Herodotus' Histories
Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c.480-c.429 BCE): Greek researcher, often called the world's first historian. In The Histories, he describes the expansion of the Achaemenid Empire under its kings Cyrus the Great, Cambyses, and Darius I the Great, culminating in Xerxes' expedition to Greece (480 BCE), which met with disaster in the naval engagement at Salamis and the battles at Plataea and Mycale. Herodotus' book also contains ethnographic descriptions of the peoples that the Persians have conquered, fairy tales, gossip, and legends.
In Antiquity, books consisted of papyrus scrolls. Our division of Herodotus' Histories in nine "books" goes back to an edition by third century BCE scholars, working in the great library of Alexandria. There are very strong indications that this is not the original division; probably, Herodotus thought about his oeuvre as a collection of twenty-eight lectures, in Greek called logoi.
This overview of the contents of Herodotus' Histories is essentially based on Silvana Cagnazzi's article "Tavola dei 28 logoi di Erodoto" in the journal Hermes 103 (1975), page 385-423, except for book three.
Book 1
- first logos: the story of Croesus (1.1-94)
- text: Candaules, his wife, and Gyges
- text: the story of Arion
- second logos: the rise of Cyrus the Great (1.95-140)
- third logos: affairs in Babylonia and Persia (1.141-216)
- text: The capture of Babylon
Book 2
- fourth logos: geography of Egypt (2.1-34)
- fifth logos: customs and animals of Egypt (2.35-99)
- text: Tyre
- text: Egyptian customs
- text: The hippopotamus
- text: Mummification
- sixth logos: history of Egypt (2.100-182)
- text: The relief of Sesostris
Book 3
- seventh logos: Cambyses' conquest of Egypt (3.1-60)
- text: The skulls at Pelusium
- text: The madness of Cambyses
- eighth logos: the coups of the Magians and Darius (3.61-119, 126-141, 150-160)
- text: The list of satrapies
- text: The gold-digging ants
- text: The edges of the earth
- text: The fall of Intaphrenes
- text: The coat of Syloson
- text: The capture of Babylon
- ninth logos: affairs on Samos (3.39-60, 120-125, 142-149)
Book 4
- tenth logos: country and customs of the Scythians (4.1-82)
- eleventh logos: Persian campaign against the Scythians (4.83-144)
- twelfth logos: Persian conquest of Libya (4.145-205)
- text: The Nasamones
Book 5
- thirteenth logos: Persian conquest of Thrace (5.1-28)
- fourteenth logos: beginning of the Ionian revolt; affairs in Sparta (5.28-55)
- text: The story of Dorieus
- text: The royal road
- fifteenth logos: affairs in Athens (5.55-96)
- sixteenth logos: Ionian revolt (5.97-126)
Book 6
- seventeenth logos: Persian reconquest of Ionia (6.1-42)
- eighteenth logos: affairs in Greece (6.43-93)
- text: Glaucus
- nineteenth logos: battle of Marathon (6.94-140)
Book 7
- twentieth logos: Persian preparations (7.1-55)
- text: Xerxes' ancestors
- text: Xerxes' canal through the Athos
- text: Xerxes in Abydus
- twenty-first logos: the Persians cross to Europe (7.57-137)
- twenty-second logos: battle of Thermopylae (7.138-239)
- text: Greek spies at Sardes
- text: the battle of Himera
- text: the topography of Thermopylae
- text: the battle of Thermopylae
Book 8
- twenty-third logos: naval battle off Artemisium (8.1-39)
- twenty-fourth logos: naval battle of Salamis (8.40-96)
- twenty-fifth logos: winter (8.97-144)
Book 9
- twenty-sixth logos: battle of Plataea (9.1-89)
- twenty-seventh logos: liberation of Ionia (9.90-113)
- twenty-eighth logos: foundation of the Athenian empire (9.114-122)
Some thoughts about the missing part are here.