“Here is the account,” the work begins, “of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus in order that the deeds of men not be erased by time, and that the great and miraculous works–both of the Greeks and the barbarians-not go unrecorded.”

In part, “The Histories” was a straightforward account of the wars. Herodotus spent his entire life working on just one project: an account of the origins and execution of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–479 B.C.) that he called “The Histories.” (It’s from Herodotus’ work that we get the modern meaning of the word “history.”) In 445 B.C., the people of Athens voted to give him a prize of 10 talents-almost $200,000 in today’s money-to honor him for his contributions to the city’s intellectual life. He gave readings in public places and collected fees from officials for his appearances. When Herodotus was not traveling, he returned to Athens there, he became something of a celebrity. While he traveled, Herodotus collected what he called “autopsies,” or “personal inquiries”: He listened to ancient myths and legends, recorded oral histories and made notes of the places and things that he saw. Herodotus sailed through the Hellespont to the Black Sea and kept going until he hit the Danube River. He headed to Macedonia and visited all the islands of the Greek Archipelago: Rhodes, Cyprus, Delos, Paros, Thasos, Samothrace, Crete, Samos, Cythera and Aegina. He crossed the Mediterranean to Egypt and traveled through Palestine to Syria and Babylon. Instead of settling in one place, Herodotus spent his life traveling from one Persian territory to another. After that, however, the writer never returned to his home city again.ĭid you know? In 443 B.C., Herodotus joined a group of Athenians who set out to colonize a city, Thurii, in southern Italy.

When he was a young man, Herodotus returned briefly to Halicarnassus to take part in an abortive anti-Persian rebellion. Herodotus’ family opposed Lygdamis’ rule and was sent into exile on the island of Samos. In the middle of the 6th century B.C., Halicarnassus became a satrapy, or province, of the Persian Empire and was ruled by the tyrant Lygdamis. (The Carians, of Minoan descent, had arrived in that part of Asia Minor before the Greeks had.) He came from a wealthy and cosmopolitan Greek-Carian merchant family. in the Greek city of Halicarnassus, a lively commercial center on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor.

The Histories by Herodotus