A Father of History?
Incorrect, depending upon your point of view. Herodotus does not cover all of history, only the Persian wars. He consistently deviates into personal reflections on various cultures’ religious culture and legends, and does not point to specific dates or moments in time when certain events occur. It is perhaps his method of recounting tales that makes him a worthy contender for such a title. His reflections of the background of the various nations and personalities involved in the Persian wars gives the reader a deeper understanding than most sources from that time, and particularly, gives the narrative a more aesthetically pleasing nature than other advocates. He does not take sides in recounting the story, a flaw in many historians such as Plutarch and Thucydides, and a fact which has likely been admired by future generations. In my opinion, the two main faults with the Penguin classics edition of The Histories, is that dates are not given, and Herodotus gives far too much credit to religion in general(albeit making his theories on the wrath of the gods seem credible at the same time). The book has been written in chronological order, but anyone who hasn’t studied Ancient History as we did would have some difficulty in getting their head around the mass of information.

I’m not entirely sure as to why Ondaatje decided to make The Histories as the central intertextual reference in The English Patient. It does not carry descriptions of the desert’s beauty as implied, except for perhaps the story about the dog sized gold-sand digging ants that lived in Arabia. Understandably, the detail to which Herodotus recounts the cultural traditions of numerous societies is to be admired, but on the whole it is not as relevant to the English Patient as I had originally suspected. The exception, perhaps, is the story of Candaules and Gyges, which relates to Almasy and George Clifton. Some points in particular appealed to me, such as the advice of Artabanus to Xerxes, the Persian king, on going after the Greeks. “You know, my lord, that amongst living creatures it is the great ones that God smites with his thunder, nor does he allow them to show off. The little ones do not vex him. It is always the great buildings and the tall trees which are struck by lightning. It is God’s way to bring the lofty low. Often a great army is destroyed by a little one, when God in his envy puts fear into the men’s hearts, or sends a thunderstorm, and they are cut to pieces in a way they do not deserve. For God tolerates pride in none but Himself”. This is interesting because although the Persians outnumbered the Greeks by hundreds of thousands, they were defeated (primarily by the Greeks advantages in terrain, a united force, better training and armour, and better leadership).

“Slander is a wicked thing: in case of slander two parties do wrong and one suffers by it. The slanderer is guilt in that he speaks ill of a man behind his back: and the man who listens to him is guilty in that he takes his word without troubling to find out the truth. The slandered person suffers doubly – from the disparaging words of the one and from the belief of the other that he deserves the disparagement”. Yet again later Artabanus gives Xerxes important philosophical advice. “ “I was thinking,’ Xerxes replied, ‘and it came into my mind how pitifully short human life is – for all these thousands of men not one will be alive in a hundred years’ time”.
It is perhaps these important quotes that gave The Histories its position of such importance in The English Patient. The advice of Artabanus relates to Caravaggio’s arrogance before he was captured, and his faith in the mortality of the human life. Perhaps Ondaatje chose The Histories because it reflects identity though nations. Herodotus pays close attention to the traditional, cultural and religious differences between each society, and how important it was that the massive Persian army was defeated because it was a multinational force with no loyalty to its overlord. The Persian army had little cohesiveness; when someone panics, they tend to slip into hold habit such as their native language, and of course that would have made difficulties in tactical operation. Herodotus also makes out similarities between what would have been considered completely different societies, mostly due to the fact of the similarity in human nature the world over. I think that it is this, mostly, that made its appeal to Ondaatje for use in the English Patient.

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