Tales from Herodotus

Three stories from Herodotus: Arion saved by a dolphin, Euenius and the sacred sheep, and the god who told Cyme to hand over its suppliant. Read them a sentence at a time: reveal the English as you go, hover for vocabulary and parsing, and explore the style.

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Lines 1–32 · How Arion was saved by a dolphin4 sections

Lines 1–6 — Arion sets sail for homeRich from a tour of Italy and Sicily, the cithara-player Arion sets out from Tarentum, trusting a ship of his fellow Corinthians.Read Lines 6–15 — The sailors’ plotAt sea the crew plot to throw Arion overboard and keep his money. Given the choice of suicide or the sea, he asks to sing one last time.Read Lines 16–23 — The last songDressed in all his finery, Arion sings from the stern and leaps into the sea; a dolphin, so they say, carries him to Taenarum.Read Lines 24–32 — Periander’s trapArion reaches Corinth, but Periander does not believe him; when the sailors arrive, he confronts them with the man they left for dead.Read

Lines 33–76 · The story of Euenius6 sections

Lines 33–40 — The sacred sheepAt Apollonia the sacred flocks of the Sun are guarded each night by the city’s leading men; it is Euenius’ turn.Read Lines 41–49 — The wolvesEuenius falls asleep, wolves kill sixty sheep, and he tries to hush it up. The Apollonians blind him, and at once their flocks and fields stop bearing.Read Lines 50–57 — The oracles speakDodona and Delphi reply that the gods sent the wolves, and will not stop until Euenius has whatever recompense he chooses.Read Lines 58–64 — A devious planKeeping the oracles secret, the Apollonians send men to sit with Euenius and steer the conversation round to the compensation he would want.Read Lines 65–72 — Euenius choosesNot knowing of the oracle, Euenius asks for the finest farmland and the finest house in the city, and is told this is exactly what he will get.Read Lines 73–76 — The gift of prophecyEuenius is furious to have been tricked, but receives what he chose, and with it the power of prophecy that made him famous.Read

Lines 77–114 · Respect for suppliants enforced by an oracle5 sections

Lines 77–86 — Pactyes at CymeThe Lydian Pactyes flees to Cyme and the Persian Mazares demands him back. The Cymaeans consult Apollo at Branchidae, who says: hand him over.Read Lines 87–92 — Aristodicus objectsThe Cymaeans are ready to obey, but Aristodicus doubts the messengers’ report and goes with a second embassy to ask again.Read Lines 93–100 — Aristodicus asks againAt Branchidae Aristodicus puts the question himself: a suppliant fleeing death, a Persian demand, and a city that dares not act without a clear answer.Read Lines 101–105 — The sparrowsThe god gives the same answer. Aristodicus walks round the temple, deliberately removing the sparrows and other birds nesting there.Read Lines 106–114 — The god’s replyA voice from the shrine rebukes him for taking its suppliants; when Aristodicus throws the charge back, the god reveals the purpose of his answer.Read

Herodotus

Herodotus came from Halicarnassus, a Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor (modern Bodrum), and lived from about 484 to about 425 BC. His Histories, in nine books, tell how the Greeks and the Persian Empire came into conflict, building up to Xerxes’ invasion of Greece in 480–479 BC and its defeat at Salamis, Plataea and Mycale.

He says in his first sentence that he is setting out the results of his enquiry (ἱστορίη, the word that gives us ‘history’) so that the great deeds of Greeks and foreigners alike should not be forgotten. Cicero called him the father of history; other ancient critics thought him too ready to believe a good story. Both views have something in them. He travelled widely, questioned the people he met, and often reports more than one version of an event, but he also loves a remarkable tale and will break off his main narrative to tell one.

All three passages here are such breaks. Each is a complete story in a few dozen lines, and each says something about how justice works in a world where the gods take a hand in human affairs.

Herodotus wrote in Ionic, the dialect of the eastern Aegean, not the Attic of Athens that GCSE Greek is based on. The set text has been partly brought into line with Attic (θάλαττα, not Ionic θάλασσα), but some Ionic forms remain, such as ἐς for εἰς, μιν for αὐτόν and σφι for αὐτοῖς. They are explained where they occur.

The three stories

How Arion was saved by a dolphin (1.24). Told while Herodotus is describing Periander of Corinth. A famous singer, sailing home rich from Italy, is robbed by the crew of his own ship and forced into the sea; a dolphin carries him to land, and back in Corinth the sailors are caught out in their lie.

The story of Euenius (9.93–94). Told during the account of the battle of Mycale in 479 BC, because the Greeks’ seer there was Euenius’ son. A guardian of sacred sheep is blinded by his fellow citizens for letting wolves kill them; the gods punish the city, and Euenius is compensated, though not in the way the citizens intended.

Respect for suppliants enforced by an oracle (1.157–159). After Cyrus of Persia conquers Lydia, the Lydian Pactyes leads a revolt, fails, and takes refuge at Cyme. The Persians demand him back, and the people of Cyme ask Apollo what to do. The god’s answer is not the one anybody expected.

As you read, think about what the three have in common: wrongdoing that is found out, people who try to manage the gods or each other, and how hard mortals find it to understand what the gods want.

Terms for discussing style

Alliteration: The same sound repeated at the start of several words close together.
Antithesis: Opposed ideas set against each other, often in balanced phrases; in Greek, often marked by μέν … δέ.
Asyndeton: Clauses or words strung together with no connecting words.
Chiasmus: Words or ideas arranged in a mirror pattern, A B B A.
Delay: Holding back an important word to the end of a clause or sentence, so that it lands with weight.
Direct speech: A character’s actual words, quoted.
Dramatic irony: When the reader understands something that a character does not.
Framing: Placing two related words or ideas around others, at the start and end of a phrase or passage.
Juxtaposition: Placing two words side by side so that they react with each other, often for contrast.
Litotes: Understatement by denying the opposite: ‘not unaware’ for ‘well aware’.
Polyptoton: The same word repeated in different grammatical forms.
Polysyndeton: More connecting words than are needed (‘and … and … and’).
Promotion: Moving a word to the front of its clause for emphasis.
Superlative: The ‘most’ form of an adjective or adverb, often used for emphasis.
Tricolon: A group of three words, phrases or clauses, often building to a climax.

Questions on all three stories

In each story someone tries to hide what they have done. How is the truth brought out, and by whom?
Which character do you sympathise with most in each story, and does Herodotus seem to want you to?
How do the gods show what they want in these stories, and how well do the humans understand them?
Herodotus could have left all three stories out of his history. What do they add to it?
Choose one moment from each story that you think Herodotus tells especially well, and explain how he does it.