A generation had no living memory of the greatest danger that the Greeks had ever lived through, but one man decided to change all that and gift posterity with a new genre. The Histories written by Herodotus details 80 crucial years from the rise of the Persian Empire to the defeat the remnants of ...
Located in the Ancient Agora in Athens, under the reconstructed Stoa (porch) of Herod Atticus, is a bust of what could be considered to be the world's first ever historian. It always fascinates me that in an era long before photography was ever conceived, and the ability to paint was restricted...
we have to give respect to the very first person to do something, of course, and if 400s BC isn't the oldest history ever written (apparently the chinese had an imperial chronicle as late as 8th century BCE, but these are lost, and might have been mere lists of tax receipts), it is certainly the old...
I picked this up randomly when I had a few hours to kill on my last day at my old job and had finished the book I was reading. Over the next few days I read about 25 pages, and soon realized I wouldn't really be up to something like this at the time.Nonetheless, it was an immensely entertaining 25 p...
I loved this, it kept me gripped right the way through the 4 volume edition I borrowed from the library. He sets out to tell the history for the Persian wars, only he gets a bit sidetracked! Takes a whole book to describe Egypt, for example. Full of action, fine descriptions of places and tells tale...
As I neared The Histories on the Great Books of Western Civilization list, I don't think it's an understatement to say I felt a bit of dread. I couldn't help but think that this may very well end my nascent attempt at joining the ranks of the literati. As I paged through various editions, it becam...
Did you know that Egyptian women urinate standing up and the men do it squatting? :-)The inevitable factoid found in every Western Civ textbook I ever had to slog through but Herodotus was a deeper thinker and more careful author than usually given credit for and, beyond that, a master writer (both ...
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