Herodotus

Herodotus' Histories is a fascinating account of the interactions between the Greeks and their powerful Near-Eastern neighbours. In it he explores the long-term causes for the Persian invasions of Greece in the early fifth century BCE, a momentous event both for the development of Greek civilization and for the beginnings of historiography, and traces the rise of the Persians as rulers of a large multi-ethnic empire whose lands and cultures are vividly described. This first surviving history is a tapestry of brilliant and entertaining narratives, but it also addresses profoundly serious concerns, such as the advantages and failings of different forms of government, the role of religion and morality in public life, and encounters with different cultures. This collection - the first of two volumes - is dedicated to the historical component of the Histories and includes important previously published essays, some translated into English for the first time, which discuss Herodotus' historical method, sources, narrative art, literary antecedents, intellectual background, and political ideology. The introduction contains an account of Herodotus' life and times, as well as a survey of recent scholarship designed as a guide for contextualizing the selected articles according to the range of approaches they represent.

Rosaria Munson is Professor of Classics at Swarthmore College where she has been teaching since 1990.

- Introduction - Antecedents, Sources, Credibility, and Historiê - 1: Arnaldo Momigliano: The Place of Herodotus in the History of Historiography - 2: Robert L. Fowler: Herodotus and His Contemporaries - Herodotus and Oral Tradition - 3: Nino Luraghi: The stories before the Histories: Folktale and Traditional Narrative in Herodotus - 4: J. A. S. Evans: Oral Tradition in Herodotus - 5: Harriet Flower: Herodotus and Delphic Traditions about Croesus - Causation, Patterning, and the Meaning of History - 6: Henry Immerwahr: Aspects of Historical Causation in Herodotus - 7: Donald Lateiner: Herodotean Historiographical Patterning: the Constitutional Debate - 8: Matthew R. Christ: Herodotean Kings and Historical Inquiry - Narratology - 9: Irene F. D. De Jong: Narratological Aspects of the Histories of Herodotus - The Uses of History - 10: Hermann Strasburger: Herodotus and Periclean Athens - 11: Charles W. Fornara: Herodotus Perspective - 12: Philip A. Stadter: Herodotus and the Athenian Archê - Look at his End - 13: Deborah Boedeker: Protesilaos and the End of Herodotus Histories - 14: Carolyn Dewald: Wanton Kings, Pickled Heroes, and Gnomic Founding Fathers: Strategies of Meaning at the End of Herodotus' Histories - Bibliography of Works Cited - Acknowledgements - Index