In what year Herodotus compiled a description of nature. Herodotus - ancient Greek scientist, thinker, traveler and “the father of history

In the middle of the 5th century. BC e. ended the Greco-Persian wars. Having suffered several heavy defeats, the Persians abandoned military operations and switched to wait and see tactics. And in Greece itself, the time of an extraordinary upsurge has come. The economy developed rapidly, trade relations with neighbors, science and culture reached an amazing prosperity. This was the so-called classical period of Ancient Greece, when the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the philosophers Anaxagoras, Democritus, Protagoras and Socrates worked. And the Halicarnassus Herodotus went on a long journey, the result of which was the monumental work "History", which includes a lot of information about the nature and population of the countries he saw.

Very little is known about the life of Herodotus. He was born about 484 BC. e. in the Carian city of Halicarnassus, on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor (now Bodrum in Turkey), belonged to a noble wealthy family, received a good education... In his youth, Herodotus took part in the struggle of the aristocracy against the Halicarnassian tyrant Ligdamides, however, after the conspiracy was revealed, he left his hometown and moved to the island of Samos.

From here he began his wanderings. At that time, it was mainly merchants who were driving around. One can only guess how Herodotus traveled: he either traveled with merchants, or, most likely, he himself was a merchant. In any case, all the questions that a merchant should be interested in: routes, distances, colonies, units of measures and weights - he was keenly interested. He began his journey from the Greek cities of Asia Minor, continued in the Balkans, and then went to the Black Sea colony of Olbia, founded by immigrants from Miletus, located at the mouth of the Hypanis (Southern Bug). Here Herodotus lived for some time, studying the mysterious Scythia. He made several voyages up the Hypanis to the area, which the Scythians called Exampey (Sacred Ways), visited the forests of Borisfen (Dnieper).

Herodotus describes Scythia as a flat, treeless country with a cold climate, but excellent pastures. The traveler, who was born in arid Asia Minor, was greatly impressed by the deep rivers Borisfen and Tanais (Don). Herodotus was also engaged in ethnographic research, collecting all kinds of information about the way of life and customs of the Scythians. The scientist divided the Scythian people into three large tribes. These were farmers, nomads and "royal Scythians" - the strongest tribe that occupied the territory from the Crimea to the Don and considered "other Scythians subject to themselves."

Herodotus was keenly interested in the lands lying to the north and east of Scythia. The main source of information for him was the Greek colonists and the Scythians themselves. From them he heard both quite reliable information and fantastic legends. In any case, what concerned the territory from Scythia to the Ural Mountains was the true truth. Herodotus learned about the dense forests growing there, teeming with fur-bearing animals, about the tribes of Iirks and Savromats, about the Argippaeans living at the foot of the high mountains, who “both men and women are bald from birth (in fact, they shaved their heads. - Ed. .), flat-nosed and with wide chins. " And about the Far North, where it is pitch black for six months and there is always snow. But the traveler was also told about the neurons, turning into wolves for several days a year, and about the red-haired blue-eyed Budins eating cones, and about the one-eyed Arimasps living in distant lands, full of gold, which the griffins guard. Herodotus conscientiously wrote down everything: in those days they believed in miracles no less than now.

From Scythia, Herodotus went to the southern coast of the Euxine Pontus (Black Sea), to the Sinop Bay, and from there to the east - to Colchis (South-Eastern Black Sea region), to the Phasis colony. Herodotus was surprised to see dark-skinned people with curly hair among the inhabitants of Colchis. He was told that these are the descendants of the Egyptians who sailed a long time ago on the ship of one of the pharaohs. Kolkhs, who were once robbed by Herodotus' compatriot Argonaut Jason, did not remember evil and shared many useful information with an inquisitive traveler. For example, that the Caucasus Mountains, the peaks of which he saw from the ship, are the highest in the world; that beyond the Caucasus Mountains there is the Caspian Sea, and beyond it live the warlike Massagets who make their weapons of copper and gold - not because they are so rich, but because they have no iron.

Herodotus was most interested in information about the Caspian Sea. After all, he, like all Greek scientists, naively believed that the Caspian was the bay of the ocean. Later, during his trip to Persia, to the capital city of Susa, Herodotus met people who had been to the Caspian Sea, and learned from them that it was in fact a huge closed body of water.

Returning home, Herodotus systematized collected materials, rested and set off again - across Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. He also visited Africa: first in Egypt, where he climbed up the Nile, then on the territory of modern Libya - not only on the coast, but also in the desert. In addition, he traveled to Cyprus, Thrace and Macedonia. And then he wrote "History" - nine books, in the pages of which he spoke about the Greco-Persian wars, about the nature of the countries surrounding Greece and Persia, about the peoples living in these countries, and about their customs. Having explored most of the oecumene (known to the ancient Greeks of the world) and having learned from the words of his interlocutors about its outskirts, Herodotus presented the readers with his own vision of the world. Based on information about the Phoenicians' travel around Libya (Africa), Herodotus rightly concluded that the latter is surrounded by the ocean on all sides, "except for the place where it adjoins Asia." He was the first to correctly define the status of the Caspian, calling it an inland water body (the Hyrcanian Sea). True, Herodotus underestimated its size, and besides, gave it elongation in breadth. The northern and eastern borders of Europe were unknown to the Greek.

There are in the representations of Herodotus and rather ridiculous errors from a modern point of view. So, he considered Europe to be equal in length to Asia and Africa combined. Africa, on the other hand, is several times smaller than it actually is. Perhaps, if he had imagined its true dimensions, he would hardly have believed that the Phoenicians managed to bypass the mainland. Herodotus' Nile and Danube flow parallel to each other - from west to east. Meotida (Sea of Azov) seemed to the historian almost as big as the Black Sea. However, many of these mistakes are forgivable. Recall that the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who lived much later, had much more extensive information than Herodotus, believed that the Indian Ocean was surrounded on all sides by land - Africa and Asia. And that this mistake delayed the discovery by 1.5 thousand years sea route to India. It is traditionally believed that the main goal of Herodotus was to convey the details to the descendants great war: allegedly for this he undertook a grandiose journey "to places of military glory." Recently, however, more and more often one can hear the opinion that the description of the war is just a technique that allowed the author to combine materials that are completely different on the topic, "glue" them into one whole narrative.

"History" was enthusiastically received by Herodotus' contemporaries. But not all of them. He is called the father of history (as well as geography and ethnography), but few people remember that Cicero gave the nickname, and in this context: "In Herodotus, the father of history ... you can find countless fictions." They agreed to the point that they began to call Herodotus the father of lies. Many still regard the great Greek not as an objective researcher, but as a fictional fiction writer.

The "History" describes the entire old world- famous, unknown, and sometimes fantastic. It should be borne in mind that Herodotus was in many ways in the captivity of myths, and in this sense he takes a place between Homer and rationalistic scientists. Full-fledged characters his writings are gods and heroes. He, perhaps, sincerely believed that the footprint he measured on a rock in the Dniester valley belonged to Hercules. How about real event he wrote about the abduction of the goddess Io by the Phoenicians - by the way, Zeus's girlfriend. Everything that was on the edge of the ecumene or simply went beyond the understanding of Herodotus, he explained with the help of myth.

Many of the mistakes of the historian are most likely due to inattention. Often the confusion is caused by contradictions in the information that the interlocutors gave him. Herodotus himself sometimes admitted that he could not get reliable information. So, for example, about the lands lying north of Scythia (in our middle zone), he wrote: “About the regions north of the country with which I began this story, no one knows anything definite ...

However, I will tell you exactly and as thoroughly as possible everything that I, albeit by hearsay, happened to learn about these northern countries. " Sometimes, making the appropriate reservation, he retells stories in which he himself did not believe. Oddly enough, later archaeological finds and ethnographic research have confirmed that many of these "ridiculous" stories are true.

FIGURES AND FACTS

Main character: Herodotus
Time of action: Mid-5th century BC e.
Route: From the Greek cities of Asia Minor to Eastern Europe and the southeastern Black Sea region, and then through Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and North Africa
Purpose: A story about the Greco-Persian wars, about the nature of the countries surrounding Greece and Persia, their peoples and customs
Meaning: Description of everything known to the ancient Greeks of the world (oikumene)

Herodotus is a resident of Ancient Greece, “the father of history”. The Greek became the author of the first surviving treatise "History", in which he described in detail the customs of the peoples that existed in the fifth century BC, as well as the course of the Greco-Persian wars. The works of Herodotus played an important role in the development of ancient culture.

Two key sources of information have come down to us about life path Herodotus: the encyclopedia "Ships", created in the second half of the tenth century in Byzantium, and the texts of the historian himself. Some of the data in these sources is contradictory.

Bust of Herodotus

The generally accepted version is that Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus in 484 BC. This ancient city was located on the territory of the historical region "Kariya", on the Mediterranean coast in Asia Minor. The city of Halicarnassus was founded by the Dorians, there was a settlement of the Carians nearby (both the Dorians and the Carians are representatives of the main ancient Greek tribes).

The future ancient Greek historian was born into the influential and wealthy Leeks family. In his youth, Herodotus participated in the political life of the people. He joined a party that set out to overthrow the tyrannical ruler of Ligdamid, was expelled, and lived for some time on the island of Samos.

Then Herodotus went on long and numerous journeys. He visited Egypt, Babylon, Asia Minor, Assyria, the Northern Black Sea region, the Hellespont, and also traveled around the Balkan Peninsula from Macedonia to the Peloponnese. During his travels, the historian made sketches for his later creation.

At the age of forty, Herodotus settled in Athens. At that time, he had already read excerpts from his "History" to representatives of the upper strata of urban society, which gave the researchers the opportunity to conclude that the sketches were written while traveling. In Athens, the historian met and became close to supporters of Pericles, a commander and orator who is considered one of the founders of democracy in Athens. In 444 BC, when the Greek colony of Furies was founded on the site of the destroyed city of Sybaris, he took part in the restoration of the settlement from the ruins.

The science

Thanks to Herodotus, science was enriched by the fundamental essay "History". This book cannot be called a historical study. She represents interesting story an inquisitive, sociable, gifted person who visited many places and had extensive knowledge about his contemporaries. Several components are combined in the "History" of Herodotus:

Ethnographic data. The historian has collected an impressive amount of information about the traditions, customs, peculiarities of the life of various tribes and peoples.
Geographic information. Thanks to "History" it became possible to restore the outlines of ancient states as of the fifth century BC.
Natural history materials. Herodotus included in the book data on historical events, which he was able to witness.
Literary component. The author was a gifted writer who managed to create an interesting and engaging story.

The book "History" of Herodotus

In total, the work of Herodotus includes nine books. In this case, the essay is usually divided into two parts:

In the first part, the author talks about Scythia, Assyria, Libya, Egypt, Babylonia and a number of other states of that time, as well as about the rise of the Persian kingdom. Since in the second half of the work the author intended to tell a story about the numerous Greco-Persian wars, in the first part he sought to trace the milestones of the historical struggle between the Hellenes and the barbarians. Due to the desire for such a unity, the interconnectedness of the presentation, Herodotus did not include in the work all the materials that he remembered from his travels, but managed with a limited number of them. In his work, he often expresses a subjective point of view on certain historical realities.
The second part of Herodotus's work is a chronological story of the military confrontation between the Persians and the Greeks. The story ends in 479 BC, when Athenian troops besieged and took the Persian city of Sesta.

When writing his book, Herodotus paid attention to the whims of fate and the envy of divine forces in relation to the happiness of people. The author believed that the gods constantly interfere with the natural course of historical events. He also recognized the fact that the personal qualities of politicians are also the key to their success.

Herodotus condemned the rulers of Persia for their audacity, for the desire to violate the existing order of the world, according to which the Persians should live in Asia, and the Greeks - in Europe. In 500 BC, the Ionian uprising took place, because of which Ancient Greece was involved in a bloody war. The author describes this event as a manifestation of pride and extreme imprudence.

The structure of the "History" of Herodotus

Book one - "Clio". It tells about the beginning of the discord between the barbarians and the Hellenes, the history of the ancient country of Lydia, the story of Athenian politics and the sage Solon, the tyrant Pisistratus, the history of Media and Sparta. In this book, Herodotus also mentions the Scythians in the context of the confrontation with the Cimmerians, and also talks about the war between the Massagets and the Persians.
Book two - "Euterpe". In this part of the work, the historian decided to tell about the history of Libya and Egypt, about the pygmies and namons, about the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Here Herodotus expounded the legend of how Psammetichus I determined that the Phrygians were the most ancient people in the world.
Book Three - Thalia. It provides information about Arabia and India, about the Greek tyrant Polycrates, and also tells about the conquest of Egypt by the Persian king Cambyses, about the uprising of the magicians, the conspiracy of seven and the anti-Persian uprising that took place in Babylon.

Fragment of a page from the book "History" of Herodotus

Book four - "Melpomene". Here the author described the peoples of Scythia, Thrace, Libya and Asia, and also presented information known to him about the campaign of the Persian king Darius against the Scythians of the Black Sea region.
Book Five - Terpsichore. In this book, the emphasis is already on the events of the Greco-Persian wars. If in previous volumes the author devoted many pages to describing the ethnographic characteristics of peoples, then here he talks about the Persians in Macedonia, the Ionian uprising, the coming of the Persian governor Aristagoras to Athens and the Athenian wars.
Book six - "Erato". The key events described are the naval battle "Battle of Lada", the capture of the Carian ancient Greek city of Miletus, the campaign of the Persian commander Mardonius, the campaign of the Persian commanders Artaphren and Datis.

Herodotus. Bas-relief at the Louvre, Paris

Book Seven - "Polyhymnia". It talks about the death of Darius and the ascent of Xerxes (Darius and Xerxes were Persian kings), about Xerxes' attempts to conquer Asia and Europe, as well as about the landmark battle of the Persians and Greeks in the Thermopylae gorge.
Book Eight - "Urania". This material describes the naval battle of Artemisia, the naval battle of Salamis, the flight of Xerxes and the arrival of Alexander in Athens.
Book Nine - Calliope. In the final part of the monumental work, the author decided to talk about the preparation and course of the Battle of Plataea (one of the largest battles of the Greco-Persian wars, which took place on land), the Battle of Merkala, as a result of which the Persian army was dealt a crushing defeat, and the siege of Sestus.

The "history" of this ancient Greek thinker also bears the name "Muses", since each of its nine parts the Alexandrian scientists decided to name the name of one of the muses.

Nine muses named volumes of Herodotus' History

In the process of work, Herodotus used not only his memories and his own attitude to events, but was also guided by the memories of eyewitnesses, records of oracles, materials of inscriptions. To reconstruct each battle as accurately as possible, he specially visited the battle sites. As a supporter of Pericles, he often praises the merits of his family.

Despite the belief in divine intervention, a subjective approach and the limited means for obtaining information in antiquity, the author did not reduce all his work to glorifying the battle of the Greeks for their freedom. He also tried to determine the causes and consequences to which their victories or defeats led. "History" of Herodotus became an important milestone in the development of world historiography.

The success of the historian's work is due not only to the fact that in one work he collected many facts about the peoples and events of his time. He also demonstrated the high skill of a storyteller, bringing his "History" closer to the epic and making it an exciting reading for both contemporaries and people of the New Time. Most of the facts stated by him in the book were subsequently proved in the course of archaeological excavations.

Personal life

The biography of Herodotus has reached our days only in the form of fragmentary information, in which it is impossible to find data about the scientist's own family, about whether he had a wife and children. It is only known that the historian was an inquisitive and sociable person, easily converged with people and knew how to show amazing persistence in the search for historically reliable facts.

Death

Herodotus supposedly died in 425 BC. The place of his burial is unknown.

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484-425 BC) - ancient Greek historian, one of the first famous travelers. It was he who was the author of the first treatise "History", which came down to posterity. In it, the scientist described the customs and traditions of peoples who lived several centuries before our era. Little is known about the biography of Herodotus. The available information was gleaned from the texts of the historian and the encyclopedia "Souda", published in Byzantium of the XX century. Some data differ in them, but there is also general information about the life of a traveler. Scientists were unable to find out anything about his personal life.

Exile and travel

Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus, a colonial settlement near Greece. Now there is the resort town of Bodrum, and in 484 BC. Ionians and Dorians lived on the territory. The most famous work of the historian was written in the Ionian dialect.

The future scientist had wealthy parents, he received an excellent education. In his youth, he took an active part in the political life of the city. Together with his fellow citizens, he tried to overthrow the tyrant Ligdamid from the throne. For this, the young man was punished, he had to leave the city. In 446 he left his native settlement for good.

After his expulsion, Halicarnassus settled on the island of Samos. There he began to prepare to travel to all the nearby territories accessible to humans. The young man always dreamed of seeing the world with his own eyes, to form his own opinion, not being limited to data from textbooks.

When he was 20 years old, Herodotus went to explore the Egyptian territories. He observed the life of the people, clarified important information about the pyramids and floods of the Nile. From the records made during that period of time, the world historical chronicle began. From Egypt, the historian descended to Gibraltar, then to Alexandria and Arabia. He strove to always be near the ocean so that he could easily find his way back.

In Saudi Arabia, the scientist spent very little time. Perhaps this is due to the excessive religiosity of its population. From the Arabian Peninsula, Herodotus went to Babylon, then he visited Persia, reached India. Later, in his essay, he described the customs of this country, recognized its power and equal strength.

Halicarnassus spent almost 11 years traveling. He explored Phenicia, Syria, Macedonia, even reached Scythia. The historian spent a lot of time in the south of modern Russia. He drew maps of three seas - the Black, Azov and Caspian, and also depicted the rivers flowing into them.

Moving to Athens

At the end of his large-scale journey, Halicarnassus began to study the traditions of the Scythians. In his writings, he talked about the Amazon tribe, about which there is now a debate among scientists. Herodotus mentioned warlike women who were married to the leaders of the Scythian tribes.

Around 446, the historian settled in Athens. At that time he was 40 years old, Herodotus enjoyed the gratitude of influential people. He quoted excerpts from the "History" of the elite of society, became close to the supporters of Pericles. Halicarnassus supported democratic views. He also participated in the restoration of some of the destroyed settlements.

According to historians, Herodotus died in 426 BC. At that time he lived in the Turium colony, located in the territory of modern Italy.

Scientific achievements

Herodotus's "history" provided food for thought for future generations. It combines several components at once:

Geographic data on states - location, relief, climate features;
Ethnographic research - this work contains a lot of information about the population of ancient countries, their traditions and customs;
Detailed description historical events that the scientist saw with his own eyes;
Artistic value - the historian was also a talented writer, his work was easy to read, it was fascinating and eventful.

Some contemporaries criticized Halicarnassus for his simple manner of presentation. He described his impressions and observations without scientific formulations, he simply shared his knowledge.

It is very important to understand correctly the task of Herodotus. He did not want to travel only for military purposes, like his compatriots. The young man was interested different people, their customs and characteristics. He believed that the gods could interfere with the lives of mortals. At the same time, the scientist did not deny the importance of the personal qualities of politicians and ordinary people.

Halicarnassus sought to learn and remember as much as possible, which is why he kept his notes so scrupulously. It is noteworthy that the historian had already visited the countries most popular for tourists in our time - Egypt, Turkey and India.

(c. 484 BC - c. 425 BC)

Ancient Greek historian, born at Halicarnassus in Caria around 484 BC. B.C., died about 425 B.C. e., can be considered as the first scientist-traveler. To write as complete a historical work as possible, he traveled all the known countries of his time: Asia Minor, Babylon and Persia to Ecbatana (now Gamadan), the entire Black Sea region up to the Crimea (Chersonesos), West to Sicily and Italy, southern Egypt to Elephantine. For that time, this is an amazing scale of travel. He found his second home in Athens, where he was closely associated with Pericles and Sophocles. On the basis of what he saw and questioned information, he gave the first general description of the then known world. Although he had errors and internal contradictions, nevertheless, many of his data were confirmed by later studies. The greatest confusion was caused by his data on the Nile, which, in his opinion, comes from the far West, which, until the final clarification of the issue in the 19th century, forced to assume the relationship between the Nile and the Niger. The Russian translation of the works of Herodotus belongs to FG Mishchenko: "History in nine books", vols. 1-2, 2nd ed. M., 1888.

Bibliography

300 travelers and explorers. Biographical Dictionary. - Moscow: Mysl, 1966 .-- 271 p.

Gecateus' geographic ideas were ridiculed by another great ancient Greek scientist, Herodotus. An extensive work written by him while he was living in Italy contains the history of the struggle of the Greeks with the barbarians and ends with a description of the revolt of the inhabitants of Ionia against the Persians and the capture of the Hellespont by the Greeks (480–479 BC). But his account contains countless digressions dedicated to the descriptions of the places he visited and the customs of the people he saw there. In the V century. BC e. there were no professions of historian, geographer or astronomer, and there were no corresponding professional associations. Scientific societies and academies did not exist. Herodotus is usually described as the first outstanding historian and his work as a literary masterpiece of ancient Greek prose. However, he is considered a historian mainly because there are more historians than geographers: after all, it is easy to prove that a significant part of his work is devoted to geography. In essence, the work of Herodotus is associated in our minds with the very old idea that history should be interpreted geographically, and geography should be interpreted historically. It is Herodotus who is credited with the phrase that geography is the "servant of history." Herodotus left us with some excellent examples of research in what we now call historical geography, that is, recreating past geographic reality and tracing geographic changes over time. But Herodotus is also known as the “father of ethnography”. He is called so because he convincingly and vividly described the traditions of peoples unfamiliar to the ancient Greeks.

Geographical information in the work of Herodotus was based on his own observations made by him during many years of travel. He knew the Mediterranean coast in a westerly direction up to southern Italy, in which he lived in the last years of his life. Through the straits, he sailed to the Pontus Euxine (Black Sea), reaching the mouth of the Istra (Danube). From there he made a multi-day journey across the steppes along the Don valley. In the east, in the Persian kingdom, he knew many regions; he visited Susa and Babylon. He was in Egypt many times and sailed up the Nile up to the first rapids at Elephantine (Aswan).

Describing Egypt, Herodotus expressed his disagreement with the traditionally drawn border between Asia (the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea) and Libya (the southern coast) along the Nile River, as was the case with Hecateus. The Nile Valley, he argued, was composed of silt brought by the river from Ethiopia. This silt is dark in color and can be easily plowed. All this makes it completely unlike the light clays of Syria or the red sands of Libya. He further said that Egypt was inhabited by Egyptians who do not become Asians or Libyans because they live on different banks of the Nile. Libya, Herodotus argued, is located west of Egypt. This controversy represents one of the earliest discussions of regional boundaries and contains many arguments that have been used over and over again by subsequent generations of scholars.

Herodotus was well aware of some of the natural processes taking place on Earth. To support the hypothesis that Nile silt deposited in the Mediterranean created the delta of this river, he used the method of historical geography. Reconstructing the ancient coastline, he showed that many cities that were former ports are now located far from the coast. The process of formation of the delta, Herodotus said, can be observed in many places, for example, in the floodplain of the Meander River near Miletus. He also pointed out that winds blow from colder places to warmer ones. Thus, even in the V century. BC e. Herodotus was able to explain the formation of the delta and establish a relationship between air temperature and wind direction.

Not all of Herodotus's explanations can be accepted from the standpoint of modern knowledge, but even those that are now recognized as erroneous are distinguished by the logic of proof. Like all ancient Greek geographers, Herodotus was intrigued by the regularity with which the summer floods on the Nile came. The waters of this river, rising suddenly in mid-May, peaked in September; then the flood gradually subsided, and in April or early May the level of the Nile became the lowest. Since all other rivers known to the Greeks, including the Tigris and Euphrates, experienced floods from November to May, and in the summer they were low-water, all those involved in geography, perplexed, asked the question: what is the reason for the unusual behavior of the Nile?

First of all, Herodotus analyzed the explanations put forward by other scientists and rejected them. For example, he considered untenable the idea that a strong northerly wind blowing in winter (etesium) draws water upstream in the Nile, and then, returning, forms a flood. He argued his disagreement with this hypothesis by the fact that, regardless of this wind, floods and low-water periods occur regularly; in addition, on other rivers, where the wind also draws water upstream, such floods are not formed. He also rejected the suggestion that the Nile floods were caused by melting snow in Ethiopia, on the grounds that this country was closer to the equator than Egypt. After all, if snow never falls in Egypt, how can it fall in Ethiopia?

His own hypothesis was witty and well illustrated the use of logic in the theoretical constructions of ancient Greek thinkers. Like all ancient Greek scientists, Herodotus shared the idea of a fundamental law that postulates the symmetry of the structure of the world. Istres, it seemed to him, originated near the western coast of Europe and flowed first to the east, and then turned south, bypassing Pontus Euxine, Hellespont and the Aegean Sea, to the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile, in accordance with the law of symmetry, had to follow a similar course: starting near the western coast of those lands that later became known as Libya, it carried its waters eastward, and then turned to the Mediterranean Sea, crossing Egypt in a northern direction. In winter, Herodotus continued, cold north winds forced the sun to move along a more southerly trajectory, which ran directly over the valley of the upper Nile. The intense heat caused by the luminary at its zenith caused intense evaporation of the river water, which is why the level of the Nile was the lowest in winter. In the summer, when the Sun returned to its usual path "through the middle skies", the volume of water increased again, as the Nile downstream crossed the direction of the Sun's motion at right angles, which contributed to less evaporation. Since this explanation was consistent both with the concept of symmetry and with direct observations of the onset of floods, it was generally accepted by the scientists of that time.

Herodotus also expressed disagreement with those thinkers who lived before him who doubted the existence of the ocean surrounding the earth's firmament. Some of them argued that there is no ocean south of Libya. But Herodotus, from conversations with the Egyptian priests, learned about the result of the Phoenician expedition, equipped by order of Pharaoh Necho II (he ruled Egypt from 610 to 594 BC) for passage on ships along the southern coast of Libya. The Phoenician ships, he said, after crossing the Red Sea, sailed further south along the continent's shores. In order to replenish food supplies, they stopped from time to time, sowed cereals, waited for them to ripen and harvested. It took them three years to sail around the southern tip of Libya. Then they turned north, sailed along its western shores and finally returned to the Mediterranean Sea through the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar). This expedition proved that land is completely surrounded by water. Then Herodotus points out a circumstance that seems incredible to him, but “others may believe,” namely: while the Phoenicians were at the southernmost part of Libya, sailing west, the Sun was located on their right hand. This observation led many scientists after Herodotus to doubt the reality of the circumcontinental voyage carried out by the Phoenicians. Nowadays, the possibility of such a trip is generally accepted, but in order to put an end to long-term doubts, modern historical geographers tried to find a plausible explanation for the fact indicated by Herodotus. In particular, it is suggested that several Phoenician ships, having entered the western equatorial current, were carried south of the equator and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in its relatively narrow part, reaching the northeastern coast of Brazil.

Bibliography

James P. All Possible Worlds / P. James, J. Martin / Ed. and with after. A.G. Isachenko. - Moscow: Progress, 1988 .-- 672 p.

(484 BC - 425 BC)

ru.wikipedia.org

Biography

"History"

The first half contains stories about the rise of the Persian kingdom, about Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, about Scythia, Libya and other countries. The unity of presentation is achieved to a certain extent by the fact that from the first words to the end the historian intends to trace the struggle between the barbarians and the Hellenes. But the thought of the main task that does not leave the historian does not prevent him from introducing into the broad framework of the narrative everything that seemed interesting or instructive to him. Herodotus is characterized to a large extent by historical criticism, in many cases purely subjective, often naive-rationalistic, but nevertheless decisively introducing a new beginning into historiography.

Literature

Essays

Herodotus. History. Per. and approx. G. A. Stratanovsky. L .: Nauka, 1972.

About him

Lurie S.Ya. Herodotus. M.-L .: 1947.

Borukhovich V.G. Historical concept Egyptian logos of Herodotus. Antique world and archeology. Issue 1. Saratov, 1972.

Biography

Herodotus of Halicarnassus is an ancient Greek historian, the author of the first full-scale historical treatise - "History" - describing the Greco-Persian wars and customs of many contemporary peoples. The works of Herodotus were of great importance for ancient culture. Cicero called him "the father of history." An extremely important source on the history of Great Scythia, including dozens of ancient peoples on the territory of modern Russia.

The homeland of Herodotus, the Asia Minor city of Halicarnassus, was founded by the Dorians, but representatives of the local Carians tribe also lived there, mixed with the Greeks. In his youth, Herodotus belonged to a party that fought against the tyrant Ligdamides, was exiled, lived on Samos, and then went on long journeys. He traveled around Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Hellespont, the Northern Black Sea region, the Balkan Peninsula from the Peloponnese to Macedonia and Thrace. Around 446 BC e. he settled in Athens, where he became close to the circle of Pericles; by this time a significant part of the History had already been written, since it is known that Herodotus read passages from it to the Athenians. In 444 BC. e. Herodotus took part in the founding of the Pan-Hellenic colony of Furia in Magna Graecia on the site of Sybaris destroyed by the Crotons.

The work of Herodotus is not a historical study in the modern sense of the word, it is a masterful, artless narration of a man richly gifted by nature, unusually inquisitive, sociable, who read a lot, saw and heard even more; to these qualities was added the modesty of a Hellenic believer in the gods, although touched by skepticism, but not legible enough in the information received. On the other hand, Herodotus is not only a historian; some parts of his work are a real encyclopedia of that time: there is geographical information, ethnographic, natural history, and literary information. Nevertheless, Herodotus is, in all fairness, called the father of history. Of the nine books into which his work is currently divided, the entire second half is a consistent historical account of the Greco-Persian wars, ending with the news of the Hellenic occupation of Sestus in 479 BC. e.

Philosophically historical position of Herodotus (c. 484 - 431/425)

Herodotus is a surprisingly frank representative of early historical thought. The "father of history", like the logographers who preceded him, first of all feels a great need to describe the numerous and endlessly variegated historical phenomena. This early polis individual, freed, at least temporarily and conditionally, from mythology, with fierce curiosity pounces on individual facts of socio-historical development, admires them, no worse than how in the epic they admire individual things, often of little significance, and paint different details when characterizing heroes are often completely insignificant for them. At every step, Herodotus also speaks of gods or fate, thereby linking himself with that polis and prepolis mythology, as a result of a break with which alone an independent factual-pragmatic historiography could appear. In Herodotus it is impossible to understand which explanations he uses most of all, religious and mythological or factual-pragmatic. In addition, arguing about the influence of gods and fate on human history, he is ready at every moment to abandon this influence, declaring that maybe the gods really decided so, or maybe this or that event arose by itself. In some places he seems to believe in oracles, in others he doubts them in a certain way. From Herodotus one can pick up such a mass of uncertainly mythological and even directly anti-mythological passages that, on this basis, Herodotus can be directly placed among the skeptics, or, perhaps, even simply positivists.

All this philosophical and historical diversity of Herodotus is explained by the fact that a thinker stands before us, freed from generic, and therefore from mythological, authorities, and therefore he necessarily reflects over everything. He attracts a lot of all kinds of pictures from the history of society, which are simply interesting to him in themselves, and with the most naive curiosity he delves into their consideration and depiction, breaking away from any conscious methodology and at every step ready to take a skeptical position, after which it becomes incomprehensible why he spent so much time on a colorful depiction of completely extraneous events. This is precisely the position that we characterize as the position of an early polis individual, liberated enough to decisively observe everything, decisively depict everything, decisively doubt everything, or even decisively explain everything that happens by the will of the gods and the inexorable decrees of fate and fate.

Without going into the analysis of the numerous scientific works on the historicism of Herodotus, we will nevertheless point to three works, familiarization with which at first will be quite enough for our reader to present the philosophy of history in Herodotus, even if only in a principled form.

The first work belongs to E. Howald

We will not cite numerous examples of Herodotus' curiosity to all sorts of traitors to the homeland, to their crimes, betrayal, or examples of all sorts of carefree attitude of Herodotus to the insidious behavior of large and small Greek leaders during the Greco-Persian wars and his absence of any attempt to see in Greco- the Persian wars are an example of classical heroism, the triumph of democracy over tyranny, and even just Greek patriotism or unity. In a brief form, the reader can familiarize himself with these materials on the book by S.Ya. Lurie

It must be said that the study of this kind of materials about Herodotus very deeply corrects the widespread view, rooted in schools many centuries ago, that the victory of Greece over Persia in the 5th century. BC. there is a victory of an ideal, monolithic pan-Hellenic democracy over barbaric, uncultured and completely savage oriental despotism. Modern science Sufficiently showed that there was no "all-Hellenism" in any sense, that only some Greek poleis participated in this war, that others took a neutral position, and still others directly helped Persia, that this democracy was in essence an aristocracy, and, moreover, a slave-owning one, that examples of ideal feats and patriotic selflessness constantly alternated with direct betrayal, impudent greed and direct moral and political decay. All this idealization of the Greco-Persian wars belongs, in fact, only to Plutarch (I-II centuries A.D.), who, during the period of the undivided domination of the Roman Empire, wanted to exalt ancient Greece, which was in complete insignificance at that time, and poetically created the ideals of Greek heroism V century BC, which later became irrefutable for all time. In this sense, Plutarch's treatise "On the malice of Herodotus"

Now we can say why we are interested in the views of contemporary historians and philologists - classics on the historiography of Herodotus. All these materials, to which we have now been able to point only very briefly, undoubtedly testify to one thing. Namely, we must understand Herodotus as a historian who acted during the period of the early or middle Greek classics, who opposed himself to the slave-owning polis so much that he began to succumb to a very far-reaching reflection on all historical figures and events and depict gods and fate as the culprits of all evil, crimes , betrayals and bloody events in the history of society.

At the same time, opposing himself to the young polis and reaching almost to the level of enlightenment and sophistic skepticism, he still did not separate himself from it enough to part with all its mythological ideology. From here

Incredible confusion and confusion in Herodotus of different methods in the image historical figures and events, as well as the role of gods and fate throughout human history. And here there is absolutely nothing to blame Herodotus, who was no more and no less as a natural product of such a slaveholding development of the polis, when the individuals included in it, the further, the more they distinguished themselves from the polis, but did not yet break away from it either economically or ideologically. ... This is the source of all the diversity of Herodotus' philosophical and historical views, which towards the end of the 5th century. will quickly be replaced by attempts to actually oppose the polis with the methods of direct individualism and even anarchism. New paths will open immediately historical research, not Herodotov's, but Thucydian's, to which we must go.

In the meantime, in order to summarize, we would like to cite the work of D.M. Pippidi

According to A. Croise, says Pippidi, Herodotus believes in a religious law that rules the universe; Nemesis gravitates over man; man is powerless before supernatural forces. In fact, with Herodotus, everything is much more complicated. He, as it were, deliberately refuses to believe in any one separate principle of historical phenomena. According to Herodotus, there are many different orders of causality. Even E. Meyer, according to Pippidi, made the thought of Herodotus stricter than it is. It is not true that Herodotus has "the jealousy of the gods" in the first place, that he has a "moral" point of view.

True, Herodotus Pippidi considers the main thing to be archaic, i.e. for all its deep religiosity - "dilogical" consciousness, in which causality is not something necessary at all. Moreover, Herodotus admits both a natural and a miraculous order of causality. In some cases, Herodotus is looking for natural explanations for supernatural facts, in others he unnecessarily admits the miraculous (for example, his horse gave birth to a hare). Finally, Herodotus often speaks of the general instability of everything human, which also does not induce him to reduce the causality observed by him to any one type.

As a result of all this, Herodotus, generally speaking, obtained three different views on history:

1) everything is pre-installed from the beginning,

2) the gods strictly judge people and punish them for their misdeeds,

3) the gods act on the basis of what is usually called by Herodotus "the envy of the gods".

Let's dwell on this in more detail.

If we consider the first view, then it must be said that in the idea of providence in Herodotus there is much from the epic. At the same time, Herodotus speaks of supernatural influences not in the sense of anthropomorphic gods, but in the sense of the gods as a kind of anonymous, inexorable force. Nothing is done without God. "The reign of the world," writes Pippidi, "belongs (in Herodotus) to the deity so much that history, one might say, is only the realization in time of the divine plan, a providential plan, the scope of which encompasses both the life of human societies and the life of nature."

Providence (pronoia) manifests itself in the struggle of animals for existence, for example, in the fertility of non-predatory animals. What arises from God, then a person, according to Herodotus, is not able to turn away. In all, Herodotus' providence is not explicitly expressed, but all the more vividly in the style of such usual expressions for him as chr? N genesthai (it was necessary to happen) and edee genesthai (it was necessary to happen). At the same time, the providential plan appears without any moral significance. Thus, Kandavlu "had to fall into misfortune" (chr? N ... genesthai cacAs), says Herodotus, not considering it necessary to give other reasons (I 8). Before such a fate, a person, according to Herodotus, is powerless.

Let us touch on the second philosophical and historical position of Herodotus. He has a common Greek belief (Hesiod, Solon, Theognides) in the direct connection between action and reaction to it. Herodotus is also convinced that "fate punishes all the wicked with just punishment" (V 56). A huge number of similar texts from Herodotus could be cited. Such a major event as the destruction of Troy also happened as a punishment for the misdeeds of people.

Finally, the envy of the gods manifests itself, according to Herodotus, in the fact that the gods do not tolerate low creatures equal to them in happiness. "Your great successes do not please me, because I know how jealous the deity is" (III 40). "Every deity is envious and causes anxiety among people" (I 32). "God loves to hinder all excess" (VII 10). However, for example, the explanation of Xerxes' misfortunes through the envy of the gods is given not by Herodotus himself, but by Themistocles (VIII 109). For Herodotus, the real reason here is human pride (hybris); thus, it is not jealousy that is at work here, but the justice of the gods. According to Pippidi, in the doctrine of envy, Herodotus follows widespread popular beliefs and such word usage, while for himself this order of historical causality is of little importance.

Pippidi concludes that Herodotus does not seem to undertake to decide which way of causality is better. In Herodotus, one can observe the sum of all possible views in this case: here is amoralism, and the passions of the gods, and the rigorism of the moira, a subtle moral sense, attention to justice.

Unfortunately, Pippidi, who so well understands the chaotic diversity of historical, moral and other views of Herodotus, does not clearly imagine the true place of Herodotus in the history of the Greek slave-owning polis of the classical period. For example, his judgment that Herodotus influenced Aeschylus already completely contradicts not only chronological facts, but also the very essence of the philosophical and historical views of Aeschylus and Herodotus. Aeschylus is a strong, sturdy and powerful classic of the slave polis. Herodotus is approaching its end and in many ways is already an enlightener for us.

Not realizing in a clear form the socio-historical position of Herodotus, Pippidi does not pester the entire intense reflection of the famous historian when assessing individuals and events, and even the entire fate of the slave-owning polis. In Herodotus, many find just the usual naive curiosity and childish love for individual subjects in their descriptive given. In fact, Herodotus is not at all so naive. His curiosity is sometimes rather restless and nervous.

In the current state of classical philology, the constant tendency of Herodotus to describe all kinds of perfidy, betrayal, betrayal and, in general, criminal behavior, is undoubtedly suspicious. True, all this differs in the epic, which depicts any horrors of war and in general the horrors of human life with complete calmness and a completely balanced mood. But in the epic there is still no individual reflection of the historian. Therefore, all these horrors of treachery, betrayal, intrigues of heroes and even the gods themselves are portrayed in the epic as something completely natural and does not cause any serious questions from the contemplator of all this bloody horror with which the epic is filled. Herodotus, however, acts in that era when a person, free from the tribal community and its mythology, perfectly understands all these horrors as something unnatural, criminal and antimoral. In this case, why does Herodotus, with such choking interest and curiosity, reveal all the ugly ins and outs of the famous Greco-Persian wars?

Herodotus certainly believes in gods. But if in the ancient epic all divine ugliness is drawn with imperturbable calm, since there is still no corresponding reflection, then why is Herodotus, who perfectly understands all the atrocities of the gods and their bad influence on people (true, along with all the good that people receive from the gods ), why does this Herodotus still look at these atrocities of the gods as if through his fingers and why does he ultimately try to instill in us even a whole concept of evil and vengeful gods, which does not contradict any evil fate, but, on the contrary, rather confirms it? S.Ya. Lurie writes: “The deity of Herodotus is not only envious, but also insidious: it deliberately pushes happy people to crimes, gives false or ambiguous answers to those questioning the oracles, sends false dreams; thus, even Xerxes went to war on Hellas not because of his evil character, but because the deity forced him to this with insidious promises and threats "

In Herodotus himself, the Persian nobleman Artabanus teaches Xerxes: "You see how the peruns of the deity strike the living creatures aspiring upward, not allowing them to rise in their arrogance over others. Small creatures do not at all arouse the envy of the deity. in the highest houses and trees. After all, the deity usually plunges everything great into dust. In the same way, a small army can crush a great one, and this is how: an envious deity can eliminate the warriors or strike with a feather so that the army will shamefully die. anyone other than himself thought highly of himself "(VII 10).

As a result, S.Ya. Lurie comes to the following conclusion: "From the point of view of Herodotus, the indisputability of blind fate, punishing everyone who captures more happiness than he is allotted to, is the basic law of history, and his whole book is built, in essence, as a series illustrations of this general provision "

Probably, this conclusion regarding religion and religious understanding of history in Herodotus in some cases and in other respects requires some softening. However, if we take into account the current state of our science about Herodotus, it is undoubtedly necessary to admit that Herodotus turns out to be, in his intimate views, simply a Halicarnassian chauvinist, that upon his arrival in island Greece he immediately took the point of view of the ruling democracy in Athens, that he intervened in the incredible squabble of the Greek states just during the period of the Plutarch-glorified Greco-Persian wars, that the then unity of Greece can only be talked about in the sense that we are now talking about the unity of Europe, that he often shows a very real malicious approach when depicting numerous episodes of the Greco-Persian war, that he glorifies only Athens alone and with great pleasure recognizes the capture of the Greek cities of Asia Minor by the Persians, that he is not shy about characterizing the wickedness of the Greek gods, that, besides Delphi, he does not consider any predictions of other oracles reliable (and Delphi, by the way, they were carrying out just a pro-Persian policy), that the reflection of Herodotus sometimes reached almost complete antipatriotism, positive indifference to all the military-political events portrayed by him, and sometimes bordered on complete atheism.

Nowadays we very often, especially at school, adhere to the Plutarch's glorification of the pan-Hellenic democracy that never existed and read Herodotus too naively, almost like a fascinating novel. It is necessary to re-read Herodotus and eventually find the strength for a more or less critical approach to his historical methods.

Pippidi does not represent any of this, and the religious, moral and historiographic pluralism of Herodotus, which he absolutely correctly established, does not reach the depiction of the very principle of this pluralism. And the principle was the worldview of a slave-owning-polis individual freed from tribal authorities with all their mythology, who subjected to merciless reflection all the historical data known at that time, from which the ancient mythological and ancient epic heroic veil was almost completely pulled off. It is in this sense that only Herodotus can be compared with Sophocles, who also pulled off every kind and soothing veil from the surrounding life, and this must be put forward against the views of S.Ya. Lurie

Sophocles also refers rather reflectively to the very evil historical reality that surrounded him. But Sophocles was aware of the need to return from all this pseudo-heroic life, maliciously covered by divine authorities, to these divine authorities themselves, but already recognized as an immutable law of all historical, social and personal life. But Herodotus, who cognized and brilliantly portrayed the hopeless malice of historical reality, by no means returned to the worship of the gods in a more sublime sense, remaining on the paths of his semi-illuminating pluralism. Therefore, it so happened that Sophocles' concept of life is tragic, and Herodotus's concept of life is suspiciously carefree and covered with very artistic images of historical reality, often reaching the level of self-sufficing delight in short stories, however, with rather pitiful heroes of these short stories, but without any clearly expressed tragedy.

In Soviet literature, there is a very valuable study of both the historical style of Herodotus itself and the style of short stories that were very frequent in Herodotus. This study belongs to A.I. Dovatur, to which our reader should be consulted for details.

A.F. Losev. Ancient philosophy of history

Dionysius of Halicarnassus about Herodotus and Thucydides

We would like to give an opinion about two great Greek historians, belonging to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a historian, rhetorician and literary critic of the 1st century. BC.

This Dionysius analyzes both historians very subtly, primarily from a literary point of view. However, we are not interested here in the literary, but in the philosophical and historical characterization of both historians, which is not difficult to obtain from the historical and literary observations of Dionysius. We mean his "Letter to Pompey", from which we will quote several quotes (translated by OV Smyka).

"The third task of the historian is to consider what should be included in his work and what should be left aside. And in this respect, Thucydides lags behind. after another, no matter how well they were described, this [inevitably] causes satiety and boredom, and therefore Herodotus strove to add variegation to his work, following Homer in this.

After all, picking up his book, we never cease to admire him to the last word, having reached which we want to read more and more. Thucydides, describing only one war, tensely and without taking a breath piles battle after battle, gatherings for gatherings, speech for speech, and in the end brings the readers to exhaustion "(110 Roberts).

From this reasoning of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, it is clear that Thucydides, in pursuit of factography, did not hesitate to pile up historical materials, drawing the temporal and historical process not at all as consistently as he would like, but piled up some periods of time on others and thereby introduced the variegation inherent in Homer and Herodotus, but devoid of their artistic charm. In other words, and according to Dionysius, Thucydides still did not succeed in exactly the current time stream in the exact sense of the word, i.e. exactly chronologically.

Another passage from Dionysius, perhaps, paints the philosophical shortcomings of Thucydides' historicism even more vividly (although Dionysius himself understands these shortcomings much more literary than philosophically-historically). Dionysius writes: “Thucydides follows chronology, and Herodotus seeks to grasp a series of interrelated events. As a result, Thucydides gets ambiguity and it is difficult to follow the course of events. business, grabs onto something else that happened at the same time.This, of course, confuses us, and it becomes difficult to follow the course of the story when attention is now and then distracted.Herodotus, starting with the kingdom of Lydia and reaching Croesus, immediately proceeds to Cyrus, who crushed the power of Croesus, and then begins the story of Egypt, Scythia, Libya, following in order, adding the missing and introducing what could bring the story to life.

Reporting about the hostilities between the Hellenes and the barbarians, which took place for 220 years on three continents, and reaching at the end of the story to the flight of Xerxes, Herodotus does not develop the narrative anywhere.

Thus, it turns out that Thucydides, choosing only one event as his theme, dismembered the whole into many parts, and Herodotus, who touched upon many very different topics, created a harmonious whole "(ibid.).

In other words, Thucydides, who chose for himself a strictly chronological path of research, instead of depicting unexpected, accidental and miraculous influences of gods and fate on the historical process, in fact, imagined time in some accidentally piled and torn form, creating the same unreasonable facts variegated presentation, which is characteristic of both Homer and Herodotus, but without their mythological integrity and artistry. And such a historical and universal model, which would be both outside mythology and strictly chronological in the pragmatic and factual sense of the word, Thucydides did not have such a model. His time is the same motley, torn and poorly based on facts process, like all other Greek historians before him.

We can conclude that our idea of the philosophy of history in Thucydides was well understood by the ancients.