The only tiling that a shrewd and critical Greek like Herodotus would say about the divine power that ordains the course of history is that it is phthoneros kai tarachodes: it rejoices in upsetting and disturbing things. He was only repeating (i. 32) what every Greek knew: that the power of Zeus is manifested in the thunderbolt, that of Poseidon in the earthquake, that of Apollo in the pestilence, and that of Aphrodite in the passion that destroyed at once the pride of Phaedra and the chastity of Hippolytus.
