STUDY QUESTIONS: HERODOTUS HISTORIES 2 (Egypt)
Image source: http://calgary.thessea.org/herodotus/
Due: Monday, March 8, 2021
Note: This reading assignment is the first 135 sections of book 2 (pp. 95-149) in Robin Waterfield’s translation.
CLICK FOR DR. LEVINE’S NOTES ON THEMES IN BOOK 2.
0. How did the Egyptian king Psammetichus discover who the world’s most ancient people were? What sources for this story did Herodotus consult? (2.1-4)
1. What did the Greeks learn from the Egyptians about religion and the gods? Why does Herodotus believe his sources? (2.3-4)
2. Why does Herodotus call Egypt “a gift from the river”? What fact proves this? (2.5)
3. Why does Herodotus mention the road from Athens to Pisa? How long is this road? (2.6-7)
4. Why does Herodotus believe that Egypt was once a gulf? I.e. what is his evidence for the theory? (2.10-13)
5. What is the Ionian theory with which Herodotus disagrees? What are his arguments? (2.15-18)
6. What three ancient theories about the flooding of the Nile does Herodotus mention, and what does he think of these? (2.20-27)
7. What did Herodotus learn about the source of the Nile? (2.28-35) [Europeans did not know the Nile’s source location until 1862, with the expedition of J. H. Speke and James Grant.]
8. What reason does Herodotus offer for including so much information about Egypt in his Histories? (2.35)
9. What are three Egyptian customs that Herodotus describes? What opinion does he express about any one of them? (2.36-51)
10. What does Herodotus say about circumcision, and about the habits of Egyptian priests? (2.36)
11. Why will “no Egyptian man or woman will kiss a Greek man on the mouth, or use a Greek’s knife or skewers or cooking pot”? (2.41) What modern taboo might we compare with this?
12. What international research did Herodotus do to show that Heracles is an ancient god? (2.43-45)
13. What “thougtless” tale do the Greeks tell that Herodotus says cannot be true? Why can it not be true? (2.45)
14. What did Egyptians think of pigs? What examples does Herodotus cite to show this? (2.47-49)
15. How do the Egyptians worship Dionysus? What was Melampus’ role in Dionysiac religion? (2.47-49)
16. How does Herodotus think that the Greeks got their names for the gods? (2.50)
17. Where did the Athenians — according to Herodotus — get the habit of making statues of Hermes with an erect phallus? (2.51)
18. When does Herodotus think that Hesiod and Homer lived, and what does he say their contributions to Greek knowledge were? (2.53)
19. How does Herodotus describe the Egyptian origin of the oracle of Zeus at Dodona (in northwestern Greece)? (2.54)
20. What two religious sexual taboos do the Greeks and Egyptians share? (2.64)
21. What do Egyptians do when their cats and dogs die? (2.66-67)
22. How do Egyptians honor their sacred crocodiles? (2.68-70)
23. What does Herodotus tell us about winged snakes? How did he conduct research about them? (2.75)
24. How do the Egyptians embalm their dead? (2.86-90)
25. How do Egyptians protect themselves from mosquitoes, and how is one of these methods related to the English word “canopy?” (Look it up!) (2.95)
26. What did Proteus the king of Egypt have to do with Paris (Alexander) and the Trojan War? What evidence does Herodotus give about Homer’s knowledge of this story? (2.113-120)
27. Why, according to Herodotus, did Menelaus go to Egypt after the Trojan War, and what act of impiety did he commit there? (2.118-120)
28. What does Herodotus say about his sources for his Egyptian history (99)?
29. How does Herodotus associate the Colchians (who lived near the eastern end of the Black Sea) and the Egyptians? (104-105)
30.How did king Pharos attempt to regain his eyesight after his sacrilege against the Nile River? (2.111)
31. What is Herodotus’ opinion: was Helen in Troy during the Trojan War? What is his reasoning? (2.120)
32. According to Herodotus, where was Helen during the Trojan War? (2.118)
33. Whom did the Egyptian King Rhampsinitus consider “the most intelligent man in the world”? Why did he have him marry his daughter? Why was that generous act ironic?
34. What did Rhampsinitus do in Hades? (2.122)
35. What does Herodotus say is his job as an historian in his Egyptian account? (2.123)
36. What kind of king was Cheops, according to Herodotus? Give three details about his pyramid (2.124-125)
37. What happened to king Mycerinus’ daughter? (2.129-132)
38. Who was Rhodopis, and how did she leave a memorial of herself at Delphi? (2.134-135)
39. How did the courtesan Rhodopis have a connection with the Greek poet Sappho of Lesbos? (2.135)
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