Carlos Alejandro Torres Alvarez

The Valuation of Otherness in Herodotus of Halicarnassus Carlos Alejandro Torres Alvarez

The valuation of Herodotus' work has its just measure when we see that it is the first extensive work of Greek prose. Although at the end of the 6th century and the first half of the 5th century BC philosophical texts were written, such as those of Heraclitus and Democritus, and local chronicles with ethnographic elements by the so-called logographers such as Cadmus of Miletus, they are always of short length. Herodotus' narrative, both in its literary and historical aspects, is unparalleled in the Greek writings of his time. Its relevance is only comparable to the great Homeric epic, although there are fundamental differences, especially in the exposition of logical and evident causes. Herodotus is going to transmit us the deeds of men, played by men, that is why gods hardly appear in the Histories and, if they are mentioned, they never act directly and personally as it happens in the Iliad or in the Odyssey. But above all, the father of history, exposes his researches recognizing the value of otherness, a noble virtue until then little known in the cultures of the Mediterranean.