About who is called the father of history, there are many legends and rumors. They say that by publishing his work, he achieved recognition of history as a real science, they write that he was so unique a scientist that he almost did not leave students behind him, point to controversial points in his works and immediately refer to them during scientific discussions . Such a long memory can be earned only by truly unique scientists who left behind the most significant research in their field. And one of such scientists was the great Herodotus, who lived in Ancient Greece in the 5th century BC, who rightfully received the nickname the father of history.
Herodotus and Philosophy
The name of Herodotus was inextricably linked with history in ancient and modern science. The volume of its heritage is difficult to perceive from the point of view of modern historians, because for us the recording and analysis of historical events is a natural and natural phenomenon. The ancient Greeks had a completely different worldview.
The Greek philosopher was dominated by the idea that only the immutable can be knowable. They emphasized the study of natural phenomena, ignoring social and historical realities. It was believed that the study of the past of mankind is a hopeless task, since the passage of time is transient, which means that history is unknowable.
Herodotus and his "History"
The satirist Lucian describes that Herodotus achieved fame in just four days. For a long time he worked on his own composition, describing the past of his ecumenical. The father of history lived in sunny Halicarnassus, where for a long time he worked on collecting and analyzing meager historical facts that he could collect. Having finished his work, he went to Olympia, where the Olympic Games were held by then. There Herodotus spoke to the audience in the temple of Zeus and arranged there public readings of his work. The audience was so shocked by the knowledge and presentation of their own past that they immediately assigned the nine volumes, of which the "History" of Herodotus consisted, the names of nine muses. By the end of the competition, the audience was interested not so much in the performances and sports successes of their favorite champions as in the new pages of Herodotus’s creation.
Herodotus in the ancient world
Lucian was not a contemporary of Herodotus; he wrote his notes six hundred years after the death of the great Greek. Therefore, many details of his story raise certain doubts. It is unlikely that the father of history could publicly read The History before the public in its entirety. All his work is longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. In addition, some scholars argue that this monumental work has remained unfinished. The "story" of Herodotus ends with a description of the scene of the execution of one Persian. And some chapters have survived to this day only in the form of links and marked paragraphs.
Thucydides is officially considered a disciple of Herodotus, but the principles of his description, in particular in the “History of the Punic War,” are fundamentally different from everything written by Herodotus. His "History of the Punic Wars" was written in a completely different way, not continuing, but rather refuting the theses of his predecessor.
An indirect confirmation of the wide popularity of Herodotus is the parody of his story in the comedies of Aristophanes. Agree that it is difficult to make a parody based on little-known or unpopular books. A bust of the first researcher of past centuries was in the famous library of Pergamum. Many years later, Aristotle praised the work of Herodotus, calling him a model of an exemplary historian.
Father of history or father of geography?
The name of the father of history can easily be supplemented with various titles. The themes that his contemporaries and researchers of the future endowed him with. With equal rights, he deserves the titles “father of history”, “father of geography”, “father of ethnography”. Each of his historical tales is preceded by a short prologue, which describes the geographical position, name and customs of the people in question. For example, when describing Xerxes’s campaign to Sparta, Herodotus does not forget to mention the artisans making honey on Mount Callateb, or to talk about wild animals that lived in the forests of France at that time. A variety of information - truthful and invented, was described by him with equal care, as if offering descendants to independently understand the intricacies of truth and fiction.
Echo of Glory
But different historical schools agree on one thing - it was Herodotus who became the first person who gave the status of science to history, it was through the prism of his work that the ancient Roman and then medieval schools led the tradition to describe their own modernity. The discovery of his works in the Renaissance gave a new impetus to the understanding of ancient culture. In the historical Russian school, the works of Herodotus were highly valued by Karamzin, who achieved the popularization of ancient authors among his contemporaries.