What do the late Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski and the fictional archeologist Count László de Almásy (played by Ralph Fiennes in the cinematic adaptation of The English Patient) have in common? Both lugged around well-read copies of The Histories by Herodotus.
Herodotus (ca. 484–425 BC) was, as all fans of dead white male European authors know, the inventor of what we today call history. He was not only the first historian; he was the greatest among the ancient Greek chroniclers, more humane and memorable than Thucydides, more rigorous than Xenophon. In the course of inaugurating a new intellectual discipline, he developed a new literary form, the extended prose narrative. His contemporaries recognized Herodotus’s achievement as being on par with Homer.
The root of his appeal is simple: Herodotus is a great storyteller, as are Homer, Shakespeare. The terrain he covers, the ancient world of the greater Mediterranean and the precincts surrounding the Black Sea, is to modern sensibilities so strange as to be almost surreal. Consider the Scythians known as the Agathyrsoi: “The males of the Agathyrsoi are most luxurious and wear gold more than other men. They share their women in common for the purposes of intercourse, in order that they will all be brothers to one another, and they thus eliminate envy and hatred among one another, since they are all related. The rest of their customs are like those of the other Thracians.”
“The other Thracians.” That’s a mordant touch worthy of J.G. Ballard or William Burrows.
The Landmark Herodotus may well be the greatest English language edition ever published. Lush with maps and illustrations, amplified with useful marginal comments, and fortified with easy-to-read but unobtrusive footnotes, it’s a book that scholars will value, students can use, and general readers will cherish.
