لم أكن أظن بأن الكتاب سيكون مثيرا لي..إلا أن كتب التاريخ قديما تشابه كتب أدب الرحلات من حيث وصف الحياة الاجتماعية وطبيعة الحيوانات المدجنة والمستوحشة ونوع الأمر والثمار في كل بلاد..لذا كان الكتاب ممتعا من حيث تحقيقه لفتا لأنظاري واهتمامي.

فيه قصص هي من العجب..كقصة الخاتم الثمين الذي رماه أحد حكام الإغريق على ما أذكر في البحر،ثم يعود له الخاتم بعد تكريم الحاكم لصياد بسيط..فما كان من الصياد إلا أن أهداه سمكة كان الخاتم فيها!

أيضا سمعت قصة عجيبة كنت أظن سابقا أنها من أمراض عصرنا بسبب كثرة الفجور والخنا. فأحد الملوك ممن فيه دياثة. كان يصف زوجته لوزيره وصفا مثيرا،ثم دله على كيفية مشاهدة زوجته واضعة ملابسها. لم يكن الوزير قادرا على رفض أوامر ملكه..فلما فعل ما فعل وعرفت زوجة الملك بما جرى معها طلبت الوزير سرا وقالت له إما أن أقتلك وإما أن أكون زوجتك ونقتل الملك!..وكان لها ما كان من قتل الملك.

أيضا تحدث المؤلف عن النساء الأمازونيات..فقد اشتهرن بالقوة والصلابة،وبامتهان الصيد ورمي القوس. وقد أسرن مرة وأركبن ظهر سفينة. فتمكنّ من فك القيك وقتل آسريهن كلهم..ثم اكتشفن أنهن لا يعرفن كيفية قيادة السفينة..فدار بهن البحر حتى وصلن إلى اليابسة وعدن إلى عملهن الصيد والنهب بقوة السلاح، في قصة مطولة تزوجن خلالها من رجال معروفين بالقتال!.
قصة الأمازونيات لوحدها كافية لتأمل سلوك الجنسين في التقارب فيما بينهما..وما يفاجئ ذلك من تضارب أنماط المهام المنوطة بكل جنس..فالرجال المقاتلون لم يتقبلوا في البداية أن يرتبطوا بنساء مقاتلات..وقد احتاجوا للهجرة كي ينأوا بهذا النمط النشاز لنسائهم من بقعتهم تلك.

لم يخل الكتاب من معلومات قد أعتبرها بدرايتي البسيطة خاطئة..فمثلا زعم المؤلف أن التمساح لا يرى داخل الماء. وهذا خطأ لو أن المؤلف عنى بالتمساح ما نشاهده في عالمنا الذي نعيش فيه.

استمعت للكتاب صوتيا، وقد حفزني ما فيه إلى اقتناء الكتاب.

A generation had no living memory of the greatest danger that the Greeks had ever lived through, but one man decided to change all that and gift posterity with a new genre. The Histories written by Herodotus details 80 crucial years from the rise of the Persian Empire to the defeat the remnants of Xerxes expedition and the events that led to the latter.

Using knowledge gleamed from extensive travel across the ancient world Herodotus begins his historical narrative by giving the ‘legendary’ encounters between the peoples of Europe and Asia before delving into the more ‘historical’ events that lead to Xerxes’ grand expedition. Herodotus details the history of the kingdom of Lydia that was the first to conquer populations of Greeks, those in western Anatolia, and how its great king Croesus lost his war to Cyrus the Great thus placing those same Greeks under the rule of Persia. The history of the Medes and their conquest by the Persians is related then the subsequent history of the Persian Empire until the Ionian revolt which led to the intervention of Athens and setting the stage for Darius expedition to Marathon. Intertwined with the rise of Persia was Herodotus relating the events within various Greek city-states, in particular Athens and Sparta, that contributed to the reasons for first Darius’ expedition and then to Xerxes’. Eventually his narrative would go back and forth between the two contending sides throughout the latter conflict as events unfolded throughout 480-479 BC.

The sheer volume of material that Herodotus provides is impressive and daunting for a reader to consider. Not only does he cover the political and military events, but numerous past historical and general culture aspects as well as lot of biographies and antidotal digressions that add color to the overall piece. Given that this was the first history ever written it’s hard to really criticize Herodotus—though Thucydides apparently had no problem later—but some digressions I wish Herodotus had left out or not heard at all.

The Histories by Herodotus is one of classic historical works that needs to be read by anyone who enjoys reading history. Whether or not you love the style of writing or even the topic, this book is important because it literally is the first history book.

"Inquiry" is the proper title of this work, from the Greek ἱστορία, but Herodotus will never be known as "The Father of Inquiries," so I guess he's stuck with the History tag. It is helpful to know that the goal of Herodotus was not strictly an accounting of events -- his primary purpose was to ask questions about remarkable things (including foreign cultures, bizarre landscapes, strange animals, and amazing tales) and report them in a way that might eventually explain the reasons for the Persian War. History as we know it was only a part of his overall project. Herodotus was influenced not only by Homer in the way he reports his findings, but also by the Ionian intellectual revolution that spawned the first scientists. He's a really curious guy, and his curiosity isn't limited to military or political events.

The most amazing tale of his time and place was the rise of the Persian Empire and their improbable defeat at the hands of a much smaller coalition of Greek city states. That story is the crowning concern of the Inquiry, but leading up to that are examinations of all of the people and lands which were at some point in contact with the Persians, especially the Egyptians, the Scythians, and of course the Greeks. There are numerous "digressions" on almost every conceivable subject, but each side trip circles back to the path to the heart of the book: the nature of and reasons for the Persian-Greek conflict. In the process he reveals something about the character of humanity in general. He makes no final conclusions about this, but he opens the way for rich discussion.

When in India, look out for the dog-sized ants because THEY ARE FAST. Just one of many useful travel tips from our boy H.

When reading this book, I was a bit obsessed, something that is not out of the ordinary for me when reading a book that I thoroughly enjoy, and I found myself incessantly offering up unsolicited little tales from the histories to friends and family, finding good use of these stories in many situations in my life, especially when someone was complaining about the present. Little consolations, you could call them. Calls to reality. Someone would say,

"Oh, thank God it’s Friday, this week has been pure hell!"

to which I would respond,

"be glad it’s not the week that the Persians came to your city like they did to Barce, whose men ended up impaled on poles around the city walls, then whose wives' breasts were cut off and pinned on the wall next to them. That sounds a little bit more hell-like to me. I mean, it’s all about perspective, right guys!?"

Or when the people in my life complained about how bad the world is today, I would shell out gruesome tales from Herodotus to remind them just how good it actually is for us in terms of pain and suffering. I found this whole sharing-of-Herodotus thing to be quite cathartic. Maybe, I should take up writing inspirational, encouraging, and consoling hallmark cards utilizing gruesome tales from ancient history. Not an entirely bad idea, I don't think. Sharing some of these stories is a wonderful way of dropping a bomb on political discourse between the right and the left too! The left complaining about oppression, justice, and inequality, brought on by the right And the right complaining about the impending doom of the apocalypse brought on by the left. It is very easy through many of these tales to bring a better perspective to both of these extreme views. But, my dad ended up asking me a question that I think is important to address, something that we should all contemplate, he was understandably annoyed I think, by the fact that I had talked about nothing else but Herodotus for several weeks, and asked, “Why should I care about this Herodotus guy at all. Who cares?”

So, as fascinating to me personally as all of these enquiries of Herodotus are, and as consoling as they are to me personally, my dad’s comment put the brakes on my excitement and got me thinking. Well, what exactly is the point to all of this? And Why should I care? All of this history is kind of pointless unless we’re able to utilize this information in some way.

So, why read Herodotus?
Or, why study history at all?

I’m gonna offer up what I think are three important reasons. That are helpful to all of mankind.

1. History teaches us to think critically
2. History helps us understand the present
3. History teaches us to be humble

History provides us with the tools to think critically, as students of history we evaluate evidence rationally and with an open-mind, letting the evidence guide us. It is obvious in the world that we live in today with constant misinformation and the seemingly ever expansive lack of critical thinking abilities employed in modern discourse that our society would largely benefit from the use of the critical thinking skills that are required of us as students of history.

History provides us with the tools to better understand the present, and through the critical analysis of past events history helps us to better maneuver future dilemmas. The famous aphorism “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” rings true in that as the Preacher of Ecclesiastes says, “There is nothing new under the sun” Humanity is sinful and broken and falls into the same old traps over and over again in new ways. History helps us to identify these patterns.

Lastly, and most importantly History teaches us to be humble. We all have the tendency to believe that we are the most important beings in the universe, that there is no time before or after our own existence that is as important as today. Especially within our consumerist, psychological, identity-based, self-focused society where we are always looking inside ourselves and zooming in on our time and what is happening immediately around us. We see the world and the events happening around us as the most important, but if we zoom out from our small existence and our small place in time, Like the psalmist was humbled when contemplating the vastness of the night sky, in Psalm 8, wondering who man is that God is mindful of him, we too will begin to be humbled when looking into the vastness of History as we contemplate the reality of our small existence in comparison to the deep space of time that expands out from the present to both past and future. As GK Chesterton said in his book, Orthodoxy: “If a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.” And the study of history does exactly that.

These first principles of history are found in abundance in Herodotus.

Herodotus (unlike most people of his time and of ours for that matter) does not see the world in terms of black and white. Bad and Good. He does not see Greece as the only ones in the universe that matter. He is aware from the research he has done, and through his contemplation of history and culture that mankind is immensely complex. That each person brings with them a different perspective and worldview seeped through with hundreds or thousands of years of cultural infusion.

He is constantly moving about from tangent to tangent due to the fact that he cannot help himself from being drawn in by these people, and places, with all of their differing customs and traditions, and in his exploration of these things, he leaves for us a sort of guide on how to navigate a complex world of differing worldviews. Something that has never been as relevant to mankind in the way that it is today. Especially in a place like the United States of America were walking down a random street in L.A. or New York, would easily provide a cultural sensory-overload as you take in differing food smells, languages, appearances of different people and imagine their accompanying worldviews. How are we to make sense of anything in a world like this?



I watched a great interview with Tom Holland whose translation of The Histories was published in 2013. He brought to my attention the exemplary tale of Cambyses who was Cyrus’s elder son. He takes over after Cyrus’ death and immediately takes on the Egyptians. He struts into Egypt following his victory over them in battle, and some of the Egyptians were worshiping a calf who they believed to be the God Apis. Cambyses is angered with the Egyptians for celebrating this calf believing that he should have received the same type of celebration. Herodotus then goes on to give us more examples of this Cambyses guy making a fool of himself. That he violated graves in Memphis, mocked the Egyptian Hephaestus in his temple and burned the Cabiri at their shrine. Making it obvious that Cambyses was a bit of a petulant tyrant.

Herodotus writes,

“[3.38] In view of all this, I have no doubt that Cambyses was completely out of his mind; it is the only possible explanation of his assault upon, and mockery of, everything which ancient law and custom have made sacred in Egypt.”

“If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably - after careful considerations of their relative merits - choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best; and that being so, it is unlikely that anyone but a madman would mock at such things. There is abundant evidence that this is the universal feeling about the ancient customs of one's country.”

What Herodotus does here through this amazing story is to show us a bit of the workings of his own mind. His empathetic perspective toward the Egyptians concerning Cambyses lack of consideration concerning the Egyptian culture and their religion. And his incredibly wise and non-partisan perspective toward all men. He understood that we all believe our cultures and customs to be the best, and that because of that Cambyses would have had to have been completely out of his mind insane to make a mockery out of someone’s beliefs.

He continues,

“One might recall, for example, an anecdote of Darius. When he was king of Persia, he summoned the Greeks who happened to be present at his court, and asked them what they would take to eat the dead bodies of their fathers. They replied that they would not do it for any money in the world. Later, in the presence of the Greeks, and through an interpreter, so that they could understand what was said, he asked some Indians of the tribe called Callatiae, who do in fact eat their parents' dead bodies, what they would take to burn them. They uttered a cry of horror and forbade him to mention such a dreadful thing. One can see by this what custom can do.”

Custom, tradition, and culture help formulate our perspective, for each one of us. Herodotus realized this, and hoped to teach others this valuable lesson. To lock ourselves into black and white thinking where we leave no room for caution and grace when dealing with fellow human beings is foolish and ignorant.

And I think I will end this review with what is another beautiful case in the latter part of the histories where Herodotus once again shows us a bit more of the workings of his mind. It is In Part 7 if I’m not mistaken when Xerxes is up on a hill looking down over the Hellespont and his vast armies, Herodotus writes of Xerxes weeping, when asked why he is crying Xerxes responds,

“There came upon me, a sudden pity when I thought of the shortness of man’s life, and considered that of all of this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years has gone by.”

And Herodotus through this passage writes into Xerxes with these words a tragic Greek perspective, exemplifying an empathetic view of the great Persian that brought about the destruction of Greece, and showed him to be a man of wisdom who like Herodotus understood from the contemplation of time and history, something that King David of Israel, and The preacher of Ecclesiastes, Homer, Sophocles, etc, all contemplated as well, which is the great futility of human endeavors when viewed through long scope of History.

I for one am glad that Herodotus wrote this book, and started this wonderful western tradition of research and enquiry concerning past events, and I hope that just as it effected Herodotus’ worldview and perspective to be more open-minded and humble toward his fellow man, the study of history would likewise do the same for all of us who enjoy to peer back into the annals of the past. May we defy the age that we live in, and step out of the increasingly polarized dialogue of modern politics to contemplate the immense complexity of the age we live in, may we be graceful to people who think differently than ourselves, and may we be humbled to think about all of the ways in which our existence is fleeting and our human endeavors are futile.

4,25 stars- English hardcover

This history is truly remarkable.

Herodotus showed me that history is in the eye of the beholder: the facts are there to be interpreted through the eye of the historian and there are many ways to interpret depending on your worldview and experience.

That said, Herodotus physically explored his world to a remarkable degree, and this some 2,500 years ago.

I surely liked two things: that he rigorously identifies his sources and articulates any concerns: " I saw this", "I was told this and I accept it", and "I heard this but do not necessarily accept it".
And, he follows a piece of material along its path through time; and when finished returns to his narrative. Not for him the "times,dates,places" of recent western history.

If you are in doubt of his ancient power to enthrall, look at his account of the conflict between Cyrus 1 Shah of Shahs and Tomyrus warrior Queen of the Massagetae.

I believe him to be a wonderful writer with many messages for the present from long ago.

I realy recommended it!

It is astounding to realize that as little time did the Battle of Thermopylae precede the publishing of this work as now lies between the Vietnam War and our day, and also that a mere century later the sixth great-grandson of the Alexander I of Macedon Herodotus writes about here would become known to the rest of the world ever after as "Alexander the Great." Well did Cicero another 277 years later call Herodotus "pater historiae" - the father of history.

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.

Really enjoyable. Herodotus nails down the social and political fabric of his reality in a sprawling, widely digressive work that serves as history, social commentary, geography, philosophy, and scientific rumination all at once without ever reducing to any one of these. Sure, you need an atlas and probably a glossary to keep track of all the places and names, and yes there are many inaccuracies, but that's the point, the ancient world can be a big, messy, place, and nothing is too big or too small to escape commentary. An inquiry of what happens when two separate civilizations meet and are forced to interact (not to mention the starting point for all further issues regarding 'east vs. west')? Check. Examinations of the movements and actions taking place during battles which regularly involve over 5,500,000 people? Check. A brief lesson on the spawning habits of Nile river fish? Check. An oral history of local customs and folk-lore told from opposing perspectives which forces the reader to filter through and actively engage with the beliefs of this age? Check. Twenty five centuries later, and still lively.

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.

SUI GENERIS

as a gooder reader than I once remarked, some books select their audience. By the same token, some audiences select their books.

Herodotus is best read in the bath.

Read a little more than a third of the text for a Humane Letters class in Hillsdale College's Classical Education MA program. In terms of sheer entertainment value, Herodotus is hard to beat, and his literary approach to mapping and explaining the world is fascinating—he really falls more into the genre of wisdom literature than chronicle. The great existential truth of the frailty of man is at the forefront of everything that he writes about, and is quite moving in the moments where it shines through fully, as in Cyrus's sparing of Croesus and Xerxes weeping as he gazes over the Hellespont. Ultimately, what makes Herodotus a Great Book is the fact that he is the greatest systematic expositor of the polytheistic worldview, without wishing for things to be different (as in Homer) or striving beyond the limitations of his day (as in Plato). His understanding of Fate, the relationship between the transcendent and immanent, the visible and invisible, and just his explanations of the customs of the nations make it almost a pagan Civitas Dei, and especially worth comparing to the Old Testament histories for a clear stack-up of the respective paradigms of Athens and Jerusalem. It is a book that, in its outlook, defines a huge era, and which, like the works of Homer and Dante, makes an entire cosmos come alive in vivid illumination for readers today.

Oh, and definitely splurge for the Landmark Herodotus. It's one of the highest quality and most helpful critical editions of anything. Andrea Purvis's translation is one of those, in the spirit of Lattimore, that needlessly "Hellenizes" the names in an effort to be more authentic (i.e. "Lykourgos", when literally everyone calls him Lycurgus). It would be like translating the Old Testament and calling Moses "Mosheh" and Solomon "Shlomo". But that's a minor annoyance.