Histories
Fragment from Histories, Book VIII on 2nd-century Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2099
Author(s)	Herodotus
Country	Greece
Language	Ancient Greek
Genre(s)	History
Publisher	Various
Publication date	c. 440 BC

The Histories of Herodotus is considered one of the seminal works of history in Western literature. Written from the 450s to the 420s BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known around the Mediterranean and Western Asia at that time. It is not an impartial record but it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established without precedent the genre and study of history in the Western world, although historical records and chronicles existed beforehand.

Perhaps most importantly, it stands as one of the first, and surviving, accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire, the events of, and causes for, the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Herodotus portrays the conflict as one between the forces of slavery (the Persians) on the one hand, and freedom (the Athenians and the confederacy of Greek city-states which united against the invaders) on the other.

The Histories was at some point through the ages divided into the nine books of modern editions, conventionally named after the Muses.

Motivation for writing[link]

Herodotus seems to have traveled extensively around the ancient world, conducting interviews and collecting stories for his book. At the beginning of The Histories, Herodotus sets out his reasons for writing it:

This is the showing-forth of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that neither what has come to be from man in time might become faded, nor that great and wondrous deeds, those shown forth by Greeks and those by barbarians, might be without their glory; and together with all this, also through what cause they warred with each other.

Storyline[link]

[edit] Book I (Clio)

View of Delphi, looking down from the theater.

• The rapes of Io, Europa, and Medea, which motivated Paris to abduct Helen. The subsequent Trojan War is marked as a precursor to later conflicts between peoples of Asia and Europe. (1.1–5)^[1]
• The rulers of Lydia (on the west coast of modern Turkey): Candaules, Gyges, Sadyattes, Alyattes, Croesus (1.6–7)
• How Gyges took the kingdom from Candaules (1.8–13)
• The singer Arion's ride on the dolphin (1.23–24)
• Solon's answer to Croesus's question that Tellus was the happiest person in the world (1.29–33)
• Croesus's efforts to protect his son Atys, his son's accidental death by Adrastus (1.34–44)
• Croesus's test of the oracles (1.46–54)
• The answer from the Oracle of Delphi concerning whether Croesus should attack the Persians (famous for its ambiguity): If you attack you will destroy a great empire (1.55–56)
• Peisistratos' rises and falls from power as tyrant of Athens (1.59–64)
• The rise of Sparta (1.65–68)
• Croesus's defeat by Cyrus II of Persia, and how he later became Cyrus's advisor (1.70–92)
• The rulers of the Medes: Deioces, Phraortes, Cyaxares, Astyages, Cyrus II of Persia (1.95–144)
• 

  

  Edwin Long's 1875 interpretation of The Babylonian Marriage Market as described by Herodotus in Book 1 of the Histories
  The rise of Deioces over the Medes
• Astyages's attempt to destroy Cyrus, and Cyrus's rise to power
• Harpagus tricked into eating his son, his revenge against Astyages by assisting Cyrus
• The culture of the Persians
• The history and geography of the Ionians, and the attacks on it by Harpagus
• Pactyes' convinces the Lydians to revolt. Rebellion fails and he seeks refuge from Mazares in Cyme (Aeolis)
• The culture of Assyria, especially the design and improvement of the city of Babylon and the ways of its people
• Cyrus's attack on Babylon, including his revenge on the river Gyndes and his famous method for entering the city
• Cyrus's ill-fated attack on the Massagetæ

[edit] Book II (Euterpe)

Statue of the Egyptian goddess Hathor.

• The proof of the antiquity of the Phrygians by the use of children unexposed to language
• The geography of Egypt
• Speculations on the Nile river
• The religious practices of Egypt, especially as they differ from the Greeks
• The animals of Egypt: cats, dogs, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, otters, phoenixes, sacred serpents, winged snakes, ibises
• The culture of Egypt: medicine, funeral rites, food, boats
• The kings of Egypt: Menes, Nitocris, Mœris, Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus
• Helen and Paris's stay in Egypt, just before the Trojan War (2.112–120) ^[2]
• More kings of Egypt: Rhampsinitus (and the story of the clever thief), Cheops (and the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza), Chephren, Mycerinus, Asychis, Anysis, Sethôs
• The line of priests
• The Labyrinth
• More kings of Egypt: the twelve, Psammetichus (and his rise to power), Necôs, Psammis, Apries, Amasis II (and his rise to power)

[edit] Book III (Thalia)

The ruins of Persepolis, capital of the Persian Empire.

• Cambyses II of Persia's (son of Cyrus II and king of Persia) attack on Egypt, and the defeat of the Egyptian king Psammetichus III.
• Cambyses's abortive attack on Ethiopia
• The madness of Cambyses
• The good fortune of Polycrates king of Samos
• Periander, the king of Corinth and Corcyra, and his obstinate son
• The revolt of the two Magi in Persia and the death of Cambyses
• The conspiracy of the seven to remove the Magi
• The rise of Darius I of Persia.
• The twenty satrapies
• The culture of India and their method of collecting gold
• The culture of Arabia and their method of collecting spices
• The flooded valley with five gates
• Orœtes's (governor of Sardis) scheme against Polycrates
• The physician Democêdes
• The rise of Syloson governor of Samos
• The revolt of Babylon and its defeat by the scheme of Zopyrus

[edit] Book IV (Melpomene)

Scythian warriors, drawn after figures on an electrum cup from the Kul'Oba kurgan burial near Kerch (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg).

• The history of the Scythians (from the land north of the Black Sea)
• The miraculous poet Aristeas
• The geography of Scythia
• The inhabitants of regions beyond Scythia: Sauromatae, Budini, Thyssagetae, Argippaeans, Issedones, Arimaspi, Hyperboreans
• A comparison of Libya (Africa), Asia, and Europe
• The rivers of Scythia: the Ister, the Tyras, the Hypanis, the Borysthenes, the Panticapes, the Hypacyris, the Gerrhus, and the Tanais
• The culture of the Scythians: religion, burial rites, xenophobia (the stories of Anacharsis and Scylas), population
• The beginning of Darius's attack on Scythia, including the pontoon bridge over the Bosphorus
• The brutal worship of Zalmoxis by the Getae
• The customs of the surrounding peoples: Tauri, Agathyrsi, Neuri, Androphagi (man-eaters), Melanchlaeni, Geloni, Budini, Sauromatae
• The wooing of the Amazons by the Scyths, forming the Sauromatae
• Darius's failed attack on Scythia and consequent retreat
• The story of the Minyæ (descendants of the Argonauts) and the founding of Cyrene
• The kings of Cyrene: Battus I, Arcesilaus I, Battus II, Arcesilaus II, Battus III (and the reforms of Demonax), Arcesilaus III (and his flight, restoration, and assassination), Battus IV, and Arcesilaus IV (his revolt and death)
• The peoples of Libya from east to west
• The revenge of Arcesilaus' mother Pheretima

[edit] Book V (Terpsichore)

Statue of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens.

• The attack on the Thracians by Megabazus
• The removal of the Paeonians to Asia
• The slaughter of the Persian envoys by Alexander I of Macedon
• The failed attack on the Naxians by Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus
• The revolt of Miletus against Persia
• The background of Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, and his half brother Dorieus
• The description of the Persian Royal Road from Sardis to Susa
• The introduction of writing to Greece by the Phoenicians
• The freeing of Athens by Sparta, and its subsequent attacks on Athens
• The reorganizing of the Athenian tribes by Cleisthenes
• The attack on Athens by the Thebans and Eginetans
• The backgrounds of the tyrants of Corinth, Cypselus and his son Periander
• Aristagoras's failed request for help from Sparta, and successful attempt with Athens
• The burning of Sardis, and Darius's vow for revenge against the Athenians
• Persia's attempts to quell the Ionian revolt

[edit] Book VI (Erato)

Miltiades.

• The fleeing of Histiaeus to Chios
• The training of the Ionian fleet by Dionysius of Phocaea
• The abandonment of the Ionian fleet by the Samians during battle
• The defeat of the Ionian fleet by the Persians
• The capture and death of Histiaeus by Harpagus
• The invasion of Greece under Mardonius and enslavement of Macedon
• The destruction of 300 ships in Mardonius's fleet near Athos
• The order of Darius that the Greeks provide him earth and water, in which most consent, including Aegina
• The Athenian request for assistance of Cleomenes of Sparta in dealing with the traitors
• The history behind Sparta having two kings and their powers
• The dethronement of Demaratus, the other king of Sparta, due to his supposed false lineage
• The arrest of the traitors in Aegina by Cleomenes and the new king Leotychides
• The suicide of Cleomenes in a fit of madness, possibly caused by his war with Argos, drinking unmixed wine, or his involvement in dethroning Demaratus
• The battle between Aegina and Athens
• The taking of Eretria by the Persians after the Eretrians sent away Athenian help
• Pheidippides's encounter with the god Pan on a journey to Sparta to request aid
• The assistance of the Plataeans, and the history behind their alliance with Athens
• The Athenian win at the Battle of Marathon, led by Miltiades and other strategoi
• The Spartans late arrival to assist Athens
• The history of the Alcmaeonidae and how they came about their wealth and status
• The death of Miltiades after a failed attack on Paros and the successful taking of Lemnos

[edit] Book VII (Polymnia)

Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David (1814)

• The amassing of an army by Darius after learning about the defeat at Marathon
• The quarrel between which son should succeed Darius in which Xerxes I of Persia is chosen
• The death of Darius in 486 BC
• The defeat of the Egyptian rebels by Xerxes
• The advice given to Xerxes on invading Greece: Mardonius for invasion, Artabanus against (9-10)
• The dreams of Xerxes in which a phantom frightens him and Artabanus into choosing invasion
• The preparations for war, including a canal and Xerxes's Pontoon Bridges across the Hellespont
• The offer by Pythius to give Xerxes all his money, in which Xerxes rewards him
• The request by Pythius to allow one son to stay at home, Xerxes's anger, and the march out between the butchered halves of Pythius's son
• The destruction and rebuilding of the bridges built by the Egyptians and Phoenicians at Abydos
• The siding with Persia of many Greek states, including Thessaly, Thebes, Melia, and Argos
• The refusal of aid after negotiations by Gelo of Syracuse, and the refusal from Crete
• The destruction of 400 Persian ships due to a storm
• The small Greek force (appox. 6000) led by Leonidas I, sent to Thermopylae to delay the Persian army (~5,283,220 (Herodotus) )
• The Battle of Thermopylae in which the Greeks hold the pass for 3 days
• The secret pass divulged by Ephialtes of Trachis in which Hydarnes uses to lead forces around the mountains to encircle the Greeks
• The retreat of all but the Spartans, Thespians, and Thebans (forced to stay by the Spartans).
• The Greek defeat and order by Xerxes to remove Leonidas's head and attach his torso to a cross

[edit] Book VIII (Urania)

A Greek trireme

• Greek fleet is led by Eurybiades, a Spartan
• The destruction by storm of two hundred ships sent to block the Greeks from escaping
• The retreat of the Greek fleet after word of a defeat at Thermopylae
• The supernatural rescue of Delphi from a Persian attack
• The evacuation of Athens assisted by the fleet
• The reinforcement of the Greek fleet at Salamis Island, bringing the total ships to 378
• The destruction of Athens by the Persian land force after difficulties with those who remained
• The Battle of Salamis, the Greeks have the advantage due to better organization, and less loss due to ability to swim
• The description of the Angarum, the Persian riding post
• The rise in favor of Artemisia, the Persian woman commander, and her council to Xerxes in favor returning to Persia
• The vengeance of Hermotimus, Xerxes' chief eunuch, against Panionius
• The attack on Andros by Themistocles, the Athenian fleet commander and most valiant Greek at Salamis
• The escape of Xerxes and leaving behind of 300,000 picked troops under Mardonius in Thessaly
• The ancestry of Alexander I of Macedon, including Perdiccas
• The refusal of an attempt by Alexander to seek a Persian alliance with Athens

[edit] Book IX (Calliope)

The Serpent Column dedicated by the victorious Greeks

• The second taking of an evacuated Athens
• The evacuation to Thebes by Mardonius after the sending of Lacedaemonian troops
• The slaying of Masistius, leader of the Persian cavalry, by the Athenians
• The warning from Alexander to the Greeks of an impending attack
• The death of Mardonius by Aeimnestus
• The Persian retreat to Thebes where they are afterwards slaughtered (Battle of Plataea)
• The description and dividing of the spoils
• The speedy escape of Artabazus into Asia.
• The Persian defeat in Ionia by the Greek fleet (Battle of Mycale), and the Ionian revolt
• The mutilation of the wife of Masistes ordered by Amestris, wife of Xerxes
• The death of Masistes after his intent to rebel
• The Athenian blockade of Sestos and the capture of Artayctes

Translations of the Histories[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: History of Herodotus

• George Rawlinson, 1858: in classics.mit.edu full text of all books (Book I to Book IX)
• George Campbell Macaulay, 1904: full text, vol. 1, full text, vol. 2 Project Gutenberg
• Alfred Denis Godley, 1921: full text, librivox audiobook, vol. 1, librivox audiobook, vol. 2, librivox audiobook, vol. 3
• Aubrey de Sélincourt, 1954 excerpts;2003, revised by John Marincola
• Harry Carter, 1958
• David Grene, 1985
• Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, 1992
• Robin Waterfield, 1998
• Shlomo Felberbaum, 2003 – work in progress: full text
• Andrea L. Purvis, 2007

Manuscripts[link]

• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 18
• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 19
• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2099, early 2nd century AD - fragment of Book VIII

External links[link]

• AD. Godley translation with footnotes: The Histories, (Direct link to PDFPDF (14 MB))
• LibriVox audiobook recording of Herodotus' Histories
• The Histories unabridged online audiobook.
• Herodotus' Histories: the 28 logoi

Notes[link]

See also[link]

• Steganography
• Historical novels sourcing material from Herodotus:
• Otanes
  • Pharaoh, by Bolesław Prus, incorporating the Labyrinth scenes inspired by Herodotus' description in Book II of The Histories
  • Creation, by Gore Vidal, interpreting many scenes from the Persian viewpoint.
  • Gates of Fire, by Stephen Pressfield, has the Battle of Thermopylae (Book VII) as its centrepiece.
  • Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński

Herodotus
Bust of Herodotus
Born	c. 484 BC Halicarnassus, Caria, Asia Minor
Died	c. 425 BC (aged approximately 60) Thurii, Calabria or Pella, Macedon
Occupation	Historian

Herodotus ( /hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (circa 484 – 425 BC). He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.^[1] The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.

[edit] The Histories

The Histories, otherwise known as The Researches or The Inquiries, were divided by later Alexandrian editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses: the "Muse of History", Clio, representing the first book, then Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope for books 2 to 9, respectively.^[2] At its simplest and broadest level of meaning, The Histories is structured as a dynastic history of four Persian kings:

• Cyrus, 557—530 BC: Book 1;
• Cambyses, 530—522 BC: Book 2 and part of Book 3;
• Darius, 521—486 BC: the rest of Book 3 then Books 4,5,6;
• Xerxes, 486—479 BC: Books 7, 8, 9.

Within this basic structure, the author traces the way the Persians developed a custom of conquest and shows how their habits of thinking about the world finally brought about their downfall in Greece.^[3] Some commentators have argued the story of the first three kings must have been originally planned as a history of Persia and the story of Xerxes, later added to it, is instead a history of the Persian Wars.^[4] Whatever the original plan might have been, the larger, historical account is often merely a background to a broad range of inquiries and, as Herodotus himself observes, "Digressions are part of my plan." (Book 4, 30)^[5] The digressions can be understood to cover two themes: an account of the history of the entire, known world as governed by the principle of reciprocity (or what today might be more commonly called an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and one good turn deserves another); and an account of the many astonishing reports and sights gained by the author during his extensive travels.^[6][7] The reader is thus presented with a diversity of human experiences and settings within the context of an over-arching historical order. The narrative structure allows for this diversity through simple stylistic devices such as the principle of ring composition, familiar since the time of Homer, in which the introduction and conclusion of a story or sub-plot is signalled by the repetition of some formulaic statement, facilitating the reader's comprehension of stories within stories in a kind of 'Chinese-box technique'—a structure that has no resemblance to the nine books artificially created by Alexandrian scholars.^[8] Herodotus's method of enquiry in fact presents a world where everything is potentially important^[6]—this at a time when philosophers increasingly sought to understand the world according to basic principles. The work in fact was something of an anachronism.^[9] Yet those who did not appreciate it as model of history could still admire the style of writing—thus Dionysius of Halicarnassus praises its sweetness and charm (De Thuc. 23). Herodotus employs a deceptively simple narrative style, in which the original Greek is Ionian in dialect, including however some Homeric and other forms.^[10]

Place in history[link]

His statue in Bodrum, ancient Halicarnassus. He has been called "The Father of History" (first conferred by Cicero) and "The Father of Lies".^[11] As these epithets imply, there has long been a debate—at least from the time of Cicero's On the Laws (Book 1, paragraph 5)—concerning the veracity of his tales and, more importantly, the extent to which he knew himself to be creating fabrications.

Herodotus announced the size and scope of his work at the very beginning of his Researches or Histories:

Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τὰ τε ἄλλα καὶ δι' ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι.^[12]

Translation:
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, his Researches are here set down to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of our own and of other peoples; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict.^[13]

His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. His place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact. However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic of Augustan Rome, listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple, unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naive, often charming - all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.^[14] Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain but, according to the ancient account, these predecessors included for example Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus. Only fragments of the latter's work survive (and the authenticity of these is debatable)^[15] yet they allow us glimpses into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories, as for example in the introduction to Hecataeus's work, Genealogies:

Hecataeus the Milesian speaks thus: I write these things as they seem true to me; for the stories told by the Greeks are various and in my opinion absurd.^[16]

This points forward to the 'folksy' yet 'international' outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one modern scholar, reading between the lines, has described the work of Hecataeus as "a curious false start to history"^[17] because, despite its critical spirit, it failed to liberate history from myth. Herodotus actually mentions Hecataeus in his Histories, on one occasion mocking him for his naive genealogy and, on another occasion, quoting Athenian complaints against his handling of their national history.^[18] It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a quote recorded by Eusebius.^[19] In particular, it is possible that he copied descriptions of the crocodile, hippopotamus and phoenix from Hecataeus's 'Circumnavigation of the Known World' (Periegesis/Periodos ges), even mis-representing the source as 'Heliopolitans' (Histories 2.73).^[20] But unlike Herodotus, Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, nor did he include the oral traditions of Greek history within the larger framework of oriental history.^[21] There is no proof that Herodotus derived the ambitious scope of his own work, with its grand theme of civilizations in conflict, from any predecessor, despite much scholarly speculation about this in modern times.^[17][22] Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors, relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, he argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the older theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe and Asia/Africa equal in size (Hist. 4.36 and 4.42). Yet, he retains idealising tendencies, as in his symmetrical notions of the Danube and Nile.^[23]

His debt to previous authors of prose 'histories' might be questionable but there is no doubt that he owed much to the example and inspiration of poets and story-tellers. For example, Athenian tragic poets provided him with a world-view of a balance between conflicting forces, upset by the hubris of kings, and they provided his narrative with a model of episodic structure. His familiarity with Athenian tragedy is demonstrated, for example, in a number of passages echoing Aeschylus's Persae, including the epigrammatic observation that the defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis caused the defeat of the land army (Hist. 8.68 ~ Persae 728). The debt may have been repaid by Sophocles because there appear to be echoes of The Histories in his plays, especially a passage in Antigone that resembles Herodotus's account of the death of Intaphernes (Histories 3.119 ~ Antigone 904-20)^[24] - this however is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship.^[25]

Homer was another inspirational source.

"In the scheme and plan of his work, in the arrangement and order of its parts, in the tone and character of the thoughts, in ten thousand little expressions and words, the Homeric student appears." - George Rawlinson^[26]

Just as Homer drew extensively on a tradition of oral poetry, sung by wandering minstrels, so Herodotus appears to have drawn on an Ionian tradition of story-telling, collecting and interpreting the oral histories he chanced upon in his travels. These oral histories often contained folk-tale motifs and demonstrated a moral, yet they also contained substantial facts relating to geography, anthropology and history, all compiled by Herodotus in an entertaining style and format.^[27] It is on account of the many strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics in early modern times branded him 'The Father of Lies'.^[28] Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement. In fact one modern scholar^[29] has wondered if Herodotus left his home in Asiatic Greece, migrating westwards to Athens and beyond, because his own countrymen had ridiculed his work, a circumstance possibly hinted at in an epitaph said to have been dedicated to Herodotus at Thuria (one of his three supposed resting places):

Herodotus the son of Lyxes here

Lies; in Ionic history without peer;

A Dorian born, who fled from Slander's brand

And made in Thuria his new native land.^[30]

Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found. In 425 BC, which is about the time that Herodotus is thought by many scholars to have died, the Athenian comic dramatist, Aristophanes, created The Acharnians, in which he blames The Peloponnesian War on the abduction of some prostitutes - a mocking reference to Herodotus, who reported the Persians' account of their wars with Greece, beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroines Io, Europa, Medea and Helen.^[31][32] Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a 'logos-writer' or story-teller.^[33] Thucydides, who had been trained in rhetoric, became the model for subsequent prose-writers as an author who seeks to appear firmly in control of his material, whereas Herodotus with his frequent digressions appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his auctorial control.^[34] Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek lifestyle - the polis or city-state - whereas the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Asiatic Greeks (such as Herodotus himself), for whom life under foreign rule was a recent memory.^[33]

Although The Histories were often criticized in antiquity for bias, inaccuracy and plagiarism — Lucian of Samosata attacked Herodotus as a liar in Verae Historiae and went as far as to deny him a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed — modern historians and philosophers take a more positive view of Herodotus's methodology, especially those searching for a paradigm of objective historical writing. A few modern scholars have argued that Herodotus exaggerated the extent of his travels and invented his sources^[35] yet his reputation continues largely intact: "The Father of History is also the father of comparative anthropology",^[28] "the father of ethnography",^[36] and he is "more modern than any other ancient historian in his approach to the ideal of total history."^[7]

"Before the Persian crisis history had been represented among the Greeks only by local or family traditions. The Wars of Liberation had given to Herodotus the first genuinely historical inspiration felt by a Greek. These wars showed him that there was a corporate life, higher than that of the city, of which the story might be told; and they offered to him as a subject the drama of the collision between East and West. With him, the spirit of history was born into Greece; and his work, called after the nine Muses, was indeed the first utterance of Clio." — Richard Claverhouse Jebb^[37]

Life[link]

As told by other 'liars'[link]

As mentioned earlier, Herodotus has sometimes been labeled 'The Father of Lies' because of his tendency to report fanciful information. Much of the information that others subsequently reported about him is just as fanciful and some of it is vindictive or blatantly absurd, yet it is interesting and therefore worth reporting. Herodotus himself reported dubious information if it was interesting, sometimes adding his own opinion about its reliability.

Some "calumnious fictions" were written about Herodotus in a work titled On the Malice of Herodotus, by Plutarch, a Theban by birth, (or it might have been a Pseudo-Plutarch, in this case "a great collector of slanders"), including the allegation that the historian was prejudiced against Thebes because the authorities there had denied him permission to set up a school.^[38] Similarly, in a Corinthian Oration, Dio Chrysostom (or yet another pseudonymous author) accused the historian of prejudice against Corinth, sourcing it in personal bitterness over financial disappointments^[39] - an account also given by Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides.^[40] In fact Herodotus was in the habit of seeking out information from empowered sources within communities, such as aristocrats and priests, and this also occurred at an international level, with Periclean Athens becoming his principal source of information about events in Greece. As a result, his reports about Greek events are often coloured by Athenian bias against rival states - Thebes and Corinth in particular.^[41] Thus the allegations promoted by 'Plutarch' and 'Chrysostom' may be regarded as 'pay-back'.

Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect yet he was born in Halicarnassus, originally a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda (an 11th-century encyclopaedia of Byzantium which likely took its information from traditional accounts), Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as a boy living on the island of Samos, whither he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia I of Caria. The Suda also informs us that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. However, thanks to recent discoveries of some inscriptions on Halicarnassus, dated to about that time, we now know that the Ionic dialect was used there even in official documents, so there was no need to assume like the Suda that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere.^[42] Moreover, the fact that the Suda is the only source we have for the heroic role played by Herodotus, as liberator of his birthplace, is itself a good reason to doubt such a romantic account.^[43]

It was conventional in Herodotus's day for authors to 'publish' their works by reciting them at popular festivals. According to Lucian, Herodotus took his finished work straight from Asia Minor to the Olympic Games and read the entire Histories to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it.^[44] According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian,^[45] Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at the festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade, by which time however the assembly had dispersed - thus the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe any man who misses his opportunity through delay. Herodotus's recitation at Olympia was a favourite theme among ancient writers and there is another interesting variation on the story to be found in the Suda, Photius^[46] and Tzetzes,^[47] in which a young Thucydides happened to be in the assembly with his father and burst into tears during the recital, whereupon Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father: "Thy son's soul yearns for knowledge."

Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides' tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides.^[48] According to the Suda, he was buried in Macedonian Pella and in the agora in Thurium.^[49]

As told by other historians[link]

Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus's own writing for reliable information about his life,^[50] very carefully supplemented with other ancient yet much later sources, such as the Byzantine Suda:

"The data are so few - they rest upon such late and slight authority; they are so improbable or so contradictory, that to compile them into a biography is like building a house of cards, which the first breath of criticism will blow to the ground. Still, certain points may be approximately fixed..." - George Rawlinson.^[51]

Typically modern accounts of his life go something like this:^[52][53] Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC. There is no reason to disbelieve the Suda's information about his family, that it was influential and that he was the son of Lyxes and Dryo, and the brother of Theodorus, and that he was also related to Panyassis, an epic poet of the time. The town was within the Persian empire at that time and maybe the young Herodotus heard local eye-witness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the invasion of Greece, including the movements of the local fleet under the command of Artemisia. Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that her grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which is consistent with a tyrant under pressure, and his name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, indicating that there might well have been a successful uprising against him sometime before 454 BC. Herodotus reveals affection for the island of Samos (III, 39-60) and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos and followed by some personal hand in the tyrant's eventual fall.

As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel (I, 144), and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt (II,178). It was therefore an outward-looking, international-minded port within the Persian Empire and the historian's family could well have had contacts in countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches. His eye-witness accounts indicate that he travelled in Egypt probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier in association with Athenians, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460-454 BC. He probably travelled to Tyre next and then down the Euphrates to Babylon. For some reason, probably associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus and, sometime around 447 BC, he migrated to Periclean Athens, a city for whose people and democratic institutions he declares his open admiration (V, 78) and where he came to know not just leading citizens such as the Alcmaeonids, a clan whose history features frequently in his writing, but also the local topography (VI, 137; VIII, 52-5). According to Eusebius^[54] and Plutarch,^[55] Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work and there may be some truth in this. It is possible that he applied for Athenian citizenship - a rare honour after 451 BC, requiring two separate votes by a well-attended assembly - but was unsuccessful. In 443 BC, or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurium as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony. Aristotle refers to a version of The Histories written by 'Herodotus of Thurium' and indeed some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about southern Italy from personal experience there (IV, 15, 99; VI 127). Intimate knowledge of some events in the first years of the Peloponnesian War (VI,91; VII,133,233; IX,73) indicate that he might have returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. Possibly he died in Macedonia instead after obtaining the patronage of the court there or else he died back in Thurium. Either way, there is nothing in the Histories that can be dated with any certainty later than 430 and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.

Analysis and recent discoveries[link]

Reconstruction of the Oikoumene (inhabited world) ancient map from Herodotus, c. 450 BC.

Herodotus provides much intriguing information about the nature of the world and the status of science during his lifetime, often engaging in private speculation.

Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant, by Claude Vignon.

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 he comments that he cannot understand how there can be snow in Africa, the hottest part of the known world, offering an elaborate explanation based on the way that desert winds affect the passage of the Sun over this part of the world (2:18ff). He also passes on dismissive reports from Phoenician sailors that, while circumnavigating Africa, they "saw the sun on the right side while sailing westwards". Owing to this brief mention, which is included almost as an afterthought, it has been argued that Africa was indeed circumnavigated by ancient seafarers, for this is precisely where the sun ought to have been. His accounts of India are among the oldest records of Indian civilization by an outsider.^[56]

Gold dust and nuggets.

Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century have both added to and detracted from his credibility. His description of Gelonus, located in Scythia, as a city thousands of times larger than Troy was widely disbelieved until it was rediscovered in 1975. The archaeological study of the now-submerged ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion and the recovery of the so-called "Naucratis stela" give extensive credibility to Herodotus's previously unsupported claim that Heracleion was founded during the Egyptian New Kingdom.

Other claims he made are inconsistent with archeological and cuneiform document evidence. For instance, his account of the Medes appears to accord poorly with Assyrian and Babylonian records and with archeological evidence.^{[citation needed]}

One of the most recent developments in Herodotus scholarship was made by the French ethnologist Michel Peissel. On his journeys to India and Pakistan, Peissel claims to have discovered an animal species that may finally illuminate one of the most bizarre passages in Herodotus's Histories. In Book 3, passages 102 to 105, Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of the Persian Empire. This region, he reports, is a sandy desert, and the sand there contains a wealth of fine gold dust. These giant ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust. Now, Peissel says that in an isolated region of northern Pakistan, on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province, there exists a species of marmot, (the Himalayan Marmot), (a type of burrowing squirrel) that may have been what Herodotus called giant "ants". Much like the province that Herodotus describes, the ground of the Deosai Plateau is rich in gold dust. According to Peissel, he interviewed the Minaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, been collecting the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when they are digging their underground burrows. The story seems to have been widespread in the ancient world, because later authors like Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his gold mining section of the Naturalis Historia.

Bobak marmot in central Asia.

Even more tantalizing, in his book, The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas, Peissel offers the theory that Herodotus may have become confused because the old Persian word for "marmot" was quite similar to that for "mountain ant". Because research suggests that Herodotus probably did not know any Persian (or any other language except his native Greek), he was forced to rely on a multitude of local translators when travelling in the vast multilingual Persian Empire. Therefore, he may have been the unwitting victim of a simple misunderstanding in translation. As Herodotus never claims to have himself seen these "ant/marmot" creatures, it is likely that he was simply reporting what other travellers were telling him, no matter how bizarre or unlikely he personally may have found it to be. In the age when most of the world was still mysterious and unknown and before the modern science of biology, the existence of a giant ant may not have seemed so far-fetched. The suggestion that he completely made up the tale may continue to be thrown into doubt as more research is conducted.^[57][58]

With that said, Herodotus did follow up in passage 105 of Book 3, with the claim that the "ants/marmots" are said to chase and devour full-grown camels; again, this could simply be dutiful reporting of what was in reality a tall tale or legend told by the local tribes to frighten foreigners from seeking this relatively easy access to gold dust. On the other hand, the details of the "ants" seem somewhat similar to the description of the camel spider (Solifugae), which are said to chase camels, have lots of hair bristles, and could quite easily be mistaken for ants. On account of the fear of encountering one, there have been "many myths and exaggerations about their size".^[59] Images of camel spiders^[60][61] could give the impression that this could be mistaken for a giant ant, but certainly not the size of a fox.

See also[link]

• The Histories
• Thucydides, ancient Greek historian who is often said to be also "the father of history"
• Naturalis Historia
• Pliny the Elder

Notes[link]

Translations[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Herodotus

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Herodotus

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Herodotus

Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Ηρόδοτος

• Several English translations of The Histories of Herodotus are readily available in multiple editions. The most readily available are those translated by:
  • A. D. Godley 1920; revised 1926. Reprinted 1931, 1946, 1960, 1966, 1975, 1981, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2004. Available in four volumes from Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-99130-3 Printed with Greek on the left and English on the right.
  • David Grene, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
  • George Rawlinson, translation 1858–1860. Public domain; many editions available, although Everyman Library and Wordsworth Classics editions are the most common ones still in print.
  • Aubrey de Sélincourt, originally 1954; revised by John Marincola in 1996. Several editions from Penguin Books available.
  • Strassler, Robert B., (ed.), and Purvis, Andrea L. (trans.), The Landmark Herodotus, Pantheon, 2007. ISBN 978-0-375-42109-9 with adequate ancillary information.
  • Robin Waterfield, with an Introduction and Notes by Carolyn Dewald, Oxford World Classics, 1997. ISBN 978-0-19-953566-8

Further reading[link]

• Bakker, Egbert J.; de Jong, Irene J.F.; van Wees, Hans, eds. (2002). Brill's companion to Herodotus. Leiden: E.J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-12060-2. 
• De Selincourt, Aubrey (1962). The World of Herodotus. London: Secker and Warburg. 
• Dewald, Carolyn; Marincola, John, eds. (2006). The Cambridge companion to Herodotus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-83001-X. 
• Evans, J.A.S. (2006). The beginnings of history : Herodotus and the Persian Wars. Campbellville, Ont.: Edgar Kent. ISBN 0-88866-652-7. 
• Evans, J.A.S. (1982). Herodotus. Boston: Twayne. ISBN 0-8057-6488-7. 
• Evans, J.A.S. (1991). Herodotus, explorer of the past : three essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06871-2. 
• Flory, Stewart (1987). The archaic smile of Herodotus. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-1827-4. 
• Fornara, Charles W. (1971). Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
• Gould, John (1989). Herodotus. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-02855-5. 
• Harrington, John W. (1973). To see a world. Saint Louis: G.V. Mosby Co.. ISBN 0-8016-2058-9. 
• Hartog, François (2000). "The Invention of History: The Pre-History of a Concept from Homer to Herodotus". History and Theory 39 (3): 384–395. DOI:10.1111/0018-2656.00137. 
• Hartog, François (1988). The mirror of Herodotus : the representation of the other in the writing of history. Janet Lloyd, trans. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05487-3. 
• How, Walter W.; Wells, Joseph, eds. (1912). A Commentary on Herodotus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24146. 
• Hunter, Virginia (1982). Past and process in Herodotus and Thucydides. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03556-3. 
• Immerwahr, H. (1966). Form and Thought in Herodotus. Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press. 
• Kapuściński, Ryszard (2007). Travels with Herodotus. Klara Glowczewska, trans. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-1-4000-4338-5. 
• Lateiner, Donald (1989). The historical method of Herodotus. Toronto: Toronto University Press. ISBN 0-8020-5793-4. 
• Marozzi, Justin (2008). The way of Herodotus : travels with the man who invented history. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81621-5. 
• Momigliano, Arnaldo (1990). The classical foundations of modern historiography. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06890-4. 
• Myres, John L. (1971). Herodotus : father of history. Chicago: Henry Regnrey. ISBN 0-19-924021-3. 
• Pritchett, W. Kendrick (1993). The liar school of Herodotus. Amsterdam: Gieben. ISBN 90-5063-088-X. 
• Romm, James (1998). Herodotus. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07229-5. 
• Selden, Daniel (1999). "Cambyses' Madness, or the Reason of History". Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 42: 33–63. 
• Thomas, Rosalind (2000). Herodotus in context : ethnography, science and the art of persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66259-1. 

External links[link]

• Herodotus at About.com
• A reconstructed portrait of Herodotus, based on historical sources, in a contemporary style.
• Herodotus on the Web
• Herodotus of Halicarnassus at Livius.org
• 1911 Britannica article "Herodotus"
• Mendelsohn, Daniel (2008-04-28). "Arms and the Man". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/04/28/080428crbo_books_mendelsohn. Retrieved 2008-04-27. 
• Herodotus Inquiries—new translation with photographic essays of the places and artifacts mentioned by Herodotus hyperlinked to the text
• Works by Herodotus at Project Gutenberg
• The History of Herodotus, vol. 1 at Project Gutenberg (translation by George Campbell Macaulay, 1852–1915)
• The History of Herodotus, vol. 2 at Project Gutenberg
• The History of Herodotus, at The Internet Classics Archive (translation by George Rawlinson).
• Parallel Greek and English text of the History of Herodotus at the Internet Sacred Text Archive
• Excerpts of Sélincourt's translation
• Herodotus Histories on Perseus
• The Histories of Herodotus, A.D. Godley translation with footnotes, (Direct link to PDFPDF (14 MB))

Justin Marozzi is an English journalist, historian and travel writer.^[1] He studied at Cambridge University where he gained a Starred Double First in History in 1993. He has also earned degrees in broadcast journalism from Cardiff University and in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania as a Thouron Scholar.^[2] As a journalist, he worked for the BBC, the Financial Times and the Economist.

Marozzi has published four books. South from Barbary is an account of his explorations through the Libyan Sahara. Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World was a highly regarded biography of the Mongol conqueror Timur and was listed as a Sunday Telegraph Book of the Year. Faces of Exploration, an account of famous explorers, was followed by The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus, a biography of the world's first historian.

Marozzi was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Justin Marozzi's website