Herodotus

Last updated

Herodotus
Ἡρόδοτος
Marble bust of Herodotos MET DT11742 (cropped).jpg
A Roman copy (2nd century AD) of a Greek bust of Herodotus from the first half of the 4th century BC
Bornc.484 BC
Diedc.425 BC (aged approximately 60)
OccupationHistorian
Notable work Histories
Parents
  • Lyxes (father)
  • Dryotus (mother)
Relatives
  • Theodorus (brother)
  • Panyassis (uncle or cousin)

Herodotus [lower-alpha 1] (Ancient Greek : Ἡρόδοτος , romanized: Hēródotos; c.484 – c.425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He is referred to as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero. [2] [3]

Contents

The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information.

Herodotus has been criticized for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides accused him of making up stories for entertainment. However, Herodotus explained that he reported what he could see and was told. [4] A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists.

Life

Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus' own writing for reliable information about his life, [5] :7 supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, such as the Byzantine Suda , an 11th-century encyclopedia which possibly took its information from traditional accounts. Still, the challenge is great:

The data are so few – they rest upon such late and slight authority; they are so improbable or so contradictory, that to compile them into a biography is like building a house of cards, which the first breath of criticism will blow to the ground. Still, certain points may be approximately fixed ...

G. Rawlinson [6] :1

Childhood

Herodotus was, according to his own statement, at the beginning of his work, a native of Halicarnassus in Anatolia, [7] and it is generally accepted that he was born there around 485 BC. The Suda says his family was influential, that he was 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. [6] :Introduction [5] :Introduction

Halicarnassus was then within the Persian Empire, making Herodotus a Persian subject, [8] [9] and it may be that the young Herodotus heard local eyewitness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the invasion of Greece, including the movements of the local fleet under the command of Artemisia I of Caria.[ citation needed ]

Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that Artemesia's grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which is consistent with a tyrant under pressure. His name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, indicating that there might well have been a successful uprising against him sometime before 454 BC.[ citation needed ]

Romanticized statue of Herodotus in his hometown of Halicarnassus, modern Bodrum, Turkey Herodotusstatue.JPG
Romanticized statue of Herodotus in his hometown of Halicarnassus, modern Bodrum, Turkey

Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect, in spite of being born in a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda , Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as a boy living on the island of Samos, to which he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia. Panyassis, the epic poet related to Herodotus, is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising.[ citation needed ]

The Suda also informs us that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. Due to recent discoveries of inscriptions at Halicarnassus dated to about Herodotus' time, we now know that the Ionic dialect was used in Halicarnassus in some official documents, so there is no need to assume (like the Suda) that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere. [5] :11 The Suda is the only source placing Herodotus as the heroic liberator of his birthplace, casting doubt upon the veracity of that romantic account. [6] :11

Early travels

As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel (I, 144),[ clarification needed ] and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt (II, 178). It was, therefore, an outward-looking, international-minded port within the Persian Empire, and the historian's family could well have had contacts in other countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches.

Herodotus' eyewitness accounts indicate that he traveled in Egypt in association with Athenians, probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460–454 BC. He probably traveled to Tyre next and then down the Euphrates to Babylon. For some reason, possibly associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus, and sometime around 447 BC, migrated to Periclean Athens – a city whose people and democratic institutions he openly admired (V, 78). Athens was also the place where he came to know the local topography (VI, 137; VIII, 52–55), as well as leading citizens such as the Alcmaeonids, a clan whose history is featured frequently in his writing.

According to Eusebius [10] and Plutarch, [11] Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work. Plutarch, using Diyllus as a source, says this was 10 talents. [12]

Later life

In 443 BC or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurii, in modern Calabria, as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony. Aristotle refers to a version of the Histories written by "Herodotus of Thurium", and some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about Magna Graecia from personal experience there (IV, 15,99; VI, 127). Intimate knowledge of some events in the first years of the Peloponnesian War (VI, 91; VII, 133, 233; IX, 73) indicate that he might have returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. Possibly he died in Macedonia instead, after obtaining the patronage of the court there; or else he died back in Thurii. There is nothing in the Histories that can be dated to later than 430 BC with any certainty, and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.

Author and orator

Herodotus would have made his researches known to the larger world through oral recitations to a public crowd. John Marincola writes in his introduction to the Penguin edition of the Histories that there are certain identifiable pieces in the early books of Herodotus' work which could be labeled as "performance pieces". These portions of the research seem independent and "almost detachable", so that they might have been set aside by the author for the purposes of an oral performance. The intellectual matrix of the 5th century, Marincola suggests, comprised many oral performances in which philosophers would dramatically recite such detachable pieces of their work. The idea was to criticize previous arguments on a topic and emphatically and enthusiastically insert their own in order to win over the audience. [13]

It was conventional in Herodotus' day for authors to "publish" their works by reciting them at popular festivals. According to Lucian, Herodotus took his finished work straight from Anatolia to the Olympic Games and read the entire Histories to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it. [6] :14 According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian, [14] Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at the festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade – by which time the assembly had dispersed. (Hence the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe someone who misses an opportunity through delay.) Herodotus' recitation at Olympia was a favourite theme among ancient writers, and there is another interesting variation on the story to be found in the Suda: that of Photius [15] and Tzetzes, [16] in which a young Thucydides happened to be in the assembly with his father, and burst into tears during the recital. Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father, "Your son's soul yearns for knowledge."

Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides' tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides. [17] According to the Suda, he was buried in Macedonian Pella and in the agora in Thurii. [6] :25

Place in history

Reconstructed map of the world based on the writings of Herodotus HERODOTUS(1897) p2.387 THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HERDOTUS.jpg
Reconstructed map of the world based on the writings of Herodotus

Herodotus announced the purpose and scope of his work at the beginning of his Histories: [lower-alpha 2] [18]

Here are presented the results of the inquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.

Herodotus, The Histories (tr. R. Waterfield, 2008) [19]

Predecessors

His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus' place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact. However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic of Augustan Rome, listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple, unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naïve, often charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself. [20]

Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to the ancient account, these predecessors included Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus. Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus' works survived, and the authenticity of these is debatable, [5] :27 but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories.

Contemporary and modern critics

It is on account of the many strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics have branded him "The Father of Lies". [5] :10 [21] Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement. In fact, one modern scholar [6] has wondered whether Herodotus left his home in Greek Anatolia, migrating westwards to Athens and beyond, because his own countrymen had ridiculed his work, a circumstance possibly hinted at in an epitaph said to have been dedicated to Herodotus at one of his three supposed resting places, Thuria:

Herodotus the son of Sphynx
lies; in Ionic history without peer;
a Dorian born, who fled from slander's brand
and made in Thuria his new native land. [5] :13

Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found. In 425 BC, which is about the time that Herodotus is thought by many scholars to have died, the Athenian comic dramatist Aristophanes created The Acharnians , in which he blames the Peloponnesian War on the abduction of some prostitutes – a mocking reference to Herodotus, who reported the Persians' account of their wars with Greece, beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroines Io, Europa, Medea, and Helen. [22] [23]

Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a " logos -writer" (story-teller). [24] :191 Thucydides, who had been trained in rhetoric, became the model for subsequent prose-writers as an author who seeks to appear firmly in control of his material, whereas with his frequent digressions Herodotus appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his authorial control. [19] Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view: focused on the context of the polis or city-state. The interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. [24] :191

Before the Persian crisis, history had been represented among the Greeks only by local or family traditions. The "Wars of Liberation" had given to Herodotus the first genuinely historical inspiration felt by a Greek. These wars showed him that there was a corporate life, higher than that of the city, of which the story might be told; and they offered to him as a subject the drama of the collision between East and West. With him, the spirit of history was born into Greece; and his work, called after the nine Muses, was indeed the first utterance of Clio.

R. C. Jebb, [25]

See also

Critical editions

Translations

Several English translations of Herodotus' Histories are readily available in multiple editions. The most readily available are those translated by:

Notes

  1. /həˈrɒdətəs/ [1] hə-ROD-ə-təs
  2. For the past several hundred years, the title of Herodotus' work has been translated rather roughly as Histories or The History.[ citation needed ] The original title can be translated from the Greek as "researches" or "inquiries".[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Marathon</span> 490 BC battle in the Greco-Persian Wars

The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate Greece. The Greek army inflicted a crushing defeat on the more numerous Persians, marking a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thucydides</span> 5th century BC Athenian historian and general

Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pericles</span> Athenian statesman, orator and general (c. 495 – 429 BC)

Pericles was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed by Thucydides, a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", but the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars or as late as the following century.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iacchus was a minor deity, of some cultic importance, particularly at Athens and Eleusis in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries, but without any significant mythology. He perhaps originated as the personification of the ritual exclamation Iacche! cried out during the Eleusinian procession from Athens to Eleusis. He was often identified with Dionysus, perhaps because of the resemblance of the names Iacchus and Bacchus, another name for Dionysus. By various accounts he was a son of Demeter, or a son of Persephone, identical with Dionysus Zagreus, or a son of Dionysus.

In Greek mythology, Hellen is the eponymous progenitor of the Hellenes. He is the child of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and the father of three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus, by whom he is the ancestor of the Greek peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pelasgians</span> Classical Greek term for either the ancestors of the Greeks or the pre-Greek inhabitants of Greece

The name Pelasgians was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergence of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all the indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greco-Persian Wars</span> Series of conflicts, 5th century BCE

The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek-inhabited region of Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Plataea</span> Land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece (479 BC)

The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Greek city-states, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artemisia I of Caria</span> 5th century BC queen of Halicarnassus, Kos, Nisyros and Kalymnos

Artemisia I of Caria was a queen of the ancient Greek city-state of Halicarnassus, which is now in Bodrum, present-day Turkey. She was also queen of the nearby islands of Kos, Nisyros and Kalymnos, within the Achaemenid satrapy of Caria, in about 480 BC. She was of Carian-Greek ethnicity by her father Lygdamis I, and half-Cretan by her mother. She fought as an ally of Xerxes I, King of Persia against the independent Greek city states during the second Persian invasion of Greece. She personally commanded her contribution of five ships at the naval battle of Artemisium and in the naval Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. She is mostly known through the writings of Herodotus, himself a native of Halicarnassus, who praises her courage and the respect in which Xerxes held her.

<i>History of the Peloponnesian War</i> 5th century BC history book by Thucydides

The History of the Peloponnesian War is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League. It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian historian who also served as an Athenian general during the war. His account of the conflict is widely considered to be a classic and regarded as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. The History is divided into eight books.

<i>Histories</i> (Herodotus) Work by Herodotus

The Histories of Herodotus is considered the founding work of history in Western literature. Written around 430 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known in Greece, Western Asia and Northern Africa at that time. Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the genre and study of history in the Western world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Greek literature</span> Literature written in Ancient Greek language

Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panyassis</span> 5th-century BC Greek epic poet

Panyassis of Halicarnassus, sometimes known as Panyasis, was a 5th-century BC Greek epic poet from Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire.

Xanthus of Lydia was a Greek historian, logographer and citizen of Lydia who, during the mid-fifth century BC, wrote texts on the history of Lydia known as Lydiaca (Λυδιακά), a work which was highly commended by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Xanthus also wrote occasionally about geology. It is believed that Xanthus was the earliest historian to have written a significant amount on the topic of Lydian history. He is also believed to have written a work entitled Magica (Mαγικά), as well as one entitled Life of Empedocles. It is believed that Xanthus had some knowledge of Persian traditions, and it is plausible that he, a Lydian, would write about Persian religion, but it seems unlikely due to the available evidence. His seat was believed to be at Sardis, the capital. A contemporary and colleague of Herodotus, most of his writings concerned the lineage and deeds of the Lydian kings. Xanthus was known for writing in the traditional Ionian style of trying to establish the scene of popular myths. One example of Xanthus using this type of writing style is when he placed the scene of the "giant's punishment" in Katakekaumene. Xanthus was also known for adapting historical events that were often considered boring into passages that the general Greek public would enjoy. Xanthus was one of the chief authorities used by Nicolaus of Damascus.

Manes is a legendary figure of the 2nd millennium BC who is attested by Herodotus in Book One of Histories to have been an early king of Lydia, then probably known as Maeonia. He was believed to have been the son of Zeus and Gaia, and was the father of Atys, who succeeded him as king. Atys, through Callithea, fathered Lydus, after whom the Lydian people were later named, and Tyrrhenus, after whom the Tyrrhenians were named. Later, in Book Four, Herodotus states that Manes had another son called Cotys, who, through Halie, had a son called Asies, after whom the Lydians claimed that the continent of Asia is named. Dionysius of Halicarnassus names Callirhoe, daughter of Oceanus, as the mother of Cotys by Manes, and Atys as the son of Cotys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of the Eurymedon</span> Battle between the Delian League and the Achaemenid Empire

The Battle of the Eurymedon was a double battle, taking place both on water and land, between the Delian League of Athens and her Allies, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I. It took place in either 469 or 466 BCE, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Eurymedon River in Pamphylia, Asia Minor. It forms part of the Wars of the Delian League, itself part of the larger Greco-Persian Wars.

Hellenic historiography involves efforts made by Greeks to track and record historical events. By the 5th century BC, it became an integral part of ancient Greek literature and held a prestigious place in later Roman historiography and Byzantine literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Persian invasion of Greece</span> Retaliatory campaigns by Persia against the Ancient Greeks

The first Persian invasion of Greece, during the Greco-Persian Wars, began in 492 BC, and ended with the decisive Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The invasion, consisting of two distinct campaigns, was ordered by the Persian king Darius the Great primarily in order to punish the city-states of Athens and Eretria. These cities had supported the cities of Ionia during their revolt against Persian rule, thus incurring the wrath of Darius. Darius also saw the opportunity to extend his empire into Europe, and to secure its western frontier.

In ancient Greece, the concept of autochthones means the indigenous inhabitants of a country, including mythological figures, as opposed to settlers, and those of their descendants who kept themselves free from an admixture of colonizing entities.

Carolyn Dewald is an American classical scholar who is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Bard College. She is an expert on ancient Greek historiography, and the author of several books and articles focusing on the writings of Herodotus and Thucydides.

References

  1. "Herodotus". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
  2. Luce, T. James (2002). The Greek Historians. p.  26.
  3. "Herodotus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 4 April 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  4. Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (11 September 2014). The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. OUP Oxford. p. 372. ISBN   978-0-19-101675-2.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Burn, A.R. (1972). Herodotus: The Histories. Penguin Classics.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Rawlinson, George (1859). The History of Herodotus. Vol. 1. New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company. "via The Internet Classics Archive". Classics. Translated by Rawlinson, George. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original on 1 December 2012. Retrieved 25 July 2001.
  7. Smith, William, ed. (1873). "Herodotus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and Mythology . London. John Murray.
  8. Dandamaev, M.A. (1989). A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire. Brill. p. 153. ISBN   978-90-04-09172-6. The 'Father of History', Herodotus, was born at Halicarnassus, and before his emigration to mainland Greece was a subject of the Persian empire.
  9. Kia, Mehrdad (2016). The Persian Empire: A historical encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 161. ISBN   978-1-61069-391-2. At the time of Herodotus' birth southwestern Asia Minor, including Halicarnassus, was under Persian Achaemenid rule.
  10. Eusebius Chron. Can. Pars. II p. 339, 01.83.4, cited by. [6] :Introduction
  11. Plutarch De Malign. Herod. II p. 862 A, cited by. [6] :Introduction
  12. "Plutarch on the Malice of Herodotus". www.bostonleadershipbuilders.com. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  13. Herodotus (2003). The Histories. Translated by de Selincourt, Aubrey. Introduction and notes by John Marincola. Penguin Books. pp. xii.
  14. Montfaucon's Bibliothec. Coisl. Cod. clxxvii p. 609, cited by. [6] :14
  15. Photius Bibliothec. Cod. lx p. 59, cited by Ralinson [6] :15
  16. Tzetzes Chil. 1.19, cited by. [6] :15
  17. Marcellinus, in Vita. Thucyd. p. ix, cited by. [6] :25
  18. "Herodotus". Encyclopedia of World Biography. The Gale Group. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  19. 1 2 Dewald, Carolyn, ed. (1998). The Histories by Herodotus. Translated by Waterfield, Robin. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. "Introduction", p. xviii. ISBN   9780199535668.
  20. , [5] :23 citing Dionysius On Thucydides
  21. Pipes, David. "Herodotus: Father of History, Father of Lies". Archived from the original on 27 January 2008. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
  22. Tritle., Lawrence A. (2004). The Peloponnesian War. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 147–148.
  23. Hart, John (1982). Herodotus and Greek History. Taylor and Francis. p. 174.
  24. 1 2 Murray, Oswyn (1986). "Greek historians". In Boardman, John; Griffin, Jasper; Murray, Oswyn (eds.). The Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford University Press. pp.  186–203. ISBN   978-0-19-872112-3.
  25. Jebb, Richard C. The Genius of Sophocles  . section 7.

Sources

  • Asheri, David; Lloyd, Alan; Corcella, Aldo (2007). A Commentary on Herodotus, Books 1–4. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-814956-9.
  • Baragwanath, Emily; de Bakker, Mathieu (2010). Herodotus. Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-980286-9.
  • Herodotus; Blanco, Walter (2013). The Histories. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN   978-0-393-93397-0.
  • Boedeker, Deborah (2000). "Herodotus' genre(s)". In Depew, Mary; Obbink, Dirk (eds.). Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society. Harvard University Press. pp. 97–114. ISBN   978-0-674-03420-4.
  • Cameron, Alan (2004). Greek Mythography in the Roman World. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-803821-4.
  • Dalley, S. (2003). "Why did Herodotus not mention the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?". In Derow, P.; Parker, R. (eds.). Herodotus and his World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 171–189. ISBN   978-0-19-925374-6.
  • Dalley, S. (2013). The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: an Elusive World Wonder Traced. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-966226-5.
  • Evans, J.A.S. (1968). "Father of History or Father of Lies; The Reputation of Herodotus". Classical Journal. 64: 11–17.
  • Farley, David G. (2010). Modernist Travel Writing: Intellectuals Abroad. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. ISBN   978-0-8262-7228-7.
  • Fehling, Detlev (1989) [1971]. Herodotos and His 'Sources': Citation, Invention, and Narrative Art. Arca Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs. Vol. 21. Translated by Howie, J.G. Leeds: Francis Cairns. ISBN   978-0-905205-70-0.
  • Immerwahr, Henry R. (1985). "Herodotus". In Easterling, P.E.; Knox, B.M.W. (eds.). Greek Literature. The Cambridge History of Classical Greek Literature. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-21042-3.
  • Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign Accounts. Delhi, IN: Ocean Books. ISBN   978-81-8430-106-9.
  • Lloyd, Alan B. (1993). Herodotus, Book  II. Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain. Vol. 43. Leiden: Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-07737-9.
  • Majumdar, R.C. (1981). The Classical accounts of India: Being a compilation of the English translations of the accounts left by Herodotus, Megasthenes, Arrian, Strabo, Quintus, Diodorus, Siculus, Justin, Plutarch, Frontinus, Nearchus, Apollonius, Pliny, Ptolemy, Aelian, and others with maps. Calcutta, IN: Firma KLM. ISBN   978-0-8364-0704-4.
  • Mikalson, Jon D. (2003). Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN   978-0-8078-2798-7.
  • Nielsen, Flemming A.J. (1997). The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the deuteronomistic history. A&C Black. ISBN   978-1-85075-688-0.
  • Roberts, Jennifer T. (2011). Herodotus: a Very Short Introduction. OXford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-957599-2.
  • Sparks, Kenton L. (1998). Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and their Expression in the Hebrew Bible. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. ISBN   978-1-57506-033-0.
  • Waters, K.H. (1985). Herodotos the Historian: His problems, methods and originality. Tulsa, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN   978-0-8061-1928-1.

Further reading