ABSTRACT
Herodotus includes monstrous creatures in some of his descriptions of the geography and ethnography of various regions of the world. These monsters serve to exoticise the regions they inhabit and their descriptions make use of tropes associated with the periphery in myth. Herodotus’ descriptions of different parts of the world act as a background for the main historical narrative and provide explanations for the actions of the peoples who inhabit them. The depictions of monsters in these sections are therefore not flippant additions to the text, but part of the construction of the world in which the historical narrative takes place. The small number of monstrous creatures that appear in locations closer to Greece are the results of omens. These omens are all connected to the expedition of Xerxes and point to its disastrous outcome. The monsters that appear in the Histories characterise the world and events of the text.
