The Herodotus Encyclopedia. Группа авторов
of XERXES’ invasion in 480 BCE, the Athenians debate the meaning of a potentially ominous ORACLE in open assembly. Although the experts in oracular interpretation conclude that it advised flight, the Athenians choose rather to follow THEMISTOCLES’ more optimistic interpretation to resist by SEA (7.142–43). Herodotus then notes that on a previous occasion Themistocles persuaded the dēmos to invest in a fleet (7.144). Both decisions contribute directly to the Greek victory over Persia (7.139). On the other end of the spectrum, however, Herodotus’ assemblies are capable of immense folly. PEISISTRATUS tricks the Athenians into providing him with a bodyguard which he subsequently uses to seize control of the state (1.59.3–5). DEIOCES maneuvers the MEDES into making him king (1.97).
On several occasions Herodotus explicitly juxtaposes PRAISE and criticism for the capacity of popular assemblies to manage public business. In the CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE, OTANES (1) commends the benefits of bringing decisions before the people (3.80.6) immediately before MEGABYXUS (1) (3.81.1–2) and Darius (3.82.4) accuse such popular assemblies of rank incompetence. MAEANDRIUS (II), the TYRANT of Samos, hopes to be thought the most just of men by handing power to the people and calls an assembly for that purpose, but during the meeting a prominent Samian demands he give an account of his rule. Maeandrius becomes frightened, the opportunity is lost, and Samos remains a tyranny (3.142–43). Later, Herodotus credits freedom of speech (isēgoriē) in the new Athenian DEMOCRACY with the meteoric rise of that state (5.78). But soon thereafter ARISTAGORAS (1), the tyrant of MILETUS, fools the assembly into contributing ships to the IONIAN REVOLT, a decision Herodotus calls “the beginning of evils for both Greeks and BARBARIANS” (5.97). King CLEOMENES of Sparta rejected the same offer earlier (5.50–51), and the contrast prompts Herodotus to observe that the whole of the assembly was easier to deceive than a single man (5.97.2).
Much work has been done on the Athenian assembly and the related concept of isēgoriē (see Saxenhouse 1996, 2006). For more on Greek assemblies generally, see the brief survey by Mitchell (2006, 370–73) or the more extensive treatment by Ruzé (1997).
SEE ALSO: Advisers; Deception; Freedom; polis
REFERENCES
1 Fornara, Charles W. 1971. Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2 Mitchell, Lynette. 2006. “Greek Government.” In A Companion to the Classical Greek World, edited by Konrad H. Kinzl, 367–86. Malden, MA: Wiley‐Blackwell.
3 Ruzé, Françoise. 1997. Délibération et pouvoir dans la cité grecque: de Nestor à Socrate. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.
4 Saxonhouse, Arlene W. 1996. Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
5 Saxonhouse, Arlene W. 2006. Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6 Van der Veen, J. E. 1996. The Significant and the Insignificant. Five Studies in Herodotus’ View of History. Amsterdam: Gieben.
ASSESUS (Ἀσσησός, ἡ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Modern Mengerevtepe, in the territory of ancient MILETUS (see Map 4 in Gorman 2001, 283), site of an archaic temple of ATHENA. Herodotus reports (1.19–22) that the temple was accidentally burned down by the invasion force of the Lydian king ALYATTES, who then fell ill. He was instructed by the PYTHIA at DELPHI to restore it. In the meantime, he came to a peace agreement with Miletus, after which he built not one but two temples to Athena.
German excavations in the 1990s (Graeve 1995) approximately 4 miles southeast of the ancient city of Miletus uncovered evidence for a sanctuary, including Greek SCULPTURES from the tenth through the sixth century BCE and a cup (phiale) bearing an inscription to Athena Assesia (Herrmann et al. 2006, 173). The temple appears to have been destroyed around 600—which would fit Herodotus’ Alyattes story—and then again in 494, when the Persians sacked Miletus during the IONIAN REVOLT.
The mention of an archon (magistrate) of Assesus in a fragment of Nicolaus of Damascus (FGrHist 90 F52) may indicate the presence of a community there with some measure of autonomy in the ARCHAIC AGE.
SEE ALSO: Archaeology; Temples and Sanctuaries
REFERENCES
1 Gorman, Vanessa B. 2001. Miletos, the Ornament of Ionia: A History of the City to 400 B.C.E. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
2 Graeve, Volmar von. 1995. “Milet 1992–1993.” AA 1995/2: 195–333.
3 Herrmann, Peter, Wolfgang Günther, and Norbert Ehrhardt, eds. 2006. Inschriften von Milet, Teil 3: Inschriften n. 1020–1580. Berlin: De Gruyter.
FURTHER READING
IACP, p. 1082.
ASSYRIANS
JOSEF WIESEHÖFER
Kiel University
Herodotus offers little concrete information about the Assyrians, and their relationship with the Babylonians remains relatively vague. What is certain for him is that the Assyrians once ruled a large territory that included BABYLON, and that their empire lasted for about 520 years before the MEDES revolted and the Assyrians lost a large part of their former ALLIES (1.95.2). In the end, the Assyrians were defeated by the Medes under their king CYAXARES, who also conquered the Assyrian capital of Ninus (i.e., NINEVEH). Herodotus knows nothing of the anti‐Assyrian Medo‐Babylonian coalition which destroyed Nineveh in 612 BCE (ABC 3 in Grayson 1975), and for him Babylon is the most important city of the Assyrians and their royal center after the fall of Nineveh. As for the kings of Assyria, he mentions NINUS, whom he considers to be the eponymous founder of the metropolis of the same name, and his son SARDANAPALLUS (2.150). Presumably, Ninus is to be equated with BELUS’ son of the same name, the father of AGRON; Agron was the great‐great‐grandson of HERACLES and founded the Heraclid dynasty of LYDIA (1.7), which would result in all imperial power in ASIA—according to Herodotus—being traced back to Heracles. In the context of Egyptian history, Herodotus mentions the robbery of the treasures of Sardanapallus (2.150), but unlike his contemporaries (such as Aristophanes, Av. 1021) and especially CTESIAS later, there is no mention of an effeminate and scandalous ruler of this name. SENNACHERIB, king of the ARABIANS and Assyrians, is Herodotus’ last Assyrian king. He starts a campaign against king SETHOS of EGYPT, which miraculously fails because field‐mice gnaw the leather parts of the Assyrian soldiers’ weapons (2.141).
SEE ALSO: Cross‐references; Heracleidae; Near Eastern History; Syrians
REFERENCE
1 Grayson, A. K. 1975. Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin.
FURTHER READING
1 Bichler, Reinhold. 2007 [2004]. “Some Observations on the Image of the Assyrian and Babylonian Kingdoms within the Greek Tradition.” In Historiographie—Ethnographie—Utopie. Gesammelte Schriften, Teil 1: Studien zu Herodots Kunst der Historie, edited by Robert Rollinger, 209–28. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
2 Rollinger, Robert. 2017. “Assyria in Classical Sources.” In A Companion to Assyria, edited by Eckart Frahm, 570–82. Malden, MA: Wiley‐Blackwell.
ASTACUS (Ἀστακός, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Mythical, patronymic, father of MELANIPPUS (5.67.2). Melanippus was one of the seven defenders of THEBES in the conflict