Herotous Greed In Herodous

Just like Plutarch, Herodotus treated Themistocles ambivalently in his writing. He stated many times Themistocles was a greedy man. However, Herodotus also praised Themistocles’ success as an Athenian commander during the Persian Wars. This is comparable to how Plutarch treated Themistocles; except while Plutarch critiqued Themistocles on his ambition, Herodotus critiqued him on his greed. Herodotus included anecdotes that explained how Themistocles was greedy. In book eight of his Histories, Herodotus wrote Themistocles took a bribe from the Euboeans to stay and fight for them. Herodotus seemed to believe that Themistocles’ decision to take a bribe was a dishonorable one. Themistocles then used this money to convince other leaders to stay but kept “the rest of the money without anyone’s knowing” (Hdt. 8.5). To Herodotus, it was even more dishonorable to “pretend he was giving the money out of his own funds” and then keep a good sum of it for himself. Herodotus’ feelings about this were apparent in the connotation of this section. Themistocles’ greed also makes an appearance later in Herodotus’ Histories. Themistocles had apparently tried to extort money from Greek islands in exchange for …show more content…
For example, in section fourteen, he wrote that Themistocles persuaded “the Athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis” which does not reveal any of his feelings towards Themistocles (Thuc. 1.14). It is likely Thucydides could have written this to be a statement of fact without even thinking of how he felt about Themistocles. However, this statement might not contain his true feelings because Thucydides did not want to show a bias or expand the truth like he believed previous historians did (Thuc. 1.21). However, by the end of the same book, he went against these previously-stated beliefs about not showing bias and began to praise