Abstract

The Cyrus anecdote recounted in the final chapter of Herodotus’Histories(9.122) has received the frequent notice of critics, with particular attention paid to the anecdote's relation to the work as a whole. Scholars have long since noted that the episode involves ‘the intersection of two basic narrative modes on which Herodotus has relied throughout theHistories: ethnographic description and detailed accounts of political activity and decision-making’. Thus scholars have illuminated the significance of the anecdote by comparing it to other thematically related passages in theHistories. Reading the closure of theHistoriesin terms of didactic enterprise, recent treatments of the anecdote tend to view Herodotus’ use of it as a moral lesson to his contemporary Athenians.