Emily Katz Anhalt's "Ancient Wisdom for Polarized Times"

Emily Katz Anhalt is professor of classics at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of Embattled: How Ancient Greek Myths Empower Us to Resist Tyranny and Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths.

Anhalt applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Ancient Wisdom for Polarized Times: Why Humanity Needs Herodotus, the Man Who Invented History, and reported the following:

Page 99 contains the first two paragraphs of Chapter Seven, “On Deception.” The first paragraph introduces the story of the rise to power of the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus (6th cent. BCE) as narrated by the ancient Greek prose writer Herodotus (5th cent. BCE). Briefly situating this tale in the context of Herodotus’s work as a whole, I explain that “In Athens [547 BCE], Peisistratus has gained autocratic power by exploiting factional divisions and religious faith.” This first paragraph articulates the chapter’s central theme: Herodotus explicitly identifies civil strife and unthinking credulity as sources of vulnerability to tyranny. Connecting tyrannical deception to political subjugation, Herodotus ridicules Peisistratus’s contemporary Athenians for their irrational faith and lack of intellectual discernment. Page 99’s second paragraph begins my translation of Herodotus’s engaging narrative of Peisistratus’s use of deception to obtain autocratic power.

Happily, the Page 99 Test works well! My book examines Herodotus’s valuable insights on deception as well as numerous topics of relevance today (e.g. sexual predation, tyranny, freedom, self-restraint). Each chapter includes a translation and discussion of one story in Herodotus’s Histories, an eclectic assortment of tales culminating in the only extensive surviving account of the Persian Wars of the 490s-479 BCE.

As page 99 indicates, Herodotus’s tale of Peisistratus exposes calculated deception as a potent autocratic weapon. Driven from Athens by factional conflict, Peisistratus cunningly costumes a tall woman as Athena, the city’s patron goddess. Accompanied by this woman disguised as Athena, Peisistratus drives his chariot into Athens. He sends heralds ahead to announce that the goddess herself is escorting him back into power. Derided by Herodotus as a deceptive stunt, Peisistratus’s ruse may have been, in fact, a ritual enactment of an Athenian religious ceremony. But Herodotus criticizes the Athenians for their foolish gullibility. Susceptibility to the tyrant’s trick costs the Athenians their political freedom.

Writing in the 440s/430s BCE, Herodotus introduced the vital distinction between myth and history, distinguishing unverified and unverifiable tales of the long-ago past (stories of the Trojan War and the like) from narratives of more recent events verifiable by eyewitness accounts and, when possible, material evidence. Ironically, Herodotus’s own criterion of verifiability enables us to identify many of his stories as fanciful, tendentious, even impossible. Emphasizing the value of evidence-based, rational, critical discernment, however, Herodotus equips us to learn from his less credible as well as his more credible tales.

Today’s online news feeds and social media imperil Herodotus’s vital distinction between myth and history, continuously spewing enthralling, evidence-free, deceptive narratives. As online experience begins to eclipse actual, lived experience, Herodotus’s tale of Peisistratus reminds us that autocratic deceptions and undiscerning credulity make us easy prey for tyrants. Throughout the Histories, Herodotus recalls us to our responsibilities as sentient beings capable of distinguishing fact from authoritarian fabrications.

Visit Emily Katz Anhalt's website.

The Page 99 Test: Enraged.

--Marshal Zeringue