Herodotus: On the Customs of the Persians, C. 430 Bce

Herodotus: On the Customs of the Persians, c. 430 BCE

Question 1

Herodotus found that the Persians, as a nation, adopted the customs and religious practices of other nations very quickly as compared to any other nation of the world. For example, they felt that the dresses of the Medes were superior as compared to their dresses, the Persians adopted their dresses. Similarly, they adopted the breastplates from Egypt to wear those plates during war. Similar was the case with religious practices. Whatever they found attractive or anything that provided them with some kind of east, was adopted by the Persians. Herodotus found this practice very strange because this was in contrast to what he had studied about the Greeks. The Greeks, as a nation, were very consistent with their customs and religious practices and they did not adopted the religious practices of the other nations very quickly.

Question 2

There were several religious practices that the Greeks performed. First, they had a number of Gods for different purposes. They used to offer sacrifices to different Gods at different days of the year. The purposes of offering the sacrifice was to make the Gods happy. They used to make deserts and different meals including meals. They offered these meals to the poor people of their society. The Greeks were very consistent with their customs and religious practices. They did not adopt the customs and religious practices from the other nations of the world. They used to perform their religious practices and rituals with dedication and regularly. Their sons were considered as their major strength so they had many sons. The person with larger number of sons was awarded by the king as well.

Question 3

Herodotus studied the culture of the Persians and he found several practices very interesting. Some of the elements of culture were distinctive and different from those of the Greeks. For example, a person with leprosy was considered to have sinned against the Sun. The sun was considered to be God. Therefore, the person was not allowed to enter their city. Similarly, if any foreigner had this disease, he/she had to leave their city immediately. Even white pigeons were not allowed to enter those cities. Second important cultural element was the fact that they chose their names that expressed something excellent bodily of mental feature. A specific word was used as their last name that indicated something excellent. This was a very peculiar practices that was not observed by most of the historians who studied the Persians but the Herodotus notices them. Third, they had a very strong reverence for the rivers. They did not add the secretions from their bodies into the river. The people were not even allowed to wash hand in river.

Question 4

I believe Herodotus mentioned several features of Persian civilization that he would have admired. For example, the Persians does not even talk about the acts that are considered as illegal by the society. It was considered as disgraceful to tell a lie. The people were not allowed to take debts because they considered that the business of debt servicing involved telling lies. These were some of the distinctive features of their civilization that kept their nations from different kinds of sins and social problems. I think Herodotus found these customs as different from other civilization and he was impressed to find them in Persians as the Persians were not very consistent with their customs.