Herodotus as world traveler and chronicler is offered by Hamilton, who characterizes him as the world's first sight-seer. Indeed, he seems to have traveled "to the boundaries of the known world, and the information e gathered reached far beyond" (Hamilton, 1958, p. 101). Citing his reputation as the "father of history," a title attributed to him by Cicero (Jones, 1996), Hamilton says that he "was quite as much the father of geography, of archaeology, of anthropology, of sociology, of whatever has to do with human beings and the places in which they live" (Hamilton, 1958, p. 102). That description could be interpreted as a valorization of the Orientalism that Said detests; however, Hamilton's position is that Herodotus is not guilty of what she describes as "the Greek contempt for foreigners--in Greek, 'barbarians'" (p. 102). She also cites Herodotus' admiration for the Persians as "brave, chivalrous, and truthful," which must be a reference to his surprise that Xerxes permitted the violation of Leonidas's body, "for normally the Persians, more than any ot
...