Replies

A hugely important book. My Classics Professor made the case that it's the first book of history as we know it, as opposed to mere chronicling. Cause and effect, analysis of the motives of historical actors, all the stuff we've come to think of as "history".

There is an amusing story - Herodotus had to depend on translators when he went among the Persians, and so certain pieces of his work are not what you might think on first review. One item in particular: he mentions an ant that mines gold, that is, an ant whose nests are surrounded by the stuff. No such thing exists, of course, and so historians since then have pretty much relegated this part to folklore.

But it turns out that "ant" in Farsi is very similar to the word for "marmot". And that there absolutely is a species of those that kicks the stuff out of its diggings like mine tailings, and that the locals have known about it for centuries. So Herodotus was actually very correct, albeit clouded by translation, and the whole thing wasn't folklore after all.

Fun stuff. Thanks for posting.