Resumo de The Histories Of Herodotus

When the ancient Greeks had attained the zenith of their civilization, they were overtaken by the calamities of the Persian wars and the Peloponnesian war. The Hellenic world embraced the Greek mainland with Athens and Sparta and other republics; the Aegean islands; and the region of Ionia in western Asia Minor. Herodotus (480-425 BC), the world?s earliest historian, opens his narrative at the emerging scene of the struggle with the Persians. The conflict was an ancient one, lost in misty legends; but historically, Herodotus traces it from the reign of Croesus (6th century BC), king of Lydia in the Asia Minor. Croesus besieged nearly all the Greek city-states in the region, beginning with Ephesus. Maddened by success, he attacked the Median kingdom in the east. At Cappadocia he came up against Cyrus, the Persian king, who eventually took the Lydian capital at Sardis.
Herodotus, a Greek, narrates with an open mind the phenomenal rise of the Persians. Cyrus of the Achaemenid dynasty had set up a vast empire that extended from the western frontiers of India to the Mediterranean. Some time after his Lydian victory he died (528 BC) during a campaign against the Massagetae. His son Cambyses, cruel, insane and ineffectual, invaded Egypt and died (521 BC), while the throne came to be usurped by the impostor Smerdis. Seven noblemen secretly removed him, and Darius, one of them, was elected monarch.
Darius consolidated Cyrus? empire and perfected its administration. He led a major campaign against the Scythians but was repulsed. About the time of his conquest of Thrace the Ionian Greek states that had come under Persian domination rose in a sudden revolt (499 BC) under the leadership of Aristagoras of Miletus. The rebels, helped by the Athenians, burnt down Sardis. Darius crushed the revolt, but his vengeance against the Greeks had been roused. A servant was asked to repeat every day: ?Master, remember the Athenians?.
After an abortive attempt by the Persian general Mardonius in 492 BC, Darius sent envoys round Greece asking for the symbolic tribute of land and water. Several states complied but others, including Athens, did not. A huge Persian fleet landed at Attica. A small Athenian army led by Miltiades confronted the enemy on the plain of Marathon; and in a historic battle (490 BC) these bold Athenians, without the Spartan aid they had sought, devastated the Persian force.
Darius, who died shortly after, passed on the legacy of Greek invasion to his son and successor Xerxes. The latter gathered his forces, land and naval, from all over the empire and leading the army over a bridge across the Hellespont, entered the mainland of Europe (480 BC). We are given a ?Homeric catalogue? of the host. Meanwhile the tidings of Xerxes? preparations made the Greeks unite and forget their quarrels. But it was an uncertain alliance. Athens under Themistocles rose as a maritime power. The Peloponnesians started building a wall across the Isthmus. The drama heightened every moment; Herodotus describes in graphic detail the relentless progress of the Greeks towards war.
The Greek resistance was still a fragile one. The northern states were falling timidly under Persian sway and furnishing additional troops to the invader. At last the Greeks decided to station a force under Leonidas, the Spartan king, at the mountain-pass of Thermopylae, while an armada was to engage the enemy in a sea-battle at Artemisium. Thermopylae saw the fearless Greeks fight and fall, betrayed by a traitor and far outnumbered by the enemy. Artemisium was a fierce but inconclusive naval battle. At both engagements the Greeks proved their mettle.
The burning of Sardis must be avenged and Athens lay no great distance away. Before marching on the greatest city of the Greeks, the Persians went to plunder the holy temple of Delphi. But supernatural prodigies turned them back. Then they stormed Athens and gave the deserted city to the flames. The Athenians, alarmed by their coming, had all fled to Salamis.
Xerxes could have stopped at this point, but megalomania had seized him. For the gods of the Greeks must interfere when a human proposes to challenge their supremacy. The Histories proceed under this cosmic principle. So the Persian fleet sailed down towards Salamis. At this island was anchored the combined Greek fleet. On the Isthmus their council of war was considering a retreat into the Peloponnese. In despair Themistocles contrived that the enemy should attack the panic-stricken Greeks. In the battle that ensued the huge Persian vessels were disabled in the narrow channel, and the Greeks, driven at last to action, routed them.
The triumph of a few democracies over a great monarchy is described without the narrator?s bias, evidently democratic. Knowledge and curiosity broaden his horizons. Anecdotes lend romantic charm. The ninth and final Book pictures Xerxes, now decisively defeated, beginning his retreat, with the obstinate Mardonius choosing to remain with the pick of the troops. Neither diplomatic failure nor friendly counsel could dissuade the latter. Athens was taken the second time in ten months. On the Greek side the alliance tottered. Sparta sent belated succour, and other allies joined in. A battle was fought in Plataea (479 BC), by the river Asopus, in which the Greeks slaughtered Mardonius and his forces. At that moment across the Aegean a Greek detachment was scattering the remnants of the enemy?s fleet at Mycale.
With that was removed the Persian menace over Europe.

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