HERODOTUS
THE
FATHER OF
HISTORY
Or
THE FATHER
OF LIES
The History of History
Oral Tradition
Pre History
Organized
Narrative
5th Century
onwards
Enlightenment
-rational
thought,
detracted from
religious
thought
18th century
Academic
Discipline
-impact of
science
19th century
Crisis
Annales,
Women’s
History
Post
Modernism
20th century
Overcome the
crisis
Broader view
of History
21st century
Increasing professionalism and more democratic
HISTORIOGRAPHY
• ‘the history of any event is never
precisely the same thing to two
different persons and it is well
known that every generation
writes the same history in a new
way, and puts upon it a new
construction’
• Carl Becker
FRAMEWORK
• HISTORIAN- BRIEF BIO
• PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• CONSTRUCTION, LINEAR OR MULTIPLE
NARRATIVES, ANALYTICAL ( HOW )
• LANGUAGE AND STYLE ( HOW )
• PURPOSE ( WHY?)
• HISTORICAL TECHNIQUES ( METHODOLOGY)
• ARTICLES FROM READINGS AND SIGNIFICANT
QUOTES
CONTEXTUAL BIAS
• Historians work reflect their personal , social
and historical context
• Personal Context will be anything that has
happened in the individuals life that may impact
on their view and writing of history
• Social Context will include any social, cultural
or political aspects of the time
• Historical Context is the broadest and includes
changing ways of writing, viewing events and
wars and philosophical understanding
PERSONAL CONTEXT
• • 484?-425 BC, Greek historian, known as the father of history,
• Born in Halicarnassus, Believed to have been exiled from
Halicarnassus about 457 BC for conspiring against Persian rule.
He traveled throughout Asia Minor, Babylonia ,Egypt, and
Greece. The direction and extent of his travels are not precisely
known, but they provided him with valuable firsthand knowledge
of virtually the entire ancient Middle East.
• • About 447 BC he went to Athens, then the center and focus of
culture in the Greek world, where he won the admiration of the
most illustrious men of Greece, including the great Athenian
statesman Pericles.
• WHAT ASPECTS OF HIS PERSONAL LIFE MIGHT IMPACT ON
HIS WRITING???
SOCIAL CONTEXT
• The universe, he believed, is ruled by Fate
and Chance, and nothing is stable in human
affairs.
• Moral choice is still important, since the gods punish
the arrogant.
This attempt to draw moral lessons from the
study of great events formed the basis of the
Greek and Roman historiographical tradition
Herodotus as an elite saw and wrote about the events
of the upper classes and significant individuals
ORAL PURPOSE; HOMERIC TRADITION
• In Herodotus' time his
works were mostly
given orally to the
public. As not
everybody could read
and the price of
reproducing the works
were cost prohibitive.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• The 5th century saw conflict between the
Persian empire and the Greek States
between 490-478 BC
• The next 40 years saw the growth of
Athenian Power and Democracy
• The final years saw Athens and Sparta
engage in the Peloponnesian Wars with
Sparta as the victor
5TH CENTURY GREECE
PURPOSE
"These are the researches of Herodotus of
Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the
hope of thereby preserving form decay the
remembrace of what men have done, and of
preventing the great and wonderful actions
of the Greeks and the foreigners from
losing their due need of glory; and withal to
put on record what were their grounds of
feud."
COMMEMMORATIVE
FOCUS AND CONSTRUCTION
• The History has been divided by later authors into nine
parts.
– The earlier books deal with the customs, legends,
history, and traditions of the peoples of the ancient
world, including the Lydians, Scythians, Medes,
Persians, Assyrians, and Egyptians.
– The last three books describe the armed conflicts
between Greece and Persia in the early 5th century BC.
– In the History the development of civilization moves
inexorably toward a great confrontation between Persia
and Greece, which are presented as the centers,
respectively, of Eastern and Western culture.
METHODOLOGIES
• Herodotus's information was derived in
part from the work of predecessors, but it
was widely supplemented with knowledge
that he had gained from his own extensive
travels.
Herodotus, we are told consulted witnesses and examined
monuments whenever possible but
introduced an extraneous element into his historical thinking
in relying also on dreams, oracles
and portents. (undermines the historical work)
• Although he was sometimes inaccurate,
he was generally careful to separate
plausible reports from implausible ones.
In THE Words of Herodotus
• “There is a story that the Priestess also revealed to him
the systems of government which obtains at Sparta
today but the Lacaedemonians themselves say that
Lycurgus brought it from Crete”
• “The following are certain Persian customs which I can
describe from personal knowledge.”
• Persian fleet on its way to Greece-they were caught by
a violent northerly gale…..a great many of them were
driven ashore and wrecked on Athos- indeed reports
say that something like three hundred were lost with
over 20,000 men. The sea in the neighbourhood of
Athos is full of monsters….were seized and devoured.”
• “So much for the Argive account…there is however
another story current in Greece.
• For my own part I cannot positively say that Xerxes
either did or did not send the messengers to Argos…”
Anne Curthoys Is History Fiction?
• “ Herodotus constructs the Histories in terms of a free
wheeling multiplicity of genres, which like the many
stories he tells, play off against each other, sometimes
tragic, ironic, comic.”
• What characterizes The Histories as a project of
historical writing and so what launches Western
historical writing, is its doubleness; the concern for
history as a field, a discipline, an enquiry, with
associated research protocols, combined with the
interest in storytelling…..Herodotus does not confine
history to an area or field of focus, rather establishing
historical writing as freely economic, political, diplomatic,
social sexual, religious, military or naval.”