Volume 2, Issue 13
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Volume 2, Issue 13 |
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Archives Herodotus in a Hurry published: December 18, 2004 The Anthropogene, being a solitary endeavor, does not have an editor waiting in the wings waiting impatiently for me to meet a deadline, or an audience waiting with bated breath for the next monthly installment. In the interests of self-discipline though, I've tried to put out an article on the 18th of every month, a task that I've been relatively successful in managing. However I ran into an interesting problem this December. The article that I had planned was dependent upon a source who had provided me with relevant quotes and photographs. I did not feel it was appropriate to go ahead without his stamp of approval of the final draft. So here it is the night of December 17th and it's time to pull the rabbit out of the hat... My thoughts turned to The Histories of Herodotus. Herodotus of Halicarnassus, (484 BC- 420 BC ?) known to us today as "The Father of History," created a whole new literary genre, the history. Before him there had been chronicles and epics based on oral retellings of myths and accounts - but Herodotus brought Ionic rationalism to bear upon the knowledge of the past, the first to actually research the events of his time and before in the hope that they could shed understanding on human condition. Herodotus has been accused of bias, inaccuracy, plagiarism and blatant exaggeration throughout the millenia. In Roman times the historian Plutarch disparaged his work. In the modern era the a classicist writer named O. Kimball Armayor finds much of The Histories to be of a dubious nature. There is a definite crowd of detractors anxious to question and belittle his work. One aspect of his work that has been brought into question was his ability and technique to put himself in the place of his protagonists, especially in the accounts of the Persian War, and quote verbatim their speeches and thoughts as if he was there. It is true that he was not physically present at the events he described, but he did have access to the people who would be called in our time the primary sources and drew upon their recollections. As to his technique... well if it's good enough for Bob Woodward to use in his account of the deliberations of the Bush administration, then Herodotus can be excused for doing the same 2,500 years ago. There are two specific details from The Histories that are worth recounting here as they had been dismissed as blatant fabrications. These examples show the perils inherent in poor translation, and in the modern inability to understand that the world has truly changed since these accounts. The Golden Ants
The Histories of Herodotus, Macaulay, George Campbell (translator) Needless to say, the account of the gold grubbing ants "larger than foxes" has incited the scorn of critics. It wasn't until 1996 AD when Dr. Michel Peissel went in search of the truth that Herodotus was proven correct. Leading an expedition to the scarcely visited region once known as Pactyïke, modern day Baltistan in the north of the Indian subcontinent - where the armies of Pakistan and India keep an uneasy watch on each other - Peissel quickly solved the mystery of the golden ants. It turns out that the ancient Persian phrase "mountain ant" was used to refer to marmots.
Marmots, specifically in the latin Marmota caudata. A furry, burrowing mammal of such commonality that I can look out window and view the the North American counterpart, the groundhog, waddling about in the backyard. According to Peissel, the soil of the Dansar plains in Baltistan does have a gold-bearing strata about three feet below the sandy surface. Marmots, who live in holes would dig deep enough in the soil to bring up the gold deposits. To this day the local people still pan for gold in the rivers of Baltistan, a far safer method considering the political tensions that have turned the Dansar plains into a cease-fire zone. The marmots have the plains to themselves. The Winged Serpents
The Histories of Herodotus, Macaulay, George Campbell (translator) The story of the winged serpents is especially contentious, critics claiming that Herodotus dallies in pure fantasy. However, this is one case where Herodotus is quite clear that he is not recounting second hand tales, this is based on his own travels. He did see the "bones of serpents and spines in quantity so great that it is impossible to make report of the number." Either Herodotus is lying in which case there is nothing more to add. Or - he is telling the truth. Let's look at the possibilities. Could this be similar to his tale of the griffins guarding their nests in central Asia? These accounts he must have picked up from the merchants traversing the ancient incense trail to China - known in Roman and medieval times as the Silk Road. Scholars now think that the fossilized remains of lion sized, beak shaped dinosaurs known as protoceratops, exposed by the shifting sands of the Gobi and Taklamaklan deserts were the inspiration behind the tall tales told by the karwan travellers. But Herodotus claims that the winged serpents were alive and common at the time he visited Egypt in the 5th century BC! In 1923 AD the protean genius Reginald A. Fessenden, an associate of equal stature with Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers proposed a solution. In his now mostly forgotten and out of print account of The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus determines what the mysterious winged serpents of Arabia were. "They are now found (only) in the islands of the Malay Archipelago, but when the land to the west was covered with trees and the climate was not so dry, they migrated in immense swarms as far as Egypt and the Caucasus. They never got actually into Egypt, but died in the ravines leading to the Egyptian plain. "...the Egyptians thought that they were killed by the ibis, but it was really due to the change in temperature and humidity, though the ibis may have been contributary by halting the migration. "Herodotus describes them correctly as having membranous and not feathered wings and of different colors. The authorities say that the colors are very vivid, blue, red and yellow, and one naturalist says they look like immense butterflies, soaring through the air. "...the ancients were extremely afraid of them. They were nearly three feet long and lived in trees, on the insects, and could soar from limb to limb or run with very great rapidity on the ground. Though they are truly lizards they look just like a snake, being very slender and with a long tail. Two of their so-called wings are rib extensions, and these are what are used for flying. "They fly very well," says H.C. Havens, a field naturalist of the American Museum of Natural History. "Strabo says that they emitted drops of liquid which caused blood poisoning, but he had not personally investigated the subject as Herodotus had, and the authorities are agreed that they, the Agamidae, are harmless." The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus, Fessenden, Reginald A. The winged serpents were of the genus of the lizard family Agamidae. Members of the genus are commonly referred to as flying lizards or Draco volans, because scaly membranes between the forelegs and hindlegs allow them to glide from tree to tree.
More than 15 species still exist in the forests of Southeast Asia and the East Indies. The horned variety that could be called Draco volans arabicus as described by Herodotus has vanished. The global climactic changes of 536 AD caused by the eruption of Kapi Krakatau may have been partially responsible for their extinction. No skeletal remains have been discovered for the simple reason no one has taken the story seriously enough to look. The obvious place to look based on The Histories would be in the location of the ancient city of Buto - unfortunately the city has been long abandoned and it's location uncertain. At best guess it was in the Nile Delta and in prehistoric times was the capital of the tribes of Lower Egypt. Not surprisingly, the city was built around a temple dedicated to the serpent god. |
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