Greek city states wanted to stay Greek city states. Panhellenism (united Greeks) became important during the Persian Wars. SUMMARY OF THE PERSIAN WAR HERODOTUS PAGE 1 1. The story that an Athenian, Epizelus, was blinded when he witnessed the passage of a god fighting on the Persian side (117). Herodotus, the great Greek historian, was born about 484 BCE at Halicarnassus in Caria, Asia Minor, when it was subject to the Persians. He is the author of The Gift of the Nile: Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander (U of California P, 2001) and a coeditor, with George Boys-Stones and Barbara Graziosi, Updates? ], in his History of the Persian Wars, included an excursus on the ethnography of the Scythians and other nomadic groups with whom the Greeks were familiar. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodotus-Greek-historian, Age of the Sage - Transmitting the Wisdoms of the Ages - Biography of Herodotus, Ancient History Encyclopedia - Biography of Herodotus, Herodotus - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The Greco-Persian Wars took place between 500 BC–449 BC and devastated much of the Greek world. To begin considering the causes of the Greco-Persian wars, Herodotus summarizes the mythical abductions of Io, Europa, Medea (in the myth of Jason), and Helen (in Homer's Iliad), and states that these are the explanations for the conflict given by "Persians and Phoenicians." His longer wandering covered a large part of the Persian Empire: he went to Egypt, at least as far south as Elephantine (Aswān), and he also visited Libya, Syria, Babylonia, Susa in Elam, Lydia, and Phrygia. Darius I comes to power in Persia. When Egypt revolted, the Greeks helped them. There are two parts in the History, one being the systematic narrative of the war of 480–479 with its preliminaries from 499 onward (including the Ionian revolt and the Battle of Marathon in Book VI), the other being the story of the growth and organization of the Persian Empire and a description of its geography, social structure, and history. Herodotus’s subject in his History is the wars between Greece and Persia (499–479 bce) and their preliminaries. Herodotus describes the birth and rise to power of Cyrus, who liberated Persia from the Medes, and the subsequent expansion of the Persian empire until Cyrus’ death during a war with the Massagetae. Executive summary: The Histories. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. to 449 B.C., Persia and Greece had a couple of wars collectively known as the Greco-Persian Wars. Having introduced Cyrus as Croesus's conqueror, … Pythius asks Xerxes to allow his eldest son to stay home from the war (38). Herodotus and the Greco-Persian Wars PHIROZE VASUNIA PHIROZE VASUNIA is reader in classics at the University of Reading. The Persian Wars ended with the Peace of Callias of 449, but by this time, and as a result of actions taken in Persian War battles, Athens had developed her own empire. It is true that Herodotus mentions Croesus several times as an adviser of the Persian kings Cyrus the Great and Cambyses, but in those stories, he always plays the wise counselor whose sound advise is ignored, a narrative trick Herodotus uses frequently. His narrative tells of the expansion of the Persian Empire in the 6th and 5th centuries BC and the wars between Greece and Persia in 490 and 480 BC. Books 6–9 contain a history of the wars themselves. D. Godley1920 1. Some of the information which Herodotus provided about these nomadic peoples he … Histiaeus sent him a slave with a message tattoed on his head telling him to rebel against the Persian emperor Darius. According to this account, what are the differences between the Greeks and the Persians? Herodotus was not one to resist a good story, and he has developed a reputation for credulity. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our, Individual Battles During the Persian Wars, Persian Wars - Battle of Marathon - 490 BCE, Biography of Xerxes, King of Persia, Enemy of Greece, Political Aspects of the Classical Age of Greece, Rulers of the Persian Empire: Expansionism of Cyrus and Darius, Important Kings of the Ancient Middle East, Athens and the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 508/7 Bc: Prologue to the Conflict, Herodotus on the Cause of the Greco-Persian Wars: (Herodotus, I, 5), M.A., Linguistics, University of Minnesota. This was the end of Aristagoras, after he had brought about the Ionian revolt. Book IV begins with the description and history of the Scythian peoples, from the Danube to the Don, whom Darius proposed to attack by crossing the Bosporus, and of their land and of the Black Sea. Herodotus is the ''Father of History and—according to some—also the Father of Lies. It is often called the 'tragic warner' motif. She has been featured by NPR and National Geographic for her ancient history expertise. Some Greek poleis (Thessaly, Boeotia, Thebes, and Macedonia) had joined Persia, as did other non-Greeks, including Phoenicia and Egypt. Thus Herodotus draws the picture of a stratified éthnos with different economic and social levels (Bichler, 2000b, p. 218). It includes the rise of the Persian power and an account of the Persian empire; a description and history of Egypt; and a long digression on the … Herodotus’s History is an account of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–479 BCE) and the story of the growth and organization of the Persian empire. Likewise, we today don't distinguish among the Greeks (Hellenes), but the Hellenes were not a united force before the Persian invasions. We learn who the satraps are in Persian government. There were later battles between Romans and Persians, and even another war that might be thought of as Greco-Persian, the Byzantine-Sassanid War, in the 6th and early 7th century CE. Herodotus' judgment is correct. He travelled widely in most of Asia Minor, Egypt (as far as Assuan), North Africa, Syria, the country north of the Black Sea, and many parts … The Greeks steadfastly stood their ground and defeated a Persian army at the beaches of Marathon. Herodotus' History, a celebration of the Greek victory over the Persians, was written in the mid-fifth century B.C. There are many fine and sobering morality tales to be enjoyed, such as that of Croesus, King of Lydia, who was advised by the oracle: "if he made war on the Persians he would destroy a mighty empire." There is good reason to believe that he was in Athens, or at least in central Greece, during the early years of the Peloponnesian War, from 431, and that his work was published and known there before 425. Find summaries for every chapter, including a Histories Chapter Summary Chart to help you understand the book. Thucydides (3.61–67) says the Plataeans were the only Boeotians who did not "medize." However, he did not endorse everything he reported. N.S. 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