Everything about Herodotus totally explained
Herodotus of
Halicarnassus (
Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Ἁλικαρνᾱσσεύς
Hēródotos Halikarnāsseús) was a
Greek historian who lived in the
5th century BC (
484 BC–
431 BC) and is regarded as the "
Father of History" in Western culture. He was the first historian to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent, and arrange them in a well constructed and vivid narrative He is almost exclusively known for writing
The Histories, a record of his 'inquiries' (or ἱστορίαι, a
word that passed into Latin and took on its modern connotation of
history) into the origins of the
Greco-Persian Wars which occurred in 490 and 480-479 BC — especially since he includes a narrative account of that period, which would otherwise be poorly documented, and many long digressions concerning the various places and peoples he encountered during wide-ranging travels around the lands of the
Mediterranean and
Black Sea. However, some of his stories are not always completely accurate. Herodotus however does state he's only reporting what is told to him, an honesty lacking in many historians.
Biography
Much of what is known of Herodotus' life has been gathered from his own work. Additional details have been garnered from the
Suda, an 11th-century encyclopaedia of
Byzantium; it seems likely that the
Suda took its information from traditional accounts. The
Suda says that he was born in
Halicarnassus, 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. According to this account, after being exiled from Halicarnassus by the tyrant Lygdamis, Herodotus went to live at
Samos. Later returning to Halicarnassus, Herodotus took part in the removal of Lygdamis from the city. The traditional biography also includes some time spent in
Athens, and has Herodotus joining a Hellenic colony named Thurii in Southern Italy. His death and burial are placed either at Thurii or at Pella, in
Macedon.
How much of this is correct can't be known. It was common practice in antiquity for the biographies of poets to be drawn from inferences collated from their works, and something similar may have happened in Herodotus's case. The casting of Herodotus as a tyrannicide may simply be reflecting the pro-freedom attitude he expresses in the
Histories, while the stays at Samos and Athens may have been invented to explain the pro-Samian and pro-Athenian bias that has been often thought to pervade his work. His exile from Halicarnassus may also be fictional: later historians, such as
Thucydides and
Xenophon, certainly did undergo periods of exile, and their fate may have been later retrospectively imposed on Herodotus by later writers.
Herodotus as historian
For example, he reports that the annual flooding of the
Nile was said to be the result of melting snows far to the south, and comments that he can't understand how there can be snow in Africa, the hottest part of the known world, offering an elaborate explanation based on the way that desert winds affect the passage of the Sun over this part of the world (2:18ff).
(He also passes on dismissive reports from
Phoenician sailors that, while circumnavigating
Africa, they 'saw the sun on the right side while sailing westwards'. Thanks to this brief mention, which is almost an afterthought, it has been argued that Africa was indeed circumnavigated by ancient seafarers—for this is precisely where the sun ought to have been.)
He is one of the sources on
Croesus and his fabulous treasures of
gold and
silver, and many stories about his riches.
Written between 431 BC and 425 BC,
The Histories were divided by later editors into nine books, named after the nine
Muses (the 'Muse of History',
Clio, represented the first book). The accounts of
India, given by him are still, one of oldest records of Indian civilzation by an outsider .
Opinions
Herodotus' invention has earned him the twin titles
The Father of History and
The Father of Lies. As these epithets would seem to imply, there has long been a debate—at least from the time of
Cicero's 'On the Laws' (Book 1, paragraph 5)—concerning the veracity of his tales, and, more importantly, concerning the extent to which he knew himself to be creating fabrications. Indeed, every manner of argument has surfaced on this subject, from a devious and consciously-fictionalizing Herodotus to a gullible Herodotus whose sources 'saw him coming a long way off'.
Criticisms of Herodotus
There are many cases in which Herodotus, not sure of the truth of a certain event or unimpressed by the dull 'facts' he received, reported the several most famous accounts of a given subject or process and then wrote what he believed was the most probable. Though
The Histories were often criticized in antiquity for bias, inaccuracy and plagiarism (for example,
Claudius Aelianus attacked Herodotus as a liar in
Verae Historiae and went as far as to deny him a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed), this methodology has been seen in a more positive light by many modern historians and philosophers, especially those searching for an example of relatively objective historical writing. Of course, given the sensitivity of the issue, the very founding of the discipline of history, this hasn't become a consensus view; attacks have been made by several scholars in modern times, a few even arguing that Herodotus exaggerated the extent of his travels and invented his sources.
Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century have greatly helped restore Herodotus' reputation. The archaeological study of the now submerged ancient Egyptian city of
Heracleion and the recovery of the so-called 'Naucratis stela' give extensive credibility to Herodotus' previously unsupported claim that Heracleion was founded under the Egyptian
New Kingdom. Because of this recent increase in respect for his accuracy, as well as the quality and content of his observations, Herodotus is now recognized as a pioneer not only in history, but in ethnography and also anthropology.
Gold-digging ants
One of the most recent developments in Herodotus scholarship was made by the French ethnologist
Michel Peissel. On his journeys to India and Pakistan, Peissel claims to have discovered an animal species that may finally illuminate one of the most "bizarre" passages in Herodotus' Histories. In Book 3, passages 102 to 105, Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of the Persian Empire. This region, Herodotus reports, is a sandy desert, and the sand there contains a wealth of fine
gold dust. These giant
ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust. Now, Peissel says that in an isolated region of the
Dansar Plateau between India and Pakistan there exists a species of
marmot (a type of burrowing
squirrel) that may solve the mystery of Herodotus' giant "ants". Much like the province that Herodotus describes, the ground of the Dansar Plateau is rich in gold dust. According to Peissel, he interviewed the
Minaro tribal people who live in the Dansar Plateau, and they've confirmed that they have, for generations, been collecting the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when they're digging their underground burrows.
Even more tantalizing, in his book, "The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas", Peissel offers the theory that Herodotus may have become confused because the old Persian word for "marmot" was quite similar to that for "mountain ant". Because research suggests that Herodotus probably didn't know any Persian (or any other language except his native Greek), he was forced to rely on a multitude of local translators when travelling in the vast polylingual Persian Empire. Therefore, he may have been the unwitting victim of a simple misunderstanding in translation. (It is also important to realize that Herodotus never claims to have himself seen these "ants/marmot" creatures - he may have been dutifully reporting what other travellers were telling him, no matter how bizarre or unlikely he personally may have found it to be. In an age when most of the world was still mysterious and unknown and before the modern science of biology, the existence of a "giant ant" may not have seemed so far-fetched.) The suggestion that he completely made up the tale may continue to be thrown into doubt as more research is conducted.
However, it must be noted that this theory of the marmots fails to take into consideration Herodotus' own follow-up in passage 105 of Book 3, wherein the "ants/marmots" are said to chase and devour full-grown camels; nevertheless, this could also be explained as an example of a tall tale or legend told by the local tribes to frighten foreigners from seeking this relatively easy access to gold dust. On the other hand, all these details of the "ants" are eerily similar to the description of the camel spider (
Solifugae), which strictly speaking isn't a spider, and is even sometimes called a "wind scorpion". Camel spiders are said to chase camels (they can run up to 10mph), they've lots of hair bristles, and they could quite easily be mistaken for ants given their rather bizarre appearance. And as has been noted by some, on account of the fear factor of encountering one there have been "many myths and exaggerations about their size" . Images of camel spiders could give the impression that this could be mistaken for a giant ant, but certainly not the size of a fox.
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