile in the other end of the world, an existing empire is being shaped into a fearsome tyrannical force by the new Persian rulers. Soon the Persian empire starts to extend ominously outwards and gobbles up most of the known world. This infringes on a core idea of H — the concept of natural limits and over-extension. Persia is meant to fall. “The Small shall become the Big; and the Big shall become the Small.”
As long as empires are driven by ambition, history is doomed to repeat itself.
The gods set limits and do not allow human beings to go beyond them; Herodotus makes it clear that the Persians have to fail in their plan to conquer Greece, because they have overreached their natural boundaries. Xerxes announces his campaign by telling his advisers that he intends to conquer Greece so that ‘we will make Persian territory end only at the sky’ (7.8).
The Middle: The Clash of Civilizations
Then we are taken through the many over-extensions of the Persian empire under a succession of rulers (in Ionia, Scythia, etc), until they are poised to encroach upon the newly non-tyrannical Greek world. Here we enter the climactic middle of the narrative and is drenched in the details of the gory encounter. Many heroes, legends and dramatic material is born here and we emerge on the other side with a clear sense that it was Athens, without the yoke of tyranny, that was able to bring down the fearsome war machine of the Persian empire. David has won out against Goliath. This is achieved due to much luck and much pluck, but in the final analysis H seems to imply that the fault was with the hubris of the Persians.
It needs to be pointed out that: H is quite clear that as human beings Persians are on the whole no better and no worse than Greeks. Structurally, however, Xerxes’ great expedition to Greece stands as a monument to the dangerous blindness of massive empires and grandiose thinking—but it is also the backdrop against which H has been able to present to us the Greeks’ love of their homeland, their valor against incredible odds, and their deep desire to preserve their freedom.
So, even as this main narrative concludes, we are shown what is the inevitable result of Hubris that over-extends its own reaches. And of how tyranny in any form is not going to triumph over people who have tasted what freedom means.
The Ending: A Reenactment of The Beginning
Herodotus could have ended there. But he doesn’t. Instead he takes us to the Ending to rub in the message and to instill that message with its true significance — what is its bearing on the future? For, an investigation of History is meaningless unless it can educate us about the future. And it is the future that H ironically points to as he takes us through the concluding sections of his Histories.
For now it is the turn of the Greeks to over-extend. In the thrill of victory and in the thrall of a thirst for revenge, in the spirit of competition with its own neighbors, Athens and Sparta launch out on its own imperialistic enterprise to mainland Asia. This is to culminate in H’s own day with the Ionians looking upon Athens as the equivalent of a Tyrant.
The beginning of this period saw the triumph of the Greek mainland states over the might of the Persian Empire, first in the initial invasion of 490 and the battle of Marathon, and then in the second invasion of 480/79, with the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, and finally Mycaleb in Asia Mnor.
This unexpected victory against what seemed like the mightiest empire on Earth resonated in Greek consciousness through the fifth century and indeed beyond. The Greeks in general, and the Athenians in particular, because they had played the major part in the triumph of “Freedom”, saw these victories as a triumph of right over might, courage over fear, freedom over servitude, moderation over arrogance. It helped crystallize and reinforce Greeks’ attitudes to their own newfound way of life and values, intensified their supreme distrust of monarchy and tyranny, and shaped their attitude to the Persians. And after what they visualized as the great struggle for freedom, the people of Athens entered upon a spectacular era of energy and prosperity, one of the great flowering periods of Western civilization.
In more practical terms, Athens’ naval success in the Persian Wars and its enterprise immediately after led to the creation of the Athenian Empire, which started as an anti-Persian league and lasted for almost three-quarters of a century (479-404).
H seems to imply that Athens should learn from these investigations of the past, see what Tyranny can do, see the dangers of over-extension, understand the need for balance, respect certain international boundaries, and stay its own overreaching hand.
And indeed within fifty years of the Persian defeat the dream had faded, and before the end of the century Athens, over-extended abroad and overconfident at home, lay defeated at the mercy of her enemies, a Spartan garrison posted on the Acropolis and democracy in ruins. Much in the intervening years had been magnificent, it is true, but so it might have remained if the Athenians had heeded Herodotus. He had portrayed the Greek victory as a triumph over the barbarian latent in themselves, the hubris that united the invader and the native tyrant as targets of the gods. The Persian downfall, or at least the defeat of their imperialistic ambition, called not only for exultation but for compassion and lasting self-control.
As should be quite obvious, there is much to learn in this for modern times too, but with an added twist. For Hubris did not end its romp through history there. It took on new wings once history started being recorded. Now every new emperor was also competing with history. Alexander had to outdo Xerxes. Caesar had to outdo Alexander. Britain had to outdo Rome. Germany had to outdo Britain. USA had to outdo Britain, etc. A never-ending arms-race with imperial history and the accompanying Hubris that powers it.
So Herodotus, even as he recorded History so as to blunt its devastating force on the lives of men, also unwittingly added new impetus to its influence, by adding the new flavor of recorded glory to the existing receptacle of legendary glory. Hubris drank it up.
July 26, 2022
As a history nerd I always had the idea that I would one day read Herodotus. After all he’s generally regarded as the guy who kicked off the whole show. I had put it off due to the length of the book, but Audible were offering it “free” with my membership for a limited period, and it was that which led me to finally conclude “It is time!”
One thing about Audible is that it doesn’t always tell the reader about the translator. I could tell that the version I had was in 19th century English, and from what I can find out, it seems to be the Rawlinson translation.
Apart from a history the book is also a geography and an ethnology. Herodotus, who was a great traveller, describes the world as it was known to him. The Persian Empire is described in detail, as far as “India”, which I think are the lands we now know as Pakistan (of course it was all “India” in Rawlinson’s day). Egypt is also described in detail, and beyond it lies “Ethiopia”, which I think was the country we now call Sudan. The rest of Africa he calls “Libya”, describing how it extends west beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and south to a great sandy desert. Mediterranean Europe is well known but Northern Europe is the subject of garbled rumour. He says he can find out nothing about a northern sea from whence amber is procured (actually true and a reference to the Baltic), nor anything about “the Tin Islands”, (probably a reference to The British Isles). He does know of the Danube, which he calls the Ister, and the Black Sea, which he calls the Euxine. To the north of these are the lands of the Scythians, a “land without marvels”, excepting huge rivers and “the vastness of the plain.”
Herodotus is careful to distinguish hearsay from what he has seen himself. He will frequently make comments along the lines of “In this, I merely repeat what the Libyans say” and at other times will repeat a local legend but add that he personally places no credence in it.
One thing I found interesting, if this translation is accurate, is that on a couple of occasions Herodotus seems to suggest that the ancient Egyptians were black-skinned, “with wooly hair”, adding to my own knowledge of the continuing debate on the appearance of the ancient Egyptians, which will of course never be resolved. Opposing Herodotus is the evidence from hieroglyphs and other sources, suggesting that a range of skin tones existed amongst the ancient Egyptians.
In his build-up to the description of the Graeco-Persian Wars, Herodotus describes how the Persians conquered Asia Minor, including the cities of the Ionian Greeks, and how they also conquered Egypt. Subsequent expeditions against the Ethiopians failed, and Herodotus also describes an early example of asymmetrical warfare when he relates how King Darius invaded the lands of the Scythians with a huge army, via Thrace. Being a nomadic people with no cities to defend, the Scythians simply moved away from Darius, driving their herds with them and always keeping at least a day’s march between themselves and the Persian Army. Darius could do nothing other than simply wander about the plains until his supplies ran out and he had to retreat back across the Danube.
The most dramatic part of the book is of course around the Persian invasions of Greece. The stories of the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea are well-known, but it was great to read the original source material for these events.
There are times when Herodotus gets a little tiresome for the modern reader, and there’s too much mythology in here, but ultimately I’m really glad that I’ve finally read “The Histories.”
One thing about Audible is that it doesn’t always tell the reader about the translator. I could tell that the version I had was in 19th century English, and from what I can find out, it seems to be the Rawlinson translation.
Apart from a history the book is also a geography and an ethnology. Herodotus, who was a great traveller, describes the world as it was known to him. The Persian Empire is described in detail, as far as “India”, which I think are the lands we now know as Pakistan (of course it was all “India” in Rawlinson’s day). Egypt is also described in detail, and beyond it lies “Ethiopia”, which I think was the country we now call Sudan. The rest of Africa he calls “Libya”, describing how it extends west beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and south to a great sandy desert. Mediterranean Europe is well known but Northern Europe is the subject of garbled rumour. He says he can find out nothing about a northern sea from whence amber is procured (actually true and a reference to the Baltic), nor anything about “the Tin Islands”, (probably a reference to The British Isles). He does know of the Danube, which he calls the Ister, and the Black Sea, which he calls the Euxine. To the north of these are the lands of the Scythians, a “land without marvels”, excepting huge rivers and “the vastness of the plain.”
Herodotus is careful to distinguish hearsay from what he has seen himself. He will frequently make comments along the lines of “In this, I merely repeat what the Libyans say” and at other times will repeat a local legend but add that he personally places no credence in it.
One thing I found interesting, if this translation is accurate, is that on a couple of occasions Herodotus seems to suggest that the ancient Egyptians were black-skinned, “with wooly hair”, adding to my own knowledge of the continuing debate on the appearance of the ancient Egyptians, which will of course never be resolved. Opposing Herodotus is the evidence from hieroglyphs and other sources, suggesting that a range of skin tones existed amongst the ancient Egyptians.
In his build-up to the description of the Graeco-Persian Wars, Herodotus describes how the Persians conquered Asia Minor, including the cities of the Ionian Greeks, and how they also conquered Egypt. Subsequent expeditions against the Ethiopians failed, and Herodotus also describes an early example of asymmetrical warfare when he relates how King Darius invaded the lands of the Scythians with a huge army, via Thrace. Being a nomadic people with no cities to defend, the Scythians simply moved away from Darius, driving their herds with them and always keeping at least a day’s march between themselves and the Persian Army. Darius could do nothing other than simply wander about the plains until his supplies ran out and he had to retreat back across the Danube.
The most dramatic part of the book is of course around the Persian invasions of Greece. The stories of the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea are well-known, but it was great to read the original source material for these events.
There are times when Herodotus gets a little tiresome for the modern reader, and there’s too much mythology in here, but ultimately I’m really glad that I’ve finally read “The Histories.”
April 10, 2009
The kids bought me this for Christmas and it is a thing of infinite beauty. I’ve been meaning to read these histories for years and never quite got around to it. I had never realised quite how remarkable this book would be.
This version of the book is the third that I now own – I’ve also got a copy of the Penguin Classics and I’ve just finished listening to this as a talking book. But I am going to make my way through this book eventually, as it is hard to focus on many of the details of the wars and so on without a decent map in front of you to refer to – and this book has lots of maps and drawings and other illustrations, although, annoyingly, no illustration of the Egyptian labyrinth which Herodotus said was even more remarkable than the pyramids.
Along the way Herodotus tells some incredible stories. Some of them sound like they are straight out of the 1001 nights. Others make your jaw drop open.
There are also discussions of things like what is the source of the Nile, that really have whetted my curiosity to read more about the 19th century types who finally discovered the source. Now, why was this such a big question in the ancient world? Well, the problem was that the Nile seemed to come out of the desert and that isn’t exactly the sort of place where you would expect to find lots and lots of water. The winds that came for where the Nile seemed to flow out from were also always hot – and so the idea that perhaps the water in the Nile swelled once a year due to the melting of snow (although partly reasonable, obviously) didn’t seem to make a lot of sense when you thought that the river was coming out of a desert (deserts being the natural enemy of snow). It really is fascinating listening to Herodotus discussing these speculations about the source of the Nile and the paradoxes such speculations provided.
In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “There ain’t no limit to the amount of trouble women bring”. There are interesting asides about the Trojan war and how Herodotus speculates that Helen was probably dead by the time of the war started and so when the Greeks asked for the Trojans to hand her over they literally couldn’t. He can’t see why else they would have allowed their civilisation to be crushed for the sake of one woman, beautiful or not.
There is a woman who commanded a ship on the side of the Persians, there are women who come back as ghosts and complain about being cold (which their husband should know as the last time he tried to bake his bread the oven was cold – this would have taken me a while to understand if Herodotus did not explain that the husband had lain with her after she had died.) But this is not really a history that involves many women – this is a story about blokes doing what blokes like most – killing other blokes.
All the same, my favourite bit of this came quite early in the piece. The story of the theft of Rhampsinitos’ treasure. I’m going to give you the short McCandless version of this as it really is a wonderful story and I can’t leave this review without talking about it.
When Rhampsinitos (an Egyptian king) decided to have a place built for his treasure he didn’t know that the builder would put a stone into the works that could be easily removed. The builder told his sons about this stone as he lay dying and once the builder had died his sons nipped around to the king’s treasury and helped themselves to the riches inside. The king noticed this sudden loss of wealth and set a trap to capture those who were all too frequently popping in and stealing his goodies. The trap was quite successful and one of the brothers ended up getting caught. He told his other brother to cut off his head so that they wouldn’t both be discovered. This his all too obliging brother did. The king then had a body without a head in his treasury, but still had no idea how anyone could get into the treasury room without breaking any of the seals on the locks.
So, he had the body of the thief hung up and guarded so that whoever cried in front of it would be brought before him. The thief who had cut off his brother’s head was then told by his mother that he had better do something to rescue his brother’s body or else all hell would break lose. He came up with a plan to get the guards drunk and to steal the body, which he did and also shaved half of their beards off to make sure they quite understood how stupid they had been made to look. The king was, needless to say, bloody furious. (I did mention this reminded me of the 1001 nights, yeah?) Anyway, the king then decides to get his daughter to work in a brothel, but before she sleeps with anyone she is to ask them what is the worst thing they have ever done and if any of them say anything like they cut off their brother’s head and stole his body from the king’s guards, she is to grab hold of him and call for the police (or whatever the Egyptian equivalent was at the time). The thief decides to play along, and goes to the brothel with the severed arm of a freshly dead corpse under his jumper. When he tells the king’s daughter about his exploits she makes a grab for him and he holds out the dead man’s arm, which she holds onto while the thief cleverly makes his escape. The king is so impressed with this man’s exploits that he begs him to come forward and receive a reward, which he does and ends up getting to marry the king’s daughter – I assume the daughter he gets to marry is the prostitute mentioned earlier, but I guess no one actually ever called her that to her face.
The best bit of this is that it shows something Herodotus does the whole way through these histories. He will be telling one of these stories and suddenly they will start to become completely unbelievable and he will say, “of course, I don’t believe this stuff for a minute, but this is the story I was told in Egypt and what would you have me do? I have to tell you what I was told.”
The other story that held me enthralled was of the self-mutilation of Zopyros – honestly, this is utterly remarkable. It is worth reading the book just for this story alone.
There are lots of occasions where fathers are forced to do horrible things to their sons – my favourite is the story of a king who punishes one of his advisors by feeding him his son as the meat portion of a feast. The king then leaves this advisor in a position where he can revenge himself on the king. You know, if I was to feed someone their own child I would probably kill him straight away afterwards – call me overly cautious, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the person who has feed you the flesh of one of your kids is never going to be one of you best friends ever again, no matter what else they do for you.
This book is fantastic and the Landmark edition is like its name implies, really something special.
This version of the book is the third that I now own – I’ve also got a copy of the Penguin Classics and I’ve just finished listening to this as a talking book. But I am going to make my way through this book eventually, as it is hard to focus on many of the details of the wars and so on without a decent map in front of you to refer to – and this book has lots of maps and drawings and other illustrations, although, annoyingly, no illustration of the Egyptian labyrinth which Herodotus said was even more remarkable than the pyramids.
Along the way Herodotus tells some incredible stories. Some of them sound like they are straight out of the 1001 nights. Others make your jaw drop open.
There are also discussions of things like what is the source of the Nile, that really have whetted my curiosity to read more about the 19th century types who finally discovered the source. Now, why was this such a big question in the ancient world? Well, the problem was that the Nile seemed to come out of the desert and that isn’t exactly the sort of place where you would expect to find lots and lots of water. The winds that came for where the Nile seemed to flow out from were also always hot – and so the idea that perhaps the water in the Nile swelled once a year due to the melting of snow (although partly reasonable, obviously) didn’t seem to make a lot of sense when you thought that the river was coming out of a desert (deserts being the natural enemy of snow). It really is fascinating listening to Herodotus discussing these speculations about the source of the Nile and the paradoxes such speculations provided.
In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “There ain’t no limit to the amount of trouble women bring”. There are interesting asides about the Trojan war and how Herodotus speculates that Helen was probably dead by the time of the war started and so when the Greeks asked for the Trojans to hand her over they literally couldn’t. He can’t see why else they would have allowed their civilisation to be crushed for the sake of one woman, beautiful or not.
There is a woman who commanded a ship on the side of the Persians, there are women who come back as ghosts and complain about being cold (which their husband should know as the last time he tried to bake his bread the oven was cold – this would have taken me a while to understand if Herodotus did not explain that the husband had lain with her after she had died.) But this is not really a history that involves many women – this is a story about blokes doing what blokes like most – killing other blokes.
All the same, my favourite bit of this came quite early in the piece. The story of the theft of Rhampsinitos’ treasure. I’m going to give you the short McCandless version of this as it really is a wonderful story and I can’t leave this review without talking about it.
When Rhampsinitos (an Egyptian king) decided to have a place built for his treasure he didn’t know that the builder would put a stone into the works that could be easily removed. The builder told his sons about this stone as he lay dying and once the builder had died his sons nipped around to the king’s treasury and helped themselves to the riches inside. The king noticed this sudden loss of wealth and set a trap to capture those who were all too frequently popping in and stealing his goodies. The trap was quite successful and one of the brothers ended up getting caught. He told his other brother to cut off his head so that they wouldn’t both be discovered. This his all too obliging brother did. The king then had a body without a head in his treasury, but still had no idea how anyone could get into the treasury room without breaking any of the seals on the locks.
So, he had the body of the thief hung up and guarded so that whoever cried in front of it would be brought before him. The thief who had cut off his brother’s head was then told by his mother that he had better do something to rescue his brother’s body or else all hell would break lose. He came up with a plan to get the guards drunk and to steal the body, which he did and also shaved half of their beards off to make sure they quite understood how stupid they had been made to look. The king was, needless to say, bloody furious. (I did mention this reminded me of the 1001 nights, yeah?) Anyway, the king then decides to get his daughter to work in a brothel, but before she sleeps with anyone she is to ask them what is the worst thing they have ever done and if any of them say anything like they cut off their brother’s head and stole his body from the king’s guards, she is to grab hold of him and call for the police (or whatever the Egyptian equivalent was at the time). The thief decides to play along, and goes to the brothel with the severed arm of a freshly dead corpse under his jumper. When he tells the king’s daughter about his exploits she makes a grab for him and he holds out the dead man’s arm, which she holds onto while the thief cleverly makes his escape. The king is so impressed with this man’s exploits that he begs him to come forward and receive a reward, which he does and ends up getting to marry the king’s daughter – I assume the daughter he gets to marry is the prostitute mentioned earlier, but I guess no one actually ever called her that to her face.
The best bit of this is that it shows something Herodotus does the whole way through these histories. He will be telling one of these stories and suddenly they will start to become completely unbelievable and he will say, “of course, I don’t believe this stuff for a minute, but this is the story I was told in Egypt and what would you have me do? I have to tell you what I was told.”
The other story that held me enthralled was of the self-mutilation of Zopyros – honestly, this is utterly remarkable. It is worth reading the book just for this story alone.
There are lots of occasions where fathers are forced to do horrible things to their sons – my favourite is the story of a king who punishes one of his advisors by feeding him his son as the meat portion of a feast. The king then leaves this advisor in a position where he can revenge himself on the king. You know, if I was to feed someone their own child I would probably kill him straight away afterwards – call me overly cautious, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the person who has feed you the flesh of one of your kids is never going to be one of you best friends ever again, no matter what else they do for you.
This book is fantastic and the Landmark edition is like its name implies, really something special.
January 4, 2018
I think I would like to invite my Goodreads friends to browse any Book you like, then take heart to start with Book I as the inception of the whole inquiry unthinkable to those Greek scholars at that time, but Herodotus could make it and you cannot help admiring him when you read his famous preamble:
This preamble, I think, in the 1970 edition may entice you as well:
Moreover, the one in this 1988 edition published by the University of Chicago Press is also interesting:
First of all, don't be intimidated by its length, that is, 543 pages in the 1996 Penguin edition, please find any translation you're familiar with its style or wording then keep reading a few pages once in a while, don't hope to finish it in a few days/weeks since it's one of the masterpieces in ancient history, you need time to think, take notes and ask yourself why.
Secondly, this is definitely his magnum opus for posterity of all nations to read, reflect and interpret in terms of reciprocal toleration as fellow human beings so that we learn not to make unthinkable mistakes again. In many engagements there, you can witness various unimaginably ruthless deeds instigated by the powers that be, fate and godlike valour of those true Greek and Persian soldiers. Those fallen heroes including all innumerable soldiers killed in various battles deserve our respect with awe, admiration and gratitude as our exemplary models of humankind.
And finally, scholars should honour and keep him in mind since Cicero called him 'the father of history' and we can enjoy reading his second to none narrative. However, some chapters might not be interesting when he sometime told us about the flora/fauna seemingly unrelated to the looming hostilities. I take them as relaxing moments and we can learn from what he told us frankly and good-humoredly. Those ruthless war scenes, for instance from Chapter 20 onwards in Book IX, are amazingly described to the extent that we can visualize such ruthless gory scenes with increasingly stupefying horror in which it is hopelessly put into words.
That's it and I think I would reread the University of Chicago version for solace and advice in there whenever I'm free from work. It'd teach us of course to mind our own business, be kind, have mercy towards our fellow colleagues, friends, cousins, etc. since we all have limited time to live on earth.
Note: In fact, I have another Penguin copy with its front cover showing a painted vase depicting two soldiers in action (Persian vs. Greek), not this one so the page numbers as mentioned above may vary. Therefore, I've reposted my review since I don't know how to return to its previous book cover.
Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and marvellous deeds -- some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians -- may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two people fought each other. (p. 4)
This preamble, I think, in the 1970 edition may entice you as well:
HERODOTUS of Halicarnassus, his Researches are here set down to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of our own and of other peoples; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict. (p. 41)
Moreover, the one in this 1988 edition published by the University of Chicago Press is also interesting:
I, Herodotus of Harlicarnassus, am here setting forth my history, that time may not draw the color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and wonderful deeds, manifested by both Greeks and barbarians, fail of their report, and, together with all this, the reason why they fought one another. (p. 33)
First of all, don't be intimidated by its length, that is, 543 pages in the 1996 Penguin edition, please find any translation you're familiar with its style or wording then keep reading a few pages once in a while, don't hope to finish it in a few days/weeks since it's one of the masterpieces in ancient history, you need time to think, take notes and ask yourself why.
Secondly, this is definitely his magnum opus for posterity of all nations to read, reflect and interpret in terms of reciprocal toleration as fellow human beings so that we learn not to make unthinkable mistakes again. In many engagements there, you can witness various unimaginably ruthless deeds instigated by the powers that be, fate and godlike valour of those true Greek and Persian soldiers. Those fallen heroes including all innumerable soldiers killed in various battles deserve our respect with awe, admiration and gratitude as our exemplary models of humankind.
And finally, scholars should honour and keep him in mind since Cicero called him 'the father of history' and we can enjoy reading his second to none narrative. However, some chapters might not be interesting when he sometime told us about the flora/fauna seemingly unrelated to the looming hostilities. I take them as relaxing moments and we can learn from what he told us frankly and good-humoredly. Those ruthless war scenes, for instance from Chapter 20 onwards in Book IX, are amazingly described to the extent that we can visualize such ruthless gory scenes with increasingly stupefying horror in which it is hopelessly put into words.
That's it and I think I would reread the University of Chicago version for solace and advice in there whenever I'm free from work. It'd teach us of course to mind our own business, be kind, have mercy towards our fellow colleagues, friends, cousins, etc. since we all have limited time to live on earth.
Note: In fact, I have another Penguin copy with its front cover showing a painted vase depicting two soldiers in action (Persian vs. Greek), not this one so the page numbers as mentioned above may vary. Therefore, I've reposted my review since I don't know how to return to its previous book cover.
January 14, 2014
It wasn't just Vollmann's fourth reference to Herodotus in a span of 20 pages in Rising Up and Rising Down, it was the reality and shame that I'm in my 40s and the most I know about the war between Persia and the Hellenic city states is what I learned from the movie 300. Thus, The Histories.
First: I can't imagine what it would have been like reading these nine books by Herodotus in any format other than this simply amazingly researched and presented volume. The Landmark has to be the final word on Herodotus: the maps, the footnotes, the appendices, indices, forwards and notes - it is an astounding collection created for the layperson like me to approach a subject that is seemingly dry and yawn-worthy. But The Histories is anything but boring. At times, even page-turning, jaw-dropping awesome. When you say to your partner, "Honey, listen to this -" and then quote Herodotus, you know something amazing has happened.
Herodotus does more than just recount tales of war, he goes to great lengths to describe the culture and the history of dozens of the denizens in his world. An astounding undertaking in any age - made even more incredible given that this was written 600+ BCE. His even-handed histories and details of Persia, a nation looking to conquer and subjugate his own, is an astounding feat of scholarship and academia - even before those words had meaning.
I was so impressed with The Landmark that I purchased their publications on Thucydides and Xenophon. By the time I've finished both of those, I'll be able to play horseshit bingo the next time I watch 300.
First: I can't imagine what it would have been like reading these nine books by Herodotus in any format other than this simply amazingly researched and presented volume. The Landmark has to be the final word on Herodotus: the maps, the footnotes, the appendices, indices, forwards and notes - it is an astounding collection created for the layperson like me to approach a subject that is seemingly dry and yawn-worthy. But The Histories is anything but boring. At times, even page-turning, jaw-dropping awesome. When you say to your partner, "Honey, listen to this -" and then quote Herodotus, you know something amazing has happened.
Herodotus does more than just recount tales of war, he goes to great lengths to describe the culture and the history of dozens of the denizens in his world. An astounding undertaking in any age - made even more incredible given that this was written 600+ BCE. His even-handed histories and details of Persia, a nation looking to conquer and subjugate his own, is an astounding feat of scholarship and academia - even before those words had meaning.
I was so impressed with The Landmark that I purchased their publications on Thucydides and Xenophon. By the time I've finished both of those, I'll be able to play horseshit bingo the next time I watch 300.
April 28, 2020
Accordingly the Psylli took counsel among themselves, and by common consent made war upon the southwind---so at least the Libyans say, I do but repeat their words---they went forth and reached the desert; but there the south-wind rose and buried them under heaps of sand: whereupon, the Psylli being destroyed, their lands passed to the Nasamonians.
I read most of this edition (as opposed to the Landmark) picking up donated food for our residential component. It is a strange time. Therefore, it was perhaps appropriate that I sat in the back of van engrossed in this tome. Vacant streets signifying something amiss. My only contact on many of these sojourns was the sudden appearance of masked figures bringing out cases of produce and other foodstuffs. I believe my foundations for approaching this were typical: largely The English Patient and Persian Fire: Tom Holland's book on Thermopylae. Coincidentally, I became aware that Holland himself had translated the Histories and I admit I find that prospect intriguing.
Despite the attempts at objectivity, it is the personalities which I find fascinating: Xerxes and Leonidas are voices for the ages, however apocryphal.
I read most of this edition (as opposed to the Landmark) picking up donated food for our residential component. It is a strange time. Therefore, it was perhaps appropriate that I sat in the back of van engrossed in this tome. Vacant streets signifying something amiss. My only contact on many of these sojourns was the sudden appearance of masked figures bringing out cases of produce and other foodstuffs. I believe my foundations for approaching this were typical: largely The English Patient and Persian Fire: Tom Holland's book on Thermopylae. Coincidentally, I became aware that Holland himself had translated the Histories and I admit I find that prospect intriguing.
Despite the attempts at objectivity, it is the personalities which I find fascinating: Xerxes and Leonidas are voices for the ages, however apocryphal.
September 11, 2023
When reading this book, I was a bit obsessed, something that is not out of the ordinary for me when reading a book that I thoroughly enjoy, and I found myself incessantly offering up unsolicited little tales from the histories to friends and family, finding good use of these stories in many situations in my life, especially when someone was complaining about the present. Little consolations, you could call them. Calls to reality. Someone would say,
"Oh, thank God it’s Friday, this week has been pure hell!"
to which I would respond,
"be glad it’s not the week that the Persians came to your city like they did to Barce, whose men ended up impaled on poles around the city walls, then whose wives' breasts were cut off and pinned on the wall next to them. That sounds a little bit more hell-like to me. I mean, it’s all about perspective, right guys!?"
Or when the people in my life complained about how bad the world is today, I would shell out gruesome tales from Herodotus to remind them just how good it actually is for us in terms of pain and suffering. I found this whole sharing-of-Herodotus thing to be quite cathartic. Maybe, I should take up writing inspirational, encouraging, and consoling hallmark cards utilizing gruesome tales from ancient history. Not an entirely bad idea, I don't think. Sharing some of these stories is a wonderful way of dropping a bomb on political discourse between the right and the left too! The left complaining about oppression, justice, and inequality, brought on by the right And the right complaining about the impending doom of the apocalypse brought on by the left. It is very easy through many of these tales to bring a better perspective to both of these extreme views. But, my dad ended up asking me a question that I think is important to address, something that we should all contemplate, he was understandably annoyed I think, by the fact that I had talked about nothing else but Herodotus for several weeks, and asked, “Why should I care about this Herodotus guy at all. Who cares?”
So, as fascinating to me personally as all of these enquiries of Herodotus are, and as consoling as they are to me personally, my dad’s comment put the brakes on my excitement and got me thinking. Well, what exactly is the point to all of this? And Why should I care? All of this history is kind of pointless unless we’re able to utilize this information in some way.
So, why read Herodotus?
Or, why study history at all?
I’m gonna offer up what I think are three important reasons. That are helpful to all of mankind.
1. History teaches us to think critically
2. History helps us understand the present
3. History teaches us to be humble
History provides us with the tools to think critically, as students of history we evaluate evidence rationally and with an open-mind, letting the evidence guide us. It is obvious in the world that we live in today with constant misinformation and the seemingly ever expansive lack of critical thinking abilities employed in modern discourse that our society would largely benefit from the use of the critical thinking skills that are required of us as students of history.
History provides us with the tools to better understand the present, and through the critical analysis of past events history helps us to better maneuver future dilemmas. The famous aphorism “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” rings true in that as the Preacher of Ecclesiastes says, “There is nothing new under the sun” Humanity is sinful and broken and falls into the same old traps over and over again in new ways. History helps us to identify these patterns.
Lastly, and most importantly History teaches us to be humble. We all have the tendency to believe that we are the most important beings in the universe, that there is no time before or after our own existence that is as important as today. Especially within our consumerist, psychological, identity-based, self-focused society where we are always looking inside ourselves and zooming in on our time and what is happening immediately around us. We see the world and the events happening around us as the most important, but if we zoom out from our small existence and our small place in time, Like the psalmist was humbled when contemplating the vastness of the night sky, in Psalm 8, wondering who man is that God is mindful of him, we too will begin to be humbled when looking into the vastness of History as we contemplate the reality of our small existence in comparison to the deep space of time that expands out from the present to both past and future. As GK Chesterton said in his book, Orthodoxy: “If a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.” And the study of history does exactly that.
These first principles of history are found in abundance in Herodotus.
Herodotus (unlike most people of his time and of ours for that matter) does not see the world in terms of black and white. Bad and Good. He does not see Greece as the only ones in the universe that matter. He is aware from the research he has done, and through his contemplation of history and culture that mankind is immensely complex. That each person brings with them a different perspective and worldview seeped through with hundreds or thousands of years of cultural infusion.
He is constantly moving about from tangent to tangent due to the fact that he cannot help himself from being drawn in by these people, and places, with all of their differing customs and traditions, and in his exploration of these things, he leaves for us a sort of guide on how to navigate a complex world of differing worldviews. Something that has never been as relevant to mankind in the way that it is today. Especially in a place like the United States of America were walking down a random street in L.A. or New York, would easily provide a cultural sensory-overload as you take in differing food smells, languages, appearances of different people and imagine their accompanying worldviews. How are we to make sense of anything in a world like this?
I watched a great interview with Tom Holland whose translation of The Histories was published in 2013. He brought to my attention the exemplary tale of Cambyses who was Cyrus’s elder son. He takes over after Cyrus’ death and immediately takes on the Egyptians. He struts into Egypt following his victory over them in battle, and some of the Egyptians were worshiping a calf who they believed to be the God Apis. Cambyses is angered with the Egyptians for celebrating this calf believing that he should have received the same type of celebration. Herodotus then goes on to give us more examples of this Cambyses guy making a fool of himself. That he violated graves in Memphis, mocked the Egyptian Hephaestus in his temple and burned the Cabiri at their shrine. Making it obvious that Cambyses was a bit of a petulant tyrant.
Herodotus writes,
“[3.38] In view of all this, I have no doubt that Cambyses was completely out of his mind; it is the only possible explanation of his assault upon, and mockery of, everything which ancient law and custom have made sacred in Egypt.”
“If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably - after careful considerations of their relative merits - choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best; and that being so, it is unlikely that anyone but a madman would mock at such things. There is abundant evidence that this is the universal feeling about the ancient customs of one's country.”
What Herodotus does here through this amazing story is to show us a bit of the workings of his own mind. His empathetic perspective toward the Egyptians concerning Cambyses lack of consideration concerning the Egyptian culture and their religion. And his incredibly wise and non-partisan perspective toward all men. He understood that we all believe our cultures and customs to be the best, and that because of that Cambyses would have had to have been completely out of his mind insane to make a mockery out of someone’s beliefs.
He continues,
“One might recall, for example, an anecdote of Darius. When he was king of Persia, he summoned the Greeks who happened to be present at his court, and asked them what they would take to eat the dead bodies of their fathers. They replied that they would not do it for any money in the world. Later, in the presence of the Greeks, and through an interpreter, so that they could understand what was said, he asked some Indians of the tribe called Callatiae, who do in fact eat their parents' dead bodies, what they would take to burn them. They uttered a cry of horror and forbade him to mention such a dreadful thing. One can see by this what custom can do.”
Custom, tradition, and culture help formulate our perspective, for each one of us. Herodotus realized this, and hoped to teach others this valuable lesson. To lock ourselves into black and white thinking where we leave no room for caution and grace when dealing with fellow human beings is foolish and ignorant.
And I think I will end this review with what is another beautiful case in the latter part of the histories where Herodotus once again shows us a bit more of the workings of his mind. It is In Part 7 if I’m not mistaken when Xerxes is up on a hill looking down over the Hellespont and his vast armies, Herodotus writes of Xerxes weeping, when asked why he is crying Xerxes responds,
“There came upon me, a sudden pity when I thought of the shortness of man’s life, and considered that of all of this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years has gone by.”
And Herodotus through this passage writes into Xerxes with these words a tragic Greek perspective, exemplifying an empathetic view of the great Persian that brought about the destruction of Greece, and showed him to be a man of wisdom who like Herodotus understood from the contemplation of time and history, something that King David of Israel, and The preacher of Ecclesiastes, Homer, Sophocles, etc, all contemplated as well, which is the great futility of human endeavors when viewed through long scope of History.
I for one am glad that Herodotus wrote this book, and started this wonderful western tradition of research and enquiry concerning past events, and I hope that just as it effected Herodotus’ worldview and perspective to be more open-minded and humble toward his fellow man, the study of history would likewise do the same for all of us who enjoy to peer back into the annals of the past. May we defy the age that we live in, and step out of the increasingly polarized dialogue of modern politics to contemplate the immense complexity of the age we live in, may we be graceful to people who think differently than ourselves, and may we be humbled to think about all of the ways in which our existence is fleeting and our human endeavors are futile.
"Oh, thank God it’s Friday, this week has been pure hell!"
to which I would respond,
"be glad it’s not the week that the Persians came to your city like they did to Barce, whose men ended up impaled on poles around the city walls, then whose wives' breasts were cut off and pinned on the wall next to them. That sounds a little bit more hell-like to me. I mean, it’s all about perspective, right guys!?"
Or when the people in my life complained about how bad the world is today, I would shell out gruesome tales from Herodotus to remind them just how good it actually is for us in terms of pain and suffering. I found this whole sharing-of-Herodotus thing to be quite cathartic. Maybe, I should take up writing inspirational, encouraging, and consoling hallmark cards utilizing gruesome tales from ancient history. Not an entirely bad idea, I don't think. Sharing some of these stories is a wonderful way of dropping a bomb on political discourse between the right and the left too! The left complaining about oppression, justice, and inequality, brought on by the right And the right complaining about the impending doom of the apocalypse brought on by the left. It is very easy through many of these tales to bring a better perspective to both of these extreme views. But, my dad ended up asking me a question that I think is important to address, something that we should all contemplate, he was understandably annoyed I think, by the fact that I had talked about nothing else but Herodotus for several weeks, and asked, “Why should I care about this Herodotus guy at all. Who cares?”
So, as fascinating to me personally as all of these enquiries of Herodotus are, and as consoling as they are to me personally, my dad’s comment put the brakes on my excitement and got me thinking. Well, what exactly is the point to all of this? And Why should I care? All of this history is kind of pointless unless we’re able to utilize this information in some way.
So, why read Herodotus?
Or, why study history at all?
I’m gonna offer up what I think are three important reasons. That are helpful to all of mankind.
1. History teaches us to think critically
2. History helps us understand the present
3. History teaches us to be humble
History provides us with the tools to think critically, as students of history we evaluate evidence rationally and with an open-mind, letting the evidence guide us. It is obvious in the world that we live in today with constant misinformation and the seemingly ever expansive lack of critical thinking abilities employed in modern discourse that our society would largely benefit from the use of the critical thinking skills that are required of us as students of history.
History provides us with the tools to better understand the present, and through the critical analysis of past events history helps us to better maneuver future dilemmas. The famous aphorism “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” rings true in that as the Preacher of Ecclesiastes says, “There is nothing new under the sun” Humanity is sinful and broken and falls into the same old traps over and over again in new ways. History helps us to identify these patterns.
Lastly, and most importantly History teaches us to be humble. We all have the tendency to believe that we are the most important beings in the universe, that there is no time before or after our own existence that is as important as today. Especially within our consumerist, psychological, identity-based, self-focused society where we are always looking inside ourselves and zooming in on our time and what is happening immediately around us. We see the world and the events happening around us as the most important, but if we zoom out from our small existence and our small place in time, Like the psalmist was humbled when contemplating the vastness of the night sky, in Psalm 8, wondering who man is that God is mindful of him, we too will begin to be humbled when looking into the vastness of History as we contemplate the reality of our small existence in comparison to the deep space of time that expands out from the present to both past and future. As GK Chesterton said in his book, Orthodoxy: “If a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.” And the study of history does exactly that.
These first principles of history are found in abundance in Herodotus.
Herodotus (unlike most people of his time and of ours for that matter) does not see the world in terms of black and white. Bad and Good. He does not see Greece as the only ones in the universe that matter. He is aware from the research he has done, and through his contemplation of history and culture that mankind is immensely complex. That each person brings with them a different perspective and worldview seeped through with hundreds or thousands of years of cultural infusion.
He is constantly moving about from tangent to tangent due to the fact that he cannot help himself from being drawn in by these people, and places, with all of their differing customs and traditions, and in his exploration of these things, he leaves for us a sort of guide on how to navigate a complex world of differing worldviews. Something that has never been as relevant to mankind in the way that it is today. Especially in a place like the United States of America were walking down a random street in L.A. or New York, would easily provide a cultural sensory-overload as you take in differing food smells, languages, appearances of different people and imagine their accompanying worldviews. How are we to make sense of anything in a world like this?
I watched a great interview with Tom Holland whose translation of The Histories was published in 2013. He brought to my attention the exemplary tale of Cambyses who was Cyrus’s elder son. He takes over after Cyrus’ death and immediately takes on the Egyptians. He struts into Egypt following his victory over them in battle, and some of the Egyptians were worshiping a calf who they believed to be the God Apis. Cambyses is angered with the Egyptians for celebrating this calf believing that he should have received the same type of celebration. Herodotus then goes on to give us more examples of this Cambyses guy making a fool of himself. That he violated graves in Memphis, mocked the Egyptian Hephaestus in his temple and burned the Cabiri at their shrine. Making it obvious that Cambyses was a bit of a petulant tyrant.
Herodotus writes,
“[3.38] In view of all this, I have no doubt that Cambyses was completely out of his mind; it is the only possible explanation of his assault upon, and mockery of, everything which ancient law and custom have made sacred in Egypt.”
“If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably - after careful considerations of their relative merits - choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best; and that being so, it is unlikely that anyone but a madman would mock at such things. There is abundant evidence that this is the universal feeling about the ancient customs of one's country.”
What Herodotus does here through this amazing story is to show us a bit of the workings of his own mind. His empathetic perspective toward the Egyptians concerning Cambyses lack of consideration concerning the Egyptian culture and their religion. And his incredibly wise and non-partisan perspective toward all men. He understood that we all believe our cultures and customs to be the best, and that because of that Cambyses would have had to have been completely out of his mind insane to make a mockery out of someone’s beliefs.
He continues,
“One might recall, for example, an anecdote of Darius. When he was king of Persia, he summoned the Greeks who happened to be present at his court, and asked them what they would take to eat the dead bodies of their fathers. They replied that they would not do it for any money in the world. Later, in the presence of the Greeks, and through an interpreter, so that they could understand what was said, he asked some Indians of the tribe called Callatiae, who do in fact eat their parents' dead bodies, what they would take to burn them. They uttered a cry of horror and forbade him to mention such a dreadful thing. One can see by this what custom can do.”
Custom, tradition, and culture help formulate our perspective, for each one of us. Herodotus realized this, and hoped to teach others this valuable lesson. To lock ourselves into black and white thinking where we leave no room for caution and grace when dealing with fellow human beings is foolish and ignorant.
And I think I will end this review with what is another beautiful case in the latter part of the histories where Herodotus once again shows us a bit more of the workings of his mind. It is In Part 7 if I’m not mistaken when Xerxes is up on a hill looking down over the Hellespont and his vast armies, Herodotus writes of Xerxes weeping, when asked why he is crying Xerxes responds,
“There came upon me, a sudden pity when I thought of the shortness of man’s life, and considered that of all of this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years has gone by.”
And Herodotus through this passage writes into Xerxes with these words a tragic Greek perspective, exemplifying an empathetic view of the great Persian that brought about the destruction of Greece, and showed him to be a man of wisdom who like Herodotus understood from the contemplation of time and history, something that King David of Israel, and The preacher of Ecclesiastes, Homer, Sophocles, etc, all contemplated as well, which is the great futility of human endeavors when viewed through long scope of History.
I for one am glad that Herodotus wrote this book, and started this wonderful western tradition of research and enquiry concerning past events, and I hope that just as it effected Herodotus’ worldview and perspective to be more open-minded and humble toward his fellow man, the study of history would likewise do the same for all of us who enjoy to peer back into the annals of the past. May we defy the age that we live in, and step out of the increasingly polarized dialogue of modern politics to contemplate the immense complexity of the age we live in, may we be graceful to people who think differently than ourselves, and may we be humbled to think about all of the ways in which our existence is fleeting and our human endeavors are futile.
March 19, 2018
What I read: Histories by Herodotus
What I expected: Thucydides + Persians
What I got: Mountable battle dolphins
The complete discography of Kid Rock
Eyewitness testimony that Ethiopians produce pitch black semen (no homo)
"Our flying snakes will block out the sun!"
On all levels except physical I am a Mede *Whips the sea*
"Herodotus can I borrow 100,000 Persians?" "1,000,000 Persians? What do you need 5,000,000 Persians for?"
The Virgin Greek pederasty, the Chad Persian piss fetish
What I expected: Thucydides + Persians
What I got: Mountable battle dolphins
The complete discography of Kid Rock
Eyewitness testimony that Ethiopians produce pitch black semen (no homo)
"Our flying snakes will block out the sun!"
On all levels except physical I am a Mede *Whips the sea*
"Herodotus can I borrow 100,000 Persians?" "1,000,000 Persians? What do you need 5,000,000 Persians for?"
The Virgin Greek pederasty, the Chad Persian piss fetish
July 3, 2016
دوستانِ گرانقدر، با آنکه زنده یاد «هرودوت» این مورخ نامی، در برخی از اخباری که ارائه نموده، در مورد ایران خصمانه برخورد کرده و در جاهایی نیز نوشته هایش بسیار با واقعیت فاصله دارد، امّا در هر حال میتوان گفت که یکی از کتبِ تاریخی مرجع میباشد که برخی از اخبار و رویدادهایی که نوشته، تنها در همین کتاب یافت میشود... این مورخ نامی زحمات بسیار زیادی برای بر جای ماندن تاریخ برای انسانهای امروزی کشیده است و مشکل فقط و فقط همان تحریف هایی است که بعضاً به دلیل دشمنی دیرینه با ایرانیان، وارد اخبارش کرده است... البته اخباری را که تحریف شده است را اگر بر تاریخ ایران تسلط داشته باشید، به خوبی متوجه میشوید.. به گونه ای که در هرکجا که ایرانیان یا فلان پادشاه ایرانی را کوچک انگاشته، بدانید که کینه و بداندیشی از سوی «هرودوت»، در پشتِ آن رویداد و خبر، نهفته است
درکل، به عنوان مکمل میتواند کتاب مناسبی جهت فهم تاریخ سرزمینمان و همچنین تاریخ یونانیان و رومیان باشد
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
در بند 141 از تاریخ «هرودوت» اخباری از «کوروش بزرگ» نوشته شده که بدون تردید از خواندن آن لذت میبرید و به شعور و خرد نیاکانمان افتخار میکنید
در بند 141 نوشته: یونانیانِ این سرزمین (منظور آسیای صغیر بوده است) که مغلوبِ «کوروش» شده بودند، سفیری نزد او فرستادند و تقاضا کردند که با آنها به همان نحو رفتار کند که با پادشاه مغلوبِ لیدیه (کرزوس) رفتار کرده بود. یعنی در امور داخلی آنها دخالت نکند و همان امتیازها را برایشان بشناسد. «کوروش» جواب مستقیمی به آنها نداد، ولی این مثال را برایشان آورد: نی زنی به کنار دریا رفت و دید ماهی هایِ خوشرنگ در آب شنا میکنند. پیش خود گفت: اگر نی بزنم یقیناً اینها به خشکی خواهند آمد. ولی چندان که نی زد، اثری از ماهیها نیافت... پس توری برداشت و به دریا افکند و عده ای از ماهیها در آن افتادند... وقتیکه ماهیها در تور میجستند و می افتادند، نی زن گفت: حالا بیهوده می رقصید، میبایست آنوقت که نی میزدم میرقصیدید.(رقصیده باشید)...پایان
یاد «کوروش»، آن ایرانی بزرگ و خردمند، تا همیشه زنده و پاینده باد
«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»
درکل، به عنوان مکمل میتواند کتاب مناسبی جهت فهم تاریخ سرزمینمان و همچنین تاریخ یونانیان و رومیان باشد
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
در بند 141 از تاریخ «هرودوت» اخباری از «کوروش بزرگ» نوشته شده که بدون تردید از خواندن آن لذت میبرید و به شعور و خرد نیاکانمان افتخار میکنید
در بند 141 نوشته: یونانیانِ این سرزمین (منظور آسیای صغیر بوده است) که مغلوبِ «کوروش» شده بودند، سفیری نزد او فرستادند و تقاضا کردند که با آنها به همان نحو رفتار کند که با پادشاه مغلوبِ لیدیه (کرزوس) رفتار کرده بود. یعنی در امور داخلی آنها دخالت نکند و همان امتیازها را برایشان بشناسد. «کوروش» جواب مستقیمی به آنها نداد، ولی این مثال را برایشان آورد: نی زنی به کنار دریا رفت و دید ماهی هایِ خوشرنگ در آب شنا میکنند. پیش خود گفت: اگر نی بزنم یقیناً اینها به خشکی خواهند آمد. ولی چندان که نی زد، اثری از ماهیها نیافت... پس توری برداشت و به دریا افکند و عده ای از ماهیها در آن افتادند... وقتیکه ماهیها در تور میجستند و می افتادند، نی زن گفت: حالا بیهوده می رقصید، میبایست آنوقت که نی میزدم میرقصیدید.(رقصیده باشید)...پایان
یاد «کوروش»، آن ایرانی بزرگ و خردمند، تا همیشه زنده و پاینده باد
«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»
September 27, 2019
One of the surprising things about this book is that, despite its antiquity, the author’s personality comes through. Of course I’m hearing his voice through translation, but I couldn’t help but imagine that I was on the listening end of an extended conversation with the book’s narrator who had traveled widely, met many people, and read much. The book’s narrative sounds almost conversational with numerous digressions and detours that indicate extensive knowledge of the background of the characters and incidents being described. I almost feel like I’ve met the author who lived nearly 2.5 thousand years ago.
This book is generally recognized as the founding work of history in Wester literature. Published around 425 BC, the year the author died, it recounts the traditions, politics, geography, and wars of that era. The actual writing of the work had probably stretched over a number of prior years. The work is divided into nine books beginning with founding myths and Trojan War and proceeding through Greek history until the second Persian invasion.
It’s interesting to note that the second Persian invasion occurred approximately fifty-five years prior to the publishing of this account. Those intervening years were the zenith of the golden years of Ancient Greece during which Athens dominated over the other Greek city states. However, the beginning rebellions of what later became known as the Peloponnesian War (431 BC – 404 BC) were underway.
LINK to my review of History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides.
LINK to my review of Herodotus: The Father of History, by Elizabeth Vandiver (24 lectures)
Postscript added Sept 24, 2019:
One story told by Herodotus I found of particular interest—he reported being told of a Phoenician ship that circumnavigated around Africa (a.k.a. Libya in Herodotus’ era). This would have occurred about 2,000 years prior to Vasco da Gama. I was amazed to learn this, but Herodotus referenced the incident only as a reason for concluding that Africa was a smaller continent than Europe. Herodotus said the Phoenicians reported that the sun passed to the north of the ship while they were in the southern part of Africa—Herodotus believed this to be impossible. Ironically, Herodotus referenced the report of a northern sun as a reason for doubting to whole story, whereas today we recognize it as a reason to conclude that the reported circumnavigation to be credible.
This book is generally recognized as the founding work of history in Wester literature. Published around 425 BC, the year the author died, it recounts the traditions, politics, geography, and wars of that era. The actual writing of the work had probably stretched over a number of prior years. The work is divided into nine books beginning with founding myths and Trojan War and proceeding through Greek history until the second Persian invasion.
It’s interesting to note that the second Persian invasion occurred approximately fifty-five years prior to the publishing of this account. Those intervening years were the zenith of the golden years of Ancient Greece during which Athens dominated over the other Greek city states. However, the beginning rebellions of what later became known as the Peloponnesian War (431 BC – 404 BC) were underway.
LINK to my review of History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides.
LINK to my review of Herodotus: The Father of History, by Elizabeth Vandiver (24 lectures)
Postscript added Sept 24, 2019:
One story told by Herodotus I found of particular interest—he reported being told of a Phoenician ship that circumnavigated around Africa (a.k.a. Libya in Herodotus’ era). This would have occurred about 2,000 years prior to Vasco da Gama. I was amazed to learn this, but Herodotus referenced the incident only as a reason for concluding that Africa was a smaller continent than Europe. Herodotus said the Phoenicians reported that the sun passed to the north of the ship while they were in the southern part of Africa—Herodotus believed this to be impossible. Ironically, Herodotus referenced the report of a northern sun as a reason for doubting to whole story, whereas today we recognize it as a reason to conclude that the reported circumnavigation to be credible.
May 19, 2019
Unreal book, at the intersection of Greek, Lydian, Persian and Egyptian history, and at the intersection of history and legend. Full of fascinating anecdotes and surmises, signs and wonders.
April 28, 2017
Years ago, I was on jury duty in LA. This was back when jury duty largely consisted of waiting around in a large room each day for a week. I brought along a copy of The Histories (the Rawlinson translation published by Everyman's Library) and found myself engrossed by all the stories, tall tales, gossip, rumors, etc. It's a wonderful panoply that's on offer here! Sure, Herodotus was criticized by many for not writing "facts," but the power of stories is far greater, and he knew it.
August 3, 2016
لم تكن تلك فكرتي عن (تاريخ هيرودوت) قبل قراءتي له ، كنت أطنه أكثر علمية من ذاك لكثرة ماتم الإستشهاد به و الرجوع إليه أكاديميا
***
حكايات لطيفة و مشوقة على أي حال :) ، و من أكثر حكاياته التي لفتت ناظري حكاية قمبيز مع ملك إثيوبيا ...، و
(الأمازونيات)
كنموذج من النماذج الأنثوية الفريدة في التاريخ القديم
***
حكايات لطيفة و مشوقة على أي حال :) ، و من أكثر حكاياته التي لفتت ناظري حكاية قمبيز مع ملك إثيوبيا ...، و
(الأمازونيات)
كنموذج من النماذج الأنثوية الفريدة في التاريخ القديم
February 16, 2022
“Herodotus was the Father of History.” Fans of The English Patient will remember how often the main character, the enigmatic Hungarian count-turned-archaeologist László de Almásy, utters those words (quoting Cicero in the process). Indeed, Almásy’s personal copy of Herodotus’ Histories, with mementoes from various periods of his life pasted inside, becomes the key to his story of an ill-fated love affair amidst the turmoil of war. And more than 2000 years after Herodotus of Halicarnassus first set down his history of the major states and empires of the Mediterranean basin from the beginnings of recorded history, students of history still turn to Herodotus to learn how history should be written. The Father of History he remains.
When Herodotus wrote the Histories in 440 B.C., the Persian Wars were just forty years in the past, like the Vietnam conflict for Americans today; accordingly, it is no surprise that Herodotus opens the Histories by describing the thematic terms in which he plans to frame his work of history:
“Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not be forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds – some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians – may not be without their glory; and especially to explain why the two peoples fought with each other.” (p. 3)
Please note that Herodotus is engaging in a task of inquiry-based learning. Like all the good historians who have come after him, he is not starting with an axe to grind; he plans to ask questions and see where the factually correct and truthful answers take him. He focuses upon observable facts from his time – the recent conflict between Greek and non-Greek states, and specifically between Greece and Persia – and works to ascertain where the original causes of those conflicts may be found. The reader notes also Herodotus’ determination to be fair-minded, and to assign credit or blame wherever it is legitimately due.
Herodotus was not only a diligent researcher but also a seasoned traveler; accordingly, he writes with the authority of lived experience and observation in passages like the one where he comments on what various writers have claimed regarding the Nile River in Egypt: “I have observed for myself that Egypt at the Nile Delta projects into the sea beyond the coast on either side; I have seen shells on the hills and noticed how salt exudes from the soil to such an extent that it affects even the pyramids” (p. 99).
Herodotus offers comparably extensive description of local customs, as when he describes various tribes of Libya. The women of the Adrymachidae “wear a bronze ring on each leg, and grow their hair long; when they catch a bug on their persons, they give it bite for bite before throwing it away” (p. 299). The Macae, by contrast, “wear their hair in the form of a crest, shaving it close on either side of the head and letting it grow long in the middle; in war they carry ostrich skins for shields” (p. 301).
Among the many features of classical historiography that Herodotus seems to have given the world is the tradition of reproducing important speeches at full length, even when it is not clear who the contemporary authority for the speech is, or how accurately the speech was transcribed. A characteristic example occurs when the Achaemenid emperor Cambyses II responds to a prophecy that someone named Smerdis will usurp the throne by having his own brother Smerdis murdered – only to learn afterwards that a real rebellion against him is being fomented by two Magi, one of whose name is Smerdis! Fatally wounded by an accidental sword injury, Cambyses still has time to give a long speech in which, among other things, he takes responsibility for what he has done: “Failing to grasp the true nature of what was in store for me, I murdered my brother for nothing, and have lost my kingdom just the same” (p. 199).
For modern readers, a highlight of the Histories is likely to be Herodotus’ account of how the Athenians under the leadership of Miltiades defeated the Persians at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Herodotus’ pride in the Athenians’ valour is palpable in passages like the one where he describes how “the Athenians came on, closed with the enemy all along the line, and fought in a way not to be forgotten; they were the first Greeks, so far as we know, to charge at a run, and the first who dared to look without flinching at Persian dress and the men who wore it; for until that day came, no Greek could hear even the word ‘Persian’ without terror” (p. 401).
Reading that passage made me think of how many American historians of the Revolutionary War, particularly during the early 19th century, emphasized the way Americans' hearts swelled with pride as George Washington’s Continental Army showed itself capable of standing up to tough British regulars in the war’s early battles such as Lexington/Concord and Bunker Hill. No doubt those historians had read their Herodotus as part of their classical education; consciously or unconsciously, they emulated Herodotus’ structure and approach in their own work. True, the casualty figures that Herodotus cites for the battle of Marathon – 6400 casualties for the Persians, to only 192 for the Athenians – may seem, from the Greek perspective, too good to be true; but the historical importance of the event, and of the way in which Herodotus recounted the event, nonetheless remains evident.
(Please note, however, that you will not find in Herodotus the well-known story of Pheidippides, the courier who is said to have made the 26-mile, 385-yard-long run from Marathon to Athens, gasping out to the waiting Athenians the words “Joy to you, we’ve won!” before falling dead. For that story, you must go to the Roman author Lucian, writing 500 years later.)
Herodotus’ account of how the Spartans, under the leadership of their warrior-king Leonidas, defended the pass of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., at the height of the Second Persian War, is another highlight of the Histories that is likely to resonate with many modern readers, especially in this era when the Spartan heroes of the Frank Miller graphic novel 300 (1998) and its two film adaptations have established a firm foothold in modern popular culture. Herodotus emphasizes the arrogance of the Persian emperor Xerxes in dismissing the warnings of the exiled Spartan king Demaratus that “You have now to deal with the finest kingdom in Greece, and with the bravest men” (p. 489). (Xerxes comes across as a thoroughly evil man in the Histories; the story of the cruelty he inflicted when his passion for the wife of his brother Masistes went unfulfilled is blood-chilling.)
One of the finest passages of narrative and descriptive writing in the Histories – one that has no doubt inspired many writers of military history in the 2400 years since Herodotus composed this work – sets forth the climax of the battle of Thermopylae, after the Spartans have been betrayed by one Ephialtes, a Greek who showed the Persians a mountain track that would enable them to render the defence of the pass impossible:
“As the Persian army advanced to the assault, the Greeks under Leonidas, knowing that they were going to their deaths, went out into the wider part of the pass much further than they had done before; in the previous days’ fighting they had been holding the wall and making sorties from behind it into the narrow neck, but now they fought outside the narrows. Many of the barbarians fell; behind them the company commanders plied their whips indiscriminately, driving the men on. Many fell into the sea and were drowned, and still more were trampled to death by one another. No one could count the number of the dead. The Greeks, who knew that the enemy were on their way round by the mountain track and that death was inevitable, put forth all their strength and fought with fury and desperation. By this time most of their spears were broken, and they were killing Persians with their swords. In the course of that fight Leonidas fell, having fought most gallantly…” (pp. 493-94)
And Herodotus includes the epitaphs inscribed at Thermopylae after the Greek victory in the war – one that has been reproduced as a modern stone inscription, for present-day visitors to the pass:
Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
“Go tell the Spartans, you who read:
We took their orders, and here lie dead.” (p. 495)
It is perhaps the most famous passage in all the Histories, and one that has unquestionably had a profound influence on the way later historians have written about similar battles in later years. For American readers, the battles of the Alamo and the Little Bighorn are likely to stand out as relevant examples.
The continuing influence of Herodotus’ Histories can be easily seen in many areas of modern life. Students of the American Civil War, for example, will recall that Shelby Foote, in composing his epic three-volume history The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-74), consciously drew upon his own reading of Herodotus in crafting a work of history that is truly Herodotean in its storytelling sweep and stylistic grace.
And because I grew up in Cold War times, I recall how often American leaders during the Cold War spoke of an “inevitable conflict” between West and East, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. And I wonder how many of those leaders had read their Herodotus and had been influenced by his presentation of the “inevitable conflicts” of his time – between West and East, between Hellenes and “barbarians,” between the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire. As long as the history of nations and their wars is set down, Herodotus and his Histories will continue to exert that sort of influence.
When Herodotus wrote the Histories in 440 B.C., the Persian Wars were just forty years in the past, like the Vietnam conflict for Americans today; accordingly, it is no surprise that Herodotus opens the Histories by describing the thematic terms in which he plans to frame his work of history:
“Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not be forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds – some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians – may not be without their glory; and especially to explain why the two peoples fought with each other.” (p. 3)
Please note that Herodotus is engaging in a task of inquiry-based learning. Like all the good historians who have come after him, he is not starting with an axe to grind; he plans to ask questions and see where the factually correct and truthful answers take him. He focuses upon observable facts from his time – the recent conflict between Greek and non-Greek states, and specifically between Greece and Persia – and works to ascertain where the original causes of those conflicts may be found. The reader notes also Herodotus’ determination to be fair-minded, and to assign credit or blame wherever it is legitimately due.
Herodotus was not only a diligent researcher but also a seasoned traveler; accordingly, he writes with the authority of lived experience and observation in passages like the one where he comments on what various writers have claimed regarding the Nile River in Egypt: “I have observed for myself that Egypt at the Nile Delta projects into the sea beyond the coast on either side; I have seen shells on the hills and noticed how salt exudes from the soil to such an extent that it affects even the pyramids” (p. 99).
Herodotus offers comparably extensive description of local customs, as when he describes various tribes of Libya. The women of the Adrymachidae “wear a bronze ring on each leg, and grow their hair long; when they catch a bug on their persons, they give it bite for bite before throwing it away” (p. 299). The Macae, by contrast, “wear their hair in the form of a crest, shaving it close on either side of the head and letting it grow long in the middle; in war they carry ostrich skins for shields” (p. 301).
Among the many features of classical historiography that Herodotus seems to have given the world is the tradition of reproducing important speeches at full length, even when it is not clear who the contemporary authority for the speech is, or how accurately the speech was transcribed. A characteristic example occurs when the Achaemenid emperor Cambyses II responds to a prophecy that someone named Smerdis will usurp the throne by having his own brother Smerdis murdered – only to learn afterwards that a real rebellion against him is being fomented by two Magi, one of whose name is Smerdis! Fatally wounded by an accidental sword injury, Cambyses still has time to give a long speech in which, among other things, he takes responsibility for what he has done: “Failing to grasp the true nature of what was in store for me, I murdered my brother for nothing, and have lost my kingdom just the same” (p. 199).
For modern readers, a highlight of the Histories is likely to be Herodotus’ account of how the Athenians under the leadership of Miltiades defeated the Persians at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Herodotus’ pride in the Athenians’ valour is palpable in passages like the one where he describes how “the Athenians came on, closed with the enemy all along the line, and fought in a way not to be forgotten; they were the first Greeks, so far as we know, to charge at a run, and the first who dared to look without flinching at Persian dress and the men who wore it; for until that day came, no Greek could hear even the word ‘Persian’ without terror” (p. 401).
Reading that passage made me think of how many American historians of the Revolutionary War, particularly during the early 19th century, emphasized the way Americans' hearts swelled with pride as George Washington’s Continental Army showed itself capable of standing up to tough British regulars in the war’s early battles such as Lexington/Concord and Bunker Hill. No doubt those historians had read their Herodotus as part of their classical education; consciously or unconsciously, they emulated Herodotus’ structure and approach in their own work. True, the casualty figures that Herodotus cites for the battle of Marathon – 6400 casualties for the Persians, to only 192 for the Athenians – may seem, from the Greek perspective, too good to be true; but the historical importance of the event, and of the way in which Herodotus recounted the event, nonetheless remains evident.
(Please note, however, that you will not find in Herodotus the well-known story of Pheidippides, the courier who is said to have made the 26-mile, 385-yard-long run from Marathon to Athens, gasping out to the waiting Athenians the words “Joy to you, we’ve won!” before falling dead. For that story, you must go to the Roman author Lucian, writing 500 years later.)
Herodotus’ account of how the Spartans, under the leadership of their warrior-king Leonidas, defended the pass of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., at the height of the Second Persian War, is another highlight of the Histories that is likely to resonate with many modern readers, especially in this era when the Spartan heroes of the Frank Miller graphic novel 300 (1998) and its two film adaptations have established a firm foothold in modern popular culture. Herodotus emphasizes the arrogance of the Persian emperor Xerxes in dismissing the warnings of the exiled Spartan king Demaratus that “You have now to deal with the finest kingdom in Greece, and with the bravest men” (p. 489). (Xerxes comes across as a thoroughly evil man in the Histories; the story of the cruelty he inflicted when his passion for the wife of his brother Masistes went unfulfilled is blood-chilling.)
One of the finest passages of narrative and descriptive writing in the Histories – one that has no doubt inspired many writers of military history in the 2400 years since Herodotus composed this work – sets forth the climax of the battle of Thermopylae, after the Spartans have been betrayed by one Ephialtes, a Greek who showed the Persians a mountain track that would enable them to render the defence of the pass impossible:
“As the Persian army advanced to the assault, the Greeks under Leonidas, knowing that they were going to their deaths, went out into the wider part of the pass much further than they had done before; in the previous days’ fighting they had been holding the wall and making sorties from behind it into the narrow neck, but now they fought outside the narrows. Many of the barbarians fell; behind them the company commanders plied their whips indiscriminately, driving the men on. Many fell into the sea and were drowned, and still more were trampled to death by one another. No one could count the number of the dead. The Greeks, who knew that the enemy were on their way round by the mountain track and that death was inevitable, put forth all their strength and fought with fury and desperation. By this time most of their spears were broken, and they were killing Persians with their swords. In the course of that fight Leonidas fell, having fought most gallantly…” (pp. 493-94)
And Herodotus includes the epitaphs inscribed at Thermopylae after the Greek victory in the war – one that has been reproduced as a modern stone inscription, for present-day visitors to the pass:
Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
“Go tell the Spartans, you who read:
We took their orders, and here lie dead.” (p. 495)
It is perhaps the most famous passage in all the Histories, and one that has unquestionably had a profound influence on the way later historians have written about similar battles in later years. For American readers, the battles of the Alamo and the Little Bighorn are likely to stand out as relevant examples.
The continuing influence of Herodotus’ Histories can be easily seen in many areas of modern life. Students of the American Civil War, for example, will recall that Shelby Foote, in composing his epic three-volume history The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-74), consciously drew upon his own reading of Herodotus in crafting a work of history that is truly Herodotean in its storytelling sweep and stylistic grace.
And because I grew up in Cold War times, I recall how often American leaders during the Cold War spoke of an “inevitable conflict” between West and East, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. And I wonder how many of those leaders had read their Herodotus and had been influenced by his presentation of the “inevitable conflicts” of his time – between West and East, between Hellenes and “barbarians,” between the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire. As long as the history of nations and their wars is set down, Herodotus and his Histories will continue to exert that sort of influence.
February 18, 2021
Herodot - turista i istoričar? Nije baš pravedno predstaviti ga u ovakvom redosledu, ali da je putovao, putovao je... Zamišljam te avanture pešice, na konjima, zapregama, brodovima… Koliko vremena da se stigne na sva ta mesta, a bilo je i opasno. Egipćani nisu ni želeli da putuju velikim plavim morem, držali su se Nila, a ni Grci se nisu oduševljavali kad se udalje od obala. Herodot ne samo da je proputovao Grčku, posetio Skitiju, već je dospeo do Persije, proveo par meseci u Egiptu, stigao i do južnih egipatskih oblasti, današnjeg Sudana.
Ovog fascinantnog Grka, rođenog 484 p.n.e. u današnjem Bodrumu, Ciceron je nazvao Otac istorije, a Plutarh Otac laži. Tek ovo je nepravedno - njegova zadužbina u obliku Istorije je kolosalna. Koliko je Herodot danas citiran, može da znači da bi bez njega gomila istorijskih činjenica bila izgubljena. O Skitima skoro da i nema drugih zapisa, čitava istorija jednog vremena ne bi postojala. Da je neki Herodot posetio stare Slovene...
Neki njegovi zapisi jesu u najmanju ruku nesigurni, ali ja imam pomalo romantičarski (naivan?) pogled na to. Sigurno nije namerno prenosio neistine, već je skupljao informacije i preneo dalje. Ponekad su priče pojednostavljene, umesto istorijskih dokumenata dobijamo seriju anekdota, ali ovo jeste sjajan pogled na grčku istoriju, mentalitet tog (i drugih) naroda. A opisom običaja dobijamo ne samo početak istorije, već i početak etnografije.
A kad sam već kod te reke anekdota, ona znači i da se ovo čita kao literatura. Nema suvoparnog prenosa činjenica, ovo su priče koje te zovu da im se vratiš. Teško se zaboravlja priča o odrastanju persijskog vladara Kira Velikog ili o tome kako je Kserks kaznio lokalnog vladara koji je molio da mu ne odvede svih pet sinova u rat (presekao ih na pola i proterao celu persijsku armiju putem između njih).
Istorija je podeljena u devet knjiga koje simpatično nose imena devet muza, a počinju pričom o kralju Krasu iz kraljevstva Lidija, kao početku evropsko-azijskog konflikta, a Kras se kasnije neočekivano pojavljuje na nekoliko mesta. Grci protiv Varvara (“barbari” su tako nazvani pošto su Grci njihov govor razumeli samo kao “bar bar bar”, a tako su nazivali sve ne-Helene). Nastavlja usponom Persijskog carstva pa dugačkim putovanjem u Egipat.
Ima iz tog dela o Egiptu interesantna pričica koja govori o Herodotovoj oduševljenosti detaljima, ali i o njegovoj naivnosti. Obilazi tako sa svojim vodičima groblje i nailazi na razbacane kosti i lobanje. Ovo se dešava pedesetak godina nakon velike bitke na tom mestu, a kad upita svoje vodiče kakve su to kosti, odgovaraju mu da su ostale tu nakon bitke. Pedeset godina kasnije? Već i ovo navodi na sumnju, ali sledi još nerazumnije objašnjenje - pogledajte kako Egipćani imaju deblje lobanje, pošto su navikli da nose šlemove i kape, dok Persijanci imaju tanke lobanje zato što hodaju gologlavi, pa im sunčevi zraci tanje kosti.
U Egiptu se bavi i pogrešnim prevodom hijeroglifa na piramidama, pa tako ti znakovi navodno govore o tome šta su radnici jeli i pili za vreme gradnje istih, što nema nikakve veze sa stvarnim prevodom. Moguće da je vodič bio nepismen, nije hteo to da prizna, pa je izmišljao dok su išli? Ipak, proces mumificiranja je opisan dosta verno i pošto egipatski mumifikatori nisu ostavljali nikakve zapise o tom procesu (valjda su ljubomorno čuvali znanje u okviru branše), ispada da je Herodotovo upustvo za mumifikaciju najbolje koje imamo.
U poslednjoj trećini Istorije, Herodot se vraća u Grčku i tu sledi klimaks - grčko-persijski ratovi. Ovo je zapis o tada skorijoj istoriji, o događajima od pre par decenija, kao kad bismo danas pisali o o ratu u Vijetnamu. Imao je mnogo izvora, preživelih svedoka, sigurno i zapisa iz tog doba. Prvi put imamo delo koje se bavi skorašnjim događajima umesto o legendama. Jonska pobuna protiv Persijanaca, pa manje bitke koje slede i prvi vrhunac sa atinskom pobedom kod Maratona (490 p.n.e.). Nakon Darijeve smrti, detaljna priča o velikom Kserksovom pohodu u kom želi da kazni Atinjane za nesreću svog oca. Nakon junačkog poraza Spartanaca kod Termopila, Atinjani nekim čudom (može se reći ni sami ne znaju kako) uspevaju da poraze persijsku flotu u pomorskoj bitci kod Salamine 480 p.n.e. Ako je antička grčka civilizacija temelj evropske i generalno zapadne civilizacije, koliko bi samo evropska istorija bila drugačija da nisu?
Ima i ovde stvari kojima na prvi pogled nije mesto u istorijskom delu. Uticaj bogova, na primer. Na trenutke je kao da čitaš Ilijadu, pa su ljudi u glavnim ulogama, ali bogovi redovno intervenišu i povlače niti. Čak i kad ne tvrdi da je neki događaj posledica odluke božanstva, ne postoji velika odluke koja nije donešena na osnovu žrtve bogovima i toga “da li je žrtva bila ugodna”. Uzmeš kozu ili bika, zavisno koliko je veliko pitnaje, žrtvuješ ga, onda je seciraš i na osnovu toga kako izgledaju jetra ili srce, proceniš da li treba da primiš bitku ili da se povučeš.
Ali čak i ti religiozni izveštaji diraju u srce. Detaljan opis dana koji prethode bitci kod Salamine govori kako Atinjani šalju ambasadore u proročište u Delfima kako bi proverili šta da rade povodom nadolazeće persijske invazije. Dobijaju odgovor “Bednici, a što sedite? Bežite na kraj sveta! Ostav’te domove vaše i brežuljke okruglog grada. Jer mi ni glava čitava, ni telo ostati neće… Čist’te se sad iz hrama i na nevolje spremni bud’te.”
Kad su već pali u očajanje posle ovoga, vrate se još jednom, sa novim žrtvama i mole za ugodnije proročanstvo: “Gospode, smiluj se na ove grančice s kojima smo ti došli i proreci nam nešto bolje o našoj otadžbini, u protivnom slučaju nećemo otići iz hrama, nego ćemo ostati tu dok ne umremo.” Srećom, dok sam ovo prepričavao ćerki, seckao sam luk za ramstek, pa nije mogla biti sigurna zbog čega tati suze oči.
Herodot pokušava da bude objektivan i ne predstavlja varvare kao proste divljake, ali ipak se radi o ratu između sila porobljavanja (Persije) i sila slobode (Atina) i njegova strast izbija sa svake strane. I ta strast se kroz ovo (inače, prvo preživelo dugačko delo u prozi) prenosi i na čitaoca. Priznajem, ponekad nije lako ispratiti sve sitnice - poznavanje grčke mitologije je skoro pa preduslov, a ne treba zaboraviti da je ovo istorija bez godina, pa je fino pratiti Vikipediju za dobijanje osećaja o vremenu - ali vredi truda. Herodot u uvodu kaže da je ovo delo pisao “radi toga da se vremenom ne bi umanjio značaj onoga što je čovečanstvo stvorilo, te da velika i divna dela, i ona koja su stvorili Heleni, kao i ona koja su stvorili varvari, ne bi bila zaboravljena, i zato da bi objasnio zašto je između Helena i varvara dolazilo do ratova.” Čitamo ga 2.500 godina kasnije, moglo bi se reći da je uspeo u tome.
P.S. Pre čitanja odgledao sam sjajan
Yale-ov kurs u 24 predavanja o istoriji antičke Grčke.
Ovog fascinantnog Grka, rođenog 484 p.n.e. u današnjem Bodrumu, Ciceron je nazvao Otac istorije, a Plutarh Otac laži. Tek ovo je nepravedno - njegova zadužbina u obliku Istorije je kolosalna. Koliko je Herodot danas citiran, može da znači da bi bez njega gomila istorijskih činjenica bila izgubljena. O Skitima skoro da i nema drugih zapisa, čitava istorija jednog vremena ne bi postojala. Da je neki Herodot posetio stare Slovene...
Neki njegovi zapisi jesu u najmanju ruku nesigurni, ali ja imam pomalo romantičarski (naivan?) pogled na to. Sigurno nije namerno prenosio neistine, već je skupljao informacije i preneo dalje. Ponekad su priče pojednostavljene, umesto istorijskih dokumenata dobijamo seriju anekdota, ali ovo jeste sjajan pogled na grčku istoriju, mentalitet tog (i drugih) naroda. A opisom običaja dobijamo ne samo početak istorije, već i početak etnografije.
A kad sam već kod te reke anekdota, ona znači i da se ovo čita kao literatura. Nema suvoparnog prenosa činjenica, ovo su priče koje te zovu da im se vratiš. Teško se zaboravlja priča o odrastanju persijskog vladara Kira Velikog ili o tome kako je Kserks kaznio lokalnog vladara koji je molio da mu ne odvede svih pet sinova u rat (presekao ih na pola i proterao celu persijsku armiju putem između njih).
Istorija je podeljena u devet knjiga koje simpatično nose imena devet muza, a počinju pričom o kralju Krasu iz kraljevstva Lidija, kao početku evropsko-azijskog konflikta, a Kras se kasnije neočekivano pojavljuje na nekoliko mesta. Grci protiv Varvara (“barbari” su tako nazvani pošto su Grci njihov govor razumeli samo kao “bar bar bar”, a tako su nazivali sve ne-Helene). Nastavlja usponom Persijskog carstva pa dugačkim putovanjem u Egipat.
Ima iz tog dela o Egiptu interesantna pričica koja govori o Herodotovoj oduševljenosti detaljima, ali i o njegovoj naivnosti. Obilazi tako sa svojim vodičima groblje i nailazi na razbacane kosti i lobanje. Ovo se dešava pedesetak godina nakon velike bitke na tom mestu, a kad upita svoje vodiče kakve su to kosti, odgovaraju mu da su ostale tu nakon bitke. Pedeset godina kasnije? Već i ovo navodi na sumnju, ali sledi još nerazumnije objašnjenje - pogledajte kako Egipćani imaju deblje lobanje, pošto su navikli da nose šlemove i kape, dok Persijanci imaju tanke lobanje zato što hodaju gologlavi, pa im sunčevi zraci tanje kosti.
U Egiptu se bavi i pogrešnim prevodom hijeroglifa na piramidama, pa tako ti znakovi navodno govore o tome šta su radnici jeli i pili za vreme gradnje istih, što nema nikakve veze sa stvarnim prevodom. Moguće da je vodič bio nepismen, nije hteo to da prizna, pa je izmišljao dok su išli? Ipak, proces mumificiranja je opisan dosta verno i pošto egipatski mumifikatori nisu ostavljali nikakve zapise o tom procesu (valjda su ljubomorno čuvali znanje u okviru branše), ispada da je Herodotovo upustvo za mumifikaciju najbolje koje imamo.
U poslednjoj trećini Istorije, Herodot se vraća u Grčku i tu sledi klimaks - grčko-persijski ratovi. Ovo je zapis o tada skorijoj istoriji, o događajima od pre par decenija, kao kad bismo danas pisali o o ratu u Vijetnamu. Imao je mnogo izvora, preživelih svedoka, sigurno i zapisa iz tog doba. Prvi put imamo delo koje se bavi skorašnjim događajima umesto o legendama. Jonska pobuna protiv Persijanaca, pa manje bitke koje slede i prvi vrhunac sa atinskom pobedom kod Maratona (490 p.n.e.). Nakon Darijeve smrti, detaljna priča o velikom Kserksovom pohodu u kom želi da kazni Atinjane za nesreću svog oca. Nakon junačkog poraza Spartanaca kod Termopila, Atinjani nekim čudom (može se reći ni sami ne znaju kako) uspevaju da poraze persijsku flotu u pomorskoj bitci kod Salamine 480 p.n.e. Ako je antička grčka civilizacija temelj evropske i generalno zapadne civilizacije, koliko bi samo evropska istorija bila drugačija da nisu?
Ima i ovde stvari kojima na prvi pogled nije mesto u istorijskom delu. Uticaj bogova, na primer. Na trenutke je kao da čitaš Ilijadu, pa su ljudi u glavnim ulogama, ali bogovi redovno intervenišu i povlače niti. Čak i kad ne tvrdi da je neki događaj posledica odluke božanstva, ne postoji velika odluke koja nije donešena na osnovu žrtve bogovima i toga “da li je žrtva bila ugodna”. Uzmeš kozu ili bika, zavisno koliko je veliko pitnaje, žrtvuješ ga, onda je seciraš i na osnovu toga kako izgledaju jetra ili srce, proceniš da li treba da primiš bitku ili da se povučeš.
Ali čak i ti religiozni izveštaji diraju u srce. Detaljan opis dana koji prethode bitci kod Salamine govori kako Atinjani šalju ambasadore u proročište u Delfima kako bi proverili šta da rade povodom nadolazeće persijske invazije. Dobijaju odgovor “Bednici, a što sedite? Bežite na kraj sveta! Ostav’te domove vaše i brežuljke okruglog grada. Jer mi ni glava čitava, ni telo ostati neće… Čist’te se sad iz hrama i na nevolje spremni bud’te.”
Kad su već pali u očajanje posle ovoga, vrate se još jednom, sa novim žrtvama i mole za ugodnije proročanstvo: “Gospode, smiluj se na ove grančice s kojima smo ti došli i proreci nam nešto bolje o našoj otadžbini, u protivnom slučaju nećemo otići iz hrama, nego ćemo ostati tu dok ne umremo.” Srećom, dok sam ovo prepričavao ćerki, seckao sam luk za ramstek, pa nije mogla biti sigurna zbog čega tati suze oči.
Herodot pokušava da bude objektivan i ne predstavlja varvare kao proste divljake, ali ipak se radi o ratu između sila porobljavanja (Persije) i sila slobode (Atina) i njegova strast izbija sa svake strane. I ta strast se kroz ovo (inače, prvo preživelo dugačko delo u prozi) prenosi i na čitaoca. Priznajem, ponekad nije lako ispratiti sve sitnice - poznavanje grčke mitologije je skoro pa preduslov, a ne treba zaboraviti da je ovo istorija bez godina, pa je fino pratiti Vikipediju za dobijanje osećaja o vremenu - ali vredi truda. Herodot u uvodu kaže da je ovo delo pisao “radi toga da se vremenom ne bi umanjio značaj onoga što je čovečanstvo stvorilo, te da velika i divna dela, i ona koja su stvorili Heleni, kao i ona koja su stvorili varvari, ne bi bila zaboravljena, i zato da bi objasnio zašto je između Helena i varvara dolazilo do ratova.” Čitamo ga 2.500 godina kasnije, moglo bi se reći da je uspeo u tome.
P.S. Pre čitanja odgledao sam sjajan
Yale-ov kurs u 24 predavanja o istoriji antičke Grčke.
February 26, 2018
If you are an English speaker there is no reason for you to consider buying any other edition of this text. Brilliantly translated, filled with just the right amount of footnotes, maps and pictures, and there is an appendix for pretty much everything you could think of.
Currently reading
July 7, 2010"When the moment finally came to declare their purpose, the Babylonians, in order to reduce the consumption of food, herded together and strangled all the women in the city - each man exempting only his mother, and one other woman whom he chose out of his household to bake his bread for him."
As the British Government bludgeons the nation with its ideologically-driven 'Austerity Budget', note that the ancients had a strategy or two for surviving straitened times themselves. And they managed to protect 'front-line' services. Who doesn't like to wake up to the smell of freshly-baked rolls? Now, how does one get one's hands on Theresa May?
"...As for Samos, the Persians took the entire population like fish in a drag-net, and presented Syloson with an empty island. Some years later, however, Otanes contracted some sort of disease of the genital organs and that, in conjunction with a dream he had, induced him to repopulate the place."
Seriously. Wtf?! I mean, who hasn't dreamed of personally repopulating an island [I know I have:], but just how fertile does a guy have to be that an std leaves him debilitated to the degree that he can only re-seed an entire race like some Zeus on the loose? I thought all these dudes preferred boys so what's with that? If I didn't know Herodotus had such a downer on hearsay I'd swear someone was pulling his leg.
"...for I have never heard of a man who after an unbroken run of luck was not finally brought to complete ruin. Now I suggest that you deal with the danger of your continual successes in the following way: think of whatever it is you value most - whatever you would most regret the loss of - and throw it away: throw it right away, so that nobody can ever see it again. If, after that, you do not find that success alternates with failure then go on using the remedy I have advised."
Harsh.
"...He was blind for ten years, after which he received an oracle from the city of Buto to the effect that the time of his punishment being now ended, he would recover his sight, if he washed his eyes with the urine of a woman who had never lain with any man except her husband.
He tried his wife first, but without success - he remained as blind as ever."
Jeez, there has to be an easier way to discover you're a cuckold.
As the British Government bludgeons the nation with its ideologically-driven 'Austerity Budget', note that the ancients had a strategy or two for surviving straitened times themselves. And they managed to protect 'front-line' services. Who doesn't like to wake up to the smell of freshly-baked rolls? Now, how does one get one's hands on Theresa May?
"...As for Samos, the Persians took the entire population like fish in a drag-net, and presented Syloson with an empty island. Some years later, however, Otanes contracted some sort of disease of the genital organs and that, in conjunction with a dream he had, induced him to repopulate the place."
Seriously. Wtf?! I mean, who hasn't dreamed of personally repopulating an island [I know I have:], but just how fertile does a guy have to be that an std leaves him debilitated to the degree that he can only re-seed an entire race like some Zeus on the loose? I thought all these dudes preferred boys so what's with that? If I didn't know Herodotus had such a downer on hearsay I'd swear someone was pulling his leg.
"...for I have never heard of a man who after an unbroken run of luck was not finally brought to complete ruin. Now I suggest that you deal with the danger of your continual successes in the following way: think of whatever it is you value most - whatever you would most regret the loss of - and throw it away: throw it right away, so that nobody can ever see it again. If, after that, you do not find that success alternates with failure then go on using the remedy I have advised."
Harsh.
"...He was blind for ten years, after which he received an oracle from the city of Buto to the effect that the time of his punishment being now ended, he would recover his sight, if he washed his eyes with the urine of a woman who had never lain with any man except her husband.
He tried his wife first, but without success - he remained as blind as ever."
Jeez, there has to be an easier way to discover you're a cuckold.
August 14, 2021
If Herodotus only kept to his main story, the growth of Persia and its eventual halt by Greece, the book would probably be only 200 pages long. Thank God he didn't do this. The Histories is a narration of the known world and the people living in it. When introducing a new character, even unimportant ones, he gives very interesting backstories. One of my favourite stories is about Cleisthenes of Sicyon who organized a competition whose winner was to marry his daughter Agariste. Cleisthenes tests the suitors' courage, character, education and manners by spending time with them for a year. Some Athenian guy named Hippoclides pleases the tyrant of Sicyon the most, but then he does something very embarrassing. He dances on a table and then dances while standing on his head, like modern breakdancers. Cleisthenes doesn't want this man to marry his daughter anymore and says: "Son of Tisander, you have danced your marriage away." Hippoclides has the greatest comeback in history and simply replies: "Hippoclides doesn't care!" as if he participated in the competition for a year just to have fun and party. You might wonder what this story has to do with Persia's conquest of Greece. Well, not a lot. Cleisthenes is just an ancestor of the important statesman and general Pericles, who doesn't have anything to do with the main story either.
Herodotus doesn't just narrate about individuals, but also about whole nations. Book 2 focuses mainly on Egypt. Herodotus tells about its geography, the animals living in the country, the religion, its culture and its history. The Egyptians have customs which seem very weird to Herodotus. He explains a typical Egyptian party: "After the meal at a party of well-to-do Egyptians, a man carries round the room in a coffin a corpse made of wood, which has been painted and carved so as to be as lifelike as possible, and whose length is about a cubit or two. The man shows the corpse to all the guests, one by one, while saying: 'Look on this while you drink, for this will be your lot when you are dead'. That is what happens at Egyptian parties." Especially the last remark seems really funny to me. I can see a hint of distate in this sentence.
Herodotus doesn't just write down what he has heard, he also comments whether he thinks the story could be real or is fabricated. That's really great about him. He writes like a real scientist who doesn't just believe everything he's been told. It's really a great book and I recommend everyone to read it. You will learn a lot about how people used to live.
Herodotus doesn't just narrate about individuals, but also about whole nations. Book 2 focuses mainly on Egypt. Herodotus tells about its geography, the animals living in the country, the religion, its culture and its history. The Egyptians have customs which seem very weird to Herodotus. He explains a typical Egyptian party: "After the meal at a party of well-to-do Egyptians, a man carries round the room in a coffin a corpse made of wood, which has been painted and carved so as to be as lifelike as possible, and whose length is about a cubit or two. The man shows the corpse to all the guests, one by one, while saying: 'Look on this while you drink, for this will be your lot when you are dead'. That is what happens at Egyptian parties." Especially the last remark seems really funny to me. I can see a hint of distate in this sentence.
Herodotus doesn't just write down what he has heard, he also comments whether he thinks the story could be real or is fabricated. That's really great about him. He writes like a real scientist who doesn't just believe everything he's been told. It's really a great book and I recommend everyone to read it. You will learn a lot about how people used to live.
Read
February 3, 2024A really interesting historical document. There's an appropriate balance between action and analysis, but with an introduction that is quite too long. Sometimes there are too many flashbacks and digressions about all kinds of details. But nevertheless a great read, as a story teller Herodotus is unparalleled, illustrating that - regardless of issues of method - history is and always will be a narrative.
It's clear Herodotus sees history as the story of great men and their greed, ambition, courage and sacrifice. But also dreams (predictive value), oracles (always right!), and a few times even the intervention of the gods play a key role. Fate is present in the background.
Noteworthy is the light adoring undertone concerning the Persians, especially Cyrus; on the other hand the Greeks are described as a bunch of scum (especially the Ionians), only Sparte is treated by Herodotus in a neutral way.
It's clear Herodotus sees history as the story of great men and their greed, ambition, courage and sacrifice. But also dreams (predictive value), oracles (always right!), and a few times even the intervention of the gods play a key role. Fate is present in the background.
Noteworthy is the light adoring undertone concerning the Persians, especially Cyrus; on the other hand the Greeks are described as a bunch of scum (especially the Ionians), only Sparte is treated by Herodotus in a neutral way.
September 19, 2019
Talk about an on point beard!
A surprisingly fun read and certainly worth it for historical significance alone.
A surprisingly fun read and certainly worth it for historical significance alone.
January 11, 2019
Herodotus tells a story of how Croesus, King of Lydia, the richest and
most favored leader of his time, asked Solon the Athenian, a leading question.
He would not have asked it if he had he not been worried about the answer.
'Who, he asked, 'is the luckiest person in the world?' He must have been eaten
with doubt, and hungry for reassurance. Solon told him of three lucky people in
old times. And Croesus more than likely did not listen; so anxious was he
about himself. And when Solon did not mention him, Croesus was forced to say, 'Do
you consider me lucky?' Solon did not hesitate in his answer. 'How can I
tell?' he said. 'You aren't dead yet.'
Later, Croesus sent to the great Oracle at Delphi to know whether he should go to war against the Persians, and the oracle replied: "If Croesus goes to war he will destroy a great empire." Pleased by this answer, Croesus made his necessary alliances and preparations and went out to meet the Persian army. Croesus and his troops were defeated. Croesus’ wife committed suicide and Croesus was dragged before King Cyrus in chains. Croesus figured out that the great empire that would be destroyed would be his own, not the Persian. Most modern-day scholars and historians believe that Croesus died on the pyre where he was placed by Cyrus.
Herodotus opines: "No one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons." But the Greeks were great believers in fate, so he adds "However, I suppose the god must have wanted this to happen."
Later, Croesus sent to the great Oracle at Delphi to know whether he should go to war against the Persians, and the oracle replied: "If Croesus goes to war he will destroy a great empire." Pleased by this answer, Croesus made his necessary alliances and preparations and went out to meet the Persian army. Croesus and his troops were defeated. Croesus’ wife committed suicide and Croesus was dragged before King Cyrus in chains. Croesus figured out that the great empire that would be destroyed would be his own, not the Persian. Most modern-day scholars and historians believe that Croesus died on the pyre where he was placed by Cyrus.
Herodotus opines: "No one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons." But the Greeks were great believers in fate, so he adds "However, I suppose the god must have wanted this to happen."
June 27, 2017
Bir solukta okursunuz, destansı üslubunu seversiniz, başta sayfa sayısı çok gibi gelir, ne zaman bitti anlamazsınız.
Yunan-Pers mücadelesi özellikle Leonidas ve Kserkses arası mücadeleleri anlatıldığı bölüm nefisti!
Kütüphaneden alarak okudum, Calibromda e kitap olarak var ama en kısa zamanda basılı bir versiyonu da kütüphanemizde olsun isterim.
Baş ucu eseri!
Ayrıca Müntekim Ökmen'de harika dip notlar hazmış. Kafanız takılınca hızır gibi yetişiyor. Ölmeden mutlaka okuyun, okutun!
Yunan-Pers mücadelesi özellikle Leonidas ve Kserkses arası mücadeleleri anlatıldığı bölüm nefisti!
Kütüphaneden alarak okudum, Calibromda e kitap olarak var ama en kısa zamanda basılı bir versiyonu da kütüphanemizde olsun isterim.
Baş ucu eseri!
Ayrıca Müntekim Ökmen'de harika dip notlar hazmış. Kafanız takılınca hızır gibi yetişiyor. Ölmeden mutlaka okuyun, okutun!
June 23, 2019
“These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were the grounds of feud.”
Herodotus’s reference to his “researches” (sometimes translated “inquiries”) uses the Greek word historie, from which we get “history.” This is the first recorded use of the word.
The main subject of The Histories is the twenty years (499-479 B.C.E) of war between Greece and Persia. Herodotus begins by presenting the alleged origins of enmity between Greece and Persia in mythic times. He adds Persian and Phoenician accounts that he has heard to Greek ones. These stories have to do with the abduction of women. According to the Persians, the Phoenicians began the quarrel by carrying off the Greek woman Io and taking her to Egypt. The Greeks retaliated by abducting the woman Europa from the Phoenicians, and later they carried off Medea of Colchis, which motivated Paris to abduct Helen. Herodotus says that the Persians trace their enmity toward the Greeks back to the Trojan War. The Phoenicians, on the other hand, insist that Io left willingly.
After summarizing these stories, Herodotus says that he will not discuss further which account is correct, and changes the subject to historical causes more recent than the legendary past: “I prefer to rely on my own knowledge, and to point out who it was in actual fact that first injured the Greeks…” Herodotus traces the beginning of the conflict to when Croesus of Lydia conquered the Greek towns of Asia, but Books I - IV focus on other issues. Most of this part of the book is concerned with geographical accounts, stories of notable people, and ethnographies of the peoples ruled by the Persians. Some scientific issues also come up, such as the cause of the flooding of the Nile. Starting with Book V, in which the Persians suppress the rebellion of the local Greek population in Persian territory (the Ionian Revolt) the narrative becomes more tightly focused.
Herodotus is a moralist; he presents the story of the Persian Wars as a story of how the hubris of the Persian rulers leads to their defeat, and demonstrates how “the god with his lightning smites always the bigger animals, and will not suffer them to wax insolent… likewise his bolts fall ever on the highest houses and the tallest trees” (Bk VII).
The website Livius.org has commentaries that I found really helpful when I was reading this.
http://www.livius.org/articles/person...
The website also has an interesting essay, “The Significance of Marathon” on the historiography of the battle of Marathon, which occurs in Book VI.
“It is often said that the battle of Marathon was one of the few really decisive battles in history. The truth, however, is that we cannot establish this with certainty. Still, the fight had important consequences: it gave rise to the idea that East and West were opposites, an idea that has survived until the present day, in spite of the fact that 'Marathon' has become the standard example to prove that historians can better refrain from such bold statements.”
Some great reviews by other readers on GR:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (this one’s pretty funny)
some highlights:
Bk I: The story of Croesus & Solon & Cyrus - The wealthy king of Lydia, Croesus, urges Solon, the Athenian lawgiver [magistrate] to admit that he is the happiest of men. (Croesus at this point as captured nearly all the Greek towns along the west coast of Asia.)
Solon warns him that no one can be called happy until he ends his life well. “Call him, however, until he die, not happy but fortunate. Scarcely, indeed, can any man unite all these advantages: as there is no country which contains within it all that it needs, but each, while it possesses some things, lacks others, and the best country is that which contains the most; so no single human being is complete in every respect — something is always lacking. He who unites the greatest number of advantages, and retaining them to the day of his death, then dies peaceably, that man alone, sire, in my judgment, is entitled to bear the name of ‘happy.’ But in every matter it behooves us to mark well the end: for oftentimes God gives men a gleam of happiness, and then plunges them into ruin.”
Croesus dismisses Solon’s answer, “since he thought that a man must be an arrant fool who made no account of the present good, but bade men always wait and mark the end.”
Croesus suffers for his arrogance when his son Atys is accidentally killed in a boar hunt. Croesus later attacks Cappadocia, part of the empire of Cyrus the Great (and part of modern Turkey). In the conflict that follows, Cyrus captures the city of Sardis. Croesus's other son is killed in the fighting, trying to protect his father, and Croesus is captured. Croesus tells Cyrus the story of Solon's warning to him years before, and how everything had turned out exactly as Solon had said, although it was nothing that especially concerned him, but applied to all mankind alike, and most to those who seemed to themselves happy... Then Cyrus, hearing what Croesus had said, relented, bethinking himself that he too was a man, and that he was a fellow man, and one who had once been as blessed by fortune as himself, that he was burning alive; afraid, moreover, of retribution, and full of the thought that whatever is human is insecure. So he bade them quench the blazing fire as quickly as they could, and take down Croesus and the other Lydians, which they tried to do, but the flames were not to be mastered.”
Croesus prays to Apollo and a rainstorm extinguishes the flames. Cyrus, “convinced by this that Croesus was a good man and a favourite of heaven” asked him after he was taken off the pile, "'Who it was that had persuaded him to lead an army into his country, and so become his foe rather than continue his friend?' 'What I did, oh! king, was to thy advantage and to my own loss. If there be blame, it rests with the god of the Greeks, who encouraged me to begin the war. No one is so foolish as to prefer war to peace, in which, instead of sons burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons. But the gods willed it so.”
Bk II: Herodotus’s story about Indian burial customs:
“… if one were to offer men to choose out of all the customs in the world as seemed to them the best, they would examine the whole number, and end by preferring their own; so convinced are they that their own usages surpass those of all others. Unless, therefore, a man was mad, it is not likely that he would make sport of such matters. That people have this feeling about their own laws may be seen by many proofs; among others, the following. Darius, after he had got the kingdom, called into his presence certain Greeks who were at hand, and asked -- 'What he should pay them to eat the bodies of their fathers when they died?' To which they answered, that there was no sum that would tempt them to do such a thing. He then sent for certain Indians, of the race called Callatians, men who eat their fathers, and asked them, while the Greeks stood by, and knew by the help of an interpreter all that was said -- 'What he should give them to burn the bodies of their fathers at their decease?' The Indians exclaimed aloud, and bade him forbear such language.”
Bk III: Sosicles of Corinth’s response to the Spartans, who at this point in the narrative plan to reinstate a tyrant in Athens. Sparta’s allies are skeptical of the plan, but only Sosicles the Corinthian argues against it:
“Surely the heaven will soon be below, and the earth above, and men will henceforth live in the sea, and fish take their place upon the dry land, since you, Lacedaemonians [another name for the Spartans] propose to put down free governments in the cities of Greece, and set up tyrannies in their room. There is nothing in the whole world so unjust, so bloody, as a tyranny. If, however, it seems to you a desirable thing to have the cities under despotic rule, begin by putting a tyrant over yourselves, and then establish despots in other states… If you knew what tyranny was as well as ourselves, you would be better advised than you now are in regard to it.”
Sosicles then tells of how Corinth was once ruled by an oligarchy, before it became democratic.
Bk VII: The battle of Thermopylae
“And now there arose a fierce struggle between the Persians and the Lacedaemonians over the body of Leonidas, in which the Greeks four times drove back the enemy, and at last by their great bravery succeeded in bearing off the body. This combat was scarcely ended when the Persians with Ephialtes approached; and the Greeks, informed that they drew nigh, made a change in the manner of their fighting. Drawing back into the narrowest part of the pass, and retreating even behind the cross wall, they posted themselves upon a hillock, where they stood all drawn up together in one close body, except only the Thebans. The hillock whereof I speak is at the entrance of the straits, where the stone lion stands which was set up in honour of Leonidas. Here they defended themselves to the last, such as still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth; till the barbarians, who in part had pulled down the wall and attacked them in front, in part had gone round and now encircled them upon every side, overwhelmed and buried the remnant which was left beneath showers of missile weapons.
Thus nobly did the whole body of Lacedaemonians and Thespians behave; but nevertheless one man is said to have distinguished himself above all the rest, to wit, Dieneces the Spartan. A speech which he made before the Greeks engaged the Medes, remains on record. One of the Trachinians told him, ‘Such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude.’ Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, but making light of the Median numbers, answered ‘Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.’ ”
Bk VIII: Xerxes reflects on the passage of time:
“And now, as he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as full as possible of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good fortune; but after a little while he wept.
Then Artabanus, the king’s uncle (the same who at the first spake so freely against the king, and advised him not to lead his army against Greece) when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said: ‘How different, sire, is what thou art now doing, from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold! thou weepest.’
‘There came upon me,’ replied he, ‘a sudden pity, when I thought of the shortness of man’s life, and considered that of all this host, numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.’
‘And yet there are sadder things in life than that,’ returned the other. ‘Short as our time is, there is no man, whether it be here among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy, as not to have felt the wish — I will not say once, but full many a time — that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall upon us; sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who gives the tastes that we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very gift, to be envious.’”
Herodotus’s reference to his “researches” (sometimes translated “inquiries”) uses the Greek word historie, from which we get “history.” This is the first recorded use of the word.
The main subject of The Histories is the twenty years (499-479 B.C.E) of war between Greece and Persia. Herodotus begins by presenting the alleged origins of enmity between Greece and Persia in mythic times. He adds Persian and Phoenician accounts that he has heard to Greek ones. These stories have to do with the abduction of women. According to the Persians, the Phoenicians began the quarrel by carrying off the Greek woman Io and taking her to Egypt. The Greeks retaliated by abducting the woman Europa from the Phoenicians, and later they carried off Medea of Colchis, which motivated Paris to abduct Helen. Herodotus says that the Persians trace their enmity toward the Greeks back to the Trojan War. The Phoenicians, on the other hand, insist that Io left willingly.
After summarizing these stories, Herodotus says that he will not discuss further which account is correct, and changes the subject to historical causes more recent than the legendary past: “I prefer to rely on my own knowledge, and to point out who it was in actual fact that first injured the Greeks…” Herodotus traces the beginning of the conflict to when Croesus of Lydia conquered the Greek towns of Asia, but Books I - IV focus on other issues. Most of this part of the book is concerned with geographical accounts, stories of notable people, and ethnographies of the peoples ruled by the Persians. Some scientific issues also come up, such as the cause of the flooding of the Nile. Starting with Book V, in which the Persians suppress the rebellion of the local Greek population in Persian territory (the Ionian Revolt) the narrative becomes more tightly focused.
Herodotus is a moralist; he presents the story of the Persian Wars as a story of how the hubris of the Persian rulers leads to their defeat, and demonstrates how “the god with his lightning smites always the bigger animals, and will not suffer them to wax insolent… likewise his bolts fall ever on the highest houses and the tallest trees” (Bk VII).
The website Livius.org has commentaries that I found really helpful when I was reading this.
http://www.livius.org/articles/person...
The website also has an interesting essay, “The Significance of Marathon” on the historiography of the battle of Marathon, which occurs in Book VI.
“It is often said that the battle of Marathon was one of the few really decisive battles in history. The truth, however, is that we cannot establish this with certainty. Still, the fight had important consequences: it gave rise to the idea that East and West were opposites, an idea that has survived until the present day, in spite of the fact that 'Marathon' has become the standard example to prove that historians can better refrain from such bold statements.”
Some great reviews by other readers on GR:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (this one’s pretty funny)
some highlights:
Bk I: The story of Croesus & Solon & Cyrus - The wealthy king of Lydia, Croesus, urges Solon, the Athenian lawgiver [magistrate] to admit that he is the happiest of men. (Croesus at this point as captured nearly all the Greek towns along the west coast of Asia.)
Solon warns him that no one can be called happy until he ends his life well. “Call him, however, until he die, not happy but fortunate. Scarcely, indeed, can any man unite all these advantages: as there is no country which contains within it all that it needs, but each, while it possesses some things, lacks others, and the best country is that which contains the most; so no single human being is complete in every respect — something is always lacking. He who unites the greatest number of advantages, and retaining them to the day of his death, then dies peaceably, that man alone, sire, in my judgment, is entitled to bear the name of ‘happy.’ But in every matter it behooves us to mark well the end: for oftentimes God gives men a gleam of happiness, and then plunges them into ruin.”
Croesus dismisses Solon’s answer, “since he thought that a man must be an arrant fool who made no account of the present good, but bade men always wait and mark the end.”
Croesus suffers for his arrogance when his son Atys is accidentally killed in a boar hunt. Croesus later attacks Cappadocia, part of the empire of Cyrus the Great (and part of modern Turkey). In the conflict that follows, Cyrus captures the city of Sardis. Croesus's other son is killed in the fighting, trying to protect his father, and Croesus is captured. Croesus tells Cyrus the story of Solon's warning to him years before, and how everything had turned out exactly as Solon had said, although it was nothing that especially concerned him, but applied to all mankind alike, and most to those who seemed to themselves happy... Then Cyrus, hearing what Croesus had said, relented, bethinking himself that he too was a man, and that he was a fellow man, and one who had once been as blessed by fortune as himself, that he was burning alive; afraid, moreover, of retribution, and full of the thought that whatever is human is insecure. So he bade them quench the blazing fire as quickly as they could, and take down Croesus and the other Lydians, which they tried to do, but the flames were not to be mastered.”
Croesus prays to Apollo and a rainstorm extinguishes the flames. Cyrus, “convinced by this that Croesus was a good man and a favourite of heaven” asked him after he was taken off the pile, "'Who it was that had persuaded him to lead an army into his country, and so become his foe rather than continue his friend?' 'What I did, oh! king, was to thy advantage and to my own loss. If there be blame, it rests with the god of the Greeks, who encouraged me to begin the war. No one is so foolish as to prefer war to peace, in which, instead of sons burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons. But the gods willed it so.”
Bk II: Herodotus’s story about Indian burial customs:
“… if one were to offer men to choose out of all the customs in the world as seemed to them the best, they would examine the whole number, and end by preferring their own; so convinced are they that their own usages surpass those of all others. Unless, therefore, a man was mad, it is not likely that he would make sport of such matters. That people have this feeling about their own laws may be seen by many proofs; among others, the following. Darius, after he had got the kingdom, called into his presence certain Greeks who were at hand, and asked -- 'What he should pay them to eat the bodies of their fathers when they died?' To which they answered, that there was no sum that would tempt them to do such a thing. He then sent for certain Indians, of the race called Callatians, men who eat their fathers, and asked them, while the Greeks stood by, and knew by the help of an interpreter all that was said -- 'What he should give them to burn the bodies of their fathers at their decease?' The Indians exclaimed aloud, and bade him forbear such language.”
Bk III: Sosicles of Corinth’s response to the Spartans, who at this point in the narrative plan to reinstate a tyrant in Athens. Sparta’s allies are skeptical of the plan, but only Sosicles the Corinthian argues against it:
“Surely the heaven will soon be below, and the earth above, and men will henceforth live in the sea, and fish take their place upon the dry land, since you, Lacedaemonians [another name for the Spartans] propose to put down free governments in the cities of Greece, and set up tyrannies in their room. There is nothing in the whole world so unjust, so bloody, as a tyranny. If, however, it seems to you a desirable thing to have the cities under despotic rule, begin by putting a tyrant over yourselves, and then establish despots in other states… If you knew what tyranny was as well as ourselves, you would be better advised than you now are in regard to it.”
Sosicles then tells of how Corinth was once ruled by an oligarchy, before it became democratic.
Bk VII: The battle of Thermopylae
“And now there arose a fierce struggle between the Persians and the Lacedaemonians over the body of Leonidas, in which the Greeks four times drove back the enemy, and at last by their great bravery succeeded in bearing off the body. This combat was scarcely ended when the Persians with Ephialtes approached; and the Greeks, informed that they drew nigh, made a change in the manner of their fighting. Drawing back into the narrowest part of the pass, and retreating even behind the cross wall, they posted themselves upon a hillock, where they stood all drawn up together in one close body, except only the Thebans. The hillock whereof I speak is at the entrance of the straits, where the stone lion stands which was set up in honour of Leonidas. Here they defended themselves to the last, such as still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth; till the barbarians, who in part had pulled down the wall and attacked them in front, in part had gone round and now encircled them upon every side, overwhelmed and buried the remnant which was left beneath showers of missile weapons.
Thus nobly did the whole body of Lacedaemonians and Thespians behave; but nevertheless one man is said to have distinguished himself above all the rest, to wit, Dieneces the Spartan. A speech which he made before the Greeks engaged the Medes, remains on record. One of the Trachinians told him, ‘Such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude.’ Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, but making light of the Median numbers, answered ‘Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.’ ”
Bk VIII: Xerxes reflects on the passage of time:
“And now, as he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as full as possible of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good fortune; but after a little while he wept.
Then Artabanus, the king’s uncle (the same who at the first spake so freely against the king, and advised him not to lead his army against Greece) when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said: ‘How different, sire, is what thou art now doing, from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold! thou weepest.’
‘There came upon me,’ replied he, ‘a sudden pity, when I thought of the shortness of man’s life, and considered that of all this host, numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.’
‘And yet there are sadder things in life than that,’ returned the other. ‘Short as our time is, there is no man, whether it be here among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy, as not to have felt the wish — I will not say once, but full many a time — that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall upon us; sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who gives the tastes that we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very gift, to be envious.’”
October 19, 2010
Although he is the very first historian in Western Civilization, Herodotus has something of a bad reputation for being too gullible. Current critical opinion tends to favor Herodotus's near contemporary, Thucydides, the author of an equally great history of The Peloponnesian War. And yet, as I re-read the earlier book, I was surprised that Herodotus frequently notes that he doesn't always believe what he has been told, but presents it anyhow, if only because the Greek word for "history" is the same as the Greek word for "investigation." There is something of the ethnologist in Herodotus: He is an Ionian from Halicarnassus, a people who have had a much longer acquaintance with the Persians, Medes, Assyrians, and other peoples of the East than the mainland Greeks.
The first five of the nine books of The Histories are mostly a survey of the peoples who allied themselves with Darius and Xerxes in their invasions of Greece. It is here that most of the outlandish anecdotes are concentrated, in his investigations of such peoples as the Egyptians, Libyans, and Scythians. Once the invasions themselves begins, his history becomes more exciting, with fewer digressions and greater plausibility.
I would recommend that readers take the first five books slowly and savor the strangeness. Once the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale had been fought, Herodotus showed himself to be a true Greek and one fiercely proud of his heritage.
The first five of the nine books of The Histories are mostly a survey of the peoples who allied themselves with Darius and Xerxes in their invasions of Greece. It is here that most of the outlandish anecdotes are concentrated, in his investigations of such peoples as the Egyptians, Libyans, and Scythians. Once the invasions themselves begins, his history becomes more exciting, with fewer digressions and greater plausibility.
I would recommend that readers take the first five books slowly and savor the strangeness. Once the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale had been fought, Herodotus showed himself to be a true Greek and one fiercely proud of his heritage.
Read
May 21, 2017More Infinite Jest than The History of the Peloponnesian War. Honest.
Wish I had the Landmark edition at the time. But Oxford does make nice books.
Wish I had the Landmark edition at the time. But Oxford does make nice books.
December 8, 2014
How to review Herodotus? It's much like trying to review the Bible. Most would probably say something like, "I liked the blood and guts and stories about the cheating wives of kings; the genealogies were boring." But I found the entire book utterly captivating. It's something special to be able to lose yourself in a world that's completely different from your own, that has a rich history of its own with strange characters and stranger frontiers.
Herodotus is truly a child of the world, marveling at its every wonder. To the modern reader, much of what he writes is quaintly naive (and at times pretty racist). For instance, when describing Indians (a people he located in the very northwestern part of what we now know as India), he says that they "dwell farthest to the east and closest to the sunrise. For east of the Indians lies an uninhabitable desert of nothing but sand." (3.98.2) These Indians also "have intercourse out in the open just like animals" and "the seed they ejaculate into their wives is not white like that of the rest of men, but black like their skin and like the semen of the Ethiopians." (3.101.1-2) And in describing the land of Egypt, he constantly spews wildly inaccurate exoticisms. He describes the symbiotic relationship between an alligator and a plover (bird); the alligator, who is the most vicious creature in the world, opens its mouth to let the plover eat the leeches from his gums (not true, despite the misinformation still circling today, even). There is a report of ants that are smaller than dogs but larger than foxes who gather gold out of the desert. He tells a story about a race of one-eyed men who steal gold from gold-hoarding griffins, but he discounts the story because he can't believe in the existence of one-eyed men (the eagle-headed lion, however, he has no trouble accepting.)
Herodotus's histories are great fodder for contemporary literature. I have no doubt that every story that could be told had already been told by the time of Herodotus. The influence of literature like this is most plainly seen in fantasy works; after all, the ancient Greeks lived in a fantasy world, where gods wreaked havoc and monsters resided in the shadows. George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire would never have existed without Herodotus and the works of his peers. His tyrants, whores, valiant knights, plots of political intrigue and betrayal, may very well have all been lifted right off the papyri of these ancient texts. And no one could blame him for doing so. This is good stuff.
So Herodotus is truly a child of the world, marveling at its every wonder. But if he's so gullible, can we really call this history? My answer is that I don't really care what you call it. This is better than history. It's entertaining, it's fascinating, it's educational at times. Much like the Bible, it's got a bit of everything. It's a collage of knowledge, ancient rumors, wild speculation, and bewildering stories, that's begging out to be read and enjoyed by even such a removed generation as ours.
P.S. A quick note on the Landmark edition, translated by Andrea L. Purvis and edited by Robert B. Strassler. With all these maps and appendices and copious footnotes, why would you ever read a different edition? It's well worth it to shell out a few more bones for this one.
Herodotus is truly a child of the world, marveling at its every wonder. To the modern reader, much of what he writes is quaintly naive (and at times pretty racist). For instance, when describing Indians (a people he located in the very northwestern part of what we now know as India), he says that they "dwell farthest to the east and closest to the sunrise. For east of the Indians lies an uninhabitable desert of nothing but sand." (3.98.2) These Indians also "have intercourse out in the open just like animals" and "the seed they ejaculate into their wives is not white like that of the rest of men, but black like their skin and like the semen of the Ethiopians." (3.101.1-2) And in describing the land of Egypt, he constantly spews wildly inaccurate exoticisms. He describes the symbiotic relationship between an alligator and a plover (bird); the alligator, who is the most vicious creature in the world, opens its mouth to let the plover eat the leeches from his gums (not true, despite the misinformation still circling today, even). There is a report of ants that are smaller than dogs but larger than foxes who gather gold out of the desert. He tells a story about a race of one-eyed men who steal gold from gold-hoarding griffins, but he discounts the story because he can't believe in the existence of one-eyed men (the eagle-headed lion, however, he has no trouble accepting.)
Herodotus's histories are great fodder for contemporary literature. I have no doubt that every story that could be told had already been told by the time of Herodotus. The influence of literature like this is most plainly seen in fantasy works; after all, the ancient Greeks lived in a fantasy world, where gods wreaked havoc and monsters resided in the shadows. George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire would never have existed without Herodotus and the works of his peers. His tyrants, whores, valiant knights, plots of political intrigue and betrayal, may very well have all been lifted right off the papyri of these ancient texts. And no one could blame him for doing so. This is good stuff.
So Herodotus is truly a child of the world, marveling at its every wonder. But if he's so gullible, can we really call this history? My answer is that I don't really care what you call it. This is better than history. It's entertaining, it's fascinating, it's educational at times. Much like the Bible, it's got a bit of everything. It's a collage of knowledge, ancient rumors, wild speculation, and bewildering stories, that's begging out to be read and enjoyed by even such a removed generation as ours.
P.S. A quick note on the Landmark edition, translated by Andrea L. Purvis and edited by Robert B. Strassler. With all these maps and appendices and copious footnotes, why would you ever read a different edition? It's well worth it to shell out a few more bones for this one.
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