the idea of a river “Ocean” encircling the landmass of Asia, Africa and Europe, simply on
the basis of lack of empirical support (2.23, 4.8, 4.45).
The scientific method adopted by He ̄rodotos in the Histories is by no means uniform or
consistent, however, and he himself occasionally reverts to the very mythic or non-empirical
kinds of explanation he condemns in the Ionians. His religious conservatism led him to assert,
for example, that the gods, rather than natural forces, had caused a severe storm which
damaged the Persian navy as it prepared to attack mainland Greece (8.13). (In discussing
another storm, however, which also caused great harm to the Persians, He ̄rodotos seems
unwilling to choose between natural and divine causes: “At long last the Magi priests stopped
the wind after three days, by offering sacrifices and shouting incantations, as well as by sacri-
ficing to Thetis and the Nereids; or else it was otherwise and the wind stopped by itself, as it is
wont to do” [7.191]). He often supports, or at least is unwilling to contradict, a traditional
piety which saw in the natural world a pattern familiar from contemporary tragic drama, of
excess or transgression leading to divine retribution. Thus, while He ̄rodotos sometimes
approaches scientific problems in a way that anticipates the empirical method of A,
at other times he relies on mythic notions inherited from Homer and the archaic world, and it
is hard to know at any one point in his complex narrative why he leans one way or the other.
Though the excursus on Egypt is by far He ̄rodotos’ longest, other important discussions
deal with the lands and peoples of “Skuthia” or north-eastern Eurasia (4.1–82), the geo-
graphy of the oikoumene ̄ (contained within the Skuthian account, 4.36–45), and the
contrast between the edges of the Earth and its central regions (3.106–116). Framed by this
last passage is a fascinating discussion of the reproductive patterns of lions and snakes
(3.108–109), which shows He ̄rodotos making bold yet naive forays into the then-nascent
field of biology. A brief dialogue between King Xerxe ̄s and his uncle concerning the origin
of dreams (7.14–16) contains a theory (ultimately rejected) which anticipates modern
psychological explanations.
OCD3 696 – 698, J.P.A. Gould; J.S. Romm, Herodotus (1998); BNP 6 (2005) 265–271, K. Meister;
C. Dewald & J. Marincola, The Cambridge companion to Herodotus (2006).
J.S. Romm
He ̄rodotos (Pneum., of Tarsos?) (70 – 100 CE)
Pneumaticist, ( preferred?) student of A, who dedicated to him a work
( perhaps On Pulse); became famous in Rome (G, Diff. Puls. 4 [8.751 K.]), where he
might have taught medicine (O, Ecl. Med. 73[74].22); criticized all other sects’
approaches to medicine (Gale ̄n, Simples 1.19 [11.432 K.]). Despite the chronological dif-
ficulty, identified by some scholars with the Skeptic He ̄rodotos of Tarsos, son of Areios,
student of M, in D L 9.116 (the father being groundlessly
identified with D’ homonymous dedicatee), He ̄rodotos may have been
S E’ teacher (Kudlien 1963: 252–253). Nevertheless, he has also been iden-
tified as a Methodist and an Eclectic (Scarborough 1969: 45, 155), and was perhaps
influenced by Empiricists: he seems to have professed an etiological nihilism, at least
regarding fevers (-G, H. P. 19.343 K.).
He ̄rodotos probably worked mainly on therapeutics. His activity in this field does recall
the school of Tarsos: Gale ̄n, when he criticizes He ̄rodotos for his Pneumaticist method
which proceeded by invalid logic (Simples 1.34, 36, 11.442–443 K.), associates him with
Dioskouride ̄s. Oreibasios extracts three pharmacological books: (1) Active Remedies (Peri to ̄n
HE ̄RODOTOS (PNEUM., OF TARSOS?)