Lives And Works Of The Historians – Herodotus

Tweet

It seems apt to start a look at the lives of historians with the man described by Cicero as the father of history, the first historian, Herodotus. Born in what is now Bodrum in Turkey but then regarded as part of Greece, in c.484 BC, Herodotus set out initially to examine the origins of the then still ongoing Greek-Persian wars. These were the conflicts that included the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae (as featured in the graphic novels and movies about the 300 Spartans). Herodotus set out on an epic World tour to find out the truth, and his mostly walked journey took him to Egypt, Babylonia, and further still. He kept notes of all that he saw for himself and stories told to him by others, filling six lengthy volumes in his Histories as he went. Successors accused him of being easily led, and easily pleased, packing in everything but the kitchen sink, not knowing how to edit, or what to leave out. His premise was to explore the origins of the Greek-Persian War but a whole volume is set entirely in studying ancient Egypt. No one went off at tangents like Herodotus. Herodotus does lay strong foundations for history writers though. Homer wrote in verse. Herodotus in prose. Homer attributes human fate to the whims and struggles of the gods, but Herodotus insists on finding earthly causes for things that happen. He notes that if a man is killed by his house collapsing, it is usually seen simply a divine will to destroy him. However this would ignore simple structural weakness in the house or termite infestations. The gods might still be implicated, but worldly causes can always be found too. The two can be seen to go side by side, but natural, non-divine cause is always present. Herodotus was easily impressed by wild extravagant tales of flying snakes and if told some bizarre story it invariably made it into his early ‘Rough guide’. He always made it clear what he saw for himself and what he was told second hand though. A now particularly well known tragic story he relates is that of Gyges, Caudeles and the Queen. This was related in some detail in the Michael Ondaatje novel and movie, The English Patient. King Caudeles is proud of being married to a very sexy woman, and never tires of telling his faithful servant, Gyges how beautiful the Queen looks when she takes all her clothes off ready for bed. Suspecting that Gyges doesn’t fully believe how drop-dead gorgeous his wife is, the King arranges to get Gyges to hide in the royal bed-chambers and secretly watch the Queen undress. Gyges doesn’t want to do any of this but he has no choice – it’s the King who demands it, and Gyges is unfortunately caught by the Queen. She promptly puts him in a new dilemma – kill her husband and become the new king in his place or be executed on the spot on the Queen’s own orders. Gyges, still a reluctant player in the whole game, kills the king and becomes his replacement. A clever romantic tragedy but not true history other than being a story people were willing to share around the camp fires and which Herodotus logged as part of his long sprawling work – not strictly a single history but a great scrap-book anthology of his adventures, and stories heard on the way. His successor Thucydides would really set the bar for true history writing. Arthur Chappell