Halicarnasse, 484 av. J. - C. - Thourioi, 420 av. J. - C.
Posthumous portrait of Hérodote
Palate Massimo ale Term
Dating from IVe front century J. - C.
The “father of the History”Greek historian. Hérodote, in Hêrodotos Greek. He is considered, since Cicéron which it first decreed this title to him, like the “father of the History”.
He was born in Halicarnasse at one time when the area, inhabited by Greeks, was dominated by Persians, which explains why its work is not closed with the nonHellenic cultures. Especially, it is in a climate of intellectual research that Hérodote was high: in the neighborhoods of Halicarnasse, in Milet, Cos or Mytilène, scholars, storytellers of stories or doctors, philosophers or “geographers”, made area a major cultural hearth.
A triumphal walkResulting from a rich family, Hérodote could, as did it most scientists of his time, devote most of its life to profitable voyages. From Minor Asia as far as Sicily, through Egypt, Cyrénaïque, Babylonia, Persia until Suse, it met various civilizations, where its contemporaries conceived only the presence of “Barbarians”. Areas (Africa, territory of the Scythians) located beyond the limits of the known world, regarded up to that point as “nothing”, it collected and brought back the myths, sometimes irrational, which will be taken again several centuries later by the Portuguese and Spanish navigators.
Its voyage could be realized thanks to the meeting of Greek hosts installed in the visited countries or from abroad hellenized, who gave him the information that he sought, as well on the history, the habits or the institutions of the regions crossed as on the concrete way to continue its “report” towards a new stage.
After several voyages and a long stay in Athens (446-443 av. J. - C.), during which it bound with Périclès and Sophocle, Hérodote was fixed finally in Large Greece (Italy Southern). It is there that he undertook the drafting of his Investigation, or Stories, work remained unfinished: he died while he composed the account of the events of the year 478 av. J. - C.
The Investigation or Stories The Greek word historia means “research, exploration”, from where “knowledge”, and titrates it account of Hérodote is translated into French either by “the Stories”, or by “the Investigation”. The Investigation has as main theme the medic wars and constitutes the first great historical account which breaks with the tradition of the epic account; thus, Homère shows men directed by the gods, even subjected to their wills, while the Greeks and the Barbarians about which Hérodote speaks are true actors, who, certainly, listen to oracles but which are driven initially by their feelings, and in particular by revenge. Moreover, Hérodote, contrary to Homère, task to make impartial work, since he does not criticize in a systematic way the Barbarians, so much so that one reproached him for being too favorable to Persians; he does not hesitate either to say what are, according to him, errors of the Greeks, the Athenians like Spartans. Lastly, he listens to what its advisers tell him, but always seeks to check their statement or then is different from it while refusing to endorse the responsibility for their remarks.
Curious and objective spirit, Hérodote did not only endeavor to establish the truth and to show the sequence of the effects and the causes in the events which it evokes: it also stressed the geographical framework and gave on the various aspects of the life of the nations a multiplicity of information which makes also its work the first great report. It was thus one of the first Greeks to show that the Barbarians do not form an undifferentiated whole, and that, under this term, were gathered multiple people with their languages, their habits, their religions.
Organization of the account
The Investigation is organized in two parts, and let us know we it today divided into nine books, which bear the name of the Muses arbitrarily. The first (books I to IV) serves as vast foreword with the account of the medic wars which constitutes the substance of the books V to IX.
The first three books report the construction of the Persian Empire and the various internal wars that this one involved. Thus, book II it is more particularly devoted to the description of Egypt. Inhabitants, habits and traditions reviewed, while the third book, in more chronological matter, described the invasion of this country by the Persian sovereign Cambyse II, that Hérodote depicts like a thirsty tyrant of blood.
The fourth book present of the geographical and ethnographic considerations relating to the forwarding of Persians against the Scythians (whose author studies the laws and the history) and against the people of Cyrénaïque (Greek province, with the site of current Libya).
The fifth book is devoted on arrival of Persians in the north of Greece, with the conquest of Macedonia. This episode marks the beginning of the medic wars between Greeks and Persians, which is the subject of a study detailed in the books V to VIII.
Lastly, the ninth and the last book end in the account of the release of the Persian yoke of the Greek cities of Asia Mineure.
A precursor of the chroniclers
Hérodote composes its Investigation so, he writes itself, “to prevent that the past of the men is not forgotten with time, and to prevent that admirable exploits, as well on the side of the Greeks as of that of the Barbarians, do not fall into the lapse of memory; and it gives in particular the reason of the conflict which put these two people at the catches”.
Its research applies initially to the human events and the natural framework in which they are held, from where this design of the history which, in the first times, includes the geography. If the work of Hérodote sticks more particularly to the meeting held on two civilizations Greek and Persian, it introduces innumerable elements of geography, ethnography and mythology. The coherence of the exposed facts and the dramatic power of the “new” frays with the historical account are exceptional.
With Hérodote, the characters of the literary kind appear from now on defined essentially: exposed research of the historian, who transcribes the great actions of the men and lapse of memory saves them thus, the work aims at the same time at distracting and to inform but objectivity of the account is always of rule. Thus, Hérodote approaches more the chroniclers of the Middle Ages that of a historian like Thucydide, which sought to analyze the historical events - in fact the Peloponnesian War - while being based only on perfectly attested facts.
For the first time, prose
The work of Hérodote, as well on the level of the form as of the bottom, is the first of works of the Antiquity written in prose to reach us. That is not a chance: like points out it Plutarque, the use of the simple prose, stripped of all the ornaments of the poetic style and of the support that the worms brings to the memory, marks a progress significant in the exercise of the rational thought and translated the concern paramount to seek and expose the truth.
The Investigation, at the time where it was composed, was intended more to be listened that with being read, and one finds that and there repetitions, which made it possible to divide the account without the listeners being obliged to know the whole of work to understand the passage read.