high‐ranking Persian ARTABAZUS SON OF PHARNACES (9.41). Herodotus portrays Mardonius as foolishly disregarding this sensible course of action out of a DESIRE to seize ATHENS a second time and to defeat the Greeks on the battlefield. Herodotus does, though, suggest that the Athenian councilor LYCIDES, who recommended that the Persian terms be presented to the Athenian people before he was stoned to death, might have been influenced by a Persian bribe (9.5).
Rather than the Persians, stereotyped as obsessed with money, it was the Greeks who usually offered and were influenced by bribes in Herodotus’ account. The Spartan king LEOTYCHIDES II was bribed during a campaign in THESSALY, after which he was banished and his house destroyed (6.72). This story accords with the Spartan fear that their leaders were liable to be corrupted if they strayed too far from home. The Athenian THEMISTOCLES is said to have served as an agent of the Euboeans to bribe the other Greeks to fight the Persians at ARTEMISIUM, and Themistocles himself kept a sizable cut of the Euboeans’ money (8.4). Most scholars discredit this story (Wallace 1974), though it does reveal that the Greeks considered themselves to be susceptible to bribery.
There are allegations that the Delphic Oracle was successfully bribed. The ALCMEONIDAE of Athens are said to have bribed the PYTHIA to tell the Spartans—no matter what question they asked—to liberate Athens from the Peisistratid tyranny (5.63). THUCYDIDES tells of another case of bribing the oracle, this time at the hands of the Spartan king Pleistoanax (5.16.2). Most scholars think these two cases are the rare exception that proves the rule, that the Delphic Oracle was generally trustworthy and that the Greeks tended not even to attempt to corrupt it (Bowden 2005, 28; Hornblower 1996, 465–66).
SEE ALSO: Cobon; Medize; Treachery; Wealth and Poverty
REFERENCES
1 Bowden, Hugh. 2005. Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2 Flower, Michael A., and John Marincola, eds. 2002. Herodotus: Histories Book IX. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3 Hornblower, Simon. 1996. A Commentary on Thucydides, Volume II: Books IV–V.24. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
4 Wallace, M. B. 1974. “Herodotos and Euboia.” Phoenix 28.1: 22–44.
BRIDGES
ROBERT ROLLINGER
University of Innsbruck
Herodotus uses different terms for bridges: gephyra (γέϕυρα) is the most common, applied to the bridges across the HALYS RIVER (1.75.3–4), the Babylonian queen NITOCRIS’ bridge across the EUPHRATES (1.186), CYRUS (II)’s bridge across the ARAXES (1.205.2), DARIUS I’s bridges across the Thracian BOSPORUS (3.134.4; 4.85 etc.) and the ISTER (Danube) River (4.97.3 etc.; 7.10.γ.1), and XERXES’ bridges across the STRYMON RIVER (7.114.1) and the HELLESPONT (7.10.β.2 and elsewhere in Books 7–9). The word skhediē (σχεδίη) has the more special meaning of pontoon bridge; it qualifies Darius’ bridges across the Bosporus (4.88.1–2) and Ister (4.89.3, 97.1, 98.3; 5.23.1; 6.41.3) as well as Xerxes’ bridge across the Hellespont (7.36.4; 8.97.1, 107.1, 108.2, 117.1). The Bosporus (4.88.1) and Hellepont bridges (7.35.3) are also labeled as zeuxis (ζεῦξις), a derivation of ζευγνύω, “yoking,” which refers to the technique applied to interconnect the ships of the pontoon bridges; both ζευγνύω and γεϕυρῶ are used as verbal forms for “bridging” (see Powell 1960 for references).
Herodotus pays special attention to construction techniques when he describes Nitocris’ bridge in BABYLON and Xerxes’ Hellespont bridge. The existence of a bridge in Babylon has been proved by archaeological excavations (Rollinger 1993, 74). Pontoon bridges have a long‐standing tradition in the ancient Near East (Rollinger 2013, 67–73). Whether Herodotus’ report about the construction techniques of such a bridge is based on facts has been debated (positive, Hammond and Roseman 1996; skeptical, West 2013). For Darius’ bridge over the Bosporus, Herodotus mentions its “master‐builder” (ἀρχιτέκτων) MANDROCLES of SAMOS. He is said to have dedicated a painting of his bridge at the HERAION on Samos showing the Persian army crossing the Bosporus and Darius sitting on a throne and VIEWING the spectacle (4.88). Herodotus might have seen this picture himself and concluded that Darius led the Persian army in person, which might actually not have been the case (West 2013).
More important than the technical aspects of bridging, however, is Herodotus’ transformation of these episodes into deeper lectures on history. The great RIVERS, and especially the straits of the Bosporus and Hellespont, designate divine BOUNDARIES. Their crossing is interpreted as an act of HUBRIS and transgression that results in PUNISHMENT and catastrophe. Against this backdrop, the attentive reader of the Histories will notice that Darius’ and Xerxes’ gigantic bridge‐building projects already anticipate the dramatic failure of their campaigns. What the Persian kings regarded as demonstrations of their divinely sanctioned might and capacity to manipulate and control nature are rearranged as showpieces of Persian blindness and intoxication with power.
SEE ALSO: Art; Engineering
REFERENCES
1 Hammond, N. G. L., and L. J. Roseman. 1996. “The Construction of Xerxes’ Bridge over the Hellespont.” JHS 116: 88–107.
2 Powell, J. Enoch. 1960 [1938]. A Lexicon to Herodotus. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.
3 Rollinger, Robert. 1993. Herodots Babylonischer Logos. Eine kritische Untersuchung der Glaubwürdigkeitsdiskussion an Hand ausgewählter Beispiele. Historische Parallelüberlieferung—Argumentationen—Archäologischer Befund—Konsequenzen für eine Geschichte Babylons in persischer Zeit. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
4 Rollinger, Robert. 2013. Alexander und die großen Ströme. Die Flussüberquerungen im Lichte altorientalischer Pioniertechniken. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
5 West, Stephanie. 2013. “‘Every Picture Tells a Story’: A Note on Herodotus 4.88.” In Herodots Quellen—Die Quellen Herodots, edited by Boris Dunsch and Kai Ruffing, 117–28. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
BRIGES, see BRYGI; PHYRGIA
BRONGUS RIVER (ὁ Βρόγγος ποταμός)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Tributary of the ISTER (Danube), which receives the waters of the ANGRUS River flowing north from ILLYRIA (4.49.2). It is usually identified with the modern Great Morava River in Serbia (BA 21 D5), which the ancient Romans called the Margus or Bargus (Strabo 7.5.12/C318).
SEE ALSO: Rivers; Triballian Plain
FURTHER READING
Corcella in ALC, 618.
BRONZE (χαλκός)
SANDRA BLAKELY
Emory University
Bronze appears in Herodotus’ Histories in a range of objects
