PREFACE
I have endeavoured in this selection to arrange some of the stories of Herodotus suitably for purposes of comparatively easy Greek reading. But for the Dialect, there are few, if any, Greek authors so desirable for translation at an early stage. The construction of his sentences, with rare exceptions, is unusually easy, and in style and subject he is simple and fascinating beyond comparison. On the other hand the employment of his native Ionic Dialect causes him to be inaccessible to all but advanced students, and it is only by taking liberties with the Dialectical forms that it is possible to introduce younger pupils to his writings. With no little hesitation I have ventured to effect the change required, in order that Herodotus may no longer be a closed book to so large a number of learners of Greek. But beyond the substitution of Attic forms, and with the exception that in a very few instances I have avoided a complicated construction, I have adhered as closely as possible to the text. I have not thought it necessary to interfere with vocabulary by substituting Attic for any non-Attic words; for, in the first place, this would be tampering too far with the author’s language; and, secondly, in the text of this book nearly three fifths of the non-Attic prose words are nevertheless employed in the Iambics of the Attic Tragic Poets, and thus the pupil will meet many of them again as soon as he reads a Greek play. I have carefully marked in the Vocabulary all words not found in the accepted Attic prose-writers, and in a separate list I have indicated which of these are employed by the Tragedians. The proportion of the latter to the whole number of non-Attic words furnishes a vivid illustration of Dr. Rutherford’s remarks in The New Phrynichus on the nature of Tragic Diction.