Herodotus

(ca. 485 B.c.-ca. 425 b.c.)

   A noted Greek historian who wrote what modern scholars view as the world's first conventional history book, today called the Histories, which contains much valuable information about ancient Mesopotamia. The main subject of the work was the series of epic battles fought between the Persians and the Greeks in the early fifth century b.c. But Herodotus chose to go into voluminous detail about the backgrounds and cultures of the peoples involved, especially the Persians. He remains a major source of information about the Persians, Medes, Babylonians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and some other Near Eastern peoples in the first millennium b.c. Herodotus's book is valuable partly because some sections are eyewitness accounts from his visits to Babylon, Palestine, and Egypt. He was a curious and observant individual, as well as a gifted writer, and he jotted down priceless descriptions of numerous Mesopotamian artifacts and customs. Here is his well-meaning, if partly ill-informed, description of Europe, Libya (Africa), and Asia, the three great land-masses known in his day:

   I cannot help laughing at the absurdity of all the map-makers . .. who show ocean running like a river round a perfectly circular Earth, with Asia and Europe of the same size. Let me spend afewwordsingivingapropernotion of the size and shape of these two continents. Persian territory extends southward to the Red Sea, as it is called. North of them are the Medes, then the Saspires, then the colchians, who go as far as the northern sea [the Black Sea]. ... These four nations fill the area between the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf. . . . This branch of the continent contains thirty different nations. The other starts from Persia, Assyria, and Arabia, and ends - or it is assumed to end - at the Arabian Gulf. . . . Asia is inhabited as far as India; farther east the country is uninhabited, and nobody knows what it is like. . . . Libya is part of the second branch I mentioned, for it adjoins Egypt. Egypt itself forms a narrow neck ... but it soon broadens out, and what is known as Libya covers a very large area. . . . The three continents do, in fact, differ very greatly in size. Europe is as long as the other two put together. ... As for Libya, we know that it is washed on all sides by the sea except where it joins Asia. (Histories 4.35-42)

   See also: Astyages; Babylon; Battle of Pelusium; bridges; clothing; Cyaxares II; Darius I; Deioces; Ecbatana; Magi; Median Empire; Persian Empire; roads; sacred prostitution; Semiramis; ships; Tower of Babel; transportation and travel; water supplies; weapons and warfare, naval, weapons and warfare, siege; Xerxes; Zoroastrianism