The Exposition Of Cause And Effect In Herodotus’ The Histories

Herodotus, whose masterpiece The Histories roundly put forth the relevanthistorical data of greco-persian wars, was honored “Father of History” by Romanelocutionist Cicero. On the clarification of the casual relationship, Herodotus mainlyadopted two methods, namely modern causal explanation method and contemporarycausal explanation method. And among the two, the latter one has received a ratherfierce controversy. Nevertheless, it is somewhat unfair to view or judge the method ofcausal relationship in the so called scientific way. So this dissertation aims to discussthe characteristics of Herodotus casual relationship in a classical background byresearching these contemporary logical casual explanation, clarifying the explainingterms and explained terms in the historical events as well as analyzing the innerrelationship of the two mentioned.Firstly, arrange the explained terms appearing in the casual events. Dimensionsof military forces, politics, religion, fate of figures, natural phenomenon are included.Secondly, on explaining the explained terms, Herodotus used to employ somespecific explaining ones to illustrate the matter. In conclusion, they are stated fromnatural perspective, god perspective, human perspective, mythology perspective andfate perspective. On the one hand, these terms correspondent with the explained ones;on the other hand, the two aspects interact with one another.Thirdly, based on the facts, causal logical methods conducted by Herodotus canbe figured out. We see that premonition is likely to be shaped as the cement of causalrelationship. Deductive and inductive are employed. The attitudes toward myth areformed and the powerful drive in a relatively recessive manner is produced as well.Last, from the research done, in classical background, these causal explanationsdemonstrated the complexity between divinity and humanity, they also provided thefeatures of universal value and causal critical consciousness in different period oftime.