Father of History and Father of Lies

[pugjesus@piefed.social]

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[pugjesus@piefed.social]

Explanation: Herodotus was an ancient Greek writer who is often known as the "Father of History", due to his works being the foundation for Western study of history from that point forward - attempting to meaningfully connect cause and effect, likelihood of events, sources, etc; rather than just chronicles of what happened in one region of one country, or blatant mythmaking with no foundation in fact.

... however, Herodotus is also sometimes known as the "Father of Lies", because while his is the first major attempt at sorting all those issues out and forging them into a coherent narrative, he is... lacking established tools of the discipline, shall we say? His judgements as to what is and is not credible do not always pass the modern sniff-test - especially since his access to foreign sources and foreign lands would have been very limited at that time! So invariably, he passes along a few tall tales, especially about distant lands like India.

In Herodotus's defense, he admits that he is only relaying what travelers have told him about the far and exotic land of India, and, while unstated, the story probably went through translation several times before finding its way to him, lmao.