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.
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" (8.6-7) Humanity, this suggests, cannot serve two masters -- God and a king, and humanity in the form of Israel chooses kingship. Thus, humanity is far more servile and weak and in need of divine guidance, than human beings who actively resist tyranny, in Herodotus, whether it be in their schema of governance of not. "This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will
Most notably, he sheds light on the status of women in Egyptian culture while examining purified bulls and calves (2.41). In the passages that precede page 41, he mentions women on a number of times, but merely to illustrate Egyptian culture and not in the account of religion. However, he described that there was equality in status of men and women in an Egyptian society and both genders were
This is perhaps another interesting aspect of Herodotus's objective level of discussion: his interests go beyond history and simple ethnography to give larger descriptions of additional themes such as geographical location. These can also help in determining and explaining the development of certain ethnography. His objective approach can also be seen in the descriptive manner in which he goes into the people's traditions. One such example stands out in Book
This was racism at its worst. The enslaved Africans and the native Indians began to get closer to each other, and started to share certain ethic traditions between themselves, and soon, they started to marry each other, especially because of the disproportionate number of African males to females. A number of red-black people began to emerge from these unions, and these people formed traditions of their own. However, slavery
One exception to this is Pausanias, a Greek writer. He recorded the quarrying done in Greece but he lived in the second century a.D. For other details, the information related to their architecture is limited to the writings of Vitruvius, an architect in Rome, also a military engineer and a writer who lived during the rule of Augustus (Masrgary, 1957; Derry and Williams, 1961). The Greek construction inherits its glory
In other words, at every seven courses of stone, a layer of reed matting was laid and weep-holes and drainage shafts were placed, thus preserving the ziggurat from water damage. Eventually the building fell into disrepair. Later, King Nabonidus restored the Ur ziggurat, along with other temples. Stiebing believes this was because he revered his mother's gods (285). Nabonidus claims in the clay cuneiform tablets found in the tower to
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