Titans of History

The books setting up the background to the wars are subtle works that give a wealth of geographical and political information about the Persian empire and its rulers. They also chart the fundamental differences between Persian and Greek society, with a level of comparison that was unmatched by the city chroniclers who had been the writers of history before Herodotus. Herodotus notes how the Persian empire, although made up of diverse peoples divided by religion, geography and language, nevertheless acts with a remarkable unity. The Greeks, by contrast, drawn from a relatively small pool of culturally homogeneous city-states, are prone to faction and infighting.

Such astute general observations help to provide an explanation for the events contemporary with Herodotus’ own life, when the political rivalries and disputes within Athens affected the course of the bloody contests between the Athenians and the Spartans. This grand, thematic approach was something quite new in historical writing.

The Histories is a detailed account of four generations of Persian kings and their conquests. Herodotus first describes Cyrus the Great’s expedition to Lydia, followed by Cambyses’ conquest of Egypt and his stalled expedition to Ethiopia. After Cambyses’ madness and death comes the reorganization and further expansion of the empire under Darius the Great, and finally Herodotus recounts the campaigns led by Xerxes against the Greeks.

Herodotus tends to attach importance to the actions, personalities and squabbles of individual protagonists. Xerxes is portrayed as arrogant, petulant, savage and cruel, and Herodotus suggests that it was these defects of character that caused his invasion to fail.

For Herodotus, pride always comes before a fall, but he emphasizes that such failures are not the punishment of the gods, but rather result from human mistakes. This rational approach, in which the gods did not intervene in the affairs of men, was a major innovation and formed the basis for the tradition of Western history.

The “Father of History,” has also been called the “Father of Lies.” It is true that some of his tales, such as that of the giant man-eating ants, are fables. But his methods were those of a true historian: he compared his sources wherever possible. He was also a consummate storyteller; the first historian, and arguably one of the greatest ever.

ALCIBIADES

c. 450–404 BC

It is wiser not to rear a lion’s whelp, but if you do, you must accept its ways.

The dramatist Aeschylus’ verdict on Alcibiades (as represented by Aristophanes in his play The Frogs)

Alcibiades was the gilded youth in the golden age of classical Greece, who took center stage in the life-and-death struggle that enveloped Athens in the second half of the 5th century BC. A dazzling politician and brilliant military leader, he was uniquely blessed: well-born, charming, beautiful, charismatic, quick-witted, eloquent. But his virtues were matched by deep flaws: vanity, unscrupulousness and egotism. Hamstrung by his political enemies and by his own shortcomings, in the end he was unable to harness his talents to save his city from destruction.

At the time of Alcibiades’ birth in or just before 450 BC, the city of Athens was at the height of its power and wealth. Less than thirty years earlier, the Athenians had led an alliance of Greek states to turn back the armies of Persian invaders rolling in from the east. But what had started as a voluntary league of equals had gradually been transformed into an Athenian maritime empire. Throughout Alcibiades’ adolescence there had been growing tension and eventually, in 431, Sparta, a conservative state increasingly alarmed at the expansive imperial ambitions of Athens, could take no more and attacked, so precipitating the Peloponnesian War. This was to engulf the Greek world for the next twenty-seven years and finally led to the total defeat of Athens.

Alcibiades’ father had died in battle in 447, leaving the boy to be raised in the household of Pericles, the greatest Athenian statesman and heroic leader of the day. Alcibiades was a follower of the philosopher Socrates and his superb oratorical skills must in part have been due to the excellent grounding in rhetoric he received at the hands of Socrates and Pericles.

In 421, after ten years of indecisive fighting, Athens and Sparta negotiated the precarious Peace of Nicias. Piqued at being considered too young to take part in the peace talks, Alcibiades instead set about undermining them, first holding private discussions with the Spartan ambassadors and then attempting to ridicule them before the Athenian assembly. He was elected general in 420 and orchestrated a new alliance against Sparta, but his aggressive ambitions were thwarted two years later when the new allies were heavily defeated by the Spartans at Mantinea.