HiST 201 Essay 2: What was History to the First Historians? Comparing Herodotus and Thucydides

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You can refer to this map as you read the selection from book 2.

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Start here. Cyrus died around 530 BCE. All of book 2 is essentially a digression from Herodotus' account of Cambyses' campaign in Egypt.

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Psammetichus I was known as Psamtik in Egypt. He was pharaoh from c. 663 - 609 BCE.

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You can skip from here to chapter 34, on the next page of the PDF

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Or "Becos" in many translations. On the road from Ankara to Gordion today (i.e., in what was once Phrygia) there is a bakery called "Becos" (not a word used for bread in any language today). I suspect a learned baker was inspired by this passage.

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Resume here.

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You can stop here and skip to the reading from book 3, which starts on the next page of the PDF.

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Resume here! The turmoil referenced here is the aftermath of the death of king Cambyses of Persia in c. 522 BCE. After killing the conspirators who killed Cambyses, a group of Persian nobles debate what sort of government to adopt.

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Stop here and skip to the selection from book 5 on the next page of the PDF.

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Resume here in book 5. In these chapters Herodotus gives an account of the end of Tyranny and the advent of Athenian democracy between 514 - 507 BCE.

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Hipparchus was one of the sons of Pisistratus, the tyrant who ruled Athens from 546 - 527 BCE. Hipparchus and his brother Hippias ruled as co tyrants after their father's death until Hipparchus died in 514 BCE.

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Here in a digression on the Gephyraean family Herodotus suggests that the Greeks adopted the alphabet from the Phoenicians. This is the passage referenced in the Eric Powell article we read about the alphabet earlier this term.

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The "Pisistratids" are just the descendants of Pisistratus.

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"Lacedaemonians" is just another name for Spartans.

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Sicyon was a Greek city state in the northern Peloponnese.

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Corinth was a Greek city state located at the isthmus connecting the Peloponnese to the rest of the Greek mainland.

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The Aeginetans were from Aegina, an island and Greek city state just off the coast of Attica.

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Erechtheus was a legendary king who was said to have founded Athens.

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"Pythian priestess" is just another way of referring to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi.

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Epidaurus was a Greek city state in the eastern Peloponnese.

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Sigaeum was a Greek city in the Troad.

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Remember the "Lacedaemonians" are the Spartans.

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This is the bribery you read about in chapter 63, above.

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Mytilene was a Greek city state on the island of Lesbos just off the coast of western Anatolia.

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Sardis was now a Persian provincial center.

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This begins Herodotus account of the revolt of Greek cities in western Anatolia, a region known to the Greeks as "Ionia."

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Stop here and skip to the selection from book 6, on the next page of the PDF.

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Resume here in book 6. It is 490 BCE. In their first invasion of Greece the Persians have just taken the Greek city of Eretria on the island of Euboea thanks to the defection of two of its commanders. Here, Herodotus gives his account of the famous battle of Marathon.

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Marathon was a plain in eastern Attica, easily accessible by a broad beach.

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Yes, this is the same Hippias who was deposed as tyrant of Athens in 510 BCE, 20 years earlier.

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Stop here and skip to the selection from book 7, on the next page of the PDF.

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Resume here. It is the year 480 BCE. Herodotus has just described the reaction of cities to the coming Persian invasion.

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Stop here!