Jon D. Mikalson

I was enthused (en-thused: the god is in) by the Introduction, setting out his project, but I have to say the execution was a chore. He goes through Hdt’s story of the Persian Wars with notice of religious events; and then he re-sorts this information and goes through again god by god. Since I’d read Hdt on the Persian Wars the week before, with an eye to religious causation, it was tough to get through a hundred+ pages of scholar’s rehash. The Introduction was the most inspiringly written part of this work: the rest too schematic, when we can read Hdt instead (with less pain) and only need Mikalson to pull his argument together.

In fact I read the book on the strength of his contribution in Brill's Companion To Herodotus, where you can probably read the guts of this book without the rehash -- along with a range of exciting essays.

Never mind, though, I liked his project. Which is to argue for Hdt’s religiosity in his story of the wars: his presentation (as an average Greek himself, Mikalson says) of the Greek experience, belief, behaviour and practice – making our richest portrait of religion as she operated in historical context, that is in actuality, when crises are afoot.… (mehr)