Entitled Herodotus and the Presocratics, this book is really about Herodotus and the wider range of intellectual enquirers and thinkers denoted by the fifth century use of philosophein. Kingsley eloquently stresses the wide, amorphous and often blurred meanings of sophos, sophists, and philosophia in the fifth century, and follows the breadth of Diels-Kranz' Fragmente to compare Herodotus with those conventionally known as the Presocratic philosophers, sophists, tragedians and (sparsely) early medical writers, in short any intellectual discussion of the fifth century (her use of 'Presocratics' to mean all intellectual thinkers before Socrates is explained (30)). One of the great strengths of the book is this range and her ability to bring to bear on her discussion numerous tragic fragments, Sophocles' Philoctetes, and physiologoi. The method combines detailed discussion of words and concepts, following through the way they may be complicated within Herodotus' narrative; and an analysis across the disciplinary sub-genres, of terms such as words for 'truth'. In the end the focus rests on the conventional 'presocratics', the physiologoi. Yet the intention to investigate Herodotus' Histories within and as part of the wider intellectual thought of the fifth century and across conventional intellectual disciplines is exciting and welcome. It ends with the Dissoi Logoi, and offers much insight and thoughtful discussion.

For example, Chapter 2 takes nomos as its focus, and neatly and persuasively complicates the idea of Herodotus as a cultural relativist (from 3.38), arguing that he is not saying that all customs are equal, but (following Rood, Humphreys, Munson) that one must tolerate other people's customs because customs are culturally constructed and highly valued by each group. More innovatively, she follows with a perceptive analysis of Cambyses' other actions in relation to nomoi, especially the way he forced Persian experts to 'find' a law allowing him to marry his sister, negating another Persian law against incest. This manipulation of arguments from nomos she links with sophistic trickery parodied in the Clouds. The analysis of Xerxes' evocation in the opening of Book VII of the Persian nomos (tradition) of expansion offers good insights - the Persian people are not overjoyed at the prospect of war, this is thus not a deeply ingrained nomos, and nomos must be socially acceptable to have force. Tyrants, as often noted, misuse nomoi. One might add that arguments from nomos offer a rhetorically powerful tool which does not necessarily reveal cultural custom proper; Herodotus is very alert to manipulative argument within oratory.

Despite these examples questions remain: Dissoi Logoi cites habitual incest among the Persians - but Cambyses, Herodotus' sole example, is hardly a good justification for relativism, so is the work just badly informed? Book I.135, cited p. 74, n. 127, actually says that the Persians liked adopting ξεινικὰ νόμαια and foreign luxuries of all kinds (εὐπαθείας … παντοδαπὰς). It would be good to pursue the implications for Pindar of his fragment on nomos and its combination with violence. On the Constitutional Debate, Kingsley makes too stark a distinction in my view between isonomia and demokratia in Herodotus' usage: Herodotus' own back reference to the Debate in 6.43.3 used the word δημοκρατέεσθαι ('to be democratised'), as if it equalled isonomia, and Megabyzos' speech itself talks of Otanes giving kratos to the plethos (3.81.1). There is a good collection of sections where Herodotus explicitly gives his opinion of a custom, another point against him as a strong cultural relativist (54). We can go still further: Amasis' law so liked by Solon and Herodotus demands, in fact, that everyone explain how they earn a living (ὁθεν βιοῦται, 2.177.2); if they don't, or use criminal means, they are executed.

Chapter 4 examines the examples of physis (nature) in the physiologoi / Presocratics, Airs, Waters Places, and Herodotus, with remarks about the limits of environmental determinism for Herodotus; more originally, she investigates the places where Herodotus explicitly talks about the physis of a people. This prompts more questions and some doubts. One would like to hear more discussion of the differences between Herodotus' relatively down-to-earth view of human physis and the complex, often quite bizarre, theories to be found in the Presocratics (e.g. Parmenides, DK 28, B16; Empedokles, DK 31, B110 [translation and meaning unclear] - (119-120)), or about coming-to-be, monism, cosmogony. She argues that the language of physis of the Presocratics gave the conceptual tool kit (124-125), but which ones are most important? Do they impinge at all on Scythians or Libyans as described by Herodotus?

One of the best chapters, Chapter 5, reinvestigates the contribution of nomos and physis starting from the Demaratus/Xerxes exchange (7.101-104; at 102), through the actual narratives of the battles, and focusing on the moments when someone becomes 'better than their nature' (she calls this 'transhumanism', i.e. transcending basic nature). I'm not convinced that Gorgias' convoluted display-piece, Helen (sight drives out nomos) really adds to the exchange, though it is good to have it (147). Kingsley rightly notes similarities between Demaratus and Xerxes in that fear makes the Persians go beyond themselves, and nomos the Spartans (149). It would be good to hear more on the poverty (πενίη … συντρόφος), and the arête and sophie also induced by Spartan discipline. Most interesting is Themistocles' expression before Salamis (8.83.1), somewhat correlated by Democritus. She clearly shows that the narratives take one beyond these rather theoretical claims.

Herodotus' relation to truth is valuably treated in Chapter 6 (with Appendix 3), surveying remarks on truth, the vocabulary of truth, and problems of attaining it in the Presocratic philosophers. Herodotus is usually mostly associated with historie - which she says is linked primarily with empiricism, though Herodotus' historie is clearly wider - and she stresses instead τὸ ἐόν and δίζησις, as well as other words for certainty. To eon and dizesis are common in Parmenides, and strikingly also in Herodotus. So what does this mean when they go in such different directions? Kingsley must be right that this indicates some commonality between Herodotus' enquiry and some concepts in certain physiologoi: having said that ('deploying language familiar from the Eleatic philosophical tradition', 186), it would be profitable then to explore the differences and whether, for instance, the Parmenidean dizesis occurs in certain contexts, historie in others. How does this relate to the intellectual discourse in Herodotus involving proof and argument paralleled in early Hippocratic and sophistic works, especially when the investigation is into what is invisible or uncertain? Does enquiry into the past attract particular vocabulary? For a fully rounded view, these would need to be brought together, especially since there was rivalry and development in the claims to authority and access to truth between intellectuals in this period.

Many insights deserve further investigation and raise further questions. An overall challenge seems to me that most of the physiologoi were in the end investigating highly abstract questions about cosmogony, the heavens, or the divine or the difficulty of knowing anything about the gods, and the wide divergences in subject matter between certain physiologoi and Herodotus deserve more recognition. Is there perhaps more commonality where Herodotus expresses difficulties in knowing about the divine? To what extent might he have been reacting, in fact, to the theories about the cosmos, love and nous? The divergences and, even more important, the rivalries and completion between successive or contemporary writers seem underemphasised: even while one agrees about the absence of disciplines in this period, some groups were trying to develop markers of their distinctive superiority. It is probably unwise to take the Clouds too seriously as indicative of the concerns of the time (30, 'natural philosophy and the human, subjects of enquiry not qualitatively different from Socrates, at least according to Aristophanes'), even if the Athenian demos did so. She claims that the philosophers in Diels differ 'in neither content nor method' from Socrates' own philosophy (30). Hippias' wide and eccentric set of interests show that 'the universalizing tendencies of early Greek philosophy could and did include the study of the past in its project' (23). This seems to flatten out too much the diversity, competition and consecutive development of these writers. A sense of such groupings may lie behind the way she argues for a lack of disciplinary boundaries in the fifth century and yet says, 'this historie contains generic misgenation already in the fifth century' (35), which assumes there were clear genres.

The final chapter treats Dissoi Logoi and its clear use of many of Herodotus' ethnographic examples: so far integrated was Herodotus in the mélange of debates about nomos, physis and cultural relativism. Kingsley is convincing about its reliance on Herodotus, but it also exaggerates wildly and one cannot help seeing wilful misuse and surely scandalous Greek gossip ('The Persians consider it good [kalon] ... to have sex with their daughter, mother and sister', 2.15). Nevertheless the general argument is convincing that Herodotus' work was in the main flow of intellectual debate.

Though the argument is not always clear and translations are sometimes rushed, this is a valuable and interesting study which directs attention to numerous writers and under-examined connections, filling out the picture of Herodotus' intellectual links. And it prompts further questions on what exactly is the difference between investigating the shadowy and disappeared past, reliant on memory, and the invisible heavens, the cosmos or Egypt.

Rosalind Thomas