He treats every piece of his narrative, from the main themes to the digressions and from the facts to the fictions, with equal importance. Herodotus’ encyclopedic method did not leave much room for analysis. The next four books tell the story of the Greco-Persian Wars itself, from the invasions of ancient Greece by Persian emperors Darius and Xerxes to the Greek triumphs at Salamis, Plataea and Mycale in 480 and 479 B.C.
They describe the geography of each state the Persians conquered and discuss their people and customs. (Each was named after one of the Muses.) The first five books look into the past to try to explain the rise and fall of the Persian Empire. Greco-Persian WarsĪfter Herodotus died, editors divided his Histories into nine books. By contrast, Herodotus used all of his “autopsies” to build a complete story that explained the why and the how of the Persian Wars. “The Histories” also incorporated observations and stories, both factual and fictional, from Herodotus’ travels.Įarlier writers had produced what Herodotus called “logographies”: These were what we might call travelogues, disconnected tales about places and people that did not cohere into a narrative whole. Most of what we know about the Battle of Marathon is from Herodotus. It was also an attempt to explain the conflict-“to show what caused them to fight one another,” Herodotus said-by explaining the Persians’ imperial worldview. “Here is the account,” the work begins, “of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus in order that the deeds of men not be erased by time, and that the great and miraculous works–both of the Greeks and the barbarians-not go unrecorded.” In part, “The Histories” was a straightforward account of the wars. In 445 B.C., the people of Athens voted to give him a prize of 10 talents-almost $200,000 in today’s money-to honor him for his contributions to the city’s intellectual life. He gave readings in public places and collected fees from officials for his appearances. When Herodotus was not traveling, he returned to Athens there, he became something of a celebrity. While he traveled, Herodotus collected what he called “autopsies,” or “personal inquiries”: He listened to ancient myths and legends, recorded oral histories and made notes of the places and things that he saw. Herodotus sailed through the Hellespont to the Black Sea and kept going until he hit the Danube River. He headed to Macedonia and visited all the islands of the Greek Archipelago: Rhodes, Cyprus, Delos, Paros, Thasos, Samothrace, Crete, Samos, Cythera and Aegina. He crossed the Mediterranean to Egypt and traveled through Palestine to Syria and Babylon. Instead of settling in one place, Herodotus spent his life traveling from one Persian territory to another. (The Carians, of Minoan descent, had arrived in that part of Asia Minor before the Greeks had.) He came from a wealthy and cosmopolitan Greek-Carian merchant family. in the Greek city of Halicarnassus, a lively commercial center on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. WATCH: Ancient History Documentaries on HISTORY Vault Early Life Scholars have been following in Herodotus’ footsteps for 2,500 years. After Herodotus, historical analysis became an indispensable part of intellectual and political life. Sometime around the year 425 B.C., Herodotus published his magnum opus: a long account of the Greco-Persian Wars that he called “The Histories.” (The Greek word “historie” means “inquiry.”) Before Herodotus, no writer had ever made such a systematic, thorough study of the past or tried to explain the cause-and-effect of its events. Herodotus was a Greek writer and geographer credited with being the first historian.
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