Herodotus in Context
Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion

An examination of Herodotus' Histories in the context of the intellectual developments of his time.

Rosalind Thomas (Author)

9780521012416, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 July 2002

332 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 2 cm, 0.504 kg

"The 'Father of History,' Herodotus, has developed into a particularly active field of research in the past 25 years and hardly a year goes by without an important new study. This book by Thomas is one of the best." --Choice

Herodotus called his work an enquiry and wrote before 'history' was a separate discipline. Coming from Halicarnassus, at the crossroads between the Persian and Athenian spheres of influence, he combined the culture of Athens with that of the more pluralistic and less ethnocentric cities of east Greece. Alive to the implications of this cultural background for Herodotus' thought, this study explores the much neglected contemporary connotations and context of the Histories, looking at them as part of the intellectual climate of his time. Concentrating on Herodotus' ethnography, geography and accounts of natural wonders, and examining his methods of argument and persuasion, it sees the Histories, which appear virtually without antecedents, as a product of the late fifth-century world of the natural scientists, medical writers and sophists - a world of controversy and debate.

Acknowledgements
References and texts
1. Introduction
2. Medicine and the ethnography of health
3. Dividing the world: Europe, Asia, Greeks and barbarians
4. Nomos is king: nomos, environment and ethnic character in Herodotus
5. 'Wonders' and the natural world: natural philosophy and historie
6. Argument and the language of proof
7. Polemic and persuasion
8. Performance, competitive display and apodeixis
9. Epilogue
Appendix. beavers and female ailments
Bibliography
Indexes.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], General & world history [HBG], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]