Trivia / The Histories

• Science Marches On:
  • Herodotus describes the world as flat. On writing about a Phoenician expedition to circumnavegate Africa commissioned by the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho, Herodotus says that the Phoenicians claimed that "as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya (Africa), they had the sun on their right", but clarifies that he doesn't believe this is true. Today, this very claim is the strongest evidence of the story being real, as this is indeed what would have happened if they were in the Southern Hemisphere.
  • Whether it was the Egyptians or the Phrygians who were the first humans, and the method by which this was ascertained.
  • The explanation to why Egyptians and Persians would have such differing thicknesses to their skulls. Nowadays, we know this is because of nutrition, matching accounts of early Persians being relatively impoverished.