Herodotus’ Histories can be read in many ways. Their literary qualities, never in dispute, can be more fully appreciated in the light of recent developments in the study of pragmatics, narratology, and orality. Their intellectual status has been radically reassessed: no longer regarded as naïve and ‘archaic’, the Histories are now seen as very much a product of the intellectual climate of their own day - not only subject to contemporary literary, religious, moral and social influences, but actively contributing to the great debates of their time. Their reliability as historical and ethnographic accounts, a matter of controversy even in antiquity, is being debated with renewed vigour and increasing sophistication. This Companion offers an up-to-date and in-depth overview of all these current approaches to Herodotus’ remarkable work.
| List of Abbreviations | ||
| List of Contributors | ||
| List of Maps | ||
| Editors' Introduction | ||
| 1 | The Making of History: Herodotus' Histories Apodexis | 3 |
| 2 | Herodotus and Athens | 33 |
| 3 | Oral Strategies in the Language of Herodotus | 53 |
| 4 | The Histories and Writing | 79 |
| 5 | Epic Heritage and Mythical Patterns in Herodotus | 97 |
| 6 | Herodotus and Tragedy | 117 |
| 7 | Philosophy, Science, Politics: Herodotus and the Intellectual Trends of his Time | 149 |
| 8 | Religion in Herodotus | 187 |
| 9 | Popular Morality in Herodotus | 199 |
| 10 | Women in Herodotus' Histories | 225 |
| 11 | Narrative Unity and Units | 245 |
| 12 | 'I didn't give my own genealogy': Herodotus and the authorial persona | 267 |
| 13 | Short Stories in Herodotus' Histories | 291 |
| 14 | Herodotus and the Past | 321 |
| 15 | Herodotus as a Critic: Truth, Fiction, Polarity | 351 |
| 16 | Herodotus and his Sources of Information | 373 |
| 17 | The Organization of Time in the Histories | 387 |
| 18 | Egypt | 415 |
| 19 | Scythians | 437 |
| 20 | The Ethnography of the Fringes | 457 |
| 21 | Babylon | 475 |
| 22 | Archaic Greek History | 497 |
| 23 | Greek History, c. 525-480 B.C. | 521 |
| 24 | The Persian Invasions | 551 |
| 25 | The Personality of Xerxes, King of Kings | 579 |
| Bibliography | 591 | |
| General Index | 629 | |
| Index of Passages | 641 |
Overview
Herodotus’ Histories can be read in many ways. Their literary qualities, never in dispute, can be more fully appreciated in the light of recent developments in the study of pragmatics, narratology, and orality. Their intellectual status has been radically reassessed: no longer regarded as naïve and ‘archaic’, the Histories are now seen as very much a product of the intellectual climate of their own day - not only subject to contemporary literary, religious, moral and social influences, but actively contributing ...