Historian. João de Barros, called the "Portuguese Livy", is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his work "Décadas da Ásia" ("Decades of Asia"), a work on the history of the Portuguese in India, Asia and southeast Africa and a pioneer of the grammar of the Portuguese language, having written the second work to standardize the language, as it was spoken in his time. Educated in the palace of King Manuel I of Portugal, in the period of greatest apogee of the Portuguese Discoveries, he composed, at the age of twenty, a romance of chivalry, "Crónica do Imperador Clarimundo" ("Chronicle of the Emperor Clarimund"), in which he is said to have had the assistance of Prince João (later King João III). Upon ascending the throne, João III awarded Barros the captaincy of the fortress of St. George of Elmina, to which he proceeded in 1524. In 1525, he obtained the post of treasurer of the India House, which he held until 1528. To escape from an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1530 Barros moved from Lisbon to his country house near Pombal, where he finished a moral dialogue, "Rhopicapneuma" (untranslatable Greek term meaning loosely "futility-spirit"), which was cheered by Juan Luís Vives. On his return to Lisbon in 1532 the king appointed Barros factor of the "Casa da Índia e da Mina" (House of India and Mina) - a position of great responsibility and importance at a time when Lisbon was the European center for the trade of the East. Barros proved a good administrator, displaying great industry and an honesty rare at the time, with the result that he made little profit compared to his predecessors, who had amassed fortunes. At this time, João III, wishing to attract settlers to Brazil, divided it into captaincies and attributed to Barros that of Maranhão. Barros, along with two partners, prepared an armada of ten vessels, carrying nine hundred men each, which set sail in 1539. Owing to the ignorance of the sailors, the whole fleet was shipwrecked, which entailed serious financial loss to Barros. As a gesture of goodwill, Barros subsequently paid the debts of those who had perished in the expedition. During these years he had continued his studies in his leisure hours, and shortly after the Brazilian disaster he offered to write a history work of the Portuguese in India: "Décadas da Ásia", which the king accepted. He began work forthwith, but, before printing the first part, he published a Portuguese grammar (1539) and some further moral Dialogues. The first of the "Décadas da Ásia" appeared in 1552, and its reception was such that the king straightway charged Barros to write a chronicle of King Manuel I. His many occupations, however, prevented him from undertaking this last book, which was finally composed by Damião de Góis. The second "Decade" came out in 1553 and the third in 1563, but he died before publishing the fourth. The latter was published posthumously in 1615 in Madrid by the cosmographer and Chronicler-Royal João Baptista Lavanha, who edited and compiled Barros' scattered manuscript. His "Decades" contain the early history of the Portuguese in India, Asia and southeast Africa and reveal careful study of Eastern historians and geographers, as well as of the records of his own country. They are distinguished by clearness of exposition and orderly arrangement. They are also lively accounts, for example describing the king of Viantana's killing of the Portuguese ambassadors to Malacca with boiling water and then throwing their bodies to the dogs. Diogo de Couto continued the work, adding nine more decades, and a modern edition of the whole appeared in Lisbon in 14 volumes in 1778-1788 as "Da Ásia de João de Barros, dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente" ("Of João de Barros' Asia, of the deeds that the Portuguese did in the discovery and conquest of the seas and lands of the East"). The edition is accompanied by a volume containing a life of Barros by the historian Manoel Severim de Faria and a copious index of all the "Decades". In January 1568 Barros had a stroke and retired from his remunerative appointment at the India House, receiving the rank of fidalgo together with a pension and other pecuniary emoluments from King Sebastião, and died in abject poverty on October 20, 1570 at his country house in Santiago de Litém, Pombal Municipality. He left so many debts that his children renounced his will. As a historian and linguist, João de Barros deserves the fame that began to spread shortly after his death. His "Decades" are not only a precious source of information about the history of the Portuguese but are also the beginning of modern historiography of Portugal in the world. Originally interred in the Chapel of St. Anthony (Capela de Santo António) in his estate Quinta de São Lourenço (a property inherited by his wife, Maria de Almeida, 3rd Lady of Quinta de São Lourenço), his remains were later transferred to the parish church of Alcobaça, the Church of Our Lady of Conception (Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Conceição). He was featured on the 500 Portuguese Escudos Banknote.