This work challenges the prevailing interpretative trend in Herodotus research, which seeks to assess the form and content of the Histories according to the standards of modern historical thought. As an examination of the essential characteristics of ancient historiography and the interpretation of the Histories reveals, Herodotus is not concerned with providing a comprehensive, empirically validated account of various chains of events. Rather, starting from the insight into the transferability of historical foreign experience, he places the historically acting individual at the center of his selective and interpretative approach to history: primarily exploring the limits and possibilities of human action within the causal framework of a specific historical event and condensing the representation with this focus—this is what defines Herodotus's historical thinking and his concept of historiographical mimesis.