Herodotus and the Past
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20040763 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hans Van Wees (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Pages | 319-349 |
| Publication date | 2002-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Brill's Companion to Herodotus (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789004217584_015 |
| OpenAlex | W927877592 |
| ISBN | 9789004217584 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
Herodotus' interest in the past knew no limits. An interest in origins is perhaps the most obvious motive for investigating the distant past, and Greeks had been reciting genealogies and telling migration stories long before Herodotus. Herodotus lived in a time when intellectuals were challenging the validity of all forms of knowledge, and he applied the radically critical attitude of his contemporaries to his chosen field of study: the past. It is thus, after all, no cause for suspicion or surprise if Herodotus' work emerges as 'modern' in some ways. For all peculiarities of form and content, the Histories provide the essential model for the work of all later historians, ancient and modern: they were the first to make disparate recollections and record a subject of systematic critical investigation. It is Herodotus' achievement to have turned the past into history. Keywords: genealogies; Greeks; Herodotus; Histories; migration stories
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2024 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |