Customer Reviews

The Histories (Everyman's Library)

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Herodotus was the earliest major historian in the western tradition. He was much more than that, however. The historian also covers in his writings such diverse fields as comparative religion / mythology, geography, geneology, political science, biology and ecology.

The modern reader may find some aspects of the "Histories" strange, as the text is filled with oracles, prophecies, seers and divine intervention; not the sort of stuff that we are used to being associated with historical scholarship. It is also difficult to discern exactly what H's own beliefs are. Sometimes he takes supernatural explantions / events seriously. Sometimes he does not. In any case, it would be prudent for us to remember that at H's time, the line between mythology and history was still blurred, almost to the point of the two being interchangeable. It was not until Thucydides that the distinction between the two became more pronounced.

The most famous books of the "Histories" are VI-IX [Erato, Polymnia, Urania, Calliope]. It is here that H details what has come to be known as the "Persian Wars"; the wars between Persia & Greece. In these sections one finds the major battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis discussed, as well as the final confrontation @ Platea. Personas from both sides of the war come alive under the pen of Herodotus. We learn of the Persian rulers Darius and Xerxes, the Spartan general Leonidas and the Athenian sea commander Themosticles, among others.

Here was a special time in Greek history, an epoch which saw cultures as antipodal as Athens and Laconia banded together to fight in the common interest of Grecian freedom and sovereignty. As Daniel Robinson of Georgetown university points out, it is not greed or an aggressive nature that causes wars nearly so much as it is man's commitment to other men who share the same ideals. H perhaps knew that more than anyone else in his day. War is indeed horrible and nasty, but there exists still a gruesome beauty in the call to arms.

In any event, this is a tremendous book; an absolute must-read for all historians and anthropologists. Here is the #1 place to find out how the Persians, Lydians, Corinthians, Lacedaemonians and Athenians (among others) lived 2,500+ years ago. This text is a matrix for all discussions pertaining to historiography.

The Histories by Herodotus is among the earliest surviving pieces of literature that can at least partially be accepted as historical narrative. He records various people and their customs from the Mediterranean world, including North Africa, to the Persian Empire and as far east as India. The last few books of his narrative focus on the Greco-Persian War which led to the defeat of the military forces of the Persian Empire by several united Greek city-states, most notably led by Sparta and Athens. Herodotus relied on his travels and observations as well as his questioning of various sources in writing this account. While the methods of historical research have changed and become more professionalized, he nevertheless deserves credit for wanting to record history and for his willingness to compare different explanations and ruling out those he considered too far fetched, though not all his conclusions are true.

No one, at least any student of history, should accept this narrative as complete historical truth. We have to understand that for one thing history was more of an oral tradition, passed from generation to generation. Sometimes it may not have been the truth of the story that was the most important issue, but rather the point or lesson it embodied. Nevertheless, we are offered a window into the past through this valuable account that allows us to at least partially understand the customs of a wide variety of people, and not least of all the causes and events that were part of the Greco-Persian War of the early fifth century BC.

Some of the stories and customs he describes would strike any modern reader as absurd or very repulsive. To say that this narrative makes for interesting reading is an understatement. Some parts read better than others, which I'm sure is to be expected. The culmination of his narrative is the Greco-Persian War, where he includes the expeditions of the Persian Kings Darius, followed by Xerxes who led his army across the Hellespont into Greece, the efforts of the Greeks to unite and resist this threat, the battles fought and some of the leaders on both sides.

Rawlinson's translation dates to the nineteenth century, but he does provide some insightful footnotes. The lack of maps was what was most missing in my opinion since Herodotus covers such a large geographical area and that is the main reason why I gave this book a four-star rating. Perhaps a more recent translation or edition would employ the use of maps. Bowden also gives a good introduction, which among several topics he briefly covers are the role of religion in Herodotus's account and the question of reliability, which I briefly mentioned above.

Herodotus, like any modern historian, understood the importance of preserving history. For that aspect alone he is to be commended. We might not otherwise have known about these periods in history had it not been for the efforts of early historians like Herodotus, Thucydides and others. Complete accuracy and reliability may be missing, but then again I don't know of any histories or historians that have all the answers.