Herodotus (in ancient Greek Ἡρόδοτος / Hêródotos), born around 484 or 482 BC. J.-C. in Halicarnassus (Greek colony located on the territory of the Carians), currently Bodrum (Turkey), died around 425 BC. J.-C. in Thourioi, is a Greek historian. He was nicknamed the “father of History” by Cicero (the Laws, I, 1), but also of reporting; he is also considered one of the first explorers. He is also the first prose writer whose work has remained with us.
Little is known to us about the life of Herodotus. Most of what is known is taken from his own works. Notes have been dedicated to him by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Lucian or Suidas.
Son of Lyxes, he was probably born shortly after the start of the Second Persian War (480 BC). He is a member of an aristocratic family that claims Dorian ancestry, but whose Greek (maternal) blood is probably mixed with Carian (paternal) blood. He is undoubtedly the nephew of Panyasis, an eminent epic poet, who was then compared to Homer, but the real relationship is not known with certainty. In his youth, he followed his family, opponents of the tyrant Lygdamis, into exile in Samos.
It is around this time that we must place the main travels of Herodotus which he reported on in his Inquiry:a stay in Egypt ("Egypt is a gift from the Nile", II, 10) with a trip to Cyrene and a return via Syria and Tyre, a brief visit to the Persian Empire, Babylon, Colchis and Olbia, Macedonia. None of these trips seem to have taken him to the Western Mediterranean.
Returning to Halicarnassus, Caria, around 454 BC. AD, he participated in the insurrection that overthrew tyranny. Shortly after, he was again worried and settled in Athens where he became friends with Sophocles, who wrote a poem in his honor in 450 BC. AD (fragments have been preserved by Plutarch). He then follows the colonists who, at the instigation of Pericles, leave to found Thourioi, in Magna Graecia. This is probably where he died around 425 BC. AD
Works
The only work that we know of by Herodotus is called the Inquiry, from the Greek / Historíai - literally "research, exploration", "he who knows, who knows". It is one of the longest works of antiquity. The first paragraph announces:
“Herodotus of Halicarnassus presents here the results of his Inquiry so that time does not abolish the memory of the actions of men and that the great exploits accomplished either by the Greeks or by the Barbarians do not fall into oblivion; it also gives the reason for the conflict which brought these two peoples to grips. »
This beginning shows Herodotus' desire to place himself in the tradition of Hecataeus of Miletus:it is a question of dealing with all men as indicated by the use of the term ἀνθρώπων / anthrốpôn and which is underlined by the complementarity:" both the Greeks and the Barbarians. It is also a question of doing the work of a memoirist:"so that time does not abolish the work of men". Finally, Herodotus claims to rival the epic poet, by proposing to commemorate the exploits of men. Nevertheless, unlike the bard, Herodotus does not intend to describe distant events, such as the Trojan War, but very recent events, in particular the Persian Wars.
From the point of view of language, Herodotus wrote his work in the Ionian dialect, a sometimes artificial Ionian (and artificially reconstituted by the publishers), mixed with epic archaisms imitated from Homer.
Herodotus also participated in the development of the list of the Seven Wonders of the World, thanks to his many travels. He says in particular of the enclosure of Babylon (in his History):"It is so magnificent that we do not know one that can be compared to it", and he speaks of Babylon thus:"This city, located in a great plain , is square in shape; each of its sides is one hundred and twenty stadia long, which makes for the enclosure of the place four hundred and eighty stadia. ".
Composition
The Inquiry consists of nine books, each bearing the name of a muse. This division is not the work of the author:the first mention of it is due to Diodorus of Sicily in the 1st century, and it was probably in the 2nd century, due to Alexandrian grammarians, that the work was thus sectioned.
* Prologue:the kidnappings that took place between Asia Minor and Greece:Io kidnapped by the Phoenicians; Europe and Medea by the Greeks; Helen by the Trojans.
* Books I to IV:developments of the Persian Empire:
o book I:(Clio) victory of Cyrus II over the Lydian Croesus, conquest of Assyria and the people of the Massagetae;
o book II:(Euterpe) conquest of Egypt by Cambyses II, son of Cyrus;
o Books III and IV:(Thalia and Melpomene) reign of Darius.
* Books V and VI:First Persian War:
o Book V:(Terpsichore ) revolt of Ionia, digressions on the history of Sparta and Athens;
o book VI:(Erato) reaction of the Greeks, victory of Marathon.
* Books VII to IX:(Polymnia, Urania and Calliope) Second Persian War.
The work mixes ethnographic and strictly historical elements. We could wonder about this coexistence. We can recognize in this collection of composite elements the heritage of Hecataeus, other commentators (Henry R. Immerwahr) have on the contrary insisted on the profound unity of the work.
Posterity of the work
Herodotus' style is simple, pleasant and picturesque, sometimes naive, sometimes poetic. He was an admirer of Homer - Dionysius of Halicarnassus described him as "Homer's zealot" (Ὁμήρου ζηλωτής / Homếrou zêlôtếs). Plutarch, while acknowledging these qualities, nevertheless finds him greatly biased and has devoted an entire treatise, On Herodotus' Bad Faith (Περὶ τῆς Ἡροδότου Κακοηθείας / Peri tês Hêrodotou kakoêtheias), to show that he is unjust with the Greeks:
“It has deceived many readers by its very simplicity; it would take many books to review all of his lies and speculations. »
These accusations are exaggerated:the naivety and credulity of Herodotus, although real, are generally confined to the anecdotes of which he is fond. On the other hand, when he finds no trace of the Hyperboreans mentioned in Greek legends, he makes a point of mentioning it.
The fact is that the Ancients, far from seeing in him the "Father of History", did not appreciate him. Aristotle qualifies him as a “mythologist” in his Poetics, and Aulu-Gelle calls him a fabulator (homo fabulator); Plutarch finds him too close to the Barbarians (philobarbaros).
The Renaissance, the first, looked again at the work of Herodotus, with a much more benevolent look this time. Thus, Henri Estienne responds to Plutarch with an Apology for Herodotus. The popularity of Herodotus will therefore increase. Abbé Barthélemy, author of Voyage du Jeune Anarchasis en Grece (1788), a very popular work in his time, wrote that it “opened the annals of the known universe to the eyes of the Greeks. »