historian in his approach to the ideal of total history.
Herodotus' openness to other cultures indeed caused him to be called a 'bar-barophile'. It reflects in part
an older Ionian view from an age of exploration, reinforced perhaps by the traditions of Herodotus' own
community of Halicar-nassus, which was a mixed Greek and Carian city. But these attitudes have been
systematized under the influence of the new sophistic interest in the relationship between culture and
nature, nomos and physis; 'For if anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from
amongst all the nations of the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably, after
careful consideration of their relative merits, choose those of his own country.' Herodotus illustrates the
point with a story of the confrontation between Greeks and Indians arranged by King Darius; the Indians
-were disgusted to hear that the Greeks burned the corpses of their dead parents, the Greeks appalled that
the Indians ate theirs: 'One can see from this what custom can do, and Pindar, in my opinion, was right
when he called it "king of all" ' (3. 38).
The two aspects of the work in one sense reflect the two main literary influences on it, Homer and the
world of war and conflict, Hecataeus and the world of peace and understanding. They also probably
reflect a chronological progression in the development of Herodotus' book. He seems to have begun as
an expert on foreign cultures, a travelling sophist -who lectured on the marvels of the world; only later
did he arrange his researches around a unifying theme. Despite much modern controversy, that still
seems the most satisfactory account of the various peculiarities in the book.
How did Herodotus acquire his information? Some information may have come from previous literary
works; but Hecataeus is the only such author Herodotus mentions, and no convincing traces of the use of
earlier written narratives have been detected. Herodotus can quote poetry and oracles, and occasionally
gives information ultimately based on eastern documentary sources; but it is clear that he did not regard
written documents as an important source of information, indeed that he knew no language but Greek.
Herodotus' own characterization of his sources is always the same, and is consistent with the types of
information he gives. He claims to practise that most modern of historical disciplines, oral history, the
collection and interpretation of the living spoken tradition of a people: his sources are 'sight and hearing',
what he has seen and what he has been told; the two of course interrelate, since monuments and natural
phenomena preserve and call forth verbal explanations. His travels included Egypt and Cyrene in north
Africa, Tyre in Phoenicia, Mesopotamia as far as Babylon, the Black Sea and the Crimea, and the north
Aegean, apart from the main cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and ultimately (though this has left little if
any trace in the Histories) south Italy where he settled. In each place he seems to have sought out 'men
with traditions', particular groups, interpreters, priests, or leading citizens, and to have recorded a single
version of the oral tradition available, a version which may of course often have been partial, biased or
merely frivolous; he compares different versions only if they come from different places. The difficulties
of writing oral history are well recognized today; yet on the main cultures such as Egypt and Persia,
where Herodotus can be checked he is revealed to be remarkably well informed for someone working
from such oral sources.
It is in his Greek history that Herodotus reveals the most important aspect of his artistic personality. For
mainland Greece his information seems to come from the leading political groups in the cities. For