Herodotus I

Father of History, Father of Lies, Herodotus marks the beginning of the Greco-Roman historiographic tradition. In this class, we will read portions of books 1 and 8 of the Histories in Greek, and sections of the rest of the work in English. Central issues will include the nature, methods, and principles of Herodotean historiography, his relationship to earlier poetic and prose traditions and to the intellectual and political climate of the fifth century BCE, and social, cultural, political issues raised by the work, and the historical events it chronicles--especially, but hardly limited to, the Persian Wars.