Herodotus was a Greek historian, generally called the “Father of History.” The work of Herodotus is the oldest surviving major Greek prose and the first history in Western civilization. He was born at Halicarnassus, a Greek state under Persian rule, in southwestern Asia Minor. After a civil war, he left his homeland for good and spent some time in nearby Ionia. Then he traveled widely: as far south as Elephantine in Egypt; eastward into Asia …showed first 75 words of 932 total…

…showed last 75 words of 932 total…place, our knowledge of early Greek history becomes consecutive and extensive only when we can draw on the information picked up and preserved by Herodotus; and we know the great Persian wars, which halted the expansion of the Persian Empire at a crucial point, almost entirely from his history. Secondly, Herodotus began the writing oh history in the Western world, although few historians have tried to emulate his remarkable scope and intricate pattern of organization.