From 31st May of this year (or from 1 June in Australasia and much of Asia), the Herodotus Helpline is organising the Herodotus Marathon – a non-stop, multilingual reading of Herodotus’ Histories that will take place online (via zoom and youtube).
This event is being organised for a number of reasons:
- because it’s not been done before (and in the hope it will be fun);
- to reflect Herodotus’ global reach;
- because it is still roughly 2500 years since the Persian wars;
- to mark the launch of a new open-access journal dedicated to Herodotus and his world;
- and as a symbol of fellowship across political boundaries…
It is called the Marathon because we anticipate that it will take a little over 26 hours. We are looking for the widest possible variety of readers (and the widest possible range of languages). Current contributors are drawn from every continent except (as yet) Antarctica, and include not only students and scholars but writers, theatre directors, actors, musicians, and many others.
To find out more about this initiative, and to volunteer to read a portion of the Histories, please go to the Helpline website.