Communications and Media

Historical accounts and journalistic reports had first been discovered within the writings of Herodotus. He had been well-known as a scholar of his period who had chronicled the customs, traditions, stories, and experiences in the ancient world. No doubt that his popularity and works were often quoted or had served as references for various writers around the world. Nonetheless, the obvious exaggeration and the use of fantastical descriptions in his writings gave room to question the authenticity and accurateness of his descriptions and elaborations of the past. Moreover, modern forms of media and methods of verification were now available to verify his claims. In this essay, I would like to explain and clarify the contentions surrounding some of Herodotus accounts.

History is about the accounts of the past whereas journalism is about the description of current experience and a report of what other people have said. The journalistic part in Herodotus works was basically a description of Babylon and its surrounding empires. The descriptions were personal accounts as well as reports andor stories that Herodotus acquired from travelers and other scholars.
Let us first consider the description of Babylon described in I193. According to Herodotus, there is not much rain in the area. Nonetheless, the irrigation and canal systems were enough to supply water for the fields. Moreover, Herodotus stated that there is a water-system that carries water from Euphrates river into Tigris river. This statement could be verified by looking into the modern geography and water-system in Baghdad, which is the modern city counterpart of Babylon.

According to Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker (359), the Nahr Malka or kings trench is the largest canal system in ancient Babylon that was repaired by Nebuchadnezzar and was cited by Herodotus as the largest Babylonian canal. This shows that the extensive water-system in Babylon is a matter of fact. This might have led to the fruitfulness of Babylon. Modern historical writers such as George Rawlinson (51) found that even today, some of the area where Babylon stands is still highly fertile and very productive. Herodotus proceeds with the description of caprification or tying the male and the female figs together to ensure pollination through gall-flies or other insects as pollinators. This procedure is popular among the Greeks. However, Herodotus believed that doing the same thing with date palms would yield the same result. Nevertheless, according to David Asheri (209), the pollination of palms does not depend on gall-flies or other insects. Herodotus also discussed his surprise regarding the round boats that sailed the Euphrates river, which could carry about five thousand talents. Asheri (209), a modern commentator on Herodotus work, claimed that these boats still existed and are therefore real. They were known as gufah. However, Asheri argued that these round boats could not possibly carry the weight that Herodotus claimed.

Based on the readings and an analysis of some accounts made by Herodotus, it seems that his accounts of geographical places are accurate. However, he tends to deliberately produce inaccurate accounts to exaggerate or create a better story for example, the weight that the round boats can carry. Moreover, he is inaccurate when he was misinformed, thus he was often labeled as uncritical. For example, Herodotus wrote that there are fox-sized ants in the plains of India that devoured camels and collects heaps of gold dusts. By further research, one would discover that there are marmots in the area that are indeed the size of the fox, which collects gold dust. The Minaro tribal people attest that there is indeed heaps of gold dust that could be collected from the opening of the marmots burrows (Simons, 1996). With respect to the camel-eating claim, there is a type of Solifugae that looks like big ants or spiders. Myths told from ancient times described the camel-spiders as camel-eating spiders that prey on camels during the night. This could have been the same information that Herodotus received from travelers. The same stories still exist today. During the 2003 war in Iraq, there are several stories that portray the ferociousness of these hairy species (Walker, 2004). They were said to attack humans or soldiers in particular. In Iraq, camel spiders were believed to lay their eggs in the camels belly. In Mexico, they were believed to feed on deer (Walker, 2004). Nonetheless, further investigation of the species habits and diet confirmed that they are not dangerous to humans or anything larger to their size. They mostly feed on insects and lizards. They were only attracted to the soldiers camp because of the shade that it provides.

The explanation above confirms that the accurateness of the news today is based on the actual experiments or footages not merely oral evidences. The testimonials of credible people are often taken as basis for the truth or validity of the claim during the ancient period. In our current society, news needs to be verified empirically through evidence from actual experience, properly documented. This is the main difference between the journalism of today with those f the past. Journalism in the contemporary world is more objective while the reports from which Herodotus derived his conclusions were merely subjective claims. Since, Herodotus did not claim that he had seen the furry ants himself, he should not be faulted for giving an account based on the information he had acquired.