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points by science4sail 15 hours ago | 0 comments

I think that there is often a desire to downplay the ancients as liars and/or fools where their claims conflict with modern political sensitivities (even Thucydides just a few decades after Herodotus called him a tall tale teller).

I've been re-reading Herodotus and his work is actually pretty good for its time. You just have to remember that he, just like a modern day travel blogger, both sees the world through the lens of an upper class Greek and also has to keep his audience engaged with cool trivia and clickbait.

[–] adammarples 14 hours ago

Regardless, he reported a lot of made up stuff like dog headed men and so forth

[–] npc99 12 hours ago

well if a bunch of other stuff he said that ppl thought was false turned out to be true, why not that too lol

[–] alephnerd 10 hours ago

How much of that is just literary flourish.

[–] nemo 8 hours ago

Herodotus was an early kind of historian, in the context in which he was relating his histories he was as much an entertainer as much as a historian so he repeated every fun and weird story he heard. He did qualify the dog-headed men specifically as a thing he had heard in a ironic Greek tone, he was relating an entertaining tale, not trying to persuade you that dog-headed men really exist.

[–] QuantumNomad_ 7 hours ago

A human body with a canine head. My guy Herodotus wasn’t telling tall tales at all, he was merely giving accounts of some of the very first furry conventions. These “dog-headed” men were wearing fursuits!