Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE): Greek researcher and author, the world's first historian. In The Histories, he describes the expansion of the Achaemenid empire under its kings Cyrus the Great, Cambyses and Darius I the Great, culminating in king…
At the beginning of the first book of hi Histories, Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus tells the story of the coup d'état of the Lydian ruler Gyges. The entire story, with three actors, appears to be based on a play.…
In October 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus took Babylon, the ancient capital of an empire covering modern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. In a broader sense, Babylon was the ancient world's capital of scholarship and science. The subject provinces…
Herodotusoffers a strange description: everything is the reversal of a custom that existed in Greece. The explanation is that the ancient Greeks believed that the barbarians on the edges of the earth were the opposite of the civilized people in…
The story of Glaucus illustrates Herodotus' use of the digressions. The main line of his account is about the Spartan king Leotychidas, who demands back several prisoners from the Athenians, but Herodotus makes the king tell a story to make…
Battle of Himera (480 BCE): decisive Syracusan victory over the Carthaginians, which secured Syracuse's hegemonial position in the fifth century. This is the translation of Herodotus, Histories 7.165-167, made by G.C. Macaulay.The story which here follows is also reported by those…
According to Herodotus - and all ancient people - the edges of the earth were the parts of the world where fabulous creatures and savage barbarians lived. Herdotus' ideas are offered here in the translation by Aubrey de Sélincourt.
One of the most fantastic stories by Herodotus is his account of the gold-digging ants in India, which has unexpectedly found confirmation.
The gold digging "ants"
[3.102] Besides these, there are Indians of another tribe, who border on the city of Caspatyrus,…
The Greek researcher and storyteller Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE) was the world's first historian. In The Histories, he describes the expansion of the Achaemenid empire under its kings Cyrus the Great, Cambyses and Darius I the Great, culminating…
The story of the skulls of Pelusium illustrates Herodotus' use of evidence: he has checked the facts for himself. His explanation is obviously wrong, but at least he knows what he is talking about and is not repeating a story…