Herodotus on the Far West

Since Schulten 1 collected Herodotus' evidence more than a half century ago nobody has dealt specifically with this theme. The aim therefore is to show how Herodotus saw the Iberian Peninsula. We must always bear in mind when reading Herodotus that he was from Halicarnassus ; a Greek from Caria with a certain Oriental background. He was born in a zone of the Greek world which was a crossroad of civilizations. This fact explains his interest in remote and almost legendary places like Tartessos. The passages 2 referring to the Iberian Peninsula are the following : 1, 163 ; 1, 165, 2 ; 2, 33, 3 ; 4, 8, 1-2 ; 4, 49, 3 ; 4, 152, 1-4 ; 4, 192, 3 and 7, 165-166. (a) According to 1, 163 the Phocaeans were the first Greeks to discover the Iberian Peninsula. Arganthonios, king of Tartessos, may be the name not of a man, but of a dynasty, because it is not possible that a king should rule for 80 years, or should have lived 120 years, as Herodotus claims. If we apply the generation dating given by Ball 3 we can see that 80 = 2 * 40, and 120 = 3 x 40 mean respectively 2 and 3 generations. We find a parallel in III, 23, where longevity appears among the Icthyophagi. In the Bible, Deuteronomy , 34, 7 we also read : Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died. It is obviously a topic employed in the Orient and by Herodotus for denoting longevity. Thus under the name Arganthonios we should understand two or three

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Greeks · Literature · nobody · Peninsula · Theme (computing · Archaeological and Historical Studies · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History

• Anēr Poluplanēs

  Tyler Flatt•The Classical World•2017

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• Algunas notas sobre la figura de Argantonio y sus elementos míticos

  Open Access•Aurelio Padilla Monge•Archivo Español de Arqueología•2014

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