Richard Claverhouse Jebb on Herodotus

“The History of Herodotus works up the materials thus collected into an artistic picture of the world, grouped round a central idea. This idea is the great struggle between East and West, between Asiatic and Greek, of which the Persian Wars formed the last chapter. The History falls into two chief parts. The first five books are an introduction, tracing the rise and growth of the Persian power. The last four books relate the Persian invasions of Greece under Darius and Xerxes.”

“It is a prose tragedy, which justifies the ways of Heaven to men by showing how sin is punished with ruin.”

“He was the first artist in prose. As a historian, he fails chiefly by inattention or insensibility to political cause and effect. He will account for a great event merely by some accident which was the immediate occasion of it, without seeking to find any deeper source. And he tells us little or nothing about constitutional change. His charm of style is all the greater for his almost child-like simplicity, and he is one of the most delightful story-tellers. His narrative flows on in what the Greeks called the running style, seldom attempting compact periods.”