Women piss standing up - Rated 
Herodotus said this about the Egyptians as an example of their society being somewhat in reverse of the Phoenicians. Easy writing style and full of tales of yesteryear that are just applicable to us today; there was a Queen with an even worse shoe habit than Imelda Marcos who required an entire island to closet them.
A charming old gossip - Rated
The amazing thing about some of the books this old is just how familiar the author seems. Herodotus wrote almost 2500 years ago, but you feel that if he were transported to the middle of modern-day Tokyo, he would immediately look around in wonder and try to start a conversation with a passer-by.
Throughout the book you here the curiousity, garrulousness and elopquence of a man who has made it his love to learn as much about the world as he could, and to tell as many others about it as would listen. The book reads like a conversation - one which you can't get a word in edgeways, but would not dream of trying to.
Although not as strictly accurate in his descriptions of hippopotami and crocodiles as he would like us to believe, even the dour Thucidides does not consider it worth revising Herodotus's narrative of the Persion war. When it comes to the historical issues, Herodotus describes the various alternative histories that he has heard, and usually ventures his opinion as to which is most likely (usually the one with the least divine intervention).
If you think this may be 'out-dated', 'accademic', or 'dry', then put aside your fears. My only criticism may be that Book II about Egypt is quite a long deviation from the central story, and it appears early in the book. Nevertheless, if you are even tempted, then you should buy this book!
Educated, bedazzled, and amused. - Rated
My preconception was that ancient history like this was hard to read. How wrong. This book is absolutely gripping. It is full of asides and stories that will keep even tabloid readers awake. I don't know why I read so much Greek and Persian history second-hand ... it was from the Father of History that it was most readable! I have not only been able to read about the principal wars, battles, and Kings, but been bedazzled and amused. Highly recommended.
Unmissable, eminently readable classic - Rated
`After the capture of Babylon, Darius invaded Scythia.' Thus commences book four of the Histories, and if these are the kind of words that set your pulse racing, your eyes going all dreamy, this book is for you.
The ancient Greek historian's famous opus has an impressive geographical and chronological spread, and this, together with its precedence over most recovered documents of its type, explains why it is regarded as so important. Herodotus relates over a century of Persian expansion, including the Egyptian and other conquests, from about 600 BC, and of Persian conflict with the Greeks, culminating in his compatriots' victories at Salamis and Platea. As it is explained in the notes and introduction, much of his account has been reaffirmed by modern historical and archaeological research, some of it over earlier condemnations, though much is also being questioned.
Indeed, intriguingly, this rings both as history as we understand it and as something else. Herodotus explicitly aims to make an objective and truthful account, unlike other chroniclers of antiquity (for example Egyptian) driven by religious, political or artistic imperatives. He traces facts to sources and steps back when sources conflict. This is familiar. But in other ways, his book is from a culture very distant from ours. Herodotus believes in oracles, in the premonitory value of dreams. It doesn't shock him that a queen might give birth to a lion, or a god strike down an army to protect a sanctuary. Hubris is always punished, and disregard for the warnings of fate, or the desecration of temples. And descriptions are inflated for effect. For example, Herodotus has five million Persian subjects crossing the Hellespont; this probably exceeded the adult male population of the Persian empire, and modern historians have the number at 100,000 to 200,000. Thus, in many ways, the Histories are myth, epic, as much as history, and they probably tell us as much about the ancient Greeks and their beliefs as about what happened in the Persian wars.
Accessible, riveting history - Rated
Herodotus, called the Father of History for inventing the term, (though in Ancient Greek it actually meant something closer to 'enquiry') takes us on a wonderful tour of the ancient Greek mind. Ostensibly his book traces the relations between the Greeks and the Persian empire, east and west, starting with the mythic beginnings of conflict such as the abduction of Io, Medea and Helen, and ending with the Persian invasion in 490-480 that made Athens the leader, temporarily, of the Greek world. In between Herodotus works through Egypt, Lydia, and Media taking in stories of Croesus, the richest man in the world, Midas, and Gyges.
The highlight for most readers today is probably the Persian invasion with the wonderful set pieces of Marathon, Salamis and, of course, Thermopylae (the original source of Pressfield's bestselling 'Gates of Fire').
Unlike most history books, this is rivetting reading as Herodotus writes like a dream and is so clearly fascinated by his story that he can't help but carry us along with him. Wonderful stuff!
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