The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories by Herodotus, Robert B. Strassler (Editor), Andrea L. Purvis (Translator), Rosalind Thomas (Introduction)

Synopsis

From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written.

Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,” and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day.

In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.

Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, andwomen.

Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.

Forbes

The first historian, Herodotus was also arguably the most ambitious. To explain the military triumph of Greece over superior Persian forces in the years leading up to 479 BCE, he saw fit to describe Egyptian mummification and even a species of ant reputed to gather gold in India. Successfully navigating his sprawling Histories requires a background knowledge of ancient geography and events largely unfamiliar to modern readers. Organized by Robert B. Strassler--an amateur classicist who previously edited a popular edition of Thucydides--The Landmark Herodotus considerably improves accessibility by integrating hundreds of maps and extensive timelines, effectively outfitting the Histories with a spatio-temporal GPS. In this new edition, casual readers will have no trouble following the Persian pursuit of the Carians across the Maeander River in 497, or finding out, by way of the extensive index, how the Carians helped Psammetichos become king of Egypt more than a century earlier. This is a real service, yet the deeper achievement of The Landmark Herodotus is to amplify the first historian's own epic accomplishment: Herodotus understood that all events interrelate, and attempted to locate the war between Greece and Persia within this vast web. His "omnivorous curiosity," as Strassler calls it, has given way to the narrower professionalism that began with Thucydides and continues to this day. The Landmark Herodotus stands as a challenge, demonstrating how history defies specialization.—Jonathan Keats

Biography

Robert B. Strassler is an independent scholar whose articles have appeared in the Journal of Hellenic Studies. He holds an honorary doctorate of humanities and letters from Bard College and is chairman of the Aston Magna Foundation for Music and the Humanities. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Andrea L. Purvis holds a Ph.D. in classical studies from Duke University and has taught in Duke University’s department of classical studies. She is author of Singular Dedications: Founders and Innovators of Private Cults in Classical Greece and coauthor of Four Island Utopias. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.