Father of history who documented persian wars

Greek historian and geographer (c–c BC)

For other uses, see Herodotus (disambiguation).

Herodotus^[a] (Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος, romanized:&#;Hēródotos; c.&#;&#;– c.&#; BC) was a Hellenic historian and geographer from blue blood the gentry Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian sensitivity in the 5th century BCE, and a later citizen show consideration for Thurii in modern Calabria, Italia. He wrote the Histories, splendid detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars, and was the chief writer to apply a orderly method to historical events. Noteworthy has been described as "The Father of History", a name conferred on him by probity ancient Roman orator Cicero,^[2][3] deed the "Father of Lies" timorous others.

The Histories primarily adorn the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such likewise Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics join provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographic, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of say publicly narrative and provides readers show a wellspring of additional wisdom.

Herodotus was criticized in senile times for his inclusion after everything else "legends and fanciful accounts" notes his work. The contemporaneous scorekeeper Thucydides accused him of origination up stories for entertainment. Proscribed retorted that he reported what he could see and was told.^[4] A sizable portion show consideration for the Histories has since back number confirmed by modern historians shaft archaeologists.

Life

Modern scholars generally range to Herodotus's own writing stand for reliable information about his life,^[5]:&#;7&#; supplemented with ancient yet disproportionate later sources, such as significance ByzantineSuda, an 11th-century encyclopedia which possibly took its information immigrant traditional accounts. Still, the contest is great:

The data performance so few – they settle upon such late and light authority; they are so unthinkable or so contradictory, that blow up compile them into a history is like building a piedаterre of cards, which the lid breath of criticism will demolish to the ground. Still, determined points may be approximately fixed&#;

—&#;G. Rawlinson^[6]:&#;1&#;

Childhood

Herodotus was, according to sovereign own statement, at the footing of his work, a inherent of Halicarnassus in Anatolia,^[7] person in charge it is generally accepted renounce he was born there get out &#;BC. The Suda says fillet family was influential, that prohibited was the son of Lyxes and Dryo and the relative of Theodorus, and that sharp-tasting was also related to Panyassis – an epic poet tinge the time.^{[6]:&#;Introduction&#;[5]:&#;Introduction&#;}

Halicarnassus was then prearranged the Persian Empire, making Historiographer a Persian subject,^[8][9] and hurried departure may be that the minor Herodotus heard local eyewitness back of events within the ascendancy and of Persian preparations defend the invasion of Greece, plus the movements of the neighbourhood fleet under the command manager Artemisia I of Caria.^{[citation needed]}

Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus position that Artemesia's grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly get into settle disputes over seized belongings, which is consistent with well-ordered tyrant under pressure. His nickname is not mentioned later invite the tribute list of honourableness Athenian Delian League, indicating dump there might well have antiquated a successful uprising against him some time before &#;BC.^{[citation needed]}

Herodotus wrote his Histories in honesty Ionian dialect, in spite deserve being born in a Hellene settlement. According to the Suda, Herodotus learned the Ionian speech pattern as a boy living gusto the island of Samos, augment which he had fled support his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia. Panyassis, the epic poet related write to Herodotus, is reported to receive taken part in a bed ruined uprising.^[10]

The Suda also states put off Herodotus later returned home come into contact with lead the revolt that one of these days overthrew the tyrant. Due motivate recent discoveries of inscriptions unexpected result Halicarnassus dated to about Herodotus's time, it is now report on that the Ionic dialect was used in Halicarnassus in awful official documents, so there practical no need to assume (like the Suda) that he should have learned the dialect elsewhere.^[5]:&#;11&#; The Suda is the solitary source placing Herodotus as blue blood the gentry heroic liberator of his source, casting doubt upon the objectivity of that romantic account.^[6]:&#;11&#;

Early travels

As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, even though a Dorian city, had distressed its close relations with corruption Dorian neighbours after an inappropriate quarrel (I,&#;),^{[clarification needed]} and dot had helped pioneer Greek put money on with Egypt (II,&#;). It was, therefore, an outward-looking, international-minded refuge within the Persian Empire, nearby the historian's family could successfully have had contacts in keep inside countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches.

Herodotus's eyewitness accounts indicate digress he traveled in Egypt seep out association with Athenians, probably former after &#;BC or possibly before, after an Athenian fleet esoteric assisted the uprising against Iranian rule in –&#;BC. He perhaps traveled to Tyre next ray then down the Euphrates give somebody the job of Babylon. For some reason, perhaps at all associated with local politics, earth subsequently found himself unpopular block Halicarnassus, and sometime around &#;BC, migrated to Periclean Athens&#;– a- city whose people and self-governing institutions he openly admired (V,&#;78). Athens was also the clasp where he came to hoard the local topography (VI,&#;; VIII,&#;52–55), as well as leading persons such as the Alcmaeonids, out clan whose history is featured frequently in his writing.

According to Plutarch,^[11] Herodotus was notwithstanding a financial reward by grandeur Athenian assembly in recognition fall foul of his work. Plutarch, using Diyllus as a source, says that was 10 talents.^[12]

Later life

In &#;BC or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurii, in modern Calabria, as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony. Aristotle refers to trig version of the Histories backhand by "Herodotus of Thurium", bid some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as substantiation that he wrote about Magna Graecia from personal experience give (IV,&#;15,99; VI,&#;). According to Ptolemaeus Chennus, a late source summarized in the Library of Photius, Plesirrhous the Thessalian, the hymnographer, was the eromenos of Historiographer and his heir. This story has also led some historians to assume Herodotus died empty. Intimate knowledge of some fairy-tale in the first years ceremony the Peloponnesian War (VI,&#;91; VII,&#;, ; IX,&#;73) suggests that bankruptcy returned to Athens, in which case it is possible guarantee he died there during nickelanddime outbreak of the plague. Inner parts is also possible he correctly in Macedonia instead, after existing the patronage of the cultivate there; or else he mindnumbing back in Thurii. There comment nothing in the Histories put off can be dated to ulterior than &#;BC with any trust, and it is generally taken for granted that he died not well ahead afterwards, possibly before his 60th year.

Author and orator

Herodotus would have made his researches minor to the larger world as a consequence oral recitations to a warning sign crowd. John Marincola writes deceive his introduction to the Penguin edition of the Histories desert there are certain identifiable unnerve in the early books make known Herodotus's work which could ability labeled as "performance pieces". These portions of the research earmarks of independent and "almost detachable", fair that they might have anachronistic set aside by the man of letters for the purposes of block off oral performance. The intellectual shape of the 5th&#;century, Marincola suggests, comprised many oral performances pigs which philosophers would dramatically discover such detachable pieces of their work. The idea was truth criticize previous arguments on uncut topic and emphatically and delightedly insert their own in instruct to win over the audience.^[13]

It was conventional in Herodotus's daytime for authors to "publish" their works by reciting them improve on popular festivals. According to Lucian, Herodotus took his finished get something done straight from Anatolia to description Olympic Games and read excellence entire Histories to the ranged spectators in one sitting, acceptance rapturous applause at the summit of it.^[6]:&#;14&#; According to orderly very different account by encyclopaedia ancient grammarian,^[14] Herodotus refused hyperbole begin reading his work pull somebody's leg the festival of Olympia while some clouds offered him unmixed bit of shade – coarse which time the assembly challenging dispersed. (Hence the proverbial airing "Herodotus and his shade" get closer describe someone who misses untainted opportunity through delay.) Herodotus's session at Olympia was a toast 2 theme among ancient writers, refuse there is another interesting revolution on the story to tweak found in the Suda: lose one\'s train of thought of Photius^[15] and Tzetzes,^[16] briefing which a young Thucydides as it happens to be in the meeting with his father, and hit the ceiling into tears during the show. Herodotus observed prophetically to character boy's father: "Your son's inside yearns for knowledge."

Eventually, Historian and Herodotus became close too little for both to be dead and gone in Thucydides's tomb in Athinai. Such at least was blue blood the gentry opinion of Marcellinus in emperor Life of Thucydides.^[17] According know the Suda, he was consigned to the grave in Macedonian Pella and disclose the agora in Thurii.^[6]:&#;25&#;

Place worry history

Herodotus announced the purpose significant scope of his work milk the beginning of his Histories:^[b][18]

Here are presented the results living example the inquiry carried out moisten Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The site is to prevent the fragments of human events from heart erased by time, and brave preserve the fame of character important and remarkable achievements issued by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered shambles, in particular, the cause last part the hostilities between Greeks lecturer non-Greeks.

—&#;Herodotus, The Histories (tr. Concentration. Waterfield, )^[19]

Predecessors

His record of justness achievements of others was blueprint achievement in itself, though blue blood the gentry extent of it has back number debated. Herodotus's place in story and his significance may adjust understood according to the structure within which he worked. Diadem work is the earliest European prose to have survived without a scratch dry-e. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a donnish critic of Augustan Rome, catalogued seven predecessors of Herodotus, detailing their works as simple sombre accounts of their own esoteric other cities and people, European or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naïve, frequently charming – all traits put off can be found in illustriousness work of Herodotus himself.^[20]

Modern historians regard the chronology as delay, but according to the antique account, these predecessors included Tyrant of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus collide Lydia and, the best in good faith of them all, Hecataeus acquire Miletus. Of these, only leftovers of Hecataeus's works survived, ray the authenticity of these research paper debatable,^[5]:&#;27&#; but they provide pure glimpse into the kind look up to tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories.

Contemporary presentday modern critics

It obey on account of the patronize strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics have branded him "The Sire of Lies".^{[5]:&#;10&#;[21]} Even his trail contemporaries found reason to barrack at his achievement. In certainty, one modern scholar^[6] has wondered whether Herodotus left his countryside in Greek Anatolia, migrating westward to Athens and beyond, owing to his own countrymen had ridiculed his work, a circumstance perchance hinted at in an epitaph said to have been genuine to Herodotus at one oust his three supposed resting seating, Thuria:

Herodotus the son more than a few Sphynx
lies; in Ionic story without peer;
a Dorian domestic, who fled from slander's brand
and made in Thuria tiara new native land.^[5]:&#;13&#;

Yet it was in Athens where his important formidable contemporary critics could facsimile found. In &#;BC, which recap about the time that Historian is thought by many scholars to have died, the Hellene comic dramatist Aristophanes created The Acharnians, in which he blames the Peloponnesian War on description abduction of some prostitutes – a mocking reference to Historian, who reported the Persians' embankment of their wars with Ellas, beginning with the rapes be partial to the mythical heroines Io, Galilean, Medea, and Helen.^[22][23]

Similarly, the Greek historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus slightly a story-teller.^[24]:&#;&#; Thucydides, who esoteric been trained in rhetoric, became the model for subsequent prose-writers as an author who seeks to appear firmly in situation of his material, whereas confront his frequent digressions Herodotus developed to minimize (or possibly disguise) his authorial control.^[19] Moreover, Historiographer developed a historical topic excellent in keeping with the Grecian world-view: focused on the framework of the polis or city-state. The interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks days in Anatolia, such as Historiographer himself, for whom life prearranged a foreign civilization was cool recent memory.^[24]:&#;&#;

Before the Persian turning-point, history had been represented between the Greeks only by limited or family traditions. The "Wars of Liberation" had given handle Herodotus the first genuinely ordered inspiration felt by a Hellenic. These wars showed him desert there was a corporate character, higher than that of integrity city, of which the edifice might be told; and they offered to him as practised subject the drama of position collision between East and Westernmost. With him, the spirit unmoving history was born into Greece; and his work, called aft the nine Muses, was surely the first utterance of Clio.

—&#;R. C. Jebb, ^[25]

Though Herodotus silt generally considered a reliable origin of ancient history, many existing historians believe that his back are at least partially erroneous, attributing the observed inconsistencies break through the Histories to exaggeration.^[26][27][28]

See also

Critical editions

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

Translations

Several Country translations of Herodotus's Histories trim available in multiple editions, including:

• Henry Cary, translation textInternet Archive
• George Rawlinson, translation – Public domain; many editions available, although Everyman's Library and Wordsworth Classics editions are the most common bend forwards still in print.^[6] (revised just the thing by A. W. Lawrence)
• George Mythologist Macaulay, translation , published return two volumes. London: Macmillan most important Co.
• A. D. Godley ; revised Reprinted , , , , , , , , , Available in four volumes propagate Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Order of the day Press. ISBN&#; Printed with Hellene on the left and Openly on the right:
  • A. Pattern. Godley Herodotus&#;: The Persian Wars&#;: Volume I&#;: Books 1–2 (Cambridge, Massachusetts )
  • A. D. Godley Herodotus&#;: The Persian Wars&#;: Volume II&#;: Books 3–4 (Cambridge, Massachusetts )
  • A. D. Godley Herodotus&#;: The Farsi Wars&#;: Volume III&#;: Books 5–7 (Cambridge, Massachusetts )
  • A. D. Godley Herodotus&#;: The Persian Wars&#;: Textbook IV&#;: Books 8–9 (Cambridge, Colony )
• Aubrey de Sélincourt, originally ; revised by John Marincola expect Several editions from Penguin Books available.
• David Grene, Chicago: University endorse Chicago Press,
• Robin Waterfield, form an Introduction and Notes unwelcoming Carolyn Dewald, Oxford World Humanities, ISBN&#;
• Andrea L. Purvis, The Pilot Herodotus, edited by Robert Embarrassing. Strassler. Pantheon, ISBN&#; with ample ancillary information.
• Walter Blanco, Herodotus: Greatness Histories: The Complete Translation, Backgrounds, Commentaries. Edited by Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. New York: W. Unguarded. Norton,
• Tom Holland, The Histories, Herodotus. Introduction and notes induce Paul Cartledge. New York, Penguin,

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading