Herodotus

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Herodotus

• The First Historian

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Hero-who?

• 484-425 BCE
• Halicarnassus (SW Turkey)
• Ethnic Greek at Asia Minor
• Exiled by Lygdamis
• Refused Persian corruption
• Influenced by Greco-Persian
• Wars
• Traveled Widely (research)

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Herodotus versus the Gods

• How do devastating wars happen?
• Homer/Sumerians The meddling of mischievous
  Gods, as at Troy
• Egyptians/Persians/Assyrians Evil and wicked
  compulsions of our enemies, only defeated by the
  Divine Power of the King
• Herodotus A chain of political events,
  underlying circumstances and tribal differences

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Night

• Sing, goddess, the wrath of Peleus' son Achilles,
  that brought endless harm upon the Greeks. Many
  brave men did it send down to the Underworld, and
  many heroes did it yield a prey to dogs and
  vultures. In this way, the counsels of Zeus were
  fulfilled, from the day on which Agamemnon -king
  of men- and great Achilles first fell out with
  one another. And which of the gods was it that
  set them on to quarrel?

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and Day

• Herodotus of Halicarnassus hereby publishes the
  results of his inquiries, hoping to do two
  things to preserve the memory of the past by
  putting on record the astonishing achievements
  both of the Greek and the non-Greek peoples and
  more particularly, to show how the two races came
  into conflict.

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The Histories

• Written after Greco-Persian Wars
• 9 Books (scrolls) divided into 3 logoi each
• Logoi were probably 4 hour lectures
• Each logos on a particular topic
• Scythian Customs
• Egyptian Geography
• Persian Diplomacy
• all directed around expansion of Persian Empire

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Herodotus fails at turnitin.com

• Still influenced by Homeric tradition
• Epic characterization
• Impartial narrative
• Circular composition
• Digressions off the main theme of Persian
  expansion
• Anecdotes
• Interviews
• Linguistic deconstruction (etymology)
• Mythological analysis

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BUT Herodotus was no Homer

• New methods would prove his place as the first
  Historian
• Wrote in prose, ignoring compromises of style
• Empirical research method
• Direct investigations and interviews
• Was not inspired by muses or gods, but by
  critical reason and a yearning to know why
• Compiled evidence and then created an impartial
  account of events, to his best knowledge.
• Did not accept traditional explanations of events

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Herodotus was a professor

• Deemphasized the gods in causality and focused on
  the ambitions of men
• Avoided creating a national foundation myth and
  focused on the immediate, knowable past
• Interviewed survivors of Marathon
• Adhered to rigorous standards of fact checking
• Seriously interested in geography and location
• Created history as a genre by combining empirical
  ethnography and topography into narrative

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The Thesis

• Herodotus may have created the notion of a Thesis
• Didnt just report past events, but explained why
  they occurred by making an argument, supported by
  evidence

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I KNOW WHO DID IT!

• So much for what the Persians and Phoenicians
  say and I have no intention of passing judgment
  on its truth or falsity. I prefer to rely on my
  own knowledge, and to point out who it was in
  actual fact that first injured the Greeks.

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It was Croesus in the Study with the candlestick!

• Interpreted the Greco-Persian wars as inevitable
  due to imperialism
• Croesus warmongery started a chain of
  action-reaction
• Observed the Egyptian, Scythian, Libyan, Thracian
  etc peoples coming under the Persian yoke
• Argued that Greece was inevitably next
• Gods do play a role in enticing mortals to be
  greedy

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Sourcing

• Herodotus doesnt claim to know what he knows
  through revelation
• Doesnt claim to have seen certain things he
  writes about is intellectually honest
• Herodotus visited vast tracts of the
  Mediterranean
• Made heavy use of interviews
• Analyzed traditional and family accounts against
  his own observations
• Referred to pre-existing Persian and Greek
  documents
• Persian names listed by Herodotus match records

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Anthropology Topography

• Created Anthropology
• Described peoples customs and habits without
  bias
• Integrated racial and cultural understandings
  into historical narratives
• Analyzed fairytales and popular stories on the
  basis of evidence
• Attempted to put things into a geopolitical
  context

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The Father of Lies?

• Reverse symmetry geographic motif seemingly
  applied to history writing Egyptians.
• Received flak from contemporaries as being far
  fetched in depictions of different cultures
• Mostly debunked (New World implications modern
  discoveries)
• Herodotus claims to only be reporting what has
  been told to him, not claiming to be True