Knowra Herodotus Herodotus Herodotus was a fifth-century BCE Greek historian whose Histories narrate the Greco-Persian Wars and describe the peoples and places of the known world.
Histories : Herodotus’s prose work investigates the causes of the Greco-Persian Wars and recounts their events. This is Herodotus’s surviving work and the basis for his reputation as a historian.
Oral tradition : The transmission of stories, knowledge, or customs through speech across generations. Herodotus often records accounts that circulated orally before or alongside his written work.
Cyrus the Great : The founder of the Achaemenid Empire, who ruled Persia from 559 to 530 BCE. Herodotus recounts Cyrus’s rise and conquest of neighboring kingdoms.
Cicero : A Roman statesman and writer of the first century BCE, known for speeches and philosophical works in Latin. Cicero called Herodotus the father of history, a label that endured in later reception.
Greco-Persian Wars : A series of conflicts in which Greek city-states resisted invasions by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. These wars provide the Histories’ central narrative and stated subject.
Ethnography : The systematic description and interpretation of the customs and social life of a people. His accounts of foreign customs give the Histories much of its ethnographic character.
Croesus : The sixth-century BCE king of Lydia, renowned in Greek tradition for his wealth and defeat by Cyrus. Herodotus uses Croesus’s story to introduce the conflict between Greeks and Persians.
Plutarch : A Greek biographer and essayist of the first and second centuries CE, author of Parallel Lives and Moralia. His essay On the Malice of Herodotus contests the historian’s treatment of Greek cities and leaders.
Achaemenid Empire : The Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great that ruled much of western and central Asia from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. Herodotus describes its rulers, customs, campaigns, and subject peoples.
Logos : A Greek term whose meanings include speech, account, explanation, and rational argument. Herodotus uses the term for the narratives and accounts he reports or evaluates.
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