In the meantime, the Spartans are building a wall across the Isthmus of Corinth to guard the Peloponnese the Athenians are worried that the Spartans will abandon them, and suggest to the Spartans that they just might take up the Persian offer.

After wintering in Thessaly, Mardonius moves south into Attica to try to bribe the Athenians into becoming allies, but the Athenians have once again retreated to the island of Salamis for safety. Following the Persian defeat at the naval battle of Salamis the previous year (detailed in Book Eight), the Persian King Xerxes hightails it back to Asia, leaving his general Mardonius in charge of the war.

In Herodotean fashion, I dedicate the fruit of my labors to the service of humanity.Īs for Book Nine, the main event, of course, is the battle of Plataea (479 BC), the last major episode in the Persian Wars. Events got ahead of me, however, and so I couldn’t get it done until now. The Histories is very long, very detailed, and not always straightforward in its narrative, so last summer, in preparation for my CIC seminar at the Center for Hellenic Studies, I started summarizing each chapter as I read it, which forced me to pay attention to the contents, and which produced a document I could review if I needed to. You’ll find some scribblings below, but I’d also like to say that I just finished off my summary of the work, which is now on its own page – see the link above. The end of the semester is always busy, you must understand. Sharp-eyed readers will note that I never got around to writing something about the final book of the Histories, which we read in an HON 301 course this past spring (the other posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

Herodotus the histories sparknotes