Overviews

Meaty Introductions | Commentaries and Outlines | Pocket Histories

Meaty Introductions

Jona Lendering's introductory essay on Herodotus, including sections on the structure of the narrative, causality and sources. Lendering also has a useful summary of the nine books . The design is good and hyperlinks abound (I'm particularly fond of his page on the Cyrus and the Behistun Inscription). All in all, an excellent introduction to Herodotus and a gateway to much more.

John Porter's interesting introduction to Herodotus for a University of Saskatchewan course. Dicusses the "background to Herodotus' account and ... approaches to evaluating his aims in writing this curious work." Includes discussions of myth, the logographers and the footprint of contemporary politics. Although hardly the multimedia extravaganza of Lendering's site, Porter ofers a good read for those interested in the deeper issues. Not too long either.

John Kitson's Herodotus Website . Kitson's page continues a large number of appealing A-level essays on historical and historiographical topics. He is very up-front about occasionally "dodgy" English and some errors. Some of the better essays are Herodotus and Persian Sources . See also his useful Maps Section, including both maps illustrating the history involved and illustrating Herodotus' conception of the world.

Perseus Encyclopedia. Perhaps the best overview of Herodotus' life and works. Note that he's Herodotus (3). Intensively hyperlinked.

Brittanica 11th Edition article on Herodotus. The eleventh edition has excellent articles on ancient history, nicely blending factual accuracy and narrative simplicity. As concerns interpretation, however, the 11th can seem somewhat dated.

Commentaries and Outlines

Detailed Outline of Herodotus by David L. Silverman for a Greek history course at Reed. Most of Herodotus is covered, one page per book.

How and Wells' schematic outline of Herodotus.

How and Wells' A Commentary on Herodotus is available at Perseus. Although single books have received commentaries and there is an complete Italian in the pipeline, How and Wells' remains the standard commentary. Kudos to Perseus for putting it online.

Schematic outline of Herodotus by John Porter, University of Saskatchewan. Covers 1, part of 6, 7 and 8.

Web Archive: Outline of Croesus Story in Herodotus. from Margaret Cook's "Greece in the Classical Period," College of Saint Benedict / Saint John's University.

Pocket Histories

Web Archive: Nupedia entry, by James Allan Evans. Nupedia, an online, peer-reviewed encyclopedia has expired.

"Herodotus' New Kind of Historical Writing" by Thomas R. Martin for Perseus (part of his Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander)

Wikipedia: Herodotus. Wikipedia's a sort of open-source encyclopedia. Anyone can edit it—which somehow actually works! The current article started from Evans' Nupedia version.

The History Guide: Herodotus.

On Herodotus' Histories, nicely graphical, breezy overview of the author, his subject and his times.

Web Archive: Bodrum Gullet's page on Herodotus. Bodrum Gullets' is concerned with traditional wooden boats from Bodrum. Their Ancient Boats page is also good.

Short, apparently original, but blundering blurb. Herodotus "has been regarded as the father of modern historiography [sic]." (Which raises the question: Who deserves the title "Father of Historiography"?) From the EMuseum of the Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Who2?

Brief overview by N. S. Gill, of About.com. I'm a big fan of Gill's work, but even Homer nods, and this one's sleep-writing. Also see a brief bit on the logographers .