Original: Perhaps most importantly , it stands as one of the first , and surviving , accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire , the events of , and causes for , the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC .
Simplified: Written about 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek , The Histories tells the story of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC .