One of the preoccupations of the ancient Greeks, especially in the fifth century BC, was the idea of the barbarian “other” – people who were barbaros (ie did not speak Greek) and had customs and cultures which contrasted with the practices of the Greeks. The fifth century BC historian Herodotus was particularly interested in such “ethnography” and provides detailed accounts of other groups like the Egyptians, Scythians, the Amazons and the Persians. In this lecture Dr Rhiannon Evans looks at Herodotus’ ideas of other peoples and how in fact they might shed more light on the Greeks than the “others”.

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