Herodotus

Greek historian

• Born: c. 484 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Halicarnassus, Asia Minor (now Bodrum, Turkey)
• Died: c. 424 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Thurii, Lucania (now in Italy)

Herodotus is commonly called “the father of history” for having written the first work of history, a narrative that covered his world, from the age of myth to his own time.

Early Life

Herodotus (hih-RAHD-uh-tuhs) was born about 484 b.c.e. into a notable family of Halicarnassus, near the modern city of Bodrum, Turkey. He received the customary education available to well-born Greek men of his day. An intellectual and creative ferment was sweeping the Greek world, and Miletus, a major center of this enlightenment, was only about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Halicarnassus. Such philosopher-scientists as Anaximander and Thales and the geographer Hecataeus influenced Herodotus. He read Hesiod, Sappho, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Pindar, and also learned from the Sophists. The writings of Homer, in particular, shaped his worldview. If the intellectual atmosphere of the Greek world encouraged Herodotus to study the affairs of humans, it was probably Homer’s masterpiece on the Trojan War, the Iliad (c. 750 b.c.e.; English translation, 1611), that caused Herodotus to recognize that the Persian invasion of Greece, which had occurred when he was a child, was the great drama of his own age.

His early surroundings also educated Herodotus. The rich diversity of cultures in Asia Minor provided the foundation for the remarkable cosmopolitan scope and tone of his writing. Travel further shaped his mind. According to tradition, he went into a brief exile to Samos after taking part in Halicarnassian political upheavals and later left his home city permanently. His travels took him to Athens, where intellectual and artistic life was flourishing in the age of Pericles. Around 443, Herodotus joined a Greek colony at Thurii, in Italy. From there, he probably continued the travels that provided the foundation for his history. He later said that he had interviewed people from forty Greek states and thirty foreign nations. No physical descriptions of Herodotus exist, but his travels in the ancient world testify to his physical vigor and strength and to his insatiable curiosity.

Life’s Work

As Homer had preserved the stories of the Trojan War by rendering them into poetry, Herodotus came to realize that during his childhood another historic confrontation had occurred between the East and the West. The Persian War embodied all the drama and tragedy of human life, and its effects reverberated through his lifetime. He captured this human drama in one of the world’s first great prose works and pioneered a new form of intellectual endeavor, history.

Herodotus states his intentions in the first sentence of Historiai Herodotou (c. 424 b.c.e.; The History, 1709):

I, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, am here setting forth my history, that time may not draw the color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and wonderful deeds, manifested by both Greeks and barbarians, fail of their report, and, together with all this, the reason why they fought one another.

He intended to transmit to future generations the record of men and women’s deeds in this dramatic era, and in so doing explore the tragedy of human existence. In Herodotus’s worldview, people were subject to a cosmic order working by rules that they did not understand, an order in which fate or destiny destroyed those who aspired to excessive achievements. He would show that rationalism, a growing force in his age, could not protect against the contingencies of existence. Nevertheless, though humans could not change the cosmic order, Herodotus could combat the ravages of time by preserving the memory of their deeds. Herodotus was interested in people and in all of their diverse ways of living and acting. He used his history to contrast East and West, detailing the diversity of the peoples of the known world but finding common humanity beneath the differences.

Herodotus wrote a narrative history of his world, from the age of myth to his own time. He did not have available to him the kinds of written records on which modern historians rely but based his history on oral accounts. He placed most trust in his own experience and others’ eyewitness accounts but used hearsay when he deemed it proper to do so. Regarding the latter, he wrote: “I must tell what is said, but I am not at all bound to believe it, and this comment of mine holds about my whole History.” He sometimes recorded stories that he found dubious because he realized that just as time changed the fortunes of all people, it changed truth also. At times, he recorded material that seemed significant despite its questionable validity, because its meaning might become clear in the future. He was aware that there was a mythical element in much that people told him, but he realized as well that human myths carry a truth that makes them as important as other interpretations of reality.

Herodotus, the father of history, more than almost any of his offspring, was a master storyteller, able to hold the interest of his audience today as easily as he did thousands of years ago. He begins his story with Croesus, the last king of Lydia, who, after having begun the Asiatic incursion against the Greeks, trapped himself in the web of fate by believing himself the most blessed of humankind. Cyrus the Great conquered Croesus and began constructing the huge and powerful Persian Empire. Through the nine books of The History, Herodotus follows Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius the Great, and finally Xerxes I as these Persian rulers extended their power over the known world of Asia and Africa. Eventually, they turned to Europe and the Greeks.

As Herodotus follows Persian expansion, he begins his renowned “digressions” on the Lydians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Scythians, Libyans, Greeks, and others. In these digressions, which make up the bulk of The History, he describes the geography and economies of the various lands, the religious practices of the people, the roles of women, and the customs of everyday life. Human creations fascinated him, and he carefully described the pyramids, the walls surrounding Babylon, canal systems, and famous temples.

The so-called digressions are a carefully wrought expression of Herodotus’s larger purposes in writing The History. A religious man, he wanted to show that all people, Greeks and Asians alike, were living in a cosmos that destroyed the excessive aspirations of even the best and greatest. Herodotus also intended to use the story of the Persian War as a backdrop to his study of the range of possibilities expressed by humans in their social, political, and spiritual lives. He seldom condemned any custom he described but gloried in the spectacle of life and in human achievements. The digressions, then, are part of his examination of the human condition. He knew that any custom, no matter how strange, had validity and meaning for the people who observed it: “As for the stories told by the Egyptians, let whoever finds them credible use them.” The Persian ruler Cambyses revealed his madness, Herodotus believed, when he stabbed the Egyptian sacred bull. If he had not been mad,

he would never have set about the mockery of what other men hold sacred and customary. For if there were a proposition put before mankind, according to which each should, after examination, choose the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly think its own customs the best. Indeed, it is natural for no one but a madman to make a mockery of such things.

Herodotus adds, “I think Pindar is right when he says, ‘Custom is king of all.’”

Whether from the shadows of the pyramids or from the walls of Babylon, Herodotus’s gaze always returned to the developing conflict of Greece with the steadily expanding Persian Empire. He gives attention to Darius’s first probe into Europe, blocked by the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon in 490. Darius then laid careful plans to conduct a full-scale invasion, but he died before he could make another foray into the Greek world. In 480, his successor, Xerxes I, invaded with a huge force. The Greeks fought heroically at Thermopylae, and in such battles as Salamis and Plataea, Athens, Sparta, and other Greek city-states they defeated the Persians. It is here that Herodotus’s history comes to a close. Most historians believe that The History was published in stages between 430 and 424, although a minority of historians believe it contains references to events as late as 421. Most scholars place Herodotus’s death at about 425, in Thurii.

Significance

Herodotus has attracted extravagant admiration. He has been commonly called the father of history, and some see him as an equally great geographer, anthropologist, and folklorist. He had his detractors also, one of whom called him “the father of lies.” He was too cosmopolitan to fit well with the surge of Greek patriotism of later years. Some critics saw him as a detractor of the gods because he spoke so casually of religious practices that differed from the Greeks’, but others, in more rational ages, regarded him as too superstitious. As the centuries passed, his admiration for the East and his breadth of sympathy for different cultures placed him out of step with the parochial West.

Herodotus always, however, had his admirers, who usually regarded him as a charming, if credulous, storyteller. His work was first translated into English in 1584, but scholars neglected him until the nineteenth century, when archaeology began to verify much of his account. Even then, his work was seen as a loose collection of moral tales of great actors.

His achievement became clearer as twentieth century historians traced the evolution of historical writing and more fully understood the intellectual breakthrough Herodotus had made in separating history from other intellectual endeavors. He established the methods that historians still use: gathering evidence, weighing its credibility, selecting from it, and writing a prose narrative. He assumed a role of neutrality, of objectivity; while expressing personal opinions, he never dropped his stance of universal sympathy. He tried to find the rational causes and effects of events, yet he was skeptical enough to understand that rationalism could not explain everything, perhaps not even the most important things, in human life. In recent years, admiration for him has grown as scholars have used literary analysis to show how tightly integrated were the famous Herodotean anecdotes and digressions into his larger purposes. His book is a literary masterpiece and one of the greatest works of history produced in the Western world.

Bibliography

Bakker, Egbert J., Irene J. F. De Jong, and Hans Van Wees, eds. Brill’s Companion to Herodotus. Boston: Brill, 2002. Includes essays on Athens, oral strategies in the language of Herodotus, epic heritage and mythical patterns, the intellectual trends of Herodotus’s time, the Persian invasions, and more.

De Sélincourt, Aubrey. The World of Herodotus. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1982. This work retraces Herodotus’s literary journal based on twentieth century knowledge of his world. De Sélincourt translated The History for the Penguin Classics series.

Evans, J. A. Herodotus. Boston: Twayne, 1982. This biography covers the known facts of Herodotus’s life and clearly explains the various scholarly controversies surrounding him.

Flory, Stewart. The Archaic Smile of Herodotus. Detroit:Wayne State University Press, 1987. An analysis of literary motifs in The History, showing the tightness of its structure and the larger purposes Herodotus had in mind, beyond chronicling the Persian War.

Herodotus. The History. Translated by David Grene. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. This translation includes a commentary that provides an excellent introduction to Herodotus. Illustrated with helpful maps.

How, Walter W., and Joseph Wells, eds. A Commentary on Herodotus: With Introduction and Appendixes. 2 vols. New York. Oxford University Press, 1989-1990. This is the standard commentary on Herodotus and provides almost a line-by-line analysis.

Hunter, Virginia. Past and Process in Herodotus and Thucydides. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. An analysis of the first two historians, finding great similarities in their worldviews.

Myres, John L. Herodotus, Father of History. Reprint. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1971. Myres reveals the tight and deliberate construction of The History.