What are the Histories about?

About the lecture

In this module, we focus on the question of what the Histories are about, thinking in particular about the peculiar set of stories that ‘frame’ the whole work—the story of Candaules and Gyges at the beginning, and that of Xerxes, Xanthippus and Cyrus at the end.

About the lecturer

Robin Osborne is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge and of the British Academy. He works on Greek History (political, social, economic, cultural) and Greek Archaeology (field archaeology and art history) between 1000 B.C. and 200 B.C, and has published extensively across a range of topics.