Great Books Ep 107. Herodotus - The History - Book 1 (Clio), Part 2. How Trying to Prevent Fate Creates It
The attempts to control the future by trying to eliminate perceived threats like AI or human imperfection are probably less wise than guiding their development.
“Son of Cambyses, the gods assuredly watch over thee, or never wouldst thou have passed through thy many wonderful adventures”
~ ‘The History’ by Herodotus (George Rawlinson translation. GB6 - p. 29)
Brief Summary - The History - Book 1 (Clio) - Sections 92-140:
1 - Croesus & Lydia’s Legacy
When Croesus sends messengers to the oracle of Delphi asking how their prophecies could be so wrong, they respond by saying that this was meant to happen this way. Long before, when their ancestor Gyges took over, it was prophesied that the kingdom would be taken away from his descendants after five generations. In fact, Apollo had delayed it by many years to give Croesus more time. Also, the prophesy clearly stated that a mighty empire would fall and that a mule would rule. If Croesus cared to get things clarified, he might have understood the prophecy better - that the mighty empire was Lydia and the mule was Cyrus. Croesus admits his mistake.
Herodotus then catalogs Croesus’ offerings that he could still see in many cities - a golden tripod to Apollo in Thebes, golden heifers in Ephesus, a golden shield in Delphi and so on. He also mentions that Lydia didn’t possess many natural wonders other than the gold dust from Mount Tmolus, which washed down through the rivers. It also has a huge tomb of Alyattes that almost rivals the pyramids of Egypt. As per Herodotus, Lydia was the first nation to use gold and silver coins. They also invented retail trade and games. There is an interesting story of how they invented games. It seems that sometime in the past, they experienced a prolonged famine, and to conserve food, they invented games that allowed them to immerse themselves completely in play one day and eat the next. This went on for 18 years! When it persisted, they put lots and told half the country to go away.
2 - The Rise of the Median Empire
The Assyrians had ruled the regions of Upper Asia (places closer to the Caspian Sea in the Middle East) for over 500 years. The Medes were the first to revolt, and then others too. But the Medes didn’t have a central ruler until the time of Deioces, son of Phraortes. Herodotus explains how Deioces cleverly became the king. Deioces was a knowledgeable man who began gaining influence among people by mediating disputes, and as a result, people started coming to him for all issues that required justice. At his peak popularity, he withdrew, saying he was spending too much time on others and not enough time with his family. And then, the whole region fell into lawlessness. The people felt that they needed a king to rule, an idea seeded by Deioces’ supporters. Deioces was unanimously chosen as the Median King. After ascending the throne, he asked for the construction of a capital city named Agbatana (meaning meeting place). It had seven concentric walls, and he added more ceremonies and processes to make it very difficult for people to reach him directly. All messages came through layers of messengers. He felt that if he interacted directly with people, they might begin to see that he was the same as them, but if he was unreachable, the mystery would build his legend.
Deioces’ son Phraortes further expanded the kingdom. Phraortes’ son Cyaxares made the army even more powerful by organizing it into separate units (spearmen, archers, cavalry) and made more conquests. (aside: The name Cyaxares reminded me of Caraxes, Daemon Targaryen’s beautiful dragon. I agree, I’m mixing fiction with non-fiction, but the GoT lore is so deep that it feels like history!) . Cyaxares’ son was Astyages and it was during his time that the Median Empire fell to the Persian Empire.
3 - The Rise of Cyrus and the Persian Empire
Cyrus’ story is the most interesting portion of this part of the book. Astyages has a dream about his daughter Mandané in which water flowing from her floods the whole of Asia. He consults the Magi, who tell him that her offspring would destroy his empire and take over everything. In order to prevent this, Astyages decides to not marry his daughter into a Median noble family. He marries her off to an inferior noble in Persia named Cambyses. He then has another dream in which a vine from his daughter’s womb overshadows Asia. Learning that she is with child, he asks her to come back to Media. After the child is born, he asks his trusted courtier, Harpagus, to have the baby killed. Harpagus is reluctant to have the baby killed, fearing the wrath of Mandané if she came to power. He gives the baby to a herdsman and asks him to kill the baby. The herdsman’s wife had just given birth to a stillborn, and they decided to swap the babies and dress up the dead baby in royal clothes.
The boy, Cyrus, grows up as the herdsman’s son but starts showing leadership skills from a young age. The kids of his village choose him as their king, and when one of the kids from a noble family refuses to obey, he has him whipped. Outraged at this, the father complains to the king. When brought before Astyages, Cyrus defends himself with confidence. Astyages immediately recognizes facial similarity with his family and sends for the herdsman. Under the threat of torture, he confesses to the baby switch years ago. Astyages consults the Magi who tell him that since the boy already played the role of king in his village, he would not be a king for a second time and that the danger has passed. He sends Cyrus to his birth parents in Persia. Herodotus mentions that the boy praised his foster mother (Cyno) so much that the legend spread that he was suckled by a dog (I guess Herodotus made this comment since this legend was popular during his time, and he wanted to logically demystify). Astyages decides to punish Harpagus for his disobedience by killing his son and serving him (similar to Atreus serving Thyestes). When Harpagus finds this out, he doesn’t recoil with horror but says, ‘whatever the king did was agreeable’.
Cyrus grows up as a popular leader in Persia. Harpagus manages to smuggle a letter to Cyrus, hidden in a hare’s belly, reminding him of how Astyages had tried to have him killed as a baby and that he had saved him. The letter also assures Cyrus of the support of other commanders in the army. After getting the letter, Cyrus thinks of a plan to persuade the Persians to go to war. He asks the nobles to come with their reaping hooks and has them work in a field the whole day. The next day, he gives them a grand feast and asks them what they would prefer. He then promises endless luxury if they join him in war.
Cyrus declares war, and Astyages appoints Harpagus as the general to lead the fight against Cyrus. In the battle, only some people fight. Most of the people including Harpagus defect to Cyrus. Astyages is defeated and captured and later serves in Cyrus’ court. This marks the end of 128 years of Median rule and the establishment of Persian rule.
4 - Herodotus’ Notes on Persian Culture
Persians worship without images, temples, or altars, as they believe that gods don’t resemble humans. They pray to the natural elements - sky, sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and wind. Their rituals are simpler, with no libations being poured. They just need pure ground and pray for everyone and not just themselves.
The most important day for a person in Persia is their birthday, which is celebrated as a big feast.
They love wine and drink heavily and make it a point to deliberate on important matters while drunk. If they discuss important things while sober, they get drunk and discuss them again before making a decision.
Boys are instructed b/w the ages of 5 to 20 on three things - to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. They believe that boys should exclusively be with their mothers till the age of 5 so that the father wouldn’t have to know if the boy did not live beyond the age of 5.
Their highest value is truth. They consider lying as the most disgraceful thing in the world. The second-most disgraceful thing - owing a debt.
They consider themselves as superior to other people. Inferiority keeps increasing with distance - people who are far away from them are considered most inferior since they don’t have access to their superior culture.
All names end with s (This claim by Herodotus was refuted by Rawlinson).
After death, they allow the dead bodies to be torn by dogs or birds and then cover the remaining in wax and bury them.
My biggest takeaway was that Herodotus had great admiration for the Persian culture. When he said, “There is no nation which so readily adopts foreign customs as the Persians (Section 135)”, I thought someone said this about the English too.
My Thoughts:
Cyrus’ story reminds one of Oedipus’ story, where a father has to decide whether they need to kill their child because of the future damage that the child could do to them or to society. The takeaway from both stories is that one cannot change fate even if one knows the future. In fact, by trying to change fate, one becomes an instrument that causes the events to happen. I was wondering what is the parallel for us modern readers? So many articles in recent times talk about doomsday scenarios of AI taking over everything - tech leaders warn of existential risks (using phrases like extinction-level threat, worse than nukes, etc.), sociologists warn about moral issues, erosion of human autonomy, and critical thinking, and policymakers scramble to regulate what they barely understand. It is like AI is the child that humanity has birthed, and the oracles are prophesying doom. The message from these stories is that even if humans try to kill the baby in its cradle, it wouldn’t die. Someone like the herdsman in the story will rescue the baby, and it will fulfill its destiny. AI is the future. It might be the way intelligence finally becomes multi-planetary. Some changes are so fundamental to the trajectory of civilization that they become inevitable. Just like agriculture, writing, industrialization, etc., once the underlying conditions ripen, the transformation is guaranteed to happen.
The other thing that crossed my mind was the chilling prospect of us knowing a lot more about a baby before it is born through detailed genetic analysis. If people are given a choice with facts about what their child could look like, the diseases they could be prone to, the behaviors that they could exhibit, including depression, addiction, etc., their cognitive abilities, and so forth, will they choose to not have the baby if their expectations don’t match with what the baby would bring? I saw this scene in 300 where the Spartans would examine a baby, and if it was not physically perfect, they would just throw the baby into an empty well to die! I was so horrified when I saw the scene. The randomness of traits in a newborn is one of the unique things about life that evolution has coded into the DNA. Randomness produces diversity and new traits that never existed. We have enough wealth and means of production to have all kinds of people and animals on earth. AI is poised to usher in a period of immense prosperity, and hopefully, extreme poverty and destitution can cease to exist. I suppose I need to remind myself not to think too much about a utopian future. I just finished reading Aristophanes’ plays over the last few months, and the overarching theme was that people seeking utopia end up recreating human systems with similar injustices.
So, instead of attempting to kill the baby and have it grow unseen in the mountains or an obscure village, is it better to figure out how to raise the child well? Hmm, I’m thinking of regulations that rulemakers around the world are thinking about when it comes to AI.