Herodotus c.485-425BC
Greek historian

He was born in Halicarnassus, a Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor. When the colonies were freed from the Persian yoke, he travelled extensively in Asia Minor and the Middle East, and in 443BC joined the colony of Thurii, from where he visited Sicily and Lower Italy. On his travels, he collected historical, geographical, ethnological, mythological and archaeological material for his great narrative history, which included a record of the wars between Greece and Asia. Beginning with the conquest of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor by the Lydian king, Croesus, he gives a history of Lydia, Persia, Babylon and Egypt. He was the first to make the events of the past the subject of research and verification, and Cicero and others have called him 'the father of history'.

Bibliography: A de Selincourt, The World of Herodotus (1962)