The function of envy, jealousy, and retaliation in Herodotus’ histories

Greek scholar Herodotus was a keeper of information who kept records of events around the globe. He carried many stories that influenced how people interacted with their gods. He frequently uses the words “jealousy,” “vengeance,” and “envy” in his writing. Being resentful of others’ success or good fate can include feeling jealous. The numerous characters that can be found in his writings lead one to infer this. The emotion of envy is characterized by a sense of unhappiness brought on by a yearning for the things or characteristics that someone else possesses. Vengeance is a situation whereby an individual or group experiences a retributive punishment as a result of a past wrong committed to the other. This piece of work is going to try to revisit the various lexical usage of vengeance, envy, and jealousy as well as their implication in the contemporary society based on the ancient history in Greece. An in-depth and critical analysis of the given vocabulary will give the real cultural situation that prevailed in ancient Greece.

Envy

This can be found in the context where the king says to Gyges that he had a beautiful wife but he never seemed to believe. He further dares Gyges to plan to buy the idea of hiding behind the door so that he can verify his argument. The king was so possessive of his wife until he could blow his trumpet with reference to his wife. Gyges engages the king in a protracted open discourse concerning the beauty of the queen. This compels the king to allow him to go further and examine the features of his wife as a way of disapproving him. Gyges was occupied with a good deal of envy.

Peisistratus, having reinstated as a king had a lot of opportunities and power to amass wealth. He desired to command a larger than life empire. He exuded huge envy on the possessions and properties that lay beyond his area of jurisdiction. He undertook a series of dubious and deliberate activities that were geared towards earning him more affluence and influence as far as his kingship was concerned.He went further to persuade a young lady to clad as Athena so that she could ride beside her in a chariot while messengers kept announcing that Athena was bestowing her best to Athens. He also pretended to stage an attack on himself by using a pretext of asking for a personal guard. All these activities were his unorthodox maneuvers that were meant to catapult him into power.

Orites longed for an impious occasion so that he could capture and harm Polycrates in spite of the fact that he was innocent. He entices him to his snare using fake promises of opulence with which to discover his ambitions. He later kills him out of sheer envy because he dreaded competition.

Croesus attacked Cappadocia due to an array of reasons. He had an immense desire for land which he had wished to annex. He had wanted to add Cyrus land to his own territories while relying on the Oracle. He longed to avenge Astyages. He was out to do anything humanly possible to achieve his dreams.He also wanted to attack Massagetai so that it could be part of his territory. He exploited his extraordinary birth and fortune against his foes that gave him a comparative edge in gaining ground over his enemies that hailed from within and without his territory.

Cambyses sent away his brother Smerdis away from Egypt just because he was envious of him. Smerdis had the capacity to string a bow sent by the Ethiopian king. He also had a dream whereby he saw Smerdis sitting on a throne while his head was touching the heavens. This was an indicator of Smerdis prominent kingship. He had his brother executed because of his malicious motives.

The Athenians ejected the Pelasgians from Attica due to monumental envy and the vehement desire for the land. They gave the Pelasgians a poor parcel of land under mount Hymettus. This was a payment that was given because of them having built the wall that surrounded Acropolis. They were flabbergasted to realize that the land they were accorded was infertile.

Vengeance

Vengeance has been reflected quite frequently in the histories of Herodotus. He strived to keep a close and accurate account of the event that occurred in the ancient Greece. This entailed events and activities of individuals, towns,and cities.This was to help in detecting the reasons behind the success and failure of various great cities and personalities that reigned at that time. There are twists and turns of events in the context of Histories of Herodotus. The recent discoveries that the art of all figures that are engaged in a conflict are subjected to human existence and luck. Fortune keeps shifting with time and space. Croesus realizes that his affluence does not amount to happiness when he organizes an onslaught on Persia. Cyrus discovers it when he is supported by his idea that he was born in an extraordinary way and he commanded good luck in war.

Croesus organizes for an onslaught on the Massagetai due to Cambyses’ extreme lust for expansion which is checked by Ethiopians, the Scythians by Darius and the Greeks through Xerxes. This denotes that there is the human agent who is situated in a situation that is constrained to function in a given way that is bound to result in failure. This is because he does not realize until it is long overdue as a result of the human limitation already set. Men are portrayed objectively as weak beings that are placed in a conditioned environment whereby their decisions attract given repercussions in relation to transcendent laws that reveal the limitations of humanity. The laws determine the success or failure of an individual depending on his actions and reactions. The same applies to cities and states which work under similar restrictions. This is why great cities later fall as a result of the actions of the leaders and its people. Smaller cities arise too due to the positive activities that are undertaken by the immediate administration and populace hence human bliss is affected by setbacks and comebacks. This makes it clear that successful moments are not constant.

Perclose and Thermistocles are seriously attacked because of their personal contacts whereas Cimon is offered a gentler treatment due to insufficient and inefficient intellectual capacity. A complicated rhetoric of Attica is more than compensated by his inclination for the nobility and sincerity of the Spartans. The vengeance occurs because of the obligations of culture which are related to giving gifts and receiving of the same. The giver and the odd owed are bound to experience the outcome, positive or negative depending on the degree of the response. The models from a givenculture basically influence this narrative through their motivations and actions. The interactions and actions of various human beings tend to exploit and reinforce the sophisticated network of obligations embraced.

The supernatural function that is played by the gods in enforcing penalty of the guilty in all time and space is portrayed from motivations that emanate from the cultural context. This is confirmed by the works of Herodotus. He experiences an explicit vision of his torment in a dream. He then relates the dream that Hipparchus faced and this is employed in some lines before he shifted to other issues. He says that a lion has to suffer courageously by bearing the unbearable. He further quips that any man who acts unjustly has to pay the cost of vengeance. The vision predicts the death of whoever was to receive it. Hipparchus could not avoid it in any manner because he wakes up the next day dead. This contextual vengeance is more or less personal. It is undertaken with passion and hatred of the highest bidder. Vengeance is hereby connected to ideas of justice, retribution, and punishment that stems out of the communal life of Greeks. In a contemporary setup, vengeance seems to assume a negative connotation which is many times perceived as the antonym of justice. In retrospect, the ancient Greek community embraced both the negative and positive aspects of vengeance. This is because vengeance was taken as an outgrowth of justice that was in accord or out of accord with it.The giving of gifts was a sole obligation of parties and this determined what was deemed just or unjust. Giving someone what belongs to him was the major notion of justice in the Greek territory.

Troy was destroyed by the Greeks mistakenly since they never believed that Helen was not detained there. This culmination was a predestined punishment that was to come from the gods because of the evils committed by Trojans. Herodotus is quoted as saying that the greatest of injustices attract immense retributions from the gods. He makes it in such an emphatic way that he supports not only the divine authority but also his power as a human being.The Trojan War occurred due to the impact of divine forces. There are so many aspects that have been caused by divine forces and motivation that are manifested in Herodotus’ Histories. Herodotus has a strong belief that the gods took a central role in exacerbating the Trojan War because of the rape of Helen by Paris. This was a heinous crime of the violation of Xenia. Herodotus concept reveals to mankind the involvement of the gods historically and the order in which they unleash their actions. The Trojan War was a testament to the presence of divine intervention in the evil acts of a state and its people. The foolishness of humans that prevented the Greeks from listening to the counsel of the Trojans and hence they razed to the ground.

The ancient Trojans were likely to avoid the War if they had behaved in a rational way. This would have helped them not to be attacked by the divine madness that led them to act irrationally and hence avoid disclosing the absence of Helen to the attackers (Greeks).

Hermotimus was castrated forcibly by Panionius and then sold him to slavery. The eunuch status of Hermotimus enabled him to rise in ranks in the courts of Persia which made him a powerful man. He became a chief adviser to the Persian leader called Xerxes. Hermotimus revenges against Panionius when he embraces a chance. He corners him while he was in his power by castrating the sons of Panionius and later the same be done to him by them. He delivers a speech whereby he elaborates his reasons behind the actions. He condemns Panionius for the injustice of his behavior since the businessmen had wrongly caused gross harm to him.This underscores the human degree of obligation at work. He further extrapolates why Panionius had gone to his sphere of influence.Panionius had to pay back the profane things that he had committed to him. This gives a direct link between a human act of revenge and the divine one but proceeds from the gods. Herodotus tries to highlight the fact that the gods objectively inflict those who afflict others negatively through divine vengeance by employing the law of justice that result in trouble. He says that the justice that is hailing him comes from him. He alleges that it is the gods who are present that assist him in his actions hence giving Hermotimus’ actions validation. The gods take part to a greater extent in determining the moral standard in the society through obligation and reciprocity. It is the human beings who undertake vengeance through the divine intervention. The type of vengeance that is manifested in the Hermotimus’ case is the situation which connotes that no human evil will ever go unpunished. It is not possible to evade the wrath of the gods. Panionius is overtaken by the gods by the penalty meted to him by his fellow human assisted by the gods. The human actorsand the actors from the divine realms are placed side by side in the execution of justice to the oppressed. The gods used the Trojan to teach a lifelong lesson to mankind. They convey the message that there is no human action that has no repercussion and the result is witnessed while one is alive on Earth. Herodotus considers the divine action and retribution basically as superfluous from the perspective of the cause.

The insane Persian King Cambyses pierces himself in the leg accidentally at the same position where he had injured the divine bull previously. The sheath of the sword of Cambyses broke exactly at the time when he needed it most. This is perceived as a divine act or vengeance whereby no human actorhasinvolved the fulfillment of the incident. Cleomenes, who was the Spartan King, was possessed with divine insanity. He then pierced himself to death while in the stocks. Herodotus represents the divine causation clearlyin this context.This helps in depicting the general anthropomorphic shows of divinities the culture of Greek people and in the classical works of the Greeks as the epics of “Homer”. There was no Persian who entered or died while they fought around the temple of Demeter. Herodotus relates that the goddess did not receive them because they had torched her Temple at Eleusis. The individual deity responds as a result of personal reasons. She wants to protect the dwelling place of hers and at the same time avenge the wrong directed towards her.

Jealousy

Jealousy is very much prevalent in a number of contexts in the Histories of Herodotus. Talos was the chief apprentice of Daedalus. Daedalus was an accomplished and seasoned builder of the labyrinth. He was well versed with craftsmanship and artwork. He had an excellent and exquisite track record of achievement in his services to King Minos. His birthplace was Athens but he ran away after killing his nephew, Talos. He killed him lest he outshined him in the professional realms. He had been consumed with jealousy due to the great artwork that the nephew produced due to the training he offered to him. He had developed a vehement abhorrence of him. He one day enticed him into a higher place and then pushed him over the edge all in a bid to eradicate a potential rival in his field. This portrays the negative impact of jealousy that ultimately leads to diminishing manpower.

The Spartans were jealous of the success their opponents and hence they tried to stage fights so that they could get away with as much wealth as possible. The Corinthians are said to have had colossal prosperity while the Spartans trailed behind them. The individuals who established democracy in the Athens had qualities that other people were jealous of. They longed to possess the characteristics so that the same spirit could be propagated to other parts beyond Athens.

Conclusion

Envy, jealousy, and vengeance are aspects that were common in the ancient classical history of Greece. Envy and jealousy were used interchangeably.Both terms had both negative and positive connotation, unlike the contemporary society. Vengeance has taken the meaning of revenge as a way of retribution for wrongful actions and activities that were done to other members. There is the intervention of the gods in the atonement for the evils committed by individuals. People and cities are punished for the evils committed by their leaders and members of the society. The universal notion that is extracted out of the Herodotus Histories is that nothing is permanent. Everything keeps changing ranging from fortune to setbacks. People just need to get well aware that whatever one does has repercussions in the final analysis.

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