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The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories | 
 enlarge | Author: Herodotus
Creators: Robert B. Strassler, Rosalind Thomas, Andrea L. Purvis
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
Buy New: $29.70
You Save: $15.30 (34%)
New (41) Used (9) from $26.97
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 3776
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 1024
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 7.6 x 2.1
ISBN: 0375421092
Dewey Decimal Number: 930
EAN: 9780375421099
ASIN: 0375421092
Publication Date: November 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
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, and women.
Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Gorgeous book -- makes Herodotus accessible to the general reader December 9, 2007
Roy Speed (Bethel, CT United States)
88 out of 90 found this review helpful
If you're interested in ancient history, you owe it to yourself to know something about Robert B. Strassler. This retired businessman did his undergraduate degree in -- and has had a lifelong interest in -- the classics. He has dedicated his "retirement," apparently, to the re-issue of ancient authors in handsome, reader-friendly editions. This is his second such edition, the first having been his Landmark Thucydides.
My comments so far:
THE MAPS. There is no edition of Herodotus like this -- abundant maps, all easy to use and pleasing to the eye. Newcomers to Herodotus will find the maps invaluable. The reason: Herodotus takes you on a tour of much of the ancient world, telling you stories and legends and relating recent history. You may not know exactly where Miletus was located, or Sardis, or the river Scamander, and you can't simply look them up on a Google map -- that world has vanished; the place-names are now all different. So it's incredibly helpful, when you bump into references to such places, to have at hand an attractive set of maps to refer to. Also, Strassler is faithful to his own method, which is always to provide at least TWO maps -- one an overview of a region (say, the eastern Mediterannean), the other a zoomed-in, detailed look at one portion of that region (e.g., the western coast of Turkey). As a result, the maps always work -- always helpful, never mystifying.
THE TRANSLATION. I'm no expert in ancient Greek, so I can't comment on the quality of the translation, which is by Andrea L. Purvis. Strassler, as the general editor of this edition, says that his goal was to ensure that the text "would be clear, simple, and easily comprehensible to a modern reader. My narrow objective occasionally created difficulties for Andrea and led to some disagreements between us -- she arguing for tighter fidelity to the Greek text and I for clarity in the English... With time and iteration, we were always able to find a mutually agreeable compromise."
THE PRICE. Were this book a college text, just looking at it, you might expect it to cost $70 - 80. The fact that you can get it for less than $30 is amazing.
My view, in short, is that if you're going to tackle Herodotus, this is the only way to do it.
An uncommonly handsome and useful volume November 8, 2007
Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States)
101 out of 105 found this review helpful
This new volume is a companion piece to the earlier "The Landmark Thucydides," also edited by Richard B. Strassler.
Like its predecessor, the translated ancient text is accompanied by numerous side-notes that quickly orient the reader chronologically and geographically and also includes excellent, detailed essays exploring various relevant matters. Perhaps most important of all are the maps, a necessity for the modern reader when studying events of over two thousand years ago. Strassler has chosen to provide not merely a handful of general maps, as would be likely in most books of this kind, but instead well over a hundred very clear maps.
I cannot yet comment upon the translation, beyond saying that at first approach it appears straightforward and highly readable. Herodotus is our principal source for the story of the wars of the Greek city states against Persia, and he did much to shape our perceptions of that struggle and our views of the Greeks. An edition of "The Histories" such as the present volume is in that regard a real touchstone in appreciating the roots of the modern West.
Greece through the eyes of the ancient Greeks January 12, 2008
Ramesh Gopal (Albuquerque, NM United States)
54 out of 54 found this review helpful
Herodotus recorded primarily oral accounts of events leading up to the Persian Wars of 490 and 479-480 BCE and in the process describes the known world of his day. The detailed discussion (after a brief summary of mythic tales) begins at about 560 BC with Croesus of Lydia (he of "rich as Croesus") and concludes with the battle of Mycale and the siege of Sestos. He describes the interactions between Croesus and the Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor and then goes on to describe the foundation of the Persian Empire by Cyrus and its subsequent expansion under his successors. Herodotus perceives the conflict as the result of individual human actions, rather than of larger political and economic forces. His account is a grand story filled with digressions to describe a myriad individuals, places and historical anecdotes while building to the grand finale of the Greek victories over the Persians. The whole is a colorful, fascinating tapestry of Mediterranean life in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE.
Reasons to Read Herodotus
Readers interested in Ancient Greece can turn to many sources but reading Herodotus (and Thucydides) has the benefit of seeing Greece through the eyes of the ancient Greeks themselves. Thus the history and culture come alive from a first person perspective. The Histories are literally an `inquiry' (it was Herodotus who gave the word `history' its current meaning, until then there being no such concept) into the causes of the conflict between Greeks and Persians. He attempts to provide evidence for his conclusions and indicates where he disagrees with existing wisdom.
Herodotus is an astonishingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan observer. In Book 2, Chapter 3, referring to the Egyptians, he observes that with regard to religion he does not think that any one nation knows much more about such things than any other. This attitude is not universal even now and was almost unheard of until the 20th century. Herodotus has influenced us in ways we may not suspect. The informal motto of the US postal service (...neither snow nor rain nor heat nor dark of night keeps them from completing their appointed course) comes from Book 8, Chapter 98, referring to the Persian system of royal couriers.
The remarkable notion to emerge from reading the Histories is that while the emphasis seems to be on Greece, in fact it was the Persian Empire that was the 800 lb gorilla of the Mediterranean World. The war was in no way a conflict between the absolutes of good and evil. Numerous Greek cities sided with Persia, and there were influential pro-Persian lobbies even in the cities (e.g. Athens) that fought it. The exiled Spartan king Demaratos lived at the Persian court and accompanied Xerxes on his Greek expedition, advising him on the way. The Athenian general Themistocles after defeating the Persians on behalf of the Greeks ended up living at the court of Xerxes' successor in later life. The nuanced portrayal of antagonists (while recognizing affiliation to one side) is a special gift of the Greeks and dates back to Homer with his sympathetic portrayal of the Trojans.
Reasons to read this particular edition
The Landmark Herodotus has several useful features. The Histories are all about the geography of the ancient world and maps are essential to understanding them. The Landmark Herodotus has the appropriate maps (127 in all) interspersed with every few pages of the text, supporting every episode for easy reference. Notes on the text occur at the bottom of each page instead of in a separate section at the end of the book, making reference easy. The text is cross-referenced, i.e. when Herodotus refers to something described elsewhere in the Histories notes indicate the precise book and chapter. A short summary of each chapter appears in the adjacent margin as a side note. This makes flipping back and forth easy. Finally, at the top of each page is a running head providing at a glance the date, location and a summary of the action on that page. Twenty-one appendices provide additional information. These are relatively short (a few pages each) and to the point, though of variable quality. Some provide additional information, some only commentary on the text. The index, glossary and bibliography are designed for the general reader wanting more information.
Casual readers may find the world of Herodotus a strange and alien world. The more discerning reader will realize that the descriptions of politicians lying, cheating, changing sides and taking and giving bribes are no different from the headlines of today. This is what made the battle of Thermopylae stand out as an exception rather than the rule (then, as now). When King Leonidas realized he had a rare opportunity to demonstrate moral fiber he decided that it would `not be decent' for the Spartans to leave their post in the face of the much larger Persian army when he had been sent specifically to guard the pass. Instead, he dismissed his allies (perhaps forestalling them deserting anyway, but in any case saving their lives) and led a charge dying together with all 300 of his Spartans. His name has echoed down the millennia.
Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here obedient to their laws we lie.
History for the Non-Scholar December 18, 2007
Archer Mitchell (Washington, DC)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
This book of Herodotus's writings is an enjoyable read for the average reader due to its rich completeness. The difficulty in reading and understanding a text 2500 years old is considerable. Understanding is complicated by the strangeness of unknown geography, place names, and the obscurity of the culture, and psychology of the time and of each particular place. This considerable accomplishment of the scholar authors gives sufficient maps, background material and commentary to allow a reader with only a modest background in ancient history to enjoy and benefit from this ancient and seminal work. The completeness and readability of the text allows the reader to experience these writings as a true history (or, at least as true as exists from that date) rather than a fictional fantasy that is the general outcome of reading ancient material. It should be a must read for every university student of Western Civilization.
Is Your Figure Less Than Greek? March 27, 2008
R. COUSINS (Phoenix, AZ United States)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Excuse the old song, but I could not help but to use it for this splendid book. Let me start by the quality of the production and material. The paper is of high quality, especially important in a book of this size. There is but little bleed from the reverse of each page. The paper is smooth and displays the fonts crisply. The binding is superb. You may lay it open nearly at any page and it splays for your waiting eyes.
All the old cob webs are swept away by this clean prose. Yet there is no edgy try at the avant-guard or hyper-modern. Something of a voice manages to come through, but never in a self-conscious manner. We hear the stories with their deep meanings, but not troubling over the facticity of any moment.
The Histories are laid bare without attempt to count the number of ships or match events to dates. Strassler eases you into the panorama of this great work to read and to see it on its own terms. The great assistance of the format: the maps, the notes and the gloss -- all make this work accessible as it has never been.
Only because I had a highly skilled Classics professor, and he an expert in comparative Ancient Greek, was I able to have a tour through this work at a tender age. Now you can have quite a bit in your reading chair.
You will be captive as the text reveals Solon at the palace of Croesus. How the great law giver and traveler lays out his argument that no one can be judged as while alive. And you will pause. You are reading this tome, not so much as one wanting the history, but as one who seeks the paideia, the Greek way.
The page layout has everything you can ask for; and then are all the appendices. Just enough photographs.
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