Herodotus

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

Bust of Herodotus at Naples
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Bust of Herodotus at Naples

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: Ἡρόδοτος, Herodotos) was a historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. 425 BC). He is known for writing The Histories, a collection of stories on different places and peoples he learned about through his travels. It includes the conflict between Greece and Persia.

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Opinions

Herodotus' invention earned him the title "The Father of History" and the word he used for his achievement, historie, which previously had meant simply "inquiry", passed into Latin and took on its modern connotation of "history" or "story". This nickname (which has now become something of a title which is commonly referred to in modern popular culture) was given to him by Cicero (De legibus I,5)

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Herodotus' Works Under Question

There are many cases in which Herodotus, either uncertain of the accuracy or truth of an event, or unimpressed by the lacklustre 'facts' presented to him, reports the most prominent historical accounts and then opines as to which he believes was accurate and why. However, many historians and philosophers take a more sceptical view of Herodotus' accounts and narratives, calling him "The Father of Lies" or "the deceiver." The Histories were often criticized in antiquity for bias, inaccuracy and plagiarism. For example, Lucian of Samosata attacked Herodotus as a liar in Verae historiae and denied him a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed. Similar attacks have been made by several scholars in modern times, who have argued that Herodotus exaggerated the extent of his travels and fabricated sources.

Respect for Herodotus' accuracy has increased since the mid-twentieth century, however. For example, discoveries made since the end of the 19th century about the (now submerged) ancient city of Heracleum and the Naucratis stela lend substantial credence to Herodotus' previously unsupported claim that Heraklion was founded under the New Kingdom. This claim, previously considered one of Herodotus' erroneous assumptions, is now regarded by modern scholars as probably correct [1]. Consequently, due to the recent increase in respect for his accuracy, Herodotus is recognized as a pioneer not only in history, but in ethnography and anthropology as well.

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Contribution

Herodotus has passed to us information current in his own day: 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 the hottest part of the world. He also passes on reports from Phoenician sailors from Egypt that while circumnavigating Africa, they saw the sun on their right while sailing westwards. Thanks to this passing on of information which he himself did not believe, he has shown us something of the extent of contemporary geographical information.

Published between 430 BC and 424 BC, The Histories were divided by later editors into nine books, named after the Muses. The first six books deal with the growth of the Persian Empire. They begin with an account of the first Asian monarch to conquer Greek city-states and exact tribute, Croesus of Lydia. Croesus lost his kingdom to Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire. The first six books end with the defeat of the Persians in 490 BC at the Battle of Marathon, which was the first setback to their imperial progress. The last three books of The Histories describe the attempt of the Persian king Xerxes ten years later to avenge the Persian defeat at Marathon and absorb Greece into the Persian Empire. The Histories end with the year 479 BC, when the Persian invaders were wiped out at the Battle of Plataea and the frontier of the Persian Empire receded to the Aegean coastline of Asia Minor.

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Herodotus' life

As for Herodotus' life, we know that he was exiled from Halicarnassus after his involvement in an unsuccessful coup d'état against the ruling dynasty, and he withdrew to the island of Samos. He seems never to have returned to Halicarnassus, though in his Histories he appears to be proud of his native city and its queen, Artemisia. It must have been during his exile that he undertook the journeys he describes in The Histories. These journeys took him to Egypt as far south as the first cataract of the Nile, to Babylon, to Ukraine, and to Italy and Sicily. Herodotus mentions an interview with an informant in Sparta, and almost certainly he lived for a period in Athens. In Athens, he tapped the oral traditions of the prominent families, in particular the Alkmaeonidai, to which Pericles belonged on his maternal side. But the Athenians did not accept foreigners as citizens, and when Athens sponsored the colony of Thurii in the instep of Italy in 444 BC, Herodotus became a colonist. Whether he died there or not is uncertain.

At some point he became a logios – that is, a reciter of prose logoi or stories – and his subject matter was tales of battles, other historical incidents, and the marvels of foreign lands. He made tours of the Greek cities and the major religious and athletic festivals, where he offered performances for which he expected payment. In 431 BC, the Peloponnesian War broke out between Athens and Sparta. It may have been that conflict, which divided the Greek world, that inspired him to collect his stories into a continuous narrative – The Histories – centered on the theme of Persia's imperial progress, which Athens and Sparta as allies had brought to a halt.

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Further reading

  • Several English translations of The Histories of Herodotus are readily available in multiple editions. The most readily available are those translated by:
    • Aubrey de Sélincourt, originally 1954; revised by John Marincola in 1972. Several editions from Penguin Books available.
    • 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.
    • Robin Waterfield, Oxford World's Classics, 1998.
  • Evans, J. A. S., Herodotus. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
  • —. Herodotus, Explorer of the Past: Three Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
  • Fehling, Detlev. Herodotus and His "Sources": Citation, Invention, and Narrative Art. Translated by J.G. Howie. Arca Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers, and Monographs, 21. Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1989.
  • Flory, Stewart, The Archaic Smile of Herodotus. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987.
  • Fornara, Charles W. Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
  • Hartog, F., The Mirror of Herodotus. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988.
  • Kwintner, Michelle. The Liar School of Herodotus (Review). Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1994.
  • Lateiner, D., The Historical Method of Herodotus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989.
  • Pritchett, W. K., The Liar School of Herodotus. Amsterdam: Gieben, 1991.
  • Thomas, R., 'Herodotus in Context; ethnography, science and the art of persusion'. Oxford University Press 2000.
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See also

  • Pharaoh (historical novel by Bolesław Prus, incorporating scenes involving the ancient Egyptian Labyrinth described in Book II of The Histories of Herodotus)
  • Thucydides, ancient Greek historian who is often said to be "the father of history"
  • Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus), a short biography of Homer that claims falsely to be the work of Herodotus
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External links

Online translations

An earlier version of this article by James Allan Evans was posted at Nupedia.

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