Herodotus’ Histories is one of the first primary sources I got into, and it’s a doozy. Herodotus bravely attempted to write down all of human history up to the present day (his present day, that is, which was the 400s BCE). There are two volumes for a total of 9 books, each book with hundreds of chapters. But don’t worry about chapters: in ancient literature a chapter is basically a paragraph. What I’m saying is that there’s plenty to enjoy here.
So Herodotus’ goal was to write down all of human history. Did he do a great job? It depends. He certainly wrote a lot of interesting stories. MAYBE they were accurate. Side-by-side with verifiable historical tales were stories of a more fanciful nature. I’ll give you an example of that. In Book 3, chapter 100, he refers to an Indian subculture he knew about:
“Other Indians have on the contrary a manner of life as follows:—they neither kill any living thing nor do they sow any crops nor is it their custom to possess houses…”
Wow, the Jains! Isn’t it cool that the Greeks knew about Jainism in 430 BCE? But he follows that up in chapter 102 with a claim that Indians used tamed ants the size of foxes to mine gold…
This should give you an example of what it’s like to read Herodotus. Don’t fear the giant blocks of text! If you want to know more about ancient history, here’s a book written by someone for whom that was contemporary history. He’s right there, living in the ancient world and trying to make sense of it. Do you like weird stories? He doesn’t have the best sense of reality, and true history is mixed in with supposition, superstition, and just plain weird stuff.