Herodotus

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Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Ἁλικαρνᾱσσεύς Hērodotos Halikarnāsseus) was a Greek historian from Ionia who lived in the 5th century BC (ca. 484 BC–ca. 425 BC) and is regarded as the "Father of History". He is almost exclusively known for writing The Histories, a record of his 'inquiries' (or ἱστορίαι, a word that passed into Latin and took on its modern connotation of history) into the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars which occurred in 490 and 480-479 BC — especially since he includes a narrative account of that period, which would otherwise be poorly documented, and many long digressions concerning the various places and peoples he encountered during wide-ranging travels around the lands of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. However, some of his stories are not always completely accurate. But Herodotus does state he is only reporting what is told to him, an honesty lacking in many historians.

1 Biography
2 Herodotus as historian
3 Opinions
- 3.1 Criticisms of Herodotus
4 See also
5 Notes
6 Further reading
7 External links
- 7.1 Online translations

[edit] Biography

Much of what is known of Herodotus' life has been gathered from his own work. Additional details have been garnered from the Suda, an 11th-century encyclopaedia of Byzantium; it seems likely that the Suda took its information from traditional accounts. Born in Halicarnassus, the Suda claims him to be 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. According to this account, after being exiled from Halicarnassus by the tyrant Lygdamis, Herodotus went to live at Samos. Later returning to Halicarnassus, Herodotus took part in the removal of Lygdamis from the city. The traditional biography also includes some time spent in Athens, and has Herodotus joining a Hellenic colony named Thurii in Southern Italy. His death and burial are placed either at Thurii or at Pella, in Macedon.

How much of this is correct cannot be known. It was common practice in antiquity for the biographies of poets to be drawn from inferences collated from their works, and something similar may have happened in Herodotus's case. The casting of Herodotus as a tyrannicide may simply be reflecting the pro-freedom attitude he expresses in the Histories, while the stays at Samos and Athens may have been invented to explain the pro-Samian and pro-Athenian bias that has been often thought to pervade his work. His exile from Halicarnassus may also be fictional: later historians, such as Thucydides and Xenophon, certainly did undergo periods of exile, and their fate may have been later retroactively imposed on Herodotus by later writers.

[edit] Herodotus as historian

Image:Herodotus world map-en.svg

Reconstruction of the Oikumene (inhabited world) Ancient Map from Herodotus circa 450 BC

Herodotus has provided much information concerning the nature of the world and the status of the sciences during his lifetime. He was arguably the first historian, and certainly the first to methodically travel around the known world in order to write with more accuracy, although this still involved second and third hand accounts relating to his primary subject: the Persian wars.

For example, he reports that the annual flooding of the Nile was said to be the result of melting snows far to the south, and comments that he cannot understand how there can be snow in Africa, the hottest part of the known world, offering an elaborate explanation based on the way that desert winds affect the passage of the Sun over this part of the world (2:18ff). (He also passes on dismissive reports from Phoenician sailors that, while circumnavigating Africa, they 'saw the sun on the right side while sailing westwards'. Thanks to this brief mention, which is almost 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.)

Written between 431 BC and 425 BC, The Histories were divided by later editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses (the 'Muse of History', Clio, represented the first book).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Opinions

Herodotus' invention has earned him the twin titles The Father of History and The Father of Lies [1]. As these epithets would seem to imply, there has long been a debate—at least from the time of Cicero's 'On the Laws' (Book 1, paragraph 5)—concerning the veracity of his tales, and, more importantly, concerning the extent to which he knew himself to be creating fabrications. Indeed, every manner of argument has surfaced on this subject, from a devious and consciously-fictionalizing Herodotus to a gullible Herodotus whose sources 'saw him coming a long way off'.

[edit] Criticisms of Herodotus

There are many cases in which Herodotus was not sure of the truth of a certain event or unimpressed by the dull 'facts' he received, reported the several most famous accounts of a given subject or process and then wrote what he believed was the most probable. Though The Histories were often criticized in olden times for bias, inaccuracy and plagiarism (for example, Claudius Aelianus attacked Herodotus as a liar in Verae Historiae and went as far as to deny him a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed), this methodology has been seen in a more positive light by many modern historians and philosophers, especially those searching for an example of relatively objective historical writing. Of course, given the sensitivity of the issue, the very founding of the discipline of history, this has not become a consensus view; attacks have been made by several scholars in modern times, a few even arguing that Herodotus exaggerated the extent of his travels and invented his sources.^{[citation needed]}

Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century have greatly helped restore Herodotus' reputation. The archaeological study of the now submerged ancient Egyptian city of Heraklion and the recovery of the so-called 'Naucratis stela' give extensive credibility to Herodotus' previously unsupported claim that Heraklion was founded under the Egyptian New Kingdom. Because of this recent increase in respect for his accuracy, as well as the quality and content of his observations, Herodotus is now recognized as a pioneer not only in history, but in ethnography and also anthropology.

One of the most interesting discoveries yet made concerning Herodotus' honesty is that of Michel Peissel, a French ethnologist, who claims to have discovered that in an isolated region of the Dansar Plateau, in the Himalayas region between India and Pakistan, there live marmots (a species of burrowing squirrel) who tend to throw up gold dust whenever they dig their burrows. According to Peissel, he interviewed the Minaro tribal people who live in the Dansar Plateau, and they confirmed for him that they have, for generations, been collecting the gold dust that the marmots expose in their diggings. Even more tantalizing, in his book, "The Ants' Gold", Peissel offers the theory that Herodotus became confused because the old Persian word for "marmot" is quite similar to that for "mountain ant". Herodotus, who probably did not know any Persian, may have unwittingly been the victim of a simple misunderstanding of translation. The suggestion that he completely made up the tale may continue to be thrown into doubt as more research is conducted. This theory, of course, fails to take into consideration Herodotus' own followup at 3.105 ff, wherein these "marmots" are said to chase and devour full-grown camels, however this could be an example of a tale told to keep others from seeking this relatively easy to access source of "gold dust" .

[edit] See also

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

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading

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Herodotus

Several English translations of The Histories of Herodotus are readily available in multiple editions. The most readily available are those translated by:
- A. D. Godley, 1920; revised 1926. Reprinted 1931, 1946, 1960, 1966, 1975, 1981, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2004. Available in four volumes from Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-99130-3 Printed with Greek on the left and English on the right.
- Aubrey de Sélincourt, originally 1954; revised by John Marincola in 1972. Several editions from Penguin Books available.
- David Grene, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
- George Rawlinson, translation 1858–1860. Public domain; many editions available, although Everyman Library and Wordsworth Classics editions are the most common ones still in print.
- Robin Waterfield, Oxford World Classics, 1998.
Bakker, Egbert e.a. (eds.), Brill's Companion to Herodotus. Leiden: Brill, 2002
Evans, J. A. S., Herodotus. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
—. Herodotus, Explorer of the Past: Three Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
Fehling, Detlev. Herodotus and His "Sources": Citation, Invention, and Narrative Art. Translated by J.G. Howie. Arca Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers, and Monographs, 21. Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1989.
Flory, Stewart, The Archaic Smile of Herodotus. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987.
Fornara, Charles W. Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Harrington, John W., To See a World. C. V. Mosby Company, 1973. Harrington explored Herodotus's deduction that deltas, including Egypt's, were deposited over a great period of time.
Hartog, F., The Mirror of Herodotus. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988.
Immerwahr, H., Form and Thought in Herodotus. Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1966.
Lateiner, D., The Historical Method of Herodotus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989.
Momigliano, A., The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography. University of California Press, 1992.
Pritchett, W. K., The Liar School of Herodotos. Amsterdam: Gieben, 1991.
- Kwintner, Michelle. The Liar School of Herodotus (Review). Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1994.
Romm, James S. Herodotus. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 1998 (hardcover, ISBN 0-300-07229-5; paperback, ISBN 0-300-07230-9).
Thomas, R., Herodotus in Context; ethnography, science and the art of persusion. Oxford University Press 2000.
Selden, Daniel. "Cambyses' Madness, or the Reason of History," Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 42 (1999), 33-63.
Simons, Marlise. Himalayas Offer Clue to Legend of Gold-Digging 'Ants'. New York Times: 25 November 1996.
Peissel, Michel. "The ants' gold: The discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas". Collins, 1984. ISBN-13: 978-0002725149.