Herodotus vehemently denies the slanderous tale that the Athenian
Alcmeonid family had betrayed the Greeks to the Persians (Hdt. 6.115,
123–4), but this leads to a digression on the family whose most famous
later son is Pericles (6.125–31). We then turn sharply back to the story of Miltiades’ sad end, fined as he was for deceiving the Athenians about his attack on Paros for personal motives. The mention of Pericles’ fortuitous origins right in the middle of Miltiades’ unhappy narrative may itself suggest a subtle warning to count no man happy until his end, and may recall to the readers during the Peloponnesian War the story of another great
general who came to a sad end.
Book 7
The focus remains on the personal, human motivations that give rise to
power and incite revenge. When he learns of Marathon, Darius is “even
more set on making war on the Athenians, as well as the Egyptians who
had revolted” (Hdt. 7.1). Xerxes claims to be a proper heir to Darius, on advice from the Spartan Demaratus to say that he was born when Darius
had rule ( kratos) over the Persians (Hdt. 7.3). Darius agrees and names Xerxes heir, which would have happened even without the advice, since
Atossa, Darius’ wife, “had total power” ( eiche to pan kratos). Thus the issue of the transition of Persian power is settled with aid from a disaffected Spartan and with influence from Darius’ wife. The locus of power has nothing to do with justice or principles, but with human weaknesses and self‐interest. The passage illustrates the ambition of a ruler’s wife for her son, the scheming and rhetorical ploys of one seeking to be heir, and an outsider’s treacherous help.
Xerxes is described as at first reluctant to take on Darius’ full agenda of conquest, and it takes the persuasion of his cousin Mardonius, himself
with ambitions to be viceroy of Greece, to convince the king to undertake an expedition of explicit vengeance against Athens (Hdt. 7.5). Another
influential, and again self‐serving, promoter of the expedition was the
“oracle‐monger” Onomacritus, in service of the disaffected Pisistratid
faction, who used oracles selectively, to guide Xerxes to invade by bridging the Hellespont (Hdt. 7.6). Thereupon Xerxes addresses his council to justify the expedition:
Men of Persia, it is no new law [ nomos] that I initiate among you; it has come to me from the tradition … It is the god who leads us on, and so,
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HErodotus and tHE Limits of HappinEss: BEyond Epic, Lyric, and LogograpHy when we of ourselves set about our many enterprises, we prosper … When
I assumed the throne, I considered how I might not fall short of those before me in this place of honor and how I might win no less power [ dunamin]
for Persia than they did. (Hdt. 7.8, Grene, adapted)
He then pledges to bridge the Hellespont and punish the Athenians for
what they have done to the Persians and his father, saying: “if we subdue them and their neighbors who live in the land of Pelops, the Phrygian, we shall show to all a Persian land to border on the upper heaven of Zeus”
(Hdt. 7.8, Grene, adapted).
Xerxes here acts on a metaphysical “law” that expansionism is not only
desirable but necessary to prove his worth as a ruler. Herodotus gives him the explicit rhetoric of the hybristic despot, who challenges even the gods for his own honor by seeking to rule the world. As J. A. S. Evans observes:
“For Thucydides, imperialism was part of human nature … For Herodotus,
expansionism was a nomos” and, for Herodotus, “the nomoi of a nation were the outgrowth of its physis [nature]” (1991: 23–4). Thucydides (5.105.2) also portrays the Athenians as understanding nomos as conventional practice based on one’s phusis: “The drive to dominate others is here described as a necessary outgrowth of a universal order sanctioned by nature” (Ostwald 1988: 42).
Xerxes’ general, Mardonius, agrees with Xerxes: It would be a terrible
thing if, for no injury done to Persia but wishing simply to increase our power [ dunamin], we should have subdued and taken for slaves … many other great nations, and then not punish the Greeks, who, on their side, began the wrongdoing. What should we fear? … What common power
[ dunamin] of their wealth? We know these peoples’ form of battle, and we know that their power [ dunamin] is weak. (Hdt. 7.9, Grene, adapted) The reference to the “power” of wealth evidences a rare sense of the term dunamis in Herodotus (it occurs only here and at 1.192, in relation to Babylon). Mardonius here commits an error typical of the Persians in the historian’s view, namely the confusion of quantity with quality or virtue as the true basis of strength. David Konstan (1987) observes, especially in Books 7 and 8, how Xerxes highly values the concrete and the material,
the visible marks of power, in contrast to Greek acting according to ideals of virtue; the Persians are described as unified and the Greeks in internal discord but sharing a common culture and values. Later Xerxes cannot
understand the Greek custom of competing at the Olympics for a mere
olive crown instead of money: “What sort of men have you led us to fight against,” he asks Tigranes, “who contend, not for money, but for the sake
HErodotus and tHE Limits of HappinEss: BEyond Epic, Lyric, and LogograpHy 55
of excelling [ arete ̄ s]?” (Hdt. 8.26, Grene). Again in Book 7, we see the spectacle of Xerxes crossing the Hellespont, recording his obsession with empirical measurements, watching his troops, counting his men, all
1,700,000 of them, and riding before all his men and sailing by all his ships. Before the battle at Thermopylae, Demaratus resists telling Xerxes the number of his foes, but rather explains that the Greeks in their poverty acquire virtue on the basis of wisdom and tradition (Hdt. 7.102.1). When Xerxes boasts of the numerical imbalance in his favor and the lack of fear or unity in the Greek forces, Demaratus explains with the famous reply
that they are strong, since
They have as the despot over them the Law [ Nomos], and they fear him much more than your men fear you … he bids them always to do the same
thing: not to flee from the fight before any multitude of men whatever but to stand firm in the ranks and either conquer or die. (Hdt. 7.104, Grene) Herodotus thus portrays the “barbarian” foundations of power and
strength as essentially different from the Greek, highlighting in the end Greek arete ̄, or excellence, and guidance by “law” over wealth, numbers, and despotic rule.
Xerxes’ uncle, Artabanus, emerges as the sole “tragic warner,”
observing that the gods thwart those who are the greatest. If the god has ill will or jealousy against the large Persian army, he may cause it to perish (Hdt. 7.10; see 7.16; Lattimore 1939). Artabanus later identifies the plan to invade Greece as hubris (Hdt. 7.16). Here we recall Xerxes’ boast that the Persian empire will reach to Zeus’ heavens. Xerxes first responds in anger and resolves to go forward, then in private reconsiders the wisdom of the plan, only in the end to be convinced to proceed at the urging of a persistent vision sent by the gods (Hdt. 7.11–19). The vision appears to be an agent of divine retribution, leading the king to failure as repayment for his hubris, which even Artabanus recognizes as an inevitable fate. Men of despotic authority bent on more power, Herodotus seems to suggest,
are blinded to divine signs even when their rational self sees the folly of a plan. Herodotus also evidences here no small reliance on the classic
pattern of epic and drama, in which powerful figures are led by hubris to commit folly and suffer retribution, the gods transparently seeing fate to its conclusion.
Xerxes presses on, and Herodotus describes his motives for digging the
canal at Athos for his fleet to cut navigational corners, further evidence of insolence: “As far as my guess goes, it was out of mere arrogance
[ megalophrosune ̄ s] that Xerxes made them dig the channel,
because he
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HErodotus and tHE Limits of HappinEss: BEyond Epic, Lyric, and LogograpHy wanted to show his power [ dunamin] and leave a memorial behind him”
(Hdt. 7.24, Grene).
The term for “arrogance” clearly alludes to an antidivine hubris that perversely transforms land into a seaway. “To show his power” here is to enact his might with a physical marvel of the achievement. The abuse of power to confound land and sea is paralleled in the next episode, the
building of a bridge for the land army to cross the Hellespont (Hdt.
7.35–7). This is a locus classicus for the tyrannical display of insolence, a human attempt literally to “tame” nature, to extend the despot’s domination to the divine realm. After a storm wrecks the first bridges,
Xerxes was furious and bade his men lay three hundred lashes on the
Hellespont and lower into the sea a yoke of fetters … He told those who laid on the lashes to say these words, of violent arrogance, worthy of a barbarian: “You bitter water, our master lays this punishment upon you
because you have wronged him.” (Hdt. 7.35, Grene)
A scene fit for epic follows, suggesting that the Histories have here com-menced their narrative of the climactic clash of Greeks and Persians. At the Asian side of the crossing, Xerxes observes from a platform the entire army and sheds a tear in a “meditation of the shortness of the life of a man” (Hdt. 7.46, Grene). Artabanus sees this and himself opines that
“no man is so happy … that it shall not be his lot … to wish himself dead rather than live … death comes to be for a man a most desirable escape
from a life of wretchedness” (Hdt. 7.46, Grene). Again we are in the
realm of epic musings on the life of man (cf. Hom. Il. 6.147–50: “like the generations of leaves are those of men”). But the grim pessimism of
Xerxes and friend contrasts pointedly with the exposition of Herodotus’
Solon on how real happiness is found in moderation, a view as alien to
Croesus as to Xerxes. The passage serves as a weighty pause before the
ultimate conflict of the Histories, suggesting that the prior stories, crucial in themselves, are somehow a proem to the main struggle to come.
The reflection on human nature leads directly to one on empire and
power. Artabanus warns Xerxes that the land and sea are his two greatest enemies. On the sea, no harbor is large enough for his navy, and on the land there is a temptation to desire an “empire without boundary,” one
land after another, ultimately breeding famine and failure (Hdt. 6.49). In an implicit comparison of imperial Athens with Persia, Thucydides later alludes to this axiom when his Pericles tells the Athenians that, of the world’s “two parts, land and sea,” they are masters of the sea and “with your naval force today there is no one – not the King of Persia nor any
HErodotus and tHE Limits of HappinEss: BEyond Epic, Lyric, and LogograpHy 57
existing race – who can stop you from sailing” (Th. 2.62.2, Warner;
Scanlon 1994: 170–1). Athens seems to be an even more hybristic “new
Persia,” which later overstepped its naval ambitions, as Thucydides knew (Fornara 1971: 86–91; Raaflaub 1985: 221–48). Artabanus seems, in
contrast, to be a more cautious strategist of imperial expansion, though his advice is again rejected by Xerxes. Xerxes replies, in essence, that to have gain one must take risks:
You see how far the Persian power has advanced [lit. “to what point of
dunamis Persian affairs have advanced”] … [if my predecessors had taken advice like yours], you never would have seen our power [lit. “affairs”]
advance so far. No, it was by risking dangers that they brought that power to where it is. Big things are won by big dangers. (Hdt. 7.50, Grene)
Xerxes’ theory has no nuance to assess degrees of risks and uses ancestral accomplishments to justify his project.
Xerxes tell his leaders that, if they conquer ( krate ̄ so ̄ men) the Greeks, no other army in the world will withstand the Persians. Then he performs a ritual before the sea, which may be a gesture of repent for lashing the Hellespont (Hdt. 7.53–4). The army takes seven days and nights to cross to Europe and a local man comments on the feat, ominously invoking
hubris by equating Xerxes to Zeus (Hdt. 7.56). Xerxes’ arrogant image clings to him in spite of ritual attempts to disguise it.
After the king marshals forces on the plain to the “ordering and num-
bering of his army,” there comes the epic‐like catalog of Persian forces, the land army (Hdt. 7.59–88), and the navy (Hdt. 7.89–99), concluding
with special admiration for Artemisia, female admiral of the forces
from Herodotus’ Halicarnassus and “of all allies the leader who gave the King the best counsels” (Hdt. 7.99, Grene). The leaders of the Ionians
among the Persian army “did not serve as generals, but were as much
slaves as the soldiers were,” since the Persian generals were the ones who had “the supreme power” ( to pan kratos) and were “the rulers of [ archon-tes] the other peoples” (Hdt. 7.96, Grene adapted). The catalog reflects Xerxes’ view: the Ionians and others are servile, and ironically one woman stands out as wise and strong.
It is at this juncture, as noted before, that Demaratus warns Xerxes of the Greek, especially Dorian, virtues and the Spartans’ determination to fight against the numerical odds: they have courage from wisdom and the strength of their laws, by virtue of which they fight off poverty and despotism. The Spartans themselves will never accept slavery for Greece, and they will challenge Xerxes to battle (Hdt. 7.102). When Xerxes resisted
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HErodotus and tHE Limits of HappinEss: BEyond Epic, Lyric, and LogograpHy this characterization of the Spartans, Demaratus made the remark cited
above, that the Spartans are not entirely free but “have as the despot over them the Law,” which bids them “to stand firm in the ranks and either
conquer ([ epikrateein] or die” (Hdt. 7.104, Grene). Of course the king ignores the tragic warning and underestimates the power of law to induce communal cooperation.
The actual march into Greece is an occasion to show how Xerxes and
his army proceeded across Thrace and down into Central Greece, drain-
ing the resources of the reluctant but accommodating cities along the way (Hdt. 7.105–21), while his navy went through the canal at Athos and to
the Thermaic Gulf, paralleling the land route (Hdt. 7.122–4). When
Persian heralds demanded from the Greek cities oaths of loyalty to the
king, most of the Thessalian, Boeotian, and other peoples complied (Hdt.
7.128). But the king refused this option to Athens and Sparta, to punish them for the mistreatment of heralds sent earlier by King Darius (Hdt.
7.133). Herodotus makes an exceptional comment on the importance of
the Athenians’ resistance to the Persians before they got to the
Peloponnese, calling them the “saviors of Greece,” and a remarkable
counterfactual speculation that, had they not resisted, the Persians would have eventually conquered Sparta and taken the whole of Greece (Hdt.
7.139). This honest appraisal does not make Herodotus an uncritical pro-Athenian commentator, as his criticisms of the Athenians’ internal politics elsewhere make clear, but it pinpoints their crucial and courageous leadership that resulted in withstanding the invasion.
The narrative then catches up with the complex preparations and nego-
tiations among the Greeks set to resist the king, events that occurred
between Xerxes’ departure from Susa and his arrival in Central Greece
(Hdt. 7.140–78). The Delphic oracle advises to give to Athena a “wall of wood” which will “serve yourselves and your children in the days that
shall be” (Hdt. 7.141). A controversy follows about whether the advice
was to take refuge on the Acropolis, once wood‐enclosed, or in ships,
with the city abandoned. The latter view prevails, promoted by
Themistocles, the great tactician who appears first here in the Histories (Hdt. 7.143–4). The First Council of the Pan‐Hellenic League meets at
the Isthmus and sends embassies to Argos, Sicily, and Crete to request
alliances. In Syracuse, Greek messengers appeal to the tyrant Gelon in
view of his authority: “You have gained greatly in power [ dunamios], and a great portion of Greece is yours, as you are master of Sicily; so help us now, who are the saviors of Greece for freedom; indeed join in that freeing of Greece” (Hdt. 7.157, Grene). But Gelon, who had been slighted
by the Greeks not aiding him earlier, agrees to send forces only if he can
HErodotus and tHE Limits of HappinEss: BEyond Epic, Lyric, and LogograpHy 59
command the whole army or navy. The Athenian messenger accuses
Gelon of yearning too much for power (“so greedy are you for that
military command”) and justifies Athenian naval command by appeals to
tradition (Hdt. 7.161). Among the Greeks, absolute military might alone does not determine leadership, but the traditional status and independence of Greek states play crucial roles in Books 7–9.
The Corcyreans, when approached by the embassy, hedge their bets.
They promise to the Greeks to send help but deliberately detain their
ships in the Southern Peloponnese. They expected the Persians would
win a great victory and rule all of Greece ( katakrate ̄ santa pollon arxein pase ̄ s te ̄ s Hellados). They were prepared to capitulate to the Persians, even pointing out that their military power ( dunamin) was not negligible, and tried to fool the Greeks with their failure to send ships (Hdt. 7.168).
Political pragmatism that assesses the balance of power, not the principle of freedom for Greeks, motivates Corcyra in this event, but the other
Greeks see through the ploy. Next the Thessalians refuse to join other
Greeks since the Greeks refuse to defend Thessalian territory against the Persian invasion, succinctly saying: “there is no compulsion you can apply to us; for there is no compulsion that is stronger than sheer want of power
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