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How did Herodotus get the information for his history of the Persian Wars?
Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus’s own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, such as the Byzantine Suda, an 11th-century encyclopedia which possibly took its information from traditional accounts.
Did Herodotus write about the Persian war?
So far as we know, he also wrote only one work, The Histories, a lengthy investigation of the Persian Wars (490-479 BCE), the epic struggle between the much smaller Greek city-states of the West and their foe to the East, the enormous Persian Empire.
Why is Herodotus considered the first true historian?
Herodotus has been called the “father of history.” An engaging narrator with a deep interest in the customs of the people he described, he remains the leading source of original historical information not only for Greece between 550 and 479 BCE but also for much of western Asia and Egypt at that time.
What is the purpose of Herodotus histories?
His principal aim was to explain the unlikely Greek victory against the much stronger Persian army in the so-called Persian Wars that ravaged the Greek world between 500 and 449 BCE. For his pioneering critical enquiry into the past he was named “father of history” by Cicero.
Is Herodotus a reliable source for the Battle of Thermopylae?
Sources. The primary source for the Greco-Persian Wars is the Greek historian Herodotus. The Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the 1st century BC in his Bibliotheca historica, also provides an account of the Greco-Persian wars, partially derived from the earlier Greek historian Ephorus.
What is historically significant about Hesiod’s Works and Days?
Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet, whose Works and Days introduced the concept of Ages of Man. This system divided human history into five eras, each defined by a different race. The Golden Age was pure and good, and people lived without labor. Ultimately, Hesiod’s works have lasted even into our days.