This text was prepared from an edition dated 1890, published by
MacMillan and Co., London and New York.
Greek text has been transliterated and marked with brackets, as in
the opening citation above.
PREFACE
If a new translation of Herodotus does not justify itself, it will
hardly be justified in a preface; therefore the question whether it
was needed may be left here without discussion. The aim of the
translator has been above all things faithfulness--faithfulness to the
manner of expression and to the structure of sentences, as well as to
the meaning of the Author. At the same time it is conceived that the
freedom and variety of Herodotus is not always best reproduced by such
severe consistency of rendering as is perhaps desirable in the case of
the Epic writers before and the philosophical writers after his time:
nor again must his simplicity of thought and occasional quaintness be
reproduced in the form of archaisms of language; and that not only
because the affectation of an archaic style would necessarily be
offensive to the reader, but also because in language Herodotus is not
archaic. His style is the "best canon of the Ionic speech," marked,
however, not so much by primitive purity as by eclectic variety. At
the same time it is characterised largely by the poetic diction of the
Epic and Tragic writers; and while the translator is free to employ
all the resources of modern English, so far as he has them at his
command, he must carefully retain this poetical colouring and by all
means avoid the courtier phrase by which the style of Herodotus has
too often been made "more noble."[1]
As regards the text from which this translation has been made, it is
based upon that of Stein's critical edition (Berlin, 1869-1871), that
is to say the estimate there made of the comparative value of the
authorities has been on the whole accepted as a just one, rather than
that which depreciates the value of the Medicean MS. and of the class
to which it belongs. On the other hand the conjectural emendations
proposed by Stein have very seldom been adopted, and his text has been
departed from in a large number of other instances also, which will
for the most part be found recorded in the notes.
As it seemed that even after Stein's re-collation of the Medicean MS.
there were doubts felt by some scholars[2] as to the true reading in
some places of this MS., which is very generally acknowledged to be
the most important, I thought it right to examine it myself in all
those passages where questions about text arise which concern a
translator, that is in nearly five hundred places altogether; and the
results, when they are worth observing, are recorded in the notes. At
the same time, by the suggestion of Dr. Stein, I re-collated a large
part of the third book in the MS. which is commonly referred to as F
(i.e. Florentinus), called by Stein C, and I examined this MS. also in
a certain number of other places. It should be understood that
wherever in the notes I mention the reading of any particular MS. by
name, I do so on my own authority.
The notes have been confined to a tolerably small compass. Their
purpose is, first, in cases where the text is doubtful, to indicate
the reading adopted by the translator and any other which may seem to
have reasonable probability, but without discussion of the
authorities; secondly, where the rendering is not quite literal (and
in other cases where it seemed desirable), to quote the words of the
original or to give a more literal version; thirdly, to add an
alternative version in cases where there seems to be a doubt as to the
true meaning; and lastly, to give occasionally a short explanation, or
a reference from one passage of the author to another.
For the orthography of proper names reference may be made to the note
prefixed to the index. No consistent system has been adopted, and the
result will therefore be open to criticism in many details; but the
aim has been to avoid on the one hand the pedantry of seriously
altering the form of those names which are fairly established in the
English language of literature, as distinguished from that of
scholarship, and on the other hand the absurdity of looking to Latin
rather than to Greek for the orthography of the names which are not so
established. There is no intention to put forward any theory about
pronunciation.
The index of proper names will, it is hoped, be found more complete
and accurate than those hitherto published. The best with which I was
acquainted I found to have so many errors and omissions[3] that I was
compelled to do the work again from the beginning. In a collection of
more than ten thousand references there must in all probability be
mistakes, but I trust they will be found to be few.
My acknowledgments of obligation are due first to Dr. Stein, both for
his critical work and also for his most excellent commentary, which I
have had always by me. After this I have made most use of the editions
of Krüger, Bähr, Abicht, and (in the first two books) Mr. Woods. As to
translations, I have had Rawlinson's before me while revising my own
work, and I have referred also occasionally to the translations of
Littlebury (perhaps the best English version as regards style, but
full of gross errors), Taylor, and Larcher. In the second book I have
also used the version of B. R. reprinted by Mr. Lang: of the first
book of this translation I have access only to a fragment written out
some years ago, when the British Museum was within my reach. Other
particular obligations are acknowledged in the notes.
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NOTES TO PREFACE
[1] See the remarks of P.-L. Courier (on Larcher's version) in the
preface to his specimens of a new translation of Herodotus
(/Œuvres complètes de P.-L. Courier/, Bruxelles, 1828).
[2] Mr. Woods, for example, in his edition of the first book
(published in 1873) gives a list of readings for the first and
second books, in which he almost invariably prefers the authority
of Gronovius to that of Stein, where their reports differ. In so
doing he is wrong in all cases (I think) except one, namely i. 134
{to degomeno}. He is wrong, for examine, in i. 189, where the MS.
has {touto}, i. 196 {an agesthai}, i. 199 {odon}, ii. 15 {te de},
ii. 95 {up auto}, ii. 103 {kai prosotata}, ii. 124 {to addo}
(without {dao}), ii. 181 {no}. Abicht also has made several
inaccurate statements, e.g. i. 185, where the MS. has {es ton
Euphreten}, and vii. 133 {Xerxes}.
[3] For example in the index of proper names attached to Stein's
annotated edition (Berlin, 1882), to which I am under obligation,
having checked my own by it, I find that I have marked upwards of
two hundred mistakes or oversights: no doubt I have been saved by
it from at least as many.
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