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DOUGLAS CAIRNS

University of Edinburgh

Anger comes in a number of forms in the Histories—as cholos (the primary term in HOMER), as orgē and thymos (the regular terms in Herodotus’ own day), occasionally also as mēnis. The latter is normally used of GODS (7.197.3) or HEROES (7.134.1, 137.1–2; 9.94.2), but may also be used of humans (e.g., 7.229.2, 9.7.β.2). Thymos and orgē are occasionally used interchangeably (3.34.3/3.35.1), as are orgē and cholos (1.114.5/1.118.1). As in other authors, both orgē and thymos have wider meanings (e.g., orgē as “temperament,” 6.128.1; thymos as “spirit” or “COURAGE,” 1.120.3 etc.; as DESIRE, 1.1.4 etc.; or as “mind” or “heart,” 1.84.4 etc.); but anger is a regular and focal sense. The phrase deinon poieisthai (“considering it terrible”) normally refers to anger or indignation. Other terms (enkotos, lypē, nemesis, phthonos) also occasionally come into play in anger scenarios.

For ARISTOTLE, anger’s motivation is the desire for redress (timōria) following an unwarranted slight (Rh. 1378a30–31), or the desire to return pain for pain (De an. 403a29–30). Given that forms of retribution and retaliation loom so large in the Histories as aspects of CAUSATION and MOTIVATION, anger is one of the work’s most prominent EMOTIONS. The characteristic link between anger and slights, i.e., dishonor, is as clear in Herodotus as elsewhere: at 1.114.5 it is the HYBRIS his son suffered at the hands of Cyrus (as yet unrecognized) that provokes the Mede ARTEMBARES’ orgē; this is a loss of HONOR (timē) that Artembares’ king, ASTYAGES, wishes to make good (1.115.1), but he himself then experiences cholos at the insubordination of his retainer, Harpagus, in failing to expose the infant Cyrus in the first place (1.118.1). The sister of LYCOPHRON, son of the Corinthian tyrant, PERIANDER, describes her brother’s persistence in anger as “love of honor” (philotimia)—a stupid attitude, in her eyes (3.53.4).

Anger is regularly elicited by personal slights and features prominently in rivalries between persons and communities. It is PEISISTRATUS’ disrespectful treatment of the daughter of MEGACLES (II) that arouses Megacles’ orgē (1.61.2). DARIUS I’s implication that the SCYTHIANS are his slaves excites their kings’ orgē (4.128.1). The Sicilian tyrant, GELON, claims the moral high ground by publicly disavowing the thymos that the Spartans’ atimiē and hybris warrants (7.158.4, 160.1), but he is in fact indignant (deinon poieisthai, 7.163.1) at the idea that he, as tyrant of SYRACUSE, should be under their command. Deinon poieisthai is used repeatedly in scenarios in which agents present it as beneath their dignity to be thought inferior or unfavorably compared to those who are not in fact their superiors (1.127.1; 4.147.3; 5.42.2; 8.15.1, 16.2, 93.2). In a similar way, the Spartans are indignant at the idea of sharing their civic status with a non‐Spartan (9.33.5—which they did only in this one exceptional case, 9.35.1). Like all forms of anger in Herodotus, this can be taken to EXTREMES: the Persian commander, ARTAŸNTES, is so enraged (deinon poieisthai) at being called “worse than a woman” by XERXES’ brother, MASISTES, that he draws his sword and tries to kill him (9.107.2); the plan of ZOPYRUS (1) to mutilate himself in order to capture BABYLON for Darius is motivated by his indignation that ASSYRIANS should mock the Persians (3.155.2). This concern for the honor of one’s state or nation is widespread, both in individuals and in the groups to which they belong, so that (for example) it is cholos towards each other as long‐standing enemies that determines the policy of both the Thessalians and the Phocians towards PERSIA in 480 BCE (8.27.1, 31).

No doubt most if not all of these angry individuals and communities considered themselves justified. Herodotus’ narrative often seems to suggest that anger is warranted, for example, EUENIUS’ heroic mēnis (9.94.2) and indignation (deinon poieisthai, 9.94.3) at being first blinded, then cheated by his fellow‐citizens. And because anger in Greek is typically represented as a response to gratuitous harm (“negative reciprocity”: Sahlins 1972), even purely interpersonal cases can be associated with ideas of “justice.” Thus Darius’ orgē at the Eretrians (6.119.1) encompasses the notion that they took the initiative in harming him and thus committed adikia. Just as no one in Persia can be executed for only a single offense, so a master may not do irrevocable harm to a slave for a single offense; but if a slave’s adikēmata outweigh his services, then the master may give vent to his thymos (1.137.1). The Spartan judicial decision to hand over their king, LEOTYCHIDES II, to the Aeginetans for PUNISHMENT is questioned by one Spartan, taken in orgē as it was (6.85.2).

On the whole, however, it is extreme, irrational, and pathological forms of anger that make the greatest impression. CYAXARES’ humiliation of his Scythian protégés, out of anger (orgē) at their failure to bring anything home from the hunt, leads them, in their indignation, to invite Cyaxares to a cannibal feast (1.73.4–5). Extreme anger is one of the ways in which the powerful abuse their position. This is true not only of kings (who must be approached with caution, 4.97.2), but also of subordinate figures such as the Persian, MEGABATES, who, furious to find that one of the allied ships under his command has been left unguarded, has the captain bound half‐in and half‐out of one of the oar‐holes (and is then just as furious when ARISTAGORAS [1] sets the man free: 5.33.2–4). But the classic examples involve such prototypes of the insane oriental despot as CAMBYSES (II), whose outbursts of extreme anger Herodotus repeatedly represents as merely some among the many examples of his MADNESS (e.g., 3.37.1; cf. Harris 2001, 230). In one account of his MURDER of his wife, Cambyses’ fury (thymos) at her frankness leads him to jump on her so that she miscarries and dies (3.32.4). Angered by his officer PREXASPES’ suggestion that his only weakness is love of WINE, he sets about demonstrating his sanity by shooting Prexaspes’ son through the heart (3.34–35). This elicits from his adviser, CROESUS, a tactful warning about the dangers of youthful thymos (3.36.1).

Xerxes fully conforms to this type (Harris 2001, 231), as signaled by his fury at ARTABANUS’ opposition to his plan to invade Greece (7.11.1). Famous for his furious WHIPPING of the HELLESPONT (deinon poeisthai, 7.35.1), and for punishing a man who requested that one of his five sons be spared military service by cutting the boy in half (7.38–39), he also takes it as a personal INSULT when the Greeks at THERMOPYLAE refuse to retreat in the face of Persian numerical superiority (7.210.1). The thymos he showed then re‐emerges when, in violation of Persian values regarding the honor due defeated enemies who have fought well, he has LEONIDAS’ head impaled on a post (7.238.2). His mild response (7.105.1) to DEMARATUS’ argument that Spartan fear of the LAW makes them more formidable opponents than Xerxes’ subjects (who merely fear him) plays on our knowledge that he would very probably have been furious had he taken his interlocutor seriously. The last anecdote we hear about him (at 9.108–13) portrays a degenerate, power‐crazed royal household riven by sexual intrigue and petty rivalries. Xerxes first takes a fancy to his brother’s wife, but then, having married his son to his brother’s daughter, ARTAŸNTE, transfers his affections to her. He gives her a shawl made by his wife, AMESTRIS, which makes the wife angry (enkotos), not with Artaÿnte, but with her mother. She demands that the woman be handed over to her, which makes Xerxes angry (deinon poieisthai, 9.110.3) at the thought of depriving his brother of his wife and allowing an innocent woman to be harmed. But this justified anger does not last. Xerxes’ brother, Masistes, begs to be allowed to keep his wife and rejects the offer of Xerxes’ own daughter as a replacement. Furious (9.111.5), Xerxes withdraws his offer and commands divorce. By this time, Amestris has horribly mutilated Masistes’ wife; Masistes leaves, intending to pursue Xerxes’ overthrow, but is killed on Xerxes’ command before he can do so.

Though a more positively characterized oriental king, such as CYRUS (II), can occasionally control his anger (1.156.2, on Croesus’ advice, 1.155.3), there is a marked preponderance of the emotion, especially in its extreme forms, among non‐Greek commanders and potentates (Harris 2001, 175–76): 53 percent of the instances of orgē and 80 percent of those of thymos refer to the behavior of oriental despots. If we add the cases associated with Greek TYRANTS and the like, the association of anger with unfettered power is even more pronounced (71 and 93 percent, respectively). The figures for cholos are too low to be statistically significant, while those for deinon poieisthai show a greater degree of nuance: only 44 percent of the occurrences are associated with rulers and tyrants, 83 percent of whom are non‐Greek.

But deinon poieisthai is far from always being a reasonable or justifiable response: it can refer to the extreme, pathological forms of anger that are typical of oriental despots (e.g., Xerxes’ lashing of the Hellespont, 7.35.1), and even when predicated of Greeks it is not always commendable—it is used both of the fury of the Athenian women who use the pins of their dresses to kill the sole Athenian survivor of a battle against the Aeginetans, and of male Athenian outrage at this behavior (5.87.2–3). By contrast, the Spartan commanders’ anger (deinon poieisthai) at the insubordinate bravado of AMOMPHARETUS (9.53.3) appears warranted in circumstances in which a single individual risks undermining the strategy of an entire force (see also SHAME). The term conveys a sense of proper pride and self‐worth when it is used (by the Athenian envoys at SPARTA prior to PLATAEA, 9.7.α.2) of Athenian commitment to Greek FREEDOM. Yet this is also true slightly earlier, when it is used of the Athenians’ indignation at the idea of coming to terms with MARDONIUS (9.5.2); this justified indignation spills over into mob VIOLENCE, as the councilor who proposed such a motion is stoned to death and his wife and children suffer the same fate at the hands of the Athenian women on SALAMIS.

The expression of anger in Herodotus is often similarly brutal: violence, MUTILATION, and killing are typical (Lateiner 1987, 92–93). By contrast, the historian has comparatively little to say about anger’s symptoms, phenomenology, or expression in the face or the body. Non‐violent, passive‐aggressive forms of expression are, however, found, in the silence with which Periander’s son, Lycophron, responds to all overtures to heal the breach with his father (3.50.3, 52.4–6) and in Demaratus’ covering of his head to advertise his anger at the insult he has just received at the hands of Leotychides, who has taken his place as king (6.67.3; cf. Cairns 2001).

SEE ALSO: Barbarians; Characterization; Despotism; Reciprocity; Vengeance