Hecataeus (c. 550 BC - c. 476 BC), was a Greek historian, a native of Miletus of a wealthy family. He flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. After having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied a high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras held a council of the leading Ionians at Miletus to organize a revolt against the Persian rule, Hecataeus in vain tried to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking (Herodotus 5.36, 125). In 494 BC, when the defeated Ionians were obliged to sue for terms, he was one of the ambassadors to the Persian satrap Artaphernes, whom he persuaded to restore the constitution of the Ionic cities (Diodorus Siculus. 10.25). Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 600s BC - 590s BC - 580s BC - 570s BC - 560s BC - 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC - 520s BC - 510s BC - 500s BC Events and Trends Carthage conquers Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica 559 BC - King Cambyses I of Anshan dies... Centuries: 4th century BC - 5th century BC - 6th century BC Decades: 520s BC 510s BC 500s BC 490s BC 480s BC - 470s BC - 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC Years: 481 BC 480 BC 479 BC 478 BC 477 BC _ 476 BC _ 475 BC... A historian is a person who studies history. ... In Greek mythology, Miletus was the founder of the city described below. ... Persian art is conscious of a great past, and monumental in many respects. ... Aristagoras was the leader of Miletus in the late 6th century BC and early 5th century BC. He was the son of Molpagoras, and son_in_law (and nephew) of Histiaeus, whom the Persians had set up as tyrant of Miletus. ... Ionian Islands Ionia (Greek Ιωνία) was an ancient region of western coastal of Anatolia (now in Turkey). ... The Ionian Revolts were triggered by the actions of Aristagoras, the tyrant of the Ionian city of Miletus at the end of the 6th century BC and the beginning of the 5th century BC. They constituted the first major conflict between Greece and Persia. ... Bust of Herodotus Herodotus (Greek: ΗΡΟΔΟΤΟΣ, Herodotos) was an ancient historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC - c. ... Centuries: 6th century BC - 5th century BC - 4th century BC Decades: 540s BC 530s BC 520s BC 510s BC 500s BC - 490s BC - 480s BC 470s BC 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC Years: 499 BC 498 BC 497 BC 496 BC 495 BC - 494 BC - 493 BC 492 BC... Satrap (Greek σατράπης satrápēs, from Old Persian xšaθrapā(van), i. ... Artaphernes, more correctly Artaphrenes, was the brother of Darius Hystaspis, and satrap of Sardis. ... Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian, born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira, in the Province of Enna). ...

Hecataeus was one of the first classical writers to mention the Celtic people. A Celtic cross. ...

Works

Some have credited Hecataeus with a work entitled Ges Periodos ("Travels round the Earth" or "World Survey'), in two books each organized in the manner of a periplus, a point-to-point coastal survey. One on Europe, is essentially a periplus of the Mediterranean, describing each region in turn, reaching as far north as Scythia. The other book, on Asia, is arranged similarly to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea of which a version of the 1st century CE survives. Hecataeus described the countries and inhabitants of the known world, the account of Egypt being particularly comprehensive; the descriptive matter was accompanied by a map, based upon Anaximander’s map of the earth, which he corrected and enlarged. The work only survives in some 374 fragments, by far the majority being quoted in the geographical lexicon Ethnika compiled by Stephanus of Byzantium. A periplus in the ancient navigation of Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans is a manuscript document that lists in order the ports and coastal landmarks, with approximate distances between, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. ... World map showing location of Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. ... Scythia was an area in Eurasia inhabited in ancient times by Indo-Aryans known as the Scythians. ... World map showing location of Asia A satellite composite image of Asia Asia is the central and eastern part of the continent of Eurasia, defined by subtracting the European peninsula from Eurasia. ... The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Periplus Maris Erythraei ) is a Greek periplus of the 2nd century AD, describing navigation and trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports like Berenice along the coast of the Red Sea, and others along East Africa and India. ... A map of the world by Johannes Kepler A map is a simplified depiction of a space, a navigational aid which highlights relations between objects within that space. ... Anaximander (609/610 BC - c. ... Stephanus Byzantinus (Stephanus of Byzantium), the author of a geographical dictionary entitled Εθνικα (Ethnica), of which, apart from some fragments, we possess only the meagre epitome of one Hermolaus. ...

The other known work of Hecataeus was the Genealogiai, a rationally systematized account of the traditions and mythology of the Greeks, a break with the epic myth-making tradition, which survives in a few fragments, just enough to show what we are missing. Greek mythology comprises the collected legends of Greek gods and goddesses and ancient heroes and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ...

Scepticism

Hecataeus' work, especially the Genealogiai, shows a marked scepticism, opening with "Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write what I deem true; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and seem to me ridiculous."¹ Unlike Xenophanes, he did not criticize the myths on their own terms; his disbelief rather stems from his broad exposure to the many contradictory mythologies he encountered in his travels. Xenophanes (570 BC - 480 BC) was a Greek philosopher, poet, and social and religious critic. ...

An anecdote from Herodotus (II, 143), of a visit to an Egyptian temple at Thebes, is illustrative. It recounts how the priests showed Herodotus a series of statues in the temple's inner sanctum, each one supposedly set up by the high priest of each generation. Hecataeus, says Herodotus, had seen the same spectacle, after mentioning that he traced his descent, through sixteen generations, from a god. The Egyptians compared his genealogy to their own, as recorded by the statues; since the generations of their high priests had numbered three hundred and forty-five, all entirely mortal, they refused to believe Hecataeus's claim of descent from a mythological figure. This encounter with the immemorial antiquity of Egypt has been identified as a crucial influence on Hecataeus's scepticism: the mythologized past of the Hellenes shrank into insignificant fancy next to the history of a civilization that was already ancient before Mycenae was built.² For the ancient capital of Boeotia, see Thebes, Greece. ... This article or section should include material from Greeks According to Thucydides, Hellenes were the people of Hellas. ... This article is about the Greek archaeological site. ...

He was probably the first of the logographers to attempt a serious prose history and to employ critical method to distinguish myth from historical fact, though he accepts Homer and other poets as trustworthy authorities. Herodotus, though he once at least controverts his statements, is indebted to Hecataeus for the concept of a prose history. The logographers (from the Ancient Greek λογογράφος, logographos, a compound of λόγος, logos, here meaning story or prose, and γράφω, grapho, write) were the Greek historiographers and chroniclers before Herodotus, the father of history. Herodotus himself called his predecessors λογοποιόι (logopoioi, from ποιέω, poieo, to make). Thucydides applies the name... Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... Bust of Herodotus Herodotus (Greek: ΗΡΟΔΟΤΟΣ, Herodotos) was an ancient historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC - c. ...

Notes

Note 1: The History of History; Shotwell, James T. (NY, Columbia University Press, 1939) p. 172

Note 2: Ibid., pp. 172–173; also The Ancient Greek Historians; Bury, John Bagnell (NY, Dover Publications, 1958), pp. 14, 48 John Bagnell Bury (16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an eminent British historian, classical scholar, and philologist. ...

External link

• Iranica: (http://www.iranica.com/articles/v12f1/v12f1092.html) detailed article on Hecataeus of Miletus, bibliography

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...