Herodotus, Volume 1

"Book I" of the Histories provides a particularly good illustration of the discursiveness and diversity of Herodotus’ materials and of the ingenuity with which he develops his narrative and welds it into an artistic whole. Here he deals first with the distant mythological past and then in greater detail with the more recent history of Greek relations with the Near East, in an attempt to explain the origin of the quarrels between east and west which formed the background to the Persian Wars.
This edition, formerly published by Cambridge University Press in their Pitt Press Series (1909, reissued 1927) contains a serviceable introduction, text and careful annotation on matters of language and content. There is also a very useful explanatory index of historical and geographical names.

"Book I" of the Histories provides a particularly good illustration of the discursiveness and diversity of Herodotus’ materials and of the ingenuity with which he develops his narrative and welds it into an artistic whole.

J.H. Sleeman was Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.