#hapo reads herodotus

[allbeendonebefore]

Argh new year approaches I need to choose a classical text to read or I'll spontaneously combust

[athensandspartaadventures]

Of all the human characters (historical figures) you have included in your story so far, who's your favourite (you don't have to answer, if you don't want)?

Off the top of my head I recall I drew an anachronistic Herodotus in one panel and since I am reading the Histories right now I’m very biased towards him. The people who hold Thucydides as peak Greek historian haven’t actually read Thucydides, they’re just people who like to pat themselves on the back for theoretically knowing Real History (tm) and not Made Up Stuff like Herodotus. Leave Herodotus alone, he’s the one and only Old Man Yells at Cloud in my heart and the kind of guy who throws in stuff like “one of the concubines at Sardis gave birth to a lion” just to make sure you’re paying attention.

For more Fun Facts from Herodotus, I provide my liveblogging on my main blog ( @allbeendonebefore ) and tag it hapo reads herodotus while my dear friend @judiejodia is also taking this challenge on with me using the tag herodotus blogging

[allbeendonebefore]

Herodotus 1.205: men don't want marriage they only want one thing: the kingdom of the Massagetae

[allbeendonebefore]

Persian War Wednesdays: 1.15-1.22

Or, How the Lydians and Milesians Became BFFs

Time to dredge up some OCs I rarely draw lol

So once upon a time the Lydians who you may remember from such fun and exciting hits as “good at horse warfare” and “invented coinage” decided to siege Miletus, and this siege took a few generations of their kings.

The plan was to leave buildings and homes untouched and torch all the crops and trees so that every year just before harvest the Milesians would be demoralized enough to consider surrendering. Lydia was playing the long game.

This went on for 11 years and Miletus didn’t receive help from any of the other Ionian Greeks (save for one bit they’d helped out earlier in a different war).

In the twelfth year, the Lydians accidentally burnt down a temple to Athena of Assesos when the wind caused fire to spread from the crops they were trying to burn. Mysteriously, the King of Lydia (Alyattes) came down with an illness.

So off goes Lydia to the Oracle at Delphi which is where most people go to solve Mysteriously Coincidental Monarchical Maladies and the Oracle cleverly suggests Maybe You Should Rebuild That Temple You Burnt By Accident.

The Lydians get set to go ask the Milesians nicely if they are ok with not being sieged this year while they make reparations, they only wanted to starve them a little after all and they’re sure once this temple is fixed that they can go back to destroying their crops again!

The Milesians, hearing that the Lydians are on their way, quickly gather up every scrap of food they have and pile it up in the middle of town right where the Lydians are going to be marching through...

The Milesians threw a huge party with tons of food and drink and dancing, just like they totally, honestly, really seriously do all the time even when the Lydians have been setting fire to all their food.

And thus the Lydians and the Milesians set aside their differences and became friends and allies (until Persia noticed how shiny Lydia was anyway).

Bonus:

[allbeendonebefore]

Persian War Wednesdays 1.30-1.32

Lydia and Athens playing the roles of Croesus and Solon respectively

My joke is that Archaic Athens was kind of an emo kid because a lot of what we know from this period is from funerary material culture and because one of their wisest men went around saying stuff like this.

[allbeendonebefore]

Persian War Wednesdays 1.1

1.1-1.7

So our boy Herodotus has chatted with a few Persian learned men and he says that the source of contention between Greece and Asia is in the following

1. The Phoenicians kidnapped Io from Greece and she wound up in Egypt because of them.

2. The Greeks (which Herodotus assumes are Cretans) kidnap the king’s daughter Europe from the Phoenician city of Tyre

3. The Greeks (from Argos, as in Jason and the Argonauts) kidnap Medea from Colchis/Aea, using Io as an excuse to hang onto her

4. That whole mess with Trojan king Priam’s son taking Helen from Sparta and the Greeks apparently obliterating Troy off the face of the earth in recompense (even though archaeologically it was probably fine afterwards for a bit, actually)

The attitude of the Persians, according to Herodotus, was essentially

“we all know it’s bad to kidnap women but it’s even STUPIDER to seek vengeance for it and that’s why the Greeks are the Worst and every one of us here in Asia would like them to fuck off, please.”

[allbeendonebefore]

I should think we would have been far more prepared for this pandemic if we had access to a priestess of athena who would grow a great beard if any calamity were approaching and i think it’s really rude of Herodotus not to elaborate further on this phenomenon

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.163-2.164

Herodotus: and so pharaoh got his army of bronze men to go strike down the rebels and the rebels also began to march against the strangers and they came to Momemphis where it was their Purpose to Prove each other's Quality

Herodotus: [drinks water]

Herodotus: anyway the egyptians are divided into seven classes of people: priests, warriors, cowherds, swineherds, hucksters, interpreters, and pilots

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.173

Also shout out to class hero Apries who champions chillaxing with friends instead of being a super formal king always making decisions and observing formalities. You can't leave a bow strung all the time my man is right.

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.169

You'll recall LAST WEEK (ok many weeks ago) on HERODOTUS we were left on this cliffhanger at 2.164-ish where Herodotus is describing the Egyptian king's army and the rebellion they are trying to quash on the battlefield gearing up for a huge showdown and then he literally leaves us in the lurch in order to illustrate all the possible Egyptian DnD classes you can have so NOW, FINALLY we are launching right back to the battle:

"When Apries with his guards and Amasis with the whole force of Egyptians came to the town of Momemphis, they joined battle; and though the foreigners fought well, they were by much the fewer, and therefore were worsted."

O... Oh. I guess that's that then. Apries is delusional and gets captured but treated ok until the Egyptians got mad and strangled him and that's it then. Okay. I guess I've been reading the Iliad too much.

But I'll say here that I wonder if I wrote AaSA the way I did because I didn't want to draw battles or because Herodotus is just terse like that, will reflect on this when I reach the relevant books :' )

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.159

Herodotus saying the Egyptians call anyone of another language barbarian as iF YOU GUYS DONT DO THE EXACT SAME THING IN GREECE

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.134

Herodotus alludes to Rhodopis here a little who could be that same Rhodopis of the story cited as the oldest version of Cinderella. I just thought it deserved a post because I read an illustrated version of the Egyptian Cinderella in my elementary school library in grade ... i don't even know, 2-3? and I think it was one of those things that set me on a life course for classics :') fond memories

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.113-120

This is where things get really good because Herodotus gives us what he believes is the Egyptian perspective on the Trojan War (and subsequently he tells us it's the version he believes too and that Homer only alluded to it because it would have made his epic far less interesting)

according to Herodotus' Egyptians, Paris was blown off course right after abducting Helen from Sparta and ended up in Egypt. The servants with him were sick of him (and can you blame them?) and told the Egyptians what had transpired and what he had done. Word reaches the pharaoh (who seems to be fictional or at least unconnected to any recorded king) and he is like well let's hear it from this guy then.

Pharaoh asks Paris where he's from and what he's up to and who's this girl (having already caught the drift of the story) and Paris is so annoyingly evasive that the pharaoh says look, you're shady af and you're lucky I don't kill randos who wash up on my shores, gtfo and we're keeping Helen and all the crap you stole from this poor Greek guy Whatsisname until he maybe shows up here.

And that's exactly what happens.

And the Greeks show up to Troy and the Trojans say "she's not here she's in Egypt" and they think they're being made fun of and sack the city anyway. And then find out oops our bad I guess she is in Egypt.

And then they go find her and all the stuff safe and ok in Egypt and then Menelaus sacrifices two children for some reason and pisses the Egyptians off for some reason (did agamemnon suggest this)

Anyway this is roomie's favourite story (and mine) so far about Egyptian history and I'm with Herodotus on this one because his argument "why would priam and everyone go along with whatever Paris was doing why wouldn't they just say nah bro put her back where she came from".

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.141

Priest of Ptah (?) becomes ruler and hates the military and gets rid of it and immediately half of Arabia shows up on his doorstep so he's like What Do and Ptah comes to him in a dream and says Don't Worry I Will Send you Champions

and during the night a swarm of field mice appear and eat everything. and i mean. they ate all their weapons.

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.137

can we talk about how instead of killing people Herodotus says the Ethiopian rulers of Egypt sentenced them to raise the embankments of their towns and as a person living on a flood plain i think we should bring something like this back who's with me

[allbeendonebefore]

Histories 2.91

Egyptians: Greek customs are silly and we don't really go for anything foreign

Egyptians: oh but that guy Perseus, he's great we're keeping that guy, will never have enough of this dude