He wrote the Histories , a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars among other subjects such as the rise of the Achaemenid Dynasty of Cyrus , and was the first writer to apply the scientific method to historical events. He has been described as " The Father of History ", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero , [ 2 ] [ 3 ] and the " Father of Lies " by others.
The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon , Thermopylae , Artemisium , Salamis , Plataea , and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical , geographical , and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information.
Herodotus was criticized in his times for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides who covered the infamous Peloponnesian War in his History of the Peloponnesian War would separately accuse Herodotus of making up stories for entertainment. Herodotus retorted that he reported what he could see and what he was told.
Still, the challenge is great:. The data are so few — they rest upon such late and slight authority; they are so improbable or so contradictory, that to compile them into a biography is like building a house of cards, which the first breath of criticism will blow to the ground.
Still, certain points may be approximately fixed [ Herodotus was, according to his own statement, at the beginning of his work, a native of Halicarnassus in Anatolia , [ 7 ] and it is generally accepted that he was born there around BC. The Suda says his family was influential, that he was the son of Lyxes and Dryo and the brother of Theodorus, and that he was also related to Panyassis — an epic poet of the time.
