and by using the royal annals of Assyria, Persia, and Egypt to attempt to establish an exact chronology covering at least the previous 100 to 150 years. Herodotus then went further and decided that he would write the history of the Persian Wars:
The daring of this undertaking is astonishing. Nearly a generation had gone by since the wars had ended. Scarcely any documentation was available in writing. Yet Herodotus set about reconstructing the story in all its detail, by drawing on the memory of survivors and of men in the next generation who remembered the tales they had been told.
From the beginning, though, Herodotus experienced both praise and criticism for his undertaking, and he has been cited as "Father of Histories--Father of Lies" through the ages as a result. Finley states that to this day
Herodotus is often badly misjudged as if he were no more than a mere story-teller with a charming style and boundless credulity.
R.G. Collingwood similarly finds the invention of history by Herodotus to have been a remarkable achievement and notes that th
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