A wonderful start for someone looking to ease into classical primary sources. Not as dry or intimidating as Thucydides.

As a lifelong history buff, it had been a source of great private embarrassment to me that I had not taken the time to read Herodotus, the father of historical inquiry. Now, at last, the deed is done, although I will have to go back and reread certain parts to keep things fresh. As a first impression, having just finished this book for the first time, my only regret is that I did not read this sooner, and that I was not exposed to some of the wonderful stories contained in these histories in school. From my limited exposure to the classics, I have come to appreciate their value to a true liberal education. It is my goal to read (or reread) classical history from the primary sources.

Now, a description of the Histories themselves. The entirety of Herodotus' work - his "inquiry" - constituted an effort to examine the root causes of the Persian Wars (or as Herodotus would put it, the wars between the Hellenes and the barbarians) by giving the conflict as much historical and cultural context as possible.

Thus, much of the Histories are devoted to exploring the comparative histories of the Greeks and Persians, as well as the history and culture of all the peoples who had contact with either civilization. Persian history is described from the rule of the Medes to the rapid growth and military success of the Persian Empire in the 6th century BC. The histories of the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, Lydians, Ionians and Scythians are also discussed, as are their peculiar cultural practices, as each of these peoples either fell directly under the Persian imperial ambit or were threatened by them in some way. The culmination of the histories is an intimate account of the two Persian invasions of mainland Greece, and the heroic efforts of the Greek cities to persevere against seemingly insurmountable odds. Perhaps the most famous events described by Herodotus are the battles of Marathon (490), Thermopylae (480), and Platea (479).

Through scores of entertaining stories and anecdotes, Herodotus brings the grit, the turmoil and the human drama of the Greek world convincingly to life. The Greeks one encounters in Herodotus (as well as in Thucydides and Xenophon) are not the serene, marble figures of our popular imagination. They are not, as we imagine them, men in togas pacing around empty colonnades stroking their beards, contemplating the nature of reality. They are emotional, mercurial, honorable, dastardly, rational, fanatically-religious, zealous, disciplined, and absolutely ruthless. It is this very visceral portrait of the Greeks that make them simultaneously enigmatic and endearing. Perhaps more than we would like to admit, they remind us of ourselves.

Herodotus deserves reading as the father of classical history, and because his Histories are a profound story of human complexity in their own right.

Accordingly the Psylli took counsel among themselves, and by common consent made war upon the southwind---so at least the Libyans say, I do but repeat their words---they went forth and reached the desert; but there the south-wind rose and buried them under heaps of sand: whereupon, the Psylli being destroyed, their lands passed to the Nasamonians.

I read most of this edition (as opposed to the Landmark) picking up donated food for our residential component. It is a strange time. Therefore, it was perhaps appropriate that I sat in the back of van engrossed in this tome. Vacant streets signifying something amiss. My only contact on many of these sojourns was the sudden appearance of masked figures bringing out cases of produce and other foodstuffs. I believe my foundations for approaching this were typical: largely The English Patient and Persian Fire: Tom Holland's book on Thermopylae. Coincidentally, I became aware that Holland himself had translated the Histories and I admit I find that prospect intriguing.

Despite the attempts at objectivity, it is the personalities which I find fascinating: Xerxes and Leonidas are voices for the ages, however apocryphal.

“Herodotus was the Father of History.” Fans of The English Patient will remember how often the main character, the enigmatic Hungarian count-turned-archaeologist László de Almásy, utters those words (quoting Cicero in the process). Indeed, Almásy’s personal copy of Herodotus’ Histories, with mementoes from various periods of his life pasted inside, becomes the key to his story of an ill-fated love affair amidst the turmoil of war. And more than 2000 years after Herodotus of Halicarnassus first set down his history of the major states and empires of the Mediterranean basin from the beginnings of recorded history, students of history still turn to Herodotus to learn how history should be written. The Father of History he remains.

When Herodotus wrote the Histories in 440 B.C., the Persian Wars were just forty years in the past, like the Vietnam conflict for Americans today; accordingly, it is no surprise that Herodotus opens the Histories by describing the thematic terms in which he plans to frame his work of history:

“Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not be forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds – some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians – may not be without their glory; and especially to explain why the two peoples fought with each other.” (p. 3)

Please note that Herodotus is engaging in a task of inquiry-based learning. Like all the good historians who have come after him, he is not starting with an axe to grind; he plans to ask questions and see where the factually correct and truthful answers take him. He focuses upon observable facts from his time – the recent conflict between Greek and non-Greek states, and specifically between Greece and Persia – and works to ascertain where the original causes of those conflicts may be found. The reader notes also Herodotus’ determination to be fair-minded, and to assign credit or blame wherever it is legitimately due.

Herodotus was not only a diligent researcher but also a seasoned traveler; accordingly, he writes with the authority of lived experience and observation in passages like the one where he comments on what various writers have claimed regarding the Nile River in Egypt: “I have observed for myself that Egypt at the Nile Delta projects into the sea beyond the coast on either side; I have seen shells on the hills and noticed how salt exudes from the soil to such an extent that it affects even the pyramids” (p. 99).

Herodotus offers comparably extensive description of local customs, as when he describes various tribes of Libya. The women of the Adrymachidae “wear a bronze ring on each leg, and grow their hair long; when they catch a bug on their persons, they give it bite for bite before throwing it away” (p. 299). The Macae, by contrast, “wear their hair in the form of a crest, shaving it close on either side of the head and letting it grow long in the middle; in war they carry ostrich skins for shields” (p. 301).

Among the many features of classical historiography that Herodotus seems to have given the world is the tradition of reproducing important speeches at full length, even when it is not clear who the contemporary authority for the speech is, or how accurately the speech was transcribed. A characteristic example occurs when the Achaemenid emperor Cambyses II responds to a prophecy that someone named Smerdis will usurp the throne by having his own brother Smerdis murdered – only to learn afterwards that a real rebellion against him is being fomented by two Magi, one of whose name is Smerdis! Fatally wounded by an accidental sword injury, Cambyses still has time to give a long speech in which, among other things, he takes responsibility for what he has done: “Failing to grasp the true nature of what was in store for me, I murdered my brother for nothing, and have lost my kingdom just the same” (p. 199).

For modern readers, a highlight of the Histories is likely to be Herodotus’ account of how the Athenians under the leadership of Miltiades defeated the Persians at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Herodotus’ pride in the Athenians’ valour is palpable in passages like the one where he describes how “the Athenians came on, closed with the enemy all along the line, and fought in a way not to be forgotten; they were the first Greeks, so far as we know, to charge at a run, and the first who dared to look without flinching at Persian dress and the men who wore it; for until that day came, no Greek could hear even the word ‘Persian’ without terror” (p. 401).

Reading that passage made me think of how many American historians of the Revolutionary War, particularly during the early 19th century, emphasized the way Americans' hearts swelled with pride as George Washington’s Continental Army showed itself capable of standing up to tough British regulars in the war’s early battles such as Lexington/Concord and Bunker Hill. No doubt those historians had read their Herodotus as part of their classical education; consciously or unconsciously, they emulated Herodotus’ structure and approach in their own work. True, the casualty figures that Herodotus cites for the battle of Marathon – 6400 casualties for the Persians, to only 192 for the Athenians – may seem, from the Greek perspective, too good to be true; but the historical importance of the event, and of the way in which Herodotus recounted the event, nonetheless remains evident.

(Please note, however, that you will not find in Herodotus the well-known story of Pheidippides, the courier who is said to have made the 26-mile, 385-yard-long run from Marathon to Athens, gasping out to the waiting Athenians the words “Joy to you, we’ve won!” before falling dead. For that story, you must go to the Roman author Lucian, writing 500 years later.)

Herodotus’ account of how the Spartans, under the leadership of their warrior-king Leonidas, defended the pass of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., at the height of the Second Persian War, is another highlight of the Histories that is likely to resonate with many modern readers, especially in this era when the Spartan heroes of the Frank Miller graphic novel 300 (1998) and its two film adaptations have established a firm foothold in modern popular culture. Herodotus emphasizes the arrogance of the Persian emperor Xerxes in dismissing the warnings of the exiled Spartan king Demaratus that “You have now to deal with the finest kingdom in Greece, and with the bravest men” (p. 489). (Xerxes comes across as a thoroughly evil man in the Histories; the story of the cruelty he inflicted when his passion for the wife of his brother Masistes went unfulfilled is blood-chilling.)

One of the finest passages of narrative and descriptive writing in the Histories – one that has no doubt inspired many writers of military history in the 2400 years since Herodotus composed this work – sets forth the climax of the battle of Thermopylae, after the Spartans have been betrayed by one Ephialtes, a Greek who showed the Persians a mountain track that would enable them to render the defence of the pass impossible:

“As the Persian army advanced to the assault, the Greeks under Leonidas, knowing that they were going to their deaths, went out into the wider part of the pass much further than they had done before; in the previous days’ fighting they had been holding the wall and making sorties from behind it into the narrow neck, but now they fought outside the narrows. Many of the barbarians fell; behind them the company commanders plied their whips indiscriminately, driving the men on. Many fell into the sea and were drowned, and still more were trampled to death by one another. No one could count the number of the dead. The Greeks, who knew that the enemy were on their way round by the mountain track and that death was inevitable, put forth all their strength and fought with fury and desperation. By this time most of their spears were broken, and they were killing Persians with their swords. In the course of that fight Leonidas fell, having fought most gallantly…” (pp. 493-94)

And Herodotus includes the epitaphs inscribed at Thermopylae after the Greek victory in the war – one that has been reproduced as a modern stone inscription, for present-day visitors to the pass:

Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

“Go tell the Spartans, you who read:
We took their orders, and here lie dead.” (p. 495)

It is perhaps the most famous passage in all the Histories, and one that has unquestionably had a profound influence on the way later historians have written about similar battles in later years. For American readers, the battles of the Alamo and the Little Bighorn are likely to stand out as relevant examples.

The continuing influence of Herodotus’ Histories can be easily seen in many areas of modern life. Students of the American Civil War, for example, will recall that Shelby Foote, in composing his epic three-volume history The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-74), consciously drew upon his own reading of Herodotus in crafting a work of history that is truly Herodotean in its storytelling sweep and stylistic grace.

And because I grew up in Cold War times, I recall how often American leaders during the Cold War spoke of an “inevitable conflict” between West and East, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. And I wonder how many of those leaders had read their Herodotus and had been influenced by his presentation of the “inevitable conflicts” of his time – between West and East, between Hellenes and “barbarians,” between the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire. As long as the history of nations and their wars is set down, Herodotus and his Histories will continue to exert that sort of influence.

Although he is the very first historian in Western Civilization, Herodotus has something of a bad reputation for being too gullible. Current critical opinion tends to favor Herodotus's near contemporary, Thucydides, the author of an equally great history of The Peloponnesian War. And yet, as I re-read the earlier book, I was surprised that Herodotus frequently notes that he doesn't always believe what he has been told, but presents it anyhow, if only because the Greek word for "history" is the same as the Greek word for "investigation." There is something of the ethnologist in Herodotus: He is an Ionian from Halicarnassus, a people who have had a much longer acquaintance with the Persians, Medes, Assyrians, and other peoples of the East than the mainland Greeks.

The first five of the nine books of The Histories are mostly a survey of the peoples who allied themselves with Darius and Xerxes in their invasions of Greece. It is here that most of the outlandish anecdotes are concentrated, in his investigations of such peoples as the Egyptians, Libyans, and Scythians. Once the invasions themselves begins, his history becomes more exciting, with fewer digressions and greater plausibility.

I would recommend that readers take the first five books slowly and savor the strangeness. Once the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale had been fought, Herodotus showed himself to be a true Greek and one fiercely proud of his heritage.

Autor da história da invasão persa da Grécia (princípio do século V a.C.), conhecida simplesmente como As histórias de Heródoto.
Heródoto é o pai da História!
Heródoto foi o primeiro a gravar o passado e a considerá-lo um problema filosófico ou um projecto de pesquisa que podia revelar conhecimento do comportamento humano.

احساس می کنم داشتم سیندرلا و هفت کوتوله می خوندم
صد رحمت به گزنفون و کتزیاس
پر از اشتباهات و غلط های تاریخی غیر قابل بخشش بود ❗
۱) اول از همه اینکه ایرانیان بربر نبودند و هیچ وقت برده داری نمی کردند برخلاف گزافه گویی های هرودوت
۲) نویسنده از همان آغاز کتاب که منابع ایرانی را دروغ و تبلیغات پنداشت و هرودوت دشمن ایران را یگانه منبع معتبر انگاشت !
۳)این کتاب از پادشاهی کمبوجيه به بعد فقط به گزافه گویی و افسانه سرایی و دروغ بافی پرداخته و از خشایارشاه چهره ای زشت آفریده

وقتی هرودوت از آمار ۵/۵ میلیون سپاه ایران سخن می گوید واضح است که خشایارشا کل جمعیت ایران رو با خودش به میدان جنگ برده بوده :)


❌
!کبوجیه گاو آپیس را نکشت و مومیایی فرعون را نسوزاند
با مردمان مصر به خوبی همچون پدر عزیزش رفتار کرد

اگر به نوشته های خصمانه هرودوت نسبت به ایرانیان چشم پوشی کنیم و به وقایع تاریخی که صحت دارند و افسانه نیستند بپردازیم متوجه می شویم که وقتی خشایارشا وارد آتن می شود به قدری با مردمان یونان به خوبی همچون پدر بزرگ عادل خویش کورش دوم رفتار می کند که مردم او را مورد ستایش قرار می دهند و جالب ترین نکته این است که خشایارشا با لباس مردم محلی یونان وارد معبد دلفی و آکروپل می شود و ادای احترام می کند به خدایان یونانی ! این کار خشایارشا بسیار برای مردم تاثیرگذار می شود که برای تشکر و قدر دانی از خشایارشا مجسمه وی را می سازند و در معبدآکروپل و دلفی قرار می دهند
و متاسفانه جفت معابد آکروپل و دلفی در جنگ های داخلی یونان و شورش های مردم مورد تخریب قرار می گیرند و به آتش کشیده می شوند. جالب اینجاست که هرودوت تاریخ نویس یونانی که از نظر اکثر مورخان وی را افسانه نویس خطاب می کنند او به دروغ در کتاب خود می نویسد که خشایارشا معبد آکروپل را سوزانید و به ناموس مردم تعدی کرد!!!!!! و همین دروغ و تحریف تاریخ هرودوت باعث می شود که اسکندر مقدونی در سال های آتی کینه معبد آکروپل را به دل بگیرد و تخت جمشید(پرسپولیس ) را به آتش و ویرانگی بکشاند ! افسوس

Superb book, it immersed me in ancient Greece. Herodotus skills are unmatched as a story teller, although the speeches are far better in Thucydides.

Written at the outset of the Peloponnesian War this book comes across as Athenian propaganda some times. However, all the detail provided of the different civilizations the Greeks had contact with is just great. For anyone who enjoys reading on the subject this is a fun, thorough and excellently crafted book.

Props to Herodotus for being more entertaining than most modern writers.

Herodotus tried to sound objective, but he obviously incorporated a lot of his interpretations into the storytelling. What's refreshing is that his interpretations are based on the criteria of plausibility. He believed things as so because his reasoning concluded that it was the most plausible. Gods still play a part, but what determines the success is human. Some parts of The Histories read Machiavellian, with its political trickery, schemes, manipulations of public sentiments; but for Herodotus the bottom line is democracy is better than dictatorship (as it is for Machiavelli). Many characters were portrayed as incredibly wise, among which Deioces and Croesus are the most unforgettable to me. The gist of the wisdom Herodotus intended to impart is moderation and balance. "It is always the largest building and the tallest trees on which Zeus hurls his thunderbolt. It is the god's way to curtail anything excessive." Great nations were almost always doomed by the rulers' excessive passion to expand territory and march forever onward. The greatest ruler, Herodotus believes, is the one who balances courage with fear, passion with modesty.

Talk about an on point beard!



A surprisingly fun read and certainly worth it for historical significance alone.

I can see why this book is held in such esteem; for the first time the acts of men are looked at through the optics of investigative inquiry - "Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances" is still the lesson we seem to learn and forget every decade - "Circumstance is the hub of the wheel; men are the spokes that provide traction through connection to the felloes of history" is what this book has taught me.

The history of the Persian/Greek wars, the war between Athens' democracy and freedom against Persia's slavery and tyranny, the first history book ever written, and, according to this translator, the greatest shaggydog story ever told (and he's right). It's hard to classify this as non-fiction - the Gods still exist and have power, but contrary to (for example) the Odyssey, they've taken a backseat. Instead of mingling with the mortals, their power is indirect; all those who do wrong are correctly identified and punished:

No sooner had they blinded Euenius, however, than their livestock stopped giving birth and their soil turned similarly barren. When the Appollonians asked [the oracles] at Dodona and Delphi the reason for the calamity they were experiencing[, both gave the same answer]: that they had unjustly deprived Euenius, the guardian of the sacred flock, of his sight.

The oracles are always right - except when they're bribed and then themselves duly punished - their prophecies always come true, often in ironic ways, as known from Oedipus.

If you attack you will destroy a great empire.

Reading this is often like reading through an ancient Wikipedia, since Herodotus lists as many facts as he could collect. Like Wikipedia's links, every time Herodotus mentions a new place or a thing he can't help but immediately list everything about it, with the consequence that this reads like a phylogeny of stories, with branches branching off other branches, as if you'd replace all links in the Wikipedia by their respective articles' texts. You have to be careful when reading this, if you're tired when reading Herodotus' frequent sidetracking will confuse you.

Funny enough, it takes Herodotus about 6 or 7 of the 9 books until the "action" of the wars really starts; before that, he draws a picture of his world as complete and detailed as possible, knowing that this all will be lost and forgotten if not for his work. Book 2 is all about Egypt and what an amazing place it was, book 4 is about the Scythians and their customs. Darius, King of Persia and first enemy of Athens appears in book 3 - he dies in book 7, to be followed by Xerxes, who subsequently raises the biggest army the world had ever seen, literally drinking rivers dry, and their subsequent bloody run-in with the Spartans (here often Lacedaemonians, after the region of which Sparta was the capital) at Thermopylae under Leonidas (you know the comic and movie) and the subsequent defeat of the Persian fleet by the Greek fleet.

In between there are numerous speeches, fights, customs, small stories, rapes and brutal murders, intrigues, bribes, lootings, valorous acts in battle, stupid decisions, hilarious events, and philosophies.

Herodotus himself has a strong voice and judges the stories as told to him by others; sometimes highly skeptical, sometimes blindly trusting (in which case Holland's footnotes play the skeptic's part). By the way, the footnotes are numerous and extremely helpful in locating cross-references by Herodotus (or these cases where Herodotus says "I'll talk about this later" and then forgets all about it). In my ebook version with my font and size settings, the book ends at 68%, the rest is footnotes.

Recommended for: Everyone.