| |
| |
Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars, by Jon D. Mikalson. Introduction. (Site not responding. Last check: ) |
 | | Herodotus did interview a few Greek participants in these wars,[9] but he was writing, at the least, a generation later than the events themselves, and enough time had elapsed for some facts to be lost and for legends to develop. |
 | | Herodotus is thus a "late" source for the Persian Wars, from a time when the Greeks were "constructing" their history of these wars in various media. |
 | | Herodotus could be extremely precise in his use of numbers, as when he described Polycrates' tunnel on Samos,[10] but virtually no modern scholar accepts Herodotus' claims that Xerxes' invasion force included 1,700,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry (not counting camels and chariots), 1,207 triremes, and 3,000 other ships (7.59.3-60, 87, 89.1, 97). |
| uncpress.unc.edu /chapters/mikalson_herodotus.html (3706 words) |
|