Having recounted the reigns of Croesus and Cyrus, in book 2 the narrator turns to the third of the five oriental rulers that form the chronological backbone of his Histories: Cambyses, the son of Cyrus and Cassandane. We hear two things about him: (i) Cambyses considers (μέν) the Ionians and Aeolians ‘slaves inherited from his father’, which reminds us of Herodotus’ central theme of the confrontation between barbarians and Greeks; cf. the introduction of Croesus as the man who was the first to subject the Ionians, Aeolians, and Dorians in Asia (1.6.2), and of Cyrus as the one who, by defeating Croesus, made the Persians masters of all Asia (1.95.1). Later the narrator will specify that Cambyses takes Ionians and Aeolians with him on his expedition against Egypt (3.1.1). (ii) Cambyses undertakes (δέ) an expedition against Egypt; a *structural imperfect (ἐποιέετο στρατηλασίην: 2.1.2) is used, since the narrator first inserts a massive geographic (5–34) and ethnographic (35–98) description and a history (99–182) of Egypt before starting his narrative of Cambyses’ expedition in 3.1.1.

1–11 The narrator switches, with μέν–δέ, from the Spartan envoys marching away from Athens (cf. 8.144.5) to Mardonius in Thessaly; the non-Herodotean book-division disguises the connection. Exactly as the Athenians had foreseen, Mardonius, when hearing that the Athenians refuse his offer of an alliance, sets out for Athens.

1–26 Cambyses was briefly introduced by the narrator in 2.1.1 but right away disappeared from the scene in favour of the long geographical, ethnographic, and historical introduction of the object of his military expedition, Egypt, which ended with the rule of Amasis. The narrator now picks up his narrative thread again: ‘against this Amasis Cambyses the son of Cyrus launched an expedition’. He again (cf. 2.1.2) explicitly mentions that there were Ionians and Aeolians in the army Cambyses takes with him against Egypt; they will play a minor role in 3.11 and 25.7. The attention paid to their (negligible) presence serves to prepare for the much more important role played by Ionians in the expeditions of Darius against the Scythians (when they build and guard a bridge over the Ister for him: 4.97–8, 133–42) and of Xerxes against the mainland Greeks (when they fight on the Persian side at Salamis: 8.85, 90).

1–22 The narrator resumes the main thread of his narrative after the Libyan logos of 4.145–205. Having taken his leave of the Persian general Megabazus while the latter was subduing (imperfect κατεστρέφετο) ‘those people of the Hellespont who did not take the side of the Persians’ (4.144.3), he now recounts how the Persians led by Megabazus subdue (aorist κατεστρέψαντο) the Perinthians (1–2), the coastal Thracians (3–10), and (part of) the Paeonians, another Thracian tribe (12–6), while their last target, the Macedonians, medize, though not without some form of resistance by the youthful prince Alexander (17–22).

The sea battle at Artemisium is the third of the six battles of the Persian expeditions against Greece; see 7.198–239n. The episode has the following structure: (i) lead-up (1–5), which includes a Greek catalogue and a Greek pre-battle council; (ii) first day of battle (6–11); night-time storm, which is analysed by the narrator in terms of a divine intervention (12–3); second day of battle (14); third day of battle (15–7); and (iii) aftermath (18–26), which includes two ‘after-battle battlefield’ scenes (one of which actually pertains to the Battle of Thermopylae) and a Greek after-battle council. See Immerwahr 1966: 263–7.

The Histories begins with a one-sentence Preface, in which the narrator introduces himself with his name and hometown, defines the nature of his work (historical research), its aim (to preserve the memory of the past), its subject (‘things made to happen by humans’, and especially ‘great and marvellous achievements displayed by Greeks and barbarians’), and ends, in epic fashion, by indicating his starting point (‘the reason why they started to war with one another’; cf. Il. 1.6–8: ‘(Muse, sing about the wrath of Achilles, from the moment they [Agamemnon and Achilles] started to stand apart in quarrel’).

One ringleader, Aristagoras, having died, the other, Histiaeus, arrives from Susa exactly in time to take over command (‘a kind of “passing of the baton”’, ‘eine Art “Stabübergabe”’, Walter 1993: 265), which is denied him, however, by his own compatriots (1–5). The denouement of the Ionian Revolt, the naval defeat off Lade (6–17) and the Fall of Miletus (18–21), takes place while Histiaeus is far away in Byzantium. When he returns to Ionia, he is killed by Artaphrenes (26–30), and the Persians, quickly and harshly, reconquer the rest of Ionia (31–2). For an overview of the structure of the Ionian Revolt, see 5.28–38n.

Xerxes’ expedition against mainland Greece, the third and last Persian attempt to conquer this part of the world (books 7–9), is the climax of the Histories in every respect. The expedition involves three legendary battles, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea, and, at least for its first part, is elevated through the personal participation of the Persian king. The narrator emphatically flags the grandeur of this expedition, and hence of his own work, by proclaiming that it surpassed all famous wars of the past, including that benchmark of all Greek wars, the Trojan War (20). The climactic nature of this final part of the Histories is underscored by the decrease in narrative speed: whereas the (main story of the) first six books covered about seventy-five years, now three years (480–478 BC) take up three books.