Rosamund Mitchell -- Herodotus on Persian Culture

  General comment to everyone:  Be sure you articulate why you are calling some things 
  *borders* or *boundaries* (i.e. things that divide some place from another place or 
  some people from others, while at the same time forming a connection between them in some way).  
  Some of you seem to be using those words almost as synonyms for "differences," but there is 
  more to it than that because you aren't always working in the idea of simultaneous 
  *separation* and *connection*. 

   Your paper on Herodotus is not bad, but it does not go very deep.   I think 
   you might have been struggling for things to say at times and that also caused 
   a certain repetitiousness at several points (especially the various places where
   you say the fact that he does not discuss his sources "... call[s] into question
   the validity of his information"  (see point (4) below regarding this).  Here are 
   some suggestions for things to discuss in more detail in your rewrite:

    (1) Your opening paragraph says that Herodotus wanted to record the customs
        of the Persians for posterity.  That's certainly true, but it leaves out
        the question of *why* he would want to do that.  If you go back to the "Proem"
        at the start of Book I, you can start to understand some of his motivations
        and it would be good to say more about that and incorporate that into your
        thesis.

    (2) I notice that you did not address 1.131 and 1.132 (the religious customs) 
        at all.  We mentioned those in class briefly, but I think there's more to say.
        So I would recommend you think over those again as well.  Herodotus sees
        Persian religion as much more "abstract" than Greek religion.  The
        Greek gods have very human qualities, but the Persian gods seem to him
        to be almost impersonal natural forces.  And the Persians' actual religious
        practices are different from Greek practices as well.  One interesting
        sidelight there is the way Persians must always pray for the welfare of the King 
        and the welfare of the whole population (see 1.132.2) instead of only in their
        own interest.  If Herodotus is pointing that out, it must be because he sees 
        that as an important difference in their society.  What does that say about
        the Persians?  And what does the lack of anything like that in Greek religion 
        say about the Greeks?

    (3) You mention the "wine-aided" decision-making process Herodotus describes
        in 1.133 without really saying anything about it, in particular about the way
        the Persians reconsider whatever decisions they have made the next day when they
        are sober.  Do you think Herodotus is claiming this is a foolhardy or 
        dangerous way to do things?  Or might it even have advantages?  (Does 
        being drunk help them "think outside of the box," for instance?)  

    (4) The focus on reliability (or not) of Herodotus's information is good.
        But I think it's easy to underestimate the amount of contact between Greeks and 
        Persians. That would have allowed this sort of information to pass relatively
        freely, especially between Persians and Greeks from the cities on the
        Ionian coast (present-day Turkey).  Don't forget that Herodotus's home
        city of Halicarnassus was one of those.  

   In terms of the attached rubric, I think the Content and Evidence categories
   are mostly at the "Proficient" level, while the Structure and Execution levels
   are at the "Advanced" level.

   Content: B
 
   Mechanics: A