The Persian War

by Herodotus, William Shepherd (Translator)

Selections from Herodotus' History which follow the events of the great war between the Greeks and the Persians. The translated extracts include Herodotus' descriptions of the preparations for war and of the great land- and sea-battles which took place. Linking commentaries explain Greek and Persian strategies and battle manoeuvres. Background information on the ships and on the soldiers fighting in the war is also given.

Genres: History, Classics, Nonfiction, Ancient History, War, Historical, Ancient

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1882

About the author

Herodotus (Greek: Ηρόδοτος) (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He has been described as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information.
Herodotus has been criticized for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides accused him of making up stories for entertainment. However, Herodotus explained that he reported what he could see and was told. A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists.

Reviews

[Aroosha Dehghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

صرفا یک بازنویسی از جنگ‌های مدیک در تاریخ هرودوته.
چیز بیشتری نداره.
به نظرم متن خود هرودوت رو بخونید بهتره.

[Mohammad Sadegh Rasooli · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://delsharm.blog.ir/1402/09/14/jiy

خب عنوان فارسی کتاب غلط‌انداز است و آدم جا دارد دعا کند حق تألیف بین‌المللی در ایران به رسمیت شناخته شود: حداقلش این که حق اسمی نویسنده رعایت می‌شود. این کتاب تحلیل و خلاصهٔ تاریخ هرودوت است که ویلیام شفرد به انگلیسی نوشته است و حسن افشار ترجمه کرده است. بعد اسم همه آمده است در جلد جز اصل کاری! در ضمن اگر بخواهیم درست ترجمه کنیم تاریخ جنگ پارس با یونان است چرا که آن مملکت اصلاً به اسم ایران شناخته نمی‌شده است.

به قول مرحوم زرین‌کوب در کتاب «روزگاران»، هرودوت چون زمانی که زنده بوده یونانی ولی در مملکت پارس (اشغال‌شده) بوده، غیظی نسبت به ایران و تعصبی برای یونان داشته، و به همین خاطر تاریخش خالی از حب و بغض نیست. شوربختانه ما ایرانی‌ها از قدیم شفاهی بودیم نه مکتوب و غیر از این کتاب و چند منبع نصفه‌نیمهٔ یونانی اطلاعات بیشتری از آن زمان نیست. قصه آن است که حدود ۴۸۰ سال پیش از میلاد مسیح، داریوش هخامنشی تصمیم به اشغال آتن می‌گیرد چرا که هم نقطه‌ای سوق‌الجیشی بوده هم راهی به گشایش غرب برای امپراتوری فارس. وقتی داریوش می‌میرد، خشایارشا تصمیم به ادامه می‌گیرد و همراه با فرمانده لشکرش ماردانیوس (اسم‌ها یونانیزه شده‌اند) به کشورگشایی دست می‌یازد. در نهایت در بخشی از این اتفاقات، قصهٔ شکست لشکر پارسی از ۳۰۰ جنگاور یونانی پیش می‌آید که البته فقط بخش کوچکی از جنگ ممتد چندین‌ساله بوده است. ایرانیان شکستی مفتضحانه می‌خورند که از دید نویسندهٔ آمریکایی آغازی بود بر شکوفایی تمدن غربی در عالم که تا همین الان شاهد برکاتش هستیم.

خب اول آن که این کتاب دغدغهٔ فکری الانم نبود ولی دوست داشتم با توضیحاتی مفصل‌تر به جای پرداختن به جزئیات نه چندان مهم، تصویری روشن از اتفاقات داشته باشم اما مواجه با بسیاری اسم یونانی شهرها و مناطق که نمی‌توانستم درک کنم مثلاً شهر تاسوس کجای الان دنیا می‌شود. فقط دو اطلاعات خیلی بی‌ربط را متوجه شدم: اول این که اصطلاح «بربر» اولین بار به ایرانی‌ها اطلاق می‌شد چرا که از نظر یونانی‌ها پارسیان انگار بر-بر می‌کردند و زبانشان مفهوم نبود (شبیه اصطلاح «عجم» به معنای بی‌زبان). جالب است که این اصطلاح هنوز برای اقوام وحشی به صورت بربریت اطلاق می‌شود. دوم آن که «تلنت» واحد پول یونانیان بوده که بعدها در قرن پانزدهم میلادی معنای «استعداد» در زبان‌های اروپایی گرفت و تبدیل به اسم و فعل و صفت شد.

در مجموع خواندن این کتاب را برای خوانندهٔ عامی چون خودم پیشنهاد نمی‌کنم.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd enjoyed Thucydides in college but had avoided Herodotus because he was not cited as being as reliable as a source. Applying for work at a great books college which required Herodotus, however, got me to read the thing and it turned out to be much, much more interesting than expected.

While Thucydides comes across as a recognizable historian, Herodotus comes across as an elderly, well-travelled storyteller. Many of his accounts, including his explanation of the ultimate causes of the Persian War, are pure myth, but his account of the war itself and the events leading up to it constitute the first real history we have of anything.

The book isn't just about the Persian War, however. It also includes descriptions of the lifeways of various exotic peoples including, notably, the Scythians and Egyptians. One imagines Herodotus making a living as a lecturer to enthralled, and possibly skeptically amused, audiences in his old age.

[Abrahamus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of the greatest gems of antiquity—a treasure trove of story piled upon enticing story which is a pure delight to read. The themes are rich, the drama engrossing, and the twists and turns full of irony, and often humor. To be sure, Herodotus' fondness for storytelling frequently gets the better of him; his digressions are many, and infamous for their multilayered depth. But once you get used to it, and provided you take a decent set of notes as you read (or an index of names at the very least), this becomes more of an essential aspect of the works' charm than a hindrance or annoyance.

[Rufus May · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.6/5

Insane yappathon

[Taylor Swift · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I really don’t like his writing or methods of record keeping. And I still rated this four stars. What can I say? I can’t deny that he has style.

[Cary Brecher]

not sure what to make of this. or why i read it. i dont think this has any real value outside of curiosity in a modern context. im probably wrong. i wouldnt tell anyone to read. i also kind of liked it. who knows.

[Joy]

Herodotus combined first his travelogue of the eastern Mediterranean, followed by a history of events related to the invasions of Greece by Persia as they were reported to him. He sets the backgrounds of the conflict, whether myth or hand-me-down history, and often tells which account he himself believes, giving his reasons. Throughout the history he often goes back to the ancestors of his present characters, and sometimes even to how their lives went after the end of the Persian wars. It can be confusing to follow these various timeline digressions, which result in a sprawling narrative. I recommend reading with a map to hand for the times of Darius and Xerxes. I also recommend taking notes and creating charts of the friendships and enmities between nations/tribes and families.

Read twice

[Anna Mock · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read this one after reading Church's "Stories of the East from Herodotus." This is a retelling of Herodotus's original, written for youth (so maybe 10-14). I think most youth these days wouldn't really understand it or give it enough of a chance for the language so sink in. The copy I got is a cloth bound hardcover about the size of a small Beatrix Potter book, but with over 200 pages. It's adorable.
Goodreads is clumping this book with editions of the original Herodotus book (of various translations and editions of course) and that's not correct. This should not be in that category. The original Herodotus is MUCH longer and the language is more difficult. I'm only saying this because when I went to change editions to get the one that matched mine, I saw that NONE of the different editions of this book were actually THIS book, but something else. Also, I'm grumpy and miserable because I have a horrible cold, so I guess that makes me feel especially nitpicky.

Anyway, we LOVE Herodotus over here. This was a read aloud to my 11 year old. I felt like this book was a little harder to read and understand than the "Stories from the East" book, but we really enjoyed it.

I really, really wish there was something like this for Thucydides! If anyone knows of any, please let me know! Instead of spending too much more time with Greece, we are just going to move on to the Romans, but the Peloponnesian War would have been fun to read about, too (with my kids). I mean, I'll obviously TELL them about it, but a Church retelling would have been fun.

[Behrooz Parhami · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the unabridged 4-hour audio version of this title (read by Roy Marden, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2007).

In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus tells the heroic tale of the Greeks' resistance to the vast invading force assembled by Xerxes, King of Persia. The narrative describes the great battles—Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis—and offers penetrating human insight and a powerful sense of epic destiny at work.

Unfortunately, the story in this book, which is retold in the feature film "300," is quite self-serving, as I learned from a history of the Persian Empire, told by Professor John W. I. Lee in his Great Courses lecture series. Lee’s account is based mostly on Persian, rather than Greek, sources, which results in quite a different tale.

[Sinan Öner]

Herodotus' "The Persian War" is the history of wars between Greeks and Persians in the ancient ages. Herodotus was the great researcher, the great historian of ancient documents of a lot of human, natural facts. Herodotus' Historian View for the history of ancient ages was one of the sources of the Modern Historian's View for the history. Herodotus writes the wars of Greeks and Persians "objectively", but Herodotus keeps his individual understanding, Herodotus' "synthesis" of "indiviual" and "social" is a very useful "methodological practice" for the Historians. Herodotus' "The Persian War" is one of the best histories about ancient wars - "a historical geography" of ancient world.

[bErgUP · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love history,especially concerning the antiquities. So honestly this would have gotten 4 stars no matter what. That being said,the pairing of classical music and Roy Marsden's smooth and unencumbered narration of all the epic battles, speeches, military stratagem and geography made it truly 3 dimensional. Xerxes as the English would say was a true c@#t. His ascension to the throne is mini series material.

[Josiah Bates · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember trying (and failing) to read this as a child. It is an intriguing and at times mysterious book. I wish that I knew more about Herodotus himself, and perhaps had access to an annotated scholarly edition. Enjoyable, but hard to read.

[Thorstein Skaug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable!

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this part was better when taken in with the rest of "the Histories."

[mari]

I am indifferent to this book - although the end pages are good

[Patrick Lacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read an consider reliable

[Rich Hasler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the second time for me and this remains one of my favorite books of all time. It provides incredible insights into the ancient world that gave rise to the one we live in. Not much ever changes. It is full of sex, violence and other things to nasty to mention. I never found it dull. While I loved Thucydides and Xenophon, the Persian Wars remains the most compelling of the three.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome story about the rise of the Persian empire and the epic heroism of the Greeks in defending their homeland. Although Herodotus exaggerates a lot, it makes the story interesting so long as you take what he says with a grain of salt. I liked how this story offered an exciting new perspective on biblical era history.

[Niki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough. Good description of life then.

[Jac · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. I'm a total douche for having nothing but that to say about Herodotus. Admitted. I know a bit more about things, but it wasn't much fun. Douche cred achieved x 10.

[Stephen Maese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing times. Well work the read.

Though it can get pretty ugly. The times were pretty ugly. History written at that point in history is well worth reading.