# The Histories

- id: histories-herodotus
- original title: Ἱστορίαι / Historiai
- author: Herodotus
- language: Greek
- composed: c. 430 BCE
- field: history

The display of Herodotus's inquiry, so that things done by man not be forgotten in time. Valla carried him into Latin in the same papal project that moved Thucydides.

## The chain

- **c. 1452–1457** Greek -> Latin, translation [attested]
  Lorenzo Valla (translator), Pope Nicholas V (commissioner), Rome
  The second Greek historian Valla carried for the papal court; finished as his own life ran out.
  Evidence: N. G. Wilson 1992
- **1920–1925** Greek -> English, translation [attested]
  A. D. Godley (translator), London
  The Loeb English; the text carried in this library.
  Evidence: A. D. Godley 1920; Thothica 2026

## Worth knowing

Herodotus came back to the West in the 1450s through Valla's Latin, finished for the same Roman patronage that paid for Thucydides. The Loeb English of A. D. Godley is the one this library carries, complete with Halicarnassus restored to its own name.

## Sources

- N. G. Wilson (1992). From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance. Duckworth.
- A. D. Godley (1920). Herodotus (Loeb Classical Library). Harvard University Press, 1920-1925.

Confidence grades: attested (named in the medieval record or settled in scholarship), probable (standard view with real uncertainty), disputed (scholars disagree).