The Old and the Restless - The Egyptians and the Scythians in Herodotus' Histories by Robert J. Hagan

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Part II: 6. Introduction
Herodotus’ ethnography of the Persians is slight. He writes only nine chapters on the
customs of the Persians, compared to the entire books he devotes to the customs of the Egyptians
and Scythians. While it is true that the central thread of the Persian Empire’s expansion does
give the reader details of Persian culture along the way, they are few and far between. It is
therefore clear that Herodotus intended to frame the Persians in a different way than the
Egyptians and Scythians. Whereas those two civilizations illustrate the sometimes extreme
differences from Greek culture, the Persians are not so different from the Greeks, despite their
assertions to the contrary. They drink wine, and even practice pederasty, which Herodotus
mentions that they learned from the Greeks (1.135).
The Persians are not an extreme culture from the Greek perspective. Their climate is mild
and they have customs that are not unrecognizable to Greek observer. While their ethnography is
short, Herodotus spends a great deal of time on Persian history, and this is what determines the
Persian character throughout the Histories. He focuses on the kings and various characters in the
Persian world, rather than the daily activities and curious traditions of the common people. The
tensions facing the Persians as they transcend their nomadic origins towards their status as a
superpower are reflected in these characters.
This chapter will place the Persians in the grid we have created consisting of the
Egyptians and Scythians, in order to examine their culture as compared with those that are
deemed to be extremes. We will seek to discern the Persian role in the Histories as a people
surrounded by one culture that is arguably “overcivilized” and another that is “undercivilized.”