Histories

by Herodotus

  33. The madness of Cambyses has been generally accepted by our writers. But, as Heeren long ago observed, ‘we ought to be particularly on our guard against the evil that is related of Cambyses, inasmuch as our information is derived entirely from his enemies, the Egyptian priests.’

  34. In the original, ‘both of the same father and of the same mother.’

  35. This is contradicted by the inscription, which records that Smerdis was put to death before Cambyses started for Egypt.

  36. From this passage, as well as from several others (chs. 65, 70, etc.), it would appear that Susa had become the chief residence of the Persian court as early as the time of Cambyses.

  37. The Inscription expressly confirms the fact of the putting to death of Smerdis by his brother, and also states that the death was not generally known.

  38. The Egyptians were permitted to marry their sisters by the same father and mother. Both were forbidden by the Levitical law, but in Patriarchal times a man was permitted to marry a sister, the daughter of his father only (Gen. xx, 12). The Egyptian custom is one of those pointed at in Levit. xviii, 3.

  39. It is scarcely necessary to point out the agreement between the view of Persian law here disclosed, and that furnished by Dan. vi – ‘The law of the Medes and Persians alters not.’

  40. This was Atossa, the mother of Xerxes (see iii, 88), who was the wife successively of Cambyses, the pseudo-Smerdis, and Darius Hystaspes.

  41. See ch. 30, sub fin.

  42. That the disease known under this name was epilepsy appears from the book of Hippocrates, ‘On the Sacred Sickness.’ The Italians still call it mal benedetto. Its sudden and terrible character caused it to be regarded as a divine visitation.

  43. The drinking propensities of the Persians generally have been already noticed by Herodotus (i, 133).

  44. The deformed figure of the Pthah of Memphis doubtless gave rise to the fable of the lameness of the Greek Hephaestus.

  45. They were dwarf figures of gods, apparently of any gods, placed, according to Herodotus, at the prow, according to Hesychius and Suidas at the poop of a galley. They were probably intended to protect the ship from harm.

  46. The Cabiri were Pelasgic gods.

  47. This just remark of Herodotus is one of many tending to show how unprejudiced and sensible his opinions were; and we may readily absolve him from the folly of believing many of the strange stories he relates, against which indeed he guards himself by saying he merely reports what he hears without giving credit to all himself, or expecting others to do so.

  48. See iii, 99, and compare the custom of the Issedonians, iv, 26.

  49. See ch. 120.

  50. These bowmen were Samians.

  51. The town Samos, not the island, is of course here meant. The islands of the Aegean almost all derived their name from their chief city.

  52. The story of the fisherman and the ring has been adopted by the Arabs with variations.

  53. See ch. 59.

  54. Carpathos, the modern Scarpanto, half-way between Rhodes and Crete, would be directly in the passage from Samos to Egypt.

  55. See i, 70.

  56. This is the name by which Herodotus designates ‘cotton’, as is plain from ch. 106 of this Book, and from Book vii, ch. 65.

  57. See ii, 182.

  58. On the strength of this passage and another (v, 94), I should think it probable that Periander’s reign came down at least as low as BC 567.

  59. The scholiast on Thucydides i, 13 states that the naval battle there spoken of as the earliest upon record took place in a war between Corinth and Corcyra arising out of this murder.

  60. This tale may have been false, yet it is not without its value. It shows the general opinion of the corruptibility of the Spartans. The peculiar attractions possessed by the vetitum nefas may account for the greater openness of the Spartans to bribery than the other Greeks. Traces of this national characteristic appear in other parts of Herodotus’s History, for instance, in the story of Maeandrius (iii, 148), in that of Cleomenes (v, 51), and in that of Leotychidas (vi, 72).

  61. These words are emphatic. They mark the place which this expedition occupies in the mind of Herodotus. It is an aggression of the Greeks upon Asia and therefore a passage in the history of the great quarrel between Persia and Greece, for all Asia is the King’s (i, 4).

  62. Siphnos is one of the western Cyclades.

  63. The mention of whiteness here, and the expression ‘then’, show that the attack was to be made before the Siphnians had had time to colour their buildings. In Herodotus’s time they were evidently painted, but ‘then’ they had merely the natural hue of the white marble. The Greek custom of painting their monuments was common from the earliest to the latest times, and traces of colour are found on the Parthenon and other buildings. At first they were covered with painted stucco; and when marble took its place it received the same coloured ornaments, for which it was as well suited as its less durable predecessor.

  64. This is the first known instance of the use of Parian marble in ornamental building.

  65. Yet Homer almost invariably speaks of ‘black ships’. Perhaps, however, there is no contradiction here. For Homer’s ships are ‘crimson-cheeked’, or ‘vermilion-cheeked’. It would seem that while the hull of the vessel was in the main black, being probably covered with pitch or some similar substance, the sides above the water, which Homer called the ‘cheeks’ of the ship, were red. Herodotus may not mean more than this.

  66. An island about twelve miles long, and only two or three broad, off the coast of the Argolic peninsula.

  67. Cydonia lay on the northern coast of Crete, towards the western end of the island.

  68. Dictyna, or Dictynna, was the same as Britomartis, an ancient goddess of the Cretans. The Greeks usually regarded her as identical with their Artemis.

  69. Herodotus means no doubt ‘the largest Greek temple’, since the Egyptian temples were of much greater size.

  70. See ch. 30.

  71. The details here are suspicious, since they evidently come from the Egyptian priests, who wish to represent the death of Cambyses as a judgment upon him for his impiety.

  72. See ch. 67.

  73. By the citadel it is uncertain whether Herodotus means the citadel proper, or the only royal palace at Susa (see ch. 70) called by the Greeks ‘the Memnonium’, which he speaks of later (v, 54), and which was no doubt strongly fortified.

  74. See, the story of Zopyrus, which implies that such mutilation was an ordinary punishment (chs. 154-8).

  75. Cf. Esther ii, 12.

  76. Gobryas appears to have been the bow-bearer of Darius. Such an office might, I think, have been held by a Persian of very exalted rank.

  77. He was employed by Darius on occasion of the Median revolt, and gained a great victory over the Medes in their own country.

  78. The curious fact, that Darius became king in his father’s lifetime, is confirmed by the Behistun inscription.

  79. See ch. 35.

  80. Literally, ‘ten thousand of everything’; that is, of everything which it was customary to give. Similar expressions occur elsewhere in their strict proper sense (see i, 50; iv, 88; ix, 81, etc.); but here the phrase can only be a strong hyperbole.

  81. The Persian, like the Assyrian palaces, consisted of one or more central halls or courts, probably open to the sky, on which adjoined a number of ceiled chambers of small size, without windows, and only lighted through the doorway, which opened into the court.

  82. The incredulity of the Greeks is again alluded to (vi, 43). No doubt Herodotus had Persian authority for his tale; but it is so utterly at variance with oriental notions as to be absolutely incredible.

  83. Modern languages have no single word to express the Greek isonomia, which signified that perfect equality of
all civil and political rights which was the fundamental notion of the Greek democracy.

  84. Garments have at all times been gifts of honour in the East. (Gen. xlv, 22; 2 Kings v, 5; 2 Chron. iv, 24, etc.) The practice continues in the kaftan of the present day.

  85. So far as can be traced, this rule was always observed.

  86. The Phoenicians and Cyprians would be here alluded to – perhaps also the Cilicians.

  87. Darius had married a daughter of Gobryas before his accession (vii, 2). He also took to wife his niece, Phratagune, the daughter of his brother Artanes (vii, 224).

  88. Standards of weight probably passed into Greece from Asia, whence the word mina seems certainly to have been derived. That the standard known to the Greeks as the Euboic was an Asiatic one, is plain from this passage. If the (later) Attic talent was worth £243 of our money, the Euboic (silver) talent would be £250, and the Babylonian £292. [1996 note: see also Book ii, note 333.]

  89. There were two towns of the name of Magnesia in Asia Minor, Magnesia under Sipylus and Magnesia on the Maeander.

  90. See i, 173.

  91. In Book vii, ch. 77 Herodotus identifies the Cabalians and the Lasonians.

  92. That is, the Cappadocians. (See i, 72.)

  93. Compare i, 32, and ii, 4.

  94. Posideïum lay about 12 miles south of the embouchure of the Orontes.

  95. The district here spoken of is that between Gaza (Cadytis) and Jenysus (see ch. 5), which Cambyses traversed on his road to Egypt. Concerning the exemption of the Arabs from tribute, see ch. 97.

  96. In Greece the relative value of gold varied at different times. Herodotus says gold was to silver as 13 to 1, afterwards in Plato and Xenophon’s time (and more than 100 years after the death of Alexander) it was 10 to 1, owing to the quantity of gold brought in through the Persian war. It long continued at 10 to 1 (Livy xxxviii, 11) except when an accident altered the proportion of those metals.

  97. It is impossible to reconcile Herodotus’s numbers, and equally impossible to say where the mistake lies.

  98. These were the inhabitants of Lower Ethiopia and Nubia.

  99. This notion probably arose from their having mud huts, so common in central Africa.

  100. That is, about two quarts.

  101. The India of Herodotus is the true ancient India, the region about the Upper Indus, best known to us at present under the name of the Punjab. Herodotus knows nothing of the great southern peninsula.

  102. The Hindu races are supposed to have been settled in India as early as BC 1200; which is the date assigned to the Vedas, though these appear not to be all of one period. The aborigines are still found in Ceylon and in southern India as well as in the hill-country in other parts, and their customs differ as much as their languages from those of the Hindus.

  103. See ch. 38. The same custom is said to have prevailed among the Massagetae (i, 216) and the Issedonians (iv, 26).

  104. The repugnance of true Brahmins to take away life is well known.

  105. Some say Kabul, others Kashmir; but we have no means of ascertaining the site of Caspatyrus.

  106. Modern research has not discovered anything very satisfactory either with respect to the animal intended, or the habits ascribed to it. Perhaps the most plausible conjecture is that which identifies it with the pengolin, or ant-eater, which burrows on the sandy plains of northern India.

  107. This is of course untrue, and it is difficult to understand how Herodotus could entertain such a notion. There is no real difference, as regards the anatomy of the leg, between the horse and the camel.

  108. Herodotus is apparently narrating what he had heard, and it belongs to his simplicity not to mix up his own speculations with the relations which he had received from others.

  109. Marco Polo relates that, when the Tatars make incursions into the country lying to the north of them, they adopt the same device.

  110. The whole of this region of Central Asia is in the highest degree auriferous.

  111. See ch. 47. ‘Tree-wool’ is exactly the German name for cotton (Baumwolle).

  112. Ledanon or ladanon, a resin or gum.

  113. The Arabs supplied Egypt with various spices and gums which were required for embalming and other purposes. In Genesis xxxvii, 25, the Ishmaelites or Arabs were going to Egypt from ‘Gilead with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh.’

  114. Smyrna, the Greek name of myrrh, is the same as that of the city.

  115. This is the ‘gum storax’ of modern commerce.

  116. See ii, 75. If serpents, they should be oviparous.

  117. The fabulous character of the whole of this account was known to Aristotle.

  118. According to travellers, it is not uncommon for the lioness to have three or four cubs at a birth.

  119. Cassia and cinnamon are from the same tree, the only difference being that cinnamon is properly the branch with the bark on; cassia is the bark without the branch.

  120. Ethiopia probably.

  121. The story evidently belongs to a whole class of Eastern tales, wherein an important part is played by great birds. Compare the rocs in the story of Sindbad the Sailor in the Arabian Nights, and the tale related by Marco Polo of the mines of Golconda.

  122. See ch. 22.

  123. Here Herodotus is over-cautious, and rejects as fable what we can see to be truth. The amber district upon the northern sea is the coast of the Baltic about the Gulf of Dantzig, and the mouths of the Vistula and Niemen, which is still one of the best amber regions in the world. The very name, Eridanus, lingers there in the Rhodaune, the small stream which washes the west side of the town of Dantzig. The word Eridanus (Rhodanus) seems to have been applied, by the early inhabitants of Europe, especially to great and strong-running rivers.

  124. This name was applied to the Selinae, or Scilly Isles; and the imperfect information respecting the site of the mines of tin led to the belief that they were there, instead of on the mainland (of Cornwall).

  125. For a brief account of the amber and tin trades in antiquity, see Tozer History of Ancient Geography, pp. 32 sqq.

  126. The plain and the five openings are probably a fable; but the origin of the tale may be found in the distribution by the Persian Government of the waters (most likely) of the Heri-rud? which is capable of being led through the hills into the low country north of the range, or of being prolonged westward along the range, or finally of being turned southward into the desert.

  127. See ch. 84.

  128. This mode of punishment has always been common in the East. Its infliction by the revolted Sepoys on our own countrymen and country-women during the Indian Mutiny in 1857 will occur to all readers.

  129. Dascyleium was the capital city of the great northern satrapy, which at this time (according to Herodotus, see ch. 90) included the whole of Phrygia.

  130. See v, 121.

  131. This is the only instance in Herodotus of a Greek bearing the name of his father.

  132. Compare the similar artifice by which Hannibal [when in Crete] deceived the Gortynians. [cf. Nepos, Life of Hannibal, chap. ix.]

  133. Gelo, Hiero, and Thrasybulus, three brothers, who successively ruled over Syracuse from BC 485 to BC 466.

  134. Turkish pashas and Persian governors have often had recourse to similar stratagems.

  135. In the East the disgrace of a governor, or other great man, has always involved the forfeiture of his property to the crown.

  136. On the celebrity of the Egyptians as physicians, see Book ii, ch. 84.

  137. In ancient, as in modern times, putting out the eyes has been a Persian punishment.

  138. By staters we must here understand Darics, the earliest gold coin of Persia. Herodotus in another place calls them Daric staters (vii, 28). These were of very nearly the same
value as the staters principally current in Greece.

  139. Herodotus, where he mentions no standard, must be regarded as intending the Attic, which was in general use throughout Greece in his own day.

  140. Elis about this time appears to have furnished soothsayers to all Greece.

  141. Literally, ‘a round-built vessel’. It may be remarked that the Greek writers use gaulos specially, if not solely, for a Phoenician merchant-ship.

  142. Crotona was distant about 150 miles along shore from Tarentum (Taranto).

  143. Milo is said to have carried off the prize for wrestling, six times at the Olympic, and seven times at the Pythian, games. Grote remarks with justice that ‘gigantic muscular force’ would be appreciated in Persia much more than intellectual ability.

  144. The Iapygian promontory (Capo di Leuca) was always difficult to double.

  145. Compare the conclusion of ch. 56. In the mind of Herodotus this voyage is of the greatest importance. It is the first step towards the invasion of Greece, and so a chief link in the chain of his History. Whether Darius attached much importance to it is a different matter.

  146. See ch. 39.

  147. This could not be true, yet it is a necessary feature in the story.

  148. The king’s benefactors were a body of persons whose names were formally enregistered in the royal archives (viii, 85). Syloson makes a claim to be put on this list.

  149. See ch. 123.

  150. Maeandrius had been the secretary (grammatistes) of Polycrates (ch. 123), which would indicate a humble origin.