Page "Herodotus" Paragraph 30

As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel ( I, 144 ), and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt ( II, 178 ).

It was therefore an outward-looking, international-minded port within the Persian Empire and the historian's family could well have had contacts in countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches.

His eye-witness accounts indicate that he travelled in Egypt probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier in association with Athenians, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460-454 BC.

He probably travelled to Tyre next and then down the Euphrates to Babylon.

For some reason, probably associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus and, sometime around 447 BC, he migrated to Periclean Athens, a city for whose people and democratic institutions he declares his open admiration ( V, 78 ) and where he came to know not just leading citizens such as the Alcmaeonids, a clan whose history features frequently in his writing, but also the local topography ( VI, 137 ; VIII, 52-5 ).

According to Eusebius and Plutarch, Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work and there may be some truth in this.

It is possible that he applied for Athenian citizenship-a rare honour after 451 BC, requiring two separate votes by a well-attended assembly-but was unsuccessful.

In 443 BC, or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurium as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony.

Aristotle refers to a version of The Histories written by ' Herodotus of Thurium ' and indeed some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about southern Italy from personal experience there ( IV, 15, 99 ; VI 127 ).

Intimate knowledge of some events in the first years of the Peloponnesian War ( VI, 91 ; VII, 133, 233 ; IX, 73 ) indicate that he might have returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague.

Possibly he died in Macedonia instead after obtaining the patronage of the court there or else he died back in Thurium.

Either way, there is nothing in the Histories that can be dated with any certainty later than 430 and it is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year.