Ctesias Summary

In his article, Stronk ultimately suggests that Ctesias’ writing is a creative narration of history. He claims that “all [Ctesias] wanted was to compose a plausible and interesting narrative” (Stronk 41). He then states that “Ctesias ‘reworks’ historical facts and thus transforms various occurrences into his version of the truth. In [Ctesias’] work history has merely become a part of the plot. What happened or what was said to have happened or even what could have happened and never happened at all is indistinguishably mixed” (Stronk 44). Based on this description, Herodotus’ writing style is definitely comparable to Ctesias’. Herodotus’ Histories contain stories that seem to be completely fictional, or “reworked,” as Stork described Ctesias’ writing. Also, at many points throughout the book Herodotus states that there are many versions of the story he is telling, but he picks and chooses when he will tell all of the versions and when he
In the Histories, Herodotus writes that Cyaxares and the Medes invited a large number of Scythians to a banquet, and then “made them drunk and murdered them” (49). Herodotus also tell another story where Cyrus laid out a banquet to trick the Massagetae troops, who “ate and drank so much they went to sleep. This was the Persians’ opportunity: they fell upon them, killed many, and took an even greater number of prisoners” (93). Ctesias tells a story in which Parsonades is offered wine by Babylonian merchants that was “intentionally made very strong so that he would get drunk,” and so they could take Parsonades to Nanarus (152-153). Unlike in the stories told by Herodotus, Parsonades was not killed after indulging on alcohol, but the alcohol was used to subdue Nanarus’ rival, which leads to Parsonades pretty much being turned into a woman. Additionally, both Cyrus and Nanarus were punished for their treacherous