Good morning. I apologize for the absence.
I’ve decided to change how I’m going to do these blog posts for Herodotus. Rather than just writing on short sections, I’m going to write on an entire book/chapter instead. This will mean two things:
A slightly larger post.
I will be taking longer than a week to post.
The post will go live other days than Sundays.
Eventually, I was going to have to abandon the 1/week posts when I got to more difficult authors like the philosophers. However, I’m getting frustrated with how slowly I’m going through Herodotus just to meet the 1/week deadline. Quite frankly, I want to move on to the next authors sooner rather than later.
Plus, as you’re going to see below, it gets difficult to write something up when Herodotus keeps going off on tangents talking about subjects or peoples that are a bit interesting, but have nothing to do with the Persian War.
When I get to the next author, Euripides, I will be able (hopefully) to go back to 1/week posting.
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In fact, the Libyans are the healthiest of all men whom we know…
HERODOTUS, HISTORIES, 4.187; A. D. GODLEY TRANSLATION
Summary
Herodotus stops his narrative once again to talk about Libya—i.e. Africa.
After Darius’ failed campaign against the Scythians, a Persian force was sent into Libya to crush a Greek colony there. Herodotus then spends much of the remainder of Book 4 describing how Greek colonies got into Africa in the first place and why this particular colony, Barce, was sacked by a Persian military force.
The descendants of the crew of the Argo, the ship which was captained by Jason, were driven out of Lemnos where they had settled and ended up in Lacedaemon.1 The Lacedaemonians allowed the Minyae to stay, but when the Minyae began to demand equal rights in rulership, the Lacedaemonians sought to kill them. Eventually, a regent in Sparta named Theras interceded on their behalf and agreed to lead the Minyae to another place. However, Theras ended up only taking a portion of them, while the remaining Minyae went elsewhere.
Theras led this portion to an island called Calliste (which was renamed Thera), because his descendants lived there, and became king.
Later, one of his descendants consulted the oracle at Delphi who told him to found a colony in Libya. The Theraeans oracle was ignored and for seven years no rain fell on Thera. When they consulted Delphi again, the oracle reminded them they needed to establish a colony in Libya, so they found a guide who had been to Platea, an island near Libya, and had him led a group there.
However, because this was not a colony on the mainland of Libya, Platea experienced a great deal of hardship. So, the colonists moved from Platea onto Libya itself and established themselves there. The most famous of these cities was Cyrene.
The kings of Cyrene were alternately named Battus and Arcesilaus. It was the second or third Arcesilaus who quarreled with his brothers. His brothers left and found refuge with the Libyans. Arciselaus then attacked them, but his army was destroyed and he was assassinated. The next ruler, the second or third Battus, brought in a mediator who divided the colonists into three tribes, apportioned some land for the king and some for the priests, and gave the rest to the people.
The next king, though, another Arcesilaus, wanted the peace deal immediately reversed. The people responded by banishing him to Samos while his mother Pheretime fled to Salamis (in Cyprus). His mother tried to raise an army, but the king refused. Meanwhile, Arcesilaus raised an army in Samos and consulted Delphi. The oracle told him to drop his rebellion and live under the current peace agreement which Arcesilaus refused to do. He returned to Cyrene, became king again, gave Cyrene to the Persians (when Cambyses was king), and began punishing his enemies. As a result, he was assassinated when he made a visit to Barce.
Pheretime, Arcesilaus’ mother, who had returned to Cyrene when her son became king again, fled to Egypt where she petitioned the Persian governor to help get revenge for her son’s assassination. The Persian governor agreed to help and sent a force to Barce. The Persians demanded they hand over everyone responsible for Arcesilaus’ assassination, but Barce refused, so the Persians besieged it.
Nine months later, the siege was going nowhere, so the Persians tricked the Barcaeans into letting them inside the city. The Persians dug a trench, put wooden planks over it, and covered the planks with dirt to hide them. Standing on the planks, the Persians asked the Barcaeans to make a peace settlement which they readily agreed. The Persians told the Barcaeans their peace will last as long as the ground will hold, but as soon as the Persians went inside Barce, they stepped off the planks, dug them up revealing the trench, and sacked the city. Pheretime took all the men who were most guilty of her son’s assassination and had them impaled on top of the city’s walls. She also took their women and cut off their breasts. The remaining Barcaeans were made slaves and transported to Bactria which was within the Persian empire.
Herodotus then says Pheretime paid for her extreme revenge when she died of a maggot infestation.
Impressions
There’s really not a whole lot to write for this section. The summary I provided above was patched together, and even then I’m not sure I got all the details correct, because Herodotus kept stopping to talk about the many different tribes and peoples that lived in Libya/Africa at the time. Also, in usual fashion, he would stop to say: “This group says this is what happened. However, the other group over here said it happened this way.”
It’s all just more political intrigue and people not wanting to give up their political power. Herodotus even comments that the reason why Theras led a group to Calliste/Thera is because he had been a ruler, but had to give up that power to his nephews. Having tasted what it was like, he didn’t want to be a subject ever again, so he found a way to become a king again when the opportunity arose (4.147).
If there are any generalizations that could be made of all the different peoples in Libya Herodotus described, it would be:
They had unusual diets.
They were very sexually promiscuous.
Otherwise, it seems like the ancient Greeks revered the Libyans in some way. Herodotus says that the Libyans were the healthiest people the Greeks ever knew (4.187) and learned how to drive four horse chariots from them (4.189).
Anyway, the rest of this section is just going to be me highlighting a few bits that I thought were interesting.
The Lotus Eaters
Apparently, the Lotus Eaters, the same ones in the Odyssey, lived in Africa. They lived on a land that jutted out into the sea. Herodotus describes the lotus this way:
The lotus fruit is the size of a mastich-berry: it has a sweet taste like the fruit of a date-palm; the Lotus Eaters not only eat it, but make wine of it.
Herodotus, Histories, Book 4.177; A. D. Godley translation
Herodotus doesn’t really give any explanation as to why the lotus would cause someone to forget their worries and want to sit around all day eating it.
Maybe it was the wine?
Eating Bugs
Another group are the Nasamones. Three of the main traits of this group Herodotus highlights are:
They practiced polygamy (it’s actually a little worse than that, but it’s polygamy in a nutshell).
They consulted the dead for their oracles.
“They hunt locusts, which they dry in the sun, and after grinding sprinkle them into milk and drink it.” (4.172)
Is the WEF getting their ideas from ancient African groups?
Legend Weaved in With History
This isn’t anything new with Herodotus, but there was a lot more weaving in of ancient Greek legends into Herodotus’ account. For example, the Greeks who settled into Calliste/Thera were descendants of the crew of the Argo. The Spartan who led the group, Theras, was a descendant of Polynices, the son of Oedipus. The rulers of Calliste were descendants of Cadmus, who left some family there while he was looking for his sister Europa (the mythological account is she was whisked away by Zeus to Crete, but Herodotus states she was probably kidnapped by the Cretans (see Book 1.2)). Cadmus, of course, is the legendary founder of Thebes (and grandfather of the mortal turned god Dionysus through his daughter Semele).
That's all for the Histories, Book 4.143-205.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos Anodos
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Thumbnail: Ruins of the ancient city of Cyrene, a Greek colony in Libya/Africa.
1If Jason and his ship the Argo sound familiar, he is the Jason of “Jason and the Golden Fleece” fame. The members of the Argo were referred to as Argonauts. The primary source for this adventure, though it is a late source, is the Argonautica by Apollonius. There is also a very infamous part of Jason’s story told in Euripides’ play Medea. Jason’s story actually precedes the Trojan War. Heracles was a member of the crew. Also, Nestor, the king of Pylos in the Iliad and the Odyssey who was so old he couldn’t really fight in the Trojan War and basically served as an advisor, was a crew member when he was a young.