Greek historian, traveller and geographer of the 5th century BC. Born and raised in Halicarnassus, Herodotus came from a wealthy family in which learning was prized.  His early political activity resulted in their exile (468 or 467) to the island of Samos. In 455 he returned to Halicarnassus, but soon left again, this time to spend a dozen years travelling and exploring, “for the sake of seeing” different parts of the then known world. He remained in Athens for a period, developing solid friendships with Pericles and Sophocles, while in 443 he and Protagoras were among the founders of the Athenian colony of Thurii in southern Italy. Herodotus wrote just one work, the Histories, an account of the wars between the Greeks and the Persians from 494 BC (suppression of the Ionian Revolt) to 479 (the Greeks’ recovery of the strategic stronghold of Sestos, on the Thracian Chersonese overlooking the Dardanelles). The work is also full of geographical and ethnographic information and is a mine of information on subjects ranging from geology to medicine, botany to chemistry. The Alexandrian scholars organized the work into nine books, giving each the name of a Muse.