The histories by Herodotus

Histories of Herodotus

In his Histories, which chronicles the historical aspects of ancient Greece, Egypt and other regions of Asia Minor, Herodotus focuses in the beginning on the myths associated with these cultures and civilizations from his own distant past which at the time had acquired some relevance based on what was viewed as historical truth. Some of these myths, which now through archeological evidence may have some basis in fact, include the abduction of Io by the Phoenicians, the retaliation of the Greeks by kidnapping Europa, the abduction of Helen from Sparta by Paris and the consequences which resulted in the Trojan War.

Following this, Herodotus examines the activities and consequences of more recent historical myths associated with the cultures of the Lydians, the Egyptians, the Scythians and the Persians, all of which are interspersed with so-called dialogue spoken by the leading figures of these cultures. However, Herodotus' ability to separate fact from fiction was hampered to a great degree by not having access to any major primary sources, thus making it difficult to determine which narrative was based on actual events and which was pure mythology.

As to the portraits that emerge from Herodotus' Histories, the Persian empire, founded by Cyrus the Great in the sixth century B.C.E. As the Achaemenid empire which lasted more than twelve hundred years, was a truly faith-based culture under the guise of Zoroastrianism with the "Zend Avesta" as its predominant religious text. Along with Cyrus the Great, revealed by historical sources to have delivered the Jews from persecution in Babylon, King Darius was one of history's great lawgivers who made legal reform in his empire a main priority while adhering to

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traditional laws and the laws based on his imperial control and authority as the king of ancient Persia.

In contrast, the culture of ancient Greece was composed of city-states based at Sparta and Athens with their leaders supporting much pride in their citizens with an emphasis on the individual. One of Greece's greatest leaders was Solon, who much like Darius, took up the task of social and political reform. Solon altered much of the existing Greek laws and formed his own legal-based codes which resembled those of Hammurabi, the great lawmaker of Babylon; yet those of Solon were far more secular in that they laid out the rules for society to govern itself, similar in nature to today's democratic systems of government.

In the wars of 480 B.C.E., particularly focused at Thermopylae and Artemisium, the Greeks were victorious against the Persians for several key reasons. First, the Greeks were not only land-based but were also seafarers; the Spartan armies prevailed on land while the Athenian armies conquered the Persians at sea. Some historians note that the Greeks made fewer and less strategic mistakes than the Persians, not to mention fighting on their own soil as compared to the Persians, whose armies were mostly made up of disorganized, unmotivated mercenaries who spoke several different languages, thus making it nearly impossible to organize the armies into one cohesive, superior unit.

The Histories of Herodotus are still quite relevant today, for they help us to understand the complexities of history while pointing out how mythology can sometimes be misconstrued as fact. Without such texts as the Histories as a relatively major source of information, the true

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aspects of history would be unknown and would greatly assist in the repetition of past errors and judgments in today's world.

Undoubtedly, the Histories by Herodotus is a tale about the clash between two mighty civilizations that, for the most part, controlled a good portion of the known world in 480 B.C.E. Although the Histories were written in the traditional epic form, being a strong beginning, an even stronger middle and a powerful climax, its structure suggests that Herodotus was relying upon true events instead of fiction. This clash between the Persian Empire and the Greeks is told masterfully, and is generally broken up into three parts. The first three books concentrate on Persia's westward expansion by conquest until it was adjacent to Greece; the next three deal largely with resistance by Scythia, Ionia and Greece to Persian imperialism, a time when Athenians vanquished the Persian king Darius at Marathon and succeeded in repelling the Persians; the final three books cover Persia's repeated invasion of Greece ten years later under Xerxes and the empire's defeat at Salamis, Plataea and Mycale. Thus, Herodotus has provided an historical account of two empires in great conflict which has much relevance in today's world, especially in what some refer to as Western Civilization.

Most of the proof that the Histories denotes the clash of two great empires can be found in Book One. Herodotus tells us that "On the death of Alyattes, Croesus, his son, who was thirty-five years old, succeeded to the throne. Of the Greek cities, Ephesus was the first that he attacked. . . Afterwards, on some pretext or other, he made war in turn upon every Ionian and Aeolian state, bringing forward, where he could, a substantial ground of complaint. . . "

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(Rawlinson 26). Croesus also "made himself master of all the Greek cities in Asia, and forced them to become his tributaries; after which he began to think of building ships, and attacking the islanders" (Rawlinson 27). With this description, it is obvious that Croesus was a great warrior, due to attacking Ephesus, every other "Ionian and Aeolian state" and his desire to build ships and seek out more soldiers, weapons and support. In addition, Croesus, after many years of battle and conquest, "brought under his sway almost all the nations to the west of the Halys. The Lycians and Cilicians alone continued free; all the other tribes he reduced and held in subjection" (Rawlinson 28). In essence, the conquests of Croesus brought all of Greece together as a unified nation which in the future would aid them tremendously against their bitter enemies the Persians.