Book One
Herodotus begins his Histories with an opening sentence that states his intentions in writing the account: he aims to record the deeds of great men, both Greeks and barbarians (a word which simply meant “foreigner” in Ancient Greek culture), so that such deeds should not be forgotten; and he also intends to find out and document the causes of the Greco-Persian Wars.
Herodotus then states the Persians’ side of the story, who believed that the Phoenicians “began the quarrel” that led to the Greco-Persian Wars. The Persians insisted that the Phoenicians had abducted the king of Argos’ daughter Io at Argos, where they had been peacefully trading with one another. Io, among other women, was taken to Egypt. The Phoenicians claimed that Io had gone to Egypt with them voluntarily because she had discovered that she was pregnant, and had not wanted to disgrace her family and kingdom.
In revenge, the Greeks kidnapped the Phoenician princess Europa at Tyre, for which crime they were not punished because the Phoenicians had not been punished for abducting Io. But the Greeks took it one step further, and travelled to Colchis in Persia, where they abducted the princess Medea. A few years later, the Trojan prince Paris abducted the beautiful Greek queen Helen. It was assumed that there would be no consequence to this action, as the other abductions had gone unpunished; but actually the Greeks went a little too far, spending ten years and hundreds of lives sacking Troy and committing unspeakable atrocities while there. Thus, the Persians thought that it was the Greeks who had “begun the quarrel.”
Determined not to appear biased, Herodotus explains the root of another theory as to who was responsible. It begins with the story of Candaules and Gyges, the former of which was once the king of Lydia, and the latter of which was his faithful servant. Candaules was enamoured with his wife, and wanted to prove her beauty to Gyges by allowing him to see her naked. Gyges was reluctant to accept, but eventually the plan was put into action and he glimpsed the queen naked. Unfortunately, the queen saw Gyges watching her as she undressed at night, and she called him to her the next day and faced him with a brutal ultimatum. She ordered Gyges to either kill Candaules and usurp the throne of Lydia, or be killed himself. Gyges reluctantly killed Candaules in the king’s sleep and succeeded him as king. The Lydians were unsettled by this usurpation, but were consoled when the Oracle at Delphi approved the new king. However, she also foretold that some form of revenge would occur five generations down the Lydian line.
No one paid attention to the prophecy until it came about five generations later. The king at this time was Croesus, who was extremely wealthy. It so happened that an Athenian nobleman called Solon was travelling around the world at that time, and he was accepted to stay for a while in Croesus’ palace. Croesus showed Solon his great stashes of money and jewels, and then asked him who he thought the happiest man in the world was. To Croesus’ astonishment, Solon listed a great deal of men who weren’t him. Solon explained that “he who is rich is no nearer to happiness than he who is not wanting.” Furthermore, he added, one cannot be counted as the happiest man until he has died, because “often God gives men a gleam of happiness and then plunges him into ruin.” In other words, one may experience one’s downfall just moments before death, or die a death devoid of glory and honour.
As is often the case in ancient myth and literature, Croesus was soon punished for his hubris in thinking that he deserved to be called the happiest man. Croesus had a son called Atys, whom Croesus loved and admired very much. One day, the king dreamed that Atys would die from the wound inflicted by an iron weapon. Determined to avoid this apparent message from the gods, Croesus removed all the iron weapons from his palace and married his son off, so that Atys would be more occupied with his duties to his family than with warfare and hunting.
At around this time, a man from Phrygia came to Lydia, begging to be purified by Croesus after accidentally killing his brother. Croesus agreed to cleanse the Phrygian of his crimes and welcomed him into the palace.
Just as coincidentally, there so happened to be a large boar in the kingdom which was destroying the crops of hardworking farmers and causing starvation and misery among the Lydians. Croesus refused to allow his son, who was adept at hunting, to go after the boar, fearing that he would be struck by some sort of iron weapon. But Atys managed to convince his father to let him go along by reasoning with him: the boar, he told his father, would not be wielding any iron weapons, so what was there to fear? Persuaded, Croesus allowed his son to go, but asked the Phrygian to accompany him in case any bandits attacked. The Phrygian, whose name was Adrastus, assured Croesus that “you shall receive [Ayts] back safe and sound.”
However, while they were out hunting the great beast, Adrastus threw his spear and missed the boar. Instead, he struck Atys dead. On returning to the palace, he asked the grief-stricken Croesus to kill him, as he could not live with the shame of two murders on his hands. Croesus pitied Adrastus and let him go unpunished, but the Phrygian simply could not cope and committed suicide. Croesus mourned the death of his beloved son for two years.
This period of mourning was broken when Croesus heard news that Cyrus, son of Cambyses, was becoming dangerously powerful after he destroyed the empire of Astyages. Concerned that Cyrus might come after Lydia next, Croesus decided to ask the Oracles whether or not he should attack Cyrus pre-emptively. Inorder to find out which Oracle was the most reliable, he first set up a trick question for each of them to answer. He asked the messengers whom he sent to the Oracles to ask them this one question: what exactly was Croesus doing at the exact moment in time that they were being asked this question? Croesus then set about doing the most unusual and unguessable thing as he could, which somehow involved a tortoise and beaches. Only the Oracle at Delphi guessed correctly what Croesus was doing, and so he disregarded the other Oracles and sent her many hundreds of expensive gifts and much gold. He then asked the Delphian Oracle whether or not he should attack Persia; she replied with a prophecy that, if Croesus should invade Persia, he would “destroy a mighty empire.” She also recommended that he gather a collection of Greek allies from the most powerful states. Croesus showered the Delphians with more gifts, in return of which he was allowed a variety of benefits from free correspondences with the Oracle at all times to a front seat at all theatres. Croesus asked her one more question: “would the Lydian kingdom last long?” She replied that it would last until a mule became king of the Medes. Croesus laughed, believing that no mule could ever rule such a kingdom. He left Delphi content with the answers he received.
Croesus next began to look into all the Greek states to decide which would be helpful as allies in his invasion of Persia. The two peoples that seemed the most powerful were the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. The latter kingdom had been struggling with oppression under the rule of the tyrant Peisistratus, while the Lacedaemonians were thriving in the aftermath of a success at Tegea. After any previous unsuccessful attempts at defeating this kingdom, the Lacedaemonians had resorted to travelling to the Oracle to discover how to conquer the Tegeans. The Oracle had replied that they must first uncover the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. Herodotus now tells the story of how the Lacedaemonians accomplished this.
When Croesus asked if the Lacedaemonians would fight with him against the Persians, they agreed readily, saying that they too feared the ever-increasing power of Cyrus. But their agreement to join sides with Croesus was as much for the Lydians’ benefit as for the Lacedaemonians’, as this latter nation already owed Croesus favours from past dealings.
Croesus now began to prepare for the invasion. Herodotus claims in a moment of extremely obvious dramatic irony that he was “taking the Oracle in the wrong sense.” One man tried to dissuade Croesus from attacking by reminding him that they had little to gain from the Persians should the Lydians win, but that the Persians would have acquired many undeserved spoils should they defeat the Lydians. He was unable to dissuade Croesus, though, and preparations for the battle went ahead.
Croesus and Cyrus fought one battle at Pyteria, but Croesus soon retreated back to Sardis to get more allies involved. Croesus assumed that Cyrus would wait to attack until winter ended, and so he remained behind in Sardis, but Cyrus had no such intentions. He attacked Sardis with an extra troop: one composed of camels. The camels scared the Lydian horses, reducing Croesus’ army to a few ranks of less experienced footmen. Cyrus defeated the Lydians, but gave his soldiers orders to bring Croesus back to him alive.
The camels scared the Lydian horses, reducing Croesus’ army to a few ranks of less experienced footmen. The Persians were able to lay siege on Sardis easily. Croesus asked for help from the Spartans, who were at the point in the middle of a war with the Argives. The Spartans agreed to help and began preparing their navy and soldiers, but, just as they were about to set sail for Sardis, they received word that Sardis had fallen and Croesus had been captured. Herodotus now narrates how the Persians were able to besiege the Lydian city.
Cyrus had offered a great reward for the man who was able to mount the defensive walls that encircled Sardis. One man was able to climb the wall where it was most steep, because this section of the wall had been left unguarded, as the Lydian guards had deemed it unclimbable. All the Persians followed this first man over the walls into Sardis, and so it was taken.
It so happened that, many years previously, Croesus had consulted the Oracle about his deaf and mute son (not to be mistaken with the son who was accidentally killed by Adrastus years earlier). The Oracle had told Croesus that he would regret the day that his adult son spoke his first words.
While the Persians were pillaging Sardis and killing warriors here and there, one Persian soldier caught sight of Croesus and, not realising that it was he, prepared to kill him on the spot. But Croesus’ deaf son was standing nearby and saw that the soldier was about to slay his father. It was then that he first opened his mouth and spoke the words, “Do not kill Croesus!” The soldier saw his mistake and, instead of killing the Lydian king, brought him to Cyrus as ordered.
Cyrus at once lit a pile of wood with the intention of burning Croesus alive. As he lay on the pyre awaiting his fate, Croesus remembered the words of Solon, who had claimed that no man could be happy. Recalling the Athenian, and realising how his words applied so tragically to his situation, he cried out, “Solon! Solon…!” Cyrus heard him, and asked who Solon was. Croesus told him about Solon and his philosophy, and Cyrus realised that he was killing a great, humble, noble and powerful man, and ordered his men to put out the fire, because he “feared retribution.” The fire was now beyond control and the Persians were unable to extinguish it. Croesus, seeing how Cyrus was trying to save him, called to Apollo for help. Apollo conjured a great rainstorm which extinguished the flames.
Cyrus took this as confirmation from the gods that sparing Croesus was the right thing, as he saw how the gods favoured Croesus. And so Croesus was saved, and became Cyrus’ trusted advisor.
Herodotus now relates the story of how Cyrus came to be the king of Persia. A few generations previously, Astyages had been the emperor. He once had a dream about his pregnant daughter, which was interpreted to mean that her son would one day usurp the throne and become king of the land. To avoid this, Astyages gave her newly born son “clothed in the garb of death” to his servant Harpagus, with instructions to expose him on the mountains until he died. Harpagus could not bring himself to kill the child, and so he gave him to a lowly shepherd, giving him the same instructions. But this shepherd could not do the deed either, and instead brought up the child as his own.
A few years later, the identity of the baby – who was in fact Cyrus – was revealed during a game among the palace servants. Cyrus was elected by his friends to act as king of the city, and he began giving orders to the others. One boy refused to obey Cyrus, and was subsequently whipped for it. When Cyrus was called into the palace to receive his punishment for beating the boy, Astyages noted an astonishing likeness between the boy and himself. He realised that the boy was in fact his grandson. After speaking to Harpagus and the shepherd who had brought Cyrus up, he discovered what had really occurred all those years before. Furious at Harpagus for not seeing properly to the killing of the baby, Astyages thought of the worst punishment possible for him: he killed Harpagus’ son, cooked him, chopped him up in a stew and fed him to the unwitting Harpagus. After realising what he had just eaten, the servant pretended to accept his punishment graciously, but really he was plotting his revenge on the king.
Cyrus was sent away to Persia by Astyages to live in the palace of Cambyses as a prince. Had it not been for Harpagus’ desire for vengeance, he might have stayed there his whole life and never become the powerful king that he did. But Harpagus had other ideas. He encouraged Cyrus to revolt against Astyages, the man who had ordered his death, and Cyrus did so. When he saw that his kingdom was under attack, Asytages foolishly elected Harpagus as the man in charge of his troops. Harpagus, of course, ordered the troops to fall back, and so Cyrus was met with little to no resistance and was easily able to take back the region. Harpagus became the trusted advisor of Cyrus, who spared Astyages and apparently treated him well until his death.
After describing some of the customs of the Persians, Herodotus goes on to describe the following victories of Cyrus’ reign. First he conquered the Ionians, who tried to join sides with him but to no avail; he argued that if they really supported him, they would not have favoured Croesus over Cyrus during the capture of Sardis. Next, Cyrus invaded Babylon, by draining the river and marching through the dried-out riverbed. He then turned his attention to the nomadic tribe of Massagetae. Its queen, Tomyris, refused Cyrus’ hand in marriage, which led to a huge and devastating war, in which Cyrus was killed.
“Of all days in the year a Persian most distinguishes his birthday, and celebrates it with a dinner of special magnificence. A rich Persian on his birthday will have an ox or a horse or a camel or a donkey baked whole in the oven and served up at table, and the poor some smaller beast. The main dishes at their meals are few, but they have many sorts of dessert, the various courses being served separately. It is this custom that has made them say that the Greeks leave the table hungry, because they never have anything worth mentioning after the first course: they think that if the Greeks did, they should go on eating. They are very fond of wine, and no one is allowed to vomit or urinate in the presence of another person.
If an important decision is to be made, they discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.”
Histories 1.133
Book 2
Herodotus now begins to narrate the reign of King Cambyses, son and successor of Cyrus. He mentions briefly at the very beginning of Book 2 that Cambyses conquered Egypt, but then goes on to explain at great length the customs and culture of the Egyptians before narrating how the conquest occurred. He begins by describing how an Egyptian Pharaoh once learnt which the oldest civilisation was, by some rather unconventional means. The Pharaoh had two children locked into a room with no human contact for a few years, and then listened to their first word. It was the word for “bread” in the language of Phrygia, and so the Pharaoh found that the oldest civilisation must be that of the Phyrgians.
Next, Herodotus discusses the feats of the Egyptians, some of which he admits are better than those of the Greeks. In particular, he touches on their invention of the Egyptian calendar and the gods they believe in. Even Herodotus, a Greek himself, confesses that the Greeks based their own deities on these Egyptian gods.
The historian then goes on for many pages relating the different theories that Greeks and Egyptians alike have proposed to explain the annual flooding of the Nile. He discards many of them as silly, and praises the ones which to us modern readers sound the silliest. Herodotus even proffers his own opinion, which somehow involves the sun god pulling the sun in the wrong places by accident.
Herodotus then explains more of the Egyptian customs. He seems to be suggesting that the Egyptians did everything backwards. Their women did all the manual labour, while the men sat home weaving; they wrote from right to left, not left to right like the Greeks, although they apparently insisted that it was the Greeks who wrote from right to left, not they; they kneaded bread with their feet; “fish they are forbidden to touch; and as for beans, they cannot even bear to look at them”; and, most outrageously to Herodotus, the men urinate sitting down, while the women do so standing up. Where he found out this last fact I care not to imagine.
Herodotus then goes on to describe the animals native to Egypt and the Egyptians’ attitudes towards them. He describes crocodiles, foxes, wolves and other animals perfectly accurately, but it seems that he has never seen a hippopotamus in his life, for he describes them as having manes and tails like a horse and hoofs like a horse, among other outrageous descriptions of non-existent hippo features: “The hippopotamus… has four legs, cloven hoofs like an ox, a snub nose, a horse’s mane and tail, conspicuous tusks, a voice like a horse’s neigh, and is about the size of a very large ox.”
He concludes this section on Egyptian animals with a small anecdote about how, when a cat dies of natural horses within a household, that household must shave off their eyebrows. When a dog dies, they shave their entire heads.
“What happens when a house catches fire is most extraordinary: nobody takes the least trouble to put it out, for it is only the cats that matter: everyone stands in a row, a little distance from his neighbour, trying to protect the cats, who nevertheless slip through the line, or jump over it, and hurl themselves into the flames. This causes the Egyptians deep distress. All the inmates of a house where a cat has died a natural death shave their eyebrows, and when a dog dies they shave the whole body including the head. Cats which have died are taken to Bubastis, where they are embalmed and buried in sacred receptacles…”
Histories 2:66
Herodotus tells the story of Rhampsinitus, a past pharaoh of Egypt who was the possessor of a vast treasury. The story goes that two thieves would come and rob Rhampsinitus every night, until the king eventually set up some traps to try and stop the thieves, as they left no evidence behind with which he could track them down and prosecute them. The thieves arrived that day, and this is what Herodotus, in a very tongue-in-cheek and dryly humorous way, claims happened:
“The thieves came as usual, and one of them made his way into the chamber; but, as soon as he approached the money-jar he was after, the trap got him. Realizing his plight, he at once called out to his brother to tell him what had happened, and begged him to come in as quickly as he could and cut off his head, lest the recognition of his dead body should involve both of them in ruin. The brother, seeing the sense of this request, acted upon it without delay; then, having fitted the stone back in its place, went home taking the severed head with him. Next morning the king visited his treasury, and what was his astonishment when he saw in the trap the headless body of the thief, and no sign of damage to the building, or any apparent means of entrance or exit!”
Histories 2:121
The king set up many more traps to catch the surviving thief, but he managed to outwit every single one. Rhampsinitus was greatly impressed by the young man’s cunning and after eventually discovering the thief’s identity awarded him his daughter’s hand in marriage. The story shows how much the Egyptians admired and rewarded intelligence.
Book 3
Herodotus describes Cambyses’ campaigns to extend his empire. He manages to defeat the Egyptians, but suffers defeat at the hands of the Ethiopians further south. Angered by his loss in battle, Cambyses injures the sacred Apis Bull, after which he begins to slowly turn mad. He kills both his brother, Smerdis, and his sister (who was also his wife). The magi, a group of priests, rise up against Cambyses, and replace him with a man pretending to Smerdis while Cambyses is away campaigning in Egypt. Cambyses manages to injure himself while rushing to mount his horse, and dies of his wounds.
A Persian noble soon became suspicious of the imposter king, and asked the fake Smerdis’ wife to see if Smerdis has ears, for the wealthy Persian remembered that a “false Smerdis” had once had his ears cut off by Cyrus. Sure enough, the imposter king didn’t have any ears, and a group of conspirators join the Persian noble to reveal Smerdis’ treachery. They sneak into the palace, kill the king, and then argue over which form of government should be put into place next. One conspirator, called Darius, suggests a monarchy, and when the others agree, Darius is elected as the first king of the new monarchy. During his reign, Darius separates the Persian empire into twenty regions which he calls satrapies, one of which he named India. He also conquered many other countries and regions and incorporated them into the Persian Empire. For example, he reconquered Babylon after a usurper took the throne.
At the end of Book 3, we hear some rather strange and interesting stories about the cultures of different satrapies.
One story tells of how the Indians mined gold by dint of some fox-sized ants.
“There is found in this desert a kind of ant of great size – bigger than a fox, though not so big as a dog. Some specimens, which were caught there, are kept at the palace of the Persian king. These creatures as they burrow underground throw up the sand in heaps, just as ants in Greece throw up the earth, and they are very similar in shape. The sand has a rich content of gold, and this it is that the Indians are after when they make their expeditions into the desert. Each man harnesses three camels abreast, a female, on which he rides, in the middle, and a male on each side in a leading-rein…
When the Indians reach the place where the gold is, they fill the bags they have brought with them with sand, and start for home again as fast as they can go; for the ants (as is said in the Persians’ story) smell them and at once give chase; nothing in the world can touch these ants for speed, so not one of the Indians would get home alive, if they did not make sure of a good start while the ants were mustering their forces. The male camels, who are slower movers than the females, soon begin to drag and are left behind, one after the other, while the females are kept going hard by the memory of their young, who were left at home.
According to the Persians, most of the gold is got in the way I have described.”
Histories 3:102-105
Book 4
This chapter of the Histories focuses mainly on the Scythians, a nomadic and warlike race in modern-day Ukraine whom Darius invaded after crushing the Babylonian Revolt. Herodotus spends most of the chapter documenting the Scythian customs and culture, which it is obvious he finds exceedingly strange and somewhat fascinating. For example, he discusses their practice of drinking human blood, but also their excellence in warfare.
“As regards war, the Scythian custom is for every man to drink the blood of the first man he kills. The heads of all enemies killed in battle are taken to the king; if he brings a head, a soldier is admitted to his share of the loot; no head, no loot. He strips the skin off the head by making a circular cut round the ears and shaking out the skull; he then scrapes the flesh off the skin with the rib of an ox, and when it is clean works it in his fingers until it is supple, and fit to be used as a sort of handkerchief… Many Scythians sew a number of scalps together and make cloaks out of them, like the ones peasants wear, and often, too, they take the skin, nails and all, off the right hands and arms of dead enemies and use it to cover their quivers with… They have a special way of dealing with the actual skulls – not with all of them, but only those of their worst enemies: they saw off the part below the eyebrows, and after cleaning out what remains stretch a piece of rawhide round it on the outside. If a man is poor, he is content with that, but a rich man goes further and gilds the inside of the skull as well… When important visitors arrive, these skulls are passed round and the host tells the story of them: how they were once his relatives and made war against him, and how he defeated them – all of which passes for a proof of courage. Once a year the governor of each district mixes a bowl of wine, from which every Scythian who has killed his man in battle has the right to drink. Those who have no dead enemy to their credit are not allowed to touch the wine, but have to sit by themselves in disgrace – the worst, indeed, which they can suffer. Any man, on the contrary, who has killed a great many enemies, has two cups and drinks from both of them at once.”
Histories 4:64-66
Herodotus describes both Egypt and all the lands to its south and west, about which he has some rather interesting stories to tell.
“…here live the Garamantes, a very numerous tribe of people, who spread soil over the salt to sow their seed in. From these people is the shortest route – thirty days’ journey – to the Lotophagi; and it is amongst them that the cattle are found which walk backwards as they graze. The reason for this curious habit is provided by the formation of their horns, which bend forwards and downwards; this prevents them from moving forwards in the ordinary way, for, if they tried to do so, their horns would stick in the ground. In other respects they are just like ordinary cattle – except for the thickness and toughness of their hide. The Garamantes hunt the Ethiopian troglodytes, in four-horse chariots, for these troglodytes are exceedingly swift of foot – more so than any people of whom we have any information. They eat snakes and lizards and other reptiles and speak a language like no other, but squeak like bats.”
Histories 4:183
“West of Tritonis, nomad tribes are no longer found; the people are quite different, not only in their general way of life, but in the treatment of their children. Many of the nomads – perhaps all, but I cannot be certain about this – when their children are four years old, burn the veins on their heads, and sometimes on their temples, with a bit of greasy wool, as a permanent cure for catarrh. For this reason they are said to be the healthiest people in the world – indeed, it is true enough that they are healthier than any other race we know of, though I cannot be too certain that this is the reason. Anyway, about the fact of their health there is no doubt. Should the cauterizing of the veins bring on convulsions, they have discovered that the effective remedy is to sprinkle goat’s urine on the child – I repeat in all this what is said by the Libyans.”
Histories 4:187
The rest of Book 4 talks about Darius’ failed campaign against the Scythians and the Persians’ unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Cyrene.
Book 5
This book of the Histories narrates the story of Aristagoras, tyrant of the Persian-ruled Ionian city-state Miletus, who invades the wealthy island nation of Naxos in an effort to incorporate it into the Persian Empire. The campaign fails and, worried that he will lose his status as ruler of Miletus, Aristagoras initiates the Ionian Revolt against Persia. He travels to Sparta to ask for help, using the Spartan king Cleomenes’ current state of mental vulnerability to his advantage by trying to manipulate him into attacking the Persians.
“Cleomenes, however, was on the throne when Aristagoras of Miletus came to Sparta. According to the Spartan account, Aristagoras brought to the interview a map of the world engraved on bronze, showing all the seas and rivers, and opened the conversation in the following way: ‘I hope, Cleomenes, that you will not be too much surprised at my anxiety to visit you. The circumstances are these. That Ionians should have become slaves in place of free men is a bitter shame and grief not only to us, but to the rest of Greece, and especially to you, who are the leaders of the Greek world. We beg you, therefore, in the name of the gods of Greece, to save from slavery your Ionian kinsmen. It will be an easy task, for these foreigners have little taste for war, and you are the finest soldiers in the world. The Persian weapons are bows and short spears; they fight in trousers and turbans – that will show you how easy they are to beat! Moreover, the inhabitants of that continent are richer than all the rest of the world put together – they have everything, gold, silver, bronze, elaborately embroidered clothes and beasts of burden and slaves. All this you may have if you wish. I will show you the relative positions of the various nations.”
Histories 5:49
Aristagoras is a very greedy figure who only thinks about himself, always doing what will bring him the most wealth and the best reputation, and never being loyal to any particular nation. It’s interesting that he assumes that Cleomenes thinks in the same way; in trying to persuade the Spartan king to overthrow the Persians, he talks at great length about all the riches that they possess, thinking that this is what will motivate Cleomenes to invade them.
Cleomenes, however, will not be fooled. With a laconic reply typical of the Spartans (“Your proposal to take Lacedaemonians a three months’ journey from the sea is a highly improper one”), he sends Aristagoras on his way.
Origins of democracy in Athens.
“Thus Athens went from strength to strength, and proved, if proof were needed, how noble a thing equality before the law is, not in one respect only, but in all; for while they were oppressed under tyrants, they had no better success in war than any of their neighbours, yet, once the yoke was flung off, they proved the finest fighters in the world. This clearly shows that, so long as they were held down by authority, they deliberately shirked their duty in the field, as slaves shirk working for their masters; but when freedom was won, then every man amongst them was interested in his own cause.”
Histories
This paragraph clearly shows Herodotus’ opinion that democracy is a better form of government than tyranny. He describes democracy as “noble […] not in one respect only, but in all”; he claims that citizens under the reign of tyrants were “oppressed” and “held down”; and he describes the fall of tyranny in Athens as a “yoke flung off” for the Athenians.
Some parallels can be drawn between this extract about tyranny and democracy in Ancient Athens and some forms of government today. Democratic systems like those currently in use in Western countries, though with their drawbacks, are clearly preferable to those in use in nations such as China, North Korea and Venezuela.
Herodotus discusses how people shirk their duties under the rule of tyrants but work harder when under less control from the government. This can be seen in modern socialist societies that have failed due to a decrease in output after people’s labour began going towards a collective, as opposed to when labourers were working for themselves. Examples like Mao’s failed Great Leap Forward and Stalin’s similar plan for Russia showed how collectivist societies cannot work for the reasons Herodotus outlined two thousand years beforehand.
At this point, after the Athenians had just overthrown their tyrant and instituted democracy, Aristagoras of Miletus, having been rejected by Cleomenes, asked the Athenians for help in the Ionian Revolt. He came at just the right time, for the Athenians had just started getting a taste for the freedom and were on bad terms with the Persians already after the Persians had tried to get them to reinstate their tyrant, Hippias. Therefore, the Athenians readily accepted Aristagoras’ plea for help in rebelling against the Persians and sent 20 of their ships to Miletus. They then helped the Ionians to sack and burn down Sardis. Here, Herodotus adds an unlikely but interesting story to his account:
“News was brought to Darius that Sardis had been taken and burnt by the Athenians and Ionians, and that the prime mover in the joint enterprise was Aristagoras of Miletus. The story goes that when Darius learnt of the disaster, he did not give a thought to the Ionians, knowing perfectly well that the punishment for their revolt would come; but he asked who the Athenians were, and then, on being told, called for his bow. He took it, set an arrow on the string, shot it up into the air and cried: ‘Grant, O God, that I may punish the Athenians.’ Then he commanded one of his servants to repeat to him the words, ‘Master, remember the Athenians’, three times, whenever he sat down to dinner.”
Histories
From extracts like these, it is clear that Herodotus likes to punctuate his narrative with exaggerated drama to make things more interesting and engaging. Regardless of whether Herodotus has his facts straight or not, the point of the story is that Athens has now become on Darius’ radar as somewhere that needs to be dealt with. However, he doesn’t seem to take Athens as a threat to his country, but more a personal insult to his status as king of Persia: who were these jumped-up little Athenians anyway, and how dare they have the audacity to try and overthrow him!
The Ionian Revolt has officially begun. There are many more small uprisings against the Persians that constitute the Revolt, and many other countries and city-states such as Cyprus decide to join in. Though the Persians outnumber their rivals and subsequently put down the rebellion, Darius will never forget the interference of Athens in the affairs of Persia.
Book 6
Book 6 begins with Darius conquering Miletus and quashing the Ionian Revolt once and for all. He now turns his attention to Athens, whom he is intent on punishing after their aid in the Ionian Revolt. On the way, he defeats and conquers the Greek nation of Eretria. Then, after Hippias tells him where to land, Darius sends his troops to the Bay of Marathon for a battle with the Athenians.
Athens sends to Sparta for help in the upcoming battle, but the Spartans, for all they seem to want to help, decline as they are celebrating a religious festival which cannot be interrupted or postponed. The messenger whom the Athenians sent to ask for Sparta’s help will be the same man to run the first “marathon” when he runs the 25 miles from Marathon to Athens at the end of the battle.
“The messenger was an Athenian named Pheidippides, a professional long-distance runner…he reached Sparta the day after he left Athens and delivered his message to the Spartan government. ‘Men of Sparta’ (the message ran), ‘the Athenians ask you to help them, and not to stand by while the most ancient city of Greece is crushed and enslaved by a foreign invader…’ The Spartans, though moved by the appeal, and willing to send help to Athens, were unable to send it promptly because they did not wish to break their law. It was the ninth day of the month, and they said they could not take the field until the moon was full.”
Histories 6:105-6
The Athenians now have to make a difficult decision. There are ten Athenian generals present, five of whom want to abandon the battle entirely, thinking that going ahead would be a suicide mission, while the other half wish to fight bravely for their freedom and go ahead with the battle. The deciding vote falls to the war archon, Callimachus. After a very persuasive and passionate speech by Miltiades, one of the five generals in favour of charging against the Persians, the Greeks decide to go ahead with the battle after all.
“‘It is now in your hands, Callimachus,’ he said, ‘either to enslave Athens, or to make her free… Never in our history have we Athenians been in such peril as now. If we submit to the Persians, Hippias will be restored to power – and there is little doubt what misery must then ensue: but if we fight and win, then this city of ours may well grow to pre-eminence amongst all the cities of Greece… If we refuse to fight, I have little doubt that the result will be bitter dissension; our purpose will be shaken, and we shall submit to Persia. But if we fight before the rot can show itself in any of us, then, if God gives us fair play, we can not only fight but win. Yours is the decision; all hangs upon you; vote on my side, and our country will be free – yes, and the first city of Greece.'”
Histories 6:109
A mighty battle ensues, which Herodotus tells us the Athenians “fought in a way not to be forgotten” .The Persians line up their troops in a simple formation along the coastline, but the Athenians go for something more advantageous. They line up some of their troops in a line directly opposite the Persians, and flank their troops down the sides a little so that they cannot be surrounded. An interesting turn of events leads to the Persian army being surrounded by the Athenians and easily destroyed – “some 6400 Persians were killed; the losses of the Athenians were 192.”
The efficient Athenian messenger from earlier runs the 25 miles from Marathon all the way to Athens in just three days. He tells the Athenians that they have won the Battle at Marathon, but that some of the Persians are still coming after them (a portion of the Persian army took a different route to Athens before the Battle of Marathon had even started). The messenger then promptly dies.
Dreams are a major theme throughout Herodotus’ Histories. It seems that he includes so often and in such vivid detail to dramatise his account and make it more interesting for his readers. Not only does he mention the dreams themselves, but he is also talks at great length about their interpreted meaning, the events that followed the dream, and the true meaning of it. In the middle of talking about the Battle of Marathon, he digresses from the topic a little to discuss a dream that Hippias had:
“The previous night Hippias had dreamed that he was sleeping with his mother, and he supposed that the dream meant that he would return to Athens, recover his power, and die peacefully at home in old age. So much for his interpretation. On the following day when he was acting as guide to the invaders, he…led the fleet to its anchorage at Marathon, and got the troops into position when they had disembarked. While he was busy with all this, he happened to be seized by an unusually violent fit of sneezing and coughing, and, as he was an oldish man, and most of his teeth were loose, he coughed one of them right out of his mouth. It fell somewhere in the sand, and though he searched and searched in his efforts to find it, it was nowhere to be seen. Hippias then turned to his companions, and said with a deep groan: ‘This land is not ours; we shall never be able to conquer it. The only part I ever had in it my tooth possesses.’ So the meaning of the dream was now clear to him.”
Histories 6:108
It’s also interesting that when it comes to the Battle of Marathon, such a huge event in the lives of Greeks and Persians alike, Herodotus only touched briefly on the actual fighting part, describing in a few brief sentences how things played out. Instead, he uses the bulk of this chapter to talk about the individual experiences of different soldiers and leaders.
“During the action a marvellous thing happened: Epizelus, the son of Cuphagoras, an Athenian soldier, was fighting bravely when he suddenly lost the sight of both eyes, though nothing had touched him anywhere – neither sword, spear, nor missile. From that moment he continued blind as long as he lived. I have heard that in speaking about what happened to him he used to say that he thought he was opposed by a man of great stature in heavy armour, whose beard overshadowed his shield; but the phantom passed him by, and killed the man at his side.”
Histories 6:117
Book 7
As though the Persian’s defeat at the Battle of Marathon weren’t enough, an uprising in Egypt infuriates King Darius even more. He swears to crush both the Egyptians and the Greeks, but dies shortly afterwards. He is succeeded by his son Xerxes, who wants to go ahead with Darius’ mission to invade Greece and Egypt. Careful not to do the wrong thing, Xerxes first organises a debate among his subjects to see whether they thought he should invade or not. He listens to the advice of his uncle Artabanus, who warns Xerxes about arrogance and its consequences:
“It is the great ones that God smites with his thunder, nor does he allow them to show off. The little ones do not vex him. It is always the great buildings and the tall trees which are struck by lightning. It is God’s way to bring the lofty low. Often a great army is destroyed by a little one, when God in his envy puts fear into the men’s hearts, or sends a thunderstorm, and they are cut to pieces in a way they do not deserve. For God tolerates pride in none but Himself.”
Histories 7:7
Just when Xerxes resolves not to attack, he is visited by a dream in the night. The dream is of a man who tells him to ignore Artabanus and go ahead with the invasion. Oddly, Xerxes ignores the dream at first, but then it visits him again the next night. Xerxes tells Artabanus about it and makes Artabanus dress up as him (Xerxes) and sleep in his bed, to see if the dream would visit him too. Sure enough, the apparition came to Artabanus while he slept, claiming that he would be punished for trying to persuade Xerxes to do the wrong thing. Xerxes decides to take the dream’s advice, believing it to be sent by the gods, and prepares for an invasion of Greece and Egypt.
Xerxes’ decision to attack is usually mistaken nowadays as a display of his excessive hubris and arrogance. But actually, if one reads Herodotus’ account of what supposedly really happened, Xerxes’ choice was anything but hubristic. Actually, it is his humility and open-mindedness that makes him organise a debate; he is willing to listen to Artabanus, although their views differ, and apologises to him readily after once getting annoyed at him: “I flung some words at him such as a young man ought not to address to his senior. But now I acknowledge the justice of what he said, and I will take his advice. I have changed my mind; there will be no war against Greece.” He also considers an invasion of Greece to be a necessity for practical reasons: “Retreat is no longer possible for either of us: if we do not inflict the wound, we shall assuredly receive it.”
Xerxes prepares an enormous army even greater than his father’s, and orders a bridge to be built across the Hellespont so that he can enter Greece. When the bridge is destroyed in a storm, Xerxes is furious at its builders for making such a weak one, and even orders the very sea to be whipped 300 times. The bridge is rebuilt and Xerxes crosses the Hellespont into Greece.
Herodotus portrays Xerxes as a complex character. One moment he is having people sliced down the middle, or attempting to brand a river for its refusal to sustain a bridge, and the next he is weeping about “how pitifully short human life is – for of all these thousands of men not one will be alive in a hundred years’ time.” He is a good listener and a good leader, leading from the front with his army, and is considered in his response to Artabanus’ fears that the topography of the area is not conducive to an easy journey for so large an army and naval fleet. He decisively answers that to take no risks at all would mean never progressing – after all, “certainty, surely, is beyond human grasp” and “profit comes to those who are willing to act, not to the overcautious and hesitant...it was by taking risks that my ancestors brought us to where we stand today. Only by great risks can great results be achieved.“
‘I have brought you here because I wished to ask you to show courage in what lies before us; you must not disgrace our countrymen, who in former days did so much that was great and admirable. Let each and all of us exert ourselves to the utmost; for the noble aim we are striving to achieve concerns every one of us alike. Fight this war with all your might – and for this reason: our enemies, if what I hear is true, are brave men, and if we defeat them, there is no other army in the world which will ever stand up to us again. And now let us pray to the gods who have our country in their keeping – and cross the bridge.’
Histories 7:53
Xerxes’ army is huge, as aforementioned, and Herodotus now takes the time to list the many different peoples who helped comprise it.
Xerxes asks the deposed king of Sparta for information on how the Spartans would take a request for surrender; the king claims that they would never surrender, but would continue to fight the Persian army down to the last man. Xerxes finds this very amusing, and speaks at length about the preposterous idea that a few thousand Spartans might dare to fight an army of hundreds of thousands of Persian warriors. He stresses how the Spartans are not even under obligation by anybody to fight at all, but could very well turn their backs and surrender if they wished to. To us readers who know about a certain Battle of Thermopylae, this is rather ironic, as really it’s three hundred Spartans who willingly fight to the death against the Persian army. The deposed king says knowingly that the Spartans would fight because they fear the law much more than the Persians fear their tyrants; again, Xerxes finds this laughable.
‘They are free – yes – but not entirely free; for they have a master, and that master is Law, which they fear much more than your subjects fear you.’
He orders his armies to charge on Athens and Sparta. He doesn’t bother sending them envoys requesting surrender, as the last time he did this the Greeks threw the envoys down a well. He gives them no second chance, and the Persians advance on the two Greek city-states. Herodotus takes the opportunity to reflect that, in his opinion, it was the Athenians who really saved Greece for, if they had refused to fight the Persians, the other city-states would have lost heart and done the same. The Spartans, Herodotus believes, would have fought nobly and bravely and died nobly and bravely, but Greece would have been taken. And so he praises the Athenians for their courage and persistence.
The Athenians sent a message to the Oracle asking if they would win or lose should they fight against the Persians. At first, the Oracle’s answer is vague and seems negative, but she then gives a second answer:
The wooden wall only shall not fall, but help you and your children.
But await not the host of horse and foot coming from Asia,
Nor be still, but turn your back and withdraw from the foe.
Truly a day will come when you will meet him face to face.
Divine Salamis, you will bring death to women’s sons
When the corn is scattered, or the harvest gathered in.
There is some controversy over what the Oracle means by “wooden wall”. Some elders believe it is referring to the Acropolis, but the majority say that it is in reference to the ships, and means that they should at once prepare a huge fleet to meet the Persians with. However, they are concerned over the last two sentences, which seem to suggest that they are to lose at Salamis. But there is one man called Themistocles who thinks that the line “Divine Salamis, you shall bring death to women’s sons” is actually referring to the sons of Persians, and that it is at Salamis that the Athenians will win. The elders find this interpretation “preferable”, as Herodotus puts it, and they begin to prepare a fleet at once.
Battle of Thermopylae
Xerxes sends his fleets to Artemisium, but a series of mistakes and much bad luck sets him off at a slight disadvantage. First, a storm wrecks many of his ships; then fifteen of the remaining ships saw the Greek fleet and, confusing them with their own ships, approached them. The Greeks recognised the Persians’ mistake and captured the ships. They were subsequently able to question the Persians and learnt a lot about the arrangement and plans of Xerxes’ army.
Herodotus now proceeds to describe exactly how many troops came from which part of Greece; the 300 Spartans, led by Leonidas, are notable, as is the fact that Herodotus makes sure to tell us that Leonidas was a descendant of Heracles himself.
Xerxes sends a spy to assess the situation at the Greek camp. Some of the Greek soldiers are hidden from sight, so the spy gets an inaccurate idea of just how many troops the Persians are up against. One thing that he does see are a pitiable collection of 300 Spartans who are standing around combing their hair and taking part in sports and athletics. It is remarkable to Xerxes that such a small group of warriors should be so calm about fighting the millions of Persian soldiers that Xerxes had amassed. He asks Demaratus, that deposed king of Sparta from earlier, why they are wasting time combing their hair when they could be running away. Demaratus explains that they are preparing to die, for Spartans always do their hair before risking their lives in battle.
Xerxes waits impatiently for the Spartans to flee, but they don’t. After five days he becomes very annoyed, and sends a small army of Medes to go and bring them to him alive. He passes this off as an easy job that should be accomplished within no time, but really the Spartans fight the Medes for hours and eventually win. Xerxes blames the Medes’ bad battle skills and sends in his very best army, the King’s Immortals, to deal with the Spartans. They “advanced to the attack in full confidence of bringing the business to a quick and easy end”, but again, the Spartans beat the Immortals, infuriating Xerxes.
They fought back and forth for two whole days, the Greeks showing no signs of slackening, until on the third day a Greek called Ephialtes betrayed his fellow countrymen by telling Xerxes of a thin mountain track at Thermopylae. This track was so positioned that the Persians, travelling down it, would be able to come up at the Greeks from behind. That night, Xerxes marched his troops through the mountain pass. There was a small band of Phocians guarding that area, but the Persians approached so quietly they were completely taken by surprise. They fought for a while before the Phocians, believing that they were the sole target in the Persians’ attack, moved further up the mountain to find a better fighting spot. They were surprised, however, when the Persians made no move to follow them and instead marched on towards where the Spartans were posted at Thermopylae.
The Spartans heard that the Persians were marching up behind them and held a quick council to decide what to do about it. Leonidas of the Spartans remembered a prophecy which had said that Sparta would fall unless a king of the house of Heracles dies. He therefore makes the decision to stay behind with his 300 Spartans, as he knows that there death awaits him. He dismissed most of the other Greek soldiers but persuaded the Thesbians and the Thebans to stay behind with him. There they waited to face the Persian onslaught.
The Persians advanced and came upon Leonidas’ troops soon after. The Thebans, the Thespians and especially the Spartans fought very bravely: they “resisted to the last, with their swords, if they had them, and, if not, with their hands and teeth“. It is here that Herodotus describes one of the most famous lines in Greek history:
Before the battle [a Spartan called Dieneces] was told by a native of Trachis that, when the Persians shot their arrows, there were so many of them that they hid the sun. Dieneces, however, quite unmoved by the thought of the strength of the Persian army, merely remarked: ‘This is pleasant news that the stranger from Trachis brings us: if the Persians hide the sun, we shall have our battle in the shade.’
Histories 7:226
The Greeks, unfortunately, were too vastly outnumbered, and eventually every single Greek soldier whom Leonidas had not dismissed was killed, including Leonidas himself. Four times, the Greeks made for Leonidas’ body, wanting to give it the respect that it deserved, and four times they were driven back by the ruthless Persian millions. But with their persistence and determination the body was laid aside from the battle and fighting in all the honour and glory of its noble death.
To keep things interesting, Herodotus throws in a few of his usual side-stories. At one time he describes how two Spartan brothers were actually dismissed by Leonidas on account of their poor eyesight, and how one refused to go home and joined in with the battle and was, of course, killed horribly and tragically. The other brother, however, continued on his way home, and was held in great contempt by the other Spartans until he proved his worth at the Battle of Plataea years later: “no Spartan would give him a light to kindle his fire, or speak to him, and he was called a Trembler.”
All the Greeks who stayed behind at Thermopylae died, and the bravest ones were quickly buried by other soldiers. Little did they know that the Persian army would return later to uncover the bodies and, upon finding Leonidas’, would have its head removed by the orders of King Xerxes.
The dead were buried where they fell… Over them is this inscription, in honour of the whole force:
Four thousand here from Pelops’ land
Histories 7:228
Against three million once did stand.
Book 8
271 Greek warships set sail for Artemisium. After landing, they saw the vast Persian troops approaching, and realised that there were an awful lot more Persians than they had anticipated. Themistocles, however, bribed the Greeks’ leader into staying and marching into battle after all. Herodotus now proceeds to describe how a Persian soldier betrayed his countrymen by swimming (though Herodotus concludes that a ride by boat is more plausible) to the shores of Artemisium to give the Greeks information on the Persians’ plans for attack.
That day, the Greeks sailed out to the Persian fleet and successfully sank a good number of Xerxes’ ships. They then retreated back to Artemisium for the night. The Persians, who spent the night at Aphetae, had to suffer a great deal of wreckage when a storm hit and destroyed many more ships in their fleet. The two forces met again at sea over the next few days, the Persians with far fewer ships than they started off with, and the Greeks with far more, as they received fifty-three more ships from the Athenians halfway through the battle.
The Greeks suffered many losses in the next sea battle, and they decided to rethink their strategy. They ordered their ships into a tight formation that exploded outwards, taking the Persians by surprise and ultimately destroying a good number of their fleet. That night, some of Xerxes’ fleet broke off and attempted to travel around Euboea, intending to sneak up on the Greeks from behind. However, another huge storm wrecked every single ship on that mission; Herodotus claims this shows that “God was indeed doing everything possible to reduce the superiority of the Persian fleet and bring it down to the size of the Greek.”
After another inconclusive battle, the Greeks retreated and abandoned Artemisium. The Persians marched onwards and captured various Greek cities while the Greek troops made for Salamis. While holding a council of war there, news that the Persians had reached and were sacking Athens arrived. However, the city was largely empty when the Persians reached it, as most of the Athenian population were at Salamis with the other Greek troops. The few Athenians who were still remaining at Athens decided to hide inside the Acropolis, believing that the “wooden wall” from the Oracle’s earlier prophecy meant the Acropolis. Even after the Persians had destroyed the Acropolis and exposed the hiding Athenians, the said Athenians tried all manner of bravely fending off Xerxes and his men. Herodotus reports that they even tried rolling boulders down the Acropolis hill as the Persians tried to climb up it. For a while, the tiny band of Athenians seemed to be winning against the vast Persian army, but eventually the latter reached the top of the hill by climbing a seemingly impenetrable wall around the back. This strikes me as reminiscent of the Persians’ capture of Sardis, which involved climbing an unclimbable wall too. Xerxes either killed or enslaved whichever citizens had not already killed themselves when they saw the Persians approaching.
Back in Salamis, the Greeks were arguing over whether or not they should stay where they are. Their leader, Eurybiades, wanted to split the fleet and send some of them away from Salamis; after hearing Themistocles’ argument that they should keep the fleet together, Eurybiades and the other leaders decided to do as he (Themistocles) recommended. Perhaps it was Themistocles’ sarcastic retorts and ominous predictions that really changed Eurybiades’ mind: “Where will you be without the Athenian fleet? When you have lost it you will remember my words.”
Battle of Salamis
The majority of the Greeks were still leaning towards leaving Salamis and fighting for the Peloponnese. Themistocles was extremely worried that this was the wrong decision to make, and so he planned quite a deceptive and rather undemocratic manoeuvre. He sent a trusted slave to the Persian camps pretending that the Greeks were retreating and that he was a Greek deserter providing the Persians with this top secret information. In actual fact, the Greeks were not retreating at all, but were still deciding whether to stay in Salamis or not. The Persians rounded up their ships and travelled down into the strait where the Greek ships were, intending to cut off the “retreating” enemy. The Greeks, unaware of Themistocles’ risky plan, found themselves fighting a perilous sea battle with the Persian navy on a dangerously narrow strait. Although vastly outnumbered, the Greeks had a clever way of ensuring their victory. They waited until the Persian ships had advanced so close they were practically engaged in battle already, and then they (the Greeks) allowed some of their ships at the back to sail away. The Persians thought that they were retreating, but in reality they were simply trapping the Persians. Xerxes’ ships advanced towards the Greeks, who sailed backwards into the gap that the “retreating” troops had just left for them. When the Persians got close enough, the Greek forces suddenly advanced forwards, taking the Persians by surprise and destroying their ships ruthlessly. The ships which had “retreated” earlier now suddenly appeared, attacking away at the Persians’ left flank. The few Persian ships that hadn’t been utterly destroyed fled the scene, going back where they came from and leaving the Greeks to celebrate a beautifully decisive victory.
As per Herodotus’ usual, the historian throws in a few sub-stories while narrating the Battle at Salamis. The Persians had been unsure as to whether they should advance on the Greeks; all of the nobles said that they should apart from Queen Artemisia, who advised them to attack the Greeks on land as they (the Greeks) were too good at sea battles and would surely defeat them. Xerxes listened respectfully to her opinion but ignored it nonetheless. Later, while watching from a nearby clifftop, Xerxes saw Artemisia ramming and sinking a ship which he he presumed to be an enemy warship; he praised her greatly after the battle. What had really happened was that Artemisia’s ship was being chased by a Greek one. She had driven her own ship intentionally into a nearby Persian one, sinking it, and thus making the Greeks think that she was a deserter who had switched to the side of the Greeks. The Greek ship lay off chase, and Artemisia continued fighting unscathed. Of course, like Xerxes, everyone assumed that the ship she had rammed was an enemy one, and she didn’t care to point out that it wasn’t. Impressed by what he thought Artemisia had done, Xerxes is said to have commented after the battle, “My men have turned into women, my women into men.”
Xerxes saw the doomed fate that befell what little remaining ships he had, and essentially gave up. He retreated with all his ships, leaving the Greeks to celebrate yet another Persian defeat. Xerxes did leave a much smaller fleet led by a man called Mardonius behind in Greece to have another go, but for the most part the Persians returned home to Susa, hanging their heads in humiliation.
Mardonius sent Alexander of Macedon (not to be confused with Alexander the Great, who won’t be born for another century) to Athens, asking them to surrender the mighty Persian forces in order to maintain their freedom. He claimed that Xerxes was more than willing to provide financial support for any suffering Athenian families if only the Athenians didn’t try and fight against them. I found a lot of passages to quote here as things really started to get quite poetic. Alexander’s offer is barely heard by the Athenians before the Spartans arrived at the scene, imploring the Athenians not to accept Xerxes’ request and to fight back and never give up, “for surely you know that in foreigners there is neither truth nor trust”. This is a common theme in the Histories, that of the Greeks and the barbarians, or the “other”. Not only do the Persians wish to subjugate the Greeks, but they do not even understand the Greeks’ ways, for another Greek would never have committed the sacrilege that the Persians did when they sacked Athens and performed the outrage that was “the burning of the temples and images of our gods – now ashes and rubble.”
The Athenians believe that it is their “bounden duty to avenge this desecration with all our might – not to clasp the hand that wrought it”. They refuse to take the support of the Persians, rather “putting [their] trust in the help of the gods and heroes whom [Xerxes] despised, whose temples and statues he destroyed with fire”.
The Athenians describe Xerxes’ offer as “outrageous”, claiming that they would fight the Persians “unremittingly” down to the last man. They are greatly offended by the fact that the Spartans might consider for a moment that the Athenians might accept Xerxes’ deal, saying that “so long as a single Athenian remains alive we will make no peace with Xerxes”, reflecting the Spartan sentiment at the Battle of Thermopylae. The Athenians acknowledge that the Persian army is much larger and stronger than their own and that the odds are heavily against them, but remonstrating that “such is [the Athenians’] love of freedom” that they will fight down to the very last man to protect it. The implication here is that the Athenians believe they are going to lose against the Persians, but this only makes their resolve to fight them more commendable. The Athenians stress the similarities between their own fighting spirit and that of the Spartans; both armies are prepared to fight and die for the values which mean the most to them: freedom, independence and “Greekness”. They go on to elucidate exactly what it is that all Greeks share: they describe the different poleis collectively as “the Greek nation – the community of blood and language, temples and ritual, and our common customs”.
Battle of Plataea
Mardonius travels to Athens; the Athenians consider defending it, but it is already ruined and so they travel to Salamis. Mardonius sacks the city again. Then both the Persian and Greek armies travel to Plataea to fight a battle. Herodotus claims that the Greeks had around 110,000 soldiers in their army, while the Persians counted at around 300,000, with an additional army of Greeks who had switched to the Persian side, an army that Herodotus estimates amounted to 50,000 soldiers.
It becomes quickly evident that the Greeks are the ones winning here. Herodotus described that “chaos prevailed” in the Persian army after their palisade was taken by the Greeks.
Herodotus quickly interrupts his story to talk about which of the soldiers – on both sides of the battle – fought most bravely and nobly. He claims that it was Aristodemus, the man who had shamefully fled the Battle of Thermopylae, who fought most bravely after his previous desertion.
The battle really drew to a close when Mardonius was killed by a Plataean called Aeimnestus. The Persians panicked and fled, leaving the Greeks to the last of many recent victories.
As always, Herodotus includes a few slightly unrelated yet amusing stories into his account. There were quite a few in his description of the Battle of Plataea:
“When Pausanias saw [Xerxes’ tent], with its embroidered hangings and gorgeous decorations in silver and gold, he summoned Mardonius’ bakers and cooks and told them to prepare a meal of the same sort as they were accustomed to prepare for their former master. The order was obeyed; and when Pausanias saw gold and silver couches all beautifully draped, and gold and silver tables, and everything prepared for the feast with great magnificence, he could hardly believe his eyes for the good things set before him, and, just for a joke, ordered his own servants to get ready an ordinary Spartan dinner. The difference between the two meals was indeed remarkable, and, when both were ready, Pausanias laughed and sent for the Greek commanding officers. When they arrived, he invited them to take a look at the two tables, saying, ‘Men of Greece, I asked you here in order to show you the folly of the Persians, who, living in this style, came to Greece to rob us of our poverty.”
“Unlike these tombs, which were real ones containing the bodies of the dead, all the other funeral mounds which are to be seen at Plataea were, so far as my information goes, erected merely for show: they are empty, and were put up to impress posterity by the various states who were ashamed of having taken no part in the battle. There is one tomb there, bearing the name of the Aeginetans, which I am told was constructed at their request ten years after the battle by Cleades, […] representative of Aeginetan interests in Plataea.”
The Battle of Plataea marked the final victory that the Greeks scored over the Persians before Xerxes gave up entirely and withdrew all his soldiers from Greece. Many Greek soldiers had been killed in the Persian Wars, but a much greater number of Persians were lost. From this shocking turn of events – the victory of the underdog over an army many times greater than its own – we can see the effects and results that come with sheer determination, skill and even patriotism, which were the qualities that the Greek city-states both fought with and fought for.
The last battle which Herodotus documents is essentially a second Ionian Revolt which occurred at the same time as the Battle of Plataea. The Ionians, though Greek-speaking, have long been in the empire of Xerxes. One Ionian came and asked the Spartans and the Athenians for help: “in the name of all the gods that Greece held sacred, he urged them to save the Ionians, men of the same blood as themselves, from slavery, and expel the foreigner“.
The Greeks think that “the mere sight of a Greek naval force would be enough to make the Ionians revolt”, and so they take their navy to Samos. The Persians flee elsewhere, barricading themselves up and refusing to show themselves to the Greeks. The Greeks make a short but powerful plea to the Ionians asking them to revolt. The plan is that either the Ionians will take heart and revolt against Persian rule then and there, or at least that the Persians will start distrusting the Ionians. The latter effect happens, and Xerxes sends the Ionians away from the main fight that ensues between the Persians and the Greeks. The Greeks win this battle, and the Persians rush to the Ionians, ordering them to lead them away from the battlefield. The Ionians, however, lead the Persians in a circle directly back to where the Greeks lie in wait. Then they join in the fighting, killing almost every Persian present. And so the Ionians revolted and gained their freedom from King Xerxes.
Herodotus believes that part of the reason why the Greeks won was because of some motivation they derived from the knowledge that they had just won at Plataea: “a rumour flew through the ranks that the Greeks had beaten Mardonius in Boeotia. Many things make it plain to me that the hand of God is active in human affairs – for how else could it be, when the Persian defeat at Mycale was about to take place on the same day as his defeat at Plataea, that a rumour of that kind should reach the Greek army, giving every man greater courage for the coming battle and a fiercer determination to risk his life for his country?“
Herodotus concludes his Histories with a few of his typical random stories of individual Persians and Greeks, including the rather bizarre story of how Xerxes falls in love with his sister-in-law, who through no fault of her own ends up horrifically mutilated: “her breasts, nose, ears, and lips were cut off and thrown to the dogs; then her tongue was torn out”. Xerxes then proceeds to have his brother and entire family murdered.
Herodotus ends the Histories with the alleged words of Cyrus the Great: “Soft countries…breed soft men. It is not the property of any one soil to produce fine fruits and good soldiers too.’ The Persians had to admit that this was true and that Cyrus was wiser than they; so they left him, and chose rather to live in a rugged land and rule than to cultivate rich plains and be slaves to others.“