I'm on a Herodotus kick by way of that Victorian book, plus a Margaret Atwood character who writes a science fiction story-within-a-story from ideas partly out of Herodotus. Wonderful stuff, notably when he suggests the British Isles may be mythical and that
...I have never been able to get an assurance from an eyewitness that there is any sea on the further side of Europe. Nevertheless tin and amber do certainly come to us from the ends of the earth. The northern parts of Europe are very much richer in gold than any other region: but how it is procured I have no certain knowledge. The story runs, that the one-eyed Arimaspi purloin it from the griffins; but here too I am incredulous...There's this sense of wonder that I think only turns up in science fiction now. We need undiscovered territory, don't we, and when we run out of it we invent more. Posted by Martha Bridegam at April 19, 2006 02:17 PM
Great post. I never got more than halfway through Herodotus without losing my copy, but I can't tell how many times I've quoted his description of how the Scythians never made a decision while drunk without reconsidering it sober, nor vice-versa.
He's my vote for a new reading group subject. Except, of course, that I'd have to go buy a copy again.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at April 19, 2006 05:54 PMBelieve it or not, it's the Persians, not the Scythians. Vol. 1, Chapter 133. They call that wine Shiraz for a reason, though now it's made in Australia.
Unfortunately my Herodotus is abridged and probably bowdlerized. The summaries of the missing parts keep saying intriguing things like "Pheretima later died a singularly unpleasant death" without explaining.
The MIT version is attributed to the same George Rawlinson I've got here but the chapters weirdly stop mid-word partway through. If you find a full edition will you post the info?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at April 19, 2006 07:24 PMHmm. What's your overall opinion of the Rawlinson translation? After my experiences with Suetonius and Eusebius, I've gotten really picky about translators.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at April 19, 2006 07:54 PMCan't really tell, not knowing Greek. I think he has a speaker call someone a "blockhead," and there are a few other semi-anachronisms of this type, but otherwise I haven't got enough information to know what might be missing. Mostly I'm peeved at his omissions.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at April 19, 2006 08:57 PMI think he has a speaker call someone a "blockhead,"
So was Eurybiades always pulling the football away at the last minute?
Posted by: Alan Hogue at April 19, 2006 10:27 PMDunno, but there's a worse reference to someone asking for a knife and being given "the steel." They didn't have steel in the fifth century B.C., did they?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at April 19, 2006 10:59 PMThis map looks pretty good or anyway much better than the one in my print edition. Was tearing my hair trying to find Miletus among the Ionian islands west of the Greek mainland when in fact it was over near Ephesus in the "Ionia" on the west coast of what's now Turkey.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at April 19, 2006 11:17 PMI don't even think the Romans had steel, actually, so there definitely shouldn't be any among the Persians.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at April 20, 2006 02:19 PMHe suggests the British Isles may be mythical
Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?
Posted by: Alan Allport at April 22, 2006 06:26 AMNot even that, I don't think. Pity we've run out of griffins in this world, isn't it?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at April 23, 2006 11:44 AM