Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus, on the southwest
coast of Asia Minor, in the early part of the fifth
century, B. C. Of his life we know almost nothing,
except that he spent much of it traveling, to collect
the material for his writings, and that he finally
settled down at Thurii, in southern Italy, where his
great work was composed. He died in 424 B. C.
The subject of the history of Herodotus is the struggle
between the Greeks and the barbarians, which he brings
down to the battle of Mycale in 479 B. C. The work,
as we have it, is divided into nine books, named after
the nine Muses, but this division is probably due to
the Alexandrine grammarians. His information
he gathered mainly from oral sources, as he traveled
through Asia Minor, down into Egypt, round the Black
Sea, and into various parts of Greece and the neighboring
countries. The chronological narrative halts from
time to time to give opportunity for descriptions
of the country, the people, and their customs and
previous history; and the political account is constantly
varied by rare tales and wonders.
Among these descriptions of countries the most fascinating
to the modern, as it was to the ancient, reader is
his account of the marvels of the land of Egypt.
From the priests at Memphis, Heliopolis, and the Egyptian
Thebes he learned what he reports of the size of the
country, the wonders of the Nile, the ceremonies of
their religion, the sacredness of their animals.
He tells also of the strange ways of the crocodile
and of that marvelous bird, the Phoenix; of dress and
funerals and embalming; of the eating of lotos and
papyrus; of the pyramids and the great labyrinth;
of their kings and queens and courtesans.
Yet Herodotus is not a mere teller of strange tales.
However credulous he may appear to a modern judgment,
he takes care to keep separate what he knows by his
own observation from what he has merely inferred and
from what he has been told. He is candid about
acknowledging ignorance, and when versions differ
he gives both. Thus the modern scientific historian,
with other means of corroboration, can sometimes learn
from Herodotus more than Herodotus himself knew.
There is abundant evidence, too, that Herodotus had
a philosophy of history. The unity which marks
his work is due not only to the strong Greek national
feeling running through it, the feeling that rises
to a height in such passages as the descriptions of
the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis,
but also to his profound belief in Fate and in Nemesis.
To his belief in Fate is due the frequent quoting of
oracles and their fulfilment, the frequent references
to things foreordained by Providence. The working
of Nemesis he finds in the disasters that befall men
and nations whose towering prosperity awakens the jealousy
of the gods. The final overthrow of the Persians,
which forms his main theme, is only one specially
conspicuous example of the operation of this force
from which human life can never free itself.
