Travels with Herodotus

by Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Herodotus is abundantly aware of this complication, yet he perseveres—he keeps conducting his investigations, citing various opinions about an incident or else rejecting them all outright as being absurd and contrary to common sense. He won’t be a passive listener and chronicler, but wants to participate actively in the creation of this marvelous drama that is history—of today, yesterday, and times more distant still.

  In any event, it was not only the accounts of witnesses to what once was that influenced and helped create the image of the world that he bequeathed to us. His contemporaries also had a hand in it. In those days before the advent of publishing and the solitary author, a writer lived in close, immediate contact with his audience. There were no books, after all, so he simply presented to the public what he had written and they would listen, reacting and commenting on the spot. Their responses would have likely been an important indicator for him of whether he was going in an apt direction, whether his manner of telling was favorable.

  Herodotus’s travels would not have been possible without the institution of the proxenos—“the guest’s friend.” The proxenos, or, abbreviated, proxen, was a type of consul. Voluntarily or for a fee, he took care of visitors who hailed from his native city. Feeling at home and well connected in his adoptive city, he took under his wing fellow countrymen who were newcomers there, as a fixer, a source of useful information and new contacts. The role of the proxen was particular to this extraordinary world in which gods lived among people and frequently could not be distinguished from them. One had to demonstrate genuine hospitality to a new arrival, because one could never be certain whether this wanderer asking for food and a roof over his head was merely a man, or in fact a god who had assumed human form.

  Other valuable sources of material for Herodotus were all types of ubiquitous guardians of memory, self-taught historians, itinerant fiddlers. To this day in western Africa one can encounter and hear a griot, who walks around villages and marketplaces recounting the legends, myths, and stories of his people, tribe, or clan. In exchange for a small payment, or for a humble meal and a cup of cool water, the old griot, a man of great wisdom and exuberant imagination, will relate for you the history of your country, what happened there once upon a time, what accidents, events, and marvels occurred. And whether what he says is the truth or not, no one can say, and it’s best not to look too closely.

  Herodotus travels in order to satisfy a child’s question: Where do the ships on the horizon come from? And is what we see with our own eyes not the edge of the world? No. So there are still other worlds? What kind? When the child grows up, he will want to get to know them. But it would be better if he didn’t grow up completely, if he stayed always in some small measure a child. Only children pose important questions and truly want to discover things.

  Herodotus learns about his worlds with the rapturous enthusiasm of a child. His most important discovery? That there are many worlds. And that each is different.

  Each is important.

  And that one must learn about them, because these other worlds, these other cultures, are mirrors in which we can see ourselves, thanks to which we understand ourselves better—for we cannot define our own identity until having confronted that of others, as comparison.

  And that is why Herodotus, having made this discovery—that the cultures of others are a mirror in which we can examine ourselves in order to understand ourselves better—every morning, tirelessly, again and again, sets out on his journey.

  WE STAND IN DARKNESS,

  SURROUNDED BY LIGHT

  Herodotus did not always accompany me. Frequently, my departures happened so suddenly that I had neither the time nor the presence of mind to think about the Greek. Even when I brought the book along, I often had so much work that I lacked the strength and the will to reread yet again that momentous conversation between Otanes, Megabyzus, and Darius, or to remind myself what the Ethiopians with whom Xerxes set out on his conquest of Greece looked like. The Ethiopians were dressed in leopard skins and lion pelts, and were armed with bows made out of palm fronds. These bows were long, at least four cubits in length, and their arrows were short and tipped not with iron but with a head made from sharpened stone … They carried spears as well, whose heads were made out of gazelles’ horns sharpened like the head of a lance, and also studded clubs. When they go into battle they paint half of their bodies with chalk and half with ochre.

  But even without reaching for the book, I could easily recall the epilogue to the war between the Greeks and the Amazons, which I had read on several previous occasions: So the story goes that after their victory over the Amazons at the battle of Thermodon, the Greeks sailed away in three ships, taking with them all the Amazons that they had been able to capture alive. When they were out at sea, the women set upon the men and killed them, but they did not know anything about ships or how to use the rudders, sails, or oars; consequently, having done away with the men, they began to drift at the mercy of the waves and winds. They fetched up in Lake Maeetis, at the place called Cremni, which is in country inhabited by the free Scythians. The Amazons went ashore there and made their way to inhabited territory. The first thing they came across was a herd of horses, which they promptly seized, and then they began to ride about on these horses robbing the Scythians of their property.

  The Scythians could not understand what was going on. They could not make out the newcomers’ nationality from their unfamiliar language and clothing; in short, they were puzzled as to where they had come from. Taking them to be young men, however, they fought against them. After the battle, the Scythians were left in possession of the corpses, and so they realized that they were women.

  They decided that instead of killing more women, they would send in young Scythian men instead, in a number corresponding to that of the Amazons, and have them set up camp in the women’s vicinity. The point of the Scythians’ plan was that they wanted to have children by the women.

  So the detachment of young men carried out their orders. When the Amazons realized that they had not come to harm them, they let them be, and day by day the distance between the two camps grew less….

  In the middle of every day the Amazons used to split up into ones or twos and go some way apart from one another in order to relieve themselves. When the Scythians noticed this, they did the same thing. One of them approached one of the women who was all alone, and the Amazon did not repulse him, but let him have intercourse with her. She could not speak to him, because they did not understand each other, but she used gestures to tell him to return the next day to the same place and bring someone else with him; she made it clear to him that there should be two of them, and that she would bring another woman with her too. The young man returned to his camp and told the others the news. He kept the appointment the next day, taking someone else along too, and found another Amazon there as well, waiting for them. When the other young men found out, they joined in and tamed the remaining Amazons.

  After that the two sides joined forces and lived together…

  • • •

  Even when I had not opened The Histories for years, I never forgot about Herodotus. He had been a living, breathing man once, then was forgotten for two millennia, and now, after many centuries, lived anew—at least for me. I endowed him with the appearance and traits I wished him to have. He was now my Herodotus, near and dear to me, someone with whom I shared a common language and with whom I could communicate, or at least commune, almost without speaking.

  I imagined him approaching me as I stood at the edge of the sea, putting down his cane, shaking the sand out of his sandals, and falling at once into conversation. He was probably one of those chatterboxes who prey upon helpless listeners, who must have them, who indeed wither and cannot live without them; one of those unwearying and perpetually excited intermediaries, who see something, hear something, and must immediately pass it on to others, constitutionally incapable of keeping things even briefly to themselves. To be a conduit is their
passion: therein lies their life’s mission. To walk, ride, find out—and proclaim it at once to the world.

  There aren’t many such enthusiasts born. The average person is not especially curious about the world. He is alive, and being somehow obliged to deal with this condition, feels the less effort it requires, the better. Whereas learning about the world is labor, and a great, all-consuming one at that. Most people develop quite antithetical talents, in fact—to look without seeing, to listen without hearing, mainly to preserve oneself within oneself. So when someone like Herodotus comes along—a man possessed by a craving, a bug, a mania for knowledge, and endowed, furthermore, with intellect and powers of written expression—it’s not so surprising that his rare existence should outlive him.

  Creatures like him are insatiable, spongelike organisms, absorbing everything easily and just as easily parting with it. They do not keep anything inside for long, and because nature abhors a vacuum, they constantly need to ingest something new, replenish themselves, multiply, augment. Herodotus’s mind is incapable of stopping at one event or one country. Something always propels him forward, drives him on without rest. A fact that he discovered and ascertained today no longer fascinates him tomorrow, and so he must walk (or ride) elsewhere, further away.

  Such people, while useful, even agreeable, to others, are, if truth be told, frequently unhappy—lonely in fact. Yes, they seek out others, and it may even seem to them that in a certain country or city they have managed to find true kindred and fellowship, having come to know and learn about a people; but they wake up one day and suddenly feel that nothing actually binds them to these people, that they can leave here at once. They realize that another country, some other people, have now beguiled them, and that yesterday’s most riveting event now pales and loses all meaning and significance.

  For all intents and purposes, they do not grow attached to anything, do not put down deep roots. Their empathy is sincere, but superficial. If asked which of the countries they have visited they like best, they are embarrassed—they do not know how to answer. Which one? In a certain sense—all of them. There is something compelling about each. To which country would they like to return once more? Again, embarrassment—they had never asked themselves such a question. The one certainty is that they would like to be back on the road, going somewhere. To be on their way again—that is the dream.

  We do not really know what draws a human being out into the world. Is it curiosity? A hunger for experience? An addiction to wonderment? The man who ceases to be astonished is hollow, possessed of an extinguished heart. If he believes that everything has already happened, that he has seen it all, then something most precious has died within him—the delight in life. Herodotus is the antithesis of this spirit. A vivacious, fascinated, unflagging nomad, full of plans, ideas, theories. Always traveling. Even at home (but where is his home?), he has either just returned from an expedition, or is preparing for the next one. Travel is his vital exertion, his self-justification is the delving into, the struggle to learn—about life, the world, perhaps ultimately oneself.

  He carries in his mind a map of the world—actually, he is creating it as he goes along, amending it, filling it in. It is a living image, a turning kaleidoscope, a flickering screen. A thousand things take place on it. The Egyptians are building pyramids, the Scythians are hunting big game, the Phoenicians are kidnapping young women, and the queen of the Cyreneans, Pheretime, is dying a dreadful death: She became infested with a mass of worms while still alive …

  Greece and Crete feature on Herodotus’s map, as well as Persia and the Caucasus, Arabia and the Red Sea. There is no China, or either of the two Americas, or the Pacific. He is unclear as to Europe’s shape, and also puzzles over the origins of its name. No one knows for certain whether or not there is sea either to the east or to the north of Europe; it is known, however, that lengthwise it is equal to the other continents together…. Nor can I find out the names of those who decided upon these boundaries or how the continents got their names.

  He does not concern himself with the future, for the future is simply another today. He is interested in yesterday, in the past that is vanishing, and in peril of fading from memory, of being lost to us forever—a prospect that fills him with panic. We are human because we recount stories and myths; the past—that is what differentiates us from animals. Shared histories and legends strengthen community, and man can exist only as part of a community, only by virtue of it. Individualism, modernity’s unalloyed good, had not yet been conceived in Herodotus’s time, nor egocentrism, nor any Freudian notion—such thoughts will not occur for another two thousand years. For now, people gather in the evenings at the long, communal table, by the fire, beneath the old tree. Better if the sea is nearby. They eat, drink wine, talk. Tales are woven into those conversations, endlessly varied stories. If a visitor, a traveler, happens by, they will invite him to join them. He will sit and listen. In the morning, he will be on his way. In the next place he comes to, he will be similarly welcomed. The scenario of these ancient evenings repeats itself. If the traveler has a good memory—and Herodotus must have had a phenomenal one—he will over time amass a great many stories. That was one of the sources upon which our Greek drew. Another one was what he saw. Yet another—what he thought.

  There were times when journeys into the past appealed to me more than my present-day journeys as correspondent and reporter. I felt this way especially in moments of fatigue with the present. Everything in the present kept repeating itself: politics—always perfidious, unclean games and lies; the life of the ordinary man—unrelenting poverty and hopelessness; the division of the world into East and West—eternal duality.

  And just as I had once desired to cross a physical border, so now I was fascinated by crossing a temporal one.

  I was afraid that I might fall into the trap of provincialism. We normally associate the concept of provincialism with geographic space. A provincial is one whose worldview is shaped by a certain marginal area to which he ascribes an undue importance, inaptly universalizing the particular. But T. S. Eliot cautions against another kind of provincialism—not of space, but of time. “In our age,” he writes in a 1944 essay about Virgil, “when men seem more than ever prone to confuse wisdom with knowledge, and knowledge with information, and to try to solve problems of life in terms of engineering, there is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism which perhaps deserves a new name. It is a provincialism, not of space, but of time; one for which history is merely the chronicle of human devices which have served their turn and been scrapped, one for which the world is the property solely of the living, a property in which the dead hold no shares. The menace of this kind of provincialism is, that we can all, all the peoples on the globe, be provincials together; and those who are not content to be provincials, can only become hermits.”

  So there are spatial and temporal provincials. Every globe, every map of the world, shows the former how lost and blind they are in their provincialism; similarly, every history—including every page of Herodotus—demonstrates to the latter that the present existed always, that history is merely an uninterrupted progression of presents, that what for us are ancient events were for those who lived them immediate and present reality.

  To protect myself from this temporal provincialism, I set off into Herodotus’s world, the wise, experienced Greek as my guide. We wandered together for years. And although one travels best alone, I do not think we disturbed each other—we were separated by twenty-five hundred years and also by distance of another kind, born of my feelings of respect. For although Herodotus was always straightforward, kind, and gentle in relation to others, there was always with me the feeling of rubbing shoulders undeservedly, perhaps presumptuously, but always thankfully, with a giant.

  • • •

  Did I do the right thing, trying to escape into history? Did this ambition make any sense? After all, we encounter in historical accounts the very same things such as we thought we could flee i
n our time.

  Herodotus is entangled in a rather insoluble dilemma: he devotes his life to preserving historic truth, to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time; at the same time, however, his main source of research is not firsthand experience, but history as it was recounted by others, as it appeared to them, therefore as it was selectively remembered and later more or less intentionally presented. In short, not primary history, but history as his interlocutors would have had it. There is no way around this divergence of purpose and means. We can try to minimize or mitigate it, but we will never approach the objective ideal. The subjective factor, its deforming presence, will remain impossible to strain out. Herodotus expresses an awareness of this predicament, constantly qualifying what he reports: “as they tell me,” “as they maintain,” “they present this in various ways,” etc. In fact, though, however evolved our methods, we are never in the presence of unmediated history, but of history recounted, presented, history as it appeared to someone, as he or she believes it to have been. This has been the nature of the enterprise always, and the folly may be to believe one can resist it.

  This fact is perhaps Herodotus’s greatest discovery.

  From the island of Kos I sailed to Halicarnassus, where Herodotus was born, on a small ship. En route, the taciturn, aged sailor lowered the Greek flag on the mast and hoisted the Turkish one. Both were crumpled, faded, and frayed.

  The town lay well inside the arc of the blue-green bay, on whose waters, in this autumnal time of year, many yachts were idling. The policeman whom I queried about the way to Halicarnassus corrected me—to Bodrum, he said, that is how the place is now known in Turkish. He was understanding and polite. The boy at the reception desk in the cheap little hotel near the shore had an acute case of periostitis, with a face so horribly swollen that I was afraid the pus would tear his cheek apart at any moment. Just in case, I maintained a certain judicious distance. In the shabby little room on the first floor nothing closed properly—not the doors, not the window, not the armoire—which made me feel right at home, as if in an environment I knew long and well. For breakfast I was given delicious Turkish coffee with cardamom, pita bread, a piece of goat cheese, some onion and olives.