fully conforms to this type (Harris 2001, 231), as signaled by his fury at ARTABANUS’ opposition to his plan to invade Greece (7.11.1). Famous for his furious WHIPPING of the HELLESPONT (deinon poeisthai, 7.35.1), and for punishing a man who requested that one of his five sons be spared military service by cutting the boy in half (7.38–39), he also takes it as a personal INSULT when the Greeks at THERMOPYLAE refuse to retreat in the face of Persian numerical superiority (7.210.1). The thymos he showed then re‐emerges when, in violation of Persian values regarding the honor due defeated enemies who have fought well, he has LEONIDAS’ head impaled on a post (7.238.2). His mild response (7.105.1) to DEMARATUS’ argument that Spartan fear of the LAW makes them more formidable opponents than Xerxes’ subjects (who merely fear him) plays on our knowledge that he would very probably have been furious had he taken his interlocutor seriously. The last anecdote we hear about him (at 9.108–13) portrays a degenerate, power‐crazed royal household riven by sexual intrigue and petty rivalries. Xerxes first takes a fancy to his brother’s wife, but then, having married his son to his brother’s daughter, ARTAŸNTE, transfers his affections to her. He gives her a shawl made by his wife, AMESTRIS, which makes the wife angry (enkotos), not with Artaÿnte, but with her mother. She demands that the woman be handed over to her, which makes Xerxes angry (deinon poieisthai, 9.110.3) at the thought of depriving his brother of his wife and allowing an innocent woman to be harmed. But this justified anger does not last. Xerxes’ brother, Masistes, begs to be allowed to keep his wife and rejects the offer of Xerxes’ own daughter as a replacement. Furious (9.111.5), Xerxes withdraws his offer and commands divorce. By this time, Amestris has horribly mutilated Masistes’ wife; Masistes leaves, intending to pursue Xerxes’ overthrow, but is killed on Xerxes’ command before he can do so.
Though a more positively characterized oriental king, such as CYRUS (II), can occasionally control his anger (1.156.2, on Croesus’ advice, 1.155.3), there is a marked preponderance of the emotion, especially in its extreme forms, among non‐Greek commanders and potentates (Harris 2001, 175–76): 53 percent of the instances of orgē and 80 percent of those of thymos refer to the behavior of oriental despots. If we add the cases associated with Greek TYRANTS and the like, the association of anger with unfettered power is even more pronounced (71 and 93 percent, respectively). The figures for cholos are too low to be statistically significant, while those for deinon poieisthai show a greater degree of nuance: only 44 percent of the occurrences are associated with rulers and tyrants, 83 percent of whom are non‐Greek.
But deinon poieisthai is far from always being a reasonable or justifiable response: it can refer to the extreme, pathological forms of anger that are typical of oriental despots (e.g., Xerxes’ lashing of the Hellespont, 7.35.1), and even when predicated of Greeks it is not always commendable—it is used both of the fury of the Athenian women who use the pins of their dresses to kill the sole Athenian survivor of a battle against the Aeginetans, and of male Athenian outrage at this behavior (5.87.2–3). By contrast, the Spartan commanders’ anger (deinon poieisthai) at the insubordinate bravado of AMOMPHARETUS (9.53.3) appears warranted in circumstances in which a single individual risks undermining the strategy of an entire force (see also SHAME). The term conveys a sense of proper pride and self‐worth when it is used (by the Athenian envoys at SPARTA prior to PLATAEA, 9.7.α.2) of Athenian commitment to Greek FREEDOM. Yet this is also true slightly earlier, when it is used of the Athenians’ indignation at the idea of coming to terms with MARDONIUS (9.5.2); this justified indignation spills over into mob VIOLENCE, as the councilor who proposed such a motion is stoned to death and his wife and children suffer the same fate at the hands of the Athenian women on SALAMIS.
The expression of anger in Herodotus is often similarly brutal: violence, MUTILATION, and killing are typical (Lateiner 1987, 92–93). By contrast, the historian has comparatively little to say about anger’s symptoms, phenomenology, or expression in the face or the body. Non‐violent, passive‐aggressive forms of expression are, however, found, in the silence with which Periander’s son, Lycophron, responds to all overtures to heal the breach with his father (3.50.3, 52.4–6) and in Demaratus’ covering of his head to advertise his anger at the insult he has just received at the hands of Leotychides, who has taken his place as king (6.67.3; cf. Cairns 2001).
SEE ALSO: Barbarians; Characterization; Despotism; Reciprocity; Vengeance
REFERENCES
1 Cairns, Douglas. 2001. “Anger and the Veil in Ancient Greek Culture.” G&R 48: 18–32.
2 Harris, William. 2001. Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3 Lateiner, Donald. 1987. “Nonverbal Communication in the Histories of Herodotus.” Arethusa 20: 83–119.
4 Sahlins, Marshall. 1972. Stone Age Economics. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
FURTHER READING
1 Froehlich, Susanne. 2013. Handlungsmotive bei Herodot. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
ANGITES RIVER (ὁ Ἀγγίτης ποταμός)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A river in western THRACE, tributary of the STRYMON (BA 51 B3; Müller I, 42–43). Herodotus (7.113.2) makes the Angites the northwestern border of a region around Mt. PANGAEUM which he calls PHYLLIS. The Angites and Strymon are responsible for the region’s marshy plains and fertile agricultural land. A Roman‐era village by the same name is attested in an inscription from Thrace (SEG 34‐691).
SEE ALSO: Edonians; Myrcinus; Nine Ways; Rivers
FURTHER READING
1 Zannis, A. G. 2014. Le pays entre le Strymon et le Nestos: géographie et histoire (VIIe – IVe siècle avant J.‐C.), 71–72, 139–54. Athens (Meletemata 71).
ANGRUS RIVER (ὁ Ἄγγρος ποταμός)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A river flowing north from Illyria (4.49.2), through the TRIBALLIAN PLAIN and into the BRONGUS RIVER, a tributary of the ISTER (Danube). The location and identification of the Angrus are unknown; it may be part of the modern Morava River system in Serbia.
SEE ALSO: Illyrians; Rivers
FURTHER READING
1 Corcella in ALC, 618.
ANIMALS, see ANTS, GIANT; BIRDS; CAMELS; CATTLE; CROCODILES; DOGS; FISH; GRIFFINS; HORSES; LIONS; MULES; PIGS; SNAKES; SYMBOLS AND SIGNS
ANOPAEA (Ἀνόπαια, ἡ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A mountain path leading around the narrow pass at THERMOPYLAE in north‐central Greece (7.216). In 480 BCE, after two days of failed attempts to dislodge the Greek forces, the Persians learned of the Anopaea path from EPHIALTES, an inhabitant of nearby Malis. Late that evening, Persian troops led by Hydarnes ascended the Anopaea, chased away the Phocian
