a celebrated historian, the son of Lyxas and Dryo, was a native of Halicarnassus, a city of Asia Minor. He was born 484 B.C. being descended of a family not less distinguished for its love of literature than for its wealth and political influence. His uncle Panyassis was highly esteemed as an epic poet, his writings being regarded by his contemporaries as only second to those of Homer. We are therefore justified in believing that the youthful mind of Herodotus was cultivated with an assiduity which contributed in no small degree to the eminence of his maturer years. (Suidas, Ἡρόδωτος καὶ Πανυσσίς, Schol. Aristoph. Nab. 331.) The period of history which he selected had nothing of novelty to recommend it; many writers of great celebrity had preceded him, but their high name and reputation, far from discouraging him, served only to excite his emulation and to develope his talents. Xanthus of Lydia, Hecataeus of Miletus, Pherecydes, Acælaus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Charon of Lampsacus, had each treated different parts of his subject with a masterly hand, and it required no small confidence in his own powers to venture on a period of history which had been so nearly exhausted. To enable him to do justice to his subject, he determined to visit those countries the transactions of which he was about to narrate. It is impossible to trace the exact route which he pursued with any degree of precision, or to say with certainty whether he visited Greece and the adjoining isles before he proceeded to the more remote parts of the East. But be this as it may, Egypt was one of the first and most constant objects of his attention and research. This country, which had long been inaccessible to strangers, from the defensive policy of its sovereigns and the inhospitable nature of its inhabitants, had been recently thrown open to the Greeks. Thither Herodotus proceeded; and it is curious to remark, that though many since that period have visited the country, and published the results of their inquiries, no one has given a more exact description, either of the physical appearance of Egypt, or of the manners of its inhabitants, than the father of history. It was not merely to the geography of the country that he directed his attention, but to its productions, its peculiar customs, its strange superstitions, and the history of the princes who reigned immediately before its conquest by the Persians. In his second book we have the fruits of his voyage to Egypt; and it may be still referred to as the purest source for acquiring a minute knowledge of its ancient history and institutions. (Herodotus, ii.)

From Egypt he must have passed into Libya, for we cannot believe that his accurately detailed account of the whole coast, from the frontiers of Egypt to the remote districts beyond Gibraltar, even as far as the promontory of Sotocis, could have been acquired otherwise than by personal examination. It is too minute, and too conformable with what we know of these countries at the present time, to have been collected from the hearsay statements of travellers. (ii. 181; iv. 168, 195, 196.)

His visit to Tyre, the splendid city of the Phœnicians, is attested by himself (ii. 44); and he must at the same time have examined the coasts of Palestine, as he mentions having seen the pillar, and the disgraceful emblem engraved on it, intended by Sesostris to commemorate his victory, about 1350 B.C., over a weak and demoralized people. (ii. 106.)

Some have ventured to deny that he ever journeyed so Herodotus, far to the east as Babylon, and the rich plains of Assyria; yet if he had not been on the spot, he could scarcely have delineated with such minuteness the topography of that mighty city. Besides, in recording the existence of the temple of Jupiter Belus, he adds that he did not see the celebrated golden statue which had adorned its shrine, because Xerxes had carried it elsewhere (i. 181). We may add, that his frequent intercourse with the Chaldeans, and the conversations he held with them, could scarcely have taken place in any part of the world beyond the confines of Assyria.

Colchis, as the theatre of an adventure depicted in all the glowing colours with which the creative genius of the poets could adorn it, was a natural object of curiosity. He traversed its rugged coast; and finding himself in the vicinity of the wandering Scythians, he penetrated into their wild and desolate solitude as far as the commercial speculations of the Greeks had reached (iv. 81). The country of the Getae, Thrace, Macedon, and Epirus, were each in their turn examined; but Greece was the chief object of his labours; and though we are unable to specify the time when he first visited it, he no doubt did so before his work was begun.

On his return to his native city, he found its government usurped by the tyrant Lygdamis; his uncle Panyasis was soon afterwards put to death; and he himself becoming an object of suspicion, retired to the island of Samos. Here probably he composed his history, in the soft Ionic dialect, preferring it to the harsher sounds of his native Doric. Yet, amidst the pursuits of literature, he did not forget the claims of the city which gave him birth. He organized a conspiracy by which Lygdamis was expelled; but the tyranny of the aristocracy which succeeded proved even more hateful to the citizens than that from which they had been delivered. They probably ascribed to Herodotus the crimes of his associates, which he had no power to avert; and, disgusted with the ingratitude of his fellow-citizens, the historian left for ever the shores of Caria, and proceeded to Greece. (Lucian in Herod. iv. p. 116.)

He arrived at the beginning of the eighty-first Olympiad (456 B.C.), and found a vast concourse of people assembled to celebrate the games at Olympia. He was unknown to all; but, ambitious of fame, he invited an audience to come and hear him recite a portion of his history; and as he no doubt selected the parts most likely to flatter the pride and to excite the enthusiasm of his compatriots, his success was complete, the acclamations with which he was received were overwhelming, and from that moment he was considered one of the first men of his age. It is supposed that it was at this recitation that Thucydides, then in his fifteenth year, shed tears of emulation when he saw the honours showered on the head of the historian. Herodotus foretold to the father the future fame of his son, and the sanction of posterity has verified the prediction. (Suid.: Marcellii Vit. Thucyd. p. 32.) Of the next twelve years, we can only conjecture that he spent them in Greece, and that he employed them in travelling leisurely over the country, examining with attention the archives of different people, verifying on original monuments the genealogies of the most illustrious families, and collecting the local traditions of great events at their source. It is said he was in the habit of reading to the different states the portions of history which more particularly referred to them, and was thus able to correct any error into which he might have fallen. At Athens, at the festival of Panathenaea, 446 B.C., he again recited a portion of his history, and received from the hands of that discerning people a donation of ten talents. (Euseb. Chron. p. 104.) In 444 B.C. Athens was preparing to send a colony to Thurium, and Herodotus determined to accompany it as a volunteer. Here he must have spent the remainder of his life in dignified repose, employing his time in retouching his history, and rendering the style still more harmonious. The period of his death is uncertain; but from a fact which he records, and which we know to have happened 408 B.C., he must have been employed in his history till that time. (Herodot. i. 130; iii. 15.)

The work is contained in nine books, each dedicated to one of the muses; but whether this was done by himself or by posterity we are unable to decide. To it we are indebted for our knowledge of the origin and progress of the Persian monarchy; of that of the Medes and Assyrians which preceded it; the origin of the kingdom of Lydia, its destruction by Cyrus the elder, and the numerous expeditions of that monarch; the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, with a minute description of that country; the various wars in which the successors of Cyrus were engaged, and particularly the expedition of Darius against the Scythians, where he takes an opportunity of introducing an account of that people in the north of Europe and Asia. Then follows his narrative of the Persian expedition against the Greeks, and their noble struggle against the overwhelming power of that monarchy. This narrative breaks off at the siege of Sestos, 478 B.C.; and though he alludes to events that happened seventy years later, he does not seem to have continued his history further. (Diodor. xi. 37.) Some have ascribed to him a life of Homer, which is generally bound up with his work; but there are strong reasons for believing that it is the composition of a later age. He seems also to allude to a work on Assyria (Assyriaca), i. 184; but as no notice is taken of it by subsequent writers, it was probably never executed.

For an able disquisition on the style of Herodotus, and his character as an historian, see Edinburgh Review, vol. xlviii. p. 331.