********************
*The Histories by Herodotus TBR
*Herodotus: The Father of History TBR
*Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński TBR
*The Life of Greece by Will Durant 5 stars
*24 Hours in Ancient Athens: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There by Philip Matyszak 3 stars

How to review Herodotus? It's much like trying to review the Bible. Most would probably say something like, "I liked the blood and guts and stories about the cheating wives of kings; the genealogies were boring." But I found the entire book utterly captivating. It's something special to be able to lose yourself in a world that's completely different from your own, that has a rich history of its own with strange characters and stranger frontiers.

Herodotus is truly a child of the world, marveling at its every wonder. To the modern reader, much of what he writes is quaintly naive (and at times pretty racist). For instance, when describing Indians (a people he located in the very northwestern part of what we now know as India), he says that they "dwell farthest to the east and closest to the sunrise. For east of the Indians lies an uninhabitable desert of nothing but sand." (3.98.2) These Indians also "have intercourse out in the open just like animals" and "the seed they ejaculate into their wives is not white like that of the rest of men, but black like their skin and like the semen of the Ethiopians." (3.101.1-2) And in describing the land of Egypt, he constantly spews wildly inaccurate exoticisms. He describes the symbiotic relationship between an alligator and a plover (bird); the alligator, who is the most vicious creature in the world, opens its mouth to let the plover eat the leeches from his gums (not true, despite the misinformation still circling today, even). There is a report of ants that are smaller than dogs but larger than foxes who gather gold out of the desert. He tells a story about a race of one-eyed men who steal gold from gold-hoarding griffins, but he discounts the story because he can't believe in the existence of one-eyed men (the eagle-headed lion, however, he has no trouble accepting.)

Herodotus's histories are great fodder for contemporary literature. I have no doubt that every story that could be told had already been told by the time of Herodotus. The influence of literature like this is most plainly seen in fantasy works; after all, the ancient Greeks lived in a fantasy world, where gods wreaked havoc and monsters resided in the shadows. George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire would never have existed without Herodotus and the works of his peers. His tyrants, whores, valiant knights, plots of political intrigue and betrayal, may very well have all been lifted right off the papyri of these ancient texts. And no one could blame him for doing so. This is good stuff.

So Herodotus is truly a child of the world, marveling at its every wonder. But if he's so gullible, can we really call this history? My answer is that I don't really care what you call it. This is better than history. It's entertaining, it's fascinating, it's educational at times. Much like the Bible, it's got a bit of everything. It's a collage of knowledge, ancient rumors, wild speculation, and bewildering stories, that's begging out to be read and enjoyed by even such a removed generation as ours.

P.S. A quick note on the Landmark edition, translated by Andrea L. Purvis and edited by Robert B. Strassler. With all these maps and appendices and copious footnotes, why would you ever read a different edition? It's well worth it to shell out a few more bones for this one.

Years ago, I was on jury duty in LA. This was back when jury duty largely consisted of waiting around in a large room each day for a week. I brought along a copy of The Histories (the Rawlinson translation published by Everyman's Library) and found myself engrossed by all the stories, tall tales, gossip, rumors, etc. It's a wonderful panoply that's on offer here! Sure, Herodotus was criticized by many for not writing "facts," but the power of stories is far greater, and he knew it.

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

Herodotus was hailed as "The Father of History" by Cicero; To me, he might as well be the Father of Humanism.

I've read a few war epics, Homer's Iliad, Hugo's Les Misérables and Tolstoy's War and Peace, The Histories excels them all in terms of scope, structure, richness of content, intricacy and theatrical grandeur. The main theme / storyline is the Persian Wars, i.e., the conflicts between the Persian Empire and Greek nations, culminating in the invasion of Greece by Xerces I; the underlying theme is the struggle between tyranny and freedom, between the inexorability of fate and the triumph of the human spirit.

Like threads in a beautiful Persian tapestry, Herodotus weaves together numerous elements in his narratives, the histories and geographies of the many nations in Asia and Europe, the customs, cultures and achievements of the peoples, the remarkable characters and lives of individuals, and the oracles foreshadowing their fates, from kings to slaves, heroes and thieves, men, women and children, their words and deeds all distinct and memorable.

Some accused Herodotus of making up fanciful stories rather than recording the facts. I'm reminded of Thomas Mann's comment on War and Peace, "Seldom did art work so much like nature; its immediate, natural power is only another manifestation of nature itself; " If the best art is but a manifestation or imitation of nature, why make up stories when the facts themselves are much more wondrous and glorious?

You live many lives when you read this book. A masterpiece.

Ἰστορίαι = The Histories, Herodotus

The Histories of Herodotus is the founding work of history in Western literature. Written in 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known in Western Asia, Northern Africa and Greece at that time.

Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the genre and study of history in the Western world.

The Histories also stands as one of the first accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «تاریخ هرودوت»؛ «تواریخ»؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هشتم ماه آگوست سال1972میلادی

عنوان: تاریخ هرودوت؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ ترجمه به انگلیسی: جرج راولین سن؛ تنظیم: ا.ج اوانس؛ مترجم: غلامعلی وحید مازندرانی؛ تهران، علمی، سال1324، در24ص و211ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر، سال1360، در هشت ص و300ص؛ موضوع تاریخ هخامنشیان - جنگهای ایران و یونان - از سده ششم پیش از میلاد تا سده چهارم پیش از میلادی

عنوان: تواریخ؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ مترجم: غلامعلی وحید مازندرانی؛ تهران، دنیای کتاب؛ سال1368؛ در573ص و4ص، مصور؛ شابک9643461637؛ چاپ دوم سال1368؛ چاپ سوم سال1386؛ چاپ دیگر مشهد، خاتم، سال1391؛ در612ص؛ شابک9786006153278؛

عنوان: تاریخ هرودوت؛ نویسنده: هرودوت؛ مترجم: مرتضی ثاقب فر؛ تهران، اساطیر، سال1389، در دو جلد؛ شابک جلد یک9789643314699؛ شابک جلد دوم9789643314705؛

تاریخ «هرودوت» یا کتاب «تواریخ» یک کتاب تاریخی است، که توسط «هرودوت»، مورخ «یونانی» در سال چهارصد و چهل پیش از میلادی نگاشته شده‌ است؛ این کتاب نخستین کتاب «تاریخ» در جهان به‌ شمار می‌رود؛ و شامل نه کتاب است (سه کتاب نخست به «آسیای صغیر»، «مصر»، «میان‌رودان»، «ایران» و «سوریه» و «سرزمین‌های مجاور آن»، کتاب چهارم دربارهٔ «سکاها» و کتاب پنجم تا نهم به «جنگ‌های ایران و یونان» اختصاص دارد)؛ شرح زندگانی چهار شاه ایرانی «کوروش بزرگ»، «کمبوجیه یکم»، «داریوش بزرگ»، و «خشایارشای بزرگ» در این کتاب آرمیده است

شرق شناس پرآوازه، و کاشف خط میخی «هنری راولینسون»، در دوران پادشاهی «محمدشاه قاجار»، مربی نظامی در فوج «کرمانشاه» بودند، ایشان ضمن خدمت، به کاوش و پژوهش برای کشف رموز «خط میخی» نیز همت گماشتند، و سرانجام موفق شدند؛ پس از کشف چگونگی خوانش «خط میخی»، برادر ایشان «جرج راولینسون»، از آن اکتشاف مهم تاریخی بهره گرفتند، و نخستین ترجمه کامل از «تاریخ هرودوت» به زبان «انگلیسی» را، با حواشی و توضیح در چهار مجلد، در سال1858میلادی منتشر کردند، در سال1910میلادی، نسخه ی تازه ای از ترجمه ی مزبور، در دو جلد منتشر شد، در این نسخه بیشتر متن را حفظ، اما حواشی و یادداشتها و مقدمه را، خلاصه کرده بودند، در آغاز جنگ جهانگیر دوم، نسخه ی یک جلدی از ترجمه ی «راولینسون» توسط «ا.ج اوانس» دوباره تلخیص و تنظیم شد، این کتاب برگردان جناب «غ وحید مازندرانی»، از همان نسخه یک جلدی، از زبان «انگلیسی» میباشد، که نخستین چاپ آن در سال1324هجری خورشیدی، توسط انتشارات علمی، در دسترس پژوهشگران قرار گرفته است؛

این فراموشکار نخستین بار متن «انگلیسی» کتاب را خوانده ام، و سپس بارها و بارها نیز آنرا دوباره خوانده ام، و هر بار که فرصتی دست دهد، و حوصله ام برای تاریخ تنگ شود، باز هم تکه ای از متن «انگلیسی» را میخوانم، کاغذ آن نسخه ی کتاب جیبی این فراموشکار کاهی است، و صفحاتش زرد شده، و چشمانم حروف «انگلیسی» ریز را این روزها خوب تشخیص نمیدهند، ولی میخوانم، این نوشته ی «هرودوت» شاهکاری است، که هماره باقی خواهد ماند، تا به آیندگان آموزش دهد که تاریخ را چگونه بنویسند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 19/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Herodotus, as advertised, writes with a breezy, conversational, scandalous tone; the Histories can be confusing, and the events related in them are only sometimes of any real interest, but it's fun to just hang out and listen to Herodotus tell stories.

That said, if you were to choose to read excerpts instead of the whole, I wouldn't judge you. Over 700 pages, it all starts to run together pretty badly. Book Two is really fun; Books 6 - 8 cover Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis, the famous, decisive battles in the Greco-Persian War; that's pretty cool stuff, and also fairly straightforward in terms of telling a story.

Like the Iliad, the Histories are incredibly violent. Take the story of Zopyros from Book 3, who turns himself into a Trojan Horse; he mutilates himself - chops off his own nose and ears! - to make his story of being a deserter more believable to the Babylonians, then sacrifices 7,000 of his own troops to build up credibility with them, before finally betraying them and opening the gates to Babylon to allow the Persians to retake it. That's some cold shit, right? There's plenty more where that came from.

The Landmark edition is as good as everyone says it is. Tons of maps (okay, an utterly gratuitous number of maps, but so what? Everyone loves maps) and interesting supporting photos. The Appendices are of varying quality. The main problem with the Landmark edition is that it's coffee table-sized, so it's a total pain in the ass to read.

Herodotus writes with more narrative power than most novels. He has more insight into the human condition than all psychology departments. If hubris is what happens to arrogant kings in Herodotus’s account, then King Croseus is the hero of this story. He humbles himself when he is beaten and as a result is a wise counselor to the Persian kings. Most kings, however, aren’t like Croseus.

The story isn’t straightforward. He begins with the claim that he will give the background to the Persian war. He does. He also gives the background to everything else. Remember how in the Iliad when Homer would introduce some random dude, spend ten pages giving his backstory, only to have him killed off on the next page? Herodotus does the same thing.

There is a method to the madness, though. It’s quite brilliant. All of his random sidebars add up in the very end to present a coherent narrative. Further, there is a movement in his narrative which highlights liberty over despotism, which is the argument the Greeks used to unite themselves against Xerxes.

The ultimate showdown, first at Marathon, then at Thermopylae, and finally at Salamis, isn’t quite the “all of a sudden” event that the film 300 suggested. Much of Asia Minor was long understood to be Persian territory. Also, many Greek cities were quite friendly with Persia and no one saw a contradiction The tension, urged on by dreams and omens, developed over decades.

The climax of the story is Athens, not Sparta (which makes sense, given that Herodotus wrote this in the early stages of the Peloponnesian Wars). This compromises his neutrality, though it does make for good reading. “Here I am forced to declare an opinion which will be displeasing to most, but I will not refrain from saying what seems to me to be true. Had the Athenians been panic-struck by the threatened peril and left their own country, or had they not indeed left it but remained and surrendered themselves to Xerxes, none would have attempted to withstand the king by sea….As it is, to say that the Athenians were the saviors of Hellas is to hit the truth. It was the Athenians who held the balance; whichever side they joined was sure to prevail. choosing that Greece should preserve her freedom, the Athenians roused to battle the other Greek states which had not yet gone over to the Persians and, after the gods, were responsible for driving the king off. Nor were they moved to desert Hellas by the threatening oracles which came from Delphi and sorely dismayed them, but they stood firm and had the courage to meet the invader of their country” (VII:139).

Book I: Greece and Persia before the War

Book I has all of the elements of dark comedy and poignant tragedy. It isn’t a straightforward tale, though. He begins by explaining the background to the war with Persia, but it looks like he is getting sidetracked.

Book II: Egypt

Did Egypt copy Greece or did Greece copy Egypt? Herodotus argues that Greece took much of its religious terminology from Egypt (116). Nevertheless, while there is overlap, there are also differences. Egypt didn’t have quite the overt phallic symbolism that Greek rituals had (115), though it had obscenities of its own sort.

The Egyptians also were the first to put forth the idea of the immortality of the soul (145).

Analysis

Custom is stronger than any Nomos and rulers disregard that at their own peril. Herodotus notes: “For if it were proposed to all nations to choose which seemed best of all customs, each, after examination, would place its own first; so well is each convinced that its own are by far the best. It is not therefore to be supposed that anyone, except a madman, would turn such things to ridicule. I will give this one proof among many from which it may be inferred that all men hold this belief about their customs. When Darius was king, he summoned the Greeks who were with him and asked them for what price they would eat their fathers' dead bodies. They answered that there was no price for which they would do it. Then Darius summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding through interpreters what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrid an act. So firmly rooted are these beliefs; and it is, I think, rightly said in Pindar's poem that custom is lord of all” (III:38).

While Herodotus doesn’t draw the explicit point, a point which I think Thucydides will later draw, this is why global government is always doomed to fail.

What role do humans play in history? Herodotus is very clear that God (more on that later) and Nemesis respond to human Hubris. The “gods” (whatever that word means) also punish excess in vengeance (IV:205).

Herodotus ends with wisdom from Cyrus, who was urged to become lord over Europe: “It is only reasonable that a ruling people should act in this way, for when will we have a better opportunity than now, when we are lords of so many men and of all Asia?” Cyrus heard them, and found nothing to marvel at in their design; “Go ahead and do this,” he said; “but if you do so, be prepared no longer to be rulers but rather subjects. Soft lands breed soft men; wondrous fruits of the earth and valiant warriors grow not from the same soil.” The Persians now realized that Cyrus reasoned better than they, and they departed, choosing rather to be rulers on a barren mountain side than dwelling in tilled valleys to be slaves to others” (IX:122).

God my eyes hurt

More Infinite Jest than The History of the Peloponnesian War. Honest.

Wish I had the Landmark edition at the time. But Oxford does make nice books.

If you are an English speaker there is no reason for you to consider buying any other edition of this text. Brilliantly translated, filled with just the right amount of footnotes, maps and pictures, and there is an appendix for pretty much everything you could think of.

“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.