A selective bibliography to Herodotus
(items with an asterisk are on reserve)
The bibliography on Herodotus is as massive as the monumental history itself. Below are some starting points for investigation, topically arranged; included are first the principle resources and general studies, followed by studies of special interest for our course.
Last updated 3/30/2001
Bibliographies
Bergson 1966. L. Bergson, "Herodotus 1937-60," Lustrum 11.71-138.
*Bubel 1991. Frank Bubel, Herodot-Bibliographie, 1980-88. Hildesheim.
*Dewald & Marincola 1987. C. Dewald and J. Marincola, "A Selective Introduction to Herodotean Studies," in Boedeker 1987, 9-40.
Marg 1982 ("Literaturverzeichnis").
*Waters 1985, extensive selected bibliography, topically arranged.
Editions and commentaries
Asheri 1988- . David Asheri, Le storie: Erodoto. 9 vols.Hude 1927, Charles Hude, Herodoti Historiae. Oxford (OCT). 2 vols.
*How & Wells 1912. W. W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus. Oxford 1912, repr. 1928. The best historical commentary for the whole of the Histories; the introduction is a useful brief account of Herodotus and his work.
*Lloyd 1975, 1976, 1988. Alan B. Lloyd, Herodotus: Book II. Introduction (I) and Commentary (II, III). 3 vols. Leiden.
R. A. MacNeal, Herodotus: Book I. Lanham and London, 1986. A radically idiosyncratic, but interesting, edition that reconstitutes text and spellings entirely based on MS A (sic!).
*J. Enoch Powell, A Lexicon to Herodotus (2nd ed. Hildesheim, 1977). An extraordinary piece of work; very helpful, but sadly now out of print.
Rosén 1987. Herodoti Historiae. Teubner. 2 vols.
Stein 1869 and 1871. Herodoti Historiae. 2 vols. Still the most ample critical edition; contains the testimonia, and the (rather scanty) scholia.
*Stein 1892. Heinrich Stein, Herodotos, 5 vols. Many times revised; the last edition in 1892-1908. Still the best philological commentary on the Histories as a whole.
General studies and standard references
Arieti 1995. James A. Arieti, Discourses on the First Book of Herodotus. Lanham, Mass.
*Boedeker 1987. Deborah Boedeker, ed. Herodotus and the Invention of History, Arethusa special volume, 20 (1987). Very useful bibliography and bibliographic essay (by Dewald & Marincola).
*Evans 1982. J. A. S. Evans, Herodotus. Boston 1982. A fine general introduction in the Twayne World Authors Series.
*Flory 1987. Stewart Flory, The Archaic Smile of Herodotus (Detroit 1987)
Fornara 1971. C. Fornara, Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay (Oxford 1971).
*Gould 1989. John Gould, Herodotus. New York, 1989. Evans 1982 and this are the best two short introductions to Herodotus.
*Jacoby 1913. F. Jacoby, "Herodotos," RE Suppl. 2 (1913) 205-520 (repr. in Jacoby, Griechische Historiker, Stuttgart 1956).
*Lateiner 1989. Donald Lateiner, The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto, 1989).
Marg 1982. W. Marg, Herodot: Eine Auswahl aus der neueren Forschung. Darmstadt.
Marincola 1997. John Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge 1997).
Myres 1953. John L. Myres, Herodotus, Father of History (Oxford 1953) 20-31.
Powell 1939. J. Enoch Powell, The History of Herodotus (Cambridge 1939).
Romm 1998. James Romm, Herodotus (New Haven, 1998).
Schmid & Stählin 1934. Wilhelm Schmid and Otto Stählin, Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur [Munich 1934] 1.2.550-673
de Selincourt 1962. Aubrey de Selincourt, The World of Herdotus (London, 1962).
Strasburger 1984. G. Strasburger, Lexikon zur frühgriechischen Geschichte: Auf der Grundlage von Herodots Werk verfasst (Zurich 1984).
*Waters 1985. K. H. Waters, Herodotos the Historian: His Problems, Methods and Originality. London and Sydney 1985. Useful bibliography, topically arranged.
Style and language
Denniston 1952. J. Denniston, Greek Prose Style. Oxford.
*Fränkel 1960. H. Fränkel, "Eine Stileigenheit der frühgriechischen Literatur," Wege und Formen frühgriechischen Denkens. 2nd ed. Munich 1960. Fundamental on archaic style.
*Rosen 1962. Haiim B. Rosén, Eine Laut- und Formenlehre der Herodotischen Sprachform. Heidelberg.
Composition and structure of the Histories
Cagnazzi 1975. Silvana Cagnazzi, "Tavola dei 28 Logoi di Erodoto," Hermes 103 (1975) 421-423
Evans 1991. J. A. S. Evans, "Oral Tradition in Herodotus," Herodotus, Explorer of the Past (Princeton 1991) 89-146
Flory 1980. Stewart Flory, "Who Read Herodotus' Histories?" AJPh 101 (1980) 14, 28.
*van Groningen 1958. B. van Groningen, La composition littéraire archaïque grecque. Amsterdam.
*Immerwahr 1966. H. R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland 1966).
Johnson 1994. William A. Johnson, "Oral Performance and the Composition of Herodotus Histories," GRBS 35: 229-254.
Konstan 1983. D. Konstan, "The Stories in Herodotus Histories, Book I," Helios 10: 1-22.
Lang 1984. Mabel Lang, Herodotean Narrative and Discourse. Cambridge, Mass.
Lattimore 1958. Richmond Lattimore, "The Composition of the History of Herodotus," CP 53 (1958) 9-21.
Munson, 1993. Rosaria Vignolo Munson, "Herodotus' Use of Prospective Sentences and the Story of Rhampsinitus and the Thief in the Histories," AJPh 114 (1993) 27-44.
Nagy 1987. Gregory Nagy, "Herodotus the Logios," Arethusa 20 (1987) 175-184, esp. 180-181. [See also, in the same volume, the criticism of Nagy's article by Mabel L. Lang, 203-205, esp. 204 (on Herodotus' use of logios) and W. Robert Connor, 255-266; for Nagy's reply, 209-210. Cf. also Nagy's restatement in Pindar's Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore 1990) 221-224. ]
Pearce, 1981. T. E. V. Pearce, "'Epic Regression' in Herodotus," Eranos 79 (1981) 89-90.
Thalmann 1984. Conventions of Form and Thought in early Greek Epic Poetry. Baltimore. Does not speak directly to Herodotus, but important background on archaic principles of structure. Cf. esp. chap. 1: "The Organization of Thought."
*Wood 1972. Henry Wood, The Histories of Herodotus: An Analysis of the Formal Structure. The Hague. Extremely clear and insightful for matters of structure and narrative method (if W. sometimes gets a bit carried away). Highly recommended.
Historiography and Ethnography; antecedents and origins
Aly 1921. Volksmärchen, Sage und Novelle bei Herodot und seinen Zeitgenossen: Eine Untersuchung über die volkstümlichen Elemente der altgriechischen Prosaerzählung. Göttingen. Repr. 1969 with corr.
Armayor 1977. O. K. Armayor, "The Homeric Influence on Herodotus Story of the Labyrinth," CB 54: 68-72.
Bichler 2000. Reinhold Bichler, Herodots Welt: der Aufbau der Historie am Bild der fremden Länder und Völker, ihrer Zivilisation und ihrer Geschichte.
Brown 1954. T. S. Brown, "Herodotus and his Profession," AHR 59: 829-43.
Cook 1976. A. Cook, "Herodotus: The Act of Inquiry as a Liberation from Myth," Helios 3.23-66.
Dorati 2000. Marco Dorati, Le Storie di Erodoto: etnografia e racconto. Pisa.
Drews 1973. R. Drews, The Greek Accounts of Eastern History, Cambridge, Mass.
Evans 1980. J. A. S. Evans, "Oral Tradition in Herodotus," Can. Oral Hist. Assoc. Journal 4: 8-16 [Difficult to obtain: ask to borrow wajs xerox.]
Finley 1975 M. I. Finely, "Myth, Memory, and History," in The Use and Abuse of History, 11-33.
von Fritz 1967, Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung. Berlin.
Gentili & Cerri 1978. "Written and Oral Communication in Greek Historiographical Thought," in E. A. Havelock and J. P. Hershbell, edd. Communication Arts in the Ancient World, 137-55.
Herington 1991. C. John Herington, "The Closure of Herodotus Histories ICS 16: 149-160.
Herington 1992. C. John Herington, "The Poem of Herodotus," Arion n.s. 1 (1992) 5-16.
Hunter 1982. V. Hunter, Past and Process in Herodotus and Thucydides. Princeton.
Lasserre 1976. F. Lasserre, "Lhistoriographie grecque à lépoque archaique," Qud de storia 4: 113-42.
Mandell 1993. Sara Mandell, The Relationship between Herodotus History and Primary History. Atlanta, Ga.
Momigliano 1961. A. Momigliano, "Historiography on Written Tradition and Historiography on Oral Tradition," Atti della Accademia delle Scienze di Torini 96: 1-12. (Repr. in Studies in Historiography.)
Momigliano 1978a. A. Momigliano, "Greek Historiography," History and Theory 17: 1-28.
Pearson 1939. Lionel Pearson, Early Ionian Historians (Oxford 1939)
Pearson 1941. "Credulity and Skepticism in Herodotus," TAPA 72: 333-355. Pedestrian analysis, but useful nonetheless, esp. for earlier bibliography on the topic.
Pohlenz 1937. Max Pohlenz, Herodot, erste Geschichtsschreiber des Abendlandes (Leipzig and Berlin 1937).
Redfield 1985. J. Redfield, "Herodotus the Tourist," CP 80: 97-118.
Romm 1992. James Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton, 1992.
Rosenmeyer 1982. Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, "History or Poetry? The Example of Herodotus." CLIO 113 (1982) 239-59.
Strasburger 1972. H. Strasburger, Homer und die Geschictsschreibung. Heidelberg.
Strasburger 1975. Die Wesensbestimmung der Geschichte durch die antike Geschichtsschreibung. 3rd edition. Wiesbaden.
Thomas 2000. Rosalind Thomas, Herodotus in context: ethnography, science and the art of persuasion.Cambridge.
Verdin 1977. Herman Verdin, "Les remarques critiques dHérodote et de Thucydide sur la poésie en tant que source historique," Symbolae 6: 53-76. An examination at times interesting, and a good source for early bibliography on the influence of poetry on early history.
Weiler 1968. Ingomar Weiler, "Greek and Non-Greek World in the Archaic Period," GRBS 9: 21-29. Survey of the scanty evidence before Herodotus; rather banal.
Truth, Lies, sources, and the (archaeological) record
Armayor 1978. O. K. Armayor, "Did Herodotus ever go to the Black Sea?" HSCP 82: 45-62.
Armayor 1978a, "Herodotus Catalogues of the Persian Empire," TAPA 108: 1-9.
Armayor 1980. "Sesostris and Herodotus Autopsy of Thrace, Colchis, Inland Asia Minor, and the Levant," HSCP 84: 51-74.
*Armayor 1985.O. Kimball Armayor, Herodotus' autopsy of the Fayoum : Lake Moeris and the Labyrinth of Egypt . Amsterdam.
Brown 1962. T. S. Brown, "Herodotus speculates about Egypt," AJP 86: 60-?.
Cobet 1974. J. Cobet, Herodots Exkurse und die Frage der Einheit seines Werkes. Historia Einzelschriften 17. Wiesbaden.
*Fehling 1989. Detlev Fehling, Herodotus and his "Sources" (trans. J. G. Howie, Leeds 1989; published in German in 1971).
Gill & Wiseman 1993. Christopher Gill and T. P. Wiseman, Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World. Exeton.
Hartog 1988. *François Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus (trans. Janet Lloyd, Berkeley 1988; published in French in 1980).
*Pritchett 1993. W. K. Pritchett, The Liar School of Herodotus (Amsterdam 1993) [supersedes Pritchett 1982?]
Shimron 1973. B. Shimron, "prôtos tôn hêmeis idmen," Eranos 71: 45-?.
Starr 1968. C. P. Starr, "Ideas of Truth in Early Greece," La parola del passato 23: 348-59.
West 1985. S. West, "Herodotus Epigraphical Interests," CQ 35: 278-305.
Herodotus First Sentence
Erbse 1956. H. Erbse,"Das erste Satz im Werke Herodots," in Erbse, ed. Festschrift Bruno Snell. Munich.
Hommel 1981. H. Hommel, "Herodots Einleitungssatz: ein Schlüssel zur Analyse des Gesamtwerks?" in G. Kurz et al. (eds.) Gnomosyne: Menschliches Denken und Handeln in der frühgriechischen Literatur (Munich, 1981) 271-87.
Krischer 1965. T. Krischer, "Herodots Prooimion," Hermes 93 (1965) 159-167.