ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at one aspect of Herodotus’ artistry that helps to characterize some of his most powerful political actors and to suggest tendencies they have in common. Herodotus begins his work, however, not with the Ionian Greeks’ unsuccessful revolt in 499 bce, but instead with a long description of the growth of the Persian Empire, starting more than half a century earlier and often looking back even farther. The chapter proposes that Herodotus uses stories of spectacle-making to convey, by poetic suggestion rather than explicit argument, some aspects of absolute rule. In general, Herodotus does show that power concentrated in a single person brings trouble, but he also has positive things to say about some who hold such power. Xerxes was also fooled by one of his own commanders: the Greek Artemisia, widow and successor of the tyrant of Herodotus’ own Halicarnassus.
