“The Histories” by Herodotus is the most fascinating book I’ve ever read. The dude talks like a modern day person but lived in ancient times. He tells wack stories and gives a detailed account of what’s poppin in his era. but also makes it a point to give the reader context to everything include literally saying “I’m gonna tell you this story about a dolphin saving a man etc etc, it’s probably bullshit so you make up your own mind if you think it’s real. Here’s the story….”
A great book just to have and pick at every once in a while. He was a brilliant historian for his time and most of the content of his work is interesting even to the lay person
BasedAustralhungary on
The best about Herodotus is how he select what to believe and not, discarding stuff that basically proved something that we know by today’s standards (i.e. the circunnavegation of Africa by Phoenician sailors sponsored by the pharaoh Neco II) while accepting as obvious other information that is basically insane
Imaginary-West-5653 on
The less amusing explanation is that Herodotus was probably just repeating what he had heard from several people, playing the equivalent of a game of telephone; and that the origin of these supposed ants is simply the Himalayan marmot, which live in what is now Pakistan (India at the time). Still funny as a concept though, it would be really interesting to see these ants in some fantasy work.
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Where can I get me some gold digging ants🤭
“The Histories” by Herodotus is the most fascinating book I’ve ever read. The dude talks like a modern day person but lived in ancient times. He tells wack stories and gives a detailed account of what’s poppin in his era. but also makes it a point to give the reader context to everything include literally saying “I’m gonna tell you this story about a dolphin saving a man etc etc, it’s probably bullshit so you make up your own mind if you think it’s real. Here’s the story….”
A great book just to have and pick at every once in a while. He was a brilliant historian for his time and most of the content of his work is interesting even to the lay person
The best about Herodotus is how he select what to believe and not, discarding stuff that basically proved something that we know by today’s standards (i.e. the circunnavegation of Africa by Phoenician sailors sponsored by the pharaoh Neco II) while accepting as obvious other information that is basically insane
The less amusing explanation is that Herodotus was probably just repeating what he had heard from several people, playing the equivalent of a game of telephone; and that the origin of these supposed ants is simply the Himalayan marmot, which live in what is now Pakistan (India at the time). Still funny as a concept though, it would be really interesting to see these ants in some fantasy work.
For his time Herodotus was an amazing historian