Herodotus Book 2 Notes D. B. Levine 3/7/2021
Image source: http://calgary.thessea.org/herodotus/
Transition from book 1 to book 2: Cyrus dies, Cambyses takes kingship, Cambyses will invade Egypt, so let’s write about Egypt.
Travel. Herodotus says he went to Egypt, and travelled as far as Elephantine (2.29). Some people think he never went there, because some of his observations about geography and monuments are wrong, but I think he did go, because he speaks of his informants so often.
Sources. He is very specific about most of his sources, which include autopsy, priests, “Colchians,” “Egyptians,” and his own logic. He gives reasons why he accepts or rejects theories, like he believes the story that Helen never went to Troy, because it is unreasonable that the Trojans would have let their city suffer for 10 years if they had her in the town (2.120). And he rejects the theory that the Nile flows from a river around the world called Ocean, because “the tale is based on something which is obscure and dubious. I do not know of the existence of any River Ocean, and I think that Homer or one of the other poets from past times invented the name and introduced into his poetry” (2.23).
Historical accuracy: Specific statement about his historical accuracy in 2. 123, after recounting a strange ritual for Demeter: “Anyone who finds such things credible can make of these Egyptian stories what he wishes. My job, throughout this account, is simply to record whatever I am told by each of my sources.”
Autopsy (literally “self sight”): Herodotus saw the pillars of King Sesostris in Palestinian Syria, with the inscriptions and female genitalia 2.106. He gives the inscription he saw (which someone must have translated for him): “I took this land with the power of my shoulders.” He is more specific at 2.99: “So far my account of Egypt has been dictated by my own observation, judgement, and investigation, but from now on I will be relating Egyptian accounts, supplemented by what I personally saw.”
Audience. We get an idea of what Herodotus’ audience was interested in by what he includes: engineering: pyramids 2.125; source of the Nile; Egyptian kings; the long story of the two engineer’s sons who steal from king Rhampsinitus – intrigue, cleverness, fairytale ending with marriage of thief to princess. Exotic animals and weird (to Greeks) customs. Exotic customs, people and animals: Embalming (2.86), Flying Snakes 2.74, Pygmies (2.32; in section about finding the source of the Nile). Phoenix, Ibis, crocodile, hippopotamus. They drink barley beer (“ale” Waterfield) instead of wine because they have no vineyards (ἄμπελοι 2.77)
Connections between cultures and acculturation. Herodotus is very interested in this topic, throughout the Histories. Whereas in book 1, Herodotus tells us that Persians are the people most prone to taking customs of other cultures into their own, he says the opposite about Egyptians: they “avoid using Greek customs, or, by and large, those of any other people either. Everywhere else in Egypt, this rule is followed strictly, but in Chemmis…” He describes the ceremony there honoring Perseus, where they “serve Perseus in the Greek fashion, in the sense that they hold an athletic contest…” (2.91). This is the exception.
Egyptian Customs: Opposite of those everywhere else (2.55), with examples of male/female urination postures, shopping, shaved-headed priests, “they knead dough with their feet and clay with their hands, and they pick up dung with their hands, too.” They write from right to left.
Cultural Similarities and Acculturation. Herodotus is very interested in the cultural similarities between Egyptians and Colchians, who live near the east shore of the Black sea: 104: “the Colchians are obviously Egyptian.” So he asked the Colchians and Egyptians about it. they both practice circumcision, and have curly hair and dark skin. They work with linen the same way. Their lifestyles and language are similar. So they must be the same people.
2.30: Ethiopians who lived close to Egyptians “have learnt Egyptian customs and become less wild.”
Egyptians and Ethiopians (2.104) began circumcision, and the Phoenicians learned it from them; Syrians learned it from Colchians. Herodotus cannot say whether the custom began in Egypt or Ethiopia.
Nile Source: Herodotus is interested in bilateral symmetry, so assumes that the Nile’s course reflects that of the Ister (Danube) in Europe (2.33-34), which flows from the west and then takes a turn to go into the sea (Euxine).
Herodotus’ piety. He often says that he will not name names or tell certain stories, for fear of revealing what is not to be common knowledge. He is protecting his sources, perhaps, and avoiding the criticism of telling non-Egyptians the secrets of the country. 2.3: “Because I believe that everyone is equal in terms of religious knowledge, I do not see any point in relating anything I was told about the gods, except their names alone. If I do refer to such maters, it will be because my account leaves me no choice.”
Example: 2.132. A large cow statue “is carried out of the room every year on the occasion when the Egyptians mourn the death of the god whom I will not name in this context.”
2.45: After correcting the silly story that Ionians tell about Heracles in Egypt, Herodotus adds: “Anyway, that is all I have to say about this matter; I trust the gods and heroes will look kindly on my words.”
2.46 On the way that Egyptians portray Pan with a goat’s head and a he-goat’s legs: “However, I should prefer not to explain why they depict him that way.”
2.48 On the ithyphallic marionette figures used in celebrating the Dionysos festival: “The Egyptians have a sacred story as to why these figurines have oversized genitals, and why this is the only part of the body that can move.” But Herodotus refrains from telling this story, which presumably he has heard.
2.51: Speaking of the Pelasgian origin of herm figures: “Anyone will know what I mean if he is an initiate of the mysteries of the Cabiri – rites which are celebrated on Samothrace and are Pelasgian in origin… The Pelasgians told a sacred story about it, which is revealed during the mysteries in Samothrace.”
2.65: All the animals in Egypt are regarded as sacred. Some are domesticated, and others are not, but if I were to explain why some animals are allowed to roam free, as sacred creatures, my account would be bound to discuss issues pertaining to the gods,a nd I am doing my best to avoid relating such things It is only when I have had no choice that I have touched on them already.”
Oracles. Herodotus has shown a great interest in oracles, as we saw in book 1. In book 2 he concentrates on those of Ammon at Siwa (Libya), and Dodona in Thesprotia (northwest Greece). 2.54ff: Story of τηε two black doves going from Egypt to Libya and Dodona.
Herodotus does not let Ethnocentrism cloud his writing. He criticizes and corrects wrong ideas of the Greeks/Ionians. He admits that Greeks got many things from Egyptians and other non-Greeks (e.g. Pelasgians). He gives the Egyptians a lot of credit: Herodotus says that Greeks are wrong about Psammetichus cutting out women’s tongues so that the children would not hear other humans speak (2.2) “many absurdities”; the Egyptian “monthly system is cleverer than the Greek one (2.4) because they don’t have to insert an intercalary month every two years. On the origin of the Egyptians and the relation with the delta, he says (2.16) “So if I interpret these matters correctly, the Ionians are not being very intelligent about Egypt. however, if the Ionian view is correct, I can demonstrate that the Greeks and the Ionians themselves do not know how to count.” 2.45: “The Greek account of Heracles’ birth is far from being the only thoughtless thing they say. Here is another silly story of theirs about Heracles…”
2.49 Greeks learned the rites of the god Dionysos from Egyptians, via Melampus.
2.50 “the names of almost all the gods also came to Greece from Egypt.” [not true]
2.51 Greeks got idea of ithyphallic Herms from Pelasgians. “The Pelasgians told a sacred story about it, which is revealed during the mysteries in Samothrace” but Herodotus does not reveal.
2.77: As for the actual people of Egypt, those who live in the cultivated part of the country make a particular practice of recording the history of all peoples,a nd are consequently by far the most learned people I have ever come across and questioned.”
Rivers: Herodotus is very interested in Rivers, and speaks of them with knowledge throughout the Histories. In book 1, Herodotus says that the Persians consider rivers sacred, and will not urinate or spit into them (1.138). In book 2 he spends a great amount of time on the Nile’s behavior, importance, and possible source.
Crimes against Rivers. In Book 1, Cyrus punishes a river for swallowing his favorite horse (1.189). At 2.111, the Egyptian Pheros threw a spear into the Nile when it was in flood, and was blinded as punishment. We will see later that Xerxes punishes the “river” Hellespont with whips and chains when it destroyed a bridge which he had commissioned there (7.33-35). Herodotus sees these as impious acts, and each non-Greek king who commits them meets punishment: Cyrus: death against Tomyris; Pheros: blindness; Xerxes: defeat in Greece.
Helen. 112. [Note: “Alexander” is another name for “Paris.”] How does Herodotus introduce Helen? Pheros’ son was king Proteus (from the Odyssey), whose precinct has a sanctuary sacred to ‘the Foreign Aphrodite,” (probably Astarte, from Near East, but whom Herodotus believes was Helen, so he asked the priests, and gives their answer. The story emphasizes the sin against xenia that Paris committed. Herodotus uses the Iliad as “proof,” (6.289), but weakly. He only mentions that Paris stopped in Sidon on the way back to Troy. He would have been better served by Odyssey 4.242 (Lombardo), where we learn that Helen got the anodyne drug with which she spiked the wine“from Polydamna, the wife of Thon, a woman in Egypt, where the land proliferates with all sorts of drugs, man beneficial, many poisonous. Men there know more about medicines than any other people on earth, for they are of the race of Paeeon, the Healer.”
Herodotus says that his Egyptian informers said that they got information about this story from Menelaos himself (118), and that they also made other inquiries (119), so they were sure of this being true.
Antiquity of Egypt a theme, and the relative ‘newness’ of Greek civilization. See the story of Psammetichus (2.2) who tries to see if the Egyptians or Phrygians are the most ancient of peoples. He finds out that the Phrygians are even older than his own people, because the first word the children say is the Phrygian word for bread, bekos.
See 2.53: “However, it was only yesterday or the day before, so to speak, that the Greeks came to know the provenance of each of the gods, and whether they have all existed for ever, and what they each look like. After all, I think that Hesiod and Homer lived no more than four hundred years before my time, and they were the ones who created the gods’ family trees (θεογονίην) for the Greek wold, gave them their names, assigned them their honours and areas of expertise, and told us what they looked like.”
Herodotus recognizes that Egyptian civilization is much older than Greek civilization, and thinks that Greeks assimilated a lot of religious lore from the Egyptians. This idea appears in Plato’s account about Solon when the Egyptians speak with him (Plato, Timaeus 21e):
“In the Delta of Egypt,” said Critias, “where, at its head, the stream of the Nile parts in two, there is a certain district called the Saitic. The chief city in this district is Sais—the home of King Amasis (= Aahmes, 569-525),—the founder of which, they say, is a goddess whose Egyptian name is Neith, and in Greek, as they assert, Athena. These people profess to be great lovers of Athens and in a measure akin to our people here. And Solon said that when he travelled there he was held in great esteem amongst them; moreover, when he was questioning such of their priests [22a] as were most versed in ancient lore about their early history, he discovered that neither he himself nor any other Greek knew anything at all, one might say, about such matters. And on one occasion, when he wished to draw them on to discourse on ancient history, he attempted to tell them the most ancient of our traditions, concerning Phoroneus, who was said to be the first man, and Niobe; and he went on to tell the legend about Deucalion and Pyrrha after the Flood, and how they survived it, and to give the genealogy of their descendants; [22b] and by recounting the number of years occupied by the events mentioned he tried to calculate the periods of time. Whereupon one of the priests, a prodigiously old man, said, “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children: there is not such a thing as an old Greek.” And on hearing this he asked, “What mean you by this saying?” And the priest replied, “You are young in soul, every one of you. For therein you possess not a single belief that is ancient and derived from old tradition, nor yet one science that is hoary with age.”
[I wonder if the repetition of Solon’s name might recall Croesus on the pyre saying Solon’s name three times (Herodotus 1. 86)
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