Ἱστορίαι
1494
- genre:historiography
- genre:history
- ancient history
- history
- early works to 1800
- plataea, battle of, plataiai, greece, 479 b.c.
- salamis, battle of, greece, 480 b.c.
- libyans
- scythians
- marathon, battle of, greece, 490 b.c.
The story
One of the earliest histories of the western world still extant, this gives a contemporary account of the Greco-Persian wars of the fifth century BCE with the rise of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great.
What it’s like
Dense early printed Greek on heavy paper, with the look of a scholar's folio: continuous columns, few breaks, no pictures, and the sober texture of a text meant to be read slowly at a table. The voice is conversational and digressive, a traveller's storyteller who pauses to describe Egyptian rivers, Scythian customs, and Libyan lands before returning to the wars between Greeks and Persians. Its pace is leisurely and wandering, so it rewards dipping in and out rather than rushing through. Emotionally it is curious, wry, and humane, more interested in why people act as they do than in strategy, with sharp anecdotes of kings, oracles, and bold or foolish choices. Violence appears in the form of battles, sieges, and punishments, reported matter-of-factly and briefly, never lingered on for gore. Suited to a quiet afternoon, a long train ride, or a reader who enjoys a rambling, anecdote-rich account of the ancient world. For people who want history told as stories, with the strangeness of distant places and the texture of a very old text.
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