Herodotus is an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the 5th century BCE (c. 484 BCE – c. 425 BCE).

He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.

The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or historía, a word that passed into Latin and took on its modern meaning of history), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information.

Although some of his stories were not completely accurate, he claimed that he was reporting only what had been told to him.

Little is known of his personal history since ancient records are scanty, contradictory and often fanciful.