Episode 138 - Holding Out for a Hero(dotus)

It's Amber's birthday episode! Since she loves historiography, we're taking it back to one of the earliest historians, Herodotus. How did he think about the past, and how did that influence historians who came after him? What did he get right, and what did he get wrong? What's up with that weird boat, those mummy enemas, the flying snakes, and the giant ants? Listen and find out!

• Herodotus (World History Encyclopedia)

• Guide to the classics: The Histories, by Herodotus (The Conversation)

• Herodotus (Livius.org)

• Herodotus’ Histories (Livius.org)

• The Histories (Perseus)

• From Herodotus to H-Net on WorldCat

• 2,500 Years Ago, Herodotus Described a Weird Ship. Now, Archaeologists Have Found it. (LiveScience)

• 10 Historical Facts That Herodotus Got Hilariously Wrong (Listverse)

• Herodotus on the gold-digging "ants" (Livius.org)

• The Winged Snakes of Arabia and the Fossil Site of Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev (Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes, via JSTOR)

• Herodotus on the phoenix, on the horned serpent, and on winged snakes (Hyde and Rugg)

• DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy (The New York Times)

• Darius, Herodotus and the Scythians (British Museum Blog)

• The Real Amazons (New Yorker)

Image: Statue of Herodotus (World Atlas)