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Herodotus on telling versus believing

c. 430–425 BCE, Greece. His own words.

Where and when

c. 430–425 BCEGreece, not on the map

about 2,452 years ago

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Swipe the line. Bars: entries. Dots: events.

In plain words, ours

My job is to write down what people told me. Believing it is not my job.

As for myself, although it is my business to set down that which is told me, to believe it is none at all of my business.

Herodotus, Histories 7.152.3Translated by A. D. Godley (1920)Read the full passage (Herodotus, Histories 7.152.3, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

Herodotus has just told a story about the city of Argos, Xerxes and Artoxerxes, and admits he cannot say for sure that it is true. Another tale he knows says the Argives invited the Persian into Greece.

Checked claim by claim against: the passage around the quote.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

  1. 430 BCEabout 3 years earlier Plague breaks out in Athens Same years
  2. 431/430 BCEabout 3 years earlier Athens holds a public funeral for its first war dead Same years
  3. 430 BCE, written laterabout 3 years earlier Thucydides on the plague he caught Also about how history gets told
  4. 429 BCEabout 2 years earlier Pericles dies Same years
  5. 427 BCEAbout the same year Athens votes to kill Mytilene's men, then relents Same years
  6. c. 430–425 BCEThis momentHerodotus on telling versus believing
  7. c. 430–425 BCEDuring it Herodotus says custom is lord of all More from Herodotus
  8. c. 430–425 BCEDuring it Herodotus on every nation's own customs More from Herodotus
  9. c. 430–425 BCEDuring it Herodotus on why he wrote his Histories More from Herodotus
  10. 425 BCEabout 2 years later Spartans surrender on Sphacteria Same years
  11. 424/423 BCEabout 3 years later Thucydides fails to save Amphipolis and is exiled Also about how history gets told

Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

Artoxerxes responded to this that it did indeed hold good and that he believed no city to be a better friend to him than Argos.” Now, whether it is true that Xerxes sent a herald with such a message to Argos, and that the Argive envoys came up to Susa and questioned Artoxerxes about their friendship, I cannot say with exactness, nor do I now declare that I consider anything true except what the Argives themselves say. This, however, I know full well, namely if all men should carry their own private troubles to market for barter with their neighbors, there would not be a single one who, when he had looked into the troubles of other men, would not be glad to carry home again what he had brought. The conduct of the Argives was accordingly not utterly shameful.

The quote: As for myself, although it is my business to set down that which is told me, to believe it is none at all of my business.

This I ask the reader to hold true for the whole of my history, for there is another tale current, according to which it would seem that it was the Argives who invited the Persian into Hellas, because the war with the Lacedaemonians was going badly, and they would prefer anything to their present distresses. Such is the end of the story of the Argives. As for Sicily, envoys were sent there by the allies to hold converse with Gelon, Syagrus from Lacedaemon among them. The ancestor of this Gelon, who settled at Gela, was from the island of Telos which lies off Triopium.

Herodotus, Histories 7.151.1–7.153.1Translated by A. D. Godley (1920)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
c. 430–425 BCE. When the Histories were being completed (c. 430–425 BCE); his own comment on the stories he collected.
Whose words
His own words. Who was Herodotus?
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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