Herodotus Has Been Celebrated As The Father Of History; He May With Equal Justice Be Styled The Father Of Geographical Knowledge:

He flourished about 474 years before Christ.

In dwelling upon the advances to geographical knowledge which have been derived from him, it will be proper and satisfactory, before we explain the extent and nature of them, to give an account of the sources from which he derived his information; those were his own travels, and the narrations or journals of other travellers. A great portion of the vigour of his life seems to have been spent in travelling; the oppressive tyranny of Lygdamis over Halicarnassus, his native country, first induced or compelled him to travel; whether he had not also imbibed a portion of the commercial activity and enterprize which distinguished his countrymen, is not known, but is highly probable. We are not informed whether his fortune were such as to enable him, without entering into commercial speculations, to support the expences of his travels; it is evident, however, from the extent of his travels, as well as from the various, accurate, and, in many cases, most important information, which he acquired, that these expences must have been very considerable. From his work it is certain that he was endowed with that faculty of eliciting the truth from fabulous, imperfect, or contradictory evidence, at all times so necessary to a traveller, and indispensably so at the period when he travelled, and in most of the countries where his enquiries and his researches were carried on. His great and characteristic merit consists in freeing his mind from the opinions which must have previously occupied it; - in trusting entirely either to what e himself saw, or to what he learned from the best authority; - always, however, bringing the information acquired in this latter mode to the test of his own observation and good sense. It is from the united action and guidance of these two qualifications - individual observation and experience gained by most patient and diligent research and enquiry on the spot, and a high degree of perspicacity, strength of intellect, and good sense, separating the truth from the fable of all he learnt from the observation and experience of others, that Herodotus has justly acquired so high degree of reputation, and that in almost every instance modern travellers find themselves anticipated by him, even on points in which such a coincidence was the least likely.

His travels embraced a variety of countries. The Greek colonies in the Black Sea were visited by him: he measured the extent of that sea, from the Bosphorus to the mouth of the river Phasis, at the eastern extremity. All that track of country which lies between the Borysthenes and the Hypanis, and the shores of the Palus Maeotis, he diligently explored. With respect to the Caspian, his information affords a striking proof of his accuracy, even when gained, as it was in this instance, from the accounts of others. He describes it expressly as a sea by itself, unconnected with any other: its length, he adds, is as much as a vessel with oars can navigate in fifteen days:

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