Quote·Ancient Greece·Classical Greece
Herodotus on Persian Customs
"To tell a lie is the most disgraceful thing." — Herodotus, Histories, Book I, on Persian honor.
David — "The Death of Socrates" (1787), public domain
No tolerance for lies.
In Histories I.136, Herodotus explained that Persian boys were taught 'to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth.' For Persians, truth-telling was a point of national pride.
A mirror to Greek values.
This detail wasn’t just ethnography. Herodotus used it to provoke his Greek readers: If Persia put such value in honesty, what did that say about Greek public life?
Herodotus was fascinated that, among the Persians, lying was considered worse than almost any other crime — a foreign concept to many Greek politicians.
