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19 - Herodotus and foreign lands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2007

Carolyn Dewald
Affiliation:
Bard College, New York
John Marincola
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Summary

In the preface to his Histories, Herodotus promises to describe the great and wonderful deeds and monuments displayed both by Greeks and by non- Greeks as well as to explain why they fought against each other. He proceeds at once to what he claims is a Persian account of the origin of their disputes. The account attributed to the Persians turns out to be a sort of mythographic pastiche describing how enmity arose first when a Greek woman, Io, was seized by Phoenicians, and then from the seizure of three other women (Europa, Medea, and Helen). This Persian account of the origin of hostilities between Greeks and barbarians includes, among other notable features, the first ethnographic observation in Herodotus' Histories (1.4.4):

The Persians say that while they, on the Asian side, took no account of it when their women were seized, the Greeks gathered together a great army for the sake of a Spartan woman and then came to Asia and destroyed the power of Priam; and they think that the Greeks have always been hostile to them from that time. For the Persians regard Asia and the barbarian people living there as their own, but think that Europe and the Greeks are separate.

According to these Persians, clashes of cultural attitudes lie at the heart of the hostility between different nations. This observation is the first hint that a study of foreign customs will play its part in Herodotus' attempt to explain why Greeks and barbarians fought each other. But as Herodotus' work progresses, it becomes clear that his inquiry into foreign lands and peoples does far more than just underpin his explanation of the cultural conflicts that culminate in the great Persian invasions of Greece. Herodotus' inquiry into other lands and customs proves to be as centrcentral to his project as his inquiry into the wars fought by Greeks and non-Greeks.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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