The Autopsies By Herodotus Summary

“The Histories” by Herodotus, known as the world’s first historian, describes the first real accounts of the Achaemenid Empire as they began expanding and the events that ultimately led to the Greco-Persian Wars. Ancient and modern researchers/philosophers have sparked controversy when it comes to the reliability of his sources. They thought that Herodotus’ interpretation of certain events was so clear that it was hard to tell whether they were factual or not, Herodotus traveled the world and during that time he was able to collect what he called “autopsies,”. He gathered information on the myths and legends of the different lands, recorded oral historic events and made notes of the places and things that he encountered. In this paper, I’m

It was in Book Three where he was able to explain the story of Darius' the Great so vividly and in considerable detail. Over time, the official story of Darius' and his accession to the throne was discovered from an inscription that was found in a town west of Iran called Behistun. There is merely no difference between the two stories and they tell essentially the same story. Perhaps there was only a small detail that was different which was Herodotus having the wrong name of one of seven conspirators. Book Three is where Herodotus also includes a document that provided a list of provinces and revenues of the Achaemenid empire and it resembled comparable Persian documents. In Book Seven there is another document which was written in Greek. This document is believed to have been the source for the catalogue of Xerxes’ army. Herodotus proceeds to tell the reader what kind of document this was and that in the winter of 481-480, there were three Greek spies who were sent to Sardes, where the Persian army was gathering and this is how they gathered that

They believed his work to be false and fantasized. In fact, I went on to do a little more research on how other researchers felt about Herodotus and his work. I came across Detlev Fehling, a German classicist. He had a lot of negative views on Herodotus. Fehling felt that when Herodotus mentions his sources because it is never precise that this is almost the best proof that he is not telling the exact truth. He believed that when Herodotus traveled and gathered information that he was unsatisfied with the real events, therefore, he decided to improve