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Herodotus: Works
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Much of what is known of Herodotus' life has been gathered from his own work. Additional details have been garnered from the Suda, an 11th-century encyclopaedia of Byzantium; it seems likely that the Suda took its information from traditional accounts. Born in Halicarnassus, the Suda claims him to be the son of Lyxes and Dryo, and the brother of Theodorus, and that he was ... related to Panyassis, an epic poet of the time. According to this account, after being exiled from Halicarnassus by the tyrant Lygdamis, Herodotus went to live at Samos. Later returning to Halicarnassus, Herodotus took part in the removal of Lygdamis from the city. The traditional biography also includes some time spent in Athens, and has Herodotus joining a Hellenic colony named Thurii in Southern Italy.
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Herodotus may have been at the forefront of the historical revolution in Greece, but he clearly was descendent from a long literary line. Herodotus makes the jump from the epic poems of Homer to secular history, but he does not forget the roots from which his genre came. It is possible that Herodotus employed the same structures and methods of the epic poet because of the similarities in their work. Herodotus was not a blind poet, but his did tell a tale. He was not honored as telling the stories of gods and men, but he still sought to make a living by entertaining others. Herodotus used tried and true methods of telling a great story, and incorporated them into his History when it was committed to paper.
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In the lifetime of Herodotus the writing of history, and indeed of prose of any sort, was still something of a novelty. The earliest writings in prose had been the work of a group of Greek intellectuals from the Ionian cities of Asia Minor who, from about 550 B.C. onward, wrote works on science and philosophy or on historical subjects. However, at this early date there were as yet few clear-cut distinctions between the various disciplines, and historical writing included much that today would be regarded rather as the concern of the geographer, the anthropologist, or the economist. Herodotus was heir to this tradition, and he was greatly influenced by his few predecessors, and especially by the ablest of them, Hecataeus of Miletus.
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Herodotus draws the reader into his work through the use of other old-time epic devices. In the text of his work, the words and forms he uses ... serve the same purpose. He consistently uses the second person singular in his work, almost as though he were talking to the reader personally. For instance, when discussing his (erroneous) belief that all Persian names end in "-s" he writes, "On searching this out, you will find no exceptions to this among their names."<76> This also allows Herodotus to permit his readers to hold different beliefs, by showing the existence of different points of view (I believe this, while you can believe that), a "form of presentation rarely found in other historians."<77>
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[T]o call Herodotus a ‘historian’ may be imposing on the term somewhat because of his style and bias. His accounts might easily be compared to the works of Homer (circa 850 B.C.) who mixed fact with fiction in his Iliad. after all, it was Catholicism which called it mythology. At any rate, the Iliad was based on at least some historical facts which the 1870 discovery of Troy (ruins) further confirmed.
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Herodotus traveled extensively to gather first-hand information about world events and once, after having visited Tyre, sailed all the way back there just to verify one single fact. He ... stated in his books that much of what he wrote was 'based on hearsay, mingled with.... my own observation', and said further, "It is my duty to repeat what is said, but to believe unreservedly is not; this remark applies to all my work."
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