Good summary!

For anyone who has not read this, I very much recommend it, mostly as an adventure tale - for anyone who thinks ancient history is booooring.

BTW/FWIW, I've read that this was Alexander of Macedon's favorite read. If you re-read it, looking at how the Greeks beat the Persians each time, you can see where he got the notion that it was possible to conquer Persia.

I'm not sure whether this was written for performance. I had a Greek speaker read some of it to me, and it does not 'sing' the way Homer's work does. I don't speak the language, although, IMO, I should. Any Greek speakers out there who have read this in (duh!) Greek? How did it sound to you? Good for someone to perform, the way Herodotus did his histories?