The Beginning of Evils (Herodotus 5.97) from a Persian Perspective

Summary In a passage that uses a Homeric formula to invest the events with epic significance, Herodotus identified the moment Athenian ships participated in the sack of Sardis as “the beginning of evils for Greeks and Barbarians.” Behind that reference lies a complex web of past events involving human and metahuman actors, legible in different fashion from Greek and Persian perspectives. Focus on the latter brings to light religious aspects of imperial ideology, including Truth as the basis of cosmic order, the sacred nature of treaty commitments, and the palingenetic significance of the gifts of earth and water demanded by and presented to the Achaemenid King.