HERODOTUS

born 484 BC?, Halicarnassus, Asia Minor [now Bodrum, Tur.]? died 430-420 Greek author of the first great narrative history produced in the ancient world, the History of the Greco-Persian Wars. It is believed that Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus, a Greek city in southwest Asia Minor that was then under Persian rule. The precise dates of his birth and death are alike uncertain. He is thought to have resided in Athens and to have met Sophocles and then to have left for Thurii, a new colony in southern Italy sponsored by Athens. The latest event alluded to in his History belongs to 430, but how soon after or where he died is not known. There is good reason to believe that he was in Athens, or at least in central Greece, during the early years of the Peloponnesian War, from 431, and that his work was published and known there before 425. Herodotus was a wide traveler. His longer wandering covered a large part of the Persian Empire: he went to Egypt, at least as far south as Elephantine (Aswan), and he also visited Libya, Syria, Babylonia, Susa in Elam, Lydia, and Phrygia. He journeyed up the Hellespont to Byzantium, went to Thrace and Macedonia, and traveled northward to beyond the Danube and to Scythia eastward along the northern shores of the Black Sea as far as the Don River and some way inland. These travels would have taken many years. Additional reading The most important source on Herodotus' life is the History itself. Felix Jacoby, "Herodotos" in Pauly-Wissowa Real-Encyclopdie, suppl. 2 col., 205-520 (1913), the most thorough discussion of Herodotus' life and work (in German); John L. Myres, Herodotus: Father of History (1953), an expert appraisal of Herodotus as a literary artist; P.E. Legrand, Hrodote: Introduction, 2nd ed. (1955), a readable and illuminating interpretation of the life and character of Herodotus (in French); Gietano De Sanctis, Studi di Storia della Storiografia greca, pp. 1-71 (1951), a provocative discussion of how Herodotus put his History together, what his purpose was, and the rationalism of his predecessor Hecataeus; T.S. Brown, "Herodotus Speculates About Egypt," Am. J. Philology, 86:60-76 (1965).