Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars

Two great Persian invasions of Greece in the fifth century B.C. provide our best opportunity for understanding the interplay of religion and history in ancient Greece on a large scale.

The first was ordered by King Darius and turned back by the Athenians at Marathon in 490 B.C., and the other was led by King Xerxes himself and repulsed in 480-79 B.C. by the allied Greeks at Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. Using the Histories of Herodotus; writings by Plutarch, Pausanias, and others; and archa...