"History" of Herodotus: the first scientific work on world history

"History" of Herodotus - the famous ancient Greek scientist and traveler - is rightfully considered the world's first scientific historical work. Gathering in his travels extensive material on the origin, geography, mythology, everyday life and customs of various nations, he wrote a fundamental work, which to this day serves as one of the main sources of the history of the ancient world. The reliability of many of the information presented by the Greek author on the pages of the nine-volume work was repeatedly confirmed by archaeologists, ethnographers and geographers of subsequent generations.

The predecessors of Herodotus: logographers

It is believed that the birth of history as a science occurred precisely in ancient society. Before that, people also tried in various ways to describe events that had happened before (examples are a number of Bible books, various annals and chronicles). These works, which preceded scientific historical works, are usually called "historiography".

Long before the "History" of Herodotus was written, ancient Greek historical prose was represented by works of logographs - authors, combining the presentation of real events with myths, legends and geographical descriptions of the places in question. The first logographer is considered to be Cadma from Miletus, who lived in the VI century BC. Today's science also knows the names of Hecataeus of Miletus, Akusilai of Argos, Charon of Lampsac, Xanthus of Lydia.

The works of these authors were characterized by an artistic form. Although they were written in prose, they retained many imitations of poetic Hellenic speech. Sources for logographers were epic legends and lyrics, local chronicles and chronicles, their own observations, as well as stories of travelers, merchants, sailors who had visited distant wanderings. The chronological constructions on which logographers relied were very inaccurate, however, they were the first to use the lists of kings and officials in the description of historical events , introduced the concept of "century" equal to a hundred years or three "generations". Paying considerable attention to myths and genealogy, they also processed rich historical material, significantly deepened into various ethnographic and geographical aspects. Nevertheless, the main thing for them was not the search for historical truth, but the art of verbal expression, therefore the works of logographers are still considered not as scientific, but as narrative fiction.

Herodotus: biography

The first work, which is usually considered historical, was created by the Greek scientist and thinker Herodotus. History has not retained much information about the biography of this great man.

The period of his life is considered to be 484 (5) - 425 years BC. He was born in the Doric city of Halicarnassus (in the west of Asia Minor) in a noble and rich family. In his youth he took part in the political struggle of the aristocracy against the tyrant ruler, did not succeed in this and along with many others had to go into exile.

At first, Herodotus settled on the island of Samos - one of the most influential and richest Ionian islands, which controls the entire western part of the Mediterranean Sea. The clever and educated youth soon learned the history, language, the state structure of this land and could well have remained on Samos to live - however, he preferred to go on a journey further.

Travels of Herodotus

Herodotus's plans were to write a history of the Greco-Persian wars. He wanted to uncover the secrets of the strength of the Persian army - to understand exactly how this multinational and multilingual army could interact so successfully. Wanting to tell what other scientists did not know and what other scientists did not say, he spent a lot of time traveling - watching, meditating, describing, communicating with people.

First he went to Cyprus and to Tire, where he spoke with the priests, then visited the south - in Gaza, where he went to Egypt. Having descended the Nile to Siena, he went to the Red Sea to learn, to hear and to see with his own eyes as much as possible about the world around him, for that was what Herodotus wanted.

The history of his travels continued in the East: the scientist overcame a huge distance from Libya to Assyria, Babylon and Ecbatana. After that, he returned to Asia Minor, then went to the Hellespont and the lands of the Northern Black Sea coast, along which he went right up to Olbia, the colony of Miletus. He visited Herodotus and Greek cities in the Balkans. He confirmed his wanderings by the names of people he saw in those places. In 444 BC he went to the Olympic Games in Athens, where he publicly read out his works. For this he received from the Greeks a huge reward for those times - ten talents (about three hundred kilograms of gold).

After this event, he took an active part in the founding of the Greeks by the colony in Furiyah. Impressed with the culture of this people, he became an ardent supporter of their state structure, took citizenship and stayed in the colony. It was in Furiyah somewhere between 430-425 BC that he died, leaving behind him the only, but the greatest work, the very first scientist-historian known to mankind - Herodotus.

"History": a summary

The scientist combined the results of his works into one voluminous work, written in a lively, colorful language, which confirms the author's uncommon level of mastery in the genre of the artistic story. The time of writing the work of the researchers established only approximately: between 427-421 BC.

"History" of Herodotus in the form we know it today, consists of nine books and (formally) a separate introduction. Each of the books is entitled in honor of one of the ancient Greek muses. The division of the text into books occurred later as a result of the processing of the work by the grammars of Alexandria. The introduction contains data on the name of the author of the work and reveals the main goals of his work.

The work of Herodotus tells of the Greco-Persian wars and customs of ancient peoples. It contains a lot of information about the history of ancient countries (Lydia, Media, Egypt, Persia, Scythia), their relations with the Greeks and with each other. Combining the description of events with his reflections on the above, the "father of history" Herodotus for the first time critically treated the sources on which he relied on writing his work, and also systematized the facts. To describe the vast geographic and anthropological deviations, he first of all used the observations made by himself.

"History" of Herodotus: meaning

The work of Herodotus caused an ambiguous attitude among those who followed in his footsteps, continuing to develop historical science. Some called the great author "the father of history," others accused him of lying, finding inaccuracies in work and misinterpreted events.

However, many scientific studies conducted centuries later, and - above all - archaeological discoveries, proved that most of the judgments of Herodotus, set forth in his "History", were true. And today his work is of great value not only in the historical, but also in the artistic, cultural, literary sense, which makes Herodotus one of the most interesting ancient authors.