“The heads of the Persians are so weak that, if you were to toss a single pebble at one, you would make a hole in it. But the heads of the Egyptians are so strong that, using a stone, you could break one open only with a good deal of effort. They said that the reason for this (which I found easy to believe) was that the Egyptians, beginning straightaway in childhood, shave their heads and expose them to the sun, which hardens the bone. This is also the reason why Egyptians do not go bald: among the Egyptians one may observe the fewest balding men of any race in the world. This, then, is the reason that the Egyptians have such strong heads. The Persians have such weak heads for this reason: they are always wearing felt caps from the beginning of their lives.”
“Menoitios’ son Patroklos grew up in Opos in Locris but was exiled for an involuntary mistake. For he killed a child his age, the son of the memorable Amphidamas Kleisonumos, or, as some say, Aianes, because he was angry over dice. He went to Phthia in exile for this crime and got to know Achilles there because of his kindship with Peleus. They cemented a deep friendship with one another before they went on the expedition against Troy. This story is from Hellanicus.”
“Don’t inter your bones apart from mine, Achilles,
We were raised together in your home once
Menoitios sent me from Opos when I was small
To your home because of a terrible man-slaying.
There was that day when I killed the child of Amphidamas,
Not willingly because I was a child enraged over dice.
There the horseman Peleus received me into his home
And he raised me kindly and named me your companion.
So now let a single container, a golden amphora
Contain both our bones, the one your mother has given you.”
“During the reign of Manes’ son, a massive food shortage struck all of Lydia. The Lydians endured this living as they could, but after a while, when it did not stop, they sought cures, and different men devised different solutions. At that time they invented the ideas of dice, and knucklebones, and ball, and every other kind of game except for draughts. For the Lydians do not claim the invention of these games. They invented the games they did for the famine. They played their games on alternate days when they could not seek food and on others they stopped their games and ate. They lived this way for eighteen years.”
As early as Herodotus (4.32) it was doubted that the epic that told the story of the sons of the Seven Against Thebes was by Homer. Instead, it was attributed later to a man named Antimachus from Teios. We have two lines most people agree on, and a handful of uncertain lines.
Fr. 1 (From the Contest of Homer and Hesiod)
“Now, Muses, let us sing in turn of the younger men”
Νῦν αὖθ’ ὁπλοτέρων ἀνδρῶν ἀρχώμεθα, Μοῦσαι
Fr. 4 (From Clement of Alexandria)
“Many evils come to men from gifts”
ἐκ γὰρ δώρων πολλὰ κάκ’ ἀνθρώποισι πέλονται.
Fr. 6 (Dub. from the Contest of Homer and Hesiod)
“So then they divided the meat of bulls and wiped clean
The sweat-covered necks of horses, since they had their fill of war.”
Herodotus (1.199) explains a bizarre ritual of mandatory religious prostitution:
“This is the most shameful of the Babylonian customs. Every native woman must once in her lifetime sit near the shrine of Aphrodite and have sex with a foreign man. There are many women who surpass the others in wealth and do not think it worthy of themselves to mingle with the others, so they are driven to the shrine in carriages while a large entourage of attendants follows them behind. Most Babylonian women, however, do it this way: They sit in the area of Aphrodite’s temple having a crown of string upon their heads. Some approach this area, and others leave. Marked-off paths lead every way through the crowd of women, past whom the foreign men go and make their pick. Once a woman sits in this spot, she does not return home before one of the foreign men throws a silver coin to her legs and copulates with her in the shrine. When the man throws the coin, he is supposed to say ‘I call upon the goddess Mulitta,’ because the Assyrians call Aphrodite Mulitta.
The size of the coin required is whatever it happens to be; it will not be rejected, because that would be unlawful, and the silver coin itself becomes sacred. The woman follows the first man who throws a coin to her, and does not spurn him, whoever he is. Once she has lain with him, she has discharged her duty to the goddess and returns home, and after this gifts are no great thing by which she may be seduced. Those who possess beauty or height are quickly released, but those who are ugly remain there for a lengthy time because they are unable to fulfill the requirements of the law. Some even remain there for three or four years. In some places in Cyprus the custom is roughly the same.”
The men who were near Priam, Panthoos, Thymoites
Lampos, Klutios, and Hiketaôn, the descendent of Ares,
Were Oukalegôn and Antênôr, two intelligent men.
The council of elders sat there on the Skaian gates
Slowed by old age, but still fine public speakers
Something like cicadas who sit on the leaf
Of a tree trailing along their lily-thin voices.
When they saw Helen approaching the wall,
They addressed each other with winged words:
“There’s no reason to criticize the Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans
For suffering pain for so long for this woman.
She has the terrible appearance of the immortal goddesses.
But, even though she is like this, let her return in the ships,
To prevent more pain from being left for our children.”
Οἳ δ’ ἀμφὶ Πρίαμον καὶ Πάνθοον ἠδὲ Θυμοίτην
Λάμπόν τε Κλυτίον θ’ ῾Ικετάονά τ’ ὄζον ῎Αρηος
Οὐκαλέγων τε καὶ ᾿Αντήνωρ πεπνυμένω ἄμφω
ἥατο δημογέροντες ἐπὶ Σκαιῇσι πύλῃσι,
γήραϊ δὴ πολέμοιο πεπαυμένοι, ἀλλ’ ἀγορηταὶ
ἐσθλοί, τεττίγεσσιν ἐοικότες οἵ τε καθ’ ὕλην
δενδρέῳ ἐφεζόμενοι ὄπα λειριόεσσαν ἱεῖσι·
τοῖοι ἄρα Τρώων ἡγήτορες ἧντ’ ἐπὶ πύργῳ.
οἳ δ’ ὡς οὖν εἴδονθ’ ῾Ελένην ἐπὶ πύργον ἰοῦσαν,
ἦκα πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἔπεα πτερόεντ’ ἀγόρευον·
οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας ᾿Αχαιοὺς
τοιῇδ’ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν·
αἰνῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν·
ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧς τοίη περ ἐοῦσ’ ἐν νηυσὶ νεέσθω,
μηδ’ ἡμῖν τεκέεσσί τ’ ὀπίσσω πῆμα λίποιτο.
This passage is famous for showing the marginalization of the Trojan elders and for acting as a preface to the famous (and sometimes thought illogical) “viewing from the walls” (Teikhoskopia) when Helen names the Greek warriors for Priam (even though they’ve been fighting before Troy for 9 years). The elders essentially say, yeah, we get it, she’s hot. But, in the wisdom brought by old age, they insist she isn’t worth it.
Perhaps the Trojan elders understand better the insanity of lust than Herodotus (2.110):
“If Helen really were in Ilium, they would have given her back to the Greeks whether Paris wanted them to or not. Priam was not so out of his mind, nor were his other subjects, that they would want to risk their own bodies and children and the city itself just so that Paris could sleep with Helen.”
Of course, arguing about Helen was a central part of early Greek responses to myth. Helen received a great deal of blame for the Trojan War,even though from the beginning it is clear that the gods were using her for their own plans. (Her father was blamed by some for her infidelity.) In the Classical period, debating Helen’s fault was an established rhetorical practice. But one of the earlier and more creative responses about the whole affair was a “Shaggy” defense: it wasn’t her! It was someone who looked like her:
“This is not the true tale:
You never went in the well-benched ships
You did not go to the towers of Troy…
[It is a fault in Homer that
He put Helen in Troy
And not her image only;
It is a fault in Hesiod
In another: there are two, differing
Recantations and this is the beginning.
Come here, dance loving goddess;
Golden-winged, maiden,
As Khamaileôn put it.
Stesichorus himself says that
an image [eidolon] went to troy
and that Helen stayed back
with Prôteus…”
“Perhaps it was also a better fate for him to die at the height of his reputation and when he would be missed by men before he could suffer that common human fate, which is the very thing Solon warned Kroisos about: that it is best to look to the end of even a long life and never to say openly that some man is fortunate before he is dead.”
“Before all else, it is necessary that those who criticize me remember that they do not criticize a wise man—if, indeed, there is someone wise anywhere—but instead a man of the regular people who has prepared arguments and received some limited praise for them, even though he has not at all been trained in that pinnacle of virtue of the highest men. And, by Zeus, it would be sufficient for me not to be upset on this count, that I have not encountered some man yet who has paid in full a promise of wisdom. Certainly, I would be surprised if you were to find fault with my current life, if you would criticize the fact which you knew long ago, that I was earning a great deal of money for teaching rhetoric in public when you went to visit the Western Sea and the Celts and you met me, I was one of the highest-charging sophists!
These are the words, friend, which I offer as a defense to you, even amidst my rather busy schedule, since I think it is not at all a minor matter to acquire a clean slate from you. As for the others, even if they all accuse me at once, let this be enough of an answer: “Hippocleides don’t care”. *
The men who were near Priam, Panthoos, Thymoites
Lampos, Klutios, and Hiketaôn, the descendent of Ares,
Were Oukalegôn and Antênôr, two intelligent men.
The council of elders sat there on the Skaian gates
Slowed by old age, but still fine public speakers
Something like cicadas who sit on the leaf
Of a tree trailing along their lily-thin voices.
When they saw Helen approaching the wall,
They addressed each other with winged words:
“There’s no reason to criticize the Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans
For suffering pain for so long for this woman.
She has the terrible appearance of the immortal goddesses.
But, even though she is like this, let her return in the ships,
To prevent more pain from being left for our children.”
Οἳ δ’ ἀμφὶ Πρίαμον καὶ Πάνθοον ἠδὲ Θυμοίτην
Λάμπόν τε Κλυτίον θ’ ῾Ικετάονά τ’ ὄζον ῎Αρηος
Οὐκαλέγων τε καὶ ᾿Αντήνωρ πεπνυμένω ἄμφω
ἥατο δημογέροντες ἐπὶ Σκαιῇσι πύλῃσι,
γήραϊ δὴ πολέμοιο πεπαυμένοι, ἀλλ’ ἀγορηταὶ
ἐσθλοί, τεττίγεσσιν ἐοικότες οἵ τε καθ’ ὕλην
δενδρέῳ ἐφεζόμενοι ὄπα λειριόεσσαν ἱεῖσι·
τοῖοι ἄρα Τρώων ἡγήτορες ἧντ’ ἐπὶ πύργῳ.
οἳ δ’ ὡς οὖν εἴδονθ’ ῾Ελένην ἐπὶ πύργον ἰοῦσαν,
ἦκα πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἔπεα πτερόεντ’ ἀγόρευον·
οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας ᾿Αχαιοὺς
τοιῇδ’ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν·
αἰνῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν·
ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧς τοίη περ ἐοῦσ’ ἐν νηυσὶ νεέσθω,
μηδ’ ἡμῖν τεκέεσσί τ’ ὀπίσσω πῆμα λίποιτο.
This passage is famous for showing the marginalization of the Trojan elders and for acting as a preface to the famous (and sometimes thought illogical) “viewing from the walls” (Teikhoskopia) when Helen names the Greek warriors for Priam (even though they’ve been fighting before Troy for 9 years). The elders essentially say, yeah, we get it, she’s hot. But, in the wisdom brought by old age, they insist she isn’t worth it.
Perhaps the Trojan elders understand better the insanity of lust than Herodotus (2.110):
“If Helen really were in Ilium, they would have given her back to the Greeks whether Paris wanted them to or not. Priam was not so out of his mind, nor were his other subjects, that they would want to risk their own bodies and children and the city itself just so that Paris could sleep with Helen.”
Of course, arguing about Helen was a central part of early Greek responses to myth. Helen received a great deal of blame for the Trojan War,even though from the beginning it is clear that the gods were using her for their own plans. (Her father was blamed by some for her infidelity.) In the Classical period, debating Helen’s fault was an established rhetorical practice. But one of the earlier and more creative responses about the whole affair was a “shaggy” defense: it wasn’t her! It was someone who looked like her:
“This is not the true tale:
You never went in the well-benched ships
You did not go to the towers of Troy…
[It is a fault in Homer that
He put Helen in Troy
And not her image only;
It is a fault in Hesiod
In another: there are two, differing
Recantations and this is the beginning.
Come here, dance loving goddess;
Golden-winged, maiden,
As Khamaileôn put it.
Stesichorus himself says that
an image [eidolon] went to troy
and that Helen stayed back
with Prôteus…”
“Other Indians live near the city Kaspatyrus and the Paktyic country, north of the rest of Indian, and these Indians live most like the Bactrians and are most bellicose. These are the Indians sent for gold in the area made desolate by the sands.
In that desert there are ants who are not quite as large as dogs but are larger than foxes. There are even some of these who have been caught and taken to the Persian king. These ants make their home underground, digging sand the way ants do in Greece—and they are similar in shape—but the sand they carry up is mostly gold.
Indians are sent into the desert for this sand. They yoke three camels together each, tying a female in between two males—the rider sits atop her, and she was harnessed as soon as possible after giving birth. Their camels are no less speedy than horses, but they are better at carrying burdens. I won’t describe what a camel looks like, because the Greeks know these things; but they don’t know this: the rear-legs of a camel have four thighbones and four knees; their genitals are turned back near the tail between their rear-legs.
The Indians use these camel teams and drive toward collecting the gold when the weather is hottest, because this is when the ants are out of sight under the ground. In this part of India, the sun is hottest in the morning and near noon like other places, but right from sunrise until dusk. During this time it burns hotter than in Greece at noon, so the story is that men drip water on themselves during this time. At noon, the sun’s heat is almost the same for the Indians as it is for other people. After noon, the sun has the power it has in the morning in other lands. It cools as it sets, making it very cold at sunset.
When the Indians come to this land with their sacks, they fill them with sand as fast as possible and drive back again. For as soon as the ants smell them, as the Persians report, they chase them. They claim that there is nothing equal to their speed with the result that if the Indians do not start well ahead, none of them will escape. They cut the male camels out because they are slower once they begin to hold back. The females never get tired, because they remember the offspring they have let behind. This is the story. The Persians claim that the Indians gather most of their gold this way. The do get some from their own lands, but rather less.”
Herodotus’ Ants Make B-Movie Gold (from Them!, 1954)
“The great amount of gold which the Indians are said gather from dust for the Great King they gather in the following way. There is sand to the east of India where the sun rises. Of all those people we know of, even those of whom something certain may be said, they Indians well nearest the sun and its rays of the people in Asia. The part of India near the sun is deserted because of the sand.
There are many different peoples in India and they do not share a language. Some are nomads; some are not. Some live in the marches of rivers and eat raw fish which they catch while sailing on reed-boats. Each boat is made of a single piece of reed. These Indians bear clothes made of rush. When they harvest these rushes from the river, they weave them the weave would a mat and don them like breastplates.
Other Indians who live nearer to the sun than these and are nomads, they eat raw flesh and are called Padaei. They are reported as following these customs. Whenever one of their citizens is ill, whether it is a woman or a man, they men who live near him kill him, claiming that he will be ruined for meat by the sickness. Though the man himself denies that he is sick, they ignore him, kill him, and eat him up. When a woman is sick, just as with the men her closest friends kill her. They also sacrifice and eat a man who reaches old age—though few ever make it to this point, since most are killed when they get sick.
