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

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obvious similarities attract Herodotus, from their wide, desert expanses to their great
rivers. These likenesses make possible more comparisons and differences. For example,
the common wildernesses of Egypt and Scythia bring into focus the differences of how
they each make use of their land.
As much as it is necessary to ask how these two cultures are different and similar,
it is just as important to ask what Herodotus chooses to make of their similarities and
differences in the first place. What lesson does he wish to impart to the reader? The heart
of the narrative is the campaigns of the Persian kings; Herodotus also tells us in his first
passage (1.01) that his reason for writing is "to preserve the fame of the important and
remarkable achievements produced by Greeks and non-Greeks." Another of his goals
seems to be to describe the works of the cultures that the Persians meet on their imperial
conquests, but he does not explain why he describes and compares the Egyptians and
Scythians at such length.
On a historiographical level, if we look at all the ethnographic material in the
Histories, it appears that Herodotus wishes the reader to view the world and its peoples in
a sort of grid. Scythia and Egyptians are the extremes (in several ways) and other central
cultures like the Greeks and Persians fall into place between them. Through comparisons
both explicit and implicit of these two opposite cultures, Herodotus gives the reader a
framework against which to compare the many other cultures in the Histories. We cannot
learn the erga megala of the Greeks and barbarians without the construction of a grid
within which their differences in culture and achievement can be understood.