Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tudorburg forest?

What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland?

Or what made Alexander truly great?

With a subscription to history hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists.

You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II.

Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. What Herodotus from Halicarnassus has learnt by inquiry is here set forth,

in order that, so the memory of the past may not be blotted out from among

men by time, and that great and marvelous deeds done by Greeks and foreigners, and especially

the reason why they warred against each other, may not lack renown.

Herodotus, he's known as the father of history, immortalized through his great surviving work

written 2,500 years ago, a dramatic narrative of the Persian invasions of Greece, an attempt

to explain the origins of hostility between Greeks and non-Greeks, what they called barbarians,

an ethnography, exploring beliefs and legends of these foreign peoples who lived across

the Mediterranean world and beyond.

It's known as the Histories, a paragon work of ancient non-fiction that has fascinated people

for centuries. In this episode, we're going to explore what is known about Herodotus and

some of the key themes from his histories

with our fan-favorite returning guest, Dr. Rool Kinanidike. Welcome to the ancients. I'm Tristan

Hughes, your host, and this is the story of Herodotus, the father of history.

Rool, it is great to have you back on the podcast. Welcome back. So good to be back, Tristan. Thanks for having me. You're more than welcome, and this is the second time we've done it in person. We did the Spartan warrior a couple of years ago now. It was a while ago, actually. Yeah, it was a while ago, actually. But here we're talking about, I guess, something related to the Greco-Persian wars, but Herodotus, he feels of all the ancient historical accounts that we have,

he feels like the big one, at least with ancient Greek history. Yeah, when we're talking about the Persian Wars, I mean, it feels like exploring rooms where this is the building, right? This is basically what we're talking about. There's a lot of other sources that we can draw on when we're trying to talk about the Persians and the Persian wars. But Herodotus is the one who decided this should be a story that was worth commemorating, worth writing down in full detail. And we rely on him so much. I mean, there are parts of this whole story for which we have basically nothing about Herodotus. And so he is the one who gives us not just all the details, but the whole idea that this is a narrative, right? This is something that has a beginning and an end and it has a message and it has all these participants and all these actors that he describes.

I mean, this is basically his idea of how to tell this story.

...