Download Traveler Feature Activities

Traveler: Herodotus
This activity corresponds to the "Traveler: Herodotus" feature in your textbook. The
questions below are designed to help you learn more about the topic. Once you have
answered the Comprehension questions, submit your answers and move on to the
subsequent questions included in the Analysis and Outside Sources sections. Each section
is designed to build upon the one before it, taking you progressively deeper into the
subject you are studying. After you have answered all of the questions, you will have the
option of emailing your responses to your instructor.
Introduction
As you read in the Traveler section of Chapter 6 of your textbook, the Roman orator
Cicero called Herodotus "the father of history." This designation is true in that Herodotus
broke with traditional ways of recounting the past, In doing so, he established some of the
basic methods of research and analysis that historians still use today. Cicero's designation
also suggests that for subsequent historians Herodotus was a model they used consciously
as they shaped their own histories and a standard by which their work was measured. Use
the questions and links below to explore further the work of Herodotus and the historians
who followed him.
Comprehension
1. What forms of government, according to Herodotus, did Darius and his co-conspirators
consider for the empire they were about to seize?
2. Where was Herodotus born, and what was that city's relationship to the Greek and
Persian worlds?
3. What was the Greek title Herodotus chose for his book, and what does it mean?
Analysis
1. Review "The Rise of the Greek City-State, 800–500 B.C.E." in Chapter 6 of your
textbook. What factors probably led to the development of the Greek community into
which Herodotus was born?
2. Review "The Greco-Persian Wars, 490–479 B.C.E." in Chapter 6 of your textbook. In
addition to explaining the success of the Persian Empire, what issues might have drawn
Herodotus to the study of the Greek-Persian conflict?
3. Review "Politics and Culture in Athens, 480–404 B.C.E." and "Athens as a Center for
the Study of Philosophy" in Chapter 6 of your textbook. To what extent was Herodotus'
thought and writing made possible by the culture of the Greek city-state exemplified by
Athens?
Outside Sources
1. If Herodotus is indeed the "father of history," his eldest intellectual son is Thucydides,
an Athenian aristocrat and general who wrote a history of The Peloponnesian War
between Athens, Sparta, and their respective allies (see "Politics and Culture in Athens,
480–404 B.C.E." in Chapter 6 of your textbook). Read the first two paragraphs of
Herodotus' and Thucydides' histories:

Herodotus: http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.1.i.html

Thucydides: http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.1.first.html
What are the similarities and differences in how these two historians introduce their
subjects? What does each choose to emphasize?
2. Born three years before Herodotus' death and a younger contemporary of Thucydides,
Xenophon was another major Greek historian. Read the opening two paragraphs of his
Anabasis, an account of his participation in a Greek military expedition into Persia:
http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/ancient/xenophon-anabasis.html. How does
Xenophon's introduction differ from those of Herodotus and Thucydides? What do those
differences suggest about his interests as an historian?
3. One famous episode in Herodotus is his account of a meeting between the Athenian
statesman Solon (see "The Rise of the Greek City-State, 800–500 B.C.E." in Chapter 6 of
your textbook) and Croesus, a king of Lydia (in Asia Minor) who was famed for his
wealth. Read Herodotus' account at
http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/ancient/herodotus-creususandsolon.html. Now read
another account of the meeting by Plutarch, a Greek historian who lived from about 46 to
120 C.E.: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/solon.html (scroll down to paragraph beginning
"That Solon should discourse with Croesus . . . "). What do these accounts have in
common? How do they differ? What do these similarities and differences tell you about
these historians understand this semi-legendary event?