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Chapter 4: Epilogue
It seems the world has left me one more surprise, right at the end. How curious, your appearance is so particular and unmistakable yet I cannot command the words to describe it, nor this space that we now inhabit. Yet I can still recall the myriad wonders of the world I have experienced, indeed the recollections are sharper than ever in my mind; the smell of spices on the wind, the softness of black fertile soil crumbled between the fingers, the thunder of the charging cavalry of Taras, the colours of the lilies of Aigyptos, the chorus of human joy raised at a homecoming hero. There were many times that I wished nothing more than to move across the lands and seas of the world, spending an entire lifetime experiencing and documenting the wonders that seep from the living Ge like rich honey.
But I am, was, also a Hellene. Brought up by Hellenes, speaking the tongue of Hellenes, attuned to the society of Hellenes, pulled by ties to the Hellenes. I could not simply ignore their desire for liberation, for justice. I completed my account of the world in Dikaia, in the company of the new Athenai, and dedicated it to them and all Hellenes. To articulating how Hellenes understood their state of affairs, to making all humankind understand their need for freedom. But I am not a creature only of the Hellenes, and I must confess to you that there were times when being a Hellene felt like a great weight, a limitation on my vision and ambition and conception. What a terrible thing to feel and think, about the people who raised you, cared for you, worried for your behalf, and acted on behalf of your interests in matters of policy. And yet that is the plain truth. I looked to the world of the Akhaimenidai and the horizons seemed to stretch so much farther, the wisdom seemed deeper and more refined, the human wealth limitlessly abundant. So my work grew to be more than advocating for the Hellenes, I could not contain my desire to educate the Hellenes about the world that had begun to overlap with their own, that their fate was now inextricably bound with. I wanted the Parsai to understand the Hellenes, but I also wanted the Hellenes to understand the Parsai, whether to aid the cause of liberation or living a whole and fulsome life within the sight of the Persian king.
As I grew famed among the Italiotes things began to change in my heart. I spent so much time among so many communities of my fellow countrymen, many of them exiled from their homelands, telling them stories of the past, and of the world beyond their own, and I grew to realise that from the Hellenes I had gained my ability to understand the hidden, the local, the history of small places. The desire to understand others as I intimately understood Hellenes had always been a driving force in my seemingly endless quest to understand all peoples and places of the world, and yet it took so long to realise it, and to credit it to its proper source; my upbringing among my own people. Yet at the same time I grew to acknowledge something else; it was from the Parsai that I first acquired a vision of a world far greater than Halikarnassos, far greater even than all the thousand poleis of the Hellenes. I had cause, a duty in fact, to be grateful to both. And I was. Yet I could not vocally do so with my compatriots in Italia, the fierce hatred of those who had subjugated Hellas was still too strong and too instinctual to countenance any belief that Xerxes, the Parsai, Asians in general, had any real value, had any purpose except to be expelled from rightful homelands of the Hellenes. They could only see the Parsai as the enemy, and I realised that I had never seen them as an enemy at all.
My commitment to actual combat in the service of the Hellenes, therefore, I must say, was one that arose from selfish and all too arbitrary decisions as much as any genuine pretension to nobility. It was Perikles, son of Xanthippos, of all Hellenes, who turned out to understand my position. By that time he had come to embody everything about the mission to recapture our homelands, the entire community of willing Italiotes was his to command, yet of all people he understood what it was to lack hatred, to be unable to truly conceive of a foreign people as an enemy. I was able to enter into frank conversation with him as I could do with no other. His curiosity was almost the match of mine but his was focused towards strategy, planning, and building towards a future, not towards understanding the rest of the world. Nonetheless I came to consider him a good friend. When he came to plan his expedition to Krete, to strike the first real blow against Xerxes in decades, it was this friendship with him that led me towards agreeing to his suggestion that I take part, though I was also anxious to make up for what I continued to feel was a lack of conviction in my actions and beliefs. It was his idea, not mine, to have Herodotos the son of Lyxes be made a general of the expedition, and I could not resist for all the Italiotes, who had developed warm feelings towards myself and my stories (and who had a vastly overblown sense of my martial upbringing in Halikarnassos) insisted upon me doing such a thing.
I realise that I am launching into an entire new Historia with you just now, my apologies for taking your time, but it really is how my mind processes thoughts, and how my speech renders the thoughts. Yet I find I am feeling… different. I do not feel such guilt at being a creature of both Hellas and Persia, is that wrong? No, no it is not, I find that thought comes easily to me now, and loudly. No. It is not wrong to belong to two different peoples, to be born into two different worlds and to move between them, let alone to find your own path. What was my own path, in the end? Discovery, discovery of all that I could see, touch, smell, and listen to. Discovery of the world. Ge is vast, and beautiful, and filled with endless wonder, and I do not regret that I spent so much time exploring her riches. I was right to choose the path that had always summoned me. It was not a diversion, an interesting way of avoiding true causes and real commitment, it was a real cause, it was a real commitment. Hellenes must know about the world, Persians must know about the world, humans must know about the world. For their protection, to expand their wisdom, but most of all to honour the gift into which we are all born. I am Herodotos, son of Lyxes, born of Halikarnassos, and I only regret that I did not see more of that gift before my time was completed. I hope that my work may in some way inspire others to complete what it was that I set out to. Whether ruled by themselves, or ruled by others, the true liberation of the Hellenes lies out there, and not within. Now I am in here, and something tells me that more lies beyond this place, and I am ready for my next journey. Thank you for listening to my Historia.
The interview is over.
Μηδίζω! THE WORLD OF ACHAEMENID HELLAS
CHAPTER 4:BAGAHA or THEOI
EPILOGOS
CHAPTER 4:BAGAHA or THEOI
EPILOGOS
The interview begins now.
It seems the world has left me one more surprise, right at the end. How curious, your appearance is so particular and unmistakable yet I cannot command the words to describe it, nor this space that we now inhabit. Yet I can still recall the myriad wonders of the world I have experienced, indeed the recollections are sharper than ever in my mind; the smell of spices on the wind, the softness of black fertile soil crumbled between the fingers, the thunder of the charging cavalry of Taras, the colours of the lilies of Aigyptos, the chorus of human joy raised at a homecoming hero. There were many times that I wished nothing more than to move across the lands and seas of the world, spending an entire lifetime experiencing and documenting the wonders that seep from the living Ge like rich honey.
But I am, was, also a Hellene. Brought up by Hellenes, speaking the tongue of Hellenes, attuned to the society of Hellenes, pulled by ties to the Hellenes. I could not simply ignore their desire for liberation, for justice. I completed my account of the world in Dikaia, in the company of the new Athenai, and dedicated it to them and all Hellenes. To articulating how Hellenes understood their state of affairs, to making all humankind understand their need for freedom. But I am not a creature only of the Hellenes, and I must confess to you that there were times when being a Hellene felt like a great weight, a limitation on my vision and ambition and conception. What a terrible thing to feel and think, about the people who raised you, cared for you, worried for your behalf, and acted on behalf of your interests in matters of policy. And yet that is the plain truth. I looked to the world of the Akhaimenidai and the horizons seemed to stretch so much farther, the wisdom seemed deeper and more refined, the human wealth limitlessly abundant. So my work grew to be more than advocating for the Hellenes, I could not contain my desire to educate the Hellenes about the world that had begun to overlap with their own, that their fate was now inextricably bound with. I wanted the Parsai to understand the Hellenes, but I also wanted the Hellenes to understand the Parsai, whether to aid the cause of liberation or living a whole and fulsome life within the sight of the Persian king.
As I grew famed among the Italiotes things began to change in my heart. I spent so much time among so many communities of my fellow countrymen, many of them exiled from their homelands, telling them stories of the past, and of the world beyond their own, and I grew to realise that from the Hellenes I had gained my ability to understand the hidden, the local, the history of small places. The desire to understand others as I intimately understood Hellenes had always been a driving force in my seemingly endless quest to understand all peoples and places of the world, and yet it took so long to realise it, and to credit it to its proper source; my upbringing among my own people. Yet at the same time I grew to acknowledge something else; it was from the Parsai that I first acquired a vision of a world far greater than Halikarnassos, far greater even than all the thousand poleis of the Hellenes. I had cause, a duty in fact, to be grateful to both. And I was. Yet I could not vocally do so with my compatriots in Italia, the fierce hatred of those who had subjugated Hellas was still too strong and too instinctual to countenance any belief that Xerxes, the Parsai, Asians in general, had any real value, had any purpose except to be expelled from rightful homelands of the Hellenes. They could only see the Parsai as the enemy, and I realised that I had never seen them as an enemy at all.
My commitment to actual combat in the service of the Hellenes, therefore, I must say, was one that arose from selfish and all too arbitrary decisions as much as any genuine pretension to nobility. It was Perikles, son of Xanthippos, of all Hellenes, who turned out to understand my position. By that time he had come to embody everything about the mission to recapture our homelands, the entire community of willing Italiotes was his to command, yet of all people he understood what it was to lack hatred, to be unable to truly conceive of a foreign people as an enemy. I was able to enter into frank conversation with him as I could do with no other. His curiosity was almost the match of mine but his was focused towards strategy, planning, and building towards a future, not towards understanding the rest of the world. Nonetheless I came to consider him a good friend. When he came to plan his expedition to Krete, to strike the first real blow against Xerxes in decades, it was this friendship with him that led me towards agreeing to his suggestion that I take part, though I was also anxious to make up for what I continued to feel was a lack of conviction in my actions and beliefs. It was his idea, not mine, to have Herodotos the son of Lyxes be made a general of the expedition, and I could not resist for all the Italiotes, who had developed warm feelings towards myself and my stories (and who had a vastly overblown sense of my martial upbringing in Halikarnassos) insisted upon me doing such a thing.
I realise that I am launching into an entire new Historia with you just now, my apologies for taking your time, but it really is how my mind processes thoughts, and how my speech renders the thoughts. Yet I find I am feeling… different. I do not feel such guilt at being a creature of both Hellas and Persia, is that wrong? No, no it is not, I find that thought comes easily to me now, and loudly. No. It is not wrong to belong to two different peoples, to be born into two different worlds and to move between them, let alone to find your own path. What was my own path, in the end? Discovery, discovery of all that I could see, touch, smell, and listen to. Discovery of the world. Ge is vast, and beautiful, and filled with endless wonder, and I do not regret that I spent so much time exploring her riches. I was right to choose the path that had always summoned me. It was not a diversion, an interesting way of avoiding true causes and real commitment, it was a real cause, it was a real commitment. Hellenes must know about the world, Persians must know about the world, humans must know about the world. For their protection, to expand their wisdom, but most of all to honour the gift into which we are all born. I am Herodotos, son of Lyxes, born of Halikarnassos, and I only regret that I did not see more of that gift before my time was completed. I hope that my work may in some way inspire others to complete what it was that I set out to. Whether ruled by themselves, or ruled by others, the true liberation of the Hellenes lies out there, and not within. Now I am in here, and something tells me that more lies beyond this place, and I am ready for my next journey. Thank you for listening to my Historia.
The interview is over.
- Daeres
- Word Count: 1.3k