Legendary Lost Persian Army Found in Sahara

[JDR Dragoon]

Herodotus never made anything up. Like in this case, his history, based on oral sources, always holds up. He got a bad rap from the modern school of Prussian historians, whose traditions are upheld today, which present political history, from politicized sources, and therefore much more suspect (the Warren Commission for example). Herodotus presents the most accurate picture of the Ancient World we have and we are blessed for it, because outside of him, we have very little of worth. J

That is probably rating Herodotus somewhat higher than he actually deserves. Most of the things he describes are both unverifiable (because Herodotus is the only person mentioning them) and/or related to the times before Herodotus and thus not something he or his sources experienced themselves. He is also the starting part for a goodly number of Topoi, which makes you wonder just how much of his own work that is a Topos, derived verbatim or lifted from earlier (now lost) sources and applied where applicable to his own creation.

And just which parts of 19th century prussian/german Herodotus scholarship is derived from "politicized sources"? Something in particular you are thinking of here?