We Can Thank Herodotus, the ‘Father of History,’ for Our Knowledge of the Ancient World

There are two strategies to appear at the issue of who invented history. The to start with, of course, is that no just one invented it Heritage is simply just the end result of the sluggish unfurling of time and the actions of people who have lived and died inside of its murky eddies. But the study of people actions, which we also get in touch with history, has a extra definite commencing. For several of us in the Western planet today, it began with a male named Herodotus.

Called “the father of history” by the Roman statesman Cicero, Herodotus is the creator of the to start with authoritative historical text of any duration. The Histories is a multi-quantity account of the Greco-Persian wars, stuffed with informative digressions that span from Egypt to the around East. (It also gave us extremely the word history, which meant inquiry in the authentic Greek). To this working day, Herodotus is typically cited by students as a source of data on the lands and civilizations of his time.

Of course, Herodotus wasn’t very a historian as we may well believe of today. His account, which relied mainly on oral sources and next-particular person retellings, is replete with instances of fantasy. His inclination towards credulousness also gained him the somewhat less flattering appellation, “father of lies,” primarily based on the various critiques of his function that began shortly immediately after The Histories was released.

Herodotus was not the to start with to generate down history. Greeks before him, notably Hecataeus of Miletus, had also created down their accounts of historical gatherings. But no just one before Herodotus had tried to compile the kind of detailed record of a major historical occurrences that The Histories represents. By means of it, Herodotus attempts to demonstrate not just what occurred, but why, students say.

The To start with Historian

Of Herodotus the male, little is recognised. He was born in the town of Helicarnassus, in modern-working day Turkey, and which was then aspect of the Persian empire. He traveled broadly, even as a relatively young male, venturing to Egypt, and then transferring to Athens. Herodotus reportedly visited areas of the Center East, which include Babylon and existing-working day Palestine and Syria, as properly as Macedonia and japanese Europe, achieving the Black Sea and the Danube River.

Alongside the way, he collected interviews from locals, accumulating their accounts of their own histories and of the extra considerably-flung people they encountered. Herodotus was a curious male: He writes of his attempts to make clear the seasonal flooding of the Nile, and to trace the lineage of the Greek gods back again to historic Egypt, between other items. He also probably gave oral performances of portions of his historical writings to public audiences in Greece, a common apply at the time.

Herodotus’ apply was typically simply just to generate down every thing he was advised, and at instances qualifying the accounts with his own observations. This habit may well be aspect of the reason Herodotus has typically been criticized of outright confabulation. We hear of headless adult men with eyes in their chests in Libya and gold-digging ants in India that are bigger than a fox (now considered to be marmots). It’s unclear irrespective of whether Herodotus meant to portray these stories as truth of the matter, or if he simply just supposed to catalogue what he had been advised by a variety of people as he traveled.

For these motives and other folks, Herodotus’ writings drew major criticism in historic Greece. The historian Thucydides, who probable drew considerably inspiration from The Histories, took pains to get in touch with Herodotus out for what he perceived as inaccuracies and biases. And the Greek thinker Plutarch, writing some 3 hundreds of years later on, mounts an even increased assault, arguing that Herodotus’ function was biased in favor of non-Greeks, and questioning the historian’s judgement. Now, students get a extra well balanced look at of Herodotus the historian. Even though his tales may well not constantly be truthful, there is considerably that Herodotus obtained right — and his insights into the Greek planet and beyond at the time are practically unparalleled.

Occasional fantasies apart, Herodotus also claimed on considerably that was accurate. Along with the headless creatures, he writes of impalas, gazelles and elands in Africa, and of Ethiopians wrapped in lion skins with extended bows built of palmwood. Environmental science and biology demonstrate up as properly. Herodotus claimed on the once-a-year flooding of the Nile, and speculates on what caused it. He notes the astonishing progress of crocodiles: “No mortal creature of all which we know grows from so smaller a commencing to this kind of greatness for its eggs are not considerably bigger than goose eggs, and the young crocodile is of a proportional sizing, but it grows to a duration of 20-eight feet and extra.”

A (Generally) Correct Account

Herodotus took it upon himself to proper what he saw as the inaccuracies of writers before him. He offers a conflicting account of the gatherings relayed by the epic poet Homer that began the now-legendary Trojan War. The war is intended to have been instigated when a Trojan kidnapped Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus. But Herodotus, primarily based on investigate in the course of his time in Egypt, dismisses this as mere fantasy Helen was actually in Egypt the whole time, he counters, blown off course in the course of a sea journey.

The Histories also consists of what is probable the extra accurate version of the legendary story of a lone runner delivering the news of the Greeks’ victory at the Struggle of Marathon to Athens, before perishing of exhaustion. But Herodotus’ account instead involves a runner becoming despatched from Athens to Sparta before the fight (a considerably bigger distance of about a hundred and fifty miles) to request for enable, and then the overall Athenian army marching back again to Athens immediately after the fight to confront a Persian fleet bearing down on the town.

But extra modern historians have pointed out inconsistencies throughout Herodotus’ writings, that they say point out he may well never ever have visited some of the spots he promises. For case in point, he never ever when mentions the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, just one of the seven wonders of the historic planet, in spite of acquiring allegedly traveled there.

But Herodotus has been vindicated in other strategies. For case in point, a boat not long ago unearthed in the Nile delta matches almost accurately his description of a curious kind of barg
e-like watercraft utilised there.

And his account of the Greco-Persian war, the main matter of The Histories, is also held to be mainly accurate. To lay out the complete story of the war, Herodotus starts considerably additional back again, describing the history of Persia, as properly as Athens and Sparta, and the feats and follies of various royal characters together the way. Alongside with the geography and infrastructure of spots he visits, Herodotus imparts various observations on the people and customs he encounters, or which he is advised about together the way.

In this meandering way, Herodotus finally arrives to a prolonged description of the a variety of military services engagements of the war alone, a a long time-extended conflict that would define the course of history in the course of his life span and for a long time afterward. That story on your own would qualify his function as a important piece of historical writing — but it is the several and diversified digressions he embarks upon that define the accurate value of The Histories today.

Herodotus presents us with insights into the historic civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Assyria, Scythia and extra. Specified his is just one of the oldest functions of prose in existence, The Histories is typically scholars’ finest source for accounts of these cultures, even 2,five hundred several years immediately after Herodotus’ loss of life. And beyond that, as several historians level out, it is also just a genuinely entertaining read through.