Many had criticism of this man, Herodotus, known as the “Father of History”.
He wrote a series of histories which described the world known to the Greeks, and most famously,
the Persian Wars.
One section attracts the most attention - Herodotus’s description of the great Battle of Marathon
in 490 BC, during which outnumbered Greeks stood firm against the forces of Darius and
the powerful Persian Empire--- left nearly alone to defend the Hellenic world.
In this colorful account, we meet the runner Philippedes, who jogs to Sparta to seek aid.
We hear of the tactics of the Greeks to force a Persian retreat, during which the Hellenes
quote ““were seized by utterly self-destructive madness”.
And we hear of an ordinary soldier, Epizelus, who claims he was passed by a spirit on the
battlefield, a spirit which takes the life of an enemy, and in exchange, Epizelus’s
eyesight for the rest of his life.
The writing is gripping.
But to Herodotus’s detractors, like Plutarch and Thucydides, his work had deep flaws; it
had malice and made-up stories.
Even Cicero, who gave Herodotus the nickname, ‘Father of History’ said his histories
were full of “innumerable fabulous tales”.
And yet Herodotus lingers with us today.
Even if you aren’t familiar with him, his name probably strikes a bell.
He created a discipline: his work, compiled as the ‘Histories’, is known to many as
the first history, perhaps better phrased, the “first modern history”.
And his tagline from Cicero, the “Father of History”, is a heuristic with duration.
But is it an accurate label?
Herodotus was born around 484 BCE, and grew up in Halicarnassus, which was across the
Aegean Sea from Athens, western Turkey today, and was of the Persian Empire.
It was nonetheless on the edge of the Greek world, and Herodotus’s native tongue was
probably the Ionic Greek in which he wrote (9).
A 10th century Byzantine Encyclopedia tells us something different: he learned the Ionian
dialect on the island of Samos.
Regardless, he was clearly a man of mixed cultures.
Adding to this mix, Herodotus was well traveled.
He probably saw not only nearby spots, like the island of Samos.
But ventured to Athens, and the ancient city of Thurii in modern-day Italy.
For the purpose of his histories, he likely surveyed parts of the Mediterranean, Asia
Minor, North Africa, maybe more (3).
This adventuring spirit must have contributed to his use of varied viewpoints in his writing.
Being born in roughly 484 means Herodotus was an infant during the Persian War he recounts
in his histories. (3,x).
He was therefore not a direct observer of events, but did speak to direct observers,
and as we know, visited many of the places of which he wrote.
The Greek word "Historiē' means inquiry, and through this lens, the Histories of Herodotus
can be seen more clear- his explanations of peoples and events, sure, but also his investigation
of geography, rivers, culture, a splash of mythos- it's an attempt at a holistic narrative.
While today we might try to academically silo some of these items, and for not improper
reasons, his ambition is still impressive, to me at least.
He was curious; his curiosity bleeds out of the page.
Herodotus also gives us his motivation at the start of the histories, a bit like the
preface of a modern non-fiction book, explaining why he wrote: quote
“Herodotus of Halicarnassus here presents his research so that human events do not fade
with time.
May the great and wonderful deeds- some brought forth by the Hellenes [the greeks], others
by the barbarians, not go unsung; as well as the causes that led them to make war on
each other.”
(3,Pr).
We’ll talk about that pesky word ‘barbarian’ soon.
To show how unique Herodotus’s “research” approach is, consider another famous Greek
epic that came before: Homer’s Iliad, from the 7th or 8th century BC.
How does the Iliad begin?
Quote “Oh Sing Goddess, Achilles’s rage, which brought countless ills…”
‘Oh sing goddess’ from the Iliad vs. Herodotus presents his research.
I’m not suggesting Herodotus was a secular atheist; he does give attention to legend.
But to focus on human events, human causes through inquiries, “present his research”,
Herodotus offers a fundamentally different project.
The Iliad opens with a line about legends- it’s a poem passed down.
Herodotus, in contrast, opens with an admission: here is a ‘display of my inquiry’.
It’s comprehensive, new.
Of course, Herodotus wasn’t the first person to write down facts about a place.
He had predecessors.
It’s not like people didn't keep records before herodotus.
"Oh dang, we should write this down?
Thanks, Herodotus".
For example, Hekataios- butchered that name- wrote a work called genealogies before Herodotus's
time (3,xvii).
But most immediate predecessors probably didn't use contemporary or eyewitness sources when
reporting on an event.
Another angle: there’s evidence that before Herodotus, there were local historians in
the world known to the Greeks, crafting histories limited geographically, maybe thematically-
a bit myopic- perhaps they wrote about things before the respective historians’ time (9).
We don’t really know because their works are lost to us.
So Herodotus’s Histories is a unique work among known works, and it’s the earliest
work of this kind we can actually read.
He broadens the scale considerably, treating us to tales from all over.
It’s epic, but it’s not an epic.
The further we go back, the more we’re resigned to poetry, like that of Homer, or inscriptions
on tablets without an observer or narrator to guide us through.
It’s kind of like what we’re doing now- I would never be so pretentious as to compare
myself with Herodotus, but I’ve picked up the pieces here, and I’m trying to deliver
them to you as a story.
You aren’t…- I don’t know, excavating the ruins yourself or singing a song to your
cousin about a legend passed down through the ages.
Herodotus wrote about the world he knew, and he lent his voice and his guidance through
the material.
Here is the most straightforward explanation I’ve found explaining what makes Herodotus’s
Histories unique.
It’s found in the preface by Dr. Rosalind Thomas in this, the Landmark Herodotus, source
3 below.
I had to read The Landmark Thucydides in grad school, and both books are helpful: quote,
“The Histories are the first work in the Western tradition that are recognizably a
work of history to our eyes, for they cover the recent human past (as opposed to a concentration
on myths and legends), they search for causes, and they are critical of different accounts.”
So, one, recent history, two, inquiring about what happened, and three, doing so by weighing
sources of information.
That’s historical work in a nutshell.
And while we have king’s lists and epic poetry from far further back, Herodotus’s
iteration of communicating the past was new.
Being unique and ‘first to market’ so to speak, Herodotus acquired haters.
Generations of famous philosophers, orators, and writers had opinions of herodotus- like
all the famous names are here for the roll call: Thucydides, Aristophanes, Aristotle,
Plutarch, Cicero.
Cicero gave herodotus the moniker “father of history”, but also claimed herodotus
was an exaggerator: quote, “ in the works of Herodotus, the Father of History...one
finds innumerable fabulous tales.”
(10) Plutarch wrote a piece called “On the Malice of Herodotus” in which he accused
him of “calumnious fiction” and bias.
Thucydides, wrote a generation after Herodotus, and picks up the story in his famous history
of the Peloponnesian War.
Despite the clear lineage and iterative process, Thucydides also had a negative, or at least
rivalry-based opinion of Herodotus.
Never mentioning him by name, he nonetheless strongly implied Herodotus’s delineations
and anecdotes in his Histories were made up.
For this reason, rather than the detours and cultural moments we get in Herodotus, Thucydides
stays mostly in the lane of political history.
In the poetics, Aristotle took time to distinguish the philosophical process from the historical
process.
Now, some argue whether he meant to put history down or just to define it as different.
But the point is that he lived after Herodotus: when a ‘history’ as such could be distinguished.
Finally, Aristophanes, the same guy who accused Socrates of sophistry and flatulation in one
of his ancient Greek plays, saturized Herodotus too.
Herodotus explains in book one of his Histories that the animosity between the Greeks and
Persians can be traced to a kidnapping of three women.
A character in an Aristophanes play gives a similar explanation of the situation that
caused a war.
But the women in his version were sex workers.
Nice one, Aristophanes!
Got ‘em!
(11)
So yeah, Herodotus was a trailblazer, and gathered haters.
But it hasn’t only been people of antiquity who had thoughts on Herodotus.
Historians through the ages have spent considerable time examining the reliability of Herodotus’s
account.
Spoilers: some of what he said was true, some false, some we don’t know.
His bias was clear, he was pro-Greek, but he didn’t dehumanize the non-Greeks he wrote
about.
In fact, he did a lot of humanizing of “the barbarians”, the other.
Let’s dwell here for a second.
Herodotus often calls the Persians barbarians.
Like we already read together, at the opening of the book, Herodotus hopes that through
his Histories, quote “may the great and wonderful deeds- some brought forth by the
Hellenes, others by the barbarians, not go unsung” (B1.1).
Since when do barbarians do wonderful deeds?
Of course in English when we think of the word ‘barbarian’, it’s pejorative, negative.
Uncivilized, dirty.
Maybe we flip the script and imagine it’s how colonizers describe the colonized- the
language of the powerful to describe the scary unknown.
Barbarians!
But Herodotus seems to use it differently.
Book five and six of his histories involve, one, some Greeks in Anatolia rebelling against
the Persians, the Ionian Revolt.
And two, the Persian attempts to sack Athens and eventually Sparta.
But despite his obvious pro-Greek bias against the invaders, we get samples of balance.
During the Ionian resistance of Persia, we're told about how some Greeks burned a temple,
and that the Persians used this as justification for their burning of sanctuaries.
It's not so much a justification of Persian desecration of shrines as a non avoidance
of the Greeks doing it first.
(B5.102) We're also given a glimpse of the governing policies of the Persians after the
revolt was put down, namely some moderate imperial governance, including limited democracy.
Barbarians!
When discussing the planned Persian invasion of Sparta, Herodotus mentions stories of Helots,
kind of like Spartan serfs, forced labor.
(3,730) In a narrative that claims this was a war to maintain Greek independence, Persian
victory may have felt less like subjugation to the Helots- and perhaps more like an emancipation.
Barbarians!
In Herodotus, we even get an anecdote of a Persian king crying with compassion at the
fragility and ephemerality of the human condition.
Barbarian!
(13).
What are we to make of this?
The word barbarian carries a lot of baggage to us, but it might be useful to translate
the word as ‘foreigner’, less pejorative.
If that’s too far, take it on a case-by-case basis.
Pillaging imperial armies?
Barbarians!
Humanizing anecdote?
Foreigner!
Was Herodotus biased?
Yeah.
Was Herodotus a hopeless chauvinist xenophobe?
Naw man, I don’t think that’s likely.
(14)
Another thing that goes to Herodotus’s credit is that he often opted not to declare anything
as absolutely true.
He often wrote when he believed something to be true, and when not.
He reported some fantastical tales as reality, and expressed doubt about others.
It lends credibility because only siths deal in absolutes.
Here's an example of Herodotus giving a caveat.
He reported on a battle and writes: quote "I am unable to record precisely which Ionians
proved themselves to be cowards or brave and valiant men in this encounter, for they now
all reproach one another" (b6.14.494).
He’s basically saying, 'Man I don't know the truth.
They all argue!'
Another example: quote “I cannot say whether it was because the Athenians had dealt with
the heralds in this way...but in my opinion it was not on account of what they had done
to the heralds.”
(7.133) ‘Maybe it was this way, maybe it wasn’t.
He's more intellectually honest than his critics would have us believe.
He deserves the “Father of History” label.
On that note, if you’re interested in history, and have never spent time with Herodotus or
his intellectual successor, Thucydides, I can’t give a higher recommendation than
you should.
I’ll leave a link in the description.
Of course their works can be found for free online with various translations, but a Landmark
version offers thoughtful translation, guidance - maps.
It takes away some of your mental load so that you can enjoy the prose, the story, and
the genuine passion for knowledge that defines not only the mind of Herodotus, but so many
great writers whom we celebrate.
I see similarities between Herodotus’s Histories and Tolstoy’s War and Peace from over two
thousand years later: an ability to zoom in close, interpersonal, intimate - then skip
around, zoom out, describe a battle, then give an opinion, and finish with flourish.
There’s something else.
Herodotus’s Histories are beautiful in their imperfection.
Today, if you want to be a professional historian, a paper-writing scientist, a pop musician
- you have to go in a box, and create in a certain way that is recognized.
Innovate a tad, but don’t go too far.
The trail is traced.
But Herodotus wrote in a time which gave him freedom to iterate, to do something new, to
fall in love with people and places and put words about that love on paper.
And that’s all I really want to do in my life.
So I like reading him.
If that’s your vibe, you should read him too.
Later y’all.