Abstract

This dissertation explores links between Herodotus and the Presocratic philosophers in the areas of empirical methodology, conceptions of the physical world, and the interplay between opposing forces both in nature and in historical events. Although the development of the empirical method is at the root of both early Greek historiography and science, Herodotus' empiricism is more rigorous than that of the Presocratics because he aims at a reconstruction of historical facts, whereas the early philosophers attempt to define hidden truths about the universe. A comparison of Herodotus with some of the Hippocratic treatises shows that both the historian and the more scientific of the medical writers understood the need for accurate observation but were not always successful in applying an empirical method. Herodotus' world geography is in large part an attempt to improve on earlier views of the world, but his treatment shows the same tendency toward symmetry that characterizes the early maps of the philosopher Anaximander and his successor Hecataeus. This schematization carries over into his view of the historical process as well, so that his conceptions of vengeance and shifting power among the world's peoples closely resemble cosmic processes described by Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Empedocles