Herodotus In Greek History

Throughout the Histories Herodotus chronicles many stories taking place over eighty years. The climaxes of the Histories are the great wars between the Greeks and the Persians. With that in mind it seems reasonable that Herodotus serves as a spectacular source for military matters of the ancients. Truly it is a great source, historians can learn about ancient armies building bridges to move their forces across bodies of water and Herodotus tells his readers that barbarians use short spears and wear cloth helmets when they fight. Yet, these details are only part of what Herodotus offers a modern reader. Within the text lies a rich vein of Greek cultural history for an academic to mine.
!) The world of the Greeks, Barbrians VS Greek, India
exists far away, and flying snakes.
2) The democratic way the greek culture handles things in contrast to the barbarians
3) The little things in life, like swearing over entrails
4) The greek outlook on events, Persian Kings and Hubris. The military aspect of Greek History that historians can draw from Herodotus is limited by the lack of detail in his discussion in regards to Greek Warfare.
The pivotal battle of marathon describes the struggle in broad strokes. The Athenian tribes arrayed themselves “in an unbroken line” and “charged the enemy at a run” after they found the portents favorable with a sacrifice. Then again at Thermopylae the descriptions of the actually fighting itself are rather vague. The greek success is attributed to longer spears and the advantage of being in a narrow defile. The most detailed part of the action itself comes from describing how the Spartans would feint retreat only to turn about again “and inflict heavy losses on them.” This does not inform readers much on a Greek way of fighting or the details of their tactics. These accounts do reinforce Everett Wheeler’s conclusions that the Hoplite was a very flexible warrior, contrary to the heavy phalangite infantry stereotype. In both cases the military lessons are general and perhaps obvious. They involve the placement of the army and a brief description of why it worked, such as having longer
spears.

Even in military matters Herodotus displays the Greeks’, particularly Athens, cultural character more clearly than their tactics and techniques.
The generals at Marathon debated their courses of action. “We generals, ten in number, are divided in our opinions, some in favor of risking battle, some against…So yours is the decisive vote.” The matter of how to conduct their war was a democratic matter with Polemarch giving the deciding vote. This is distinctly different than the way Herodotus describes the Persians conducting their warfare. As Herodotus describes, the Persians accept orders from a single leader, their king. He does not outright explain it but in his stories but the entourage that surrounded King Darius did not argue with the king and they went to extreme lengths to convince him to do something. Rather than engaging the king in debate, the Greek Physician Democedes made Atossa, one of Darius’ wives, convince the king he ought to consider conquering Greece and to send Democedes to guide the reconnaissance effort. This is not an extreme example, and it is possible to discount the episode if you consider that Democedes lacked the political capitol to try and convince the king of Persia to send him to the Greek world where he intended to escape. A better example the highlights the Persian Autocracy in comparison the openess of the Greek military leadership is Zopyrus mutilated himself to receive Darius’ attention and approval to take the city of Babylon by
guile. Herodotus was not lost on the differences between Greek and Barbarian, and quickly concluded on the merit of Democracy. Since the Athenians were under a tyranny until recently it provided him an example to cite explaining that “while they were subject of a ruler, they refused to give their all, since it seemed that they were fighting under the compulsion of a master; but once freed, each man was eager to do his job, knowing his effors were on his own behalf.” From the perspective of freshly liberated Athenians, and any other Greeks who overthrew their tyrants, the shadow in the east that loomed over their peninsula did not simply threaten an extra tax burden but promised new tyranny, challenging their new found excellence in democracy. Herodotus uses the very langue of his texts to reinforce the idea that the strength of a city-state, in large part is due to its freedom and subjugation leads to civic weakness. This theme of Greek exceptionalism because of their character different from that of Barbarian peoples is much clearer, and of much more value, than accurate description of the conflict itself. In addition to relaying the greek character