The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories

If you're interested in ancient history, you owe it to yourself to know something about Robert B. Strassler. This retired businessman did his undergraduate degree in -- and has had a lifelong interest in -- the classics. He has dedicated his "retirement," apparently, to the re-issue of ancient authors in handsome, reader-friendly editions. This is his second such edition, the first having been his Landmark Thucydides.

My comments so far:

THE MAPS. There is no edition of Herodotus like this -- abundant maps, all easy to use and pleasing to the eye. Newcomers to Herodotus will find the maps invaluable. The reason: Herodotus takes you on a tour of much of the ancient world, telling you stories and legends and relating recent history. You may not know exactly where Miletus was located, or Sardis, or the river Scamander, and you can't simply look them up on a Google map -- that world has vanished; the place-names are now all different. So it's incredibly helpful, when you bump into references to such places, to have at hand an attractive set of maps to refer to. Also, Strassler is faithful to his own method, which is always to provide at least TWO maps -- one an overview of a region (say, the eastern Mediterannean), the other a zoomed-in, detailed look at one portion of that region (e.g., the western coast of Turkey). As a result, the maps always work -- always helpful, never mystifying.

THE TRANSLATION. I'm no expert in ancient Greek, so I can't comment on the quality of the translation, which is by Andrea L. Purvis. Strassler, as the general editor of this edition, says that his goal was to ensure that the text "would be clear, simple, and easily comprehensible to a modern reader. My narrow objective occasionally created difficulties for Andrea and led to some disagreements between us -- she arguing for tighter fidelity to the Greek text and I for clarity in the English... With time and iteration, we were always able to find a mutually agreeable compromise."

THE PRICE. Were this book a college text, just looking at it, you might expect it to cost $70 - 80. The fact that you can get it for less than $30 is amazing.

My view, in short, is that if you're going to tackle Herodotus, this is the only way to do it.

This new volume is a companion piece to the earlier "The Landmark Thucydides," also edited by Richard B. Strassler.

Like its predecessor, the translated ancient text is accompanied by numerous side-notes that quickly orient the reader chronologically and geographically and also includes excellent, detailed essays exploring various relevant matters. Perhaps most important of all are the maps, a necessity for the modern reader when studying events of over two thousand years ago. Strassler has chosen to provide not merely a handful of general maps, as would be likely in most books of this kind, but instead well over a hundred very clear maps.

I cannot yet comment upon the translation, beyond saying that at first approach it appears straightforward and highly readable. Herodotus is our principal source for the story of the wars of the Greek city states against Persia, and he did much to shape our perceptions of that struggle and our views of the Greeks. An edition of "The Histories" such as the present volume is in that regard a real touchstone in appreciating the roots of the modern West.