19 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. During the Arab conquest of Persia, the term became a racial pejorative.[3] In many languages, including Persian, Turkish, Urdu–Hindi, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Kurdish, Gujarati, Malay, Punjabi, and Swahili, Ajam and Ajami refer to Iran and Iranians respectively.
    1. Shu'ubiyya (Arabic: الشعوبية) was a literary-political movement which opposed the privileged status of Arabs within the Muslim community and the Arabization campaigns particularly by the Ummayads.[1] The vast majority of the Shu'ubis were Persian.[2][3]
  2. Feb 2014
    1. the Phoenicians do not tell the same story about Io as the Persians

      1.5. Herodotus claims that the Phoenicians have an alternate version of the story of Io, in which she eloped willingly with the ship's captain because she was pregnant. This is an example of one type of account that Fehling thinks Herodotus invented (the story according to national bias). It is also example of what Dewald describes as Herodotus' "narrative surface", where Herodotus highlights his own process of data collection.

    2. at length the Lydians were routed and driven within their city wall, where they were besieged by the Persians.

      1.80 After the battle, the defeated Medes retreat and the Persian Army lays siege to the city of Sardis.

    3. Such is the Persian account; in their opinion, it was the taking of Troy which began their hatred of the Greeks

      Hdt. 1.5 The Persians say Troy began their hatred of the Greeks.

    4. the Persians claim Asia for their own, and the foreign peoples that inhabit it; Europe and the Greek people they consider to be separate from them.

      Hdt. 1.4 The Persians separate themselves distinctly as people of Asia from the people in Europe.

    5. “We think,” they say, “that it is unjust to carry women off. But to be anxious to avenge rape is foolish: wise men take no notice of such things. For plainly the women would never have been carried away, had they not wanted it themselves.

      Hdt. 1.4 Persian opinion of carrying women off and avenging rape.

    6. after this (the Persians say), the Greeks were very much to blame; for they invaded Asia before the Persians attacked Europe.

      Hdt. 1.4 The Persians say the Greeks were to blame; the Greeks invaded Asia before the Persians attacked Europe.

    7. In this way, the Persians say (and not as the Greeks ), was how Io came to Egypt, and this, according to them, was the first wrong that was done

      Hdt. 1.2 The Persians say this was how Io came to Egypt ad that it was the first wrong.

    8. Persian learned men say that the Phoenicians were the cause of the dispute

      Hdt. 1.1 The Persians blame the Phoenicians for their dispute.

    9. But Pactyes, learning that an army sent against him was approaching, was frightened and fled to Cyme.

      1.157 Pactyes escapes to Cyme in order to avoid the wrath of Cyrus and the approaching Persian army. This vignette of conflict within the Achaemenids/Persians is still a long way from its conclusion.

    10. Pactyes made the Lydians revolt from Tabalus and Cyrus

      1.154 Division within the Persians. Pactyes revolts against Cyrus, taking over the treasury of Sardis and leading a rebellion.

    11. all except the Milesians, with whom alone Cyrus made a treaty on the same terms as that which they had with the Lydians.

      1.141 Herodotus singles out the relationship Cyrus establishes with the Milesians (distinct from the one formed with the Ionians and Aeolians). It is one definitively more favorable terms having been previously set down in a treaty rather than bartered for.

    12. the Ionians and Aeolians sent messengers to Cyrus, offering to be his subjects on the same terms as those which they had under Croesus.

      1.141 The Ionians and Aeolians attempt to make a defensive alliance with Cyrus and his Persians (in order to avoid destruction and plundering). They seek the same favorable terms they had under Croesus. Cyrus sees this as presumptuous, when neither of these nations came to his aid and now expected favors from him.

    13. The chief tribe is that of the Pasargadae; to them belongs the clan of the Achaemenidae, the royal house of Persia.

      1.125 This is the first mention of the "Achaemenid Empire" in Herodotus. It is referenced as the chief tribe among the Persians and the house to which Cyrus himself belongs. This mentions comes after the back story of the birth, abandonment, then ascendancy of Cyrus, and his victory over his estranged father Astyages.

    14. e. The Persians took him and brought him to Cyrus, who erected a pyre and mounted Croesus atop it, bound in chains

      1.86 Croesus is captured after the siege is broken and taken to Cyrus to be sacrificed. All this in fulfillment of prophecy.

    15. So then they were besieged.

      The Persian army lays siege to Sardis, the capitol and last foothold of Croesus and the Medes. In the culmination of this siege, Croesus's forces will be overcome and the monarch himself will be captured by his enemies, fulfilling the prophecy from 1.13 and reiterated in 1.53.

    16. So when battle was joined, as soon as the horses smelled and saw the camels they turned to flight, and all Croesus' hope was lost.

      1.80.5 Cyrus scores a definitive victory over the forces of Croesus, employing camel cavalry corps. This is the beginning of the end for Croesus who begins grasping at strings and looking for allies to help him defeat the Persians.

  3. Jan 2014
    1. Many stories are told of Cyrus' death; this, that I have told, is the most credible.

      Hdt. 1.214: Cyrus seems to have been buried at Pasargadae, where there is a built tomb associated with him (http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922693/location-of-tomb-of-cyrus-the-great).