This master's thesis is dedicated to one of the major themes of ancient historiography: Herodotus of Halicarnassus and his colossal and in places still enigmatic work, the Histories . The intellectual richness of the Herodotean material has stimulated a multi-layered reception since its publication, and research still offers a discordant picture in view of the plurality of legitimate approaches. At the same time, this raises a problem: by elevating Herodotus to the status of a study, this work joins an enormous company - the research literature on the Histories can hardly be surveyed, hardly any question has not been posed to the ancient text. An examination of the research literature reveals a phenomenon: while the main focus is often on exploring the historiographical character of the work and its connection to an intellectual-historical horizon of origin, the ethnographic excursus narrative of the Histories is only marginally included. In order to approach this excursus narrative, it makes sense to start where Herodotus begins: he prefaces his narrative with a prooimion that provides a brief but linguistically dense first glimpse of his person, his work and his goals: "Herodotus of Halicarnassus here gives an account of his research, so that through (advancing) time what was once done by men may not be forgotten; nor shall the fame of great and marvellous deeds done both by the Greeks and the barbarians perish; but especially that the causes why they made war against each other may be known." This translation - "expositions of his research" - already shows that the original Greek term historíe, against the background of a pre-disciplinary environment in which Herodotus' work is to be located, in its original meaning means a personally introduced, empirical 'exploration' of whatever, corresponding to a methodical approach characterised by being unbound to a specific object. It is not only the elucidation of the past that determines Herodotus' interest in knowledge, but also questions of geography, biology, ethnology and finally history. These digressions deviate from the main chronological thread, which focusses on the conflicts between the peoples of Asia and the Greeks. Herodotus literally weaves ethnological digressions, geological sketches, historical retrospectives, detailed descriptions of outstanding achievements and vivid anecdotes into his histories - digressions of this kind are "[...] entirely in keeping with the intention of my work [...]". In research, the text-immanent examination of the design and interpretation schemes of these episodes is rarely fully in the foreground - an observation that ultimately led to the main question of the master's thesis: How does Herodotus organise his literary encounters with foreigners? To answer this question, the introductory lines of the entire work are once again of interest: In view of the use of the term "barbarians" for the first designation of the Hellenic war opponents, the introductory words of the Histories pave the way for the assumption that Herodotus constructed the opponents of the conflict in dichotomous juxtaposition: Those members of a foreign people - one might think - experience a discrediting that is still associated with the term 'barbarian' today. In fact, Marcello Gigante, for example, interpreted the Herodotean work in this sense as a decisive realisation of the irreconcilable contrast between Greeks and barbarians as that between "[...] the dignity of the cultivated man [...]" and the "[...] servant nature of the barbarian [...]". This contrasts with the accusation levelled against the Histories and their author by the Greek philosopher and writer Plutarch in the early 1st century AD: In the unprecedentedly extensive sketching of the non-Greek actors involved in the conflict, he saw the offence of a barbarian friendship and a simultaneous hostility towards Greece on Herodotus' part. In addition, positions of Greek journalism, rhetoric and state philosophy, which repeatedly emphasise the natural enmity between the Hellenes and the barbarians, are embedded in the intellectual-historical horizon of the work's genesis. Do the allusions to stereotyping within the juxtaposition of Greeks and barbarians actually figure in the Histories ? A search through the Histories does indeed occasionally reveal episodes in which Herodotus explicitly speaks of the superiority of the Hellenes over the 'barbarians'. In connection with an attempted coup by Peisistratos in Athens, for example, Herodotus remarks on their different intellect: "[They] now contrived [...] to bring about [Peisistratos'] return, a thing which, I at least think, was extremely simple-minded, seeing that in older times the Greek tribe had already separated itself from the barbarian one and was both more agile in spirit and more freed from foolish simplicity; but at that time these people among the Athenians, who are regarded as the first among the Greeks in the matter of cleverness, did indeed set such a thing in motion." Herodotus also reports, through the mouth of the Spartan commander at the Battle of Plataiai, Pausanias, that "desecrating a corpse [...] is more befitting for barbarians than for Greeks." And ultimately it is the Persians, who Herodotus refers to as barbaroi with the highest frequency of all ethnic groups, who emerge from the conflict as the defeated. However, this pejorative image of the barbarians is already destabilised in the first words of the Herodotean prooimion quoted above: these very lines already include the fact that memorable deeds of the barbarians are also to be reported in what follows. Barbaros, used by Herodotus both as a noun and as an adjective, initially only denotes that the person so designated speaks a non-Greek language, without qualifying or even disqualifying him in any other way. The definition of the barbarian operates accordingly with the criterion of language, which forms a dividing line between familiarity and foreignness. Accordingly, Herodotus' concept of barbarians encompasses all non-Greeks and - apart from the exceptions described above - is used in the Histories largely without judgement, especially in the ethnographic passages of the work. Herodotus' endeavours to objectively depict the heterogeneity of the Oikumene and the nomoi of the most diverse peoples existing within it are reflected on the one hand in the factual description and partial admiration of the foreigners. In the ethnographic comparison, the author not only shows contrasts, but also similarities and similarities. On the other hand, Herodotus theorises the phenomenon of evaluative perception of others and oneself in a remarkably insightful and modern passage as follows: "For if someone laid customs before all men and then told them to choose the best among all customs, each people, after examining them all, would be likely to choose their own; so much so that each people is of the opinion that its customs are by far the best." Herodotus supports this theory with an ingenious anecdote about the Persians, Indians and Greeks. They are each asked by Darius what price they would have to pay if they were prepared to abandon their own death customs and adopt completely different ones - each people is shocked by this request. Herodotus concludes this story with the realisation that 'custom' is 'the king of all'" and that the esteem in which one's own culture is held is thus a universal phenomenon. By refusing to make value judgements as far as possible and showing his readership their own perspectivity, their ethnocentrism, Herodotus explicitly opposes the declaration of their own culture as an absolute. Following this insight, Herodotus allows the barbarians to have their own barbarians: By labelling the Egyptians "all who do not speak their language" as barbarians, the Hellenes themselves end up in this linguistically demarcated category. Who is a barbarian is in the eye of the beholder and is therefore relative, not absolute. Thus, for Herodotus, the perception of others and oneself is always dependent on one's own perspective and is highly subjective - an insight that the Histories convey to their readership. Although the Greeks are not contrasted with the barbarians in ethnographic terms in a linear exaggeration, Herodotus does construct a stable contrast in one aspect. In a metaphorically charged passage, Greek envoys refuse to kneel before the Persian Great King Xerxes and explain their behaviour to a Persian governor with the words: "Hydarnes, this advice aimed at us does not come from a similar starting position. For you have tested the one and are giving your advice as a result, while you have no experience with the other: you understand being a slave thoroughly, but you have not yet tested freedom, or whether it is sweet or not. For if you had tried it, you would advise us to fight for it not only with spears, but also with axes." The kneeling thus becomes a metaphorical symbol of the differences that exist between the Orient and the Occident: The Greek is rooted in the idea of political freedom, the Persian - the barbarian - in servitude and despotism. A cultural divide in relation to Asia and Europe is based less on the reflection of different nomoi than on the constitutive specificity of Greek freedom. From a Greek perspective, the conflict between Asia and Europe is stylised as a global conflict. Asia is associated with imperial, hybrid royal rule and enslaved peoples. Europe, on the other hand, with the Hellenes as the protagonists of freedom, appears unbending and therefore superior. In conclusion, both Plutarch's postulate that Herodotus was an anti-Greek friend of the barbarians and the view handed down by Gigante, among others, that the Histories are constituted by a Hellenes-barbarians antithesis lack legitimacy in the context of the investigation. The author rejects schematic attributions both in episodes of theoretical depth and in the words and deeds of his literary characters. An initially presumed dichotomy is only partially continued in the context of the superiority of the idea of Greek freedom, while the ethnographic passages, conscious of a universal ethnocentrism, sketch a wide-ranging picture of a heterogeneous oikumene that is free of prejudice.