Leiden University Student Repository

Elsten, Kirsten (2025)

Prudence over Power: On the Portrayal of Barbarians in the Histories

Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)

This thesis aims to propose a new theory on the portrayal of the Lydian king Croesus in book 1 and of the Persians in book 7 of the Histories. It approaches the subject from the perspective of cultural reflexivity and rhetorics. The portrait of non-Greeks in Herodotus will prove to function as a mirror in more ways than one. Not only does it always reflect back on Herodotus, as a Greek’s reflecting on his position between different cultural spheres, the position of the narratees will tell us that this mirror is also held up to the Greeks themselves: a mirror that reflects what is happening in contemporary Greek politics and society – and tells the Greeks how to turn this tide.

Herodotus

Histories

barbarians

Author

Elsten, Kirsten

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Classics

Supervisors

Rademaker, A.M.

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en