Herodotus 1.95-216 (in English)

Herodotus 1.96-216 (read with 'tragedy' club)

  • 1.95-130: Rise of Cyrus
    • 1.95-107: Median kings: the good judge Deioces, Phraortes, Cyaxares, Astyages
    • 108-122: Cyrus' birth narrative
    • 123-130: Cyrus leads a Persian revolt against the Medes
  • 1.130-140: Persian customs
  • 1.141-178: Cyrus conquers western Asia Minor (Ionians, Lydians, etc.)
  • 1.79-1.200: Cyrus conquers Assyria, including Babylonian customs
  • 1.201-214: Cyrus tries and fails to conquer the Massagetai.
1) In Herodotus control over water is portrayed a) as an exotic, eastern thing and b) rather negatively. Some example: 
  • We can look ahead to Cambyses whipping the Hellospont (7.35) -- "barbarian and insolent things," in Herodotus' words
  • Cyrus "grows angry" at the river Gyndes and "punishes" it by dividing it into 360 canals (1.189-190) -- that is, his control over the river is portrayed as the irrational action of an autarch. 
  • The queen of Babylon Nitokris relies on her control of water to defend Babylon; we got some loving descriptions of her rerouting the Euphrates to slow its flow approaching Babylon and to build a bridge in the city (1.185-6), but ultimately it's those very actions that allow Cyrus to conquer the city (1.191); Cyrus reuses her basin to lower the river level. Nikotris is portrayed positively, but her water efforts are counterproductive.
Cross-culturally early states make a lot of hay out of their control over water, e.g. the early Chinese king "Yu the Great" (wiki). The more ambiguous take on control over water in Herodotus (and maybe Greek sources more generally) probably arises from the general lack of importance irrigation and floods play in Greece.

2) As Cyrus conquers the Asian Greeks, there are various interesting attempt to try to put together alliances and federations. In one intriguing chapter (1.170), Herodotus floats two ideas: Bias of Priene suggests that the Ionians leave Asia and build a joint city on Sardinia, and Thales suggests that the Ionians establish a single council house at Teos and be governed like demes (i.e. synoikismos). A couple thoughts:
  • large-scale political imagination here is linked with the archaic seven sages
  • both of these reflect attempts to 'scale up' Greek poleis to handle the large scale of Persia and other foreign powers. The classical period is overall a history of such attempts (Delian League, Achaean League, etc.), all of which are ultimately unsuccessful -- arguably Greece under Alexander and his successors is more of a satrapy than it is indebted to classical governance (gauntlet thrown).

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