"The Histories" by Herodotus

April 18, 2017
1 min read

There are lot of books that have shaped the West, for better or ill. The Ancient Greeks unknowingly laid a foundation that we still are using today. You can’t toss a lyre at their collection and not knock over works that not only influenced everything that came after but also are widely held in high esteem today.
“The Histories” by Herodotus is a work of such profound sweeping effect that you can’t believe anything said about him until you read it for yourself.
I know some of you are wincing. “History?” you mutter under your breath, darkly, remembering when in school you were forced to memorize long lists of dates and events without any sort of context, like a bus schedule for an entire city.
Bear with me on this one. Herodotus wasn’t just the father of history, but one of the best raconteurs of the ancient world. His stories were things he could verify himself or trusted the source well enough. Oh sure, he sometimes relied on second-hand, third-hand, or even fifth-hand accounts but he doesn’t ever try to purposely mislead. Quite often he stresses that the information he is relying could be wrong. But he merrily charges ahead away, detailing everything he could get his hands on, retelling tales with a sly wink and a nod.
His whole purpose of the book was to tell the story of the Greek-Persian war, but he starts years before then, goes off on side trips to areas the Persians conquered before they attacked Greece, histories of different people, descriptions of not only of the nations but also of the natural locations and wonders, spins off on side legends and myths, tells of what he had seen, what people had told him, and what he thinks really happened and then pulls it all together for the final conflict.
 
It’s sprawling and enjoyable and just plain fun.

2 Comments

  1. I really liked Herodotus’s Histories. He has a breezy relaxed style–especially compared with Thucydides.
    In a way he was a better historian than Thucydides, too, i.e., he named his sources (usually) & often gave multiple versions of the same event. Sure some were pretty fanciful but he lays it out for the reader & lets that reader judge. The best bits are the war itself, of course. In my imagination its like the worlds first & longest NewYorker article–from before they were a subsidiary of Leftism Inc (TM).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Support Men Of The West

Previous Story

Don't Force Our Hand

Next Story

Idiocracy in Real Life

Latest from History

King Philip’s War

In 1675, the number of Indians in New England was roughly computed at fifty thousand souls. They had been supplied with arms by unprincipled traders, which they had learned to use with

The Venerable Bede

"Arising from the gloom of a dark age, he is still considered one of the most illustrious of the learned men of England."

Gildas

The underrated chronicler who paints "fully and vividly the thought and feeling of Britain in the fifty years of peace which preceded her final overthrow."

A Day With a Roman Gentleman

It is a little surprising, considering how accurate is our knowledge of the poetry, philosophy, and art, the wars, religion, and political institutions of the ancients, that we have so vague a
Go toTop