Herodotus
Herodotus, The Histories, Tom Holland
“Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and momentous deeds – some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians – may not be without their glory; and especially to show why two people fought with each other.”
So begins Herodotus’s great work, his ‘Histories’. He was born c. 485 BC, travelled extensively during his life researching his ‘Histories’, and died c. 430BC. Of his life, not much is known.
To get you interested (hopefully), here are two of his tales, starting with my favourite:
1: The headless burglar [2/121]
[King] Rhampsinitus possessed a vast fortune in silver, so great that no subsequent king came anywhere near it – let alone surpassed it. In order to keep the treasures safe he proposed to have a stone building put up, with one of its walls forming part of the outer walls of his palace. The Builder he employed had designs upon the treasure and ingeniously contrived to construct the wall in such a way that one of the stone blocks of which it was composed could easily be removed by a couple of men – or even by one. When the new Treasury was ready the King’s money was stored away in it. After the lapse of some years, the builder, then on his death-bed, called his two sons and told them how clever he had been, saying that he had planned the device of the moveable stone entirely for their benefit. so they might live in affluence. […]. So the father died and his sons lost no time in setting to work. They came by night to the palace, found the stone in the Treasury wall, took it out easily enough and got away with a good haul of silver.
The King on his next visit to the Treasury was surprised to see that some of the vessels in which the money was stored were no longer full, but as the seals were unbroken and all the locks were in perfect order, he was at a loss to find the culprit.
When the same thing happened again and that each time he visited the chamber the level of the money in the jars had still further fallen (for the thieves persisted in their depredations), he ordered traps to be made and set. The thieves came as usual; one of them made his way into the chamber but as soon as he approached the money-jar he was after, the trap got him. Realizing his plight, he at once called his brother to tell him what had happened and begged him to come in as quickly as he could and cut off his head, lest the recognition of his dead body should involve both of them in ruin. The brother, seeing the sense of this request, acted upon it without delay, then having fitted the stone back in its place, went home taking the severed head with him. Next morning the king visited his treasury and what was his astonishment when he saw in the trap the headless body of the thief, and no sign of damage to the building or apparent means of entrance or exit!
If you want to know what happened next, you’ll need to read the book!
2: The world’s first consumer test? [1/47]
King Croesus wants to know which of the oracles are to be trusted and which are charlatans. He decides to test them.
The Lydians whom Croesus sent to make the test were given the following orders: on the 100th day, reckoning from the day on which I left saw this. They were to consult the oracles and inquire what Croesus, son of Alyattestis and king of Lydia, was doing at that moment. The answer of each Oracle was to be taken down in writing and brought back to Sardis. No one has recorded the answer of any of the oracles except that of Delphi; Here, however, immediately the Lydians entered the shrine for their consultation, the priestess gave them in hexameter verse the following reply.
I know the grains of sand on the beach and measure the sea;~
I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the voiceless.
The smell has come to my senses of a hard-shelled tortoise.
Boiling and bubbling with lamb’s flesh in a bronze pot.
The cauldron underneath is of bronze, and of bronze the lid.
The Lydians took down the priestesses answer and returned with it to Sardis.
When the other messengers came back with answers they had received, Croesus opened all the rolls and read what they contained. None had the least effect upon him, except the one which contained the answer from Delphi. But no sooner had this one been read to him than he accepted it with profound reverence, declaring that the Oracle at Delphi was the only genuine one in the world, because it had succeeded in finding out what he had been doing. And indeed it had. For after sending off messages Croesus had thought of something that no one would be likely to guess, and with his own hands, keeping carefully to the prearranged date, had cut up a tortoise and lamb and boiled them together, the bronze cauldron with a bronze lid.
[Croesus was king of Lydia 625-585BC]
“Stay to dinner?”. “Thanks, I’ll pass!”
Translations in paperback (there are others too)
Herodotus, The Histories, Aubrey de Selincourt
Herodotus, ‘The Histories’, translation by Aubrey de Selincourt; ISBN: 978-0140449082 Google AI: “A strong, traditional choice, especially the revised version with better notes”.
Herodotus, ‘The Histories’, translation by Tom Holland; ISBN 978-0140455397 “Highly praised for capturing Herodotus’s fun, conversational, and ‘pub-man’ style, making ancient history feel immediate and exciting for modern readers”; TLS: “Unquestionably the best English translation of Herodotus to have appeared in the past half-century, and there have been quite a few … I am in awe of Tom Holland’s achievement.”
Others: Reddit discussion