Polybius was a renowned Greek historian, known for his historical objectivity and unbiased truth, notable for his work The Histories that described the rise of the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean world. He was born around 200 BC in the city of Megalpolis and was the son of Lycortas, a leader of the Achaean League. When Lycortas was killed, Polybius was taken as a hostage in Rome. However, Polybius’ cleverness and political perceptiveness managed him to be acquainted with Scipio Aemilianus, the leading general at that time. His friendship with Scipio allowed him to travel around the world, seeing pivotal landscapes, interviewing veterans, and visiting archives to later aid him in keeping his objectivity as he wrote about Rome’s history.
Empires grew rapidly across the Afro-Eurasian region from around 700 BCE to 200 BCE. Some of the most notable empires from that time were the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and the Qin and Mauryan Dynasties. One of the most impactful and efficient ways that empires could successfully expand was through a powerful military. However, a strong military was not the only attribute that led to imperial growth and was not the most influential part of the empire’s expansion.
Herodotus begins by describing the reasons for Darius invading Scythians. The Scythians, a century ago, invaded Media and defeated those who stood against them, thus starting the conflict with Persians. For the next twenty-eight years, they lorded the Upper Asia before returning home, only to discover a small army opposing their entrance (Herodotus, P.129) While the Scythians men were abroad, the women had intermarried with their slaves. Instead of fighting with the slaves, the military walked boldly into their territory because they thought that if they hold spears against their slaves, then the slaves might imagine themselves their equals.
Primary Source Analysis: The History of Herodotus; Book I: Clio The Histories, by Herodotus, is a detailed account of the aggression and later violence between the Greeks and Persians, and was the first ever written record of a historical event. It was due to its name and example that history has even been continuously recorded, and how Herodotus earned his nickname “The Father of History”. Because of it was separated into nine books, each named after one of the nine Muses, the focus of this analysis will be of Book I, Clio, which tells the beginning of the transgressions between the Greeks and the Persians.
Austin Godwin Ms. Ewald Eng. 1 H 22 September 2017 Odysseus Is A Hero How would you define the word hero? Would it be someone with supernatural powers? Or would it just be an ordinary person that’s brave?
Odysseus an Epic hero Odysseus is the son of the King of Ithaca Laertes. As he grew up he was taught combat skills. When Odysseus was old enough to take over his father Laertes let him rule Ithaca. Laertes passed away later after Odysseus became king of Ithaca. As he ruled Ithaca Odysseus began to think about marriage.
Throughout The Odyssey there is a constant thread of learning and growing as the books progress. This development does not come easy, however, as emphasized through the long, dramatic tale and recounting done by Odysseus. But despite the struggle, Odysseus does indeed become a better man in numerous ways. By persevering throughout a multitude of heroic and tragic tasks from which few others could survive, Odysseus, ultimately finds a way to thrive. Odysseus is most definitely a hero—this is clear from the beginning of the epic—but he truly earns this title well after the Trojan War ends and his long, misguided travels begin.
Herodotus defines the differences between the Greeks and Persians in his writings. One of the major differences between Greece and Persia is their governments. Herodotus identifies two main forms of government: a democracy such as Athens, and a monarchy such as Persia. Which form of governing is better? In a democracy, all men are hypothetically equal and there is no single ruler who is above the population.
What would cause a 20-year-old, immediately after punishing the people who murdered his father, to invade Persia and eventually conquer it all? Arrian tends to believe and convey that it was a conquest of retaliation. Alexander wanted to invade and conquer Persia as they tried to conquer Greece 150 years earlier. One reason for this is because he wanted to continue with his father’s plan, but also so he could prove that Macedonians are just as much Greek as Athenians or Spartans. However, an underlying reason that Alexander would do this was because he wanted to become the King of all Asia to prove that he could accomplish the feat.
His work and ideas brought him to create his most known book “The history of the Peloponnesian War”. In this way, Thucydides’ stories are seen to have more structure and is more informal than his predecessors. Also, Since Thucydides was born after Herodotus, he was able to find what he disagrees with Herodotus to separate himself to become the father of scientific
Homer is remembered by many due to his epic poems he wrote that include The Iliad, but the one most remembered by people today is The Odyssey. An epic poem about a great hero named Odysseus coming home after a deadly journey that claimed many lives, but is Odysseus really the critically acclaimed hero Homer depicts him to be? The actions of Odysseus in the poem can be seen as heroic or valiant, but this argument crumbles under scrutiny when the actions of Odysseus are examined under a fine eye. Flaws in that argument include Odysseus failing to trust his men, exposing his men to unnecessary risks, and prolonging the nightmarish adventure he put his men through. These points are painfully obvious throughout the Odyssey and they show what poor
The modern historian faces many problems when relying on Herodotos’ Histories as a documentation of colonisation in the Archaic Greek Period. Herodotos’ accounts of the origins of a polis usually have some mythical interpretation; it is this focus on the blending of supernatural and geo-political elements that makes The Histories such a valuable source of anthropological insight. The term colonisation is a dubious one; it calls to mind a population simply moving from place to place, yet the Greeks distinguished between places that were trading posts, emporia, and ‘homes-away-from-home’, apoikiai. The fact that this distinction is not readily apparent in a modern context of colonisation means that we often see historians in the early 20th century
The anti-lynching movement was a civil rights movement in the United States that aimed to eradicate the practice of lynching. Lynching was used as a tool to repress African Americans. The anti-lynching movement reached its height between the 1890s and 1930s. On President Abraham Lincoln's birthdate in 1909, Ida Wells and W.E.B. DuBois helped organized the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in response to the lynchings of African Americans. In 1919, the organization published Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States: 1889–1919 to call attention to the issue.
Herodotus also shows historians his personal opinion as well as that of the Greeks on ancient
Herodotus was a Greek historian, considered to be the father of History, who lived between 485 and 425 B.C. and published the work Histories. The publication was divided into the nine books, which narrated in detail the course of the Persian Wars, and ended with the victory of the Greeks over Darius and Xerxes. Although moral and religious aspects guide the narratives, many descriptive and ethnographic characteristics of the barbarian population are introduced, by recording numerous features of their common life and customs. Furthermore, the author established a clear picture of the known world, its various races, and previous histories of regions that possessed a form of heritage. Herodotus did not only collect contrasting opinions, but also
