Illustration of a bust of Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484-425 BC), a Greek historian from Iona who documented the Greco-Persian wars, which occurred in 490 and 480-479 BC. This documentation was entitled The Histories, and is probably the work for which he is best known. The Histories also contains excellent ethnographic descriptions of the peoples that the Persians conquered, fairy tales, gossip, legends, and a very humanitarian morale. He is considered the world's first historian and often referred to as the 'Father of History'. Engraving, based on an antique bust in the Vatican Museum, from Vies des Savants Illustres (1866).