This class will have two principal goals:

1. (1)General command of Herodotus and the scholarship on Herodotus, with close attention to certain key issues and to recent work. We will focus, in particular, on the ethnographical materials in (roughly) the first half of the work.
   

2. (2)Specific exploration of the ancient reader's reception of the Histories.  Topics will include archaic composition and style; inherited traditions, including chronicles, ethnographical accounts, early scientific and medical accounts; questions of genre; structural and narrative patterns; reader expectations and authorial acculturation; sources and authority; ethnicity and identity.
   

Texts to hand:

C. Hude, Herodoti Historiae. Oxford Classical Text. Vol. 1 (books I-IV).
R. Strassler, The Landmark Herodotus.

We will also make extensive use of materials on reserve (see bibliography).