writing with the “ancient way”: as “continuous” or “running together” in the sense that it has no end in itself but is completed only when the matter spoken of comes to its end. Observing that this way of writing is unpleasant since it seems to be limitless, Aristotle notes that readers find it tiring, just as runners become fatigued in a long race when they cannot see the finish line (Rh. 1409a27–35).
Some scholars argue that Aristotle is not just critical of Herodotus, but actively hostile to his approach. Others not only dispute this view but suggest that Aristotle may not necessarily be denying philosophic seriousness to the Histories, a work which, after all, investigates “causes” (aitiai) and provides a “reasoning” (LOGOS). Indeed, we see that in another direct reference to the Histories, in his Constitution of Athens, Aristotle virtually imitates Herodotus’ way of writing in offering without comment two stories, including one from Herodotus, regarding a particular event: the tyrant PEISISTRATUS’ return to ATHENS and the trick MEGACLES (II) used to persuade the people of Athens that this return had divine sanction (Ath. pol. 14.4). There is no doubt that Aristotle diverges from Herodotus on the relation of history to PHILOSOPHY and the quest for wisdom, but perhaps in this way, he nods in the direction of the “historian” and the “ancient way” of treating human affairs by acknowledging the difficulty of inquiring into these affairs, which are by their very nature particular, disputable, and subject to CHANGE and fortune (see also Eth. Nic. 1094b11–18, 1100a5–11).
SEE ALSO: Hellenistic Historians; Historical Method; historiē; Knowledge; Reception of Herodotus, Ancient Greece and Rome; Rhetoric; Scholarship on Herodotus, Ancient Greece and Rome; Thurii
FURTHER READING
1 Benardete, Seth. 1969. Herodotean Inquiries. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Reprint, South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2009.
2 De Ste. Croix, G. E. M. 1992 [1975]. “Aristotle on History and Poetry.” In Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics, edited by Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 23–32. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
3 Dewald, Carolyn, and John Marincola, eds. 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (See especially the chapters by Marincola, Fowler, Griffin, Thomas, Luraghi, Bakker, and Hornblower.)
4 Goldhill, Simon. 2002. The Invention of Prose. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5 Gomme, A. W. 1954. The Greek Attitude to Poetry and History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
6 Hartog, François. 1988. The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History, translated by Janet Lloyd [first French edition 1980]. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
7 Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1958. “The Place of Herodotus in the History of Historiography.” History 43: 1–13. Reprinted in ORCS Vol. 1, 31–45.
8 Thompson, Norma. 1996. Herodotus and the Origins of Political Community: Arion’s Leap. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ARIZANTIANS (Ἀριζαντοί, οἱ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Herodotus names the Arizantians as one of the six tribes (genea) of the MEDES, whom DEIOCES united as one people (ethnos) upon becoming the first king of Media (1.101). They have not been identified in other ancient sources with certainty (Diakonoff 1985, 74–75).
SEE ALSO: Budians; Busae; Magi; Paretacenians; Struchates
REFERENCE
1 Diakonoff, I. M. 1985. “Media.” In The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 2, The Median and Achaemenian Periods, edited by Ilya Gershevitch, 36–148. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ARMENIANS (Ἀρμένιοι, οἱ)
ROMAIN THURIN
University of Notre Dame
A people inhabiting the eastern regions of Anatolia, between the Iranian plateau, CAUCASUS Mountains, and CILICIA (Bournoutian 2006, 5). Herodotus indicates that they originally came from PHRYGIA (7.73; cf. Strabo 11.14.12/C530), settled north of ASSYRIA (1.194.2), and were, like their Cilician neighbors, a people rich in flocks (5.49.6). In his Babylonian LOGOS, Herodotus describes the Armenians’ method of transport and TRADE via the EUPHRATES RIVER—using collapsible boats of skin and reed—the second‐greatest wonder of the region, after BABYLON itself (1.194). Armenia was part of the thirteenth provincial district of the Persian Empire under DARIUS I (3.93.1), and Armenians fought in XERXES’ invasion force of 480 BCE, alongside Phrygians, under the command of ARTOCHMES (7.73).
SEE ALSO: Ethnography; Satrapies; thōmata
REFERENCE
1 Bournoutian, George A. 2006. A Concise History of the Armenian People. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers.
FURTHER READING
1 Dan, Anca. 2013. “Achaemenid World Representation in Herodotus’ Histories: Some Geographic Examples of Cultural Translation.” In Herodots Wege des Erzählens: Logos und Topos in den Historien, edited by Klaus Geus, Elisabeth Irwin, and Thomas Poiss, 83–121. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
ARMIES
JOHN W. I. LEE
University of California Santa Barbara
Herodotus provides valuable evidence for the military institutions of ATHENS, SPARTA, and other Greek states, along with information on non‐Greek armies including the ACHAEMENID Persian military.
The war bands and aristocratic retinues of early Greece developed into formal armies during the eighth to sixth centuries BCE, though privately raised forces never entirely disappeared (5.47; 8.17). Greeks who went abroad as MERCENARIES (2.152–54, 163; 3.11) during this time may have brought home innovations in military organization, tactics, and equipment.
At Athens, evidence for a formal army before the DEMOCRACY installed by CLEISTHENES is scant (Frost 1984). Warriors may have grouped in four tribes (5.66), with property qualifications for HOPLITE service perhaps introduced c. 600 (van Wees 2004, 96). Personal bodyguards (1.59), foreign mercenaries (1.61, 64), and private networks of armed supporters (1.62) were important in PEISISTRATUS’ takeovers during the 540s, and probably also in Athens’ wars involving MEGARA (1.59), SIGEIUM (5.64, 94), and AEGINA (5.82–84). From the late 500s, the Athenian army consisted of ten hoplite regiments (taxeis), one for each of the new Cleisthenic tribes (5.66). A 300–strong detachment of picked troops (logades) appears at PLATAEA (9.21).
Athens’ elected polemarch or war leader (6.109) traditionally led from the position of HONOR on the right wing (6.111). The district chiefs mentioned (5.71) in connection with CYLON’s attempted coup c. 630 perhaps helped assemble troops and ships. Herodotus says (1.59) Peisistratus held a generalship in the war against Megara c. 561; whether this was a formal office is uncertain (Rhodes 1993, 264). From c. 501/0 each tribe elected a general (stratēgos, 6.103) and possibly also
