Histories, Volume IV: Books 8-9 (Loeb Classical Library)

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OEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY

HERODOTUS IV

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BOOKS

VIII-IX

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Translated by

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A

D.

GODLEY

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of Lock titles can be at the end Jound of each volume

Complete

list

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HERODOTUS the grc-at Greek historian was born about 484 B.C., at Halicarnassus in Caria, Asia Minor, when it was subject

to

the

Persians.

He

travelled

widely in most of Asia Minor, Egypt far as Assuan),

North

(as

Africa, Syria, the

country north of the Black Sea, and many parts of the Aegean Sea and the mainland of Greece. He lived, it seems, for some

time in Athens, and in 443 went with other colonists to the new city Thurii (in South Italy) where he died about 430 B.C. He was 'the prose correlative of the bard, a narrator of the deeds of real men, and a describer of foreign places' (Murray). His famous history of warfare between the

Greeks and

the

Persians

has

an

epic

dignity which delightful style. It includes the rise of the Persian power

enhances his

and an account of the Persian empire the description of Egypt fills one book; ;

because Darius attacked Scythia, the geography and customs of that land are also given even in the later books on the ;

attacks of the Persians against Greece there All is most entertaining are digressions. o o

and produces a grand unity. After personal inquiry and study of hearsay and other evidence, Herodotus gives us a not uncritical estimate of the best that he could find.

930

A- Co.