Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: Hērodotos Halikarnāsseus) was a Greek historian from Ionia who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC–ca. 425 BC) and is regarded as the "Father of History". He is almost exclusively known for writing The Histories, a record of his 'inquiries' into the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars which occurred in 490 and 480-479 BCE — especially since he includes a narrative account of that period, which would otherwise be poorly documented, and many long digressions concerning the various places and peoples he encountered during wide-ranging travels around the lands of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.

Most of what is known of Herodotus' life has been gathered from his own work. There was duration of exile from his home city of Halicarnassus during which he may have undertaken the broad journeys that he describes in The Histories. These journeys took him to many places such as Egypt as far south as the first cataract of the Nile, to Ukraine, Italy and Sicily. Although his description of Babylon contains highly descriptive remarks, he does not actually claim to have visited the city. He lived for a period in Athens and became familiar with the oral traditions of the prominent families. The Athenians did not accept foreigners as citizens and Herodotus would have felt out of place there. Where he died is uncertain. That is, he was a teller of stories written in prose (the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse). It is important to emphasize that his work was originally presented orally, and was designed to have a sort of theatrical element to it. His subject matter often encompassed battles, other political incidents of note, and, especially, the marvels of foreign lands. He made tours of the Greek cities and the major religious and athletic festivals, where he offered performances and expected payment. In 431 BCE, the Peloponnesian War broke out between Athens and Sparta. It may have been that conflict that inspired him to collect his stories into a continuous narrative. Centering on the theme of Persia's imperial progress, which only a united Athens and Sparta had managed to resist, they may have been intended as a critique of, or an attack upon, the war-mongering that threatened to overwhelm the entire Greek world.

ContributionHerodotus gave us a lot of information concerning the nature of the world and the status of the sciences during his lifetime.

For example, he reports that the annual flooding of the Nile was said to be the result of melting snows far to the south, and comments that he cannot understand how there can be snow in Africa, the hottest part of the known world; he concludes that the snow must be from Mount Kilimanjaro, a very large mountain in southern Africa. Although this hypothesis proved to be wrong, if it were not for Herodotus' method of comparing all theories known to him, we might never have discovered that such speculation existed in ancient Greece.

Written between 431 BCE and 425 BCE, The Histories were divided by later editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses (the 'Muse of History', Clio, represented the first book).

As the work progresses, it becomes apparent that Herodotus is fulfilling his opening desire—to 'prevent the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due mead of glory; and to put on record what causes first brought them into conflict.' He is attempting to discover who first made the 'west' and the 'east' mutual antagonists, and myth is the only source he can delve into for information on the subject.

The first six books deal broadly with the growth of the Persian Empire. The tale begins with an account of the first 'western' monarch to enter into conflict with an 'eastern' people—Croesus of Lydia attacked the Greek city-states of Ionia, and then, also attacked the Persians. Croesus was defeated by Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, and Lydia became a Persian province.

The second book forms a lengthy digression concerning the history of Egypt, which Cyrus' successor, Cambyses, annexed to the Empire. The following four books deal with the further growth of the Empire under Darius, the Ionian Revolt, and the burning of Sardis. The sixth book describes the very first Persian incursion into Greece, an attack upon those who aided the Ionians and a quest for retribution following the attack upon Sardis, which ended with the defeat of the Persians in 490 BCE at the battle of Marathon, near Athens.

The last three books describe the attempt of the Persian king Xerxes to avenge the Persian defeat at Marathon and to finally absorb Greece into the Empire. The Histories end in the year 479 BCE, with the Persian invaders having suffered both a crushing naval defeat at Salamis, and near annihilation of their ground forces at Plataea.

It is possible to see the dialectic theme of Persian power and its various excesses running like a 'red thread' throughout the narrative—cause and effect, hubris and fate, vengeance and violence. Even the strange and fantastic tales that are liberally sprinkled throughout the text find their source in this momentum. At every stage, a Persian monarch crosses a body of water or other luminal space and suffers the consequences: Cyrus attacks the Massagetae on the eastern bank of a river, and ends up decapitated; Cambyses attacks the Ethiopians to the south of Egypt, across the desert, and goes mad; Darius attacks the Scythians to the north and is flung back across the Danube; Xerxes lashes and then bridges the Hellespont, and his forces are crushed by the Greeks. Thus, though he strays (and sometimes strays rather far) off of this main course, he always returns to the task at hand—answering the question, how and why did the Greeks and Persians enter into the greatest conflict then known, and what were the consequences.

Herodotus' invention has earned him the twin titles The Father of History and The Father of Lies. As these epithets would seem to imply, there has long been a debate concerning the veracity of his tales, and, more importantly, concerning the extent to which he knew himself to be creating fabrications. Indeed, every manner of argument has surfaced on this subject, from a devious and consciously-fictionalizing Herodotus to a gullible Herodotus whose sources 'saw him coming a long way off'. Herodotus was, however, by his day's standards, reasonably accurate in his accounts, respectful of evidence, and a master of narrative.