Editing Herodotus (section)

===Predecessors===
His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus's place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact. [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]], a literary critic of [[Principate|Augustan Rome]], listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naïve, often charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.{{refn|,<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|page=23}} citing Dionysius ''On Thucydides''}}

Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to the ancient account, these predecessors included [[Dionysius of Miletus]], Charon of Lampsacus, [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]], [[Xanthus (historian)|Xanthus of Lydia]] and, the best attested of them all, [[Hecataeus of Miletus]]. Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus's works survived, and the authenticity of these is debatable,<ref name=Burn-1972-Herod-Hists/>{{rp|page=27}} but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own ''Histories''.