distance, difference, diversity. We encounter the widest array of human types among them, from fanatical, fierce sectarians, to passive, apathetic provincials, to open, receptive wanderers—citizens of the world. It depends on how their blood got mixed, what spirits settled in it.
What sort of child is Herodotus? Does he smile at everyone and willingly extend his hand, or does he sulk and hide in the folds of his mother’s garments? Is he an eternal crybaby and whiner, giving his tormented mother at times to sigh: Gods, why did I give birth to such a child! Or is he cheerful, spreading joy all around? Is he obedient and polite, or does he torture everyone with questions: Where does the sun come from? Why is it so high up that no one can reach it? Why does it hide beneath the sea? Isn’t it afraid of drowning?
And in school? With whom does he share a bench? Did they seat him, as punishment, next to some unruly boy? Or, the gods forbid,a girl? Did he learn quickly to write on the clay tablet? Is he often late? Does he squirm during lessons? Does he slip others the answers? Is he a tattletale?
And toys? What did a little Greek living two and a half thousand years ago play with? A scooter carved out of wood? Did he build sand castles at the edge of the sea? Climb trees? Make himself clay birds, fish, and horses, which we can study today in museums?
Which aspects of his childhood will he remember for the rest of his life? For little Rabi, the most exalted moment was the morning prayer at his father’s side. For little Marcel, it was waiting in a dark room for his mother to come and hug him good night. Which experience did little Herodotus anticipate in this way?
What did his father do? Halicarnassus was a small port town lying on the trade route between Asia, the Near East, and Greece proper. Phoenician merchant ships from Sicily and Italy stopped here, as did Greek ships from Piraeus and Argos, and Egyptian ones from Libya and the Nile delta. Might Herodotus’s father have been a merchant himself? Perhaps it was he who kindled in his son a curiosity about the world. Did he disappear from home for weeks and months at a time, leaving his wife, questioned by her child, to answer that “Father is in …”? And here one can imagine a list of place-names from which he drew one lesson—that somewhere, far away, there exists an omnipotent world which could take his father away from him forever, but also (thank the gods!) can bring him back again. Is that how the temptation to get to know this world was born? The temptation and the resolve?
From the few facts that have reached us, we know that little Herodotus had an uncle whose last name was Panyassis, and that he was the author of various poems and epics. Did this uncle perhaps take him on walks, instruct him in the beauties of poetry, the arcana of rhetoric, the art of storytelling? Because
The Histories
isthe product of natural talent but also an example of writerly craft, of technical mastery.
While still a young man—and it seems for the first and only time in his life—Herodotus gets embroiled in politics, thanks to his father and uncle, who take part in the revolt against the tyrant of Halicarnassus, Lygdamis. The tyrant succeeds in suppressing the rebellion. The mutineers take refuge on Samos, a mountainous island two days of rowing to the northwest. Herodotus spends years here, and perhaps it is from here that he sets forth around the world. If he reappears now and then in Halicarnassus, it is only briefly. What would he do that for? To see his mother? We do not know. One can probably assume that he did not return here again.
It is the middle of the fifth century B.C.E. ; Herodotus arrives in Athens. The ship reaches the Athenian port of Piraeus; it is eight kilometers from here to the Acropolis, a distance traversed on horseback or, as was often the case, on foot. Athens is then a world metropolis, the most important city on the planet. Herodotus is provincial,
What sort of child is Herodotus? Does he smile at everyone and willingly extend his hand, or does he sulk and hide in the folds of his mother’s garments? Is he an eternal crybaby and whiner, giving his tormented mother at times to sigh: Gods, why did I give birth to such a child! Or is he cheerful, spreading joy all around? Is he obedient and polite, or does he torture everyone with questions: Where does the sun come from? Why is it so high up that no one can reach it? Why does it hide beneath the sea? Isn’t it afraid of drowning?
And in school? With whom does he share a bench? Did they seat him, as punishment, next to some unruly boy? Or, the gods forbid,a girl? Did he learn quickly to write on the clay tablet? Is he often late? Does he squirm during lessons? Does he slip others the answers? Is he a tattletale?
And toys? What did a little Greek living two and a half thousand years ago play with? A scooter carved out of wood? Did he build sand castles at the edge of the sea? Climb trees? Make himself clay birds, fish, and horses, which we can study today in museums?
Which aspects of his childhood will he remember for the rest of his life? For little Rabi, the most exalted moment was the morning prayer at his father’s side. For little Marcel, it was waiting in a dark room for his mother to come and hug him good night. Which experience did little Herodotus anticipate in this way?
What did his father do? Halicarnassus was a small port town lying on the trade route between Asia, the Near East, and Greece proper. Phoenician merchant ships from Sicily and Italy stopped here, as did Greek ships from Piraeus and Argos, and Egyptian ones from Libya and the Nile delta. Might Herodotus’s father have been a merchant himself? Perhaps it was he who kindled in his son a curiosity about the world. Did he disappear from home for weeks and months at a time, leaving his wife, questioned by her child, to answer that “Father is in …”? And here one can imagine a list of place-names from which he drew one lesson—that somewhere, far away, there exists an omnipotent world which could take his father away from him forever, but also (thank the gods!) can bring him back again. Is that how the temptation to get to know this world was born? The temptation and the resolve?
From the few facts that have reached us, we know that little Herodotus had an uncle whose last name was Panyassis, and that he was the author of various poems and epics. Did this uncle perhaps take him on walks, instruct him in the beauties of poetry, the arcana of rhetoric, the art of storytelling? Because
The Histories
isthe product of natural talent but also an example of writerly craft, of technical mastery.
While still a young man—and it seems for the first and only time in his life—Herodotus gets embroiled in politics, thanks to his father and uncle, who take part in the revolt against the tyrant of Halicarnassus, Lygdamis. The tyrant succeeds in suppressing the rebellion. The mutineers take refuge on Samos, a mountainous island two days of rowing to the northwest. Herodotus spends years here, and perhaps it is from here that he sets forth around the world. If he reappears now and then in Halicarnassus, it is only briefly. What would he do that for? To see his mother? We do not know. One can probably assume that he did not return here again.
It is the middle of the fifth century B.C.E. ; Herodotus arrives in Athens. The ship reaches the Athenian port of Piraeus; it is eight kilometers from here to the Acropolis, a distance traversed on horseback or, as was often the case, on foot. Athens is then a world metropolis, the most important city on the planet. Herodotus is provincial,
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