THE CYRUS ANECDOTE IN HERODOTUS 9.122

Abstract

The Cyrus anecdote recounted in the final chapter of Herodotus’ Histories (9.122) has received the frequent notice of critics, with particular attention paid to the anecdote's relation to the work as a whole. Scholars have long since noted that the episode involves ‘the intersection of two basic narrative modes on which Herodotus has relied throughout the Histories: ethnographic description and detailed accounts of political activity and decision-making’. Thus scholars have illuminated the significance of the anecdote by comparing it to other thematically related passages in the Histories. Reading the closure of the Histories in terms of didactic enterprise, recent treatments of the anecdote tend to view Herodotus’ use of it as a moral lesson to his contemporary Athenians.