Herodotus

The Histories of Herodotus, A Translation By A.D. Godley

Herodotus was a Greek historian who was born in the 5th century BC in what is now modern-day Bodrum in Turkey (then part of the vast Persian Empire).

A contemporary of Thucydides, Socrates, and Euripides he is often called 'The Father of History', initially by no less than Cicero.

Herodotus broke from the then tradition to treat history as one of investigation of facts and evidence to present a better whole.

The Histories is the only work for which he is known to have produced a record of his inquiry on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars; In it he deals with the lives of Croesus, Cyrus, Cambyses, Smerdis, Darius, and Xerxes and the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. He expands into many cultural, ethnographical, geographical, historiographical, and areas to form a complete cultural landscape. This attention to detail helps The Histories remain a riveting account of this fascinating trime.

Whilst some of what he wrote appears inaccurate to modern day historians Herodortus would state that he reports only what he was told. Much of what he wrote has now been confirmed as an accurate distillation of the times.

Over the centureries many have translated his works.

Alfred Denis Godley was in 1856. An English Classical Scholar he was noted for his translations of Herodotus and Horace.

From 1910 to 1920 he was Public Orator at the University of Oxford, a post that involved composing citations in Latin for the recipients of honorary degrees.

Today he is mainly remembered for his humorous verse, including macaronic pieces such as The Motor Bus, which playfully mixes Latin declensions with English.

He died in 1925.