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HERODOTUS

Herodotus was a Greek historian. He was born in 484 BC at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor and died in 420 BC. Before writing his history he travelled extensively, visiting the shores of the Hellespont and the Euxine, Scythia, Syria, Palestine, Babylon and Ecbatana, Egypt as far as Elephantine and other parts of northern Africa, everywhere investigating the manners, customs, and religion of the people, the history of the country, productions of the soil, etc.

On returning home he found that Lygdamis had usurped the supreme authority in Halicarnassus, and put to death the noblest citizens, among others his uncle, the epic poet Panyasis, and Herodotus was forced to seek an asylum in the island of Samos. Having formed a conspiracy with several exiles he returned to Halicarnassus and drove out the usurper, but the nobles who had acted with him immediately formed an aristocracy more oppressive than the government of the banished tyrant, and Herodotus withdrew to the recently founded colony of Thurii, in Italy, where he seems to have spent most of his remaining life.

Here, at an advanced age, we are told by Pliny, he wrote his immortal work, a statement strengthened by the fact that events are noticed in the body of the book which occurred so late as 409 BC, while its abrupt ending proves almost beyond question that he was prevented by death from completing it. The history is divided into nine books, each bearing the name of a muse, and is written in the Ionic dialect. The object of the historian is to narrate the conflict between the Greeks and Persians, and he traces the enmity of the two races back to mythical times. Rapidly passing over the mythical period he comes to Croesus, king of Lydia, of whom and of his kingdom he gives a comparatively full history.

The conquest of Lydia by Cyrus induces him to relate the rise of the Persian monarchy and the subjugation of Asia Minor and Babylon. The history of Cambyses and his Egyptian expedition leads him to introduce the valuable details of the history, geography, and manners and customs of Egypt, which occupy the second book.

The Scythian expedition of Darius causes the historian to treat of the Scythians and the north of Europe; and the subsequent extension of the Persian kingdom affords him the opportunity for giving an account of Gyrene and Libya. In the meantime the revolt of the Ionians breaks out, which eventually brings on the conflict between Greece and Persia. An account of this outbreak and of the rise of Athens after the expulsion of the Peisistratidae, is followed by what properly constitutes the principal part of the work, and the history of the Persian War now runs on in an uninterrupted stream until the taking of Sestos.
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