Herodotus and de Selincourt

Most casual readers like myself will read Herodotus’ Histories in translation. This can be a blessing, provided you secure the Aubrey de Selincourt translation at whatever cost. Because the only thing funnier than Herodotus by himself is Herodotus with de Selincourt’s explanatory footnotes. The following are just a few choice samples:

H: The ship continued her voyage to Corinth, but a dolphin picked up Arion and carried him on its back to Taenarum.
A: The story about the riding the dolphin appears to be wholly the stuff of legend.

H: In the old days the Telemessians had pronounced that Sardis would never be taken if Meles, who was king at that time, carried round the walls the lion which his concubine had borne him.
A: It is curious that Herodotus narrates something so unusual without comment: why Meles' concubine should have borne him a lion is not explained.

H: As things are at present, these people harvests with less labour than anyone else in the world, the rest of the Egyptians included ... they merely wait for the river of its own accord to flood their fields.
A: In fact, the labour involved in the irrigation and cultivation of Egypt was enormous.

Herodotus tells a long, convoluted story about pygmies, a tiny race of wizards.
A: This story is told at fifth hand, a remarkable distance even by Herodotean standards.

H: [The hippopotamus] has four legs, cloven hoofs like an ox, a snub nose, a horse's mane and tail, conspicuous tusks, a voice like a horse's neigh, and is about the size of a very large ox.
A: The description of the hippopotamus represents the nadir of Herodotean zoology. Clearly, he never saw the real thing nor even pictures of it, and his description is based purely on its Greek name, which means "river-horse."

Herodotus tells of how the Egyptians, after capturing and subduing a city at war, will erect a pillar and carve into it the figure of a woman’s genitals as a means of shaming the conquered warriors.
A: There is no evidence than any Egyptian ever did this; for a valiant attempt to explain see Lloyd [another historian].

H: He was caught trying to raise a revolt amongst the Egyptians, and as soon as his guilt was known by Cambyses, he drank bull’s blood and died on the spot.
A: Suicide by drinking bull’s blood is common enough in ancient literature, the more surprising in that the drink is not fatal, as could easily have been demonstrated (one assumes).

H: In the upper regions of Egypt, no rain has ever fallen.
A: It does in fact rain in upper Egypt, just not very much.

And, perhaps best of all,

H: Now that his power was felt in every corner of his dominions, his first act was to erect a stone monument with a carving of a man on horseback, and the following inscripton . . . The horse’s name was included.
A: No monument of this sort has ever been discovered, nor should we expect that it ever will be.

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Contributed by Summer Block.

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From Herodotus: The Histories, Translated by Aubrey de Selincourt and edited by John M. Marincola. Published by Penguin Classics, 1996.