Hi all, I haven’t posted here for a while. After a long hiatus I took up Seneca’s letters again, and guess what? Reading Latin & Greek is still great. Anyhow, my question: is the Cambridge commentary of Herodotus 1 any good? I’ve read book 1 before with Asheri’s commentary at hand but wasn’t very impressed. I’m tempted to go for it again. Please say it’s fantastic, so I can order it and dive in 
Welcome back.
I read Herodotus I recently using the new Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics text with commentary. I found it very helpful. More discussion of linguistic issues than Asheri. A very enjoyable reading experience.
Hi Bart!
I also recommend this book. I’ve read all of the introductory section and a large part of the commentary and I like it a lot. Certainly more than Asheri.
Woods’ commentary from 1872 is, however, probably still my favorite commentary for linguistic issues on book 1. (Well yes, it is very very old… You should take this with a grain of salt. But this book is a little gem.)
Thanks! Paul, do you have a link to Woods’ commentary? Can’t find it.
Sorry to butt in, but was just looking for the Woods commentary myself.
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Herodotus-Henry-George-Woods/dp/046921144X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?crid=1TU2E7YC91ZF3&keywords=Wood+commentary+Herodotus&qid=1676536313&sprefix=wood+commentary+herodotus%2Caps%2C62&sr=8-1-fkmr0
Here’s a link (apparently it’s 1873 not 1872):
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010555182
I have a physical copy I bought at Abebooks - a nice little volume, with a solid binding and printed on laid paper. I probably paid less than the printed-on-demand book linked by Pianophile.
Thanks to you both. For the moment I think I’ll stick with the Cambridge Classics and Stein’s old commentary (I own that one). Woods I can check online; if he proves much superior to Stein I’ll look out for a copy.
I used Stein when reading book 1 and found it helpful. I’m curious about the new Cambridge commentary, though – I hope you post your findings. 
Apparently I also own a copy of an even older German commentary on Herodotus by Abicht, that looks nice at first view. That should be enough. Trop is te veel, as they say in Begium.
On old stuff, Dindorf has a pretty good linguistic introduction to his edition. I could follow it despite my very poor Latin. It’s useful to go back to sometimes. I like it because it’s so concentrated, getting right to the point like good intros should.
Personally, I found that after hitting my head on Herodotus for a while, he suddenly came clear all at once, and I made it through a pretty good chunk of book I before getting distracted by Euripides, I think, translating some of the fun parts out loud to my nephews and nieces on a camping trip. He mostly goes in the easy reading group with Plato and Xenophon now, rather than the concentration-required group.
The leveling-up was about improving sensitivity, I think, and never really happened while I was reading him with commentaries. It happened to me from reading lots of other stuff, and getting really good at seeing what was there and picking up on everything…sensitivity…and one day all of a sudden Herodotus opened right up.
Deleted - double post
Here’s a link with a downloadable pdf of the 1873 edition: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Herodotus/HcdEAAAAIAAJ
On Internet Archive for those who can’t download from Google: https://archive.org/details/Herodotus (lucked out with that URL!)
Geoffrey Steadman has editions of Herodotus 1 and 7 with running vocabulary and grammar notes, as well as core vocabulary flashcards on PowerPoint.
He has free digital editions on his site, https://geoffreysteadman.com/files-herodotus/, and an inexpensive print edition of Her. 1 on Amazon. I find his editions very helpful. I’m used some of his Ovid Metamorphoses selections over the past year or so (Daphne and Apollo, Daedalus and Icarus, Pygmalion) and really benefitted.