The Histories

The Roman senator and historian Tacitus (writing circa 105 C.E.) records the events of the Empire for the forty-some years following the death of Nero in 68 C.E. The work by today's standards would be considered more encyclopedic than analytic. The literal translation leaves a clumsy chaos of stodgy vocabulary: "reckless cupidity"; "prosecuted for peculation"; "precipitated from his chair." Narrator James Adams tries to pull the dog from the fire by reading as though he understands the syntax and archaic idioms. With his educated British accent he maintains a precise articulation and heroically modulates the word emphasis to make it sound like a language we would recognize. Since the translator isn't credited, one wonders if it might have been a computer. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine


Herodotus's histories run 700 pages unabridged, and this excellent rendering by Bill Kelsey is a full season's undertaking. Kelsey's calmly erudite delivery captures the subtle thread of skepticism that runs throughout Herodotus's narrative--which has a voice and style often similar to Mark Twain's. Herodotus was a great compiler of the oral history of the Mediterranean world, and its notions about the workings of the natural world. His account is rich in anecdotes, tall tales, kings who misread prophesies and paid, misinformation about crocodiles, arguments for and against the superiority of one ancient language or another--an amazing richness of detail and insight into how the ancient world lived, behaved, thought. Herodotus was a great traveler as well, and he writes both as tour guide and chronicler. The sly charm of his style is best experienced through the ear. Wise and learned, keen of sight and not easily swayed--his is a distinctive sensibility and voice, which Kelsey captures in this impressively sustained reading. D.A.W. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine