Life and Deeds of Herodotus - Essay Example

? Herodotus Lecturer: Herodotus Herodotus was a Greek historian and is referred to as the Father of History. Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus in the Asia Minor which was then dependent of the Persians. His farther was called Lyxes and his mother Rhaeo. By being born of a Persian subject, and he continued to be so until he was approximately 30 to 35 years. At the time he was being born, Halicarnassus was under the rule of queen Artemisia. He thoroughly got Greek education that made him to embrace the three essential subjects to a Greek which include: liberal education, music, gymnastic training and grammar (Goodwin 1996). Herodotus had shown initial acquaintance with the largely Greek prose literature. He later turned to literature where he extensively commenced the course of reading thus rendering him one of the instructive and charming writers of the ancient times. According Goodwin (1996) asserts that he traversed the European Greece and the Asia Minor due to his inquiring disposition. His travelling was typically in the period of 464-447 BC. He visited Egypt and the Athenians where he was recognized as a learned Greek. While in Egypt, he saw the Persian skulls that were slain by the Inarus. He resided in Samos for 7-8 years and it was during this time that a tragedy struck in his native town that made him to return. The tyranny of Lygdamis went from bad to worse and at last he was expelled from the foreign land. He went to his native city upon enjoyment of the free citizen rights unto which every Greek set a very high value. He later went to Athens, which was a center of intellectual life and boasted of a galaxy of talent comprising of Pericles, Euripides, and Sophocles. It was here that he was welcomed but remained an idler, dilettante, and without any political duties. At the age of forty he continued with his journey and it is presumed that he got employed in Crotona or Metapontum. Herodotus was a literary genius as he wrote about the wars between the Greek and the barbarians, a history of the struggle between Greece and Persia but he omitted the histories of Cathage, Phoenicia, and Etruia. Herodotus was also a great humanist who saw and respected the universe in the experience, actions of human kind, and the underlying idiosyncrasies of the regional beliefs and customs. In a 700 page book Herodotus tried to shows us that a well informed Greek requires to learn about nations, geography, cultures, fauna and flora, and the mythical origins. He died approximately at the age of sixty. The predominant voice of antiquity tells us that he may have died at Thurii where his tomb was shown in the later stages (Abe Books, 2009). The 9 books authored by Herodotus make him to be regarded as very distinguished writer of history. This s because the major themes in Herodotus’ books include: relatedness and unity of historical events over numerous generations; variety and universality of human existence and experience; incomprehensible destiny and interrelationships among different things (Goodwin 1996). Questions 1 The impact of the Persian war was that Athens and Sparta though they were great allies, it caused them to drift further apart. According to the Abe Books (2009) argue that Athens is where Herodotus went and it had a pool of intellectual brains making it to have unique galaxy of talent eventually thereby making it grow more powerful. On the contrary, Sparta grew jealous of Athens because of their lean resources. Herodotus went to Athens to regain his Greek citizenship and political rights that he had lost in Halicarnassus. As a consequence of the war, the government fell, trade dropped as the Scythians obtained their wealth from the slave trade which they controlled from the north of Greece through Cimmerian, Chersoneses, and Gorgippia. Also, it led to the city states to fight against each other. However, irrespective of the war, culture was still very important and creative as it had been insisted by Herodotus to be important to any learned Greek (Souza 2005). Question 2 Scythians were ancient nomadic pastoralists from the Iranic region. They had migrated from the central region of Asia of Persia. The histories of Herodotus provide the most vital literary resources in relation to the ancient Scythians. They were among the first people to learn the horse riding skills something which astonished their neighbors. Besides, they were admired for their prowess in war especially horsemanship. In 676 BC, the Scythians in alliance with the Mannaens attacked Assyria. Consequently, in 512 BC King Darius the great of Persia attacked the Scythians penetrating into their land. Darius was coming as far as Volga River. Just like the Athenians, the Scythians established themselves as rulers of the Crimmeterian and the southern Russian territories (Minns 2011). Consequently, around the time of Herodotus, the royal families intermarried with the Greeks thus showing no contradiction to Herodotus life. Moreover, their life does not contradict to Herodotus because they preserved their culture in addition to the fiery fighting skills. They also travelled a lot taking along their culture and other practices. They were among the first people to master the art of horse riding and their history is largely dependent on what Herodotus wrote about them. Question 3 One of the constant themes in the global history is the interaction of the nomadic and semi-nomadic societies who have sedentary civilizations. In the current world, the history of the Scythians emanates from Greek historians like Herodotus who typically visited their territory. Sedentary citizens like Herodotus had a certain perception about people who had lifestyles like that that of the nomads. At that time they perceived them as eminent dangers to the urbanized civilization because they were prototype of the primitive. Herodotus described the Scythians as the typical contrast to the civilizations of the Greeks, and also how this image infatuated the construction of the Greeks themselves. However, Herodotus and the other sources that referred to the people of Scythian were not dealing with people in the modern sense of that particular word but with heterogeneous tribes. The society has changed in the way it stores data. In the modern times, records have been expanded by the work of anthropologists with regard to historical civilizations. In addition, it has also changed attitude towards time, work, and nature due to the ever changing technology. Civilization has led to very dynamic culture in civilian interactions. References Abe Books. From the Lands of the Scythians:Ancient Treasures from the Museums of the U.S.S.R., 3000 B.C.-100 B.C. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009. Goodwin, Michael. Herodotus of Halicarnassus: The History. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996. Minns, Ellis. Scythians and Greeks: A Survey of Ancient History and Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Souza, Philip. The Greek and Persian Wars 499-386 BC. Osprey: Osprey Publishing, 2005. Read More