# Herodotus Book 1

**URL:** <https://www.textkit.com/t/herodotus-book-1/31242>\
**Category:** Greek\
**Created:** [August 2, 2026, 7:52pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/herodotus-book-1/31242 "2026-08-02T19:52:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Paul\_Derouda](https://www.textkit.com/user_avatar/www.textkit.com/paul_derouda/32/23_2.png) [@Paul\_Derouda](https://www.textkit.com/u/Paul_Derouda)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 6:25am UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/herodotus-book-1/31242/6 "2026-08-07T06:25:52Z")

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This is quite unprovable of course, but I wonder if Herodotus’ choice of words was influenced by the alliteration at the beginning of 1.209:

_Ἐπεί_τε δὲ _ἐπε_ραιώθη τὸν Ἀράξεα, νυκτὸς _ἐπε_λθούσης _εἶ_δε ὄψιν εὕδων ἐν τῶν Μασσαγετέων τῇ χώρῃ τοιήνδε

The use of the device doesn’t seem to convey any particular intention or meaning, but maybe Hdt thought it sounds nice?

Compare 1.212 and see this thread [Ending of Herodotus 1](https://www.textkit.com/t/ending-of-herodotus-1/19782).

As a side note, it seems to me that usually Herodotus and Greek writing in general is not as adverse to repetition as English and doesn’t resort as often to synonyms to avoid it.

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