Herodotus, with the light hand of Cicero, is usually called the “father of history,” and he bears this title well deservedly, since it was his work that laid the foundations for the traditions of historical description. His famous “History” has been ranked among the outstanding works of historiography since ancient times. Alexandrian scholars divided the work into nine books according to the number of muses, and each book was named after one of them. The first four are extensive introductions and cover the history of Greece and its eastern neighbors. The last five books tell about events of the greatest world significance that predetermined the entire course of the historical process in Hellas - the Greco-Persian Wars (500-449 BC). The grandiose work became the first truly historical work.