Greece and Rome: Texts and Contexts provides students with direct access to the ancient world by offering new translations of extracts from the key texts of its literature, history and civilization, and by setting them in their historical, social and cultural contexts. The series is suitable for both advanced secondary school and undergraduate study, giving translations that are accurate and accessible, accompanied by notes that will enable all students to engage with the primary sources. Key features of the series include: questions which prompt students to develop their own informed opinions, and to consider the relevance of ancient texts to the modern world notes alongside the texts for easy reference stimulating illustrations throughout. Herodotus, writing in the second half of the 5th century BC, is the first historian of western civilization. His narrative tells of the expansion of the Persian Empire in the 6th and 5th centuries BC and the wars between Greece and Persia in 490, 480 and 479 BC. Some of the most famous battles of history Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis - are dramatically described in his work. However, Herodotus' greatness lies not only in the momentous nature of the events he describes. His purpose is to explain why the wars happened, and his sophisticated and complex answer encompasses the relation of gods to men, the nature of different peoples and the character of individuals. Herodotus says that he will write equally about the two sides of the war, and his narrative of the clash between East and West, between democracy and autocracy, has striking and disturbing modern resonances. Book jacket.