Defense of Father Historia
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Defense of Father Historia
Even though the Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus is sometimes described as the “Father of Lies” due to various contradictions and factual blunders in his The Histories, it is largely through these ostensible flaws that he makes one of his most salient contributions- a depiction of Greek ethos. His account of the Achaemenid Empire and the accession of Cyrus the Great specifically, can be contrasted with other sources in order to discern this value.
James Redfield euphemistically contends that in the works of Herodotus and other ancient Greek writers, the oftentimes fanciful falsification of facts can be termed “poetic justice” (Redfield 103). This distortion can occur in three key ways. First, while unraveling Dariuss claim to be the ninth king of Persia and a descendent of Achamenes , scholar T. Cuyler Young Jr. indirectly uncovers that Herodotus has an affinity for presenting facts in a manner that follows “well-known paradigms of royal biography and Greek story-telling” (Young 29). In the Histories, dominant Greek themes involving exposed children (Cyrus was abandoned by his family) (Hdt. 110.51) and divine succession (even though his grandfather tries to kill him, Cyrus, as predicted, usurps him) are included (Hdt.108.50).
Second, the Near Eastern affinity for over dramatizing or of referring to mythological beings to account for unknown events is also characteristic of the time period. In this respect, Herodotus can be compared to two other principal sources: the Babylonian Chronicle and the Dream Text of Nabonidus. In one of Herodotuss accounts, Astyages, the last king of the Medes, loses a crucial battle because Harpagus, one of his generals, defects because he was tricked by Astyages into eating the remains of his son (Hdt.129.60). Similarly, in Naboniduss equally unlikely account, the fall of the Medes was based on a prediction from a conversation between the king and the god Marduk in a dream (B 315, 250). On the other hand, the Babylonian Chronicle, breaking from these fictitious accounts, unequivocally affirms two of Herodotuss other statements: that the Medes were the ones who marched on the Persians, and not the other way around as the Dream Text suggests, and that large numbers defected to Cyrus, as opposed to there being no battle at all (Young 29).
Third, Redfields “poetic justice” occurs again when Greek writers, like Herodotus, expand existing events to create a form of “symmetry”. For instance, Herodotus writes that “if there were men at the back of the North Wind, there would have to be men at the back of the South Wind too” (Redfield 103). Herodotuss writings reveal this form of distortion in everything from cultural to his natural observations. Nonetheless, while some of his accounts are validated, making his statements valuable in and of themselves, others, clearly conjured, are useful in that the nature of their duplicity is telling of the period and of Greek preferences.
Herodotuss writings also point to Greek ethnocentrism. While Redfield doesnt deny a widespread view of the Greeks as particularly xenophobic, he claims that most people, if they have ever been tourists like Herodotus, also share these traits. Redfield claims that the Greeks were great tourists, but not participant observers , as Herodotus ought to have been. He states that “cultural relativism becomes ethnocentric and serves to reinforce the tourists own norms” (Redfield 100). In other words, tourists travel in order to support their understanding and the value they place on their own cultures and nomoi . Redfield believes that “oddity is an ethnocentric