Recent Herodotean scholarship has seen a flurry of interest in the literary tactics and different (but often conflicting) narratorial personae present in the Histories – inspired in no small way by the emergence in recent decades of the important sub-fields of narratology and metahistory. B.'s debut monograph is a further contribution to our understanding of Herodotus' narrative art and generic concerns, offering close textual analysis of certain logoi that refine the reader's expectations vis-à-vis the nature and scope of the Histories. In the introduction B. discusses some of the different personae employed by Herodotus, for example critic, narrator, ethnologer, and argues that we should interpret Herodotus' ‘peculiar brand of historiography’ (p. 16) as inquiry – a judicious translation of the term historiê, utilised in the proem of the Histories. B. asserts that as inquirer, Herodotus incorporates a number of rival inquirers within his narrative, and thus sets out to explore how Herodotus exploits these ‘textual rivals’ in order to reflect on the nature of, and his mastery of, this new genre.

Chapter 1 focuses on the archetypal Herodotean ‘wise advisor’, Solon (often interpreted as a mouthpiece for Herodotus) and his famous interview with the Lydian king Croesus in Book 1 (1.31–2). B. shows how Herodotus presents Solon as failing to understand the caprices of his royal audience, a failure which means that he is not able to convey successfully his historical logos concerning the lives of Tellus, and Cleobis and Biton – respectively the first and second most prosperous individuals that he has seen. Many of the techniques that Solon uses to explore these figures from the past, for example by appealing to visual evidence, make him a double for the Herodotean inquirer. The key difference however is that Herodotus' readers are able to understand the metanarrative function of Solon's logos, whereas the internal narratee Croesus does not, later acknowledging his ignorance when placed on a burning pyre by his vanquisher, the Persian king Cyrus (1.86). B. ultimately reads this discrepancy between Herodotus and the ‘rival inquirer’ Solon as part of a wider metahistorical dialogue in the Histories concerning the (ab)use of historical inquiry, and the appropriate contexts for presenting the results of historiê.

From here B. directs our gaze to Book 7, where the exiled Spartan king Demaratus quite fails to convince king Xerxes about various pieces of ethnological information concerning the Greeks. B.'s central argument here is that Demaratus is presented as an inferior ethnologer, just as Solon is an inferior historian, since Xerxes will not accept his accounts of foreign customs. There is some useful discussion on Demaratus' concerns with physis (‘nature’) and nomos (‘custom’) (e.g. 7.102.1) – concerns that help us to align him closely with Herodotus and other fifth-century intellectuals (especially Sophists). But Demaratus will emerge as an irrefragably disillusioned thinker (even remarking to Xerxes what a great struggle it is to practise the truth around him, 7.209.2). Indeed when the Athenian exile Dicaeus explains to Demaratus an unfavourable portent for the Persians, based on his knowledge of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Spartan renegade will intone brusquely that Dicaeus must keep the information secret, or face losing his head (8.65.4–5). Once again, B. reads Demaratus' failure as an important narrative device in the Histories, throwing into sharp relief the altogether more fruitful inquiries of Herodotus, who successfully presents his ethnographic researches.

Chapter 3 explores the failed attempt by Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, to persuade the Spartans to march against Persia (5.49–51). In his appeal to geographic and ethnologic knowledge, notably through the use of a map (pinax), Aristagoras resembles the Herodotean inquirer, and functions as another ‘textual rival’. Throughout this section B. argues that Herodotus makes greater use than many have allowed of Demaratus' description of the map in 5.49. But while it is indeed the case that Herodotus immediately follows this logos with his own more extended account of the Royal Road (5.52–4), I remain unconvinced that there is much affinity between the two inquirers' attempts at geographic discourse. Rather as A. Purves' excellent Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative (2010) shows, there is a fundamental gulf between the way in which Herodotus and Aristagoras engage with space and time – the former providing a hodological account which takes his audience on a step-by-step journey along the Road, a distinct contrast with the cartographic account of the Milesian. That being said, B.'s discussion on the competition between Herodotus and Aristagoras to be the better inquirer (pp. 134–44) is insightful, and well evinces the polemical nature of Herodotus' presentation of Aristagoras. And the closing remarks on Herodotus following a more atrekes hodos (‘straight path’) than the deceitful Aristagoras offer some perceptive ideas on the compulsion to present the truth in a historiographical work like Herodotus' (pp. 144–8).

Having explored particular individuals, Chapter 4 examines a group of rival inquirers, namely the Athenians. In the prelude to his account of the battle at Plataea, Herodotus presents the Athenians as rival inquirers in their recapitulation of past Athenian accomplishments – both ancient and recent (9.26–8) – all of which demonstrate that they should hold the left wing at Plataea. But while the Athenians are successful in persuading their internal narratee (the Spartans), Herodotus' work suggests that all is not as it seems. The Athenians narrate a version of their recent history, consonant with the epitaphios tradition, in which they ‘alone’ (mounoi, 9.27.5) defeated the Persians at Marathon. Herodotus' own narrative of that momentous skirmish (6.5–19), however, specifies that the Plataeans in fact helped in the battle, even though later Athenians consistently fail to mention this (Athenian self-interest, etc.). B. then connects this selectivity back to the Phoenicians and Persians in Herodotus' famous prologue, offering an in-depth analysis of significant verbal parallels between the Athenians' speech and the Histories' opening chapters (pp. 178–91). For B., the real point of these chapters is that Herodotus is preparing his readers for the problems of historiography, i.e. the morass induced by rival, incompatible sources, and the presence of self-interested versions of the past. In doing so, Herodotus gives himself every opportunity of confirming the veracity of his account, outwitting another of his ‘textual rivals’.

Chapter 5 returns to examining another sole rival inquirer, Xerxes, who ‘laughabl[y]’ (geloion, 8.25.2) fails in his attempt to convince his soldiers that very few Persians were killed at Thermopylae by use of a visual trick (8.24–5). As B. notes, this passage presents a unique instance in which neither external nor internal narratee is persuaded/fooled by Herodotus' ‘rival inquirer’ (p. 193). B. offers some interesting discussion on the inter-connectedness of the terms of theasthai and thoma (‘to gaze at [in wonder]’ and ‘wonder’ respectively) in Herodotus, who expressly avoids using the verb theasthai to connote his own actions as an inquirer, but typically applies this term to kings who wish to assert their majesty (pp. 212–15). The polemical nature of Herodotus' work emerges yet again, as B. argues that this presentation of Xerxes' laughable deception further bolsters Herodotus' own account of the battle in Book 7, in which comparatively few Greeks and many Persians die.

From the outset B. broaches the thorny issue of truth in the Histories (esp. pp. 6–11). B. posits that since the narrator declares a compulsion to report the logoi of the many different individuals and communities whom he meets while conducting his inquiries (see esp. 7.152.3), we must accept that this might lead to the inclusion of contradictory, distasteful or even untruthful information. But while B. is right to point to Herodotus' (infrequent) reflections on his obligations as an author, many readers will remain unpersuaded by the overall argument here, particularly given that elsewhere Herodotus explicitly alludes to numerous pieces of information that he has wilfully included or elided (e.g. Herodotus considers the manner in which Polycrates is murdered unworthy of narration, 3.125.3). The criteria guiding Herodotus' selection and presentation of information are clearly more elaborate than the few sporadic first-person interjections concerning method might otherwise intimate.

It is not wholly clear in the book how many competing voices Herodotus incorporates into his work, or why there is an exclusive focus on (in some way) flawed inquirers. (Indeed B. refers to the arcane Corinthian Socles in his introduction [pp. 19–20], a figure who succeeds in persuading the Lacedaemonian allies by utilising historical information concerning the Cypselids [5.92].) Nevertheless B.'s study carefully unveils the extent to which Herodotus thinks through his characters, enhancing our understanding of the extraordinarily sophisticated narrative devices at work in the Histories. The relationship between author and protagonist is a highly discursive one; rival voices not only help readers to unravel the process of historiê, but they also guide readerly responses to the moral and intellectual architecture of the Histories.