Eyewitness accounts written by Herodotus, who is…
448 BCE
Eyewitness accounts written by Herodotus, who is the principal source for much of the history of this and previous ages, indicate that he traveled in Egypt probably sometime after 454 BCE or possibly earlier in association with Athenians, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460-454 BCE.
He probably traveled to Tyre next and then down the Euphrates to Babylon.
For some reason, probably associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in his native Halicarnassus and migrated sometime around 447 BCE, to Periclean Athens, a city for whose people and democratic institutions he declares his open admiration (V, 78) and where he come to know not just leading citizens such as the Alcmaeonids, a clan whose history features frequently in his writing, but also the local topography (VI, 137; VIII, 52-5).
According to Eusebius and Plutarch, Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work and there may be some truth in this.
It is possible that he applied for Athenian citizenship—a rare honor after 451 BCE, requiring two separate votes by a well-attended assembly—but was unsuccessful.
Herodotus is the first to use the term “delta” (from the Greek letter) in referring to the triangular alluvial deposits at the mouth of the Nile River.
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