Although he criticizes poetic fictions as antithetical to the nature of his own inquiry, Herodotus often qualifies the truth claims of traditions he transmits by means of distancing devices (e.g., indirect discourse). Like Odysseus and the Hesiodic Muses, Herodotus often narrates “falsehoods that resemble true things,” while using rhetorical markers that alert his audience to implausibilities in stories attributed to others. Moreover, analysis of the Helen logos and the story of Cyrus’ upbringing demonstrates that accounts advertised as true may yet include material that is either of Herodotus’ own invention or indebted to traditional (mythical or folkloric) narrative tropes. Finally, the tension between truth and falsehood that Herodotus recognizes as primary narrator is also manifested in such Odyssean characters as Darius (whose lying enables him to overthrow the false Smerdis and seize the throne for himself) and Themistocles (a master of verbal deception and self-aggrandizing cupidity).