There are many types of history. Herodotus was not writing from any sense of a modern 'academic historical text'.

The evidence is, contrary to what you write, that the author of the series of posts directly comments on Herodotus, and uses Herodotus as a primary source. Eg, in https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

> Which brings us back to Herodotus (remember, way back in the first of these, I said we'd talk about Herodotus?) because he isn't just observing the Spartan reputation, Herodotus is manufacturing the Spartan reputation. Herodotus is our main source for early Greek history (read: pre-480) and for the two Persian invasions of Greece. Herodotus' Histories cover a range of places and topics - Persia, Greece, Scythia, Egypt - and contain a mixture of history, ethnography, mythology and straight up falsehoods. But - as François Hartog famously pointed out in his The Mirror of Herodotus (originally in French as Le Miroir d'Hérodote), Herodotus is writing about Greece, even when he is writing about Persia - those other cultures and places exist to provide contrasts to the things that Herodotus thinks bind all of the fractious and fiercely independent Greek poleis. And he is perfectly willing to manufacture the past to make it fit that vision.

> ... for Herodotus, Sparta is the expression of an ideal form of `Greekness' and in Herodotus' logic, being well-governed (eunomia is the Greek term) results primarily in military excellence. For the story Herodotus is telling to work, Sparta - as one of the leading states resisting Persia - must be well governed and it must be military excellent. That's what will make a good story - and Herodotus never lets the facts get in the way of a good story. ..

> Herodotus ...does show up in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, where he is treated as a famous historian who knows many things. Which is a bit funny, given that the historian of that period, Thucydides, takes a dim view of him.

> And so, Herodotus - the myth-maker - talks up the Spartiates at Thermopylae (you know, the brave 300) and quietly leaves out the other Laconians (who, if you scrutinize his numbers, he knows must be there, to the tune of c. 900 men), downplaying the other Greeks. Spartan leadership is lionized, even when it makes stupid mistakes (Thermopylae, to be clear, was a military disaster and Spartan intransigence nearly loses the battle of Plataea, but Herodotus represents this as boldness in the face of the enemy; even more fantastically inept was the initial Spartan plan to hold on the Isthmus of Corinth as if no one had ever seen a boat before).

> The spin worked. Herodotus' work was well known, even in antiquity, and he set the tone for all subsequent retellings of the Persian wars (despite the frequent complaints by later ancient authors that Herodotus' reliability was - let's say, complicated. I don't want to give the wrong impression: Herodotus is a valuable source, just one that - like all sources - has his own agenda at play).

The blog post series does link to its references, like The Mirror of Herodotus, as well in-line citations like "Hdt. 9.35.2" (one of several explicit Herodotus references), as well as "Thuc. 4.40.2", "Xen. Lac. 4.5, 5.9", "Plat. Lach. 182d-183a.", and many more.