The Herodotus Encyclopedia. Группа авторов
unusual adaptability to foreign customs, Herodotus notes that they wear Median DRESS, fight in Egyptian corselets, and adopt luxuries of all kinds as soon as they hear of them (1.135).
Not only visual objects but olfactory substances adorn the body. Babylonian men of means anoint their whole bodies with perfumes. The Persians anoint themselves with perfumes, to the Ethiopian king’s amusement (3.22). The MAXYES smear their entire bodies with unguents of red ochre (4.191). Arabian foot soldiers smear half their body with white chalk, half with red ochre (7.69).
Lack or disruption of adornment also sends a message. DEMOCEDES, a Samian PRISONER OF WAR, came to court dressed in the rags left to him and dragging chains (3.129). He was summoned to supply Hellenic doctoring to the wrenched ankle and leg of Great King DARIUS I. Similarly degrading but performed purposefully to register sympathetic GRIEF and humbling, men and women of the Persian nobility rent their garments when they learned of the naval disaster at SALAMIS (8.99, as in AESCHYLUS’ Persae; 3.66). ZOPYRUS (1) the Persian, to persuade the Babylonians he had been treated as Persian criminals were, cut off his own nose and ears and scourged himself (3.154); his anti‐adornment DECEPTION works.
Herodotus reports normal modes of ethnic hairstyles and others responding to crises such as PUNISHMENT, DEATH, and battle‐peril. The Babylonians, Persians, and Spartans let their hair grow long (1.195; 6.19; 7.208). Egyptian PRIESTS shave their heads, whereas in other lands priests let their hair grow long (2.36). Ordinary Egyptian men in mourning, however, allow their hair to grow long (unlike other nations’ customs) on the head and the chin (otherwise shaven). Arabs cut their hair in a round circle and shave their temples (3.8). The African tribes of Book 4 display a range of styles: long in the back, long in the front (4.180); long on the right but short on the left (4.191); long tufts in the middle of shaved heads (4.175). Herodotus notes that the eastern ETHIOPIANS (Indians) have straight hair; the western (Africans), the wooliest and thickest among men—a feature of natural, distinguishing adornment. Disruption of normal hair, like clothing, can indicate distress: Zopyrus shaved his hair in an unseemly fashion to deceive the Babylonians into believing that he had been punished (3.156; cf. 2.121.δ). The Milesians shaved their heads and put on mourning garb when CROTON took SYBARIS (6.21). But the Spartiates, putting their lives on the line, attend to combing their hair (7.208–9)—noted by the relativist Herodotus as beyond the absolutist Xerxes’ comprehension of NOMOS.
Royalty has distinctive adornment, not only elaborate robes but crowns, scepters, and even attendants and guards. Objects and persons provide them with an extreme of human adornment as they process or sit in state. GYGES SON OF DASCYLUS dedicated his golden throne at DELPHI (1.14; cf. 3.30, throne and royal bow)—not portable but certainly a metonymic adornment of his power and person at rest.
SEE ALSO: Anthropology; Burial Customs; Ethnicity; Ethnography; Silver; Softness; Textiles; Weapons and Armor; Women in the Histories
FURTHER READING
1 Gherchanoc, Florence, and Valérie Huet, eds. 2012. Vêtements antiques: s’habiller, se déshabiller dans les mondes antiques. Paris: Errance.
2 Lateiner, Donald. 1987. “Nonverbal Communication in the Histories of Herodotus.” Arethusa 20: 83–119, esp. 95–100.
3 Rollinger, Robert. 2004. “Herodotus, Human Violence, and the Ancient Near East.” In The World of Herodotus, edited by Vassos Karageorghis and Ioannis Taifacos, 121–50. Nicosia: Foundation Anastasios G. Leventis.
BODY, see BODILY ADORNMENT; DRESS; HAIR; MUTILATION; NAKEDNESS; PUNISHMENT
BOEBEIS, LAKE (ἡ Βοιβηὶς λίμνη)
MELODY WAUKE
University of Notre Dame
Lake in eastern THESSALY, west of Magnesia and Mt. PELION (BA 55 D1; Müller I, 318–19). In Herodotus’ explanation of how all of Thessaly was formerly a giant lake, he notes that the RIVERS flowing down from the surrounding mountains and Lake Boebeis were at that time not yet distinct and thus without names (7.129.3; cf. Strabo 9.5.2/C430). HOMER in the Catalogue of Ships mentions the lake, on whose shores Pherae sat (Il. 2.711); there was also a city named Boebe (Strabo 9.5.15/C436). The modern Lake Karla has recently been partially restored, after it was drained by the Greek government in 1962.
SEE ALSO: Geology; Magnesia in Greece; Peneius River
BOEOTIANS (Βοιωτοί, οἱ)
MAURO MOGGI
University of Siena
Boeotia refers to the region of central Greece bounded by PHOCIS (and Mt. PARNASSUS) and Locris on the north, Attica on the south; the large island of EUBOEA lay just off the coast to the east. For those approaching from the north, after the mountainous area around THERMOPYLAE and DELPHI, Boeotia provided relatively easy access to southern Greece. In the ARCHAIC AGE and classical period, THEBES was its most important city.
The Boeotians appear for the first time in Greek literature at the outset of the Catalogue of Ships (Hom. Il. 2.484–510), and their entry occupies the first and most relevant place in HOMER’s review—in stark opposition to the secondary role played by the Boeotians themselves in the rest of the poem. In fact, the section dedicated to the Boeotians is the largest among those that Homer reserves to the participants of the expedition: the Boeotians’ contingent consists of 29 poleis, 5 leaders, and 50 ships (120 men per ship: Thuc. 1.10.4). ORCHOMENUS, not yet part of Boeotia (Hdt. 8.34; Thuc. 4.76.3), is listed separately (Il. 2.511–16). It is due to Orchomenus’ past Mycenaean greatness that we know of ancient rivalries between Orchomenus and Thebes, resolved in Greek MYTH by HERACLES’ intervention in favor of Thebes. THUCYDIDES (1.12.3) knew of a tradition that had the Boeotians coming from the Thessalian city of Arne and settling in their historical location about sixty years after the sack of TROY.
Some passages in ancient authors and in Herodotus in particular (5.77.4, ethnea of Boeotians and Chalcidians—this occurs in an ORACLE reported by Herodotus; 9.15.1, boiōtarchai; cf. 5.74.2; 6.108.4–5) have been taken to indicate the existence of a Boeotian ethnos, with some form of state organization and elected federal magistrates (cf. Thuc. 4.91). However, these testimonies are ambiguous and must be read without anachronistic assumptions (federal state, confederation of states, league) or the application of categories derived from later examples. It is more accurate to picture a people that possessed proper regional and cultural identities, manifested through common practices (military activity, currency, cults), but that witnessed internal tensions among poleis and hegemonic attempts from some of them. The notion of a real koinon, organized around the leadership of the Thebans who responded with extreme severity to any manifestation of dissent, is generally accepted for parts of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE (446–386, 378–338). The first period came to an end with the King’s Peace; the second ended with the Battle of Chaeronea. If the koinon survived the destruction of the city by Alexander the Great in 335, it was re‐organized with a new capital in Onchestus.
Herodotus shows little interest in and great hostility against the Boeotian ethnos, which was guilty of an unforgivable original sin: the choice to “MEDIZE” in the face of XERXES’ invasion (481–479). The Boeotians as an ethnos only appear in two actions before the narrative of Xerxes’ invasion, and in both instances they are attacking ATHENS (with the Spartans, 5.74.2; with the Chalcidians, 5.77). Even when Herodotus praises them for fighting bravely, it comes in reference to PLATAEA—again, against the Athenians, and the Thebans are further credited with using their CAVALRY to protect the Persian retreat (9.67–68). Such behavior is contrasted with the brave and Panhellenic responses of Plataea and THESPIAE (7.131–32, 202, 222; 8.66.2) that defended Greece at the cost of their own destruction by the Persians (8.50.2) and then, after the wars, antagonism from the Thebans themselves (Thuc. 3.68, 4.133.1; Xen. Hell. 6.3.1, 5; 6.4.10), whose obsequious servility before the Great King (Hdt. 7.233.1–2; 8.50.2) had brought them no benefits.