The Portable Greek Historians: The Essence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius (Portable Library)
Page 55
In Australia: Please write to Penguin Books Australia Ltd, P.O. Box 257, Ringwood; Victoria 3134.
In New Zealand: Please write to Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902, North Shore Mail Centre, Auckland 10.
In India: Please write to Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Panchsheel Shopping Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017.
In the Netherlands: Please write to Penguin Books Netherlands bv, Postbus 3507, NL-1001 AH Amsterdam,
In Germany: Please write to Penguin Books Deutschland GmbH, Metzlerstrasse 26, 60594 Frankfurt am Main.
In Spain: Please write to Penguin Books S.A., Bravo Murillo 19, 1° B, 28015 Madrid.
In Italy: Please write to Penguin Italia s.r.l., Via Benedetto Croce 2, 20094 Corsico, Milano.
In France: Please write to Penguin France, Le Carré Wilson, 62 rue Benjamin Baillaud, 31500 Toulouse.
In Japan: Please write to Penguin Books Japan Ltd, Kaneko Building, 2-3-25 Koraku, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo 112.
In South Africa: Please write to Penguin Books South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Private Bag X14, Parkview, 2122 Johannesburg.
1
The Idea of History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), pp. 12-15.
2
These works are reasonably well known, at reliable second hand, from the Anabasis of Arrian, who wrote about the middle of the second century of our era.
3
It is only fair to add that some of his Roman biographies, such as the lives of the Gracchi, are much more “historical” than the Greek. But that is a mere difference in degree.
4
Poetics, Chapter 9.
5
The Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.
6
The winning of the Golden Fleece.
7
More commonly known by his other name, Paris.
8
This sentence contradicts the preceding one; perhaps it is a tentative or marginal correction by Herodotus himself which somehow crept into the final text.
9
In fact, neither Amasis nor Croesus was king during the ten years following Solon’s legislative activity.
10
The Greek word adrastos means “not running away (escaping).”
11
Plutarch (On the Pythian Oracle, 16) preserves the story that she had saved Croesus from his stepmother’s plot to feed him poisoned bread.
12
Iliad, VI, 290-92.
13
Odyssey, IV, 227-30.
14
Ibid., IV, 351-52.
15
A lost poem in the cycle of Trojan epics.
16
And the father of Pericles.
17
The text of this sentence is uncertain.
18
This Salamis is the island in the bay off Attica.
19
And probably great-uncle of the famous Alcibiades.
20
A salt-water well.
21
These connected Athens with its harbour, the Piraeus.
22
Citizens of the lowest property rating.
23
After this brief digression introducing himself, Xenophon now returns to his narrative.
24
The manuscript is partly illegible in the final three sentences of this passage. The translation suggests the probable sense.
25
Nothing has survived of this work except for a half-dozen brief quotations by Plutarch.
26
The reference is to widespread popular revolts against oligarchy in many cities in Magna Graecia during the fifth century B.C., about which scarcely any information is available.