Volume 1
Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan.
- Herodotus.
- Date:
- 1895
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan. Source: Wellcome Collection.
17/528 (page 9)
![INTEODUCTION § ]. To appreciate the importance of the Greek text, herewith printed and annotated, its relation to the work of Herodotus as a whole must be duly considered. To understand the whole, it is necessary to discover its general structure, and the sections into which it may most usefully be sub-divided. A successful Analysis of the full text is an essential preliminary to a just conception of the problems connected with the sources and the composition of the work, and with the character of the author, whether as historian or as hero. The full exhibition and discussion of those problems should only be attempted when the analytical criticism of the work has been accomplished: this criticism, however, in its progress incidentally tends to define canons and conclusions, which affect the appreciation of the several parts of the work. Thus, although no more than the fourth, fifth and sixth Books of Herodotus are here immediately under review, they must be considered in the light of principles which are to be gathered from all the nine Books, and cannot be fully verified except by reference to the whole work, and its every part. To enumerate or to discuss these principles in this place would be to open up the whole mass of problems and arguments, which should be reserved as Prolegomena to a complete edition of the work. It must suffice to make such assumptions or statements as may be easily verified by a general acquaintance with the whole work, in order to concentrate attention and criticism upon the three Books here printed, and to elucidate their position and import, intrinsically and in relation to the antecedent and succeeding portions of the text. The intrinsic significance of these Books it is the more especial function of the Notes and AppeTidices to elucidate: tliis Introduction aims at emphasising the relative bearings of the middle section of the VOL. I h](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24872416_0001_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
