The Histories of Herodotus is one of the first accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Herodotus portrays the conflict as one between the forces of slavery (the Persians) on the one hand, and freedom (the Athenians and the confederacy of Greek city-states which united against the invaders) on the other. The Histories is now considered the founding work of history in Western literature. Written in 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known in Western Asia, Northern Africa and Greece at that time. Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West’s most important sources regarding these affairs.
About the author
Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire. He is often referred to as ‘The Father of History’, a title first conferred by Cicero. Herodotus was the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation—specifically, by collecting his materials systematically and critically, and then arranging them into a historiographic narrative. The only work which he is known to have produced is ‘The Histories’, a record of his ‘inquiry’ on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars.
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