I am both sad and happy because I finished Herodotus over the weekend. The final land battle at Plataia had some great humor if you can believe it. Neither side wanted to attack the other for the longest time because the diviners on each side were reading inauspicious portents in the entrails from the daily animal sacrifices. So the two armies sat, staring at each other across a river for something like two weeks. The Persians had cavalry though and kept making forays which the Greeks had no way of defending against.
Finally the Persians decided they couldn’t wait any longer because every day more Greeks arrived to stand against them. So they lined themselves up, planning to do battle at dawn. Well the Spartans noticed that the Persians had placed their elite forces opposite them. They sent word to the Athenians on the other wing of the army asking if they would trade places because the Athenians had fought and won the Persian army at Marathon and all the Spartans who had fought the Persians were dead at Thermopylae. The Athenians, having fought the Persians would have a better advantage since they knew how to fight back
The Athenians said sure! So in the night the two parts of the army switched places. The Persians noticed what was going on and thought the Greeks were up to something so they moved the Persian forces to the other side in front of the Spartans. When the Greeks noticed this they switched places again. So did the Persians who by this time were beginning to think the lauded Spartans were really a bunch of chickens.
What the Persians didn’t understand is that the Greeks were not led by one man like their army was led by Mardonios. The Greek army was made up of all the little city-states and peoples and each one had their own leader. There was a nominal head of the whole army agreed upon by the various leaders but he didn’t really have all that much power. He had to go along with majority rule since he couldn’t make any part of the army do anything they didn’t agree to. So when the Spartans decided they were going to withdraw a little ways away where they thought they’d have a better advantage, the Greek army leaders argued about it and even various leaders inside the Spartan camp argued about it. Most of the Spartans marched off and then the rest followed because they didn’t want to be left behind.
Well the Persians couldn’t stand the sight of the Spartans marching away so they attacked immediately with the largest section of their army. The Spartans sent to the Athenians asking for a little help over on the other end. Athens was on their way but got caught up in another part of the battle and couldn’t make it. But it all worked out okay in the end. Mardonios, the leader of the Persians, was taken down by a Spartan, realizing too late that they weren’t chickens after all. Seeing their leader fall took the wind out of the Persians who soon turned tail and ran for their stockade. The Greeks made short work of the walls and soon they were killing, pillaging and burning the Persian camp.
And what of Xerxes? He was back in Persia by this point and had more or less given up even caring about the Greeks. He was too busy lusting after his brother’s wife. She refused him so he arranged for his brother’s daughter to marry his own son. Xerxes managed to seduce his son’s new wife. But Xerxes’ wife wasn’t very pleased about it. Through twists and turns and intrigues, the brother’s wife ends up mutilated and the brother and all of the brother’s sons end up murdered at Xerxes’ command.
How do you end a book like this? I won’t say, but it was most excellent.
Well, I’m impressed that you have enjoyed these stories of battles so much — I’ll admit it may not quite be my thing! But perhaps I shouldn’t say that too quickly — I never really know what I will like until I try it.
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Coalition of the willing, eh? 😉
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I am reading American Gods (Gaiman) and he mentions Herodotus… I’ve been following your reviews and now I’m wondering if I ought to keep it in mind…
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I bet Herodotus would have been a great dinner guest 😉
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‘each side were reading inauspicious portents in the entrails from the daily animal sacrifices’ – now that’s a superstition even my family hasn’t thought of! Better not mention it to my mother 🙂 Wow – impressive final battle, Stefanie. I would say that I now want to read Herodotus, but I know it’s only your accounts of him that I really enjoy.
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Dorothy, I am surprised I enjoyed the battles so much too. But that is probably because they happened so very long ago, Herodotus doesn’t describe the killing, and a good many of the battles have slipped into the unreality of myth.
Sylvia, ha! Yes indeed 🙂
Daphne, I don’t remember Herodotus being mentioned in American Gods. But then I read it quite some time ago and Herodotud wasn’t even on my radar then.
Verbivore, oh the stories he could tell!
Litlove, you are so kind! I promise I won’t tell your mother about reading animal entrails. Not only would it be terribly messy but she’d probably have animal rights protestors picketing on her front lawn. 🙂
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I have really enjoyed hearing about Herodutus. It’s not something I think I would ever pick up on my own, but you’ve made it sound so interesting.
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Now that’s over, what will you be reading? 🙂
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Low-Key (Loki) gives Shadow a copy in prison…
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Such a coincidence. I am sitting at Starbucks tonight reading Eliot’s Middlemarch…. and in tonight’s reading [ch.48-50] Dorothea tries to read Herodotus… part of the Greek-language curriculum that her [now-deceased] husband Edward Casaubon had set for her. She cannot concentrate. She sets it aside….. and thinks of Will Ladislaw…!
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Congrats! That’s quite an accomplishment! How do you follow something like this up?
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I think we need more diviners today reading inauspicious portents for wars. It would be nice if that would keep people from fighting. After all, even in the most one-sided and justified war, a lot of bad stuff happens on both sides.
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Lisa, thank you. I am glad I managed to make it sound interesting. It really was!
Dark Orpheus, ah the possibilities are endless. Maybe I’ll finally finish Clarissa or get back to Proust. I am ever optimistic 🙂
Daphne, ah, yes, thanks for jogging my memory!
Cip, what a fun coincidence! I think if I were Dorothea I’d rather think of Will than Herodotus too.
Danielle, thanks! Herodotus is rather epic and hard to follow but I’m sure I’ll manage 🙂
Bikkuri, you’re right, maybe that would be a good thing. Except if they could read cards or throw dice instead of killing animals, that would be even better 🙂
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