Herodotus
Herodotus (484-424 BC ?) a Greek historian, known as the father of history, who was the first historian to apply critical evaluation to his material, while also recording divergent opinions. He made his prose style resemble the finest poetry by its persuasiveness, its charm, and its utterly delightful effect. Although his writings have been praised, their trustworthiness has been questioned both in ancient and modern times. After four years in Athens, he traveled widely in Egypt, Asia and the Black Sea region of E. Europe, before settling at Thurii in S. Italy in 443 BC. He wrote accounts of his various travels for the people of Greece. He read his, "History" publicly to the Athenians and was rewarded for this historical work. He contrived to set before his fellow citizens a general picture of the world, of its various races, and of the previous history of those nations which had one. He also was very careful to diversify his pages by scattering among his more serious matter tales, anecdotes, and descriptions of a lighter character, which are very graceful additions to the main narrative.
Two men are famous contemporaries of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, who were both from Athens. Thucydides (460 BC - 400 BC?) was a better historian than Herodotus and his critical use of sources and research made his "History of the Peloponnesian War" a significant influence on later generations of historians. Xenophon (430 BC - 355 BC?) began his "Hellenica where Thucydides ended his work about 411 BC and carried his history to 362 BC. His writings were superficial in comparison to those of Thucydides, but he wrote with authority on military matters.
Herodotus believed that many Greek rituals and customs were inherited from the Egyptians as the Greek civilization developed. He recorded the wide range of religious practices he encountered in his travels, comparing the religious observances of various cultures, such as sacrifice and worship, with their Greek equivalents. He quite possibly followed the cult practices of Serapis, which is the Greek Name for Osiris the embodiment of goodness, who ruled the underworld. He identified Isis with Demeter, the Greek goddess of earth, agriculture, and fertility. About two centuries later, under the Greco-Egyptian Empire, which was created by Alexander the Great, the worship of Osiris (Serapis) was developed as a means of uniting the Greeks and Egyptians.
He observed that the Egyptians strongly opposed the acceptance of foreign customs.
When reading the two excerpts from Thucydides it is clear that his book, The History of the Peloponnesian War, was written to memorialize Athenian history. Although it is considered to be the first textbook it was still written by an Athenian so analysis of the excerpts are still required. But while analyzing the two excerpts will provide information about the reliability of the document, it will also provide insight to answer the question “What is the author trying to say about his native city of Athens?”
However, Heroditus’ Histories briefly detail the major events of the war, and relays them as if they were historical fact. Heroditus’ account of the war differs slightly from Homer’s version, and he is well aware of this. After relating the tale of Alexander (Paris) carrying off Helen, Heroditus writes:... ... middle of paper ... ...
Herodotus was an interesting historian. His way of displaying a historical event such as the Persian War is different from how I expect a modern day historian to write it. He does not try to focus only on the Persian war but he goes into detail some times of the lineage of the rulers of the city-states even though that serves little relevance to the actual war. The accounts of history I am used to reading are more focused on the bigger issue and the historians do not deviate on long trains of side thoughts such as Herodotus does. Herodotus style of writing had me confused because he often would start on one topic and in the next couple of sentences move on to another topic before coming back to his main point about a paragraph down. I had to
“Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by an inability to form human attachment, aggressive narcissism, and antisocial behavior defined by a constellation of affective, interpersonal and behavioral characteristics, most of which society views as pejorative” [1]. Some of these characteristics include irresponsibility, grandiosity, cunning, deceitfulness, selective impulsivity, sexual promiscuity, lack of empathy, etc. People who are psychopathic display not only antisocial behavior but also emotional impairment such as the lack of guilt. They are able to prey on others using their charm, deceit, violence or any other methods that allow them to get what they want. A strong feature of most of the behavior exhibited by individuals with psychopathy is that it is mostly instrumental in nature. They are extremely goal-oriented with interests in acquiring wealth, sexual opportunities and increased status.
Herodotus references Athenian democratic ideology throughout his work, sometimes directly but other times through the words and happenings of his historical figures.When Herodotus talks about the Persian political debate he discusses a man named Ota...
Psychopathy has fascinated the public for years due to the gruesome and evil portrayal it has received in the media. Psychopathy is defined in the DSM-III as a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior (Patrick, Christopher, Fowles, Krueger, Rober, 2009). Psychopathy represents a cluster of different dimensions of personality found amongst the general population to varying degrees (Patrick et al, 2009). The diagnostic definition is meant to be applied to adults, however psychopathology can occur in children. Controversy surrounds the topic of childhood mental illness because the brain is not fully developed until the age of 18; thus allowing the possibility that symptoms are the result of growing up and will change. The triarchic model, formulated by Christopher J. Patrick, is the most commonly used model in diagnosing adult and childhood psychopathy. This model suggests that different conceptions of psychopathy emphasize three observable characteristics to varying degrees; boldness, disinhibition and meanness (Patrick, et al, 2009). Boldness is the first observable characteristic and is comprised of low fear including stress-tolerance, toleration of unfamiliarity and danger, and high self-confidence and social assertiveness. Disinhibition; characterized by poor impulse control including problems with planning and foresight, lacking affect and urge control, demand for immediate gratification, and poor behavioral restraints. Meanness is defined as lacking empathy and close attachments with others, disdain of close attachments, use of cruelty to gain empowerment, exploitative tendencies, defiance of authority, and destructive excitement seek...
Herodotus and Sima Qian were undoubtedly great historians due to their substantial advancements in history writing. Thomas R. Martin concludes that the link between Herodotus and Sima Qian is their common goal to create history as a guide to the past, and that the history they create is left up to individual interpretation. Although the time period, backgrounds, and situations between the two historians were vastly different, comparing both of their work is an opportunity to view the writing of history across cultures and around the world. Their ability to write intricate and lengthy histories during the time in which they lived and under the circumstances they faced make them great historians. The way they composed their material and shared it with the world should be recognized and accounted for.
In Histories, Herodotus’ uses a variety of themes to narrate historical events and a common theme revolves around hubris. Extremely common amongst Greek literature and Greek mythology, hubris appears to be the infamous human trait. Greek mythology sees hubris as a great atrocity and results in an unrelenting punishment. The idea of hubris is that an individual with an authoritative position, a strong or influential leader, becomes extremely proud of his exceptional qualities and forms a delusion of his position to be on par with even the Gods. This blinds the hubristic individual into believing he can defy the Gods and elude ones inevitable fate. Herodotus’ Histories is no exception to containing individuals that display hubristic qualities similar to many other significant historical entities. In Histories, the theme of hubris assists the reader in making a connection between the excerpts from the end of book 1 (1-204-206) to other books and excerpts in Herodotus’ Histories.
Every year, more and more International students are coming to the U.S. for pursuing higher education. According to the Open Doors report published annually by the Institute of International Education (IIE), the number of intern...
Many times humans do things that contradict another thing they do. An example of this is one thing may be good but also bad at the same time. A person who has done this more then once is Oedipus in the writer Sophocles plays. Sophocles uses imagery like light verses darkness, knowledge verses ignorance and sight verses blindness.
A child or an adolescent being diagnosed with psychopathy is a controversial concept and yet there are a number of studies that purport to assess psychopathic traits within these groups. This has stemmed from evidence that key symptoms of psychopathy (at least when looking into the histories of adult psychopathic patients) have been indicative of an early onset with symptoms beginning in childhood or early adolescence. (Johnstone & Cooke, 2004). Psychopathy, at least in adults, is a viable construct and is often indicative of criminality, violence, substance abuse and results in decidedly poorer responsivity to treatment and as such highlights the importance of recognizing these early symptoms and planning intervention and treatment strategies. (Johnstone & Cooke, 2004; Skeem, Monahan, & Mulvey, 2003; Hempill, Hare, & Wong, 1998; Salekin, Rogers & Sewell, 1996).
Herodotus uses the introduction of characters to diverge from the central idea of his theme and he uses this technique to demonstrate his views on moral and political topics. These controversial topics come up while he is unfolding his History and he uses these characters to express his own opinion on these subjects. An example of Herodotus’ confronts moral subjects during his narration when he talks about death, yielding to ones pride, and honorable fighting. He also uses these characters to show that Tyranny is not a good form of government.
Herodotus. “Greece Saved from Persian Conquest.” Readings in Ancient History. Eds. Nels M. Bailkey and Richard Lim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
Proteins are considered to be the most versatile macromolecules in a living system. This is because they serve crucial functions in all biological processes. Proteins are linear polymers, and they are made up of monomer units that are called amino acids. The sequence of the amino acids linked together is referred to as the primary structure. A protein will spontaneously fold up into a 3D shape caused by the hydrogen bonding of amino acids near each other. This 3D structure is determined by the sequence of the amino acids. The 3D structure is referred to as the secondary structure. There is also a tertiary structure, which is formed by the long-range interactions of the amino acids. Protein function is directly dependent on this 3D structure.
In the hierarchial organisation of proteins, domains are found at the highest level of tertiary structure. Since the term was first used by Wetlaufer (1973) a number of definitions exist reflecting author bias, however all of the definitions agree that domains are independently folding compact units. Domains are frequently coded by exons and therefore have specific functionality. Among the many descriptions of protein domains the two most striking and simple are " Protein evolutionary units" and "Basic currency of Proteins".