Herodotus Dissertation Example

Herodotus

Herodotus’ account of the Persian wars is very reliable and comprehensive. He writes reports of Greco-Persian wars by moving cross Asia and Greece. He listens to all the stories from people about the war in a logical manner, a thing no historian has done before (Marincola 110). Covering all these historical events comprehensively sets standards for other historians so that by researching, he will create a reliable account of the past activities. In his work, he makes a lot of effort to get the real facts and also analyze and understand the cause of events that is still unknown to many. His work is based on substantial research, traveling the world widely and interviewing thousands of people and going to the extent of comparing two or more versions of activity. Conducting extensive research and observing things on the ground makes his work outstanding and very objective. On giving an account of a Persian war, Herodotus gathers information from several reliable resources, focusing on varying aspects and using different context types to tell the story. Therefore, by analyzing his ancient sources, we can get a comprehensive and reliable account of the Greek- Persian war which makes his narration very reliable (Marincola 110).

Herodotus should be regarded as the founding father of the discipline of historiography since he was the first person to gather and logically document events and make an account of them. He compiles all the reports to one main work known as “The Histories.” The collected work contains recordings of culture, geographical landscapes of various areas and politics. He solely relies on his observations and interviewing natives to compile the records. The use of primary information makes it possible for Herodotus to account historical details accurately. Therefore, he sets the foundation for history since he is the first person to come up with original western literature (Munson 459). He is encouraged to capture ancient accounts to make sure events remains in our lives today. Before Herodotus, events that happened are like myths or exaggerating stories whose objective is to flatter people. By contrast, Herodotus writes a story that is a real record of events and very objective. Thus, he is the first man to put history in a more orderly and systematic way, while relying on facts of the past activities.

Herodotus has merits and deficiencies as a historian. One of the merits is that he is more than an ordinary storyteller. He successfully puts together historical events without losing the original meaning of a story which makes the information exciting and stimulating. Also, he gives his account of history with a lot of consideration, exercising caution not to show bias against the enemy. His areas of interest are broad ranging from politics, economics, geography and welfare and other unusual ways of humankind. He was the first European writer with excellent skills and honesty with which he is building a reliable account of events as they occur. However, Herodotus has been examined by other ancient and modern writers, and they have found out that there are inaccuracies in his storytelling approach. Once shortcoming identified is that he compiles information from rumors to dramatize the events (Munson 459). He includes unrealistic resources, exaggerating facts and he is also sometimes biased to the original audience. Therefore, his account of Persian wars is completely weak and inaccurate. He is not there when the event is occurring, and thus his history is full of myths which should be studied carefully to get a real image of the Persian war.

Works cited

• Marincola, John. “The Persian Wars in fourth-century oratory and historiography.” Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. Oxford (2007): 105-125.
  Munson, Rosaria Vignolo. “Who Are Herodotus’ Persians?” Classical World 102.4 (2009): 457-470.