Lysistratus, Archilochus of Paros, Alcaeus, Sappho, Solon, Aesop, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Simonides of Ceos, Phrynichus, Aeschylus and Pindar. He quotes and criticizes Hecataeus, the best of the prose writers who had preceded him, and makes numerous allusions to other authors of the same class. It must not, however, be supposed that he was at any time a mere student. It is probable that from an early age his inquiring disposition led him to engage in travels, both in Greece and in foreign countries. He traversed Asia Minor and European Greece probably more than once; he visited all the most important islands of the Archipelago--Rhodes, Cyprus, Delos, Paros, Thasos, Samothrace, Crete, Samos, Cythera and Aegina. He undertook the long and perilous journey from Sardis to the Persian capital Susa, visited Babylon, Colchis, and the western shores of the Black Sea as far as the estuary of the Dnieper; he travelled in Scythia and in Thrace, visited Zante and Magna Graecia, explored the antiquities of Tyre, coasted along the shores of Palestine, saw Gaza, and made a long stay in Egypt. At the most moderate estimate, his travels covered a space of thirty-one degrees of longitude, or 1700 miles, and twenty-four of latitude, or nearly the same distance. At all the more interesting sites he took up his abode for a time; he examined, he inquired, he made measurements, he accumulated materials. Having in his mind the scheme of his great work, he gave ample time to the elaboration of all its parts, and took care to obtain by personal observation a full knowledge of the various countries. The travels of Herodotus seem to have been chiefly accomplished between his twentieth and his thirty-seventh year (464-447 B.C.).[1] It was probably in his early manhood that as a Persian subject he visited Susa and Babylon, taking advantage of the Persian system of posts which he describes in his fifth book. His residence in Egypt must, on the other hand, have been subsequent to 460 B.C., since he saw the skulls of the Persians slain by Inarus in that year. Skulls are rarely visible on a battlefield for more than two or three seasons after the fight, and we may therefore presume that it was during the reign of Inarus (460-454 B.C.),[2] when the Athenians had great authority in Egypt, that he visited the country, making himself known as a learned Greek, and therefore receiving favour and attention on the part of the Egyptians, who were so much beholden to his countrymen (see ATHENS, CIMON, PERICLES). On his return from Egypt, as he proceeded along the Syrian shore, he seems to have landed at Tyre, and from thence to have gone to Thasos. His Scythian travels are thought to have taken place prior to 450 B.C.