From Strabo and Diodorus to Petrie and the pre-sent we have tried to build Herodotus' vast, mysterious, funerary Egyptian Labyrinth and great, man-made Lake Moeris with all manner of pyramids into the Middle-Kingdom ruins of the Fayoum basin, all on the hopeful assumption that Herodotus must have gone to the fifth-century Fayoum merely because he said so. This book constitutes a fundamental re-assessment of the problem and the implications.

From Strabo and Diodorus to Petrie and the pre-sent we have tried to build Herodotus' vast, mysterious, funerary Egyptian Labyrinth and great, man-made Lake Moeris with all manner of pyramids into the Middle-Kingdom ruins of the Fayoum basin, all on the hopeful assumption that Herodotus must have gone to the fifth-century Fayoum merely because he said so. This book constitutes a fundamental re-assessment of the problem and the implications.

Charles W. Fornara's Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay (Oxford, 1971) was a landmark publication in the study of the great Greek historian. Well-known in particular for its main thesis that the Histories should be read against the background of the Atheno-Peloponnesian Wars during which it was written, its insight and penetrating discussion extend to a range of other issues, from the relative unity of Herodotus' work and the relationship between his ethnographies and historical narrative, to the themes and motifs that criss-cross the Histories-how 'history became moral and Herodotus didactic'. Interpreting Herodotus brings together a team of leading Herodotean scholars to look afresh at the themes of Fornara's seminal Essay in the light of the explosion of scholarship on the Histories in the intervening years, focusing particularly on how we can interpret Herodotus' work in terms of the context in which he wrote. What does it mean to talk of the unity of the Histories, or Herodotus' 'moral' purpose? How can we reconstruct the context in which the Histories were written and published? And in what sense might the Histories constitute a 'warning' for his own, or for subsequent, generations? In developing and interrogating Fornara's influential ideas for a new generation of scholars, the volume also offers a wealth of insights and new perspectives on the 'Father of History' that attests to the vibrancy and diversity of contemporary engagement with Herodotus.

Studying from the Mycenean to the late Hellenistic period, this work includes new articles by twenty-seven specialists of ancient Greece, and presents an examination of the Greek cultures of mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt and Italy. With the chapters sharing the theme of social history, this fascinating book focuses on women, the poor, and the slaves – all traditionally seen as beyond the margins of powerand includes the study of figures who were on the literal margins of the Greek world. Bringing to the forefront the research into areas previously thought of as marginal, Anton Powell sheds new light on vital topics and authors who are central to the study of Greek culture. Plato’s reforms are illuminated through a consideration of his impatient and revolutionary attitude to women, and Powell also examines how the most potent symbol of central Greek history – the Parthenon – can be understood as a political symbol when viewed with the knowledge of the cosmetic techniques used by classical Athenian women. The Greek World is a stimulating and enlightening interaction of social and political history, comprehensive, and unique to boot, students will undoubtedly benefit from the insight and knowledge it imparts.

In this challenging new work, Nielsen compares Herodotus with Old Testament historiography as represented by the so-called Deuteronomistic History. He finds in the Old Testament evidence of a tragic form like that encountered in Herodotus's Histories. Nielsen begins by outlining Herodotus's Greek context with its roots in Ionic natural philosophy, the epic tradition and Attic tragedy, and goes on to analyse in some detail the outworking of the Herodotean tragedy. Against that background, the Deuteronomistic History is to be viewed as an ancient Near Eastern historiographic text in the tragic tradition.

Scholars have recognized that fake news is not a phenomenon peculiar to the 21st century. While efforts for a more focused approach to fake news in the ancient world have been carried out in the field of Roman history, the phenomenon of fake news in ancient Greece has received limited attention. The contributions in this volume offer a selective approach to this phenomenon by applying media and cultural studies instruments to ancient texts. They pinpoint parallels and differences between ancient and modern fake news by employing methods of literary and cultural studies, as well as historical-documentary analysis of ancient sources. In particular, they explore questions such as: To what extent does reflection on the concepts of truth, lie, and opinion influence ancient Greek political-rhetorical discourse? What is the political or social function of embedding ‘misleading information’ in ancient Greek historiographical texts or pamphlets? Which intentions are pursued with the help of fake news in literary and documentary texts? Can parallels be drawn with modern approaches to fake news? Thus, the volume investigates the mechanisms that historically lay behind the creation, dissemination, and adaptation of ‘misleading information’.

This work places Herodotus' religious beliefs at the centre of his conception of history, but by seeing instances of scepticism and of belief in relation to one another redresses the recent emphasis on the centrality of ritual.