The Histories by Herodotus - 5 - The Scythians
Book Four
Quote
"This may be a digression, but then this account has sought out such digressions ever since its beginning."
Notes
- Darius begins his next military expedition against the Scythians.
- The Scythians were a formidable people and ruled over large chunks of land in the regions around the Persian empire.
- They had some brutal military practices, such as drinking the blood of the people they killed in war, and collecting their scalps. Some even sewed their collection of scalps into coats they could wear. They would also turn the skulls of their enemies into cups to drink from.
- When a king died, the Scythians would ritually brutalize and kill fifty of his attendants and horses to be buried with him. The group of them were all mounted up on spears in a circle around his grave.
- The Scythians burned cannabis seeds on hot stones. The burning seeds "emit dense smoke and fumes" which made the Scythians "shriek with delight."
- With the Persians about to attack, the Scythians try to form an alliance with surrounding tribes to build up their defenses, but they are not very successful.
- As a result, their battle plan is to strategically retreat and lead the Persians into the tribes that refused to help them, and so force them to join the fighting.
- The constant chasing and retreating goes on and on. Darius sends a messenger to tell them to stop running away and negotiate a surrender if they're too afraid to fight. The Scythian king says in response that they're not running away, this is just how they live. They have no settlements or farms to protect so they can just keep riding around.
- The Scythians try to get the Ionians, subjects of Persia, to rebel, join them in the fight, and regain their freedom. The Ionian leaders talk it over, but one leader, Histiaeus the tyrant of Miletus, argues that their own power comes from the Persians and probably their own people would rebel against them were it not for the Persians. So they decide to keep the status quo where they keep their positions of power.
- The fighting continues but with no real decisive end since the Scythians have no settlements to conquer.
Thoughts
Interesting how Herodotus is so blatant about his digressions as quoted above, that this whole book may well be just a collection of random things he heard and accounts he collected. This is almost the theme running through the book: that there is no central theme, just a collection of information and source material for future historians and readers to sort through.
One of the questions that Susan Wise Bauer recommends we ask when reading a book is, "What was the author trying to accomplish?" At this point in the book his aim seems to be to prevent as much of these stories and accounts he's collected from being lost as possible, without fully understanding their value or why they should be preserved. Only that it keeps something alive from our deep past that may emerge as significant or valuable at some future, indeterminate time.