Chapter 8, Herodotus: The First Sight-Seer Summary and Analysis

Understanding Herodotus fully requires the reader to understand the context within which he explored and reported on the world and in which he addressed the compelling issues of his day. "Herodotus is the historian of the glorious fight for liberty in which the Greeks conquered the overwhelming power of Persia. They won the victory because they were free men defending their freedom against a tyrant and his army of slaves. So Herodotus saw the contest. The watchword was freedom; the stake was the independence or the enslavement of Greece; the issue made it sure that Greeks never would be slaves."

To the 21st century mind, the mere idea of one individual owning another human being as a slave is completely abhorrent. To the Athenians of the fifth century BCE, however, slavery was an...