I started to share the best stories of Herodotus not because there was a huge popular demand for it (I’m yet to see the masses clamouring for more – of anything – on this blog) but because I don’t believe that Herodotus belongs to the academics only. People nowadays perceive classical authors as boring; in my experience it’s modern academics who are boring. Herodotus is anything but.
How could you not want to read Herodotus, the first historian, a man of inquisitive mind with the gift of the gab?
How could you not want to read Herodotus, the author of unforgettable aphorisms and cracking stories? A genuine polymath (it was easier back then) who covers everything and anything from geography to folk customs…? The surprisingly modern thinker and a great champion of liberty and democracy? When you read him, it’s easy to see how much of our modern notions we truly owe to the ancient Greeks.
An awareness of history plays an important part in forming identity. Herodotus was the man who – while busy writing history – unwittingly created the identity of the West as we know it.
Come on, see for yourself.
It’s been a while since we last talked of Herodotus which is a bad thing. So I was just about to write a new post to add to my Best Stories of Herodotus… and then I got seduced by the idea of doing a quiz instead.
Continue reading “Herodotus: A Quiz”
On this blog we don’t do a black and white view of the world, therefore even the Baddies can have heroes. And since we’re writing about Herodotus here, in this case the Baddies are Xerxes and his Greece-invading Persian lot, while their hero is, in point of fact, a heroine: Artemisia, the queen of Caria.
Continue reading “Artemisia, Hero(ine) of the Baddies”
The Best Stories of Herodotus returns today – after a shamefully long gap – with a story that has nothing to do with our favourite topic, the Greek-Persian Wars. Because The Histories of Herodotus is so much more than the long-winded retelling of a few gory battles: in his effort to unearth the causes of the war, Herodotus went as far back in time as the origins of the War of Troy and ranged across the Eastern Mediterranean and across subjects in a way that modern historians would never dare. Today’s story is a great example.
Let’s introduce the three protagonists first: Solon, Croesus and Cyrus.
Continue reading “Call No Man Happy”
In 491 B.C. King Darius I of Persia sent out his envoys to the various Greek city states, demanding of them earth and water – in those times, a sign of submission, the acceptance of, in this case, Persian rule. Some city states were cowed into complying while others refused; but the demand went down particularly badly in Athens and in Sparta:
…the Athenians cast these heralds, when they made their request, down into a pit, and the Spartans had thrown theirs into a well; and the heralds were told to take their earth and water to the King from there!
(Herodotus: The Histories, Book VII.133)
Continue reading “The Battle of Marathon (According to Herodotus)”
Salamis – an island in the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea, opposite Mount Aigaleo, 16 kilometres west of Athens.
Salamis – a battle that defined history for centuries to come.
![The Warriors of Salamis (Achilles Vasileiou), battle monument on the island of Salamis. Photo by Sculptureholic via Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 4.0]](https://waterbloggedbooks.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/the-warriors-of-salamis.jpg?w=640)
I first heard this evocative phrase in a history class at university many years ago but in certain countries (the English and the Spanish can raise their hands here) it’s pretty well-known. And I don’t know about you but it makes me think of ships ploughing the oceans, armies marching and merchants haggling over exotic goods. I think of kings whose word was law over diverse lands, of gold and glory and of a confusion of languages to equal that of Babel. In fact, in my mind I can see the big globe in the library of the Escorial, turning slowly….
He oído esta frase evocador en una clase de historia en la universidad hace muchos años pero en ciertas países (los españoles y los ingleses pueden levantar las manos aquí) es bastante bien conocida. No sé nada de ti, pero me hace pensar en barcos cruzando el mar, ejercitos en marcha y comerciantes regateando mercancías exóticos. Pienso en reyes cuyos palabras eran la ley en tierras distintas, en oro y gloria, y además en una confusión de idiomas igual que la de Babel. De hecho, mentalmente veo el gran globo en la biblioteca de El Escorial, girando despacio…
Have you ever read Herodotus? Let me guess: the answer is no. Are you ever going to read Herodotus? You bet.
???
Well, bits of it, at any rate. 🙂 If I have anything to do with it.
Continue reading “The Best Stories of Herodotus (And Why You’re Going to Read Them)”
Today, let’s talk about an author that you all consider ever so boring. By the time you finish reading this, however, you’ll realise he’s an author worth reading.
(At least that’s the theory.)
To begin with, let’s have the author’s picture:
For my part, what I consider boring… is biographical facts. So I’m going to keep this part short – mercifully we know next to nothing about him.
Continue reading “Short Biography of a Boring Author”
Let’s start today’s post with the one thing we should never start a piece of writing with: a cliché. Today’s cliché is that life is full of choices. None of us can avoid them, although some people make a damn good effort to as they’re painfully aware that by choosing something, they will miss out on something else. To these people the most of awful thing about choice is the very fact that they have to make one; that maybe none of the alternatives are any good only comes distant second.
To these people then the most fateful word in the world is:
When it comes to choices in literature, Antigone by Sophocles of course offers itself up for examples of moral choices on a positively indecent scale but I wouldn’t want to spoil your enjoyment in reading it. Besides, you haven’t heard from Herodotus for a while (this is where you all stop reading!) and he too loaded his Histories with plenty of fateful choices. There was, for example, the juicy case of Gyges, the favourite bodyguard of King Candaules and the king’s wife… but we’ll leave that for another time. Instead we’ll read the very end of The Histories, the last chapter of Book Nine, in which…
Continue reading “Soft Lands Breed Soft Men: The Persian Choice”
“A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over…”
Riszard Kapuscinski: Travels with Herodotus
Your journey is not over! There was once a post here but it’s been updated & republished – in two parts. Read them here:
A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over…
Riszard Kapuscinski: Travels with Herodotus
Your journey is not over! There was once a post here but it’s been updated & republished. Read it here:
Most people who took any notice of the Persian wars in their history class would know about the battle of Marathon in the first Persian war and the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis in the second; maybe, if you were really into it, you’d be aware that in fact there were a couple more battles, that of Plataea and Mycale the year after, that marked the genuine end of the Persian invasion of Greece. But the battle that almost everybody invariably forgets is the battle Artemisium, a sea battle fought simultaneously with the battle of Thermopylae. Yet without holding the Persian navy up at Artemisium there would have been no battle of Thermopylae – nothing would have prevented Xerxes to simply sail his troops round the wretched pass, making its defence wholly pointless. It’s hardly surprising, however, that in the end the battle of Artemisium got entirely overshadowed by the fame of Thermopylae.
So what happened in the forgotten battle at Cape Artemisium?
Continue reading “The Forgotten Battle (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
It appears that I went like a month without blogging about Herodotus. I don’t know what I’m coming to. All this reading of 20th century literature! It’s time I got my act together, so here we go:
The last episode of the Greek-Persian Wars à la Waterblogged saw the Persians chased away from Delphi by no less personage than the handsome Apollo himself. (No, I don’t mean the one in Battlestar Galactica. I mean the god of the silver bow.)
Continue reading “The Destruction of Athens (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
The Delphic Oracle had foretold the death of a Spartan king and advised the Athenians “to flee to the ends of the earth” but believed Apollo would take care of Delphi. And now, with a Persian army intent on loot having reached the temple of Athena and the locals having all run away, nothing short of divine intervention could save the Oracle and the treasures of Delphi. But would Apollo save his most famous temple or let it be looted and burned?
Continue reading “The Arms of Apollo (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Previous: The Battle of Thermopylae: Who, Where, How (Part I) The Battle of Thermopylae: The Fight in the Pass (Part II)
First the heroes, of course… the villain can wait!
Continue reading “The Battle of Thermopylae: The Heroes & The Villain (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Previous: The Battle of Thermopylae: Who, Where, How (Part I)
Considering how long The Histories is, Herodotus didn’t spend too long on the description on the actual battle at Thermopylae – a mere two dozen paragraphs or so. Nevertheless, it’s still too long to be quoted in its entirety – especially, if I want to keep my few readers!
Continue reading “The Battle of Thermopylae: The Fight in the Pass (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Xerxes’s army was already on European soil but their Greek opponents were still to determine where and how they should fight them. Or even to ascertain who was willing to fight them. The Delphi oracle – which in hindsight has been accused by some historians of being in Persian pay – advised all and sundry to sit on the fence if they could, told the Athenians to “flee to the ends of the earth” and warned the Spartans that either their city of “wide spaces” would be sacked or “the whole of Lacedaemon shall mourn the death of a king”.
Continue reading “The Battle of Thermopylae: Who, Where, How (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
As he began the march into Greece, Xerxes inspected his army and his navy; and much pleased with what he had seen, he wondered how the Greeks would react to his overwhelming power. Therefore he sent for Demaratus, the exiled Spartan king, who was accompanying him on the march in the role of a counsellor:
Continue reading “The Wild Words of Demaratus (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Ten years passed since Darius’ humiliating defeat in the Battle of Marathon. His son, Xerxes was now king of Persia and he wished to take revenge on the Greeks, especially on the Athenians and the Spartans. But he did not merely wish to take revenge: his goal was to extend his empire over the Greek mainland and beyond, “as far as God’s heaven reaches”. He aimed at creating the first empire on which the sun never set. (If you ever wondered where the phrase, first used about the Spanish empire, then the British, originated, Xerxes’s comment in VII.8, ie. “the sun will shine on no land beyond our borders” is a good contender.) Xerxes’ speech is also the reason why some historians see the Greek-Persian Wars as a crucial defining moment of Western civilisation; that moment in history in which the Greek idea of freedom (accompanied by the inevitable in-fighting) collided with the Eastern idea of the god-king…
Continue reading “Xerxes Weeps at the Sight of His Army (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Your Journey Begins Here…
A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over…
Riszard Kapuscinski: Travels with Herodotus
Your journey is not over! There was once a post here but it’s been updated & republished. Read it here:
Waterblogged 