The History by Herodotus
I read selections from Herodotus back in high school. So I thought I knew what his book — the world’s first history book — was about. Then in reading and seeing The English Patient, with its many references to and quotes from Herodotus, I realized there was much that I had missed.
Finally reading the book from cover to cover, I discovered that the story that I thought was the main point — the invasions of Greece by Darius and Xerxes — takes up a very small part, at the end. Yes, that part is undeniably history, with dramatic scenes and quotable quotes. But most of Herodotus is anecdotal anthropology and travelogue and a delightful collection of rumors and traditions. The heart of the book isn’t the history, it’s the digressions. That’s where you get the flavor of the times, a sense of what it might have been like to live in the fifth century B.C.
Eye openers:
The physical territory of Greece was but a small part of the Greek world, long before Alexander conquered and hellenized. Considering how slow and difficult transportation was, the cosmopolitan nature of that Mediterranean world is remarkable. You see Greeks and Greek influence in Egypt, and Egyptian influence in Greece. In fact, it’s difficult to say where one culture ends and another begins. There was little correlation between political boundaries and cultural boundaries.
The Greeks are portrayed as a semi-nomadic people, frequently taking to their ships en masse, abandoning one territory/city and going off to conquer and settle territory elsewhere else. They were like hermit crabs, shedding one shell and then taking over another. There were Greek settlements all along the coasts of Africa, Italy, and Spain, and on almost every island — not just in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, but also Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica.
The oracles, particularly the oracle at Delphi, played a key role in determining when, where, and how populations moved. Anyone contemplating colonization consulted the oracles, and anyone involved in a territorial dispute brought on by colonization consulted the oracles as well. Greek peoples were constantly at war with one another and shifted alliances for the flimsiest of reasons — whether because of a bribe or because of a cultural insult, with obscure precedents in the distant, legendary past. But all trusted and respected the same oracles and feared the wrath of gods should they desecrate temples or holy places, regardless of whether it was a god that they themselves held in high esteem.
Some religious/cultural traditions were narrowly local and others were held in common. The Spartans, for instance, were repeatedly constrained from participating in key events because of local festivals/ceremonies which made little sense to other Greeks. For instance, they didn’t send troops to battle Darius’ army at Marathon, despite the urgent pleas of the Athenians. But all respected the tradition of the Olympics — even with Xerxes horde advancing on them.
The Persians were not so totally foreign to the Greeks as the Darius/Xerxes passages in Herodotus would lead one to believe. There were many Greeks at the Persian court. Many Greek colonies and mainland cities were Persian allies, or simply considered the Persians as another player in their local deadly games of coup and conquest and colonization. It was not just a matter of right and wrong, democracy against the evil empire. The Persians invaded at the prompting and request of Greeks who wanted their help to advance their own personal ambitions. And even some Athenians seriously considered switching sides and allying with the Persians.
The Greeks often colonized voluntarily. A dissident faction would, with the full support of the local political leaders, gather people, ships, and supplies and go off to conquer or found a city somewhere else. Or facing the threat of conquest, an entire city might take to its ships and sail off over the horizon with only the scantiest notion of its destination, and create a new settlement at the first likely looking landfall.
Peoples conquered by the Persians were often forced to colonize. Darius would take soldiers captured in war or the entire populations of conquered cities and resettle them on lands hundreds of miles away. He would give the leaders of his conquered enemies estates and wealth in Persian territory, and he would resettle some of his own subjects on the newly conquered land. This approach and the Greek voluntary colonization led to a continuous cultural churning and cross-fertilization. I had thought of the ancient world, with its limitations of transportation, as consisting largely of isolated parochial communities — like rural mountain towns in 19th century America. Instead it was a vast mixing bowl — churning and churning again.
There were enormous cultural differences that persisted despite this churning. The traditions and beliefs with regard to marriage/sex and religion/death differed as widely from one city or small country to the next, as they did from island to island in the South Pacific in the 1920s. And on the fringes of the civilized world, where there was less churn, and about which far less was known first-hand, the differences were much greater and some of the common practices were much more brutal by today’s standards. In particular, I was interested to read of a nation where the women as well as the men were warriors and a woman had to kill a man in battle before she had the right to marry.
When I think of the Mediterranean world in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, the only woman’s name that comes to mind is Aspasia — the brilliant courtesan, who inspired Plato and others. I was surprised to read in Herodotus about Artemisia — ruler of a small nation allied with Xerxes. Apparently, the Greeks were scandalized to see a woman as a warrior/ruler, despite their legends of Amazons. But Artemisia was one of the most effective generals in Xerxes’ vast army.
