History Literature / TheHistories

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484-425 BC) is the author of ''The Histories'', an account of the rise of the Persian Empire and its conflicts with neighboring states and peoples, particularly the Greeks, culminating in Xerxes the Great's invasion of Greece and its defeat by an alliance of Greek city-states in 480-79 BC.

Herodotus is the main source on the UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars, as well as one of the only surviving sources on many other matters. His book is what gives the word 'history' the sense of an account of the past. As such, Herodotus is often considered to be the Father of History.

** Mardonios' advisors and Hellene allies tell him that he can break the anti-Persian alliance with bribery. But, Mardonios insists on doing things the hard way, resulting in the Battle of Plataea.

* ImAHumanitarian: Median emperor Astyages punishes a disobedient member of his court, Harpagus, by killing Harpagus's thirteen-year-old son and secretly feeding him to Astyages during a banquet.

* TheAlliance: Sparta and Athens form an improvised anti-Persia alliance with many other city-states.
* AmazonBrigade: They say that some Amazons ended up in Scythian territory, eventually mating with Scythians to form the Sauromatai - who still have some Amazon customs regarding women.
* ArmorIsUseless: Inverted - armor is actually a decisive factor in battles, with Persians and Spartans being of equal bravery.

** Most of Xerxes' advisors tell him that the Hellenes are really stubborn and will fight to the bitter end no matter what - including Demaratos, a Spartan king-in-exile who would certainly have firsthand experience. Xerxes refuses to plan for such details until ''after'' he sees what Spartans can do.

* TheEeyore: Solon believes that having good fortune and then dying immediately is happiness - and that simply not being alive was happiest of all - or so says Herodotus about him.

--> "As a matter of fact, according to what I hear, the Hellenes are in the habit of starting wars without the slightest forethought, out of obstinacy and stupidity... What they ought to do, since they speak the same language and use heralds and messengers, is to thus put an end to their differences and employ means other than battles to become reconciled... Thus the Hellenes do not employ intelligent strategies..." - Mardonios

** For instance, Xerxes has nothing against Hellas (Ancient Greece) until someone persistently convinces him to invade - and it's primarily that one adviser who stands to gain anything. Xerxes also has multiple chances to cancel the war, and even cancels it verbally once, but is pushed on by the need to appear to be a strong king.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: {{Inverted}} - Cambyses is mortally wounded from an accident and consequently confesses to one of his plots.

* {{Retcon}}: Helen of Sparta (more often known as Helen of Troy) visited a temple on the Nile Delta in Egypt after going off with Alexandros (Paris) - and this was only the latest in a long series of two factions taking each others' women. [[spoiler:In fact, Herodotus says Helen never made it to Troy, and thus the Trojan war was [[ShaggyDogStory all for naught.]] After the war, Menelaus found her in Upper Egypt.]]

* SnarkToSnarkCombat: "... since the Athenians had come with two great gods, Persuasion and Necessity, the Andrians certainly had to give them money. To this the Andrians replied that it made sense for Athens to be great and prosperous, since she had the good fortune that came with useful gods; but the Andrians had come to a point of extreme deficiency in land, and they had two useless gods - Poverty and Helplessness - who apparently wished to remain on their island forever and refused to leave it."

* NoEnding: The book abruptly ends with some Persian intrigues after the war. [[ItMakesSenseInContext The intent was probably to subtly call attention to how the hubris and mismanagement of the Persian kings led to their downfall,]] [[AnAesop and how even now Athens was going the same way and would also come to a bad end they didn't change their imperialist and arrogant ways.]] [[IgnoredAesop Of course, it flew right over the heads of the Athenians of the time,]] [[LostAesop and fails to connect with us today,]] since we aren't contemporary Athenians. [[{{Applicability}} Of course, one could argue that this lesson is important to all other great powers of history,]] [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment but that gets messy quick.]]

* UnstoppableMailman: More or less how Herodotus describes the persian courier system, considering how rugged and inhospitable the Iranian landscape could get, it was some prrtty high praise.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Something Herdotus is prone to in his account of the Near Eastern empires. Examples:

* Myth/ScythianMythology: It is our biggest source on it.

* TheCaligula: Cambyses, son of UsefulNotes/CyrusTheGreat, comes across as this. Marries his own sisters? Check. Flips out and kills people all the time? Check. Bad at strategy? Check.
* CassandraTruth: Most of Xerxes' advisors tell him that the Hellenes are really stubborn and will fight to the bitter end no matter what - including Demaratos, a Spartan king-in-exile who would certainly have firsthand experience. Xerxes refuses to plan for such details until ''after'' he sees what Spartans can do.

* BattleTrophy: Herodotus describes how certain Scythian tribes gilded over the skulls of their dead enemies and used them as drinking cups.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: Herodotus claims that natives of what is now the Kashmir region of India would collect gold dust from the anthills of giant ants in the morning, but would leave by noon because the ants would wake up and chase down their camels.

* ButThouMust: Xerxes and Artabanos try so very hard to resist the urge to invade Hellas (ancient Greece). But, a dream-spirit compels both of them.
* TheCaligula: Cambyses, son of UsefulNotes/CyrusTheGreat comes across as this. Married his own sisters? Check. Flipped out and killed people all the time? Check. Bad at strategy? Check.

** Artemisia tells the rest of the Persians not to pursue a sea battle as it would be pointless, and a slow and steady pace should be followed for the rest of the war. Xerxes agrees with her, but decides to act in accordance with the majority opinion amongst his advisors instead.

* CostumePorn: Herodotus describes the uniforms worn by the different factions of the diverse Persian Army in great detail.

* DarkestHour: The Battle of Thermopylae was merely a speedbump to the Persian invasion force, and eventually Athens falls. According to Xerxes' casus belli, the war is actually won at this point. But then comes the Battle of Salamis and the Battle of Plataea.
* DefeatEqualsFriendship: Cyrus defeated Croesus and nearly burned him at the stake, but the gods had mercy on Croesus and spared him from such a fate. Thereafter, Cyrus and Croesus were friends.

* TheEeyore: Solon believed that having good fortune and then dying immediately was happiness - and that simply not being alive was happiest of all - or so says Herodotus about him.

* ImAHumanitarian: Median emperor Astyages punished a disobedient member of his court, Harpagus, by killing Harpagus's thirteen-year-old son and secretly feeding him to Astyages during a banquet.

* ImpostorExposingTest: Smerdis, son of Cyrus, had normal ears, while Smerdis the Magi had his ears cut off. So, it's up to a royal concubine to bang Smerdis and check out his ears while he sleeps.
* InsaneTrollLogic: When Cambyses became aware that the Persian court generally regarded him as insane, he declared to his friend Prexaspes that, if he could kill the cup-bearer (who also happened to be Prexaspes' son) with an arrow through the heart, then he couldn't possibly be mad. After murdering the boy in front of his father, he had his servants cut the body open, and found that the arrow had indeed hit the heart. Apparently this was enough to convince Cambyses that he was completely sane.

* KissingCousins: Leonidas was Gorgo's uncle (half-brother of her father, Cleomenes), if one looks at their lineage.
* LadyOfWar: Artemisia, who commanded a Persian warship in the Greco-Persian wars.
* MercifulMinion: Astyages orders his subordinate Harpagus to kill his grandson Cyrus, who was destined to overthrow him, but Harpagus passed the job on to a shepherd, who spared the child. An interesting case in that Harpagus was mostly acting out of his own self-interest. He didn't want to get in trouble with Astyages, but he also knew that when Astyages's daughter ascended to the throne, she'd want to punish the one responsible for killing her son.
* TheMole: Zopyros, son of Megabyzos, a Persian who gained the trust of the Babylonians only to turn the city over to Darius.

* NeverFoundTheBody: Or ''bodies'', in this case. When Cambyses launched a military campaign against Nubia, he simultaneously sent a second army to conquer Libya. They got lost somewhere in the African desert and were never heard from again. The Libyans themselves claimed that no invading army ever reached them, and to this day the lost army of Cambyses remains something of a mystery.
* NiceJobBreakingItHerod: The Oracle of Delphi prophesied that a certain baby (Cypselus) would overthrow the ruling house of Corinth and become a tyrant. The ruling house of Corinth tried to have the baby killed, but failed.

* PerspectiveFlip: With respect to the [[Literature/TheBible Old Testament.]] In ''The Histories'', the Persians are the [[BigBad Big Bads.]] In the Old Testament, the Persians (especially Darius) are considered heroes by the Jews, because they gave support to the Jews to go back to Israel and build a new temple.

* ProphecyTwist: Crœsus, the King of Lydia, is told by the Oracle of Delphi that if he attacks Persia, he will bring down a great empire. [[spoiler: The great empire the Oracle is referring to is Crœsus's own empire, the Lydian empire, which falls to Persia after Crœsus attacks.]]

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Persians considered the Hellenes to be such:

* RainOfArrows: Invoked by a Greek native of the region near Thermopylæ, who was trying to warn the Greek army about the multitude of their Persian enemies: "...when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude".[[note]]These words were given to a Persian in Frank Miller's ''ComicBook/ThreeHundred''[[/note]]

** For instance, Xerxes had nothing against Hellas (Ancient Greece) until someone persistently convinced him to invade - and it was primarily that one adviser who stood to gain anything. Xerxes also had multiple chances to cancel the war, and even cancelled it verbally once, but was pushed on by the need to appear to be a strong king.

* RegimeChange: The Spartans are frequently involved in these throughout Hellas (ancient Greece).
* {{Retcon}}: Helen of Sparta (more often known as Helen of Troy) visited a temple on the Nile Delta in Egypt after going off with Alexandrus - and this was only the latest in a long series of two factions taking each others' women. [[spoiler: In fact, Herodotus says Helen never made it to Troy, and thus the Trojan war was [[ShaggyDogStory all for naught.]] After the war, Menelaus found her in Upper Egypt.]]

* SecretPath: Persia is able to break the stalemate at the Battle of Thermopylæ when Ephialtes of Trachis, a Greek, told them about a secret path around the pass.

* SnakePeople: He relates a myth about the Scythian people being descended from a snake-woman and a human warrior.
* SnarkToSnarkCombat: "...since the Athenians had come with two great gods, Persuasion and Necessity, the Andrians certainly had to give them money. To this the Andrians replied that it made sense for Athens to be great and prosperous, since she had the good fortune that came with useful gods; but the Andrians had come to a point of extreme deficiency in land, and they had two useless gods - Poverty and Helplessness - who apparently wished to remain on their island forever and refused to leave it."
* SuccessionCrisis: Several. The most notable was after the death of Persian Emperor Cambyses, in which Darius and several of the Persian nobility deposed an usurper, Darius eventually becoming emperor.

* ToiletHumor: "...Amasis, who happened to be sitting on his horse at that moment, lifted himself from the saddle, broke wind, and told Patarbemis to take that message back to Apries."
* UnusualEuphemism: Periander, the second tyrant of Corinth, killed his wife Melissa. Later, when Periander consulted her through an oracle of the dead, Melissa's ghost would not reveal the information he sought, but did reveal that "[[ILoveTheDead the oven was cold when he baked his loaves in it]]".

* WarIsHell: "The one to blame is the god of the Hellenes; it is he who encouraged me to go to war. Otherwise, no one could be so foolish as to prefer war to peace..." So say the Lydians were the words of Croesus when he was captured by the Persians.

* WeAREStrugglingTogether: The Hellenic alliance against Persia is only held together by Sparta's reputation and the fact that Athens is the direct target of the invasion. There are many strains over who has command rights over which army or fleet, who was the most honorable, who contributed the most, etc. Whole city-states refuse to join in just because they won't have any share of the command rights, or because they don't think the current allotment of command rights is honorable.

** After his Magi interpret a dream of Medean king Astyages to mean that his baby grandson Cyrus would overthrow him, Astyages gave Cyrus to a shepherd (indirectly) to be killed. The shepherd instead raised Cyrus as his own child, and the child went on to overthrow Astyages and became Cyrus the Great, the first emperor of Persia.

* HalfHumanHybrid: The Hellenes say that Herakles (Hercules) mated with a snake-woman, and one of her children was the
father of the Scythians.

* GuileHero: Themistokles, who uses carefully-chosen words and flat-Out lying to secure victory as much as he uses military means.
* HalfHumanHybrid: The Hellenes say that Herakles (Hercules) did a snake-woman, and one of her children was father of the Scythians.

* ILoveTheDead: They say that an Egyptian embalmer once did a beautiful corpse, but was reported by his co-worker.
* ImAHumanitarian: Medean emperor Astyages punished a disobedient member of his court, Harpagus, by killing Harpagus's thirteen-year-old son and secretly feeding it to him during a banquet.

* ImpostorExposingTest: Smerdis son of Cyrus had normal ears, while Smerdis the Magi had his ears cut off. So, it's up to a royal concubine to bang Smerdis and check out his ears while he sleeps.

* KissingCousins: This is what Herodotus says. Leonidas was Gorgo's uncle (half-brother of her father, Cleomenes), if one looks at their lineage.
* LadyOfWar: Artemesia, who commanded a Persian warship in the Greco-Persian wars.
* MercifulMinion: Astyages orders his subordinate Harpagus to kill his grandson Cyrus, who was destined to overthrow him, but Harpagus passed the job on to a shepherd, who spared the child. An interesting case in that Harpagus was mostly acting out of his own self interest. He didn't want to get in trouble with Astyages, but he also knew that when Astyages's daughter ascended to the throne, she'd want to punish the one responsible for killing her son.
* TheMole: Zopyros son of Megabyzos, a Persian who gained the trust of the Babylonians only to turn the city over to Darius.

* NeverFoundTheBody: Or ''bodies'', in this case. When Cambyses launched a military campaign against Nubia, he simultaneously sent a second army to conquer Libya. They got lost somewhere in the African desert, were never heard from again. The Libyans themselves claimed that no invading army ever reached them, and to this day the lost army of Cambyses remains something of a mystery.

* NoEnding: The book abruptly ends with some Persian intrigues after the war. [[ItMakesSenseInContext The intent was probably to subtly call attention to how the hubris and mismanagement of the Persian kings led to their downfall,]] [[AnAesop and how even now Athens was going the same way and would also come to a bad end they didn't change their imperialist and arrogant ways.]] [[IgnoredAesop Of course, it flew right over the heads of the Athenians of the time,]] [[LostAesop and fails to connect with us today]], since we aren't contemporary Athenians. [[{{Applicability}} Of course, one could argue that this lesson is important to all other great powers of history,]] [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment but that gets messy quick]].

* PerspectiveFlip: With respect to the [[Literature/TheBible Old Testament]]. In ''The Histories'', the Persians are the [[BigBad Big Bads]]. In the Old Testament, the Persians (especially Darius) are considered heroes by the Jews, because they gave support to the Jews to go back to Israel and build a new temple.

* {{Retcon}}: Helen of Sparta (more often known as Helen of Troy) visited a temple on the Nile Delta in Egypt after going off with Alexandrus - and this was only the latest in a long series of two factions taking each others' women. [[spoiler: In fact, Herodotus says Helen never made it Troy, and thus the Trojan war was [[ShaggyDogStory all for naught]]. After the war, Menelaus found her in Upper Egypt.]]

* SaltTheEarth: The Scythians do this to deny Darius any supplies.

** Herodotus has Khufu (a.k.a. Cheops, the king who built the Great Pyramid) living at around 900 BC or so. Khufu actually lived around 2500 BC. Herodotus claims Khufu was a cruel tyrant but modern historical evidence suggests Khufu was well loved and his reign prosperous.

* NoEnding: The book abruptly ends with some Persian intrigues after the war. [[ItMakesSenseInContext The intent was probably to subtly call attention to how the hubris and mismanagement of the Persian kings led to their downfall,]] [[AnAesop and how even now Athens was going the same way and would also come to a bad end they didn't change their imperialist and arrogant ways.]] [[IgnoredAesop Of course, it flew right over the heads of the Athenians of the time,]] [[LostAesop and fails to connect with us today]], since we aren't contemporary Athenians. [[{{Applicability}} Of course, one could argue that this lesson is important to all other great powers of history,]] [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement but that gets messy quick]].

* KissingCousins: This is what Herodotus says. Leonidas and Gorgo were cousins, if one looks at their lineage.

* RainOfArrows: Invoked by a Greek native of the region near Thermopylæ, who was trying to warn the Greek army about the multitude of their Persian enemies: "...when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude".[[note]]These words were given to a Persian in Frank Miller's [[ThreeHundred 300]][[/note]]

* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Spargapises, son of Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai, kills himself as soon as he gets the chance.

* UnusualEuphemism: Periander, the second tyrant of Corinth, killed his wife Melissa. Later, when Periander consulted her through an oracle of the dead, Melissa's ghost would not reveal the information he sought, but did reveal that "[[ILoveTheDead the oven was cold when he baked his loaves in it]]".

** One of the Thracian tribes, the Trausians, mourn childbirth and celebrate death.

* TallPoppySyndrome: The tyrant Thrasybulus of Miletus cut off the tallest stalks of grain in a field when Periander of Corinth asked for advice about keeping people in line. This is probably the inspiration for Tarquin's trope naming actions.

-> "As a matter of fact, according to what I hear, the Hellenes are in the habit of starting wars without the slightest forethought, out of obstinacy and stupidity... What they ought to do, since they speak the same language and use heralds and messengers, is to thus put an end to their differences and employ means other than battles to become reconciled... Thus the Hellenes do not employ intelligent strategies..." - Mardonios

** For instance, Xerxes had nothing against Hellas (Ancient Greece) until someone persistently convinced him to invade - and it was primarily that one advisor who stood to gain anything. Xerxes also had multiple chances to cancel the war, and even cancelled it verbally once, but was pushed on by the need to appear to be a strong king.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Inverted - Cambyses is mortally wounded from an accident and consequently confesses to one of his plots.

** Although there is some lampshading in all the times the oracle gets bribed.
* YouKilledMyFather: Lykophros refuses to have anything to do wth his father Periandros or the inheritance, for Periandros had killed his wife Melissa (Lykophros' mother).

* ScienceMarchesOn: Herodotus describes the world as flat.
** Whether it was the Egyptians or the Phrygians who were the first humans, and the method by which this was ascertained.
** The explanation for why Egyptians and Persians would have such differing thicknesses for their skulls. Nowadays, we would know this is because of nutrition, matching accounts of early Persians being relatively impoverished.
** However, one story he relates is interesting. The Phoenecians claimed to have sailed around the tip of Africa, from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, and they say the Sun was on their right side while passing the southernmost point. Herodotus dismisses the claim, but this is exactly what actually happens: the Sun is found in the northern sky in the Southern Hemisphere.

* HistoryMarchesOn: Something Herdotus is prone to in his account of the Near Eastern empires. Examples:
** Herodotus has Khufu (a.k.a. Cheops, the king who built the Great Pyramid) living at around 900 BC or so. Khufu actually lived around 2500 BC. Herodotus claims Khufu was a cruel tyrant but modern historical evidence suggests Khufu was well loved and his reign prosperous.
** There was probably no "Median empire", not if the contemporary literary and archeological evidence is anything to go by. Medes, yes, but they were probably more like a patchwork of tribes and city-states that miiiight have been on the road to forming an empire.

Herodotus is the main source on the GrecoPersianWars, as well as one of the only surviving sources on many other matters. His book is what gives the word 'history' the sense of an account of the past. As such, Herodotus is often considered to be the Father of History.

* TheCaligula: Cambyses, son of CyrusTheGreat comes across as this. Married his own sisters? Check. Flipped out and killed people all the time? Check. Bad at strategy? Check.