Histories (Herodotus) facts for kids

The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is considered the first work of history in Western literature. Written about 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories tells the story of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC.

Images for kids

Edwin Long's 1875 interpretation of The Babylonian Marriage Market as described by Herodotus in Book 1 of the Histories
Nile crocodile allowing the trochilus to eat leeches in its mouth. Drawing by Henry Scherren, 1906
Scythian warriors, drawn after figures on an electrum cup from the Kul'Oba kurgan burial near Kerch (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg)
Relief of Darius I, Persepolis
Statue of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens
A Greek trireme
Miltiades
The plain of Marathon today
The Battle of Salamis, by Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1868)
The Serpent Column dedicated by the victorious Greeks in Delphi, later transferred to Constantinople
Fragment from the Histories VIII on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2099, early 2nd century AD
Dedication in the Histories, translated into Latin by Lorenzo Valla, Venice 1494
The Indian Gold Hunters, after Herodotus: gold ants pursuing gold hunters.
The Himalayan marmot
Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant, by Claude Vignon