will reading Herodotus' histories give me referential perspective

>>8610373
Sure. It's also interesting to compare him with how later Greeks view their past. In Republic Plato goes on about the superior society of the earlier Spartans but Herodotus tells you how shit they were.

I remember one anecdote after Herodotus visited them, they shunned the collection of gold and silver in favor of iron (Plato says this will make society strong because they are not covetous) which made the Spartans the easiest Greeks to bribe with gold and silver.

>>8610619
neat. yeah i want to go through the greeks, just in a cursory way before i reread dante and a couple other italian poets. thanks for the response, i figured someone would yell at me about the presocratics and shit. how is thucydides by the way? i doubt i'd read both, but i hear herodotus is a bit more interesting. which do you prefer?

>>8610373
>significant themes in Homer's works

I am not entirely sure, Herodotus' Histories is a great book but I wouldn't necessarily say that it deals specifically with a lot of topics that we dealt with in the Iliad.
I mean you can read the Iliad and the Histories on its own just fine, I wouldn't say it is a prerequisite. Nonetheless, the Histories is an amazing book, one which I will probably reread in the future.
Greeks are just based as fuck I love their books.

>>8610893
i just tried to read the iliad a while back, and found it difficult to really sink my teeth into it, it felt like a lot of it was melodramatic, and i just didn't have the frame of reference to envision some of the events or their motivations, i'll accept my plebhood, but i just felt like the odyssey was much more exciting and adventurous. is it unusual to have this response between the two?

>>8610900
That's because the Iliad is extremely hard to translate properly. You will miss so many things on your first read of the Iliad. Read some supplementary material, it will greatly increase your appreciation of the Iliad. If anything, try and download (torrent) the Teaching Course Company lectures on the Iliad by Vandiver; I will assure you it will greatly enhance the way you view and read the Iliad, it is truly one of the most profound works in human history.

>>8610373
Homer predates Herodotus by at least 250 years, so probably not.

>>8610908
was it easier to translate the odyssey then?

>>8610373

Of course anything is "a referential perspective" if you're semi-educated, but short answer is "No".

Herodotus is later and deals with a specific topic of his own. He is very rewarding, and worth reading on his own account, not as a "footnote" to Homer.

>>8610920
>>8610909
Consider also the fact that the Histories contain only a few throwaway references to Homeric writings, it is more or less a history of the Persians and other barbarians.

okay. well i guess i'll just get some supplementary material for homer, and just enjoy herodotus as he is. i am curious why the two homer epics are so different, though.

>>8610929
Because one deals with Kleos and Time and the other with Nostos and Xenia

>>8610932
okay, that actually makes a lot of sense, thank you.

>>8610880
>i figured someone would yell at me about the presocratics and shit
Look, of the Presocratics and Sophists we have only fragments and testimonies.

Which means you'll be getting the Presocratics from Aristotle, and the Sophists from Plato, mostly.

Which means you're getting your knowledge of these philosophers before philosophy was (cool) from people who are critical of them.

Which means I might as well read the Corpus Platonicum and Corpus Aristotelicum and go secondary source on the Presocratics, given what little primary stuff we have.

>>8610929
The two Homeric epics are different collections of different tales with different themes.