The Histories of Herodotus is an inquiry in Ionic prose, written in the third quarter of the fifth century BCE, into the wars between Greeks and Persians and the causes of their conflict. The opening, in the text given here, names its author Herodotus of Thurii, the colony in southern Italy founded under Athenian lead where he settled, a reading Aristotle already knew; he was born at Halicarnassus. The narrative follows the growth of Persian power from Cyrus to Xerxes, and around it Herodotus sets long accounts of the lands and customs of the peoples Persia met, often giving more than one version of a story and saying which he believes.
The division into nine books, which later bore the names of the Muses, is not his own. Book I covers Croesus of Lydia and the rise of Cyrus; Book II is given to Egypt; Book III to Cambyses, the Magi and the accession of Darius; Book IV to the Scythians and Libya. Books V and VI tell the Ionian Revolt and Marathon, and Books VII to IX Xerxes' invasion: Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale, closing on Cyrus's advice that soft lands breed soft men.
The work survives complete in medieval manuscripts, the oldest of the tenth century, with papyrus fragments from antiquity.
Herodotus of Halicarnassus Histories: summary and contents (PDF)
Herodotus of Halicarnassus Histories: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Αʹ Book I
Named in this text as Herodotus of Thurii, the historian opens his inquiry with the Persian and Phoenician tales of stolen women, Io, Europa, Medea and Helen, and turns to Croesus as the man who began the wrongs against the Greeks. The Lydian story runs from Candaules and Gyges through Solon's visit to the fall of Sardis; the rise of Cyrus follows, from Astyages' dreams to Persian customs, the conquest of Ionia and Babylon, and Cyrus's death among the Massagetae.
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Βʹ Book II
After a brief notice of Cambyses' accession and his plan to march on Egypt, the book is given over to Egypt itself: Psammetichus's experiment to find the oldest people, the flooding of the Nile, animals such as the crocodile, the hippopotamus and the phoenix, and embalming. A history of the kings follows, with Proteus and Helen, Rhampsinitus and the thief, the pyramid builders Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus, and the Saite kings down to Amasis.
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Γʹ Book III
Cambyses conquers Egypt, fails against the Ethiopians, wounds the Apis bull and has his brother Smerdis killed. Polycrates of Samos and his ring, and Periander's quarrel with his son, interrupt the Persian narrative; after Cambyses' death the Magi seize the throne, Prexaspes reveals the truth from a tower, and seven Persians kill the impostor and debate the best constitution. Darius, made king, divides the empire into tribute-paying provinces and takes Babylon through Zopyrus's self-mutilation.
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Δʹ Book IV
Darius's invasion of Scythia frames a long account of the Scythians: their origin stories, the rivers and peoples of their land, their burials and soothsayers, and the Amazons from whom the Sauromatae descend. Darius bridges the Bosporus and the Danube, but the Scythians retreat before him and he withdraws. The second half turns to Libya, the founding of Cyrene from Thera under Battus, and Pheretime's revenge on Barca.
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Εʹ Book V
Megabazus subdues Thrace and the Paeonians, and Persian envoys are killed at the Macedonian court. The book then turns to the Ionian Revolt: Aristagoras of Miletus seeks help at Sparta, where Cleomenes refuses him, and at Athens, whose recent history is told from the killing of Hipparchus to Cleisthenes' new tribes and the Corinthian Socles' warning against restoring tyranny. Athenian and Eretrian ships help burn Sardis, the revolt spreads to Cyprus, and Aristagoras dies in Thrace.
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Ϛʹ Book VI
Persia crushes the Ionian Revolt at Lade and takes Miletus; at Athens Phrynichus is fined for staging its capture. Mardonius's fleet is wrecked off Athos, Cleomenes deposes Demaratus at Sparta and dies mad, and Datis and Artaphernes sack Eretria before the Athenians under Miltiades defeat them at Marathon. Stories of the Alcmaeonids and of Agariste's suitors follow, and the book ends with Miltiades' failure at Paros and his earlier seizure of Lemnos.
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Ζʹ Book VII
Xerxes resolves to invade Greece after a council and dreams that overrule Artabanus. The canal through Athos and the bridges over the Hellespont are built, the army is counted at Doriscus and catalogued nation by nation, and Demaratus warns Xerxes about the Spartans. Athens reads the oracle of the wooden wall, and Leonidas holds Thermopylae until Ephialtes shows the Persians the path. Last comes Demaratus's hidden warning, found by Gorgo under the wax.
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Ηʹ Book VIII
The Greek fleet fights at Artemisium, the Persians are turned back from Delphi, and Athens is abandoned to Xerxes, who takes the Acropolis. Themistocles keeps the fleet at Salamis and draws the Persians into battle; Artemisia fights for Xerxes, who retreats to Asia and leaves Mardonius in Greece. Through Alexander of Macedon, Mardonius offers the Athenians alliance; they refuse it and ask Sparta to send its army into Boeotia.
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Θʹ Book IX
Mardonius retakes Athens, and the Athenians press Sparta, delayed by the Hyacinthia, to march. At Plataea Pausanias leads the Greeks to victory after the fall of Masistius and a quarrel over the order of battle; Mardonius is killed, and the Greeks also win at Mycale. After the story of Xerxes and the wife of Masistes and the Athenian siege of Sestos, the work ends on Cyrus's advice that soft lands breed soft men.