history GARY WATERS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO The ‘father of history’ laid the foundations of journalism, says Bob Doran


Learning from Herodotus


P


icture the headline: ‘Minister Showed Off Nude Wife To Aide’. Now read on: “A cabinet minister has resigned


after it emerged that he had plotted to show off his naked wife to his parliamentary private secretary.” Now this isn’t a real-life news story


– it’s the legend of Candaules, king of Lydia, as recounted by Greek historian Herodotus. He relates how Candaules was so besotted with the beauty of his wife that he forced one of his bodyguards to observe her undressed. The story ends not with Candaules’ resignation but with his death at the hands of his wife and bodyguard . Herodotus is routinely labelled ‘the


father of history’ and there is no arguing with that. But for me he is also the father of journalism and, when I am in a training room discussing ‘What is news?’, I make sure a picture of an ancient bust of him appears on the big screen. That’s not just because of his nose for a good story of the Candaules variety – it’s because of his search for truth and particularly the way he handled sources. At a time when even the survival of honest journalism is being questioned, it is worthwhile remembering its ancient pedigree. Herodotus was born, probably in the 480s BC, in Halicarnassus, a city on the Aegean coast in what is now Bodrum in Turkey. He travelled far and wide gathering information for his histories (the original Greek term translates as ‘enquiries’) of the Greco-Persian Wars and the events that led up to them. The histories are not all about wars. Large chunks are travellers’ tales in the style of David Attenborough or Alan Whicker. There are even the makings of a gardening programme about the


irrigation of Assyrian wheat fields and a cookery column about the merits of Babylonian sesame seed oil. But it is the wars and their causes


that are the centre of the histories and, right from the start, Herodotus proclaims one of the fundamentals of decent journalism – impartiality. In his first paragraph, he makes it clear he is not doing PR for the Greeks. He says he wants to keep alive the great achievements of the Greeks and of the Barbarians (which is pretty much everyone else). He goes straight on to an exercise in


sourcing, on the issue of ‘Who started the war’.


In the training room, I ask the team


how they would handle a good story from only one source which they cannot be sure of. My advice is, unless there is a compelling legal or other reason, to run the story and name the source. Herodotus does exactly that, outlining the Greeks’ and Persians’ rival versions.


When dealing with rival accounts, he sometimes admits he cannot be sure. It’s not a question of Trumpian ‘alternative facts’ – it’s being honest about his uncertainty. At other times, he offers his view of


what is most likely. He recounts the death of Persian ruler Cyrus in battle with Queen Tomyris and the Massagetans, relating how the Persians won the first round by feigning a retreat, leaving behind a picnic, then pouncing on a drunken enemy band. However, Tomyris won the day and pushed the head of the dead Cyrus into a wineskin of blood. Herodotus is clear that there are many versions of how Cyrus died, but says this is the most plausible. He does recount stories, often religious or mythological, which


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That’s not just because of his nose for a good story – it’s because of his search for truth and particularly the way he handled sources


seem preposterous two and a half millennia later. For example, he reports an account


by Athenian runner Philippides, who carried messages between Athens, Sparta and the battlefield of Marathon, of a chance meeting en route with the god Pan. Apparently, Pan told him to go home and tell his fellow citizens to be respectful to the god. It is not clear if Herodotus believes


it but the Athenians certainly did, and they built a sanctuary to Pan under the Acropolis after their victory at Marathon. It may seem odd to read these stories


interspersed among hard historical material. However, I do not think it detracts from the integrity with which Herodotus handles the serious stuff. He holds to one of the principles I


emphasise in the training room: if you’re honest with your audience, you won’t go far wrong.


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