Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Ancient Greek Ἡρόδοτος [Hēródŏtŏs]; New Greek Ηρόδοτος; Latin Herodotus; Halicarnassus, 484 BC-Thurios, 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer, traditionally considered the father of history in the Western world and the first to compose a reasoned and structured account of human actions.

He dedicated part of his life to traveling to obtain the information and materials that allowed him to write a work of great historical and literary value. However, he received severe criticism, even from his contemporaries, for including in his I worked with anecdotes and digressions that, although they provided valuable information, had little to do with the object of study that had been proposed: the struggles of the Persians against the Greeks.

Work

Historiography

He is considered the father of historiography (the first time he is cited in this way is in the Ciceronian De legibus, 1, 5, 5) for his famous work Ἱστορίαι (Historiae, actually Historias, also known as Historia), literally “investigations, explorations” (from ἵστωρ, &# 39;to know, to know'), probably written in Turios, a Panhellenic colony located in Magna Graecia. The terminus post quem of the work is situated in the year 430 B.C. c.

The Historiae or Nine History Books are considered an important source by historians for being the first large-scale description of the ancient world and one of the first in prose Greek. The first paragraph announces:

οnοδότου ονλικαρνλιος ος ου ος οδειος.δε,.ος μος μος ειλειεισλισεισισενιενανιειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειειει

Herodoto of Halicarnaso presents here the results of his research so that time does not abate the memory of human actions and that the great companies seized, either by the Greeks, already by the barbarians, do not fall into oblivion; it also gives reason for the conflict that confronted these two peoples.

The set was divided into nine books by its Alexandrian publisher of the III or II a. C., one for each muse: Clio, Euterpe, Talia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polyhymnia, Urania and Calliope.

In them he accurately narrates the Medical Wars between Greece and Persia at the beginning of the V century a. C., with special emphasis on curious aspects of the towns and characters of each other, while describing the history, ethnography and geography of his time.

For his historical works he resorted to oral and written sources. When he mentions the former, he almost always alludes to his informants indefinitely ("according to the Persians...", "according to the Greeks..."; "some say... others, instead, maintain...»). The author himself was aware of the partial and unreliable nature of his sources, who wrote:

I see myself in the duty to refer to what is told to me, but not to believe everything to me; this statement is applicable to the whole of my work.

(VII, 151, 3)

Among the latter, three large groups can be made: a) data obtained from the poets, whom he knew well; b) inscriptions, official and administrative lists of the different States and oracles and, finally, c) information from logographers and the literature of his time.

Among the poets he cites Homer, Museo, Bacis, Olen, Aristeas, Archilochus, Aesop, Solon, Alcaeus, Sappho, Laso, Simonides of Ceos, Phrynicus, Aeschylus, Pindar and Anacreon.

Despite this poetic inspiration of Herodotus, perhaps influenced by his uncle Paniasis, from whom he assumes the idea of a powerless man before a divinity that punishes his faults and his pride (hubris), he shows himself often critical of such sources.

As for the second type of sources, he makes some naive interpretations of texts written in languages he does not know, such as hieroglyphics or other languages, depending on the not always reliable testimony of the interpreters or the characters consulted. On the other hand, the oracles, frequently commented post eventum, offer important dating problems.

The third type of sources is represented by the logographers, especially Hecataeus, and the pre-Socratic philosophers, some of whose ideas are quoted directly or indirectly. In general, he favors works of Ionian literature. Like Hecataeus, he is critical, rationalizing, or skeptical of mythical traditions.

His historical methodology is based on verisimilitude appealing to common sense, applied to the analysis of legendary or controversial traditions. He also uses the interpretatio graeca , Hellenizing strange customs and cultures of peoples that he does not know from the inside. He sometimes draws erroneous conclusions, for example, from the scarcity of lions compared to other animals, he infers that lionesses give birth to only one cub and only once in their lives. Furthermore, his ignorance of notions of military tactics and strategy is evident.

This lack of analytical rigor is due to the fact that he was still at the dawn of the historical genre, despite which, in Antiquity he was recognized as the «father of History». This is evidenced in his explanations of human events, in which the will of the gods is not absent.

His successor, Thucydides, will be the one who excludes all religious aspects and seeks a purely rational explanation, based on the cause-effect relationship. He analyzes historical events trying to understand the causes or reasons ( aitiai ) that have caused them, with a rigorous examination of the sources, beyond the mere collection of all kinds of traditions. Thucydides replaced the anecdotal and quasinovelesque treatment of the past with the methodical analysis of the present.

While Herodotus titled his work Historie, as the fruit and result of his personal investigations in situ, Thucydides would not call his work that way; the former was heir to the Ionian logography (writes in Ionian), while the latter was heir to the sophists, and the Athenian sophistical school (writes in Attic).

Geography

Reconstruction of the map of the Ecúmene de Herodoto, circa 450 a. C.

Geographically, Herodotus recorded an ecumene that stretched from Sudan to central Europe and from India on its eastern border to Iberia on the west. During the VI century B.C. C. the control that the Carthaginians had of their commercial routes through the western Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar prevented him from knowing this part of the world and the Atlantic coasts of Europe firsthand, so many of his observations come from other sources..

Division of the work

In ancient times works were kept on papyrus scrolls. The text of the works was distributed in several rolls, of more or less similar length, and taking into account its division by chapters, but it did not coincide with the original thematic separation. The tendency was to make rolls of 6 or 7 meters, which formed a cylinder of 5 to 6 cm in diameter, comfortable to carry in the hand.

There are strong indications that Herodotus originally offered his work as a collection of twenty-eight subjects, called in Greek logoi. Its length would be adequate for public recitation.

The original division would be as follows:

• Book 1
  • Logo 1: History of Cressus (1.1-94)
    • text: Candaules, his wife, and Giges de Lidia
    • text: the story of Arion
  • Logo 2: Cyrus the Great arises (1.95-140)
  • Logo 3: events in Babylon and Persia (1,141-216)
    • text: take of Babylon

• Book 2
  • Logo 4: geography of Egypt (2.1-34)
  • Logo 5: customs and animals of Egypt (2.35-99)
    • text: Egyptian customs
    • text: hypopotamus
    • text: mummification
  • Logo 6: history of Egypt (2100-182)
    • text: the bas-relieve of Sesostris

• Book 3
  • Logo 7: Conquista de Egypt por Cambises (3.1-60)
    • text: the skulls of Pelusio
    • text: the cambises madness
  • Logo 8: the blows of the Magi and of Darius (3.61-119, 126-141, 150-160)
    • text: list of satraps
    • text: gold extracting ants
    • text: the edges of the Earth
    • text: end of Intafrenes
    • text: the mantle of Siloson
    • text: the taking of Babylon
  • Logo 9: events in Samos (3.39-60, 120-125, 142-149)

• Book 4
  • Logo 10: country and customs of the Escitas (4.1-82)
    • text: the circumnavigation of Africa
  • Logo 11: Persian campaign against scites (4.83-144)
  • Logo 12: Persian Conquest of Libya (4.145-205)
    • text: the Nasamones (4.172-173)

• Book 5
  • Logo 13: Persian Conquest of Thrace (5.1-28)
  • Logo 14: beginnings of the Jonia rebellion; events in Sparta (5.28-55)
    • text: Dorieo story
    • text: the Camino Real
  • Logo 15: Events in Athens (5.55-96)
  • Logo 16: The Jeonic Revolt (5.97-126)

• Book 6
  • Logo 17: Persian reconquest of Jonia (6.1-42)
  • Logo 18: Events in Greece (6.43-93)
    • text: the history of Glauco
  • Logo 19: Marathon Battle (6.94-140)

• Book 7
  • Logo 20: Persian preparations (7.1-55)
    • text: Stirpe de Jerjes
    • text: channel of Jerjes
    • text: Subjects in Abidos
  • Logo 21: Persians Cross Europe (7.56-137)
  • Logo 22: Thermopill Battle (7.138-239)
    • text: Greek spies in Sardes
    • text: Battle of Hermera
    • text: Thermopilas topography
    • text: Thermopilas Battle

• Book 8
  • Logo 23: naval battle of Artemisio (8.1-39)
  • Logo 24: naval battle of Salamina (8.40-96)
  • Logo 25: Winter of 480 (8.97-144)
    • text: the kingdom of Macedonia

• Book 9
  • Logo 26: Battle of Platea (9.1-89)
  • Logo 27: release of Jonia (9.90-113)
  • Logo 28: founding of the Athenian Empire (9.114-122)

Language and style

As the History is the first surviving Greek prose work, it is not surprising that the main characteristics of its style are simplicity and archaism. Aristotle already defined his way of writing as "ordered or concatenated style" (λέξις εἰρομένη). Herodotus was very concrete writing and avoided abstractions; he fixed on perceptible data. Hence the clear and simple language of him that was a reason for admiration in Antiquity. However, his style supposes a higher degree of elaboration than that of Hecataeus, characterized by cumulative and coordinated structures. The speeches of the last three books of Herodotus, although they do not outline the psychology of the speaker, are characterized by their historical tension and the rhetorical norms of the time.

On the other hand, the influence of epic and narrative genres in his style is notable. Longinus in his treatise the sublime calls him ὁμηρικώτατος: «great imitator of Homer» (13, 3). There are epic reminiscences in the phraseology, in the almost literal repetition of statements, in the use of patronymics, in the use of literary conventions and topics, in conceptual similarities such as the replacement of intensity by repetition, in the use of structures such as inclusive ring composition, although the most used by him is the anaphoric, etc.

As for the language, Herodotus composed his work in the Ionic dialect with some atticisms.

Writings

1. The Nine Books of History. The prologue analyzes the ancient relations between Asia Minor and Greece: Io raptada por los fenicios; Europe and Media by the Greeks; Helena by the Trojans. The nine books each bear the name of the nine muses of art:
   1. Clío: the victory of Cyrus II the Great over the Lidium Creso, the conquest of Assyria and the Masageta people.
   2. Euterpe: the conquest of Egypt by Bambises II (son of Cyrus).
   3. Talia: the reign of Darius I.
   4. Melpomene: the reign of Darius I.
   5. Terpsícore: the first medical war (the jonic revolt and digressions on the history of Sparta and Athens).
   6. Eratus: the first medical war (the reaction of the Greeks and the victory of Marathon).
   7. Polimnia: the second medical war.
   8. Urania: the second medical war.
   9. Calíope: the second medical war.
2. Libic events (disappeared).
3. Assyrian facts (disappeared).

Steganography

Probably one of the oldest examples of the use of steganography is the one referred to by Herodotus in The Histories. In this book, he describes how a character took a two-leaf booklet or tablet, scratched well the wax that covered them and on the wood itself he engraved the message and covered it again with regular wax. Another story, in the same book, relates how another character had shaved the head of his most trusted slave with a razor, tattooed the message on his scalp, then waited for his hair to grow back, and sent it to the recipient of the message. message, with instructions to have his head shaved.

Eponymy

• The lunar crater Herodotus bears this name in his memory.
• The asteroid (3092) Herodotus was also called in his honor.