Booklog: Herodotus—Introduction
The Persian Wars are the subject of two literary masterpieces: Herodotus’ Histories and Aeschylus' Persians. Since the Persian Wars—like the Punic Wars, the Crusades, and the West's ongoing struggle with Islam—serve to define who we are, perhaps it would be useful to take a brief look at a few of the books of Herodotus that are directly relevant to the cultural struggle between the West and its enemies. We'll start with Book I.
Herodotus was a Greek, born in the late 480's in Halicarnassus, a city in Asia Minor. The city had been founded, according to tradition, by Dorian Greeks who were eventually booted out of the Dorian confederation of Asiatic colonies. By Herodotus' time, the city was in culture and dialect Ionian, that is, related to the brilliant Greek colonies on Asia Minor and in the Cycladic Islands that had revived Greek civilization after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece. Nonetheless, Greeks shared the city with barbarian Carians, albeit Hellenized Carians for the most part, and it was absorbed into the Carian kingdom, whose ruler, Queen Artemisia, plays so prominent a part in his narrative of the Persian invasion of 480.
Herodotus went into exile about 454 after the tyrant Lygdamis, a grandson of Queen Artemisia, killed a close relative, the epic poet Panyassis. Although he had good reason to hate her family, Herodotus is very partial to Artemisia, whom he portrays as a wise advisor to Xerxes on his expedition. He spent time in Athens and became friendly with the Alcmeonid family, before going off to join the Athenian colony at Thurii (founded 444/3). He was a great traveler, as you have seen, and visited the Middle East, Egypt, and Italy, as well as many Greek cities on the mainland in the Aegean. He was a relentless seeker after information, as the word History (investigation, fact-finding) implies.
Although Herodotus appreciated the Persians for their genuinely good qualities, he saw the struggle between Greeks and Persians as of monumental, even metaphysical significance. Modern historians of the Persian Empire describe it as a frontier problem. The fact that these historians have to read Herodotus and Aeschylus, because the Persians did not produce history or tragedy, should be a clue as to where they have gone wrong. Herodotus portrays the wars as a conflict in which the Greeks expressed their common identity, but it is also true to say that even up to the present, his book has served to recreate and recreate that identity.
His theme is the conflict between East and West, but there are deeper themes that might have been the subject of tragedy: man’s limitation, the envy of the gods, and the danger of presumption. The world is the way it is, and when man thinks he can change it by playing god, he will come to a bad end. The Persians, in invading Europe, bridging the Hellespont, are not merely out to enslave a free people: they are violating the laws of nature and of nature’s gods. They will pay and pay terribly.
Superficially, the Histories seems like a patchwork of tales and legends; in fact it is a brilliantly crafted literary construction, making use of a technique found in Homer—so-called Ring-composition. The entire work constitutes a logos, a narrative, within which there are hypo-logoi, such as the accounts of the Persian Empire, and hypo-hypo-logoi, such as the account of the invasions of Scythia or Egypt, within which we learn about the strange customs of these peoples, with which we are treated to stories within stories within stories.
He writes in the Ionic dialect, which is closely related to the latest form in which epic poetry was written. It was also the dialect of the early elegiac and iambic poets as well as of the earliest philosophers. Attic, which is a branch of Ionic, is more clipped, and Attic prose writers developed a paratactic style, that is, one that relies heavily on a formal construction of subordinate clauses. Herodotus, by contrast, tends to construct sentences that are strung out a bit like beads on a string. He is nothing, if not graceful, and his narrative abilities—and strung-on style—make him a fit subject for comparison with the epic poets.
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There are a couple of questions to consider before trying to draw any contemporary lessons from that period. How related are the Persians of Herodotus to any of the peoples of the Middle East today? How did Islam affect them and how did they affect Islam?
These are useful questions, and not too difficult to answer, but they are not essential preconditions for understanding the significance either of the Persian Wars or of Herodotus. Of all the peoples of the Middle East, the Iranians have been the most consistently conservative, namely in holding on to their language, and creative in using Islam as the basis for a rather diverse culture whose inspiration is not Islamic. In the 20th century, that culture has been undermined by state nationalisms and by islamic fundamentalism. It is also a sad fact that the Persians were renowned for their honesty have been succeeded by Iranians who are proverbial--even in the Middle East--for crookedness. But, in saying we had lessons to learn, I did not intend a rather literal sense of our current difficulties with Iran as in finding the roots of our own identity.
TJF: "The fact that these historians have to read Herodotus and Aeschylus, because the Persians did not produce history or tragedy, should be a clue as to where they have gone wrong."
Good point.
From a military perspective, our adventures in Iraq today are similar to what Herodotus narrates: a large multinational army (the Persian army) trying to absorb a small, largely homogeneous people (the Greeks - despite the Dorian/Ionian differences). Today we have the large U.S. army, becoming more multinational by the day, attempting to force the smaller ethnocentric tribes of the Middle East into a Wilsonian empire.
Although Herodotus may not contain the deeper insights of Thucydides or Tacitus, he may well be the most pleasurable historian to read. Reading his masterpiece is not just the acquisition of facts about a particular period or insights into human weakness, but the entering of another world. Although I've read parts of Herodotus in Greek years ago, I'll always remain fond of Aubrey de Selincourt's translation - the translation I grew up reading.
I am removing Mr. Kenny's unintelligible post. If he should like to make his points in a way that can be understand, they will certainly be put up.
I recommend Gene Wolfe's soldier series for a fictional account that dovetails with Herodotus. His hero, Latro, is a soldier in the Great King's Army.
It would be unwise to read a fictional account before actually studying the historian. On the recommendation of the poet Fred Turner, I tried Gene Wolfe but did not like what I read. I will, however, give him another try. What is the best book to read?
Soldier of the Mist is the first book of the series which references Herodotus a bit. You might start there, though I'm not claiming it's for everyone!
If only Dr. Fleming were the Education Czar.
Dr Fleming, I have found one translation at the internet classics archive. Is there a certain translation, in print or on the internet, that you would recommend?
The Internet Classics Archive, run out of MIT, has perhaps my favorite translation, which is George Rawlinson's, though it may be in the slightly simplified form that was later published by Modern Library. De Selincourt's Penguin is a bit easier to read and very good. The worst I know of is David Grene's, which I panned in a solicited review for the Washington Times, which refused to publish an honest review of a a Straussian fellow-traveler. In his preface Grene pans his predecessors in a most ungentlemanly way, only to produce convoluted and sometimes unreadable prose The Chicago series of Greek tragedy, which he oversaw, is also marred by bad translations and in some cases mistranslation. I'll post a few pages on Book I this afternoon, but I have to go to New Mexico for the next week, to be entertained by gracious people and spend the days walking in the mountains. The burdens of responsibility!