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{{Short description|Greek historian and geographer (c.484–c.425 BC)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2013}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
| name = Herodotus
| name = Herodotus
|native_name = Ἡρόδοτος
| native_name = Ἡρόδοτος
|native_name_lang = Greek
| native_name_lang = grc
| image = Herodotos Met 91.8.jpg
| image = Marble bust of Herodotos MET DT11742 (cropped).jpg
| caption = A Roman copy (2nd century AD) of a Greek [[Bust (sculpture)|bust]] of Herodotus from the first half of the 4th century BC
| image_size = 225px
| birth_date = {{circa|484 BC }}
| caption = A Roman copy (2nd century AD) of a Greek [[Bust (sculpture)|bust]] of Herodotus from the first half of the 4th century BC
| birth_place = [[Halicarnassus]], [[Caria]], [[Asia Minor]], [[Achaemenid Empire]]
| birth_date = {{circa|484 BC}}
| death_date = {{circa|425}} BC (aged approximately 60)
| birth_place = [[Halicarnassus]], [[Caria]], [[Anatolia|Asia Minor]]
| death_place = [[Thurii]], [[Calabria]], or [[Pella]], [[Macedon]]
| death_date = {{circa|425 BC}} (aged approximately 60)
| occupation = Historian
| death_place = [[Thurii]], [[Calabria]] or [[Pella]], [[Macedon]]
| parents = {{unbulleted list| Lyxes (father) | Dryotus (mother)}}
| ethnicity = [[Greeks|Greek]]
| relatives = {{unbulleted list| Theodorus (brother) | [[Panyassis]] (uncle or cousin)}}
| occupation = Historian
| notable_works = ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]''
| spouse =
| parents = {{unbulleted list| Lyxes (father) | Dryotus (mother)}}
| relatives = {{unbulleted list| Theodorus (brother) | [[Panyassis]] (uncle or cousin)}}
| notable_works = [[Histories (Herodotus)|The Histories]]
}}
}}
'''Herodotus'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|h|ə|ˈ|r|ɒ|d|ə|t|ə|s}}<ref>{{cite Dictionary.com|Herodotus}}</ref> {{respell|hə|ROD|ə|təs}}}} ({{langx|grc|{{wikt-lang|grc|Ἡρόδοτος}}|{{grc-transl|Ἡρόδοτος}}|}}; {{circa|484|425}} BC) was a Greek [[historian]] and [[geographer]] from the [[List of ancient Greek cities|Greek city]] of [[Halicarnassus]], part of the [[Persian Empire]] (now [[Bodrum]], Turkey) and a later citizen of [[Thurii]] in modern [[Calabria]], Italy. He wrote the ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'', a detailed account of the [[Greco-Persian Wars]], and was the first writer to apply a [[scientific method]] to historical events. He has been described as "[[The Father of History]]", a title conferred on him by the [[ancient Roman]] orator [[Cicero]],<ref>
{{cite book |last=Luce |first=T. James |title=The Greek Historians |year=2002 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=o7aHAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 26]}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Herodotus |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodotus-Greek-Historian |access-date=30 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210404062047/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodotus-Greek-Historian |archive-date=4 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> and the "[[Herodotus#Contemporary and modern critics|Father of Lies]]" by others.


The ''Histories'' primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as [[Battle of Marathon|Marathon]], [[Battle of Thermopylae|Thermopylae]], [[Battle of Artemisium|Artemisium]], [[Battle of Salamis|Salamis]], [[Battle of Plataea|Plataea]], and [[Battle of Mycale|Mycale]]. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, [[ethnographical]], geographical, and [[historiographical]] background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information.
'''Herodotus''' ({{IPAc-en|h|ɨ|ˈ|r|ɒ|d|ə|t|ə|s}}; {{lang-grc|Ἡρόδοτος}} ''Hēródotos'' [hɛːródotos]) was a [[Greeks|Greek]] [[historian]] who was born in [[Halicarnassus]], [[Caria]] (modern-day [[Bodrum]], [[Turkey]]) and lived in the fifth century&nbsp;BC ({{circa}} 484–425&nbsp;BC). Widely referred to as "The Father of History" (first conferred by [[Cicero]]), he was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically and critically, and then to arrange them into a [[historiographic]] narrative.<ref>[[New Oxford American Dictionary]], "Herodotos", [[Oxford University Press]]</ref> ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|The Histories]]''—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or {{lang|grc|ἱστορία}} ''historía'', a [[History#Etymology|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 [[Ethnography|ethnographical]] information. Although some of his stories were fanciful and others possibly inaccurate, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.


Herodotus was criticized in ancient times for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian [[Thucydides]] accused him of making up stories for entertainment. He retorted that he reported what he could see and was told.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hornblower |first1=Simon |last2=Spawforth |first2=Antony |last3=Eidinow |first3=Esther |title=The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization |year= 2014 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-101675-2 |page=372 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0awiBAAAQBAJ}}</ref> A sizable portion of the ''Histories'' has since been confirmed by modern historians and [[archaeologists]].
==Place in history==


==Life==
Herodotus announced the size and scope of his work at the beginning of his ''Researches'' or ''Histories'':
Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus's own writing for reliable information about his life,<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|p=7}} supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, such as the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] ''[[Suda]]'', an 11th-century encyclopedia which possibly took its information from traditional accounts. Still, the challenge is great:
{{quotation|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.<ref>{{Herodotus|gr|1|1|0|ref}}</ref>
<br>
Herodotus of [[Halicarnassus]], his ''Researches'' are set down to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements of both the Greeks and the Barbarians; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict.<ref>Aubrey de Selincourt (trans.), ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics, 1972, page 41</ref>}}
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 [[Principate|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.<ref>A.R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics, 1972, page 23, citing Dionysius ''On Thucydides''</ref> Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain. According to the ancient account, these predecessors included Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]], [[Xanthus of Lydia]] and, the best attested of them all, [[Hecataeus of Miletus]]. Of these only fragments of Hecataeus's work survive (and the authenticity of these is debatable)<ref>A.R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics, 1972, page 27</ref> yet they allow us glimpses into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own ''Histories'', as in the introduction to Hecataeus's work, ''Genealogies'':
[[File:POxy v0017 n2099 a 01 hires.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Fragment from the ''Histories'' VIII on [[Papyrus Oxyrhynchus]] 2099, early 2nd century AD]]
{{quotation|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.<ref>FGH I, F.I</ref>}}


{{Blockquote|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&nbsp;...|[[George Rawlinson|G. Rawlinson]]<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=1}} |source= }}
This points forward to the 'folksy' yet 'international' outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one modern scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as "a curious false start to history"<ref name="OswynMurray">Oswyn Murray, 'Greek Historians' in ''The Oxford History of the Classical World'', J. Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray (ed.s), Oxford University Press (1986) page 188</ref> because, despite its critical spirit, it failed to liberate history from myth. Herodotus 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.<ref>{{Herodotus|en|2|143|shortref}}, {{Herodotus|en|6|137}}</ref> It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]] in a quote recorded by [[Eusebius]].<ref>''Preparation of the Gospel'', X,3</ref> In particular, it is possible that he copied descriptions of the [[crocodile]], [[hippopotamus]] and [[Phoenix (mythology)|phoenix]] from Hecataeus's 'Circumnavigation of the Known World' (''Periegesis''/''Periodos ges''), even mis-representing the source as 'Heliopolitans' (''Histories'' 2.73).<ref>Henry R. Immerwahr, 'Herodotus', in ''The Cambridge History of Classical Greek Literature: Greek Literature'', P. Easterling and B. Knox (eds), Cambridge University Press (1985), pages 430, 440</ref> But unlike Herodotus, Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in [[Contemporary history|living memory]], nor did he include the oral traditions of Greek history within the larger framework of oriental history.<ref>Henry R. Immerwahr, 'Herodotus', in ''The Cambridge History of Classical Greek Literature: Greek Literature'', P. Easterling and B. Knox (eds), Cambridge University Press (1985), page 431</ref> 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.<ref name="OswynMurray" /><ref>A.R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics, 1972, pages 22-3</ref> 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]].<ref>Henry R. Immerwahr, 'Herodotus', in ''The Cambridge History of Classical Greek Literature: Greek Literature'', P. Easterling and B. Knox (eds), Cambridge University Press (1985), page 430</ref>


===Childhood===
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 in a number of passages echoing [[Aeschylus]]'s ''[[Persae]]'', including the epigrammatic observation that the defeat of the Persian [[navy]] at [[Battle of Salamis|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)<ref>Henry R. Immerwahr, 'Herodotus', in ''The Cambridge History of Classical Greek Literature: Greek Literature'', P. Easterling and B. Knox (eds), Cambridge University Press (1985), pages 427, 432</ref>—this however is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship.<ref>Richard Jebb (ed), ''Antigone'', Cambridge University Press, 1976, pages 181-82 n.904-920</ref>
Herodotus was, according to his own statement, at the beginning of his work, a native of [[Halicarnassus]] in [[Anatolia]],<ref>{{Cite web |date=1873 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=William |title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Hero'dotus |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=herodotus-bio-1 |access-date=5 August 2023 |website=www.perseus.tufts.edu |publisher=John Murray |place=London}}</ref> and it is generally accepted that he was born there around 485&nbsp;BC. The ''[[Suda]]'' says his family was influential, 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.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|at=Introduction}}<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|at=Introduction}}


Halicarnassus was then within the [[Persian Empire]], making Herodotus a Persian subject,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dandamaev |first1=M.A. |author-link1=Muhammad Dandamayev |title=A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire |year=1989 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-09172-6 |page=153 |quote=The 'Father of History', Herodotus, was born at Halicarnassus, and before his emigration to mainland Greece was a subject of the Persian empire.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kia |first1=Mehrdad |title=The Persian Empire: A historical encyclopedia |year=2016 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-61069-391-2 |page=161 |quote=At the time of Herodotus' birth southwestern Asia Minor, including Halicarnassus, was under Persian Achaemenid rule.}}</ref> and it may be that the young Herodotus heard local eyewitness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the [[List of wars involving Greece|invasion of Greece]], including the movements of the local fleet under the command of [[Artemisia I of Caria]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2023}}
[[Homer]] was another inspirational source.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=nmETAAAAYAAJ&dq=herodotus+%2B+rawlinson+%2B+wilkinson&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false |title=George Rawlinson, '&#39;The History of Herodotus'&#39; Vol.1, D. Appleton and Company, New York (1859), page 6 |publisher=Books.google.com.au |quote=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.|date= |accessdate=17 October 2013|year=1859 }}</ref>


Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that Artemesia's grandson [[Lygdamis II of Halicarnassus|Lygdamis]] negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which is consistent with a tyrant under pressure. 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 some time before 454&nbsp;BC.{{Citation needed|date=April 2023}}
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.<ref>Oswyn Murray, 'Greek Historians' in ''The Oxford History of the Classical World'', J.Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray (ed.s), Oxford University Press (1986) page 190-91</ref> 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'.<ref name="BurnHerodotus">A.R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics, 1972, page 10</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1998-9/Pipes.htm|title=Herodotus: Father of History, Father of Lies|accessdate=16 November 2009|author=David Pipes}}</ref> Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement. In fact one modern scholar<ref>George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.1, D. Appleton and Company, New York (1859), page (details later)</ref> 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, Messenia|Thuria]] (one of his three supposed resting places):
{{quotation|Herodotus the son of Sphynx
Lies; in Ionic history without peer; <br>
A Dorian born, who fled from Slander's brand <br>
And made in Thuria his new native land.<ref>A.R. Burn, 'Introduction' in ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics, 1972, page 13</ref>}}


[[File:herodotusstatue.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|Romanticized statue of Herodotus in his hometown of [[Halicarnassus]], modern [[Bodrum]], Turkey]]
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 [[The Persian Wars|wars with Greece]], beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroines [[Io (mythology)|Io]], [[Europa (Greek mythology)|Europa]], [[Medea]] and [[Helen of Troy|Helen]].<ref>''The Peloponnesian War'', Lawrence A.Tritle, Greenwood Publishing Group 2004, page 147-48</ref><ref>''Herodotus and Greek History'' John Hart, Taylor and Francis 1982, page 174</ref> Similarly, the Athenian historian [[Thucydides]] dismissed Herodotus as a 'logos-writer' or story-teller.<ref name="OswynMurray_a">Oswyn Murray, 'Greek Historians' in ''The Oxford History of the Classical World'', J. Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray (ed.s), Oxford University Press (1986) page 191</ref> [[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.<ref>Robin Waterfield (trans.) and Carolyn Dewald (ed.), ''The Histories by Herodotus'', University of Oxford Press (1998), Introduction pages xviii</ref> 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.<ref name="OswynMurray_a" />
{{quotation|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]].<ref>Richard C. Jebb, ''The Genius of Sophocles'', [[s:The Genius of Sophocles#7|section 7]]</ref>}}


Herodotus wrote his ''Histories'' in the [[Ionic Greek|Ionian dialect]], in spite of being born in a [[Dorians|Dorian]] settlement. According to the ''[[Suda]]'', Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as a boy living on the island of Samos, to which he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia. [[Panyassis]], the epic poet related to Herodotus, is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Histories of Herodotus |url=https://ia804708.us.archive.org/30/items/historiesofherod00herorich/historiesofherod00herorich_djvu.txt}}</ref>
==Life==
[[File:Relief Herodotus cour Carree Louvre.jpg|thumb|Relief of Herodotus by [[Jean-Guillaume Moitte]] (1806), Louvre, Paris]]
Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus's own writing for reliable information about his life,<ref>A.R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics (1972), page 7</ref> supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, such as the Byzantine Suda:


The ''Suda'' also states that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. Due to recent discoveries of inscriptions at Halicarnassus dated to about Herodotus's time, it is now known that the Ionic dialect was used in Halicarnassus in some official documents, so there is no need to assume (like the ''Suda'') that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere.<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|page=11}} The ''Suda'' is the only source placing Herodotus as the heroic liberator of his birthplace, casting doubt upon the veracity of that romantic account.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=11}}
{{quotation|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.<ref>George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 1)</ref>}}


===Early travels===
Typically modern accounts of his life<ref>George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), Introduction)</ref><ref>A.R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics (1972), Introduction</ref> go something like this: 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 I of Caria|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,&nbsp;144),{{what|what is this citation format, and how may the everyday user reference it?|date=April 2022}} and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt (II,&nbsp;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 other countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches.


Herodotus's eyewitness accounts indicate that he traveled in Egypt in association with Athenians, probably sometime after 454&nbsp;BC or possibly earlier, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against [[History of Persian Egypt|Persian rule]] in 460–454&nbsp;BC. He probably traveled to [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]] next and then down the [[Euphrates]] to [[Babylon]]. For some reason, possibly associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus, and sometime around 447&nbsp;BC, migrated to [[Pericles|Periclean Athens]]&nbsp;– a city whose people and democratic institutions he openly admired (V,&nbsp;78). Athens was also the place where he came to know the local topography (VI,&nbsp;137; VIII,&nbsp;52–55), as well as leading citizens such as the [[Alcmaeonids]], a clan whose history is featured frequently in his writing.
[[File:herodotusstatue.JPG|thumb|The statue of Herodotus in [[Bodrum]]]]


According to [[Plutarch]],{{refn|Plutarch ''De Malign. Herod.''&nbsp;II p.&nbsp;862&nbsp;A, cited by.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|at=Introduction}}}} Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work. Plutarch, using [[Diyllus]] as a source, says this was 10 [[Attic talent|talents]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Plutarch on the Malice of Herodotus|url=http://www.bostonleadershipbuilders.com/plutarch/moralia/malice_of_herodotus.htm#26|access-date=26 January 2022|website=www.bostonleadershipbuilders.com}}</ref>
As Herodotus himself reveals, [[Halicarnassus]], though a [[Dorian|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 empire|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 [[History of Persian Egypt|Persian rule]] in 460–454 BC. He probably travelled to [[Tyre, Lebanon|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 [[Pericles|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]]<ref>Eusebius ''Chron. Can. Pars. II p339, 01.83.4 (cited by George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), Introduction)</ref> and [[Plutarch]],<ref>Plutarch ''De Malign. Herod.'' II p862 A (cited by George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), Introduction)</ref> 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. There is nothing in the ''Histories'' that can be dated with any certainty to later than 430, and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.


===Later life===
Herodotus wrote his ''Histories'' in the [[Ionic Greek|Ionian]] dialect yet he was born in Halicarnassus, originally a [[Dorians|Dorian]] settlement. According to the ''[[Suda]]'' (an 11th-century encyclopaedia of [[Byzantium]] which possibly 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 Greek|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.<ref>A. R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics (1972), page 11</ref> 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.<ref>George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 11</ref>
In 443&nbsp;BC or shortly afterwards, he migrated to [[Thurii]], in modern [[Calabria]], as part of an Athenian-sponsored [[Greek colonisation|colony]]. [[Aristotle]] refers to a version of the ''Histories'' written by "Herodotus of Thurium", and some passages in the ''Histories'' have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about [[Magna Graecia]] from personal experience there (IV,&nbsp;15,99; VI,&nbsp;127). According to [[Ptolemaeus Chennus]], a late source summarized in the Library of [[Photius]], Plesirrhous the Thessalian, the hymnographer, was the [[eromenos]] of Herodotus and his heir. This account has also led some historians to assume Herodotus died childless. Intimate knowledge of some events in the first years of the [[Peloponnesian War]] (VI,&nbsp;91; VII,&nbsp;133, 233; IX,&nbsp;73) suggests that he returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. It is also possible he died in [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedonia]] instead, after obtaining the patronage of the court there; or else he died back in Thurii. There is nothing in the ''Histories'' that can be dated to later than 430&nbsp;BC with any certainty, and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.


===Author and orator===
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.<ref>George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 14</ref> According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian,<ref>Montfaucon's Bibliothec. Coisl. Cod. clxxvii p 609 (cited by George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 14</ref> 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 someone who misses an 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, [[Bibliotheca (Photius)|Photius]]<ref>Photius ''Bibliothec.'' Cod. lx p 59 (cited by George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 15</ref> and [[Tzetzes]],<ref>Tzetzes ''Chil.'' 1.19 (cited by George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 15</ref> 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."
Herodotus would have made his researches known to the larger world through oral recitations to a public crowd. [[John Marincola]] writes in his introduction to the Penguin edition of the ''Histories'' that there are certain identifiable pieces in the early books of Herodotus's work which could be labeled as "performance pieces". These portions of the research seem independent and "almost detachable", so that they might have been set aside by the author for the purposes of an oral performance. The intellectual matrix of the 5th&nbsp;century, Marincola suggests, comprised many oral performances in which philosophers would dramatically recite such detachable pieces of their work. The idea was to criticize previous arguments on a topic and emphatically and enthusiastically insert their own in order to win over the audience.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Herodotus |title = The Histories|publisher = Penguin Books|year = 2003|page = xii|others = Introduction and notes by John Marincola |translator-first=Aubrey |translator-last=de Selincourt}}</ref>


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 [[Anatolia]] to the [[Ancient Olympic Games|Olympic Games]] and read the entire ''Histories'' to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=14}} According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian,{{refn|Montfaucon's ''Bibliothec. Coisl. Cod.''&nbsp;clxxvii p.&nbsp;609, cited by.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=14}}}} Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at the festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade – by which time the assembly had dispersed. (Hence the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe someone who misses an 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'': that of [[Bibliotheca (Photius)|Photius]]{{refn|
Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides's tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his ''Life of Thucydides''.<ref>Marcellinus, ''in Vita. Thucyd.'' p ix (cited by George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 25</ref> According to the [[Suda]], he was buried in Macedonian [[Pella]] and in the [[agora]] in [[Thurium]].<ref>George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.I, D. Appleton and Co., New York (1859), page 25</ref>
Photius ''Bibliothec. Cod.''&nbsp;lx p.&nbsp;59, cited by Ralinson<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=15}}
}} and [[Tzetzes]],{{refn|
Tzetzes ''Chil.''&nbsp;1.19, cited by.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=15}}
}} in which a young [[Thucydides]] happened to be in the assembly with his father, and burst into tears during the recital. Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father: "Your son's soul yearns for knowledge."


Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides's tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of [[Marcellinus (writer)|Marcellinus]] in his ''Life of Thucydides''.{{refn|Marcellinus, ''in Vita. Thucyd.'' p.&nbsp;ix, cited by.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=25}}}} According to the ''Suda'', he was buried in Macedonian [[Pella]] and in the [[agora]] in Thurii.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/>{{rp|page=25}}
==Reliability==
[[File:Dedication page for the Historiae by Herodotus printed at Venice 1494.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Dedication]] in the ''Histories'', translated into Latin by [[Lorenzo Valla]], Venice 1494]]
While ''The Histories'' were occasionally criticized in antiquity,<ref>see [[Lucian]] of Samosata who in ''Verae Historiae'' went as far as to deny him a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed</ref> modern historians and philosophers generally take a positive view.<ref name="OswynMurray_b">Oswyn Murray, 'Greek Historians' in ''The Oxford History of the Classical World'', J.Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray (ed.s), Oxford University Press (1986) page 189</ref> Despite the controversy,<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=URhBf9dMnesC&pg=PA198&dq=herodotus,+pritchett#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20pritchett&f=false |title='&#39;Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars'&#39;, by Jon D. Mikalson, pp. 198–200 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780807827987 |year=2003 }}</ref><ref>Some regard his works as being at least partly unreliable. Fehling writes of "a problem recognized by everybody", namely that Herodotus frequently cannot be taken at face value.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=ZZ5ZH-f38E4C&pg=PA1&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20fehling&f=false |title=Detlev Fehling, Travel Fact and Travel Fiction edited by Z. R. W. M. von Martels, pg 2 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9004101128 |year=1994 }}</ref> Herodotus still serves as the primary, and often only, source for events in the Greek world, Persian Empire, and the region generally in the two centuries leading up until his own day.<ref name="BurnHerodotus" /><ref name="ReferenceA">C. P. Jones, "ἔθνος and γένος in Herodotos", ''The Classical Quarterly'', New Series, 46 (2):315; 1996</ref> Herodotus, like many ancient historians, preferred an element of show<ref>Depew and Obbink comment on Herodotus' use of literary devices</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=63k3hX7OYvAC&pg=PA101&dq=herodotus,+Pritchett#v=snippet&q=herodotus&f=false |title='&#39;Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society'&#39;, by Mary Depew, Dirk Obbink, pp. 101–102 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date=30 June 2009 |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780674034204 }}.</ref> to purely analytic history, aiming to give pleasure with “exciting events, great dramas, bizarre exotica.” <ref name="Joe Saltzman">{{cite web | url=http://ijpc.uscannenberg.org/journal/index.php/ijpcjournal/article/viewFile/22/29 | title=Herodotus as an Ancient Journalist: Reimagining Antiquity’s Historians as Journalists | publisher=Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, [[University of Southern California]] | accessdate=3 March 2013 | author=Saltzman, Joe | page=175}}</ref> As such, certain passages<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=3Xv6R5qiDEQC&pg=PA171&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20fehling&f=false |title=Multicultural Writers from Antiquity to 1945: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Alba Della Fazia Amoia, Bettina Liebowitz Knapp, pg 171 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780313306877 |year=2002 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=qD_WnbaMmMEC&pg=PA21&dq=hartog,+herodotus#v=onepage&q=hartog%2C%20herodotus&f=false |title=Modernist Travel Writing: Intellectuals Abroad, pg 21, by David Farley |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date=30 November 2010 |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780826272287 }}</ref> have been the subject of controversy and even some doubt, both in antiquity and today.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=8DiTX_EsWasC&pg=PA1&dq=%22reliability%27,+%22herodotus%22,+sesostris#v=onepage&q=egypt&f=false |title=Herodotus, by Alan B. Lloyd, pg 4 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9004077375 |year=1988 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=bRp541cRPRoC&pg=PA41&dq=armayor,+herodotus#v=onepage&q=egypt&f=false |title=The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the Deuteronomistic History, by Flemming A. J. Nielsen, pg 42-43 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= 1997-11-01|accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9781850756880 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=ZZ5ZH-f38E4C&pg=PA1&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20fehling&f=false |title=Travel Fact and Travel Fiction edited by Z. R. W. M. von Martels, pg 4-6 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9004101128 |year=1994 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=pyjaXnWHAEIC&pg=PA21&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=onepage&q=egypt&f=false |title=Herodotus: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide, by Emily Baragwanath, Mathieu de Bakker, pg 19 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= 2010-05-01|accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780199802869 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=ZZ5ZH-f38E4C&pg=PA1&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20fehling&f=false |title=Travel Fact and Travel Fiction edited by Z. R. W. M. von Martels, pg 13 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9004101128 |year=1994 }}</ref><ref>http://books.google.co.za/books?id=VTIyhET2o0MC&pg=PA34&dq=herodotus,+fehling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NKoOUZ-ZGZGRhQejo4GgDQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAjgK#v=snippet&q=egypt&f=false</ref><ref>Greek Historians, by John Marincola, pg 34]</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=S. |last=Dalley |chapter=Why did Herodotus not mention the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? |editor-first=P. |editor-last=Derow |editor2-first=R. |editor2-last=Parker |title=Herodotus and his World |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0-19-925374-9 |pages=171–89 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=S. |last=Dalley |title=The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon; an elusive World Wonder traced |location= |publisher=OUP |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-966226-5 }}</ref>


==Place in history==
The accuracy of the works of Herodotus have been controversial since his own era.<ref>Kenton L. Sparks writes that "In antiquity, Herodotus had acquired the reputation of being unreliable, biased, parsimonious in his praise of heroes, and mendacious".</ref> [[Cicero]],<ref>Cicero (''On the Laws'' I.5) said the works of Herodotus were full of legends or "fables"</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=k2hMQLFU9IMC&pg=PA115&dq=herodotus,+Pritchett#v=onepage&q=cicero&f=false |title=Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction, by Jennifer T. Roberts |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date=23 June 2011 |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780199575992 }}</ref> [[Aristotle]], [[Josephus]], [[Duris of Samos]]<ref>Duris of Samos called Herodotus a myth-monger.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=VTIyhET2o0MC&pg=PA34&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=snippet&q=egypt&f=false |title=Greek Historians, by John Marincola, pg 59 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date=13 December 2001 |accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780199225019 }}</ref> [[Harpocration]]<ref>Harpocration wrote a book on "the lies of Herodotus"</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=A3H_51913RkC&pg=PA156&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=onepage&q=herodotus&f=false |title=Greek Mythography in the Roman World, by Alan Cameron, pg 156 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= 2004-08-06|accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9780198038214 }}</ref> and [[Plutarch]] all commented on this controversy.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=KztVonFGqcsC&pg=PA59&dq=herodotus,+Pritchett#v=onepage&q=herodotus&f=false |title=Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, pg 58, by Kenton L. Sparks |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= 1998-01-01|accessdate=17 October 2013|isbn=9781575060330 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=yPhE6NxllLoC&pg=PA74&dq=herodotus,+fehling#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20fehling&f=false |title=A Commentary on Herodotus, Books 1-4 , by David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, Aldo Corcella |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date=30 August 2007 |accessdate=17 October 2013}}</ref> Generally, though, he was then, and especially is now, regarded as reliable. Many scholars (<!--don't link these unless you KNOW who you're linking to, there are many false leads and DAB pages-->Aubin, [[A. H. L. Heeren]], Davidson, [[Cheikh Anta Diop]], <!--is this really Edgar Allen Poe?-->Poe, Welsby, Celenko, Volney, [[Pierre Montet]], <!--is this J D Bernal?-->Bernal, Jackson, DuBois, [[Strabo]]), ancient and modern, routinely cite Herodotus. Many of these scholars (Welsby, Heeren, Aubin, Diop, etc.) explicitly mention the reliability of Herodotus's work<ref>such as on the [[Nile Valley]]</ref> and demonstrate corroboration of Herodotus's writings by modern scholars.<ref>Welsby said that "archaeology graphically confirms Herodotus' observations."</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Welsby|first=Derek|title=The Kingdom of Kush|year=1996|publisher=British Museum Press|location=London|isbn=0-7141-0986-X|page=40}}</ref> A.H.L. Heeren quoted Herodotus throughout his work and provided corroboration by scholars regarding several passages (source of the Nile, location of Meroe, etc.).<ref>{{cite book|last=Heeren|first=A. H. L.|title=Historical researches into the politics, intercourse, and trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians |year=1838|publisher=University of Michigan Library|location=Michigan|asin=B003B3P1Y8|pages=13, 379, 422–424}}</ref> To further his work on the Egyptians and Assyrians, Aubin uses Herodotus's accounts in various passages and defends Herodotus's position. Aubin said Herodotus was "the author of the first important narrative history of the world".<ref>{{cite book|last=Aubin|first=Henry|title=The Rescue of Jerusalem|year=2002|publisher=Soho Press|location=New York, NY|isbn=1-56947-275-0|pages=94–96,100–102,118–121,141–144,328, 336}}</ref> Diop provides several examples (the inundations of the Nile) that he argues support his view that Herodotus was "quite scrupulous, objective, scientific for his time." Diop argues that Herodotus "always distinguishes carefully between what he has seen and what he has been told." Diop also notes that Strabo corroborated Herodotus's ideas about the Black Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Colchians.<ref name="Diop 1981 103–108">{{cite book|last=Diop|first=Cheikh Anta|title=Civilization or Barbarism|year=1981|publisher=Lawrence Hill Books|location=Chicago, Illinois|isbn=1-55652-048-4|page=1}}</ref><ref name="Diop 1974 1–9,134–155">{{cite book|last=Diop|first=Cheikh Anta|title=The African Origin of Civilization|year=1974|publisher=Lawrence Hill Books|location=Chicago, Illinois|isbn=1-55652-072-7|page=2}}</ref>
[[File:Herodotus world map-en.svg|thumb|upright=1.8|Reconstruction of the [[Oikoumene]] (inhabited world), ancient map based on Herodotus, {{c.|450&nbsp;BC}}]]
[[File:HERODOTUS(1897) p2.387 THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HERDOTUS.jpg|thumb|upright=2|Reconstructed map of the world based on the writings of Herodotus]]
Herodotus announced the purpose and scope of his work at the beginning of his ''Histories:''{{efn|
For the past several hundred years, the title of Herodotus's work has been translated rather roughly as ''Histories'' or ''The History''.{{cn|date=October 2022}} The original title can be translated from the Greek as "researches" or "inquiries".{{cn|date=October 2022}}}}<ref name=Hetrod-in-Encyc-Wrld-Bio/>


{{quote|Here are presented the results of the inquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.|Herodotus, ''The Histories'' (tr. R. Waterfield, 2008)<ref name=Waterfield-Dewald-1998/>}}
The reliability of Herodotus is particularly criticized when writing about Egypt.<ref>Herodotus claimed to have visited [[Babylon]]. The absence of any mention of the [[Hanging Gardens of Babylon]] in his work has attracted further attacks on his credibility. In response Dalley has proposed that the Hanging Gardens may have been in Ninevah rather than in Babylon.{{cite book |first=S. |last=Dalley |chapter=Why did Herodotus not mention the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? |editor-first=P. |editor-last=Derow |editor2-first=R. |editor2-last=Parker |title=Herodotus and his World |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0-19-925374-9 |pages=171-89 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=S. |last=Dalley |title=The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon; an elusive World Wonder traced |location= |publisher=OUP |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-966226-5 }}</ref> Alan B. Lloyd argues that as a historical document, the writings of Herodotus are seriously defective, and that he was working from "inadequate sources".<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8DiTX_EsWasC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=%22reliability%27,+%22herodotus%22,+sesostris&ots=ui_23LKXIT&sig=uRIZ_w_T7UYmxLfqZLlwGIL9Z08#v=onepage&q=egypt&f=false |title=Herodotus, by Alan B. Lloyd, pg 4 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013}}</ref> Nielsen writes that: "Though we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of Herodotus having been in Egypt, it must be said that his narrative bears little witness to it."<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.co.za/books?id=bRp541cRPRoC&pg=PA41&dq=armayor,+herodotus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cMYPUd6GOIiShgeK1IG4CA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=egypt&f=false |title=The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the Deuteronomistic History, by Flemming A. J. Nielsen, pg 42-43 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013}}</ref>German historian Detlev Fehling questions whether Herodotus ever traveled up the Nile River, and considers almost everything he says about Egypt and Ethiopia doubtful.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.co.za/books?id=ZZ5ZH-f38E4C&pg=PA1&dq=herodotus,+fehling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FqcOUYrhJMOyhAe8yYHgDQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20fehling&f=false |title=Travel Fact and Travel Fiction edited by Z. R. W. M. von Martels, pg 4-6 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.co.za/books?id=pyjaXnWHAEIC&pg=PA21&dq=herodotus,+fehling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FqcOUYrhJMOyhAe8yYHgDQ&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=egypt&f=false |title=Herodotus: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide, by Emily Baragwanath, Mathieu de Bakker, pg 19 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013}}</ref> About the claim of Herodotus that the Pharaoh Sesostris campaigned in Europe, and that he left a colony in Colchia, Fehling states that "there is not the slightest bit of history behind the whole story".<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.co.za/books?id=ZZ5ZH-f38E4C&pg=PA1&dq=herodotus,+fehling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FqcOUYrhJMOyhAe8yYHgDQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=herodotus%2C%20fehling&f=false |title=Travel Fact and Travel Fiction edited by Z. R. W. M. von Martels, pg 13 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date= |accessdate=17 October 2013}}</ref><ref>http://books.google.co.za/books?id=VTIyhET2o0MC&pg=PA34&dq=herodotus,+fehling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NKoOUZ-ZGZGRhQejo4GgDQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAjgK#v=snippet&q=egypt&f=false</ref><ref>Fehling concludes that the works of Herodotus are intended as fiction. Depew and Obbink concur that much of the content of the works of Herodotus are literary devices. ''Greek Historians, by John Marincola, pg 34''. {{cite book|url=http://books.google.co.za/books?id=63k3hX7OYvAC&pg=PA101&dq=herodotus,+Pritchett&hl=en&sa=X&ei=W2YOUb6UE8eI0AXV2IDgAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCA#v=snippet&q=herodotus&f=false |title='&#39;Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society'&#39;, by Mary Depew, Dirk Obbink, pp. 101–102 |publisher=Books.google.co.za |date=30 June 2009 |accessdate=17 October 2013}}</ref>


===Predecessors===
[[File:Goldinpan.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Gold]] dust and nuggets]]
His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus's 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. [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]], a literary critic of [[Principate|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 naïve, often charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.{{refn|,<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|page=23}} citing Dionysius ''On Thucydides''}}
Herodotus provides much information about the nature of the world and the status of science during his lifetime, often engaging in private speculation. 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 [[Phoenicia]]n 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.<ref>[http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/pager.html?objectid=DS405.1.I34_V02_307.gif The Indian Empire] [[The Imperial Gazetteer of India]], 1909, v. 2, p. 272.</ref>


Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to the ancient account, these predecessors included [[Dionysius of Miletus]], Charon of Lampsacus, [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]], [[Xanthus (historian)|Xanthus of Lydia]] and, the best attested of them all, [[Hecataeus of Miletus]]. Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus's works survived, and the authenticity of these is debatable,<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|page=27}} but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own ''Histories''.
Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century have generally added to 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 Egypt]]ian city of [[Heracleion]] and the recovery of the so-called "Naucratis stela" give credibility to Herodotus's previously unsupported claim that Heracleion was founded during the Egyptian [[New Kingdom]].
[[File:Claude Vignon Croesus.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|''Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant'', by [[Claude Vignon]]]]
After journeys to India and Pakistan, French ethnologist [[Michel Peissel]] claimed to have discovered an animal species that may illuminate one of the most bizarre passages in Herodotus's Histories.<ref name="Peissel Ants">{{cite book | title=The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas | publisher=Collins | author=Peissel, Michel | year=1984 | isbn=978-0-00-272514-9}}</ref> 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 [[Achaemenid Empire|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. Peissel reports that in an isolated region of northern Pakistan, on the [[Deosai National Park|Deosai Plateau]] in [[Gilgit–Baltistan]] province, there is 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 [[Brokpa|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. Later authors like [[Pliny the Elder]] mentioned this story in the [[gold mining]] section of his [[Naturalis Historia]]. [[File:Himalayan Marmot at Tshophu Lake Bhutan 091007 a.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|The [[Himalayan marmot]]]] Peissel offers the theory that Herodotus may have confused the old Persian word for "marmot" with the word for "mountain ant". Research suggests that Herodotus probably did not know any Persian (or any other language except his native Greek) and was forced to rely on a many local translators when travelling in the vast multilingual Persian Empire. Herodotus did not claim to have personally seen the creatures he described.<ref name="Peissel Ants" /><ref>Simons, Marlise. Himalayas Offer Clue to Legend of Gold-Digging 'Ants'. New York Times: 25 November 1996.</ref> However Herodotus did follow up in passage 105 of Book 3, with the claim that the "ants" are said to chase and devour full-grown camels. 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.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} Images of camel spiders could give the impression that this could be mistaken for a giant ant, but certainly not the size of a fox.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}


===Contemporary and modern critics===
Some "calumnious fictions" were written about Herodotus in a work titled ''[[On the Malice of Herodotus]]'', by [[Plutarch]], a [[Chaeronea]]n 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.<ref>George Rawlinson, ''The History of Herodotus'' Vol.1, D. Appleton and Company, New York (1859), pages 13-14</ref> Similarly, in a ''Corinthian Oration'', [[Dio Chrysostom]] (or yet another pseudonymous author) accused the historian of prejudice against [[Ancient Corinth|Corinth]], sourcing it in personal bitterness over financial disappointments<ref>{{cite web|url=http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/37*.html |title=Dio Chrysostom '&#39;Orat. xxxvii, p11 |publisher=Penelope.uchicago.edu |date= |accessdate=13 September 2012}}</ref>—an account also given by [[Marcellinus (writer)|Marcellinus]] in his ''Life of Thucydides''.<ref>Marcellinus, ''Life of Thucydides''</ref> 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 [[Pericles|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 (Greece)|Thebes]] and Corinth in particular.<ref>A.R. Burn, ''Herodotus: The Histories'', Penguin Classics (1972), pages 8,9,32-4</ref>
{{missing|section|substantive details of modern criticism|date=June 2024}}
It is on account of the many strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics have branded him "The Father of Lies".<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|page=10}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1998-9/Pipes.htm |title=Herodotus: Father of History, Father of Lies |access-date=16 November 2009 |first=David |last=Pipes |archive-date=27 January 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080127105636/http://www.loyno.edu/history/journal/1998-9/Pipes.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement. In fact, one modern scholar<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/> has wondered whether Herodotus left his home in Greek [[Anatolia]], 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 one of his three supposed resting places, [[Thouria, Messenia|Thuria]]:
{{poemquote|Herodotus the son of Sphynx
lies; in Ionic history without peer;
a Dorian born, who fled from slander's brand
and made in Thuria his new native land.<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|page=13}}|sign=|source=}}


Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found. In 425&nbsp;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 [[The Persian Wars|wars with Greece]], beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroines [[Io (mythology)|Io]], [[Europa (consort of Zeus)|Europa]], [[Medea]], and [[Helen of Troy|Helen]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Lawrence A. |last=Tritle. |year=2004 |title=The Peloponnesian War |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |pages=147–148}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Hart |year=1982 |title=Herodotus and Greek History |publisher=Taylor and Francis |page=174}}</ref>
Although ''The Histories'' were sometimes criticized in antiquity,<ref>Criticized of inaccuracy for example by [[Lucian]] of Samosata who attacked Herodotus as a liar in ''Verae Historiae'' and went as far as to deny him a place among the famous on the [[Fortunate Isles|Island of the Blessed]]</ref> 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<ref>Fehling, Detlev. ''Herodotos 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.</ref> yet his reputation continues largely intact: "The Father of History is also the father of comparative anthropology",<ref name="BurnHerodotus" /> "the father of ethnography",<ref name="ReferenceA"/> and he is "more modern than any other ancient historian in his approach to the ideal of total history".<ref name="OswynMurray_b"/>


Similarly, the Athenian historian [[Thucydides]] dismissed Herodotus as a story-teller.<ref name=Murray-1986-Grk-histns/>{{rp|page=191}} 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 with his frequent digressions Herodotus appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his authorial control.<ref name=Waterfield-Dewald-1998>{{cite book |translator-last1=Waterfield |translator-first1=Robin |editor-last1=Dewald |editor-first1=Carolyn |year=1998 |title=The Histories by Herodotus |publisher=Oxford University Press |place=Oxford, UK |at="Introduction", p.&nbsp;xviii|isbn=9780199535668}}</ref> Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view: focused on the context of the ''[[polis]]'' or city-state. The interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory.<ref name=Murray-1986-Grk-histns/>{{rp|page=191}}
== Herodotus and myth ==
{{quotation|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|R. C. Jebb]]|source=<ref>{{cite book |first=Richard C. |last=Jebb |author-link=Richard Claverhouse Jebb |title=The Genius of Sophocles |title-link=s:The Genius of Sophocles#7 |at=section 7}}</ref>}}
{{Essay-like|date=May 2014}}
Although Herodotus considered his "inquiries" a serious pursuit of knowledge, he was not above relating entertaining tales derived from the collective body of myth, but he did so judiciously with regard for his historical method, by corroborating the stories through enquiry and testing their probability.<ref name="A.E. Wardman">“Myth in Greek Historiography,” Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte (October 1960), 403.</ref> While the gods never make personal appearances in his account of human events, Herodotus states emphatically that "many things prove to me that the gods take part in the affairs of man" (IX, 100), so by this logic he was justified in including stories that evoked miracles or supernatural events, not only to please his readers but also to edify them — because as he saw it, these stories pointed toward the essential features of the order of things. In Book One, passages 23 and 24, he relates the story of [[Arion]], the renowned harp player, "second to no man living at that time," who was saved by a dolphin. Herodotus prefaces the story by noting that "a very wonderful thing is said to have happened," and alleges its veracity by adding that the "Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of the matter." Having become very rich while at the court of Periander, Arion conceived a desire to sail to Italy and Sicily. He hired a vessel crewed by Corinthians, whom he felt he could trust, but the sailors plotted to throw him overboard and seize his wealth. Arion discovered the plot and begged for his life, but the crew gave him two options: that either he kill himself on the spot or jump ship and fend for himself in the sea. Arion flung himself into the water, and a dolphin carried him to shore.<ref>''Histories'' 1.23–24.</ref> The story is fantastic, but it introduces the themes of perfidy, resourcefulness, and heroic action that recur throughout the book.


Though Herodotus is generally considered a reliable source of ancient history, many present-day historians believe that his accounts are at least partially inaccurate, attributing the observed inconsistencies in the ''Histories'' to exaggeration.<ref>{{Cite web |title=8 Myth and Truth in Herodotus' Cyrus Logos |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/27438/chapter/197305154 |access-date=27 September 2023 |website=Oxford Academic}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Mark |first=Joshua J. |title=Herodotus |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/herodotus/ |access-date=27 September 2023 |website=World History Encyclopedia |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Larkin |first=Patrick |date=11 March 2022 |title=Herodotus, Homer, and The Histories |url=https://you.stonybrook.edu/undergraduatehistoryjournal/2022/03/11/herodotus-homer-and-the-histories/#:~:text=He%20inflated%20these%20numbers%20for,for%20many%20students%20of%20history. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231012152047/https://you.stonybrook.edu/undergraduatehistoryjournal/2022/03/11/herodotus-homer-and-the-histories/ |archive-date=12 October 2023 |access-date=27 September 2023 |website=Stony Brook Undergraduate History Journal |language=en-US}}</ref>
Herodotus included stories with a fairy tale quality in part because such stories share repetitive patterns that point toward commonly accepted truths and thus serve to underline the moral themes in a particularly economical manner, as in the story of [[Candaules]]'s bodyguard, [[Gyges of Lydia|Gyges]], who supplanted his sovereign at the behest of Candaules's wife, the Queen. The uxorious Candaules, proud of his wife's beauty, arranged for Gyges to bear witness to the spectacle of her naked form (thereby giving a name to the practice of [[Candaulism]]), but the Queen inadvertently espied Gyges when he sneaked from his hiding spot. She demanded that Gyges kill Candaules, because the King had seen fit to shame her, and after doing so Gyges assumed the throne. <ref>''Histories'' 1.8–12.</ref> Thus Herodotus draws out the themes of sex and power that, it so happens, are also the main themes of the History as a whole. Herodotus begins his History with an account of the abductions of three women ([[Io (mythology)|Io]], [[Europa (mythology)|Europa]], and [[Medea]]) in mythic times, which he claims were the "grounds of feud" between the Greeks and the Barbarians. It is interesting in this context to note the identification of women and geography, over both of which the armies of men fight. In the 42nd passage of Book IV Herodotus states, "For my part I am astonished that men should ever have divided Libya, Asia, and Europe as they have, for they are exceedingly unequal." And later in the 45th passage he adds, "I cannot conceive why three names, and women's names especially, should ever have been given to a tract which is in reality one." In these observations are contained some of the most basic elements of myth, or [[Mytheme|mythemes]], that recur throughout the text. Herodotus depicts a Fall from a state of harmony: what was once a unified tract (accord) is now divided unequally (discord) and fought over by men because of lust for land and women. Much like the biblical story of Eve, women in this scenario appear to be cast in the role of seductress. Of course, every Fall brings with it certain compensations, such as knowledge. Knowledge of the good and evil that men do is the historian's charge, but unlike the poet or theologian, the historian in Herodotus's view is concerned to bring myth into a logically consistent relation with present realities. Thus Herodotus sifts through the ancient myths, rejecting some, accepting others, depending on whether he considers them probable and thematically apt, because they must contribute to an understanding of the present history.{{Cn|date=July 2014}}


==See also==
==See also==
{{Columns-list|
* ''[[Naturalis Historia]]''
* [[Al-Masudi]], ''known as the Herodotus of the Arabs''
* [[Pliny the Elder]]
* [[Padaei|The Padaei]]
* [[Herodotus Machine]]
* [[Historiography]] (the history of history and historians)
* [[Pseudo-Herodotus]]
* [[Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)]]
* [[Thucydides]], ancient Greek historian who is also often said to be "the father of history"
* [[Sostratus of Aegina]]
}}


==Critical editions==
==Notes==
* C. Hude (ed.) ''Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs prior: Libros I–IV continens.'' (Oxford 1908)
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
* C. Hude (ed.) ''Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs alter: Libri V–IX continens.'' (Oxford 1908)
* H. B. Rosén (ed.) ''Herodoti Historiae. Vol. I: Libros I–IV continens.'' (Leipzig 1987)
* H. B. Rosén (ed.) ''Herodoti Historiae. Vol. II: Libros V–IX continens indicibus criticis adiectis'' (Stuttgart 1997)
* N. G. Wilson (ed.) ''Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs prior: Libros I–IV continens.'' (Oxford 2015)
* N. G. Wilson (ed.) ''Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs alter: Libri V–IX continens.'' (Oxford 2015)


==Translations==
==Translations==
Several English translations of ''The Histories of Herodotus'' are readily available in multiple editions. The most readily available are those translated by:
Several English translations of Herodotus's ''Histories'' are available in multiple editions, including:
* [[Henry Cary (judge)|Henry Cary]], translation 1849: [https://archive.org/details/herodotusnewlite00hero text] [[Internet Archive]]
* [[A. D. Godley]] 1920; revised 1926. Reprinted 1931, 1946, 1960, 1966, 1975, 1981, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2004. Available in [[Loeb Classical Library#Herodotos|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.
* [[George Rawlinson]], translation 1858–1860. Public domain; many editions available, although [[Everyman's Library]] and Wordsworth Classics editions are the most common ones still in print.<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1/> (revised in 1935 by [[A. W. Lawrence]])
* [[David Grene]], Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
* [[George Campbell Macaulay]], translation 1890, published in two volumes. London: Macmillan and Co.
* [[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.
* [[A. D. Godley]] 1920; revised 1926. Reprinted 1931, 1946, 1960, 1966, 1975, 1981, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2004. Available in [[Loeb Classical Library#Herodotus|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:
** A. D. Godley ''Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume I : Books 1–2'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1920)
** A. D. Godley ''Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume II : Books 3–4'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1921)
** A. D. Godley ''Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume III : Books 5–7'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1922)
** A. D. Godley ''Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume IV : Books 8–9'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1925)
* [[Aubrey de Sélincourt]], originally 1954; revised by John Marincola in 1996. Several editions from [[Penguin Books]] available.
* [[Aubrey de Sélincourt]], originally 1954; revised by John Marincola in 1996. Several editions from [[Penguin Books]] available.
* [[David Grene]], Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
* 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
* [[Robin Waterfield]], with an Introduction and Notes by [[Carolyn Dewald]], Oxford World Classics, 1997. {{ISBN|978-0-19-953566-8}}
* Andrea L. Purvis, ''The Landmark Herodotus'', edited by Robert B. Strassler. Pantheon, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-375-42109-9}} with adequate ancillary information.
* [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B27G1QW/ The Histories of Herodotus Interlinear English Translation] Heinrich Stein (ed.), George Macaulay (Trans.), Handheldclassics.com, 2013. Kindle ed. AISN B00B27G1QW
* Walter Blanco, ''Herodotus: The Histories: The Complete Translation, Backgrounds, Commentaries''. Edited by Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013.
* [[Tom Holland (author)|Tom Holland]], ''The Histories, Herodotus''. Introduction and notes by Paul Cartledge. New York, Penguin, 2013.

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist|21em |refs=

<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists>
{{cite book
|last=Burn |first=A.R.
|year=1972
|title=Herodotus: The Histories
|publisher=[[Penguin Classics]]
}}
</ref>

<ref name=Hetrod-in-Encyc-Wrld-Bio>
{{cite encyclopedia
|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/herodotus
|title=Herodotus
|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of World Biography
|publisher=The Gale Group
|access-date=11 March 2018
}}
</ref>

<ref name=Murray-1986-Grk-histns>
{{cite book
|last=Murray |first=Oswyn
|year=1986
|chapter=Greek historians
|editor-first1=John |editor-last1=Boardman
|editor-first2=Jasper |editor-last2=Griffin
|editor-first3=Oswyn |editor-last3=Murray
|title=The Oxford History of the Classical World
|pages=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofc00john/page/186 186–203]
|publisher=Oxford University Press
|isbn=978-0-19-872112-3
|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofc00john/page/186
}}
</ref>

<ref name=Rawlinson-1859-Hist-Herod-v1>{{cite book
|last=Rawlinson |first=George
|year=1859
|title=The History of Herodotus
|volume=1
|publisher=D. Appleton and Company
|location=New York
}}
{{cite web
|via =The Internet Classics Archive
|title=The History of Herodotus
|translator=Rawlinson, George
|publisher=[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]
|department=Classics
|url=http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html
|access-date=25 July 2001
|archive-date=1 December 2012
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121201230133/http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

}} <!-- end "refs=" -->

===Sources===
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite journal
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* {{cite book
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|title=Travel Fact and Travel Fiction: Studies on Fiction, Literary Tradition, Scholarly Discovery, and Observation in Travel Writing
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite book |last=Immerwahr |first=Henry R. |year=1985 |chapter=Herodotus |series=The Cambridge History of Classical Greek Literature |volume=1 |title=Greek Literature |editor-first1=P.E. |editor-last1=Easterling |editor1-link=P. E. Easterling |editor-first2=B.M.W. |editor-last2=Knox |editor2-link=Bernard Knox |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-21042-3 }}

* {{cite journal |last=Jones |first=C.P. |year=1996 |title=ἔθνος and γένος in Herodotus |journal=[[The Classical Quarterly]] |series=new series |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=315–320 |doi=10.1093/cq/46.2.315 }}

* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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|place=Calcutta
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}}

* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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}}

* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite journal
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite journal
|last=Wardman |first=A.E.
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|volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=403–413
|jstor=4434671
}}

* {{cite book
|last=Waters |first=K.H.
|year=1985
|title=Herodotos the Historian: His problems, methods and originality
|place=Tulsa
|publisher = University of Oklahoma Press
|isbn=978-0-8061-1928-1
}}

* {{cite book
|last=Welsby |first=Derek
|year=1996
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|isbn=978-0-7141-0986-2
}}
{{Refend}}


==Further reading==
==Further reading==
{{refbegin|32em|indent=y}}
*{{cite book|editor1-last=Bakker|editor1-first=Egbert J.|editor2-last=de Jong|editor2-first=Irene J.F.|editor3-last=van Wees|editor3-first=Hans|title=Brill's companion to Herodotus|year=2002|publisher=E.J. Brill|location=Leiden|isbn=90-04-12060-2}}
*{{cite book|last=De Selincourt|first=Aubrey|title=The World of Herodotus|year=1962|publisher=Secker and Warburg|location=London}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Bakker |editor1-first=Egbert J. |editor-link1=Egbert Bakker |editor2-last=de Jong |editor2-first=Irene J.F. |editor3-last=van Wees |editor3-first=Hans |title=Brill's companion to Herodotus |year=2002 |publisher=E.J. Brill |location=Leiden |isbn=978-90-04-12060-0}}
*{{cite book|editor1-last=Dewald|editor1-first=Carolyn|editor2-last=Marincola|editor2-first=John|title=The Cambridge companion to Herodotus|year=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=0-521-83001-X}}
* {{cite book |last=Baragwanath |first=Emily |year=2010 |title=Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus |series=Oxford Classical Monographs |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-964550-3 }}
*{{cite book|last=Evans|first=J.A.S.|title=The beginnings of history: Herodotus and the Persian Wars|year=2006|publisher=Edgar Kent|location=Campbellville, Ont.|isbn=0-88866-652-7}}
* {{cite book | last1=Bury | first1=J.B. | author1-link=J. B. Bury | last2=Meiggs | first2=Russell | author2-link=Russell Meiggs | title=A History of Greece | year=1975 | publisher=MacMillan Press | location=London | pages=251–252 | isbn=978-0-333-15492-2| edition=Fourth }}
*{{cite book|last=Evans|first=J.A.S.|title=Herodotus|year=1982|publisher=Twayne|location=Boston|isbn=0-8057-6488-7}}
* {{cite book |last=De Selincourt |first=Aubrey |title=The World of Herodotus |year=1962 |publisher=Secker and Warburg |location=London}}
*{{cite book|last=Evans|first=J.A.S.|title=Herodotus, explorer of the past: three essays|year=1991|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, NJ|isbn=0-691-06871-2}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Dewald |editor1-first=Carolyn |editor2-last=Marincola |editor2-first=John |title=The Cambridge companion to Herodotus |year=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-83001-0}}
*{{cite book|last=Flory|first=Stewart|title=The archaic smile of Herodotus|year=1987|publisher=Wayne State University Press|location=Detroit|isbn=0-8143-1827-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Evans |first=J.A.S. |title=The beginnings of history: Herodotus and the Persian Wars |year=2006 |publisher=Edgar Kent |location=Campbellville, Ont. |isbn=978-0-88866-652-9}}
*{{cite book|last=Fornara|first=Charles W.|title=Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay|year=1971|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford}}
* {{cite book |last=Evans |first=J.A.S. |title=Herodotus |year=1982 |publisher=Twayne |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-8057-6488-8 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/herodotus0000evan }}
*{{cite book|last=Giessen|first=Hans W. Giessen|title=Mythos Marathon. Von Herodot über Bréal bis zur Gegenwart|year=2010|publisher=Verlag Empirische Pädagogik (= Landauer Schriften zur Kommunikations- und Kulturwissenschaft. Band 17)|location=Landau|isbn=978-3-941320-46-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Evans |first=J.A.S. |title=Herodotus, explorer of the past: three essays |year=1991 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, NJ |isbn=978-0-691-06871-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/herodotusexplore0000evan }}
*{{cite book|last=Gould|first=John|title=Herodotus|year=1989|publisher=St. Martin's Press|location=New York|isbn=0-312-02855-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Flory |first=Stewart |title=The archaic smile of Herodotus |year=1987 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit |isbn=978-0-8143-1827-0}}
*{{cite book|last=Harrington|first=John W.|title=To see a world|year=1973|publisher=G.V. Mosby Co.|location=Saint Louis|isbn=0-8016-2058-9}}
* {{cite book |last=Fornara |first=Charles W. |title=Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay |year=1971 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford}}
* {{cite book |last=Giessen |first=Hans W. Giessen |title=Mythos Marathon. Von Herodot über Bréal bis zur Gegenwart |year=2010 |publisher=Verlag Empirische Pädagogik (= Landauer Schriften zur Kommunikations- und Kulturwissenschaft. Band 17) |location=Landau |isbn=978-3-941320-46-8}}
*{{cite journal|last=Hartog|first=François |title=The Invention of History: The Pre-History of a Concept from Homer to Herodotus|journal=History and Theory|volume=39|year=2000|pages=384–395|doi=10.1111/0018-2656.00137|issue=3}}
*{{cite book|last=Hartog|first=François|title=The mirror of Herodotus: the representation of the other in the writing of history|year=1988|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=0-520-05487-3|others=Janet Lloyd, trans}}
* {{cite book |last=Harrington |first=John W. |title=To see a world |year=1973 |publisher=G.V. Mosby Co. |location=Saint Louis |isbn=978-0-8016-2058-4}}
* {{cite journal |last=Hartog |first=François |title=The Invention of History: The Pre-History of a Concept from Homer to Herodotus |journal=History and Theory |volume=39 |year=2000 |pages=384–395 |doi=10.1111/0018-2656.00137 |issue=3}}
*{{cite book|editor1-last=How|editor1-first=Walter W.|editor2-last=Wells|editor2-first=Joseph|title=A Commentary on Herodotus|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24146|year=1912|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford}}
*{{cite book|last=Hunter|first=Virginia|title=Past and process in Herodotus and Thucydides|year=1982|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, NJ|isbn=0-691-03556-3}}
* {{cite book |last=Hartog |first=François |title=The mirror of Herodotus: the representation of the other in the writing of history |year=1988 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-05487-5 |others=Janet Lloyd, trans}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=How |editor1-first=Walter W. |editor2-last=Wells |editor2-first=Joseph |title=A Commentary on Herodotus |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24146 |year=1912 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |access-date=26 July 2011 |archive-date=9 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009012256/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24146 |url-status=live }}
*{{cite book|last=Immerwahr|first=H.|title=Form and Thought in Herodotus|year=1966|publisher=Case Western Reserve University Press|location=Cleveland}}
*{{cite book|last=Kapuściński|first=Ryszard|title=Travels with Herodotus|year=2007|publisher=Knopf|location=New York|isbn=978-1-4000-4338-5|others=Klara Glowczewska, trans}}
* {{cite book |last=Hunter |first=Virginia |title=Past and process in Herodotus and Thucydides |year=1982 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, NJ |isbn=978-0-691-03556-7}}
*{{cite book|last=Lateiner|first=Donald|title=The historical method of Herodotus|year=1989|publisher=Toronto University Press|location=Toronto|isbn=0-8020-5793-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Immerwahr |first=H. |title=Form and Thought in Herodotus |year=1966 |publisher=Case Western Reserve University Press |location=Cleveland}}
*{{cite book|last=Marozzi|first=Justin|authorlink=Justin Marozzi|title=The way of Herodotus: travels with the man who invented history|year=2008|publisher=Da Capo Press|location=Cambridge, MA|isbn=978-0-306-81621-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Kapuściński |first=Ryszard |title=Travels with Herodotus |year=2007 |publisher=Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4000-4338-5 |others=Klara Glowczewska, trans}}
*{{cite book|last=Momigliano|first=Arnaldo|title=The classical foundations of modern historiography|year=1990|publisher=Univ. of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=0-520-06890-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Lateiner |first=Donald |title=The historical method of Herodotus |year=1989 |publisher=Toronto University Press |location=Toronto |isbn=978-0-8020-5793-8}}
* Pitcher, Luke (2009). ''Writing Ancient History: An Introduction to Classical Historiography''. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.
*{{cite book|last=Myres|first=John L.|title=Herodotus : father of history|year=1971|publisher=Henry Regnrey|location=Chicago|isbn=0-19-924021-3}}
*{{cite book|last=Pritchett|first=W. Kendrick|title=The liar school of Herodotus|year=1993|publisher=Gieben|location=Amsterdam|isbn=90-5063-088-X}}
* {{cite book |last=Marozzi |first=Justin |author-link=Justin Marozzi |title=The way of Herodotus: travels with the man who invented history |year=2008 |publisher=Da Capo Press |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=978-0-306-81621-5}}
*{{cite book|last=Romm|first=James|title=Herodotus|year=1998|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|isbn=0-300-07229-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Momigliano |first=Arnaldo |title=The classical foundations of modern historiography |year=1990 |publisher=Univ. of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-06890-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780520078703 }}
* {{cite book |last=Myres |first=John L. |title=Herodotus : father of history |year=1971 |publisher=Henry Regnrey |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-19-924021-0}}
*{{cite journal|last=Selden|first=Daniel|title=Cambyses' Madness, or the Reason of History|journal=Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici|volume=42|year=1999|pages=33–63}}
*{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Rosalind|title=Herodotus in context: ethnography, science and the art of persuasion|year=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=0-521-66259-1}}
* {{cite book |last=Pritchett |first=W. Kendrick |title=The liar school of Herodotus |year=1993 |publisher=Gieben |location=Amsterdam |isbn=978-90-5063-088-7}}
* {{cite EB9 |wstitle = Herodotus |volume= XI |last= Rawlinson |first= George |author-link= George Rawlinson| pages=756-759 |short=1}}
* {{cite journal |last=Selden |first=Daniel |title=Cambyses' Madness, or the Reason of History |journal=Materiali e Discussioni per l'Analisi dei Testi Classici |volume=42 |issue=42 |year=1999 |pages=33–63|doi=10.2307/40236137 |jstor=40236137 }}
* {{cite book |last=Thomas |first=Rosalind |title=Herodotus in context: ethnography, science and the art of persuasion |year=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-66259-8}}
* Waters, K.H. (1985). ''Herodotus the Historian: His Problems, Methods and Originality''. Beckenham: Croom Helm Ltd.
{{refend}}


==External links==
==External links==
Line 142: Line 545:
{{wikisource author}}
{{wikisource author}}
{{wikisourcelang|el|Ηρόδοτος|Ἡρόδοτος}}
{{wikisourcelang|el|Ηρόδοτος|Ἡρόδοτος}}
{{Library resources box |by=yes |onlinebooks=yes |others=yes |about=yes |label=Herodotus}}
* [http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_herodotus.htm Herodotus] at About.com

* A reconstructed [http://www.reportret.info/gallery/herodotos1.html portrait of Herodotus], based on historical sources, in a contemporary style.
;Online texts
* [http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/herodotus/ Herodotus on the Web]
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/herodotus}}
* [http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/herodotus01.htm Herodotus of Halicarnassus] at Livius.org
* {{Gutenberg author |id=828}}
* [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Herodotus 1911 Britannica article "Herodotus"]
* {{Internet Archive author}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/04/28/080428crbo_books_mendelsohn |title=Arms and the Man |work=[[The New Yorker]] |author=Mendelsohn, Daniel |date=28 April 2008 |accessdate=27 April 2008}}
* {{Librivox author |id=173}}
* [http://www.losttrails.com/pages/Tales/Inquiries/Herodotus.html Herodotus Inquiries]—new translation with photographic essays of the places and artifacts mentioned by Herodotus hyperlinked to the text
* {{gutenberg author| id=Herodotus | name=Herodotus}}
**{{gutenberg|no=2707|name=The History of Herodotus, vol. 1}} (translation by [[George Campbell Macaulay]], 1852–1915)
**{{gutenberg|no=2456|name=The History of Herodotus, vol. 2}}
* {{librivox author|Herodotus}}
* [http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html The History of Herodotus], at The Internet Classics Archive (translation by George Rawlinson).
* [http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html The History of Herodotus], at The Internet Classics Archive (translation by George Rawlinson).
* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/index.htm Parallel Greek and English text of the History of Herodotus] at the Internet Sacred Text Archive
* [https://sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/index.htm Parallel Greek and English text of the History of Herodotus] at the Internet Sacred Text Archive
* [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126 Herodotus ''Histories''] on the [[Perseus Project]]
* [http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/logoi.html Excerpts of Sélincourt's translation]
* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126 Herodotus ''Histories''] on [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ Perseus]
* [https://scaife.perseus.org/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-grc2:1.1.0-1.1.4/ Herodotus ''Histories''] on the Scaife Viewer
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150504214024/https://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/logoi.html Excerpts of Sélincourt's translation]
* <!-- PLEASE see Talk Page (#28) before deleting --> [http://www.paxlibrorum.com/books/histories/ The Histories of Herodotus], A.D. Godley translation with footnotes ({{PDFlink|[http://www.paxlibrorum.com/res/downloads/histories_5by8.pdf Direct link to PDF]|14&nbsp;MB}})
* <!-- PLEASE see Talk Page (#28) before deleting --> [http://www.paxlibrorum.com/books/histories/ The Histories of Herodotus] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411135500/https://www.paxlibrorum.com/books/histories/ |date=11 April 2021 }}, A.D. Godley translation with footnotes ({{cite web |url=http://www.paxlibrorum.com/res/downloads/histories_5by8.pdf |title=Direct link to PDF }}&nbsp;{{small|(14&nbsp;MB)}})

;Other links
* [https://www.isidore-of-seville.com/herodotus/ Herodotus on the Web]
* [https://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/herodotus01.htm Herodotus of Halicarnassus] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160301091829/http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/herodotus01.htm |date=1 March 2016 }} at Livius.org
* {{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Herodotus |volume=13 |pages=381–384 |short=1}}
* {{cite magazine
|url=http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/04/28/080428crbo_books_mendelsohn
|title=Arms and the Man
|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]
|author=Mendelsohn, Daniel
|date=28 April 2008
|access-date=27 April 2008
}}





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{{Ancient Greece topics|state=autocollapse}}
{{Authority control}}


{{Authority control|VIAF=100225969|LCCN=n/79/086888}}
<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{Persondata
| NAME = Herodotus of Halicarnassus
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Herodotos; Ἡρόδοτος Ἁλικαρνᾱσσεύς; Hērodotos Halikarnāsseus
| SHORT DESCRIPTION = Dorian historian
| DATE OF BIRTH = c. 484 BC
| PLACE OF BIRTH = Helicarnassus
| DATE OF DEATH = c. 425 BC
| PLACE OF DEATH = [[Thurii]], [[Calabria]] or [[Pella]], [[Macedon]]
}}
[[Category:Herodotus| ]]
[[Category:Herodotus| ]]
[[Category:484 BC births]]
[[Category:480s BC births]]
[[Category:425 BC deaths]]
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[[Category:Historians from the Achaemenid Empire]]
[[Category:Historians of ancient Egypt]]
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Latest revision as of 01:43, 18 December 2024

For other uses, see Herodotus (disambiguation).

Herodotus
Ἡρόδοτος
A Roman copy (2nd century AD) of a Greek bust of Herodotus from the first half of the 4th century BC
Bornc. 484 BC
Halicarnassus, Caria, Asia Minor, Achaemenid Empire
Diedc. 425 BC (aged approximately 60)
Thurii, Calabria, or Pella, Macedon
OccupationHistorian
Notable workHistories
Parents
  • Lyxes (father)
  • Dryotus (mother)
Relatives
  • Theodorus (brother)
  • Panyassis (uncle or cousin)

Herodotus[a] (Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος, romanized: Hēródotos; c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the Histories, a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars, and was the first writer to apply a scientific method to historical events. He has been described as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero,[2][3] and the "Father of Lies" by others.

The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information.

Herodotus was criticized in ancient times for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides accused him of making up stories for entertainment. He retorted that he reported what he could see and was told.[4] A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists.

Life

[edit]

Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus's own writing for reliable information about his life,[5]: 7  supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, such as the Byzantine Suda, an 11th-century encyclopedia which possibly took its information from traditional accounts. Still, the challenge is great:

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 ...

— G. Rawlinson[6]: 1 

Childhood

[edit]

Herodotus was, according to his own statement, at the beginning of his work, a native of Halicarnassus in Anatolia,[7] and it is generally accepted that he was born there around 485 BC. The Suda says his family was influential, 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.[6]: Introduction [5]: Introduction 

Halicarnassus was then within the Persian Empire, making Herodotus a Persian subject,[8][9] and it may be that the young Herodotus heard local eyewitness 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 I of Caria.[citation needed]

Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that Artemesia's grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which is consistent with a tyrant under pressure. 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 some time before 454 BC.[citation needed]

Romanticized statue of Herodotus in his hometown of Halicarnassus, modern Bodrum, Turkey

Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect, in spite of being born in a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda, Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as a boy living on the island of Samos, to which he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia. Panyassis, the epic poet related to Herodotus, is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising.[10]

The Suda also states that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. Due to recent discoveries of inscriptions at Halicarnassus dated to about Herodotus's time, it is now known that the Ionic dialect was used in Halicarnassus in some official documents, so there is no need to assume (like the Suda) that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere.[5]: 11  The Suda is the only source placing Herodotus as the heroic liberator of his birthplace, casting doubt upon the veracity of that romantic account.[6]: 11 

Early travels

[edit]

As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel (I, 144),[clarification needed] 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 other countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches.

Herodotus's eyewitness accounts indicate that he traveled in Egypt in association with Athenians, probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460–454 BC. He probably traveled to Tyre next and then down the Euphrates to Babylon. For some reason, possibly associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus, and sometime around 447 BC, migrated to Periclean Athens – a city whose people and democratic institutions he openly admired (V, 78). Athens was also the place where he came to know the local topography (VI, 137; VIII, 52–55), as well as leading citizens such as the Alcmaeonids, a clan whose history is featured frequently in his writing.

According to Plutarch,[11] Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work. Plutarch, using Diyllus as a source, says this was 10 talents.[12]

Later life

[edit]

In 443 BC or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurii, in modern Calabria, as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony. Aristotle refers to a version of the Histories written by "Herodotus of Thurium", and some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about Magna Graecia from personal experience there (IV, 15,99; VI, 127). According to Ptolemaeus Chennus, a late source summarized in the Library of Photius, Plesirrhous the Thessalian, the hymnographer, was the eromenos of Herodotus and his heir. This account has also led some historians to assume Herodotus died childless. Intimate knowledge of some events in the first years of the Peloponnesian War (VI, 91; VII, 133, 233; IX, 73) suggests that he returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. It is also possible he died in Macedonia instead, after obtaining the patronage of the court there; or else he died back in Thurii. There is nothing in the Histories that can be dated to later than 430 BC with any certainty, and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.

Author and orator

[edit]

Herodotus would have made his researches known to the larger world through oral recitations to a public crowd. John Marincola writes in his introduction to the Penguin edition of the Histories that there are certain identifiable pieces in the early books of Herodotus's work which could be labeled as "performance pieces". These portions of the research seem independent and "almost detachable", so that they might have been set aside by the author for the purposes of an oral performance. The intellectual matrix of the 5th century, Marincola suggests, comprised many oral performances in which philosophers would dramatically recite such detachable pieces of their work. The idea was to criticize previous arguments on a topic and emphatically and enthusiastically insert their own in order to win over the audience.[13]

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 Anatolia to the Olympic Games and read the entire Histories to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it.[6]: 14  According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian,[14] Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at the festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade – by which time the assembly had dispersed. (Hence the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe someone who misses an 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: that of Photius[15] and Tzetzes,[16] in which a young Thucydides happened to be in the assembly with his father, and burst into tears during the recital. Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father: "Your son's soul yearns for knowledge."

Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides's tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides.[17] According to the Suda, he was buried in Macedonian Pella and in the agora in Thurii.[6]: 25 

Place in history

[edit]
Reconstructed map of the world based on the writings of Herodotus

Herodotus announced the purpose and scope of his work at the beginning of his Histories:[b][18]

Here are presented the results of the inquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.

— Herodotus, The Histories (tr. R. Waterfield, 2008)[19]

Predecessors

[edit]

His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus's 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. 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 naïve, often charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.[20]

Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to the ancient account, these predecessors included Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus. Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus's works survived, and the authenticity of these is debatable,[5]: 27  but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories.

Contemporary and modern critics

[edit]

It is on account of the many strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics have branded him "The Father of Lies".[5]: 10 [21] Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement. In fact, one modern scholar[6] has wondered whether Herodotus left his home in Greek Anatolia, 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 one of his three supposed resting places, Thuria:

Herodotus the son of Sphynx
lies; in Ionic history without peer;
a Dorian born, who fled from slander's brand
and made in Thuria his new native land.[5]: 13 

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.[22][23]

Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a story-teller.[24]: 191  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 with his frequent digressions Herodotus appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his authorial control.[19] Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view: focused on the context of the polis or city-state. The interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory.[24]: 191 

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.

— R. C. Jebb, [25]

Though Herodotus is generally considered a reliable source of ancient history, many present-day historians believe that his accounts are at least partially inaccurate, attributing the observed inconsistencies in the Histories to exaggeration.[26][27][28]

See also

[edit]

Critical editions

[edit]
  • C. Hude (ed.) Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs prior: Libros I–IV continens. (Oxford 1908)
  • C. Hude (ed.) Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs alter: Libri V–IX continens. (Oxford 1908)
  • H. B. Rosén (ed.) Herodoti Historiae. Vol. I: Libros I–IV continens. (Leipzig 1987)
  • H. B. Rosén (ed.) Herodoti Historiae. Vol. II: Libros V–IX continens indicibus criticis adiectis (Stuttgart 1997)
  • N. G. Wilson (ed.) Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs prior: Libros I–IV continens. (Oxford 2015)
  • N. G. Wilson (ed.) Herodoti Historiae. Tomvs alter: Libri V–IX continens. (Oxford 2015)

Translations

[edit]

Several English translations of Herodotus's Histories are available in multiple editions, including:

  • Henry Cary, translation 1849: text Internet Archive
  • George Rawlinson, translation 1858–1860. Public domain; many editions available, although Everyman's Library and Wordsworth Classics editions are the most common ones still in print.[6] (revised in 1935 by A. W. Lawrence)
  • George Campbell Macaulay, translation 1890, published in two volumes. London: Macmillan and Co.
  • 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:
    • A. D. Godley Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume I : Books 1–2 (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1920)
    • A. D. Godley Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume II : Books 3–4 (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1921)
    • A. D. Godley Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume III : Books 5–7 (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1922)
    • A. D. Godley Herodotus : The Persian Wars : Volume IV : Books 8–9 (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1925)
  • Aubrey de Sélincourt, originally 1954; revised by John Marincola in 1996. Several editions from Penguin Books available.
  • David Grene, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
  • Robin Waterfield, with an Introduction and Notes by Carolyn Dewald, Oxford World Classics, 1997. ISBN 978-0-19-953566-8
  • Andrea L. Purvis, The Landmark Herodotus, edited by Robert B. Strassler. Pantheon, 2007. ISBN 978-0-375-42109-9 with adequate ancillary information.
  • Walter Blanco, Herodotus: The Histories: The Complete Translation, Backgrounds, Commentaries. Edited by Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013.
  • Tom Holland, The Histories, Herodotus. Introduction and notes by Paul Cartledge. New York, Penguin, 2013.

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ /həˈrɒdətəs/[1] hə-ROD-ə-təs
  2. ^ For the past several hundred years, the title of Herodotus's work has been translated rather roughly as Histories or The History.[citation needed] The original title can be translated from the Greek as "researches" or "inquiries".[citation needed]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Herodotus". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
  2. ^ Luce, T. James (2002). The Greek Historians. p. 26.
  3. ^ "Herodotus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 4 April 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  4. ^ Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (2014). The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. OUP Oxford. p. 372. ISBN 978-0-19-101675-2.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Burn, A.R. (1972). Herodotus: The Histories. Penguin Classics.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rawlinson, George (1859). The History of Herodotus. Vol. 1. New York: D. Appleton and Company. "The History of Herodotus". Classics. Translated by Rawlinson, George. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original on 1 December 2012. Retrieved 25 July 2001 – via The Internet Classics Archive.
  7. ^ Smith, William, ed. (1873). "A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Hero'dotus". www.perseus.tufts.edu. London: John Murray. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
  8. ^ Dandamaev, M.A. (1989). A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire. Brill. p. 153. ISBN 978-90-04-09172-6. The 'Father of History', Herodotus, was born at Halicarnassus, and before his emigration to mainland Greece was a subject of the Persian empire.
  9. ^ Kia, Mehrdad (2016). The Persian Empire: A historical encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-61069-391-2. At the time of Herodotus' birth southwestern Asia Minor, including Halicarnassus, was under Persian Achaemenid rule.
  10. ^ "Histories of Herodotus".
  11. ^ Plutarch De Malign. Herod. II p. 862 A, cited by.[6]: Introduction 
  12. ^ "Plutarch on the Malice of Herodotus". www.bostonleadershipbuilders.com. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  13. ^ Herodotus (2003). The Histories. Translated by de Selincourt, Aubrey. Introduction and notes by John Marincola. Penguin Books. p. xii.
  14. ^ Montfaucon's Bibliothec. Coisl. Cod. clxxvii p. 609, cited by.[6]: 14 
  15. ^ Photius Bibliothec. Cod. lx p. 59, cited by Ralinson[6]: 15 
  16. ^ Tzetzes Chil. 1.19, cited by.[6]: 15 
  17. ^ Marcellinus, in Vita. Thucyd. p. ix, cited by.[6]: 25 
  18. ^ "Herodotus". Encyclopedia of World Biography. The Gale Group. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  19. ^ a b Dewald, Carolyn, ed. (1998). The Histories by Herodotus. Translated by Waterfield, Robin. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. "Introduction", p. xviii. ISBN 9780199535668.
  20. ^ ,[5]: 23  citing Dionysius On Thucydides
  21. ^ Pipes, David. "Herodotus: Father of History, Father of Lies". Archived from the original on 27 January 2008. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
  22. ^ Tritle., Lawrence A. (2004). The Peloponnesian War. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 147–148.
  23. ^ Hart, John (1982). Herodotus and Greek History. Taylor and Francis. p. 174.
  24. ^ a b Murray, Oswyn (1986). "Greek historians". In Boardman, John; Griffin, Jasper; Murray, Oswyn (eds.). The Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford University Press. pp. 186–203. ISBN 978-0-19-872112-3.
  25. ^ Jebb, Richard C. The Genius of Sophocles . section 7.
  26. ^ "8 Myth and Truth in Herodotus' Cyrus Logos". Oxford Academic. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  27. ^ Mark, Joshua J. "Herodotus". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  28. ^ Larkin, Patrick (11 March 2022). "Herodotus, Homer, and The Histories". Stony Brook Undergraduate History Journal. Archived from the original on 12 October 2023. Retrieved 27 September 2023.

Sources

[edit]
  • Asheri, David; Lloyd, Alan; Corcella, Aldo (2007). A Commentary on Herodotus, Books 1–4. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-814956-9.
  • Baragwanath, Emily; de Bakker, Mathieu (2010). Herodotus. Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-980286-9.
  • Herodotus; Blanco, Walter (2013). The Histories. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-93397-0.
  • Boedeker, Deborah (2000). "Herodotus' genre(s)". In Depew, Mary; Obbink, Dirk (eds.). Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society. Harvard University Press. pp. 97–114. ISBN 978-0-674-03420-4.
  • Cameron, Alan (2004). Greek Mythography in the Roman World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-803821-4.
  • Dalley, S. (2003). "Why did Herodotus not mention the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?". In Derow, P.; Parker, R. (eds.). Herodotus and his World. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 171–189. ISBN 978-0-19-925374-6.
  • Dalley, S. (2013). The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: an Elusive World Wonder Traced. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-966226-5.
  • Evans, J.A.S. (1968). "Father of History or Father of Lies; The Reputation of Herodotus". Classical Journal. 64: 11–17.
  • Farley, David G. (2010). Modernist Travel Writing: Intellectuals Abroad. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-7228-7.
  • Fehling, Detlev (1989) [1971]. Herodotos and His 'Sources': Citation, Invention, and Narrative Art. Arca Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs. Vol. 21. Translated by Howie, J.G. Leeds: Francis Cairns. ISBN 978-0-905205-70-0.
  • Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign Accounts. Delhi: Ocean Books. ISBN 978-81-8430-106-9.
  • Lloyd, Alan B. (1993). Herodotus, Book  II. Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain. Vol. 43. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-07737-9.
  • Majumdar, R.C. (1981). The Classical accounts of India: Being a compilation of the English translations of the accounts left by Herodotus, Megasthenes, Arrian, Strabo, Quintus, Diodorus, Siculus, Justin, Plutarch, Frontinus, Nearchus, Apollonius, Pliny, Ptolemy, Aelian, and others with maps. Calcutta: Firma KLM. ISBN 978-0-8364-0704-4.
  • Mikalson, Jon D. (2003). Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars. Chapel Hill: Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2798-7.
  • Nielsen, Flemming A.J. (1997). The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the deuteronomistic history. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-85075-688-0.
  • Roberts, Jennifer T. (2011). Herodotus: a Very Short Introduction. OXford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957599-2.
  • Sparks, Kenton L. (1998). Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and their Expression in the Hebrew Bible. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-033-0.
  • Waters, K.H. (1985). Herodotos the Historian: His problems, methods and originality. Tulsa: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-1928-1.

Further reading

[edit]
  • Bakker, Egbert J.; de Jong, Irene J.F.; van Wees, Hans, eds. (2002). Brill's companion to Herodotus. Leiden: E.J. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12060-0.
  • Baragwanath, Emily (2010). Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-964550-3.
  • Bury, J.B.; Meiggs, Russell (1975). A History of Greece (Fourth ed.). London: MacMillan Press. pp. 251–252. ISBN 978-0-333-15492-2.
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