Good day. I hope this finds you well.
I have three main reasons for writing to you today.
1) First, an apology. While I was editing my posts on Sophocles for the new book, I saw I made a lot of errors in my writing. Very obvious ones. I didn’t proofread the posts as well as I should have. I will work to do better on that in the future.
2) As I mentioned above, I am preparing my next book. Like the other books, I am editing my posts and turning them into a book. I have decided to title it None Escapes Life’s Coils: My Journey Through the Plays of Sophocles. The title of the book, just like the titles of my posts on Sophocles, is a quote from one of Sophocles’ plays. In this case, the title of the book is a quote from Oedipus at Colonus.
Not to be born at all
Is best, far best that can befall,
Next best, when born, with least delay
To trace the backward way.
For when youth passes with its giddy train,
Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils,
Pain, pain for ever pain;
And none escapes life’s coils.
Envy, sedition, strife,
Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.
Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage
Of unregarded age,
Joyless, companionless and slow,
Of woes the crowning woe.
It’s a bleak quote, but then again a lot of the characters in Sophocles’ plays, especially Oedipus, had pretty bleak lives.
3) The next author I will be going through is Herodotus. Herodotus is considered the father of history (or historical inquiry) and he wrote an account of the Persian War (the war between Persia and Greece) known simply as the Histories.
The English word “history” comes from the Greek word historia and means “investigation.”1 That’s exactly the work Herodotus produced: an investigation into how the Persian War started and how it ended. He traveled around conducting interviews and looking at documents, and then presented his findings.
That’s not all the Histories contains though. There are a lot of tangents as well with some really interesting stories. At the top of my head: a story about the father of Athenian law, Solon, and his perspective on who was the most fortunate man alive; an alternate telling of the Trojan War; a story about a clever thief who evaded the authorities until they gave up and had him marry the princess.
It’s a very interesting read. I found it to be more fascinating that Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (which I will get to after Herodotus and Euripides).
Herodotus’ Histories will be the first work I will be writing about in this blog that’s nonfiction. However, because it’s also a narrative, just like everything else I’ve written about up to this point, I’m not sure how much my approach will change. I will be taking it just as seriously as the other works I wrote about.
The big issue will be how I will divide the work up. There are only nine books/chapters in the Histories, but each book is quite long. If I wrote one post for one book, not only would it take me longer than one week to write each one, each post would be the length of a college term paper (and just as deep as one).2 It’s something I will be thinking about.
Lastly, I intended to put up my first post on Herodotus June, 11, but I’m not sure now. It just so happens that after June 11, I will be having a lot more time on my hands than what I do right now, so I may wait until June 18. I may write a post on the first six sections of Book 1 for June, 11, since it’s basically Herodotus laying the foundation for what he’s going to do for the rest of the Histories, but we’ll see. I’m going to need to spend time figuring out how I’m going to divide the work up. Honestly, it may be the case that sometimes I’ll get a post out on Wednesdays and Sundays (like I did with the Iliad and Odyssey) and sometimes I will only get a post out on Sundays.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
Fun fact: it’s a feminine noun. Knowing this, it always makes me chuckle when the feminist types rail against the word “history” (because it has “his” in it) and start using the term “herstory.” It shows their utter ignorance and makes them look hysterical (hersterical?). And what’s more, history writing, as it was an art, fell under the domain of the nine Muses—all goddesses. Specifically, historical writing fell under the domain of Clio. There’s also a branch of economic history called “cliometrics” which is named after Clio. Herodotus’ Histories was later divided by the ancient Greeks into nine books and each book was named after one of the Muses. Book 1 is “Clio.”
In other words, not very deep.