Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Roberts Jennifer T

Author:Roberts, Jennifer T. [Roberts, Jennifer T.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

Inevitably, Herodotus was somewhat prone to falling into generalization. It was easy for him to seize on individual details he had observed and extrapolate wildly. One can see him in Britain: ‘England being a very cold country, the Londoners live on a food they call curry, eating it all day long, for it makes their entire bodies feel warm, and when they begin to feel cold again, they eat some more. This food they get from India, and it is carried from there on the backs of the dogs one sees all over Britain. This, it seems to me, must be the reason for the great affection the Britons bestow on dogs.’ If we are going to complain that Herodotus did not in all respects come up to the standards of modern ethnographers, however, we should also censure Alexander Graham Bell for not having invented the mobile phone and Thomas Edison for not having invented the microwave oven. And we should bear in mind the serious doubts cast upon Margaret Mead’s famous ethnography Coming of Age in Samoa, doubts that have gained credibility from the fact that she never learned the language and relied on local English-speakers. Most of all, we should remember that Herodotus never laid aside his scepticism. He is fully aware of the unreliability even of his informants’ most dearly held beliefs: each of the Neuroi, he tells us, is said by the Scythians to become a wolf for a few days each year and then return to his original form. ‘I myself’, he reports, ‘do not believe them when they say this, but nonetheless, they do say it, and indeed swear to it’. He is amused by the citizens of the twelve cities of Ionia who claimed to be of purest Ionian descent; even the colonists who began in the very town hall of Athens, he argues, took no wives with them but married local Carian girls whose parents they had killed.

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