Ryzard Kapuscinski, Travels with Herodotus
Ryzard Kapuscinski, Travels with Herodotus, transl. Klara Glowczewska; Vintage International, New York, 2008
Before Herodotus sets out on his travels, ascending rocky paths, sailing a ship over the seas, riding on horseback through the wilds of Asia; before he happens upon the mistrustful Scythians, discovers the wonders of Babylon, and plumbs the mysteries of the Nile; before he experiences a hundred different places and sees a thousand inconceivable things, he will appear for a moment in a lecture on ancient Greece, which Professor Biezunska-Malowist delivers twice weekly to the first-year students in Warsaw University's department of hsitory.
He will appear and just as quickly vanish.
He will disappear so completely that now, years later, when I look through my notes from those classes, I do not find his name . There are Aeschylus and Pericles, Sappho and Socrates, Heraclitus and Plato; but no Herodotus. And yet we took such careful notes. They were our only source of information. The war had ended six years earlier, and the city lay in ruins. Libraries had gone up in flames, we had no textbooks, no books at all to speak of. 3
High schools were closed during the war years, and although in the larger cities clandestine classes were occasionally convened, here, in this lecture hall, sat mostly girls and boys from remote villages and small towns, ill read, undereducated. 4
...a household would keep a piece of dried kielbasa as medicine: if an infant fell ill, it would be given the kielbasa to suck. "Did that help?" I asked, skeptically. "Of course," he replied with conviction and fell into gloomy silence again. 4
...in Corinth, after thirty years of bloodthirsty rule, the tyrant called Cypselus died and was suceeded by his son, Periander...Periander, when he was still a dictator-in-training, wanted to learn how to stay in power, and so sent a messenger to the dictator of Miletus, old Thrasybulus, asking him for advice on how best to keep a people in slavish fear and subjugation. / Thrasybulus, write Herodotus, took the man sent by Periander out of the city and into a field where there were crops growing. As he walked through the grain, he kept questioning the messenger and getting him to repeat over and over again what he had come from Corinth to ask. Meanwhile, every time he saw an ear of grain standing higher than the rest, he broke it off and threw it away, and he went on doing this until he had destroyed the choicest, tallest stems in the crops...Periander, however, understood Thrasybulus' actions. He realized that he had been advising him to kill outstanding citizens, and from then on he treated his people with unremitting brutality. 6-7
Censorship abated and one could write, for example, that in the village of Chodow there is a store but that its shelves are always bare and there is never anything to buy. Progress consisted of the fact that while Stalin was alive, one could not write that a store was empty--all of them had to be excellently stocked, bursting with wares. 8
...the closer one got to a border, the emptier grew the land and the fewer people one encountered. This emptiness increased the mystery of these regions. I was struck, too, by how silent the border zone was...I wondered what one experiences when one crosses the border. What does one feel? What does one think?..."Abroad?" she said, surprised and slightly frightened, because in those days going abroad was no ordinary matter. "Where? What for?" she asked. 9-10
...I was flying west and had been taught to fear the West like fire. 11
In this fashion we arrived at a place illuminated by a red light bulb: HOTEL. The driver left me at reception and disappeared without a word. The man at the desk, this one sporting a blue turban, led me upstairs to a little room furnished with only a bed, a table, and a washstand. Without a word he pulled off the bedsheet on which scurried panicked bugs, which he shook off onto the floor, muttered something by way of good night, and departed. 18
I could not define precisely wherein lay this strangeness, but the sensation grew stronger in the morning, when a barefoot man entered the room bearing a pot of tea and several biscuits. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. He placed the tray on the table, bowed, and, having uttered not a word, softly withdrew. There was such a natural politeness in his manner, such profound tactfulness, something so astonishingly delicate and dignified, that I felt instant admiration and respect for him. 18
Here is a man who has laid out two rows of human teeth and some old pliers on a piece of newspaper, thereby advertising his dental services. 19
Cast into deep water, I didn't want to drown. I realized that only language could save me. I started to think about how Herodotus, wandering the world, had dealt with foreign languages...[yet] Greek was the lingua franca of those days. 21
It was the season of the autumn floods, and rivers metamorphosed into broad lakes, veritable seas. On their shores camped barefoot flood victims. They fled before the rising water but maintained their contact with it, escaping only as far as was necessary and returning immediately when the floodwaters started to recede. in the ghastly heat of the dying day, the water vaporized and a milky, still fog hovered over everything. 23
I see a family subjecting a stout grandmother to the purification rite. The grandmother doesn't know how to swim and sinks at once to the bottom. The family rush in and bring her back up to the surface. The grandmother gulps as much air as she can, but the instant they let her go, she goes under again. I can see her bulging eyes, her terrified face. She sinks once more, they search for her again in the murky waters and again pull her out, barely alive. The whole ritual looks like torture, but she endures it without protest, perhaps even in ecstasy. / Beside the Ganges, which at this point is wide, expansive, and lazy, stretch rows of wooden pyres, on which are burning dozens, hundreds of corpses. The curious can for several rupees take a boat over to this gigantic open-air crematorium. Half-naked, soot-covered men bustle about here, as do many young boys. With long poles they adjust the pyres to direct a better draft so the cremation can proceed faster; the line of corpses has no end, the wait is long. The gravediggers rake the still glowing ashes and push them into the river. The gray dust floats atop the waves for a while but very soon, saturated with water, it sinks and vanishes. 25
...they sought no shelter from the downpour because they had nowhere to go--this was the end of their road--and they made no exertion to cover themselves because they had nothing to cover themselves with. 28
...it turns out that these castes are divided into hundreds of subcastes, and these in turn into dozens of sub-subcastes, and so on into infinity. India is all about infinity--an infinity of gods and myths, beliefs and languages, races and cultures; in everything and everywhere one looks, there is this dizzying endlessness. 30
All of them move about in silence, fluidity, cautiously, giving a slightly fearful impression. But there is no visible nervousness, no running about or gesticulating. It's as if a Bengal tiger were circling around here somewhere; one's only chance is to make no sudden movements. Even during the day, in the glare of the shining sun, the servants resemble anonymous shadows, moving about without uttering a word, always in such as way as to remain on the periphery, careful not to catch anyone's gaze, let alone cross anyone's path. 33
There is another Indian tribe, however, with different habits: they do not kill any living thing or grow crops, nor is it their practice to have houses. They eat vegetables, and there is a seed...which they collect, cook...and eat. If any of them falls ill, he goes and lies down in some remote spot, and no one cares whether he is dead or ill. [Herodotus] 36
Kabul is dust upon dust. Winds blow through the valley where the city lies, carrying clouds of sand from the nearby deserts. A pale brown, grayish particulate matter hangs in the air, coating everything, pushing its way in everywhere, settling only when the winds die down. And then the air grows transparent, crystal clear. 37
There is an infinite number of gods, myths, and beliefs in Hinduism, hundreds of the most varied schools of thought, orientations, and tendencies, dozens of roads to salvation, paths to virtue, practices of purity, and rules to asceticism. 41
Tagore...recalls that in the morning, while it was still dark, his father woke him to memorize Sanskrit declensions. After a while, he continues, dawn would break, and his father, having said his prayers, would help him finish the morning milk. Finally, with Rabi by his side, his father would turn once more to God and sing the Upanishads. 42
They were prepared to give up their lives in the defense of their language, to burn on a pyre. This fervor and resolve stemmed from the fact that identity here is determined by the language one speaks. A Bengali, for example, is someone whose mother tongue is Bengali. 43
What sort of child was Herodotus? Does he smile at everyone and willingly extend his hand, or does he sulk and hide in the folds of his mother's garments? Is he an eternal crybaby and whiner, giving his tormented mother at times to sigh: Gods, why did I give birth to such a child! Or is he cheerful, spreading joy all around? 45
It is the middle of the fifth century B.C.E.; Herodotus arrives in Athens...He gives lectures, appears for meetings, author evenings--he probably makes his living that way. He establishes important contacts--with Socrates, Sophocles,Pericles. This isn't that difficult. Athens, with a population of one hundred thousand, isn't large in those days...At approximately the time of his arrival, Athenian authorities pass a draconian law, according to which only those both of whose parents were born in Attica, the region immediately surounding Athens, are entitled to political rights. Herodotus is unable to obtain Athenian citizenship. He sets off once again, and finally settles permanently in southern Italy, in the Greek colony of Thurii. 47-8
[On a train to Peking] At one of the stations, when the train was already full, three people in uniforms of bright indigo came on board--a young woman and her two male helpers. The girl delivered a rather long speech in a decisive stentorian voice, after which one of the men handed everyone a cup and the second one poured out green tea from a metal pot. The tea was hot; the passengers blew on it to cool it and drank in small gulps, slurping loudly. 51
I sat and read the works of Mao Tse-tung. This effort coincided nicely with the decree of the moment: huge banners all over town proclaimed DILIGENTLY STUDY THE IMMORTAL THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN MAO! 55
Chuant Tzu...When the body is decomposed, the mind will be the same along with it...Once Chuang Tze dreamt he was a butterfly...he didn't know if he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. 56
In Mao's opinion, the best tactic in the struggle against a prevailing enemy is an adroit elasticity and ceaseless tormenting of the opponent. He speaks and writes about this constantly. 57
The Great Wall...hundreds upon hundreds of millions of hours spent building walls, hours which in this poor country could have been spent learning to read, acquiring a profession, cultivating new fields, and breeding robust cattle. / That is how the world's energy is wasted. 58
The worst aspect of the wall is to turn so many people into its defenders and produce a mental attitude that sees a wall running through everything, imagines the world as being divided into an evil and inferior part, on the outside... 59
...one frequently sees columns of schoolchildren clad in school uniforms. They walk in pairs waving little red flags, and the one at the head of the procession carries either a red banner or a portrait of the Good Uncle--Chairman Mao. The children enthusiastically call, sing, or cry out in unison. What are they saying? I ask Comrade Li. "They want to study the thought of Chairman Mao." 60
Buddhism did not flower in China until the first millennium of our era. For some five hundred years prior to that time, two parallel spiritual currents, two schools, two orientations dominated the region: Confucianism and Taoism. Master Confucius lived from 560 to 480 B.C.E. There is no consensus among historians as to whether the creator of Taoism--Master Lao-tzu--was older or younger than Confucius...to the most fundamental of worldly questions--"How do I survive?"--...each gives a different answer. Confucius holds that man, being born into society, has certain obligations. Those most important are those of carrying out the commands of the authorities...loyal and docile... [whereas] Lao-tzu (if he existed) recommends a different stance. The creator of Taoism advises keeping oneself at a remove from everything. Nothing lasts, says the master. So do not become attached to anything. All that exists will perish; therefore rise above it, maintain your distance, do not try to become somebody, do not try to pursue or possess something. Act through inaction: your strength is weakness and helplessness; your wisdom, naivete and ignorance. If you want to survive, become useless, unnecessary to everyone. Live far from others, become a hermit, be satisfied with a bowl of rice, a sip of water... In their message to the simple man, however, Confucianism and Taoism have a common denominator: the recommendation of humility... The paintings of Confucian artists depict court scenes--a seated emperor surrounded by stiff standing bureaucrats, chiefs of palace protocol, pompous generals, meekly bowing servants. In Taoist paintings we see distant pastel landscapes, barely discernible mountain chains, luminous mists, mulberry trees, and in the foreground a slender, delicate leaf of bamboo bush, swaying in the invisible breeze... the soul of the individual Chinese. Depending on the situation, the context, and the circumstances, the Confucian element might take the upper hand in him, or the Taoist, because nothing in his world was determined once and for all, signed and sealed, written in stone. To survive, he would be an obedient executor. Humble and meek on the outside, he would as well be on the inside aloof, unreachable, independent. 66-69
Herodotus begins his book with a statement explaining why he set out to write it in the first place: / Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks. 74
Herodotus admits that he was obsessed with memory, fearful on its behalf. He felt that memory is something defective, fragile, impermanent--illusory, even. That whatever it contains, whatever it is storing, can evaporate, simply vanish without a trace. 75
People sit around and tell stories. Later, these will be called legends and myths, but in the instant when they are first being related and heard, the tellers and the listeners believe in them as the holiest of truths, absolute reality. / They listen, the fire burns, someone adds more wood, the flames' renewed warmth quickens thought, awakens the imagination. The spinning of tales is almost unimaginable without a fire crackling somewhere nearby, or without the darkness of a house illuminated by an oil lamp or a candle. The fire's light attracts, unites, galvanizes attentions. The flame and community. The flame and history. The flame and memory. Heraclitus, who lived before Herodotus, considered fire to be the origin of all matter, the primordial substance. Like fire, he said, everything is in eternal motion, everything is extinguished only to flare up again. Everything flows, but in flowing, it undergoes transformation. So it is with memory. Some of its images die out, but new ones appear in their place. The new ones are not identical to those that came before--they are different. Just as one cannot step twice into the same river, so it is impossible for a new image to be exactly like an earlier one. / It is this principle of an irreversible passing away that Herodotus understands perfectly, and he wants to set himself in opposition to its destructive power... 77
People who dislike budging from their homes or walking beyond their own backyards--and they are always and everywhere in the majority--treat Herodotus's sort, fundamentally unconnected to anyone or anything, as freaks, fanatics, lunatics even. 79
These learned Persians, Herodotus says, maintain that the instigators of the world-wide East-West conflict are neither Greeks nor Persians, but a third people, the Phoenicians, peripatetic merchants. It was they who first began the business of kidnapping women, which in turn triggered this global storm. 82
...commentary of Persian wise men: Although the Persians regarded the abduction of women as a criminal act, they also claim that it is stupid to get worked up about it and to seek revenge for the women once they have been abducted; the sensible course, they say, is to pay no attention to it, because it is obvious that the women must have been willing participants in their own abduction , or else it could never have happened. 83
Herodotus lived at the juncture of two epochs: although the era of written history was beginning, the oral tradition still predominated. It is possible, therefore, that the rhythm of Herodotus's life and work was as follows: he made a long journey, and upon his return travelled to various Greek cities and organized something akin to literary evenings, in the course of which he recounted the experiences, impressions, and observations he had gathered during his peregrinations. It is entirely likely that he made his living from such gatherings, and that he also financed his subsequent trips in this way, and so it was important to him to have the largest auditorium possible, to draw a crowd. It would be to his advantage, therefore, to begin with something that would rivet attention, arouse curiosity--something a tad sensational. 83
Solon: Croesus, when you asked me about men and their affairs, you were putting your question to someone who is well aware of how utterly jealous the divine is, and how it is likely to confound us. Anyone who lives for a long time is bound to see and endure many things he would rather avoid. I place the limit of man's life at seventy years. Seventy years makes 25, 200 days...No two days bring events which are exactly the same. It follows, Croesus, that human life is entirely a matter of chance... / Now, I can see that you are extremely rich and that you rule over large numbers of people, but I won't be in a position to say what you're asking me to say about you until I find out that you died well...Until [a man] is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy, and just call him fortunate. / ...It is necessary to consider the end of anything... and to see how it will turn out, because the god often offers prosperity to men, but then destroys them utterly and completely. 85-86
One is reminded of Napolean's mad campaign for Moscow. The Persian and the Frenchman are in the grips of an identical passion: to seize, conquer, possess. Both will suffer defeat on account of having transgressed a fundamental Greek principle, the law of moderation: never to want too much, not to desire everything. But as they are launching their ventures, they are too blind to see this; the lust for conquest has dimmed their judgement, has deprived them of reason. On the other hand, if reason ruled the world, would history even exist? 92
Now, the Great King goes on his military expeditions well equipped with food and livestock from home, and he also brings water from the River Choaspes (on whose banks the city of Susa is situated), because water from no other river except the Choaspes is allowed to pass the king's lips. This Choaspes water is boiled, and whenever the king might be campaigning on any given occasion, he is accompanied by a large number of four-wheeled wagons, drawn by mules, which carry the water in silver containers. / I am fascinated by this water. Water that has been boiled ahead of time. Stored in silver vessels to keep it cool. 93
What ensues now is a scene from a Greek tragedy. The plain is strewn with the corpses of soldiers from both armies. Onto this battlefield steps Tomyris, carrying an empty wineskin. She walks from one slaughtered soldier to the next and collects blood from the still-fresh wounds, enough to fill the wineskin. The queen must be drenched with human blood, she must be positively dripping with it. It is hot, so she surely wipes her face with her bloodied hands. Her face is smeared with blood. 97
That Mao Tse-tung has proclaimed another campaign: Dead is the politics of One Hundred Flowers; now the task is the reeducation of the intelligentsia--whoever knows how to read and write (these skills have suddenly metamorphosed into liabilities) will be forcibly deported to the countryside, where, pulling a plow or digging irrigation canals, coming to know real proletarian peasant life... 99
Africa's contribution to world history has been immense--nothing less than a transformation of a centuries-old global hierarchy. By furnishing the New World its labor force, it enabled it to amass enough wealth and power to surpass the Old World. Later, having given over many generations of the best, strongest, and most resilient people, the depopulated and exhausted continent fell easy prey to European colonizers. 100
We can imagine how the relations between Herodotus--an inquisitive romantic desirous of knowledge for knowledge's sake, a diligent student of the impractical and the largely useless--and his slave, who on the road had to take care of things mundane, pedestrian, everyday, resembled those between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. 102
...the word "barbarian" comes, from the word "barbaros," signifying someone who does not speak Greek... 106
How fortunate for him that he proclaimed this in a world in which mass communication did not yet exist and only a handful of people heard or read him. If his views had been disseminated widely, our Greek would have been instantly stoned, or burned on the pyre! 106
I rose early to go into the center of the city, which was a ways off. I was staying in a hotel in Zamalek, a rather wealthy residential neighborhood on an island in the Nile once largely the precinct of foreigners but by now also already inhabited by well-to-do Egyptians. Knowing that my suitcase would be searched as soon as I left the hotel, I thought it wise to remove an empty bottle of Czech pilsner beer I had stashed there and dispose of it along the way (in those days Nasser, a zealous Muslim, was conducting an anti-alcohol campaign). I concealed the bottle in a gray paper bag and walked out with it into the street. It was morning still, but already sultry and hot. 110
...the majority of Third World cities. Their neighborhoods are populated in large part by an unformed, fluid element, lacking precise classification, without position, place, or purpose. At any moment and for whatever reason, these people, to whom no one pays attention, whom no one needs, can form into a crowd, a throng, a mob, which has an opinion about everything, has time for everything, and would like to participate in something, mean something. / All dictatorships take advantage of this idle magma. They don't even need to maintain an expensive army of full-time policemen. If suffices to reach out to these people searching for some significance in life. Give them the sense that they can be of use, that someone is counting on them for something, that they have been noticed, that they have a purpose. / The benefits of this relationship are mutual. The man of the street, serving the dictatorship, starts to feel at one with the authorities, to feel important and meaningful, and furthermore, because he usually had some petty thefts, fights, and swindles on his conscience, he now acquires the comforting sense of immunity. The dictatorial powers, meantime, have in him an inexpensive--free, actually--yet zealous and omnipresent agent-tentacle. 112-113
In the afternoon the shadows lengthen, start to overlap, then darken and finally turn black--it is evening. People come alive then, their will to live returns; they greet one another, converse, clearly happy that they have somehow managed to endure the quotidian cataclysm, to survive yet another day from hell. The city starts to bustle, cars appear in the streets, shops and bars fill with people. 118
We are at the top of an escarpment, and the Nile glimmers silver below, illuminated by the moon. The landscape is reduced to a minimalist ideal--desert, river, moon--which at this moment is world enough. 120
Sandstorms constantly change the configuration of the landscape, moving the orientation points...123
We have come to a standstill on the outskirts of the little town of Paulis (Congo, Eastern Province). We have run out of gas, and live in hope that someone will pass this way one day and agree to give us some, if only a jerry can full. Until then, we wait in the only place possible--a school run by Belgian missionaries, whose prior is the delicate, emaciated, and seriously ailing Abbe Pierre...I have a cot in an empty classroom at the end of the school barracks. It is quiet here, and the sounds of battle drills barely reach me. Out front is a flower bed full of blooms--lush, tropically overgrown dahlias and gladioli, centauries, and still other beauties, which I am seeing for the first time and whose names I do not know. 126
The Babylonian men gathered together all the women of the city--with the exception of their mothers and of a single woman chosen by each man from his own household--and strangled them. The single woman was kept on as a cook, while all the others were strangled to conserve supplies. 128
Zopyrus...cuts off his own nose and ears, shaves his head (as criminals are shorn), and has himself flogged...go to the Babylonians, pretending that he is fleeing from persecutions and tortures inflicted upon him by Darius...he will convince the Babylonians, that he will gain their confidence, and that they will give him command of the army. And then he will let the Persians into Babylon...Darius sends one thousand of his weakest troops toward one of the besieged city's gates. The Babylonians burst out from the gate and cut down the Persians to the last man...gratefully appoint Zopyrus their commander in chief and defender of the city. 131-133
Beyond the territory of their neighbours to the north there are such piles of feathers, according to the Scythians, that nothing can be seen and the land cannot be traversed either. They say that there are too many feathers filling the land and air to enable sight to function. 138
The Scythians, in order to force their recalcitrant neighbors into battle, weave about in such a way as to propel Darius's pursuing troops into the lands of the tribes that had refused to commit themselves to battle. 141
...a Persian called Oeobazus, all three of whose sons were in the army, asked Darius whether one of them could be left behind. Darius replied in a friendly fashion, as if the request were reasonable, and said that he would leave all three behind. Oeobazus was overjoyed at the prospect of his sons being released from military service, but Darius ordered those responsible for such things to kill all three of them. So he did leave them there in Susa--with their throats cut. 145
Luckily Ramadan arrived, and Tehran grew calm. I located the bus terminal and bought a ticket to Shiraz, which is close to Persepolis...At the rest stops one always gets the same thing: a plate of buckwheat grits, a hot lamb shish kebab, a glass of water, and, for dessert, a cup of tea. 147
[the Scythian]...makes a circular cut around the head at the level of the ears and then he picks it up and shakes the scalp off the skull; next he scrapes the skin with a cow's rib, and then, having kneaded the skin with his hand, he has a kind of rag, which he proudly fastens to the bridle of the horse he is riding. The reason for his pride is that the more of these skin rags a man has, the braver he is counted. Many of them make coats to wear by sewing the scalps together into a patchwork leather garment like leather coats... 148
We arrive in Persepolis. A long, wide staircase leads to the city, flanked on one side by a tall bas-relief carved in dark gray, wall-polished marble and representing vassals walking to the king in order to pay him homage, proffer their loyalty and subservience. There is one vassal for every step, and there are several dozen steps...the figures of the vassals are identical...The sameness of appearance of the vassals accompanying your ascent up the stairs creates a paradoxical impression of motion with immobility: you climb the stairs, but because you always see the same vassal, you simultaneously have the impression of standing still...When you have reached the top, you turn and look back. The view is magnificent: below you stretches a boundless plain, at this hour already bathed in blinding sunlight, and traversed by only one road--the one leading to Persepolis...The king stands at the top of the stairs and looks down at the plain. At its other end, meaning very far, far away, he sees that some specks have appeared, some motes of dust, grains...because the first impression is always the most important, and in this case it was "motes and kernels of grain," such will always remain the king's view of his liege men. 149-150
Trausian customs are basically identical with those found elsewhere in Thrace, except for what they do at birth and death. Whenever a baby is born, its relatives gather around and grieve for the troubles it is going to have to endure now that it has been born, and they recount all the sufferings of human life. When anyone dies, however, they bury him in high spirits and with jubilation, on the grounds that he has been released from so many ills and is now in a perfectly happy state. 154
Darius does not succeed in conquering the Scythians; they have stopped the Asian at the gates of Europe...Moreover, he is suddenly afraid that they will now attack and destroy him. And so under cover of night he begins his escape-retreat...as his enormous army withdraws, the Scythians immediately set off in pursuit. 155
For the Athenians, the defeat of Miletus [vanguard of the Ionian uprising against the Persians] was a terrible blow. When the playwright Phrynichus composed and produced the play called The Fall of Miletus, the audience burst into tears. The Athenian authorities imposed a draconian fine of a thousand drachmas on the play's author and banned any future productions of it in their city. A play was meant to raise one's spirits, not reopen wounds. 161
If they wanted to beat me, they would beat me; if they wanted to kill me, they would kill me. I have only ever felt true loneliness in circumstances such as these--where I have stood alone face-to-face with absolute violent power. 165
Doctor Ranke is an Austrian and has been living in Lisali since the end of World War II. Slight, fragile-looking, yet still lively and indefatigable approaching his eightieth eyar. He owes his relative good health, he says, to his taking each day in the morning, when the sun is still gentle, a walk out into the green and flowering courtyard, where seated on a stool, he has a servant wash his back with a sponge and a brush so vigorously as to produce from the doctor actual little moans both of satisfaction and pain. These moans, snorts, and the laughter of overjoyed children who have gathered around the doctor to watch the rubdown, awaken me, because the windows of my room are nearby. 167
The inexperienced in any event do not dare plunge into the virgin forest, and the idea of hacking one's way through it is unthinkable to the locals. The jungle no less than the ocean, or a range of high mountains, is a closed, discrete, independent entity, not to be idly entered into. It always fills me with fear...Sometimes we stop along the road, right near the edge of the jungle. It resembles twilight here, and the air is thick with aromas. There are no animals on the road, but you can hear the birds. And the sound of drops falling on leaves. Unaccountable rustlings. The children like to come here, they feel at home and know everything. Which plant one can pick and bite into, and which one cannot so much as touch. Which fruit is comestible, and while poisonous. They know that spiders are very dangerous, and lizards not at all. And they know that one must look up at the branches, because a snake might be lurking there. The girls are more serious and more careful than the boys, and so I observe their actions and order the boys to follow me suit. 168-169
Why so many tribes? Just one hundred and fifty years ago there were still ten thousand of them in Africa...Anthropologists tell us it started with a small group. Perhaps with several. Each had to number approximately thirty to fifty. If smaller, men could not defend themselves; bigger ones could not find enough to eat. Even in my time I managed to encounter in East Africa two tribes neither of which numbered more than one hundred people. 170-171
...a new group, arriving on the scene, as it were, would not first survey the terrain, size up the situation, listen to the prevailing parlance. No--it emerges with its own language, its own pantheon of gods, its own universe of traditions. With relative immediacy it demonstratively underscores its own otherness. / Over years, over centuries, there are more and more of these tribal nuclei. It starts to get crowded on this continent of many people, many languages, and many gods. 172
So how am I to gather my material?...a powerful radio...from which one can tune in the entire world...costs a fortune, and I can only fantasize about it. So I walk, ask, listen, cajole, scrape, and string together facts, opinions, stories. I don't complain, because this method enables me to meet many people and find out about things not covered in the press or on the radio. 188
There is someone, however, who can speak up without fear. It is old Artabanus, Darius's brother and Xerxes' uncle. Even so, he begins cautiously, making certain to offer justification for daring to voice his opinions: "My lord, unless opposing views are heard, it is impossible to pick and choose between various plans and decide which one is best..." 192
Xerxes at first accepts his mission, which is to exact vengeance on the Greeks for their having insulted the Persians generally and his father in particular. He declares war against them and vows not to rest until he conquers Athens and sets it on fire. Later, however, listening to the voices of reason, he changes his mind. He suppresses thoughts of war, sets aside the invasion plans, pulls back. It is then that the phantom appears in his dreams: "Madman," it seems to be saying, "do not hesitate! It is your destiny to strike against the Greeks!" 196
Xerxes is unbalanced, unpredictable...Here he is, making his way to Sardis with his army. He spots a plane-tree along the road which was so beautiful that he presented it with golden decorations and appointed one of the Immortals as guardian to look after it. / He is still under the spell of the tree's charms when news reaches him that a great storm in the straits of the Hellespont has destroyed the bridges which he had ordered built so that his army could cross from Asia into Europe in its advance on Greece. Upon hearing this, Xerxes flew into a rage. He ordered his men to give the Hellespont three hundred lashes and to sink a pair of shackles into the sea. I once heard that he also dispatched men to brand the Hellespont as well. 199
Thermopylae...To seize this passage is to have an open road to Athens...Initially, Xerxes counted on the handful of Greeks defending Thermpylae simply to flee at the sight of the gigantic Persian army...Impatient, Xerxes sends out a scout on horseback on a mission of reconnaissance. The scout approached the Greeks' camp and kept them under close surveillance...He watched them in a variety of occupations such as exercising naked and combing their hair; this surprised him, but he took careful note of their numbers and then made his way back to Xerxes...Xerxes lost all subsequent battles. When Xerxes realized the extent of the disaster that had taken place, he became afraid. What if the Greeks got the idea...of sailing to Hellespont and demolishing his bridges? In that case, he would be trapped in Europe, and would probably be wiped out. And so Xerxes' thoughts turned to flight. / And flee he does, abandoning the theater of war before the war's end. He returns to Susa. He is thirty-something years old...It is said that he was interested only in women; he constructed for them an immense, imposing harem, whose ruins I have seen. / He was fifty-six years old when, in 465 B.C.E., he was murdered by the commander of his security guard. 202-203
Having seized the barrier that was Thermopylae, Xerxes reaches Athens. He occupies and burns down the city. Yet while Athens lies in ruins, Greece still exists--and it will be saved by the genius of Themistocles. / Themistocles has just been chosen leader of Athens...Greek ships find harbor in the bay of Salamis, near Athens...The entrance to the bay is so narrow that the Persian king will think twice before sailing in with his gigantic fleet. / Both Xerxes and Themistocles now ponder their situations...Themistocles doesn't yet know what Xerxes is thinking, and to make certain that the Persians enter the bay, he resorts to a trick:...house-slave...sent him over to the Persian camp in a boat...said to the Persian commanders, "I am on a secret mission for the Athenian commander, who is in fact sympathetic to Xerxes' cause...the Greeks are in a state of panic and are planning to retreat. Unless you just stand by and let them escape, you have an opportunity here to achieve a glorious victory... Xerxes, like every ruler, was a vain man...instead of steering clear of the trap that a small bay always poses for a large fleet, he gives the order to sail into Salamis and block the Greeks' escape route. The Persians execute this maneuver, under the cover of darkness...The battle begins at dawn, so that Xerxes, sitting on a throne at the foot of the mountains which lie opposite Salamis and are called the Aegaleos, can observe it...the collision in tight quarters of two fleets consisting of wooden ships and propelled by thousands of oars must have resembled a great bucket into which someone has thrown hundreds of sluggishly creeping, clumsily clambering, and chaotically entangled crabs...after hours of this maritime hell, the Persians gave up and those of them who were left--those not drowned or otherwise killed--escaped. 207-209
This was no longer Addis Abada but Dar el-Salaam, a city on a bay that had been sculpted into such a perfect semicircle that it seemed like one of hundreds of gentle Greek coves--this one somehow transported here, to the eastern shore of Africa. The sea was always calm; slow little waves, creating a quiet, rhythmic splash, sank without a trace into the warm sand of the shore. 213
Sometimes no one appeared on the verandah, and if I happened to have Herodotus with me, I would open the book at random. 215
Thomas Mann's observation that "a writer is a man for whom writing is more difficult than it is for others." 218
In [Egyptian] households were a cat dies a natural death, all the people living there shave off their eyebrows--nothing more. In households where a dog dies, they shave their whole bodies, head and all. / Or about crocodiles: / This is what crocodiles are like. They eat nothing during the four winter months. They are four-footed, and amphibious...As far as is known, there is no mortal creature which grows so big from such small beginnings. The eggs it lays are not much bigger than a goose's eggs, and the size of a new-born crocodile corresponds to that of its egg, but a fully grown adult can be at least seventeen cubits long, and maybe more. It has eyes the size of a pig's, but huge teeth and tusks...With the exception of the sandpiper, all other birds and animals run away from it. The sandpiper, however, is on good terms with it, because it is of use to the crocodile. When the crocodile climbs out of the water and on to land, it yawns widely (usually when facing west), and then the sandpiper slips into its mouth and swallows the leeches. This does the crocodile good and gives it pleasure, so it does not harm the sandpiper. 219
Judi had a magnificent residence--a white, airy villa, in the grand old Mauritanian style, constructed in a such a way as to create shade everywhere, even in those places which, logically, should be in direct sunlight. We sat in the garden, and from behind the high wall sounds of the ocean washed over us. 221
The airport in Algiers was empty, closed, in fact. Our plane was allowed to land because it belonged to the domestic carrier. Soldiers in gray-green camouflage jackets immediately surrounded it and escorted us--several passengers--to a glass building. The passport control was not onerous and the soldiers were courteous, although reticent. They would say only that there had been a coup d'etat during the night...222
A foreigner who might have arrived in Algiers on the same day as I did would not have realized that something as important as a coup d'etat had taken place the previous night...In the morning, people drove or walked to work as usual, shopkeepers opened their shops, vendors set up their stalls, and bartenders invited one in for morning coffee. Superintendents doused the sidewalks to give the city a bit of freshness in advance of the noontime heat. 224
I had been searching for spectacular imagery, laboring under the illusion that it was compelling, observable tableaux that somehow justified my presence, absolving me of responsibility to understand the events at hand. It was the fallacy that one can interpret the world only be means of what it chooses to show us in the hours of its convulsions, when it is rocked by shots and explosions...225
In Algiers one speaks simply of the existence of two varieties of Islam--one, which is called the Islam of the desert, and a second, which is defined as the Islam of the river (or of the sea). The first is the religion practiced by warlike nomadic tribes struggling to survive in one of the world's most hostile environments, the Sahara. The second Islam is the faith of merchants, itinerant peddlers, people of the road and of the bazaar, for whom openness, compromise, and exchange are not only beneficial to trade, but necessary to life itself. / Under colonialism, both these strains of Islam were united by a common enemy; but later they collided. 227
The commander of the Persians, Mardonius...heads south at the head of his army to attack Athens. When he reaches the city, however, he finds it uninhabited. Athens is destroyed and deserted. The population has moved away, taking shelter in Salamis. He sends an envoy there...to once again propose to the Athenians that they surrender without a fight and recognize King Xerxes...Murichides presents this proposal to the highest Athenian authority, the Council of Five Hundred, and a crowd of Athenians listens in on the assembly's deliberations. One member of the council, Lycides, argues that it would be best to accept Mardonius's conciliatory offer and come to some kind of an agreement with the Persians. Hearing this, the Athenian audience erupts in anger, surrounds the speaker, and stones him to death on the spot...Lycides simply forgot that there was a war going on, and that in wartime all democratic freedoms, including the freedom of speech, are typically put on the shelf...the uproar in Salamis over Lycides alerted the Athenian women to what was happening. With every woman arousing and enlisting the support of her neighbor, they spontaneously flocked to Lycides' house, where they stone his wife and his children to death. 229-230
...long ago when the Sahara was awash in green and one could wander safely over what today is desert. 239
In 1960 Senegal gains its independence. The aforementioned poet, Leopold Senghor, a habitue of the clubs and cafes of the Latin Quarter in Paris, becomes its president...Senghor starts preparing the first-ever world festival of black art...Because I am late to the opening ceremonies and all the hotels in town are already full, I secure a room on the island [of Goree], in the pension de famille fun by Mariem and Abdou, Senegalese from Peul...In the morning Mariem sets down before me a piece of juicy papaya, a cup of very sweet coffee, half a baguette, and a jar of preserves. Although she likes silence best, custom dictates serving up a ritual morning portion of inquiries: how did I sleep, am I rested, was it too hot for me, was I not bitten by mosquitoes, did I have dreams? 241-242
For two hundred years, perhaps even longer, the island [of Goree] was a prison, a concentration camp, and the port of embarkation for African slaves being sent to the other hemisphere--to North and South America and the Caribbean. According to various estimates, several million, twelve million, perhaps as many as twenty million young men and women were deported from Goree. Those were staggering numbers in those days. The mass abductions and deportations depopulated the continent. / Africa emptied out, became overgrown with bush and weeds. / For years on end, uninterruptedly, columns of people were driven from the African interior to where Dakar lies today, and from there were conveyed by boats to this island...According to historians' calculations, half of those who made it onto the sailing ships died en route...Only the strongest would endure that distance and the journey's horrific conditions. 244-245
Herodotus's travels would not have been possible without the institution of the proxenos--"the guest's friend." The proxenos, or, abbreviated, proxen, was a type of consul. Voluntarily or for a fee, he took care of visitors who hailed from his native city. Feeling at home and well connected in his adoptive city, he took under his wing fellow countrymen who were newcomers there, as a fixer, a source of useful information and new contacts. The role of the proxen was particular to this extraordinary world in which gods lived among people and frequently could not be distinguished from them. One had to demonstrate genuine hospitality to a new arrival, because one could never be certain whether this wanderer asking for food and a roof over his head was merely a man, or in fact a god who had assumed human form. 263
A provincial is one whose worldview is shaped by a certain marginal area to which he ascribes an undue importance, inaptly universalizing the particular. 270-271
From the island of Kos I sailed to Halicarnassus, where Herodotus was born, on a small ship. En route, the taciturn, aged sailor lowered the Greek flag on the mast and hoisted the Turkish one. Both were crumpled, faded, and frayed. / The town lay well inside the arc of the blue-green bay, on whose waters, in this autumnal time of year, many yachts were idling. The policeman whom I queried about the way to Halicarnassus corrected me--to Bodrum, he said, that is how the place is now known in Turkish...In the shabby little room on the first floor nothing closed properly--not the doors, not the window, not the armoire--which made me feel right at home, as if in an environment I knew long and well. For breakfast I was given delicious Turkish coffee with cardamom, pita bread, a piece of goat cheese, some onion and olives. 272-273
Before Herodotus sets out on his travels, ascending rocky paths, sailing a ship over the seas, riding on horseback through the wilds of Asia; before he happens upon the mistrustful Scythians, discovers the wonders of Babylon, and plumbs the mysteries of the Nile; before he experiences a hundred different places and sees a thousand inconceivable things, he will appear for a moment in a lecture on ancient Greece, which Professor Biezunska-Malowist delivers twice weekly to the first-year students in Warsaw University's department of hsitory.
He will appear and just as quickly vanish.
He will disappear so completely that now, years later, when I look through my notes from those classes, I do not find his name . There are Aeschylus and Pericles, Sappho and Socrates, Heraclitus and Plato; but no Herodotus. And yet we took such careful notes. They were our only source of information. The war had ended six years earlier, and the city lay in ruins. Libraries had gone up in flames, we had no textbooks, no books at all to speak of. 3
High schools were closed during the war years, and although in the larger cities clandestine classes were occasionally convened, here, in this lecture hall, sat mostly girls and boys from remote villages and small towns, ill read, undereducated. 4
...a household would keep a piece of dried kielbasa as medicine: if an infant fell ill, it would be given the kielbasa to suck. "Did that help?" I asked, skeptically. "Of course," he replied with conviction and fell into gloomy silence again. 4
...in Corinth, after thirty years of bloodthirsty rule, the tyrant called Cypselus died and was suceeded by his son, Periander...Periander, when he was still a dictator-in-training, wanted to learn how to stay in power, and so sent a messenger to the dictator of Miletus, old Thrasybulus, asking him for advice on how best to keep a people in slavish fear and subjugation. / Thrasybulus, write Herodotus, took the man sent by Periander out of the city and into a field where there were crops growing. As he walked through the grain, he kept questioning the messenger and getting him to repeat over and over again what he had come from Corinth to ask. Meanwhile, every time he saw an ear of grain standing higher than the rest, he broke it off and threw it away, and he went on doing this until he had destroyed the choicest, tallest stems in the crops...Periander, however, understood Thrasybulus' actions. He realized that he had been advising him to kill outstanding citizens, and from then on he treated his people with unremitting brutality. 6-7
Censorship abated and one could write, for example, that in the village of Chodow there is a store but that its shelves are always bare and there is never anything to buy. Progress consisted of the fact that while Stalin was alive, one could not write that a store was empty--all of them had to be excellently stocked, bursting with wares. 8
...the closer one got to a border, the emptier grew the land and the fewer people one encountered. This emptiness increased the mystery of these regions. I was struck, too, by how silent the border zone was...I wondered what one experiences when one crosses the border. What does one feel? What does one think?..."Abroad?" she said, surprised and slightly frightened, because in those days going abroad was no ordinary matter. "Where? What for?" she asked. 9-10
...I was flying west and had been taught to fear the West like fire. 11
In this fashion we arrived at a place illuminated by a red light bulb: HOTEL. The driver left me at reception and disappeared without a word. The man at the desk, this one sporting a blue turban, led me upstairs to a little room furnished with only a bed, a table, and a washstand. Without a word he pulled off the bedsheet on which scurried panicked bugs, which he shook off onto the floor, muttered something by way of good night, and departed. 18
I could not define precisely wherein lay this strangeness, but the sensation grew stronger in the morning, when a barefoot man entered the room bearing a pot of tea and several biscuits. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. He placed the tray on the table, bowed, and, having uttered not a word, softly withdrew. There was such a natural politeness in his manner, such profound tactfulness, something so astonishingly delicate and dignified, that I felt instant admiration and respect for him. 18
Here is a man who has laid out two rows of human teeth and some old pliers on a piece of newspaper, thereby advertising his dental services. 19
Cast into deep water, I didn't want to drown. I realized that only language could save me. I started to think about how Herodotus, wandering the world, had dealt with foreign languages...[yet] Greek was the lingua franca of those days. 21
It was the season of the autumn floods, and rivers metamorphosed into broad lakes, veritable seas. On their shores camped barefoot flood victims. They fled before the rising water but maintained their contact with it, escaping only as far as was necessary and returning immediately when the floodwaters started to recede. in the ghastly heat of the dying day, the water vaporized and a milky, still fog hovered over everything. 23
I see a family subjecting a stout grandmother to the purification rite. The grandmother doesn't know how to swim and sinks at once to the bottom. The family rush in and bring her back up to the surface. The grandmother gulps as much air as she can, but the instant they let her go, she goes under again. I can see her bulging eyes, her terrified face. She sinks once more, they search for her again in the murky waters and again pull her out, barely alive. The whole ritual looks like torture, but she endures it without protest, perhaps even in ecstasy. / Beside the Ganges, which at this point is wide, expansive, and lazy, stretch rows of wooden pyres, on which are burning dozens, hundreds of corpses. The curious can for several rupees take a boat over to this gigantic open-air crematorium. Half-naked, soot-covered men bustle about here, as do many young boys. With long poles they adjust the pyres to direct a better draft so the cremation can proceed faster; the line of corpses has no end, the wait is long. The gravediggers rake the still glowing ashes and push them into the river. The gray dust floats atop the waves for a while but very soon, saturated with water, it sinks and vanishes. 25
...they sought no shelter from the downpour because they had nowhere to go--this was the end of their road--and they made no exertion to cover themselves because they had nothing to cover themselves with. 28
...it turns out that these castes are divided into hundreds of subcastes, and these in turn into dozens of sub-subcastes, and so on into infinity. India is all about infinity--an infinity of gods and myths, beliefs and languages, races and cultures; in everything and everywhere one looks, there is this dizzying endlessness. 30
All of them move about in silence, fluidity, cautiously, giving a slightly fearful impression. But there is no visible nervousness, no running about or gesticulating. It's as if a Bengal tiger were circling around here somewhere; one's only chance is to make no sudden movements. Even during the day, in the glare of the shining sun, the servants resemble anonymous shadows, moving about without uttering a word, always in such as way as to remain on the periphery, careful not to catch anyone's gaze, let alone cross anyone's path. 33
There is another Indian tribe, however, with different habits: they do not kill any living thing or grow crops, nor is it their practice to have houses. They eat vegetables, and there is a seed...which they collect, cook...and eat. If any of them falls ill, he goes and lies down in some remote spot, and no one cares whether he is dead or ill. [Herodotus] 36
Kabul is dust upon dust. Winds blow through the valley where the city lies, carrying clouds of sand from the nearby deserts. A pale brown, grayish particulate matter hangs in the air, coating everything, pushing its way in everywhere, settling only when the winds die down. And then the air grows transparent, crystal clear. 37
There is an infinite number of gods, myths, and beliefs in Hinduism, hundreds of the most varied schools of thought, orientations, and tendencies, dozens of roads to salvation, paths to virtue, practices of purity, and rules to asceticism. 41
Tagore...recalls that in the morning, while it was still dark, his father woke him to memorize Sanskrit declensions. After a while, he continues, dawn would break, and his father, having said his prayers, would help him finish the morning milk. Finally, with Rabi by his side, his father would turn once more to God and sing the Upanishads. 42
They were prepared to give up their lives in the defense of their language, to burn on a pyre. This fervor and resolve stemmed from the fact that identity here is determined by the language one speaks. A Bengali, for example, is someone whose mother tongue is Bengali. 43
What sort of child was Herodotus? Does he smile at everyone and willingly extend his hand, or does he sulk and hide in the folds of his mother's garments? Is he an eternal crybaby and whiner, giving his tormented mother at times to sigh: Gods, why did I give birth to such a child! Or is he cheerful, spreading joy all around? 45
It is the middle of the fifth century B.C.E.; Herodotus arrives in Athens...He gives lectures, appears for meetings, author evenings--he probably makes his living that way. He establishes important contacts--with Socrates, Sophocles,Pericles. This isn't that difficult. Athens, with a population of one hundred thousand, isn't large in those days...At approximately the time of his arrival, Athenian authorities pass a draconian law, according to which only those both of whose parents were born in Attica, the region immediately surounding Athens, are entitled to political rights. Herodotus is unable to obtain Athenian citizenship. He sets off once again, and finally settles permanently in southern Italy, in the Greek colony of Thurii. 47-8
[On a train to Peking] At one of the stations, when the train was already full, three people in uniforms of bright indigo came on board--a young woman and her two male helpers. The girl delivered a rather long speech in a decisive stentorian voice, after which one of the men handed everyone a cup and the second one poured out green tea from a metal pot. The tea was hot; the passengers blew on it to cool it and drank in small gulps, slurping loudly. 51
I sat and read the works of Mao Tse-tung. This effort coincided nicely with the decree of the moment: huge banners all over town proclaimed DILIGENTLY STUDY THE IMMORTAL THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN MAO! 55
Chuant Tzu...When the body is decomposed, the mind will be the same along with it...Once Chuang Tze dreamt he was a butterfly...he didn't know if he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. 56
In Mao's opinion, the best tactic in the struggle against a prevailing enemy is an adroit elasticity and ceaseless tormenting of the opponent. He speaks and writes about this constantly. 57
The Great Wall...hundreds upon hundreds of millions of hours spent building walls, hours which in this poor country could have been spent learning to read, acquiring a profession, cultivating new fields, and breeding robust cattle. / That is how the world's energy is wasted. 58
The worst aspect of the wall is to turn so many people into its defenders and produce a mental attitude that sees a wall running through everything, imagines the world as being divided into an evil and inferior part, on the outside... 59
...one frequently sees columns of schoolchildren clad in school uniforms. They walk in pairs waving little red flags, and the one at the head of the procession carries either a red banner or a portrait of the Good Uncle--Chairman Mao. The children enthusiastically call, sing, or cry out in unison. What are they saying? I ask Comrade Li. "They want to study the thought of Chairman Mao." 60
Buddhism did not flower in China until the first millennium of our era. For some five hundred years prior to that time, two parallel spiritual currents, two schools, two orientations dominated the region: Confucianism and Taoism. Master Confucius lived from 560 to 480 B.C.E. There is no consensus among historians as to whether the creator of Taoism--Master Lao-tzu--was older or younger than Confucius...to the most fundamental of worldly questions--"How do I survive?"--...each gives a different answer. Confucius holds that man, being born into society, has certain obligations. Those most important are those of carrying out the commands of the authorities...loyal and docile... [whereas] Lao-tzu (if he existed) recommends a different stance. The creator of Taoism advises keeping oneself at a remove from everything. Nothing lasts, says the master. So do not become attached to anything. All that exists will perish; therefore rise above it, maintain your distance, do not try to become somebody, do not try to pursue or possess something. Act through inaction: your strength is weakness and helplessness; your wisdom, naivete and ignorance. If you want to survive, become useless, unnecessary to everyone. Live far from others, become a hermit, be satisfied with a bowl of rice, a sip of water... In their message to the simple man, however, Confucianism and Taoism have a common denominator: the recommendation of humility... The paintings of Confucian artists depict court scenes--a seated emperor surrounded by stiff standing bureaucrats, chiefs of palace protocol, pompous generals, meekly bowing servants. In Taoist paintings we see distant pastel landscapes, barely discernible mountain chains, luminous mists, mulberry trees, and in the foreground a slender, delicate leaf of bamboo bush, swaying in the invisible breeze... the soul of the individual Chinese. Depending on the situation, the context, and the circumstances, the Confucian element might take the upper hand in him, or the Taoist, because nothing in his world was determined once and for all, signed and sealed, written in stone. To survive, he would be an obedient executor. Humble and meek on the outside, he would as well be on the inside aloof, unreachable, independent. 66-69
Herodotus begins his book with a statement explaining why he set out to write it in the first place: / Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks. 74
Herodotus admits that he was obsessed with memory, fearful on its behalf. He felt that memory is something defective, fragile, impermanent--illusory, even. That whatever it contains, whatever it is storing, can evaporate, simply vanish without a trace. 75
People sit around and tell stories. Later, these will be called legends and myths, but in the instant when they are first being related and heard, the tellers and the listeners believe in them as the holiest of truths, absolute reality. / They listen, the fire burns, someone adds more wood, the flames' renewed warmth quickens thought, awakens the imagination. The spinning of tales is almost unimaginable without a fire crackling somewhere nearby, or without the darkness of a house illuminated by an oil lamp or a candle. The fire's light attracts, unites, galvanizes attentions. The flame and community. The flame and history. The flame and memory. Heraclitus, who lived before Herodotus, considered fire to be the origin of all matter, the primordial substance. Like fire, he said, everything is in eternal motion, everything is extinguished only to flare up again. Everything flows, but in flowing, it undergoes transformation. So it is with memory. Some of its images die out, but new ones appear in their place. The new ones are not identical to those that came before--they are different. Just as one cannot step twice into the same river, so it is impossible for a new image to be exactly like an earlier one. / It is this principle of an irreversible passing away that Herodotus understands perfectly, and he wants to set himself in opposition to its destructive power... 77
People who dislike budging from their homes or walking beyond their own backyards--and they are always and everywhere in the majority--treat Herodotus's sort, fundamentally unconnected to anyone or anything, as freaks, fanatics, lunatics even. 79
These learned Persians, Herodotus says, maintain that the instigators of the world-wide East-West conflict are neither Greeks nor Persians, but a third people, the Phoenicians, peripatetic merchants. It was they who first began the business of kidnapping women, which in turn triggered this global storm. 82
...commentary of Persian wise men: Although the Persians regarded the abduction of women as a criminal act, they also claim that it is stupid to get worked up about it and to seek revenge for the women once they have been abducted; the sensible course, they say, is to pay no attention to it, because it is obvious that the women must have been willing participants in their own abduction , or else it could never have happened. 83
Herodotus lived at the juncture of two epochs: although the era of written history was beginning, the oral tradition still predominated. It is possible, therefore, that the rhythm of Herodotus's life and work was as follows: he made a long journey, and upon his return travelled to various Greek cities and organized something akin to literary evenings, in the course of which he recounted the experiences, impressions, and observations he had gathered during his peregrinations. It is entirely likely that he made his living from such gatherings, and that he also financed his subsequent trips in this way, and so it was important to him to have the largest auditorium possible, to draw a crowd. It would be to his advantage, therefore, to begin with something that would rivet attention, arouse curiosity--something a tad sensational. 83
Solon: Croesus, when you asked me about men and their affairs, you were putting your question to someone who is well aware of how utterly jealous the divine is, and how it is likely to confound us. Anyone who lives for a long time is bound to see and endure many things he would rather avoid. I place the limit of man's life at seventy years. Seventy years makes 25, 200 days...No two days bring events which are exactly the same. It follows, Croesus, that human life is entirely a matter of chance... / Now, I can see that you are extremely rich and that you rule over large numbers of people, but I won't be in a position to say what you're asking me to say about you until I find out that you died well...Until [a man] is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy, and just call him fortunate. / ...It is necessary to consider the end of anything... and to see how it will turn out, because the god often offers prosperity to men, but then destroys them utterly and completely. 85-86
One is reminded of Napolean's mad campaign for Moscow. The Persian and the Frenchman are in the grips of an identical passion: to seize, conquer, possess. Both will suffer defeat on account of having transgressed a fundamental Greek principle, the law of moderation: never to want too much, not to desire everything. But as they are launching their ventures, they are too blind to see this; the lust for conquest has dimmed their judgement, has deprived them of reason. On the other hand, if reason ruled the world, would history even exist? 92
Now, the Great King goes on his military expeditions well equipped with food and livestock from home, and he also brings water from the River Choaspes (on whose banks the city of Susa is situated), because water from no other river except the Choaspes is allowed to pass the king's lips. This Choaspes water is boiled, and whenever the king might be campaigning on any given occasion, he is accompanied by a large number of four-wheeled wagons, drawn by mules, which carry the water in silver containers. / I am fascinated by this water. Water that has been boiled ahead of time. Stored in silver vessels to keep it cool. 93
What ensues now is a scene from a Greek tragedy. The plain is strewn with the corpses of soldiers from both armies. Onto this battlefield steps Tomyris, carrying an empty wineskin. She walks from one slaughtered soldier to the next and collects blood from the still-fresh wounds, enough to fill the wineskin. The queen must be drenched with human blood, she must be positively dripping with it. It is hot, so she surely wipes her face with her bloodied hands. Her face is smeared with blood. 97
That Mao Tse-tung has proclaimed another campaign: Dead is the politics of One Hundred Flowers; now the task is the reeducation of the intelligentsia--whoever knows how to read and write (these skills have suddenly metamorphosed into liabilities) will be forcibly deported to the countryside, where, pulling a plow or digging irrigation canals, coming to know real proletarian peasant life... 99
Africa's contribution to world history has been immense--nothing less than a transformation of a centuries-old global hierarchy. By furnishing the New World its labor force, it enabled it to amass enough wealth and power to surpass the Old World. Later, having given over many generations of the best, strongest, and most resilient people, the depopulated and exhausted continent fell easy prey to European colonizers. 100
We can imagine how the relations between Herodotus--an inquisitive romantic desirous of knowledge for knowledge's sake, a diligent student of the impractical and the largely useless--and his slave, who on the road had to take care of things mundane, pedestrian, everyday, resembled those between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. 102
...the word "barbarian" comes, from the word "barbaros," signifying someone who does not speak Greek... 106
How fortunate for him that he proclaimed this in a world in which mass communication did not yet exist and only a handful of people heard or read him. If his views had been disseminated widely, our Greek would have been instantly stoned, or burned on the pyre! 106
I rose early to go into the center of the city, which was a ways off. I was staying in a hotel in Zamalek, a rather wealthy residential neighborhood on an island in the Nile once largely the precinct of foreigners but by now also already inhabited by well-to-do Egyptians. Knowing that my suitcase would be searched as soon as I left the hotel, I thought it wise to remove an empty bottle of Czech pilsner beer I had stashed there and dispose of it along the way (in those days Nasser, a zealous Muslim, was conducting an anti-alcohol campaign). I concealed the bottle in a gray paper bag and walked out with it into the street. It was morning still, but already sultry and hot. 110
...the majority of Third World cities. Their neighborhoods are populated in large part by an unformed, fluid element, lacking precise classification, without position, place, or purpose. At any moment and for whatever reason, these people, to whom no one pays attention, whom no one needs, can form into a crowd, a throng, a mob, which has an opinion about everything, has time for everything, and would like to participate in something, mean something. / All dictatorships take advantage of this idle magma. They don't even need to maintain an expensive army of full-time policemen. If suffices to reach out to these people searching for some significance in life. Give them the sense that they can be of use, that someone is counting on them for something, that they have been noticed, that they have a purpose. / The benefits of this relationship are mutual. The man of the street, serving the dictatorship, starts to feel at one with the authorities, to feel important and meaningful, and furthermore, because he usually had some petty thefts, fights, and swindles on his conscience, he now acquires the comforting sense of immunity. The dictatorial powers, meantime, have in him an inexpensive--free, actually--yet zealous and omnipresent agent-tentacle. 112-113
In the afternoon the shadows lengthen, start to overlap, then darken and finally turn black--it is evening. People come alive then, their will to live returns; they greet one another, converse, clearly happy that they have somehow managed to endure the quotidian cataclysm, to survive yet another day from hell. The city starts to bustle, cars appear in the streets, shops and bars fill with people. 118
We are at the top of an escarpment, and the Nile glimmers silver below, illuminated by the moon. The landscape is reduced to a minimalist ideal--desert, river, moon--which at this moment is world enough. 120
Sandstorms constantly change the configuration of the landscape, moving the orientation points...123
We have come to a standstill on the outskirts of the little town of Paulis (Congo, Eastern Province). We have run out of gas, and live in hope that someone will pass this way one day and agree to give us some, if only a jerry can full. Until then, we wait in the only place possible--a school run by Belgian missionaries, whose prior is the delicate, emaciated, and seriously ailing Abbe Pierre...I have a cot in an empty classroom at the end of the school barracks. It is quiet here, and the sounds of battle drills barely reach me. Out front is a flower bed full of blooms--lush, tropically overgrown dahlias and gladioli, centauries, and still other beauties, which I am seeing for the first time and whose names I do not know. 126
The Babylonian men gathered together all the women of the city--with the exception of their mothers and of a single woman chosen by each man from his own household--and strangled them. The single woman was kept on as a cook, while all the others were strangled to conserve supplies. 128
Zopyrus...cuts off his own nose and ears, shaves his head (as criminals are shorn), and has himself flogged...go to the Babylonians, pretending that he is fleeing from persecutions and tortures inflicted upon him by Darius...he will convince the Babylonians, that he will gain their confidence, and that they will give him command of the army. And then he will let the Persians into Babylon...Darius sends one thousand of his weakest troops toward one of the besieged city's gates. The Babylonians burst out from the gate and cut down the Persians to the last man...gratefully appoint Zopyrus their commander in chief and defender of the city. 131-133
Beyond the territory of their neighbours to the north there are such piles of feathers, according to the Scythians, that nothing can be seen and the land cannot be traversed either. They say that there are too many feathers filling the land and air to enable sight to function. 138
The Scythians, in order to force their recalcitrant neighbors into battle, weave about in such a way as to propel Darius's pursuing troops into the lands of the tribes that had refused to commit themselves to battle. 141
...a Persian called Oeobazus, all three of whose sons were in the army, asked Darius whether one of them could be left behind. Darius replied in a friendly fashion, as if the request were reasonable, and said that he would leave all three behind. Oeobazus was overjoyed at the prospect of his sons being released from military service, but Darius ordered those responsible for such things to kill all three of them. So he did leave them there in Susa--with their throats cut. 145
Luckily Ramadan arrived, and Tehran grew calm. I located the bus terminal and bought a ticket to Shiraz, which is close to Persepolis...At the rest stops one always gets the same thing: a plate of buckwheat grits, a hot lamb shish kebab, a glass of water, and, for dessert, a cup of tea. 147
[the Scythian]...makes a circular cut around the head at the level of the ears and then he picks it up and shakes the scalp off the skull; next he scrapes the skin with a cow's rib, and then, having kneaded the skin with his hand, he has a kind of rag, which he proudly fastens to the bridle of the horse he is riding. The reason for his pride is that the more of these skin rags a man has, the braver he is counted. Many of them make coats to wear by sewing the scalps together into a patchwork leather garment like leather coats... 148
We arrive in Persepolis. A long, wide staircase leads to the city, flanked on one side by a tall bas-relief carved in dark gray, wall-polished marble and representing vassals walking to the king in order to pay him homage, proffer their loyalty and subservience. There is one vassal for every step, and there are several dozen steps...the figures of the vassals are identical...The sameness of appearance of the vassals accompanying your ascent up the stairs creates a paradoxical impression of motion with immobility: you climb the stairs, but because you always see the same vassal, you simultaneously have the impression of standing still...When you have reached the top, you turn and look back. The view is magnificent: below you stretches a boundless plain, at this hour already bathed in blinding sunlight, and traversed by only one road--the one leading to Persepolis...The king stands at the top of the stairs and looks down at the plain. At its other end, meaning very far, far away, he sees that some specks have appeared, some motes of dust, grains...because the first impression is always the most important, and in this case it was "motes and kernels of grain," such will always remain the king's view of his liege men. 149-150
Trausian customs are basically identical with those found elsewhere in Thrace, except for what they do at birth and death. Whenever a baby is born, its relatives gather around and grieve for the troubles it is going to have to endure now that it has been born, and they recount all the sufferings of human life. When anyone dies, however, they bury him in high spirits and with jubilation, on the grounds that he has been released from so many ills and is now in a perfectly happy state. 154
Darius does not succeed in conquering the Scythians; they have stopped the Asian at the gates of Europe...Moreover, he is suddenly afraid that they will now attack and destroy him. And so under cover of night he begins his escape-retreat...as his enormous army withdraws, the Scythians immediately set off in pursuit. 155
For the Athenians, the defeat of Miletus [vanguard of the Ionian uprising against the Persians] was a terrible blow. When the playwright Phrynichus composed and produced the play called The Fall of Miletus, the audience burst into tears. The Athenian authorities imposed a draconian fine of a thousand drachmas on the play's author and banned any future productions of it in their city. A play was meant to raise one's spirits, not reopen wounds. 161
If they wanted to beat me, they would beat me; if they wanted to kill me, they would kill me. I have only ever felt true loneliness in circumstances such as these--where I have stood alone face-to-face with absolute violent power. 165
Doctor Ranke is an Austrian and has been living in Lisali since the end of World War II. Slight, fragile-looking, yet still lively and indefatigable approaching his eightieth eyar. He owes his relative good health, he says, to his taking each day in the morning, when the sun is still gentle, a walk out into the green and flowering courtyard, where seated on a stool, he has a servant wash his back with a sponge and a brush so vigorously as to produce from the doctor actual little moans both of satisfaction and pain. These moans, snorts, and the laughter of overjoyed children who have gathered around the doctor to watch the rubdown, awaken me, because the windows of my room are nearby. 167
The inexperienced in any event do not dare plunge into the virgin forest, and the idea of hacking one's way through it is unthinkable to the locals. The jungle no less than the ocean, or a range of high mountains, is a closed, discrete, independent entity, not to be idly entered into. It always fills me with fear...Sometimes we stop along the road, right near the edge of the jungle. It resembles twilight here, and the air is thick with aromas. There are no animals on the road, but you can hear the birds. And the sound of drops falling on leaves. Unaccountable rustlings. The children like to come here, they feel at home and know everything. Which plant one can pick and bite into, and which one cannot so much as touch. Which fruit is comestible, and while poisonous. They know that spiders are very dangerous, and lizards not at all. And they know that one must look up at the branches, because a snake might be lurking there. The girls are more serious and more careful than the boys, and so I observe their actions and order the boys to follow me suit. 168-169
Why so many tribes? Just one hundred and fifty years ago there were still ten thousand of them in Africa...Anthropologists tell us it started with a small group. Perhaps with several. Each had to number approximately thirty to fifty. If smaller, men could not defend themselves; bigger ones could not find enough to eat. Even in my time I managed to encounter in East Africa two tribes neither of which numbered more than one hundred people. 170-171
...a new group, arriving on the scene, as it were, would not first survey the terrain, size up the situation, listen to the prevailing parlance. No--it emerges with its own language, its own pantheon of gods, its own universe of traditions. With relative immediacy it demonstratively underscores its own otherness. / Over years, over centuries, there are more and more of these tribal nuclei. It starts to get crowded on this continent of many people, many languages, and many gods. 172
So how am I to gather my material?...a powerful radio...from which one can tune in the entire world...costs a fortune, and I can only fantasize about it. So I walk, ask, listen, cajole, scrape, and string together facts, opinions, stories. I don't complain, because this method enables me to meet many people and find out about things not covered in the press or on the radio. 188
There is someone, however, who can speak up without fear. It is old Artabanus, Darius's brother and Xerxes' uncle. Even so, he begins cautiously, making certain to offer justification for daring to voice his opinions: "My lord, unless opposing views are heard, it is impossible to pick and choose between various plans and decide which one is best..." 192
Xerxes at first accepts his mission, which is to exact vengeance on the Greeks for their having insulted the Persians generally and his father in particular. He declares war against them and vows not to rest until he conquers Athens and sets it on fire. Later, however, listening to the voices of reason, he changes his mind. He suppresses thoughts of war, sets aside the invasion plans, pulls back. It is then that the phantom appears in his dreams: "Madman," it seems to be saying, "do not hesitate! It is your destiny to strike against the Greeks!" 196
Xerxes is unbalanced, unpredictable...Here he is, making his way to Sardis with his army. He spots a plane-tree along the road which was so beautiful that he presented it with golden decorations and appointed one of the Immortals as guardian to look after it. / He is still under the spell of the tree's charms when news reaches him that a great storm in the straits of the Hellespont has destroyed the bridges which he had ordered built so that his army could cross from Asia into Europe in its advance on Greece. Upon hearing this, Xerxes flew into a rage. He ordered his men to give the Hellespont three hundred lashes and to sink a pair of shackles into the sea. I once heard that he also dispatched men to brand the Hellespont as well. 199
Thermopylae...To seize this passage is to have an open road to Athens...Initially, Xerxes counted on the handful of Greeks defending Thermpylae simply to flee at the sight of the gigantic Persian army...Impatient, Xerxes sends out a scout on horseback on a mission of reconnaissance. The scout approached the Greeks' camp and kept them under close surveillance...He watched them in a variety of occupations such as exercising naked and combing their hair; this surprised him, but he took careful note of their numbers and then made his way back to Xerxes...Xerxes lost all subsequent battles. When Xerxes realized the extent of the disaster that had taken place, he became afraid. What if the Greeks got the idea...of sailing to Hellespont and demolishing his bridges? In that case, he would be trapped in Europe, and would probably be wiped out. And so Xerxes' thoughts turned to flight. / And flee he does, abandoning the theater of war before the war's end. He returns to Susa. He is thirty-something years old...It is said that he was interested only in women; he constructed for them an immense, imposing harem, whose ruins I have seen. / He was fifty-six years old when, in 465 B.C.E., he was murdered by the commander of his security guard. 202-203
Having seized the barrier that was Thermopylae, Xerxes reaches Athens. He occupies and burns down the city. Yet while Athens lies in ruins, Greece still exists--and it will be saved by the genius of Themistocles. / Themistocles has just been chosen leader of Athens...Greek ships find harbor in the bay of Salamis, near Athens...The entrance to the bay is so narrow that the Persian king will think twice before sailing in with his gigantic fleet. / Both Xerxes and Themistocles now ponder their situations...Themistocles doesn't yet know what Xerxes is thinking, and to make certain that the Persians enter the bay, he resorts to a trick:...house-slave...sent him over to the Persian camp in a boat...said to the Persian commanders, "I am on a secret mission for the Athenian commander, who is in fact sympathetic to Xerxes' cause...the Greeks are in a state of panic and are planning to retreat. Unless you just stand by and let them escape, you have an opportunity here to achieve a glorious victory... Xerxes, like every ruler, was a vain man...instead of steering clear of the trap that a small bay always poses for a large fleet, he gives the order to sail into Salamis and block the Greeks' escape route. The Persians execute this maneuver, under the cover of darkness...The battle begins at dawn, so that Xerxes, sitting on a throne at the foot of the mountains which lie opposite Salamis and are called the Aegaleos, can observe it...the collision in tight quarters of two fleets consisting of wooden ships and propelled by thousands of oars must have resembled a great bucket into which someone has thrown hundreds of sluggishly creeping, clumsily clambering, and chaotically entangled crabs...after hours of this maritime hell, the Persians gave up and those of them who were left--those not drowned or otherwise killed--escaped. 207-209
This was no longer Addis Abada but Dar el-Salaam, a city on a bay that had been sculpted into such a perfect semicircle that it seemed like one of hundreds of gentle Greek coves--this one somehow transported here, to the eastern shore of Africa. The sea was always calm; slow little waves, creating a quiet, rhythmic splash, sank without a trace into the warm sand of the shore. 213
Sometimes no one appeared on the verandah, and if I happened to have Herodotus with me, I would open the book at random. 215
Thomas Mann's observation that "a writer is a man for whom writing is more difficult than it is for others." 218
In [Egyptian] households were a cat dies a natural death, all the people living there shave off their eyebrows--nothing more. In households where a dog dies, they shave their whole bodies, head and all. / Or about crocodiles: / This is what crocodiles are like. They eat nothing during the four winter months. They are four-footed, and amphibious...As far as is known, there is no mortal creature which grows so big from such small beginnings. The eggs it lays are not much bigger than a goose's eggs, and the size of a new-born crocodile corresponds to that of its egg, but a fully grown adult can be at least seventeen cubits long, and maybe more. It has eyes the size of a pig's, but huge teeth and tusks...With the exception of the sandpiper, all other birds and animals run away from it. The sandpiper, however, is on good terms with it, because it is of use to the crocodile. When the crocodile climbs out of the water and on to land, it yawns widely (usually when facing west), and then the sandpiper slips into its mouth and swallows the leeches. This does the crocodile good and gives it pleasure, so it does not harm the sandpiper. 219
Judi had a magnificent residence--a white, airy villa, in the grand old Mauritanian style, constructed in a such a way as to create shade everywhere, even in those places which, logically, should be in direct sunlight. We sat in the garden, and from behind the high wall sounds of the ocean washed over us. 221
The airport in Algiers was empty, closed, in fact. Our plane was allowed to land because it belonged to the domestic carrier. Soldiers in gray-green camouflage jackets immediately surrounded it and escorted us--several passengers--to a glass building. The passport control was not onerous and the soldiers were courteous, although reticent. They would say only that there had been a coup d'etat during the night...222
A foreigner who might have arrived in Algiers on the same day as I did would not have realized that something as important as a coup d'etat had taken place the previous night...In the morning, people drove or walked to work as usual, shopkeepers opened their shops, vendors set up their stalls, and bartenders invited one in for morning coffee. Superintendents doused the sidewalks to give the city a bit of freshness in advance of the noontime heat. 224
I had been searching for spectacular imagery, laboring under the illusion that it was compelling, observable tableaux that somehow justified my presence, absolving me of responsibility to understand the events at hand. It was the fallacy that one can interpret the world only be means of what it chooses to show us in the hours of its convulsions, when it is rocked by shots and explosions...225
In Algiers one speaks simply of the existence of two varieties of Islam--one, which is called the Islam of the desert, and a second, which is defined as the Islam of the river (or of the sea). The first is the religion practiced by warlike nomadic tribes struggling to survive in one of the world's most hostile environments, the Sahara. The second Islam is the faith of merchants, itinerant peddlers, people of the road and of the bazaar, for whom openness, compromise, and exchange are not only beneficial to trade, but necessary to life itself. / Under colonialism, both these strains of Islam were united by a common enemy; but later they collided. 227
The commander of the Persians, Mardonius...heads south at the head of his army to attack Athens. When he reaches the city, however, he finds it uninhabited. Athens is destroyed and deserted. The population has moved away, taking shelter in Salamis. He sends an envoy there...to once again propose to the Athenians that they surrender without a fight and recognize King Xerxes...Murichides presents this proposal to the highest Athenian authority, the Council of Five Hundred, and a crowd of Athenians listens in on the assembly's deliberations. One member of the council, Lycides, argues that it would be best to accept Mardonius's conciliatory offer and come to some kind of an agreement with the Persians. Hearing this, the Athenian audience erupts in anger, surrounds the speaker, and stones him to death on the spot...Lycides simply forgot that there was a war going on, and that in wartime all democratic freedoms, including the freedom of speech, are typically put on the shelf...the uproar in Salamis over Lycides alerted the Athenian women to what was happening. With every woman arousing and enlisting the support of her neighbor, they spontaneously flocked to Lycides' house, where they stone his wife and his children to death. 229-230
...long ago when the Sahara was awash in green and one could wander safely over what today is desert. 239
In 1960 Senegal gains its independence. The aforementioned poet, Leopold Senghor, a habitue of the clubs and cafes of the Latin Quarter in Paris, becomes its president...Senghor starts preparing the first-ever world festival of black art...Because I am late to the opening ceremonies and all the hotels in town are already full, I secure a room on the island [of Goree], in the pension de famille fun by Mariem and Abdou, Senegalese from Peul...In the morning Mariem sets down before me a piece of juicy papaya, a cup of very sweet coffee, half a baguette, and a jar of preserves. Although she likes silence best, custom dictates serving up a ritual morning portion of inquiries: how did I sleep, am I rested, was it too hot for me, was I not bitten by mosquitoes, did I have dreams? 241-242
For two hundred years, perhaps even longer, the island [of Goree] was a prison, a concentration camp, and the port of embarkation for African slaves being sent to the other hemisphere--to North and South America and the Caribbean. According to various estimates, several million, twelve million, perhaps as many as twenty million young men and women were deported from Goree. Those were staggering numbers in those days. The mass abductions and deportations depopulated the continent. / Africa emptied out, became overgrown with bush and weeds. / For years on end, uninterruptedly, columns of people were driven from the African interior to where Dakar lies today, and from there were conveyed by boats to this island...According to historians' calculations, half of those who made it onto the sailing ships died en route...Only the strongest would endure that distance and the journey's horrific conditions. 244-245
Herodotus's travels would not have been possible without the institution of the proxenos--"the guest's friend." The proxenos, or, abbreviated, proxen, was a type of consul. Voluntarily or for a fee, he took care of visitors who hailed from his native city. Feeling at home and well connected in his adoptive city, he took under his wing fellow countrymen who were newcomers there, as a fixer, a source of useful information and new contacts. The role of the proxen was particular to this extraordinary world in which gods lived among people and frequently could not be distinguished from them. One had to demonstrate genuine hospitality to a new arrival, because one could never be certain whether this wanderer asking for food and a roof over his head was merely a man, or in fact a god who had assumed human form. 263
A provincial is one whose worldview is shaped by a certain marginal area to which he ascribes an undue importance, inaptly universalizing the particular. 270-271
From the island of Kos I sailed to Halicarnassus, where Herodotus was born, on a small ship. En route, the taciturn, aged sailor lowered the Greek flag on the mast and hoisted the Turkish one. Both were crumpled, faded, and frayed. / The town lay well inside the arc of the blue-green bay, on whose waters, in this autumnal time of year, many yachts were idling. The policeman whom I queried about the way to Halicarnassus corrected me--to Bodrum, he said, that is how the place is now known in Turkish...In the shabby little room on the first floor nothing closed properly--not the doors, not the window, not the armoire--which made me feel right at home, as if in an environment I knew long and well. For breakfast I was given delicious Turkish coffee with cardamom, pita bread, a piece of goat cheese, some onion and olives. 272-273
posted by Raul de Saldanha at
7:42 AM
0 Comments
