Bulgaroctonus

Gunnut,

Herodotus is the oldest surviving Greek narrative historian, and the oldest surviving narrative historian for that matter. It is almost certain that there were other accounts of the battle, probably even eye-witness accounts from the other Greeks present. However, none of that material has survived, although Herodotus does reference several authors in his works. I am not aware of any surviving texts that would corroborate or detract from Herodotus' tale. However, I am not an expert on the period or its accompanying textual evidence, so I encourage you to make an inquiry of your own.

This is from the introduction to my edition of the Histories. The introduction is by Donald Lateiner, editing G.C. Macaulay's 1890 translation:

Herodotus names many sources, literary, documentary, oral, and material. His accounts of Persian tribute and the Persian royal post (3.89-97 and 8.98-words of the latter are recorded in the stone architrave of Manhattan's old main Post Office), and the battle numbers and lineup of the Greeks who fought the Persians (8.43 for Salamis, 9.28 for Plataia) seem, because of their unexpected detail, to be based on written records. These documents can be archival records from Dareios' and Xerxes' palace at Persepolis; inscriptions on stone records and dedications (twenty of these-for example, in 2.106 and 4.91); legends and types on gold, silver, and other coins; some archaeological remains, such as extant and ruined structures (8.53); and more recent commemorative monuments (see 7.228 and 9.81; the latter describes the Serpent Column, still extant and for millennia on display in Istanbul). Some inscriptions were written in Greek and others in languages presumably unknown to Herodotus, including Egyptian, "Assyrian," as he styles them, and old Persian, the latter for the account to Dareios' rise to power, if Herodotus knew anything of the Behistun inscription (a massive rock-cut inscription and set of bas-reliefs extant still in Iran; relevant at 3.68-87) and did not merely hear it from an oral informant. His literary sources include prose writers and poets. Among the first we count the geographer and mythographer Hecataios and perhaps the explorer and geographer Skylax (compare 4.44; see Drews, The Greek Accounts of Eastern History, and Luraghi's collection of essays The Historian's Craft in the Age of Herodotus). Among the second are Sappho, Pindar, and Aeschylus, the tragedian, who perhaps fought the invader at Marathon and Salamis and then wrote the Persians (see Lateiner, The Historical Method of Herodotus, pp. 91-108).

Most of Herodotus' sources were certainly oral: individuals and groups with whom he spoke, such as descendants of the Spartans who died at Thermopylai (7.224), or acquaintances of participants in battle at Marathon or Salamis (Epizelos at 6.117 and Dicaios at 8.65). Herodotus pauses to note (2.99) when his sources for Egyptian information change from his own observation (autopsy is the Greek term) to hearsay. In between come eyewitness reports, and invaluable but slippery slope for past events.

The impersonal voice presents hundreds of Hellenic and barbarian partisan and partial accounts, some preserved in writing (see Drews) but more collected from oral informants. More than two hundred sources are identified with some specifics (individuals sometimes by name, but more often "the Egyptians say", "the Samians claim," "it is said by the Persians," etc). Sources are not rarely entirely anonymous (more than one hundred such citations). Specific informants are generally mentioned because they disagree. Some sources are cited for expert knowledge, others because of their presence at events where particular actions are disputed, such as what part the Corinthians played at the battle of Salamis (8.94). Herodotus both names sources (unlike the suppressive Thucydides) nad leaves their conflicting versions side by side within his text for the reader to decide among (for example, 3.122, 4.195, 6.75, 8.87, again unlike and independent opinion; it does not need to depend on the judgment of fallible observers or self-appointed authorities (for an extensive inventory, see Lateiner, pp. 84-90).

Citation itself may have been a Herodotean innovation. Among his unnamed sources-and perhaps we should think of these as his intellectual context-are nonhistorical writers and thinkers who influenced his Histories. These include the so-called pre-Socratic philosophers, the itinerant Sophists such as Protagoras, the Hippocratic medical writers, and other investigators working in scientific fields such as geology and climatology (as Rosalind Thomas has demonstrated in Herodotus in Context).

Herodotus weighs the conflicting accounts, judges them, and when the evidence permits, accepts one or none of them. Whether or not he explicitly selects one, or elements of several, among the logoi or accounts received-and he is more transparent about his procedure here than Thucydides and the rest of his alleged successors-he creates his own account from the congeries and and from self-revealing silences. That narrator's account therefore encompasses the polyphony of his sources. Although managing the living historical tradition-including, excluding explicitly, ordering, sequencing, admitting a failure to find a dependable account, etc. -Herodotus does not suppress the data that he has excavated, the histor's (investigator's) spade-work. By telling the reader when he is supervising the sometimes rambunctious logoi (by means of metanarrative signposting - see, for example, 1.95, 2.43, 4.10-11, 4.30, 5.62, and 9.84; compare Munson, pp. 20-24 and 32-37, and Dewald, "'I didn't give my own genealogy': Herodotus and the Authorial Personality," pp. 274-276), Herodotus preserves (or encourages us to believe that he preserves) the autonomy of future readers and investigators.

Nevertheless, Herodotus' lively mind seeps through his story-that is, a narrator's persona emerges in the text, however true or untrue it may be to the personality of the dead author. That persona can be combative, dispensing praise and blame to other researchers as well as to the veterans and politicians still fighting the last generation's battles. He admires clear thinkers and clever tricksters like the Halicarnassian queen Artemisia; he (intermittently) defends the Athenian general and later turncoat Themistocles, and he respects the exiled Spartan king Demaratos (compare Boedeker, "The Two Faces of Demaratus"), an eloquent Laconian.

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Regards,

Bulgaroctonus

Wraith601

Agreed.

Then you have poor taste.

Actually there will be a another mini-series in late summer/early fall. One reason for the delay is Sci-Fi proably has a lot tied up in SG-1's last season and wants to focus on that. Besides with the expansion to 22 episodes for Season 4, they need more time to write and shoot than with a 13 episode season.

The last two movies are pretty good, the first one is boring as all hell. Tolkien's writing style puts me to sleep though. I can only endure so many 10 page songs about fire elves or some other rubbish.

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leib10

I can agree with that. The songs get annoying after a while, so I just skipped them when I read LOTR.

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dalem

I know you are but what am I?

Don't act like I insulted your girlfriend. So the show doesn't appeal to me, who cares? So you see me getting all poopy about Gunnut or whoever it is above who thinks LOTR is boring?

So? In my opinion it's too long to carry the average TV viewer. No loss for me, but that's my opinion.

And I eat the stuff up. To each his own. And I'm talking about the books here, not the movies.

-dale

braindead

I still don´t know should I sneak out alone to see the ´´300´´ or should I take my wife to cinema and endure the whole movie her hysterical giggling . thats what you get when you marry an archaeologist
oh and does it feature much slow-motion and heroism , or is more blood and guts ?

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xerxes

BSG is not that bad, certainly for someone like myself who doesnt watch too much, an out-of-reality show like BSG is most wellcome.

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If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon

deadkenny

Now, you had to realize that the Tolkien fans would spring to the defense of LoTR's, didn't you?

First, internal logical problems with the proposed plan:

1. You brush off the 'not very moral' aspect of your proposed plan - but the entire war is about good vs. evil. The 'good' guys, for the most part, determine that they cannot use the ring against Sauron because you cannot use 'evil' against 'evil' without becoming evil yourself. That is both a literal function of the ring, but also an allegory for 'ends justifying the means' etc.

2. You assume that the baby could not become 'corrupt' Why not? Likely the baby would be unable to resist the urge to 'wear' the ring, and Sauron would immediately be aware of where the ring was and the baby would become a 'puppet' of Sauron. For that matter, you assume that the eagles would be able to resist the ring. Rather than your organized squadron of eagles on their 'kamikaze' mission, you would likely have half the eagles trying to 'grab' the ring from the baby, to become 'Windlord' themselves, and the other half trying to stop them.

3. My understanding is that we're not talking about an open topped volcano. Access appears to be through a 'tunnel' on the side of the mountain, the entrance lined up with Sauron's tower. Thus it may not be as simple as 'dropping' in the ring from 'high altitude'. Furthermore, Sauron appears to have Mordor under constant 'observation' (himself). The Hobbits 'slipped under the radar' so to speak. One gets the impression that a large 'squadron' of eagles, including the Windlord, and carrying the ring, would not have such an easy time 'sneaking' into Mordor undetected. Here one is faced with the trade off between a 'small' force that might be able to 'sneak' in but isn't strong enough to fight if detected (which was the option selected) vs. a strong force that can fight but then has less chance of escaping detection. The council chose the former course, presumably with good reason.

4. Part of the problem with the council's decision was that the various groups could not agree on which 'race' should be 'trusted' with the ring - Dwarves, Elves, Humans... So why would they suddenly 'trust' the eagles, who did not have a representative present at the council? For that matter, who says that the eagles would be willing to do it? Perhaps the 'great eagles' (as opposed to the regular variety) where getting as rare as the other 'ancient races' (Ents, etc.) and they would be unwilling to 'throw away' their few remaining numbers on a 'suicide' mission as described.

Of course the 'real' anwser, outside of the internal logic of the story, is likely as has been suggested - any other 'simpler' alternative would make a less interesting story.

dalem

Yes.

-dale

dalem

Also the "reality" is that the Eagles were a true deus ex machina - they were agents of the Valar (gods, specifically Manwe) and would never, in LOTR terms, consent to being used as simple taxis.

The Valar could help Gandalf in his extreme times of personal stress (i.e. death or capture) because he was also an agent of the Valar, and did so by sending Gwaihir, and could occasionally effect minor changes in Middle Earth that could help people who had already made decisions to take action (the little stream that Sam finds on the way to Mordor) but would never simply "reach in" and do things. They would not destroy the Palantirs or stop Boromir from choking the life out of Frodo and taking the Ring, for instance.

Sending the Eagles to the Black Gate at the final moment was done to give a bump to the final fight - the decision had already been made to fight the hopeless fight - not to win, but to give Frodo another half day if he were still alive and couild use it.

-dale

gunnut

Absolutely. I usually tell them I have an unsual hatred for elves. I like nothing less than total annihilation of elves. Not sure why. I just do.

For the same reason why the hobbits don't get corrupted by the ring.

That I totally agree. Sometimes the most direct answer is not the best answer.

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gunnut

Totally agree. A bunch of whiny b!itches floating in space acting like the human race is not in peril and conducting their daily soap opera of a life without a care.

I hate petty drama. I want to see things on a larger scale. Survival of the human race. Defeat the empire. Restore the Republic. Free the Jafas from the Gou'ld. Face the borg. Yada yada yada...

LongshotSNN

Uh, Gunnut. Both Frodo and Bilbo were affected by wearing the Ring.

Samwise was also affected by the One Ring. See the few paras just before Gollum buys the farm (Frodo claiming the Ring for his own) and also where Frodo regains consciousness after Samwise rescues him from Minas Morgul. (Samwise is reluctant to give up the Ring despite hanging it around his neck after Frodo was poisoned by Shelob)

Likewise, Bilbo couldn't help asking for the Ring back from Frodo during the pit-stop at Rivendell despite formally giving it up.

(Inner Tolkienite.....emerging...Must resist....)

deadkenny

Maybe it's the fact that most of them were 'cutting and running' for 'the west' when the going got tough in Middle Earth.


As someone has stated, the Hobbits were affected, eventually (supposedly they were 'unusually' resistant). Not only did Bilbo barely 'escape' by 'giving' the ring to Frodo (with a little timely assistance by Gandalf), but Frodo himself finally succumbed to the lure of the ring on Mt. Doom. At the last instant he couldn't bring himself to destroy it and claimed it for himself instead. It was only Gollum's 'timely intervention' (if not his intention) that resulted in the ring being destroyed (hope I haven't played the 'spoiler' for anyone ).

gunnut

An infant can't put the ring on by itself nor understand the power it holds. An infant has no concept of power. An infant is innocent. Therefore, I conclude, an infant is far more resistant than even a hobbit is to the ring's power.

I know logic is hard in the realm of magic. But humor my thought. It's actually quite entertaining.

Like I always had this question about why vampires are afraid of sunlight. And what component of the sunlight they're afraid of. We should isolate that and create portable weapon systems to kill vampires. Soon after this thought, it was implemented in Blade 2 or Blade 3.

How about gargoyles? They transform from rock to flesh at night. What if we load one up in a plane and the play flies westward in the dark side of the earth. Does the gargoyle always stay in the flesh?

Werewolves only transform during full moon. What if we land a werewolf on the moon? Does it always stay in the wolf form?

These are the musings of a very bored geek...

dalem

Babies and the One Ring

I don't think you could "give" the One Ring to a baby - the Ring is an actor in the story and IS the most powerful evil object in all of Middle Earth. It has a tremendous amount of Sauron's power as part of its very makeup and wants to get back to him. It "slipped off" of Isildur's finger and even "got away" from Gollum under the Misty Mountains. It is no accident that these things happened when they did, and there is no assurance that it would not have been able to contrive some other event to escape a helpless baby.

-dale