Herodotus and the Value of Stories

Part of The Rest Is History

Herodotus, a Greek historian of the 5th century BC born on the western edge of an empire stretching to India, wrote The Histories, a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars considered the founding work of History in Western literature.

Part of The Ancients · History Hit's interview show; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Roel Konijnendijk

Part of Ithaca Bound

With Oswyn Murray

Dr Oswyn Murray, Emeritus Fellow at the University of Oxford, discusses the life and writings of Herodotus, the oldest Greek historian whose work survives, who has been called the father of history.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

Who Herodotus was, as far as the known information allows, what his Histories covers beyond war, from geography and ethnography to folklore, its division into nine books, and the potential sources he used.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Michaela opens Herodotus's Histories, the first history text from Greek antiquity, tracing the beginnings of the Persian Wars through as many tangents as the father of history can manage.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Herodotus returns to Croesus's mad dash to take on the Persian Empire, tangents included, as book one of the Histories continues toward the capture of a third city.

Part of Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

With Scarlett Kingsley

Scarlett Kingsley, Associate Professor of Classics at Agnes Scott College, sets Herodotus in the intellectual milieu of the fifth century, reading his account of Solon's meeting with Croesus in the Histories.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

With Kate Minniti

Conversations: Kate Minniti joins Liv to explore the weird and wonderful claims the influential Herodotus made about what he saw and learned in Egypt.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Herodotus, the world's first historian, travelled the Greek world recording recent events, folding in famous myths and badass women along the way.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

Why Herodotus gets called the Father of Lies: the reliability of his wide-ranging sources and reporting, and modern clickbait arguments, often misrepresenting him, on gold-digging ants, griffins and the millions of Persians at Thermopylae.

Part of In Our Time · The BBC seminar format; only the Greek episodes are indexed