Who is Herodotus?

  • (noun): The ancient Greek known as the father of history; his accounts of the wars between the Greeks and Persians are the first known examples of historical writing (425-485 BC).

Herodotus

Herodotus ( /hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (c.484 – 425 BC). He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορία historía, a 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 ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.

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Some articles on Herodotus:

Herodotus - Analysis and Recent Discoveries
... Herodotus, Histories 7.49 Herodotus provides much intriguing information about the nature of the world and the status of science during his lifetime, often engaging in private ... Heracleion and the recovery of the so-called "Naucratis stela" give extensive credibility to Herodotus's previously unsupported claim that Heracleion was founded during the ... One of the most recent developments in Herodotus scholarship was made by the French ethnologist Michel Peissel ...
Second Persian Invasion Of Greece - Sources
... The main source for the Great Greco-Persian Wars is the Greek historian Herodotus ... Herodotus, who has been called the 'Father of History', was born in 484 BC in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor (then under Persian overlordship) ... Herodotus's approach was entirely novel, and at least in Western society, he does seem to have invented 'history' as we know it ...
Laugh? I Nearly Bought One! - Laughter in Literature - Laughter For The Greeks - Herodotus
... For Herodotus, laughers can be distinguished into three types Those who are innocent of wrongdoing, but ignorant of their own vulnerability ... According to Donald Lateiner, Herodotus reports about laughter for valid literary and historiological reasons ... Herodotus believes either that both nature (better, the gods' direction of it) and human nature coincide sufficiently, or that the latter is but an aspect or analogue of the former, so ...
Padaei
... (Greek Παδαῖοι) or the Padaeans are an Indian tribe described by the Greek historian Herodotus in his work, The Histories ... Herodotus describes them (III.101) as being darker than other Indians and living in a place which is very distant from Persia towards the south and east ... or other aboriginal races of central India" The reliability of Herodotus' description of the Padaei's cannibalistic practices has also been questioned by other scholars ...
Ploutarchos - Moralia - On The Malice of Herodotus
... In On the Malice of Herodotus Plutarch criticizes the historian Herodotus for all manner of prejudice and misrepresentation ... English historian George Grote considered this essay a serious attack upon the works of Herodotus, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch calls ... Barrow, Herodotus’ real failing in Plutarch’s eyes was to advance any criticism at all of those states that saved Greece from Persia ...