Abstract
‘Herodotus as historian’ asks whether Herodotus merits the title of historian. It has been argued that he did not travel extensively, that he relied on the reports of others, and when those were lacking, as they usually were, he simply invented. Ongoing archaeological investigations continue to confirm the truth of much of what we find in Herodotus. And yet, a collection of facts does not establish a work as a history. What we find rather is something like the ‘docudramas’ of modern times, a hybrid form in which minor characters disappear and composite ones are made up in order to draw attention to the underlying dynamics at issue.
