Ebook: Brill's Companion to Herodotus

Herodotus's "Histories" can be read in many ways. Their literary qualities, never in dispute, can be more fully appreciated in the light of developments in the study of pragmatics, narratology and orality. Their intellectual status has been radically reassessed: no longer regarded as na?ve and "archaic", the "Histories" are now seen as very much a product of the intellectual climate of their own day - not only subject to contemporary literary, religious, moral and social influences, but actively contributing to the great debates of their time. Their reliability as historical and ethnographic accounts, a matter of controversy even in antiquity, is being debated with renewed vigour and increasing sophistication. This text offers an in-depth overview of all these approaches to Herodotus's work.