Why is Herodotus called “The Father of History”?

History is always fascinating consists of various stories and legends about kings and queens who ruled and about gods and about people in that time and their beliefs and living.

Herodotus, a Greek writer is called as the father of history. He was born in Halicarnassus, a part of the Persian Empire. The stories he wrote in his book contained stories about Persian and Greek wars.

He stated that Persian wars started at time of 499BCE where are group of Athens with the support of Greeks started a revolution against the Persian Empire which was ruled by Darius during that time. In order to fight the Athens, Darius sent his large army to fight in the battle of Marathon. But surprisingly, the Athens won the battle.

Later on, after 10 years i.e, at 490BCE. The Persians under the rule of Darius’s son Xerxes fought against the Athens in the battle of Thermopylae, where the Greeks fought against a million man army of Xerxes with just only 300 Spartans. This heroic battle inspired many people. Then, the persian army was tricked into fighting through naval route and was defeated and Xerxes fled from the battle and never returned.

This was the story written by Herodotus in this book which starts of with a line ‘Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiries’. His book consider as an inquiry in which he collected all the information gathered. His book contained some serious and interesting stories, while some were not.

He collected all the information from eye witnesses as well as from hear say and also from the traditional means. Usually, the book of history contained 28 sections which was read aloud and took about 4 hours to complete a section.

Many modern historians can analyse the stories written by Herodotus now. As it is not proven they the stories or events which were written in the book, the events exactly happened like that only. Though, it is said that Herodotus favoured Greeks over Persians and also sometimes mishearing can cause misinterpretation and errors in history writing.

But, as Herodotus’ writing was unique and reasonable. He was the given the title of father of history by Greeks several years later.