Herodotus

6 Pages 1569 Words

Though a Greek historian, Herodotus’ views on the Persians can be considered objective despite the bad blood that existed throughout the many years of Greek and Persian battles. The Greeks and the Persians fiercely fought each other for centuries, and many ancient sources such as Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War, depict the Persians as the evil wrong doers. Herodotus however carefully analyzes the Persians through documents and oral accounts, and to a great extent gives accounts on them that reflect modern anthropological characteristics.
In his book The Histories, Herodotus writes mostly of the wars the Greeks had with the Persians, and in many cases, he looks into the perspective of the Persians’ view of the Greeks. Herodotus states that he does not want to pass judgment on who is to blame and only wants to state the facts from his knowledge of why the Greeks might have been treated unjustly and for the occurrences of the many wars (Herodotus 1.4).
As most people know from Homer’s Iliad, the Trojan War occurred when Paris a Persian prince kidnapped Helen, and the Greeks went to Troy to claim her. What Herodotus tells us that the Persians claimed happened is that it was the Greeks who started the unjust acts of kidnapping by taking Medea, the king of Persia’s daughter. To the Persians, kidnapping was not an indirect act of war since they believed “that no young woman allows herself to be kidnapped if she does not wish to be” (1.4). Therefore the Persians believed that Helen wanted to be with Paris and that the attack on Troy was the first act of aggression that led to the Greeks being the enemies of the Persians. By giving out this information, it is obvious that Herodotus tries to be non-judgmental and tries to give both sides of the story.
To the Greeks, the Persians were known as barbarians. If one reviews their customs and religion, he will find that they are indeed very civilized, the very opposite of barbari...