Herodotus

A detailed Summary of Herodotus

Herodotus was a Greek historian, generally called the "Father of History." The work of Herodotus is the oldest surviving major Greek prose and the first history in Western civilization.

He was born at Halicarnassus, a Greek state under Persian rule, in southwestern Asia Minor. After a civil war, he left his homeland for good and spent some time in nearby Ionia. Then he traveled widely: as far south as Elephantine in Egypt; eastward into Asia to Babylon; and north to the far coast of the Black Sea. He lived in Periclean Athens for a while and took part in the Athenian colonization of Thurii in southern Italy in 433. Since he referred to early events of the Peloponnesian War, he must have lived past 431. His tomb was later shown at Thurii, but it is possible that he died in Athens, where he recited some of his history.

The preface of his history begins, "These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done." He sought to describe and explain great wars before his own generation. To Herodotus, two ways of life were opposed to one another in these wars-the freedom of the Greeks and the despotism of the Persians; never

Unlike the succeeding Greek historian Thucydides, Herodotus did not write his history to give lessons for the future; his intent was primarily in "preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory."

As a modern critic observes of Herodotus, "he more than most writers is one to read, not to talk about," for his rich tapestry is not easily summarized. To judge Herodotus as a historian, one must remember that he was the first Greek writer who tried to reconstruct the past in a historical manner. There were no previous histories for him to use a models, although he did draw from Hectares' geographical work and cited Home, Pindar, and the oracles. For the most part, he had to rely on his own observations of monuments and customs and on oral information. This investigation was called historie at the time; only later did it mean the written results of research.

theless, he was so fair to the Persians that he was called in later ages "friend to the barbarian."

Most of his information, which he gathered in many places over many years, Herodotus kept in his head, for taking notes was not an easy process. As a result, he sometimes made simple mistakes in geography or other points where we can check his account, but on the whole he sought with remarkable success to be factually accurate. At the time there was no standard method of dating on which he c

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Approximate Word count = 959
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History