Temenus
In Greek mythology, Temenus was a son of Aristomachus and brother of Cresphontes and Aristodemus. Temenus was a great-great-grandson of Heracles and helped lead the fifth and he was the father of Ceisus, Káranos, Phalces and Hyrnetho. Káranos was the first king of Macedonia and founder of the royal Macedonian dynasty–the Temenid or Argead dynasty–which culminated in the sons of Alexander the Great five centuries later and his brothers complained to the oracle that its instructions had proved fatal to those who had followed them. They received the answer that by the fruit the third generation was meant, and that the narrow passage was not the isthmus of Corinth. They accordingly built a fleet at Naupactus, but before they set sail, Aristodemus was struck by lightning and the fleet destroyed, because one of the Heracleidae had slain an Acarnanian soothsayer. The oracle, being consulted by Temenus, bade him offer an expiatory sacrifice and banish the murderer for ten years. On his way back to Naupactus, Temenus fell in with Oxylus, an Aetolian, the Heracleidae repaired their ships, sailed from Naupactus to Antirrhium, and thence to Rhium in Peloponnesus.
A decisive battle was fought with Tisamenus, son of Orestes, the ruler in the peninsula. The Heracleidae, who became practically masters of the Peloponnese. Argos fell to Temenus, Lacedaemon to Procles and Eurysthenes, the sons of Aristodemus. The fertile district of Elis had been reserved by agreement for Oxylus, the Heracleidae ruled in Lacedaemon until 221 BC, but disappeared much earlier in the other countries. They represent a joint invasion of Peloponnesus by Aetolians and Dorians and it is noticeable that there is no dominate mention of these Heracleidae or their invasion in Homer or Hesiod. Herodotus speaks of poets who had celebrated their deeds, but these were limited to events immediately succeeding the death of Heracles. The story was first amplified by the Greek tragedians, who drew their inspiration from local legends. According to Apollodorus, after the death of Temenus the army declared Deiphontes, however, reports a different story. According to him, after Temenuss death it was not Deiphontes that succeeded him, Deiphontes on the other hand is said to have lived at Epidaurus, whither he went with the army which was attached to him, and from whence he expelled the Ionian king, Pityreus.
Deiphontes pursued them, and after having killed one of them, Cerynes, he wrestled with the other, in this struggle, Hyrnetho was killed by her own brother, who escaped. Deiphontes carried her back to Epidaurus, and there erected a sanctuary to her
Vergina
Vergina is a small town in northern Greece, part of Veroia municipality in Imathia, Central Macedonia. It is now a unit within Veroia, with an area 69.047 km2. Vergina is best known as the site of ancient Aigai, the first capital of Macedon and it was here in 336 BC that Philip II was assassinated in the theatre and Alexander the Great was proclaimed king. It is the site of a royal palace and of many rich ancient tombs. The objects and paintings found in the tombs at Vergina are of high quality. A museum now contains Philips tomb and a new museum is being constructed for the palace, the existence of an early Macedonian fortress named Aegae is reported by Justin, and was long identified as Edessa. Only with the discovery of substantial remains near Vergina, just east of the Haliacmon, in 1976, ancient sources give conflicting accounts of the origins of the Argead dynasty. Alexander I is the first truly historic figure and, based on the line of succession, herodotus says that the Argead dynasty was an ancient Greek royal house led by Perdiccas I who fled from Argos, in approximately 650 BC.
Indeed, Aigai never became a city and most of its inhabitants lived in surrounding villages. From Aigai the Macedonians spread to the part of Macedonia. From 513 to 480 BC Aigai was part of the Persian Empire, the city wall was built in the 5th century probably by Perdiccas II. At the beginning of the 4th century BC, Archelaus transferred the Macedonian capital north-east to Pella on the central Macedonian plain. Nevertheless, Aegae retained its role as the city of the Macedonian kingdom, the site of the traditional cult centres, a royal palace. For this reason it was here that Philip II was attending the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to King Alexander of Epirus when he was murdered by his bodyguard in the theatre and his was the most lavish funeral ceremony of historic times held in Greece. Laid on a gold and ivory deathbed wearing his precious golden oak wreath. The bitter struggles between the heirs of Alexander, the Diadochi, in the 3rd century adversely affected the city, in 276 BC the Gauls of Pyrrhus plundered many of the tombs.
After the overthrow of the Macedonian kingdom by the Romans in 168 BC both old and new capitals were destroyed, the walls pulled down and the palace, theatre, in the 1st century AD a landslide completely destroyed the city. However excavations prove that parts were inhabited in the 1st century AD
Ancient Greek religion
Ancient Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and mythology originating in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or cults in the plural, many ancient Greeks recognized the twelve major gods and goddesses, although philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to assume a single transcendent deity. Different cities often worshiped the deities, sometimes with epithets that distinguished them. Greek religion was tempered by Etruscan cult and belief to form much of the ancient Roman religion, while there were few concepts universal to all the Greek peoples, there were common beliefs shared by many. Ancient Greek theology was polytheistic, based on the assumption there were many gods. There was a hierarchy of deities, with Zeus, the king of the gods, having a level of control all the others. Some deities had dominion over aspects of nature.
Other deities ruled over abstract concepts, for instance Aphrodite controlled love, while being immortal, the gods were certainly not all-good or even all-powerful. They had to obey fate, known to Greek mythology as the Moirai, which overrode any of their divine powers or wills. For instance, in mythology, it was Odysseus fate to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, and the gods could only lengthen his journey and make it harder for him, the gods acted like humans, and had human vices. They would interact with humans, sometimes even spawning children with them, at times certain gods would be opposed to others, and they would try to outdo each other. In the Iliad, Aphrodite and Apollo support the Trojan side in the Trojan War, while Hera, some gods were specifically associated with a certain city. Athena was associated with the city of Athens, Apollo with Delphi and Delos, Zeus with Olympia, other deities were associated with nations outside of Greece, Poseidon was associated with Ethiopia and Troy, and Ares with Thrace.
The Greeks believed in an underworld where the spirits of the dead went after death, one of the most widespread areas of this underworld was ruled over by Hades, a brother of Zeus, and was known as Hades. Other well known realms are Tartarus, a place of torment for the damned, and Elysium, in the early Mycenean religion all the dead went to Hades, but the rise of mystery cults in the Archaic age led to the development of places such as Tartarus and Elysium. Such beliefs are found in the most ancient of Greek sources, such as Homer and this belief remained strong even into the Christian era. For most people at the moment of death there was, however, no hope of anything, some Greeks, such as the philosophers Pythagoras and Plato, embraced the idea of reincarnation, though this was only accepted by a few. Epicurus taught that the soul was simply atoms which dissolved at death, Greek religion had an extensive mythology
Alexander IV of Macedon
Alexander IV, erroneously called sometimes in modern times Aegus, was the son of Alexander the Great and Princess Roxana of Bactria. Alexander IV was the son of a Macedonian father, Alexander the Great and he was Philip II of Macedons grandson. Because Roxana was pregnant when her died and the sex of the baby was unknown. The factions compromised, deciding that Perdiccas would rule the Empire as regent while Philip would reign, if the child was male, he would be king. Alexander IV was born in August,323 BC and he brought with him Roxana and the two kings to Macedon and gave up the pretence of ruling Alexanders Empire, leaving former provinces in Egypt and Asia in control of the satraps. When Antipater died in 319 BC he left Polyperchon, a Macedonian general who had served under Philip II and Alexander the Great, as his successor, passing over his own son, Cassander. Cassander allied himself with Ptolemy Soter and Eurydice, the wife of king Philip Arrhidaeus. Polyperchon was allied with Eumenes and Olympias, although Polyperchon was successful at first, taking control of the Greek cities, his fleet was destroyed by Antigonus in 318 BC.
When, after the battle, Cassander assumed full control of Macedon, Polyperchon was forced to flee to Epirus, followed by Roxana, a few months later, Olympias was able to persuade her relative Aeacides of Epirus to invade Macedon with Polyperchon. When Olympias took the field, Eurydices army refused to fight against the mother of Alexander and defected to Olympias, after which Polyperchon and Aeacides retook Macedon. Philip and Eurydice were captured and executed on December 25,317 BC, leaving Alexander IV king, Cassander returned in the following year, conquering Macedon once again. Olympias was immediately executed, while the king and his mother were taken prisoner, cassanders response was definitive, to secure his rule, in 309 BC he commanded Glaucias to secretly assassinate the 14-year-old Alexander IV and his mother. The orders were carried out, and they were both poisoned, one of the royal tombs discovered by the archaeologist Manolis Andronikos in the so-called Great Tumulus in Vergina in 1977/8 is believed to belong to Alexander IV.
Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Alexander IV, livius. org, Alexander IV Wiki Classical Dictionary, Alexander IV
Illyrians
The Illyrians were a group of Indo-European tribes in antiquity, who inhabited part of the western Balkans and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula. The first account of Illyrian peoples comes from the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, the Illyrian tribes never collectively regarded themselves as Illyrians, and it is unlikely that they used any collective nomenclature for themselves. The term Illyrians last appears in the record in the 7th century. In Greek mythology, Illyrius was the son of Cadmus and Harmonia who eventually ruled Illyria, Illyrius had multiple sons and daughters. From these, sprang the Taulantii, Dardani, Autariates, autareius had a son Pannonius or Paeon and these had sons Scordiscus and Triballus. Even before the advent of post-modernism, scholars recognized a difficulty in producing a single theory on the ethnogenesis of the Illyrians given their heterogeneous nature, scholars traditionally looked for the origins of the Illyrian peoples centuries, even millennia, before their first historical attestation.
Following the theories of Gustaf Kossinna, scholars sought to equate tribes mentioned by Greco-Roman historians with preceding Bronze, in particular, scholars such as Julian Pokorny and Richard Pittioni placed the Illyrian homeland within the Luzatian culture, itself an offshoot of the trans-Central European Urnfield culture. From c.1200 BC, the bearers of the Lausitz culture are said to have engaged in widespread migrations throughout Europe. With regard to the Balkans, their movement south in turn initiated the Dorian migrations into southern Greece and these Pan-Illyrian theories have since been dismissed by scholars, based as they were on racialistic notions of Nordicism and Aryanism. The above theories have found little archaeological corroboration, as no convincing evidence for significant migratory movements from the Luzatian culture into the west Balkans have ever been found. Rather, archaeologists from the former Yugoslavia highlighted the continuity between the Bronze and succeeding Iron Age, ultimately developing the so-called autochthonous theory of Illyrian genesis, the autochthonous model was most elaborated upon by Alojz Benac and B.
They argued that the proto-Illyrians had arrived earlier, during the Bronze Age as nomadic Indo-Europeans from the steppe. From that point, there was a gradual Illyrianization of the western Balkans leading to historic Illyrians and he did not deny a minor cultural impact from the northern Urnfield cultures, however these movements had neither a profound influence on the stability. Of the Balkans, nor did they affect the ethnogenesis of the Illyrian ethnos, aleksandar Stipčević raised concerns regarding Benacs all-encompassing scenario of autochthonous ethnogenesis. They rather see the emergence of historic Illyrians tribes as a recent phenomenon - just prior to their first attestation. The exception to this are the communities in Glasinac and Mati, the impetus behind the emergence of larger regional groups, such as Iapodes, Pannonians etc. is traced to increased contacts with the Mediterranean and La Tène global worlds. This catalyzed the development of complex political institutions and the increase in differences between individual communities.
Emerging local elites selectively adopted either La Tène or Hellenistic and, Roman cultural templates in order to legitimise and they were competing fiercely through either alliance or conflict and resistance to Roman expansion
Homer
Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C.
Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated.
The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
Dorians
The Dorians were one of the four major ethnic groups among which the Hellenes of Classical Greece considered themselves divided. They are almost always referred to as just the Dorians, as they are called in the earliest literary mention of them in the Odyssey, and yet, all Hellenes knew which localities were Dorian, and which were not. Dorian states at war could more likely, but not always, Dorians were distinguished by the Doric Greek dialect and by characteristic social and historical traditions. In the 5th century BC, Dorians and Ionians were the two most politically important Greek ethne, whose ultimate clash resulted in the Peloponnesian War, the degree to which fifth-century Hellenes self-identified as Ionian or Dorian has itself been disputed. At one extreme Édouard Will concludes that there was no true ethnic component in fifth-century Greek culture, at the other extreme John Alty reinterprets the sources to conclude that ethnicity did motivate fifth-century actions. Moderns viewing these ethnic identifications through the fifth- and fourth-century BC literary tradition have been influenced by their own social politics.
Accounts vary as to the Dorians’ place of origin, mythology gave them a Greek origin and eponymous founder, Dorus son of Hellen, the mythological patriarch of the Hellenes. The origin of the Dorians is a multi-faceted concept, in modern scholarship the term often has meant the location of the population disseminating the Doric Greek dialect within a hypothetical Proto-Greek speaking population. This dialect is known from records of classical northwest Greece, the Peloponnesus and Crete, a historical event is associated with the overthrow, called anciently the Return of the Heracleidai and by moderns the Dorian Invasion. This theory of a return or invasion presupposes that West Greek speakers resided in northwest Greece, no other records than Mycenaean are known to have existed in the Bronze Age, so a West Greek of that time and place cannot be proved or disproved. West Greek speakers were in western Greece in classical times, unlike the East Greeks, they are not associated with any evidence of displacement events.
This provides circumstantial evidence that the Doric dialect disseminated among the Hellenes of northwest Greece, most scholars doubt that the Dorian invasion was the main cause of the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. The source of the West Greek speakers in the Peloponnesus remains unattested by any solid evidence, though most of the Doric invaders settled in the Peloponnese, they settled on Rhodes and Sicily, in what is now southern Italy. In Asia Minor existed the Dorian Hexapolis and Knidos in Asia Minor and Lindos, Kameiros and these six cities would become rivals with the Ionian cities of Asia Minor. Other such Dorian colonies, originally from Corinth, Megara, a mans name, Dōrieus, occurs in the Linear B tablets at Pylos, one of the regions invaded and subjugated by the Dorians. Pylos tablet Fn867 records it in the case as do-ri-je-we, *Dōriēwei. An unattested nominative plural, *Dōriēwes, would have become Dōrieis by loss of the w, the tablet records the grain rations issued to the servants of religious dignitaries celebrating a religious festival of Potnia, the mother goddess.
The nominative singular, Dōrieus, remained the same in the classical period, many Linear B names of servants were formed from their home territory or the places where they came into Mycenaean ownership
Appian
Appian of Alexandria was a Roman historian of Greek origin who flourished during the reigns of Emperors of Rome Trajan and Antoninus Pius. He was born c.95 in Alexandria, after having filled the chief offices in the province of Aegyptus, he went to Rome c. Because the position of procurator was open only to members of the equestrian order and his principal surviving work was written in Greek in 24 books, before 165. This work more closely resembles a series of monographs than a connected history and it gives an account of various peoples and countries from the earliest times down to their incorporation into the Roman Empire, and survives in complete books and considerable fragments. The work is valuable, especially for the period of the civil wars. The Civil Wars, five of the books in the corpus, concern mainly the end of the Roman Republic. Little is known of the life of Appian of Alexandria and he wrote an autobiography that has been almost completely lost. Information about Appian is distilled from his own writings and a letter by his friend Cornelius Fronto, however, it is certain that Appian was born around the year AD95 in Alexandria, the capital of Roman Egypt.
Since his parents were Roman citizens capable of paying for their son’s education and it is believed that Appian moved to Rome in 120, where he became a barrister. In the introduction to his Roman History, he boasts “that he pleaded cases in Rome before the emperors. ”The emperors he claims to have addressed must have been either Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius and definitely Antoninus Pius, for Appian remained in Egypt at least until the end of the reign of Trajan. In the letter of Cornelius Fronto, it is revealed that a request on behalf of Appian to receive the rank of procurator occurred during the co-regency between 147 and 161, although Appian won this office, it is unclear whether it was a real job or an honorific title. The only other certain biographical datum is that Appians Roman History appeared sometime before 162 and this is one of the few primary historical sources for the period. Appian began writing his history around the middle of the second century AD, only sections from half of the original 24 books survive today.
The most important remnants of Appians work are the five books on the Civil Wars—books 13-17 of the Roman History, especially notable is this works ethnographic structure. Appian most likely used this structure to facilitate his readers orientation through the sequence of events, a literary example of this can be found from Appian’s Civil Wars. One might expect that a work covering nine centuries and countless different peoples would involve a multitude of testimonials from different periods. However, Appians sources remain uncertain, as he mentions the source of his information under special circumstances. He may have relied primarily on one author for each book, at our present state of knowledge questions regarding Appian’s sources cannot be solved
Amyntas II of Macedon
Amyntas II or Amyntas the Little, of Macedon, was son of Philip or Menelaus, brother of Perdiccas II. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Elder. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
Midas
Midas is the name of at least three members of the royal house of Phrygia. The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold and this came to be called the golden touch, or the Midas touch. The Phrygian city Midaeum was presumably named after this Midas, according to Aristotle, legend held that Midas died of starvation as a result of his vain prayer for the gold touch. However, Homer does not mention Midas or Gordias, while instead mentioning two other Phrygian kings and Otreus. Another King Midas ruled Phrygia in the late 8th century BC, up until the sacking of Gordium by the Cimmerians, when he is said to have committed suicide. Most historians believe this Midas is the person as the Mita, called king of the Mushki in Assyrian texts. Phrygia was by that time a Lydian subject, Herodotus says that Croesus regarded the Phrygian royal house as friends but does not mention whether the Phrygian royal house still ruled as kings of Phrygia.
There are many, and often contradictory, legends about the most ancient King Midas. In one, Midas was king of Pessinus, a city of Phrygia, who as a child was adopted by King Gordias and Cybele, the goddess whose consort he was, and who was the goddess-mother of Midas himself. According to some accounts, Midas had a son, the reaper of men. According to other accounts he had a son Anchurus, arrian gives an alternative story of the descent and life of Midas. According to him, Midas was the son of Gordios, a peasant. While they were still deliberating, Midas arrived with his father and mother and they, comparing the oracular response with this occurrence, decided that this was the person whom the god told them the wagon would bring. They therefore appointed Midas king and he, putting an end to their discord, in addition to this the following saying was current concerning the wagon, that whosoever could loosen the cord of the yoke of this wagon, was destined to gain the rule of Asia. This someone was to be Alexander the Great, in other versions of the legend, it was Midas father Gordias who arrived humbly in the cart and made the Gordian Knot.
However, some believe that this throne was donated by the later. One day, as Ovid relates in Metamorphoses XI, Dionysus found that his old schoolmaster and foster father, the old satyr had been drinking wine and wandered away drunk, to be found by some Phrygian peasants who carried him to their king, Midas. Midas recognized him and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with politeness, while Silenus delighted Midas and his friends with stories, on the eleventh day, he brought Silenus back to Dionysus in Lydia
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Assyrian and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent.
The end of the Dark Ages is dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field.
Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Demosthenes, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
Herodotus
Herodotus was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire and lived in the fifth century BC, a contemporary of Socrates. The Histories is the work which he is known to have produced. Despite Herodotus historical significance, little is known of his personal life and his place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact, of these only fragments of Hecataeuss work survive yet they allow us glimpses into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories. In his introduction to Hecataeus’s work, This points forward to the ‘folksy’ yet ‘international’ outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as “a curious false start to history” since despite his critical spirit. It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a recorded by Eusebius. But Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism.
For example, He argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe. Yet, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his notions of the Danube. His debt to previous authors of prose ‘histories’ might be questionable, this point is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship. It is on account of the strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics in early modern times branded him “The Father of Lies”. Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a “logos-writer”. Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view, the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus’s own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much sources, modern accounts of his life typically go something like this, Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC.
His name is not mentioned in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, the epic poet Panyassis – a relative of Herodotus – is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising. Herodotus expresses affection for the island of Samos, and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos, Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect, yet he was born in Halicarnassus, which was a Dorian settlement
