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207 on geographical distance from the Greek world, are naturally mappedagainst Greek norms; so is his portrayal of the exotic jealousies andbrutalities at the courts of his Eastern kings. Such norms includemonogamy, the protection of citizen women, legal penalties for thosewho disrupt marriages, and modified tolerance for the male use ofprostitutes, courtesans, and, within certain restrictions, engagementin homosexual, especially pederastic, relationships. 32

Herodotus' presentation of alternatives to these norms can nonethelessbe remarkably diverse and open-minded. 33 Some more extremecultures (at the geographical extremities) are apparently dismissedfairly rapidly for permitting (e.g.) random copulation in public likeanimals (1.203, 3.101, 4.180), but through most of the ethnographicsections, he is as often concerned to attempt to explain the coherenceand regularity of the practices and their contribution to theoverall stability of the people. 34 A good example is provided by histreatment of apparently bizarre customs of marriage auctions andsacred prostitution among the Babylonians. 35

It is also notable how far Herodotus is from simple appeals totraditional Greek male fear of powerful women, individual or collective.The traditional representatives of female power, the Amazons,appear, but the story which develops, the origins of the Sauromataefrom the amusingly described unions of fugitive Amazons and youngScythians, emphasizes how the resulting society achieved a harmoniouscombination of the two cultural traditions, and allows for thepreservation of some degree of Amazonian female warrior customs(which may reflect some genuine features of Sarmatian culture). 36Individual women, whether at the Persian court, in the Greek world,or even in 'savage' cultures, typically defend, often in devious ormanipulative ways, the values of their different societies; and on occasionssuch powerful women can match men in brutal acts of sexualjealousy or revenge. Prime examples are the stories of Tomyris ofthe Massagetai (1.211-14), Pheretime of Cyrene (4.205, see below____________________32 See, e.g., Dover (1974) 205-16, (1978) passim, Winkler (1990), Cohen (1991).33 Rosselini and Sad (1978), Dewald (1981), Gould (1989) 129-32.34 Well argued by Redfield (1985), and see also Gould (1989) 95-109.35 On his treatment of these practices, Pembroke (1967), Beard and Henderson(1997), Kurke (1999) 227-46, Harrison (2000b) 216-17, and Chs. 20 and 21 in thisvolume.36 See Dewald (1981) 99-101, Gould (1989) 131, Lateiner (1985) 93-6; forarchaeological evidence, Gerschevitch (1985), 185-99; see also Chs. 10 and 19 inthis volume.

208 p. xx), and the passions and jealousies of Xerxes and his wife Amestristowards his brother Masistes, and his wife and daughter (9.108-13). 37

Many other Eastern kings gave greater priority to the seizure ofpower, or a demonstration of its absolute nature, than to the demandsof sexual morality and family ties. Two examples may be given.Candaules, the last Heraclid king of Lydia, 'who was destined toend badly' (1.8), brought about his downfall through excessive sexuallove for his own wife, and the inappropriate need to have herbeauty appreciated by his favourite Gyges (described as being contraryto what is proper, ta kala, and to nomos). His wife's strong senseof shame (aids, aiskhun) at being seen unveiled and naked by anotherman impelled her to seek revenge through murder; Herodotus commentsthat this sense of disgrace was even more typical of barbarianpeoples than (by implication) Greeks, whose males at least exercisednaked. 38 Gyges' readiness to acceed to the wife's desire for revengeand their joint seizure of power, would, according to the Delphicoracle, lead to retribution falling on his descendants in the fifth generation(1.13, 91). Astyages' preparedness to have his daughter marriedto a man of a lesser ethnic group, and then, more dreadfully,to have her son, his grandson Cyrus killed rather than see him succeedto his imperial position, has as its apparently natural consequencea yet fouler deed against the values of family feeling and succession;and retribution followed, as his act of revenge against Harpagus inserving up his son to him at a feast met with retaliation whenHarpagus inspired Cyrus to lead the Persians in revolt (1.107-30). 39____________________37 On the Masistes story, see also Gould (1991) 10-11 and Chs. 10, pp. 230-1and 13, pp. 310-13 in this volume; on the moral and political theme of the declineof the Persian monarchy, and its significant placing here, see Dewald (1997), esp.68-70.38 On aids, see above all Cairns (1993), and on this passage Gould (1980) 53-4,Kilmer (1993) 161-2, and Cairns (1996). There is another case of women's shamein relation to exposure of their own bodies at 3.133. On the thematic connectionslinking the stories of Candaules' and Masistes' wives, and their contribution to thecomplex modes of closure of the work, see also Wolff (1964), Herington (1991a)152-3, and below, pp. 215-16.39 Recent analyses of this episode in van der Veen (1996) Ch. 3 and Pelling(1996), though van der Veen undervalues the importance in such standard folktalesof the failure to kill babies fated to become kings or leaders, because of thenatural difficulty even tough men find in killing smiling babies; on these motifs(found in 5.92, as well as in many other traditions), see Binder (1964), Lewis (1980)and Asheri (1988) on 1.113.

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215Finally, the last event of Greek-Persian conflict in the Histories (justafter the story of the excessive, also mutilatory, revenges of Xerxesand his wife on Masistes and his wife) is the capture of Sestus

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