Author: Herodotus
Summary (Slides by nblm)
Thoughts
- It is not enough if just a leader has the will and discipline. It has to go into the people also. “Our affairs hang on the razor’s edge, men of Ionia, either to be free or to be slaves”. Dionysius rallies his army into a grueling training regime in anticipation of the enemy but after seven days, people feel that the training is more harsh than slavery. They give up and the enemy defeats them!
- People on leadership roles are generally super smart and see through things. Histiaeus orchestrated the whole Ionian revolt behind the scenes but thought no one knew. Artaphernes tells Histiaeus that he knows ‘who the stitcher of the shoe was and who the wearer was’.
- The Pincer Attack - thin center, strong flanks. The Greeks won the battle of Marathon by employing a novel strategy. They had a weak center that rushed towards the Persian army and got attacked. While the Persians were winning against this center, other parts of Greek army attacked from the sides. I was reminded of the fictional battle of the Redgrass field (Blackfyre rebellion) in The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms where Maekar is the anvil who holds the enemy and Baelor is the Hammer who crushes them. It is a different type of war strategy though.
- The Marathon Run. Pheidippides runs all the way to Sparta to ask for their help. But the Spartans say they want to help but a religious custom forbids them to march and they can do it only after the full moon.
- Dream misinterpretation. Hippias dreamt of lying in his mother’s arms like a baby and thought he will be able to take control of the country that he betrayed (Athens) but when he sneezes and looses a teeth he reinterprets his dream to mean that country is not his to take.
- The Mad King Cleomenes. People have different theories on why he went mad. Most of them attributing it to gods and punishment to atrocities he committed. But the logical Spartans conclude that it was because of alcoholism.
- Bad Choices.
- “‘Timo was not in fault; ‘twas decreed that Miltiades should come to an unhappy end; and she was sent to lure him to his destruction.” Miltiades, the Hero of Marathon died in disgrace and debt due to bad choices.
- “What does Hippoclides care.” Hippoclides throws away marriage to a wealthy family because he loved to dance and be merry.
- Job is inherited. “Their heralds and flute-players, and likewise their cooks, take their trades by succession from their fathers.” This was similar to caste-system in India.
Newsletter Post
https://open.substack.com/pub/readgreatbooks/p/great-books-ep-115-herodotus-the
## Quotes - Tell them, when they are vanquished in fight, they shall be enslaved; their boys shall be made eunuchs, and their maidens transported to Bactra; while their country shall be delivered into the hands of foreigners. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgaa4bz66djz8h89n63c3jqb)) - Our affairs hang on the razor's edge, men of Ionia, either to be free or to be slaves; and slaves, too, who have shown themselves runaways. Now then you have to choose whether you will endure hardships, and so for the present lead a life of toil, but thereby gain ability to overcome your enemies and establish your own freedom; or whether you will persist in this slothfulness and disorder ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgaa6n9we7paq7xyht7v0qrn)) - We had better suffer anything rather than these hardships; even the slavery with which we are threatened, however harsh, can be no worse than our present thraldom. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgaa80m7vj1jtkexead4w77a)) - For when this poet brought out upon the stage his drama of the Capture of Miletus, the whole theatre burst into tears; and the people sentenced him to pay a fine of a thousand drachms, for recalling to them their own misfortunes. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgaadv17jy53shgsf2d8qp5v)) - It mostly happens that there is some warning when great misfortunes are about to befall a state or nation; ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgaqwe7e9qvjwjdmp6zdr270)) - Thus were the Ionians for the third time reduced to slavery; once by the Lydians, and a second, and now a third time, by the Persians. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbc8a9b5w98gfmf895dvyw4)) - Men join hands, so as to form a line across from the north coast to the south, and then march through the island from end to end and hunt out the inhabitants. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbc7atx37zs63zgasncwncb)) - 'Tis said the number of the ships destroyed was little short of three hundred; and the men who perished were more than twenty thousand. For the sea about Athos abounds in monsters beyond all others; and so a portion were seized and devoured by these animals, while others were dashed violently against the rocks; ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbec79kt8c6q7ht5dcdr9jy)) - If we follow the line of Danae, daughter of Acrisius, and trace her progenitors, we shall find that the chiefs of the Dorians are really genuine Egyptians. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbencfzhnvwyxw23kg4x0px)) - When a king dies, and another comes to the throne, the newly-made monarch forgives all the Spartans the debts which they owe either to the king or to the public treasury. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbesrsqfvvjjyj8awss6wtn)) - Their heralds and flute-players, and likewise their cooks, take their trades by succession from their fathers. A flute-player must be the son of a flute-player, a cook of a cook, a herald of a herald; and other people cannot take advantage of the loudness of their voice to come into the profession and shut out the heralds' sons; but each follows his father's business. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbett1b8rrxbpqndckmpave)) - when one of their kings dies, not only the Spartans, but a certain number of the country people from every part of Laconia are forced, whether they will or no, to attend the funeral. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgberwgy3nvecaswz40p3rmt)) - Then the woman gently stroked its head, and said, "One day this child shall be the fairest dame in Sparta." ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbex9bhp4kq3dwhwdkn43db)) - But his own countrymen declare that his madness proceeded not from any supernatural cause whatever, but only from the habit of drinking wine unmixed with water, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgbsrewdrp05hxmwy5ghpks9)) - I observed that whereas Ionia is always insecure, the Peloponnese stands firm and unshaken, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgk5ypkmm7e7k2f17mbdy2fn)) - And truly this was a prodigy whereby the god warned men of the evils that were coming upon them. For in the three following generations of Darius the son of Hystaspes, Xerxes the son of Darius, and Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes, more woes befell Greece than in the twenty generations preceding Darius ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgk6c2p8b4at80nknzae13ew)) - He dreamt of lying in his mother's arms, and conjectured the dream to mean that he would be restored to Athens, recover the power which he had lost, and afterwards live to a good old age in his native country. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgk6re28ee6r5msxwhva7dq5)) - There fell in this battle of Marathon, on the side of the barbarians, about six thousand and four hundred men; on that of the Athenians, one hundred and ninety-two. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgk748vmw2d919bdst22yy8a)) - After the full of the moon two thousand Lacedaemonians came to Athens. So eager had they been to arrive in time, that they took but three days to reach Attica from Sparta. They came, however, too late for the battle; ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgk77krgqms4serq8mq91gsy)) - the Alcmaeonidae were manifestly the actual deliverers of Athens ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgkmcmk8j34dr3kdawnbk8fv)) - Clisthenes, notwithstanding that he now loathed Hippoclides for a son-in-law, by reason of his dancing and his shamelessness, still, as he wished to avoid an outbreak, had restrained himself during the first and likewise during the second dance; when, however, he saw him tossing his legs in the air, he could no longer contain himself, but cried out, "Son of Tisander, thou hast danced thy wife away!" "What does Hippoclides care" was the other's answer. And hence the proverb arose. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgmdaw7w3xpjx36mv3nax8qp)) - "Timo was not in fault; 'twas decreed that Miltiades should come to an unhappy end; and she was sent to lure him to his destruction." Such was the answer given to the Parians by the Pythoness. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgmdh5dfwd4pqf4wjea5vb9f)) - When the Pelasgians had thus slain their children and their women, the earth refused to bring forth its fruits for them, and their wives bore fewer children, and their flocks and herds increased more slowly than before, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgmdnfqq5390g7vrkf0spg47))