Herodotus 1 notes for class March 3 202
Kings: Asian, not Greek. They overreach and pay the consequences, like the Persian kings Darius, Cambyses, and Xerxes will do in subsequent books. Herodotus knows a great deal about them. In fact, he says that he knows three different versions of the Cyrus story (1.95), and that his version “will be based on what certain Persians say, those who seek to tell the truth rather than exalt Cyrus’ acheivements.”
Candaules. Lydia. Bad decision. Tries to get away with showing his wife naked to Gyges, but she sees what he did and has Gyges kill Candaules and take the throne from the Heraklids.
Croesus. Lydia. Bad decisions. Sends Solon away without taking his words to heart, namely “Until he is dead, you had better refrain from clling a man happy, and just call him fortunate” (1.32). Croesus trusts in his wealth, which does not save him. He purifies and then entrusts his son’s life to Adrastus, who kills Croesus’ son by accident; trusts Delphic Oracle, but misinterprets it. He attacks Persia, but leaves the battlefield and allows Cyrus to bring the war to Sardis, where he loses his own city, and only then realizes that Solon was right. Eventually gives good advice to Cyrus, about how to keep order during the sacking of his own city, and later how to Keep his own people from revolting — by changing the entire lifestyle of the Lydians by making them musicians, give up weapons, raise sons to be retailers, and wear tunics and slippers, “so they will become women instead of men.” He weakens his own people. He also gives Cyrus good advice about how to trick the Massagetae, which involves sacrificing the weakest of Cyrus’ own troops, enervating the enemy with wine, and then attacking them while they are asleep. but the plan goes awry when Tomyris’ son kills himself.
Deioces. Media. Cynically became absolute ruler of the Medes by being honest and judging cases scrupulously, but only because he wanted a palace and absolute secrecy. He wouldn’t let his peers see him, for fear that they would see that he was their equal and overthrow his tyranny. He also had spies to find out what his own people were doing.
Astyages. Media. Bad decisions. Tells Harpargus to kill baby Cyrus. Trusts Magi about Cyrus becoming KING. Kills Magi when Cyrus turns against him. Kills’ Harpagus’ son and feeds him to his father when he finds out that Harpargus did not kill the baby himself; then forgot about it and foolishly appointed Harpargus to lead his army against Cyrus, and loses kingdom of Media. He lucked out in the end, because Cyrus “did not further harm to Astyages, but kept him at his court until his death” (1.130).
Cyrus. Persia. Great conqueror, with flaws. Loses horse to river and foolishly punishes the river Gyndes (189), like Xerxes’ foolish whipping of Hellespont. Takes Croesus’ advice about Massagetai, but with the suicide of Spargapispes, faces the fury of Tomyris and loses his life and suffers shameful post-mortem treatment.
GREEK WOMEN (not all shown the same).
Pawns:
Io (Instead of the story of Io as a heifer, changed by Zeus to avoid Hera… historicizing myth: she came to Egypt on a Phoenician ship…but Phoenicians say she wasn’t stolen), Europa (historicizing myth: ‘they were presumably Cretans), Medea (historicizing myth ‘once they had completed the business that had brought them there’); Helen (historicizing myth… leaving out the apple of discord and Judgment of Paris).
Persians blaming the victims: “it is obvious that the women must have been willing participants in their own abduction, or else it could never have happened.”
Pisistratus’ wife, daughter of Megacles. Athens., a political marriage. Pisistratus did not want to have children with her, since he already had sons of his own, so he “did not have sex with her in the usual way,” causing Megacles to turn against him and drive him out from his second tyranny attempt.
[Does this count as a woman?] The Pythia, priestess of Apollo at Delphi. Arguably the most important character in Herodotus’s work, since Greeks and non-Greeks alike consulted her and took her pronouncements seriously. They sent great gifts to Delphi both to court her favor and to demonstrate their own piety and power.
NON-GREEK WOMEN (some powerful, some not)
MOST ARE POWERFUL IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
Wife of Candaules. Did not put up with her husband’s forcing Gyges to be a voyeur of her nakedness. She forces Gyges to kill his master, her husband, and makes Gyges king.
Lydian Women (1.93). After saying that prostitutes made the greatest monetary contribution to the construction of the great tomb of Croesus’ father Alyattes, Herodotus says, “The fact is that the daughters of every lower-class Lydian family work as prostitutes so that they cn accumulate enough of a dowry to enable them to get married, and they arrange their own marriages.”
Mandane. Median Daughter of Astyages, mother of Cyrus, wife of Cambyses (Persian). Astyages had two dreams about her: her urine filled the city and all of Asia; a vine grew from her genitals and overshadowed all of Asia. This meant that she would bear a son who would take over, and this is what Astyages feared. [cf. 1.209, Cyrus’ dream of Darius ,the oldest son of Hystaspes, who would in fact become the next king.
Spaco. Cyrus’ step-mother. (Spaco = kyno = “bitch”. She is smart, and gives Mitradates the idea to save Cyrus’ life and substitute her dead baby for the live royal child. Her story gave rise to legend that Cyrus was nursed by a bitch [like Romulus and Remus nursed by a she-wolf.]
Semiramis. Babylon. Queen five generations before Nitoctris. She made “remarkable dykes on the plain” to control the river flooding it. [She did exist.]
Nitoctris. Babylon Queen. [No evidence outside Herodotus that she existed.] Altered course of Euphrates River to increase the defense of Babylon; built great embankment along both sides of the river (well worth seeing for its bulk and height). Made a lake, surrounded by stone pavement . Built bridges across river that could be taken down at night, so that people could not cross to steal from one another. Her clever trick: tomb over the main road: “Any subsequent king of Babylon who is short of money may open my tomb, and take as much as he wants. But it will not go well for him if he opens the tomb for any other reason than because he is short of money.” And the inside said, (As Darius found out), “Only greed and avarice could have led you to open the tomb of the dead.”
Babylonian Women.
Most sensible custom: to sell off Babylonian girls to husbands. The beautiful ones paid for the marriages of the homely looking ones (196). The crippled would be auctioned off to the man who would accept the least amount of money.
Most disgraceful custom: Every woman is required to have sex with a strange man who throws money in her lap in the sanctuary of Aphrodite. They cannot refuse a man who wants them. The sex takes place outside the sanctuary. The good-looking ones go home soon; the plain-looking ones sometimes have to stay 3 or 4 years.
Tomyris. Queen of the Massagetae. East of the Caspian Sea, across the Araxes River. Nothing known about her historically. She took over the rule after her husband died. We do not even get his name. She defends her homeland. Calls foul on Cyrus’ plan (suggested by Croesus) to let a whole contingent of his own men killed in order to get her army drunk and capture her son as a result, rather than in a real battle. Give my son back, or “I will quench your thirst for blood.” And in the “fiercest battle between non-Greeks there has ever been,” her forces kill the overreaching king and she plunges his severed head into a vessel full of blood.
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