Fellow and Master of University College, Oxford, the classical scholar Reginald Walter Macan (1848–1941) published in 1908 this two-volume edition (in three parts) of the last books of Herodotus, which cover the Greco-Persian Wars during the period 486 to 479 BCE. Part 2 of Volume 1 contains the text of Books 8 and 9 in Greek, with commentary and scholarly apparatus. Book 8 covers the Greek naval retreat after Thermopylae and the evacuation of Athens. Book 9 recounts such events as the Battle of Plataea, the Athenian blockade of Sestos and the Persian defeat in Ionia. Macan's edition, particularly valuable for its introduction, commentary, maps and extensive indexes, remains valuable to scholars of the history of textual criticism and the historiography of the classical world.