Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

He starts talking about the Ionian revolt.

And this is the moment when a number of these Greek states in Western Asia Minor rebel against the Persians.

And this essentially brings this increasing desire for retaliation and revenge and further expansion.

It brings it down onto the Greeks.

So it focuses the Persians on the Greek world.

And this is what sets in motion this series of events, which is

Iodan Revolt, The Invasion at Marathon, which is in Book 6, and then Xerxes' Invasion, which covers Book 7, 8, and 9.

There's no laser focus in Herodotus.

I mean, this is really not how he goes about it.

No, so it's actually then that he comes back and says, oh, you know, actually, there's a lot of other stuff that happened in, you know, with Spartans and Athenians in the meantime.

So I got to tell you about that.

And then also, whenever anybody comes into the narrative, like the Thracians at the beginning of book five.

And you also get these moments where, for instance, the Greeks send people out to Sicily, where there are a lot of Greek communities, and they ask them, will you help us against this coming invasion?

And then, of course, he has to talk about what's been going on in Sicily.

And so he starts talking about the Dinominid tyrants.

And these kinds of things are, you know, they just pop up.

And as they become relevant, he will talk about them.

And so he's never done.

He's never done giving you ethnographic details.

He's never done giving you the backstories of political systems and individuals.