Herodotus (; Heródotos, ), a contemporary of Socrates, was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern-day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC ( 484–425 BC). Widely referred to as "The Father of History" (first conferred by Cicero), he was the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation: specifically by collecting his materials systematically and critically, and then to arrange them into a historiographic narrative. The Histories is the only work he is known to have produced — a record of his "inquiry" (or historía) on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful and others inaccurate, he states he was reporting only what was told to him and was often correct in his information. Despite Herodotus' historical significance, little is known of his personal history.

Herodotus (; Heródotos, ), a contemporary of Socrates, was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern-day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC ( 484–425 BC). Widely referred to as "The Father of History" (first conferred by Cicero), he was the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation: specifically by collecting his materials systematically and critically, and then to arrange them into a historiographic narrative. The Histories is the only work he is known to have produced — a record of his "inquiry" (or historía) on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful and others inaccurate, he states he was reporting only what was told to him and was often correct in his information. Despite Herodotus' historical significance, little is known of his personal history.