Simon Hornblower (editor) - Herodotus Histories Book V

This single-authored volume is planned as one of a pair with an edition of and commentary on bk. 6 in the same series, by the present author and Christopher Pelling in collaboration. Some sections of the Introduction to the present volume concern bk. 5 only; some concern both books; and some topics common to both books (Hdt. and Homer; Hdt.'s handling of Kleomenes and of Aigina) will be covered in the Introduction to bk. 6. Chronology will be covered in both volumes; for the distribution, see the Introduction, 3. For what is known or can be plausibly inferred about Herodotus life and travels, see S. West in Bowie : 127130.

The groundwork for the commentary on book 5 was done as part of graduate (MA) teaching at University College London (UCL). In 20089, I taught books 5 and 7 jointly with Professor C. Carey, and in 200910, my last academic year at UCL, I taught books 5 and 6 on my own. I am grateful to Chris Carey for many insights and much shared enjoyment, and to all the students for their stimulating contributions.

The text is an adapted version of Hude's OCT, taking account of the changes which will be made by Nigel Wilson in his forthcoming replacement OCT and in his companion volume Herodotea . Wilson and I went through the text of book 5 in July 2012 and discussed, to my great profit, problem passages flagged up by one or other or both of us. I have also exploited Paul Maas's marginal suggestions, as published in Wilson . I warmly acknowledge all Nigel Wilson's help, and his willingness to make his material and conclusions available to me in advance of publication. My own apparatus is short and mostly confined to essentials.

Richard Catling, Stephen Colvin, Esther Eidinow, Maria Fragoulaki, Alan Griffiths, Patrick James, Anne Thompson, Martin West and Stephanie West helped over particular problems. Chris Pelling read and commented very valuably on an early draft of the commentary. The General Editors, Pat Easterling and Richard Hunter, commented in great detail and with great patience on more than one draft of the entire work, Introduction as well as commentary, and the book is much better as a result of their trenchant comments. Angus Bowie kindly gave permission to reprint his section on Hdt.'s language. Alan Griffiths helped with the proof-correction, and made valuable last-minute suggestions of substance, indicated by AHG. Everyone told me how lucky I was to be given Muriel Hall as copy-editor, and they were quite right. I thank her too.

I am grateful to my college, All Souls, for electing me to the research fellowship which since October 2010 has enabled me to work simultaneously on this book and on a larger-scale commentary on the Alexandra of Lykophron.

Finally, I thank Oswyn Murray for undergraduate teaching at Balliol College Oxford more than forty years ago, as well as for his writings on Herodotus generally and on the Ionian revolt in particular.

Note: inscriptions are quoted, in full or in part, only when not available in easily accessible collections. Otherwise mere references are given, including, where possible, additional references (with =) to English translations in sourcebooks or elsewhere.

Abbreviations for Greek and Latin authors usually follow those in OCD 4, except that Th. is Thucydides, Diod. is Diodorus and Pol. is Polybius; and Greek not Latin spellings are generally used, thus Lykoph. (i.e. Lykophron), not Lycoph., but not when a Latin spelling is very familiar indeed (thus Aesch. not Aiskh. for Aeschylus).