Hills Like White Elephants :: Hills Like White Elephants Essays

Herodotus and Rhampsinitus and the Thief BY Layla Brown Herodotus, the first classic historian, has been called by some "the father of hi composition" and by others "the father of lies." born(p) in 485 B.C to a wealthy family at Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor, he was exiled to Samos presently after his birth because of his familys opposition to the Persian domination of Ionia. During his youth, he traveled widely, studying the manners, customs, and religions of the people he encountered. His histories are made up of toshs told to him by people from Egypt, Syria, Babylon, Colchis, Paeonian and Macedonia. He was criticized by several ancient writers for creating stories and deviation them off as the truth. Herodotus is most famous for the nine books he wrote on the rise of the Persian Empire, the Persian invasion of Greece in 490 BC and 480 BC, and the final exam Greek victory. Although it received quite a lot of praise and is excuse considered a masterpiece, its tr ustworthiness has been questioned both in ancient and innovational time. The story that Im covering is of Rhampsinitus and the Thief (pg. 277). This is a tale that Herodotus learned in Egypt and many believe that this anecdote was told to him by Egyptian priests, claiming it a true story. Herodotus, himself, didnt actually believe this particular story but he felt it was his duty to report what he was told. Now, for those of you who didnt read it, Ill quickly give a brief lineation of the story. A dying father tells his two sons how to break into the kings vault, which he, himself, built. The father then dies, leaving the family with no way to support themselves. So the two sons begin their thieving. They manage to escape with the treasure three times before the king sets up a trap, in which one of the brothers gets caught. At his captured brothers urging, the other brother cuts his siblings manoeuver off, taking it with his, so the familys identity would not be known. The abutt ing day, the king was bewildered at the sight of a headless thief. He then ordered his sentries to hang the body on the outer palisade and arrest anybody seen mourning the headless corpse. The two thieves mother, so absolutely distraught over the death of her son, threatens her surviving son, saying that if he didnt pull together the his brothers body, she would turn him in herself.