"History" of Herodotus - the famous ancient Greek scientist and traveler - is rightfully considered the world's first scientific historical work. Having collected in his travels extensive material on the origin, geography, mythology, life and customs of various peoples, he wrote a fundamental work, which to this day serves as one of the main sources of the history of the ancient world. The reliability of many of the information presented by the Greek author on the pages of the nine-volume work has been repeatedly confirmed by archaeologists, ethnographers and geographers of subsequent generations.
Herodotus' predecessors: logographs
It is believed that the origin of history as a science took place precisely in ancient society. Prior to this, people also tried to describe events that took place earlier in various ways (a number of biblical books, various annals and chronicles serve as examples). These works, which preceded scientific historical works, are usually called "historical writings".
Even long before the "History" of Herodotus was written, ancient Greek historical prose was represented by the writings of logographers - authors who combined the presentation of real events with myths, legends and geographical descriptions of places about whichspeech was made. The first logograph is considered to be Cadmus of Miletus, who lived in the 6th century BC. Today's science also knows the names of Hecateus of Miletus, Acusilaus of Argos, Charon of Lampsak, Xanthus of Lydia.
The works of these authors were characterized by an artistic form. Although they were written in prose, they retained many imitations of poetic Hellenic speech. The sources for the logographers were epic legends and lyrics, local chronicles and annals, their own observations, as well as the stories of travelers, merchants, and sailors who had traveled far away. The chronological constructions on which the logographers relied were very inaccurate, but it was they who were the first to use lists of kings and officials in describing historical events, introduced the concept of "age", equal to one hundred years or three "generations". Paying considerable attention to myths and genealogy, they also worked on rich historical material and delved into various ethnographic and geographical aspects. Nevertheless, the main thing for them was still not the search for historical truth, but the art of verbal expression, so the works of logographers are still considered not scientific, but narrative fiction.
Herodotus: biography
The first work, which is considered to be historical, was created by the Greek scientist and thinker Herodotus. History has not preserved much information about the biography of this great man.
The period of his life is considered to be 484(5) - 425 BC. He was born inDorian city of Halicarnassus (in the west of Asia Minor) in a noble and we althy family. In his youth, he took part in the political struggle of the aristocracy against the tyrant ruler, did not succeed in this and, along with many others, was forced into exile.
Initially, Herodotus settled on the island of Samos, one of the most influential and richest Ionian islands, which controls the entire western part of the Mediterranean Sea. A smart and educated young man soon studied the history, language, state structure of this land and could well have stayed on Samos to live - however, he preferred to travel further.
Travels of Herodotus
Herodotus planned to write the history of the Greco-Persian wars. He wanted to uncover the secrets of the strength of the Persian army - to understand exactly how this multinational and multilingual host could interact so successfully. Wanting to tell what other scientists did not know and what other scientists did not say, he himself spent a lot of time traveling - observing, thinking, describing, communicating with people.
First he went to Cyprus and Tire, where he spoke with the priests, then he went to the south - to Gaza, from where he went to Egypt. Having descended the Nile to Siena, he headed to the Red Sea to learn, hear and see with his own eyes as much as possible about the world around him - after all, this was what Herodotus aspired to.
The story of his travels continued in the East: the scientist covered a huge distance from Libya to Assyria, Babylon and Ecbatana. After that, he returned to Asia Minor, then went to the Hellespont and the lands of the NorthThe Black Sea coast, along which he proceeded up to Olbia - the colony of Miletus. Herodotus also visited the Greek cities in the Balkans. He confirmed his wanderings with the names of the people he saw in those places. In 444 BC, he went to the Olympic Games in Athens, where he publicly read his writings. For this, he received a huge reward from the Greeks at that time - ten talents (about three hundred kilograms of gold).
After this event, he took an active part in the founding of the colony in Thurii by the Greeks. Impressed by the culture of this people, he became an ardent supporter of their state system, took citizenship and remained to live in the colony. It was in Furies somewhere between 430-425 BC that he died, leaving behind the only, but the greatest work, the very first historian known to mankind - Herodotus.
"History" summary
The scientist combined the results of his work into one voluminous work, written in a lively, colorful language, confirming the author's outstanding level of skill in the genre of fiction. The time of creation of the essay, the researchers have established only approximately: between 427-421 BC.
Herodotus' "History" as we know it today consists of nine books and (formally) a separate introduction. Each of the books is titled after one of the ancient Greek muses. The division of the text into books occurred later as a result of the processing of the work by the grammarians of Alexandria. The introduction contains information about the name of the author of the workand reveals the main goals of his work.
The work of Herodotus tells about the Greco-Persian wars and the customs of the ancient peoples. It contains a lot of information about the history of ancient countries (Lydia, Media, Egypt, Persia, Scythia), their relations with the Greeks and with each other. Combining the description of events with his reflections on the above, the "father of history" Herodotus for the first time critically reacted to the sources on which he relied when writing his work, and also systematized the facts. To describe the vast geographical and anthropological digressions, he primarily used observations made by himself.
"History" of Herodotus: meaning
The work of Herodotus caused an ambiguous attitude among those who followed in his footsteps, continuing to develop historical science. Some called the great author "the father of history", others accused him of lying, finding inaccuracies and misinterpreted events in the work.
However, many scientific studies carried out centuries later, and - above all - archaeological discoveries, proved that most of the judgments of Herodotus, set forth in his "History", were correct. And today, his work is of great value not only in the historical, but also in the artistic, cultural, literary sense, which makes Herodotus one of the most interesting ancient authors.
