might be made of such survivals of credulity in the works of the sceptics of all ages.

$317. But no German editor has approached the question of Herodotus' credibility with such boldness and originality as Mr. Blakesley in the very remarkable introduction to his edition. Of course others have pointed, as he does, to the influence of Sophistic on the historian, to his wandering life, like Protagoras or Gorgias, to his alleged reading out of his performances, to the conventional turns of his moral advices, and the repetition of the same ethical commonplaces in the mouths of divers and dissimilar characters. He is the first to lay proper stress on the close identification of Herodotus, by Thucydides and other ancient critics, with the logopoioi who composed not to instruct but to please. He believes that this class of men, as soon as they attained any facility in prose composition, selected such events, and attributed such motives, as they thought would be striking and popular without any misgivings as to the accuracy of their statements; for the historic sense is a late and gradual acquisition which Thucydides acquired only by his extraordinary genius and circumstances in those early days. If this be so, the credibility of Herodotus as to particular facts will stand on a very different basis from that of modern historians. It has been hitherto assumed that wherever he speaks as an eye-witness his faith. fulness is beyond dispute; but if he be a mere story-teller, which is our nearest English to a λoyoroóc, nothing is so universal an attribute of such people in all times as to narrate secondhand facts as if they were personal experiences. It is done without the least bad faith, for the teller may firmly believe his authority, and merely wish to complete his picture without critical statements as to his authorities. Mr. Blakesley is clearly of opinion that Herodotus did this, and that he copied personal narratives from other people and set them down as his own. He gives as an example the alleged copying from Hecatæus of facts about the crocodile, the

2

1 He compares the speeches of Solon and Croesus (i. 23 and iii. 36) with the notions ascribed to Hippias in Plato's Hipp. Maj., p. 236.

2 ii. 68–73. Prof. Sayce, in his Herodotus, has pushed this criticism to its utmost limit.

hippopotamus, and an account of the phoenix. This Herodotus does without acknowledgment, and with such deviations from the truth as seem to preclude a personal investigation. If these considerations be well founded, a vast deal of learned talk about the travels of Herodotus and his valuable evidence as an eye-witness will be blown to the winds. But of course it would not place him in the rank of a modern novelist, or even in that of De Foe, which Mr. Blakesley suggests. The real parallel he gives is that of Marco Polo, whose work at first circulated in MS., like that of Herodotus, and underwent curious alterations, not only at the hands of interpolators, but at the author's own, before it was printed. There is the same mixture in both of credulity and scepticism, of veracity in spirit, and yet ready acceptance of the doubtful or the false, of effort to be historical in an age when strict history was hardly yet defined.

$318. This speculation belongs to the estimate of his genius, which it may properly introduce, and is naturally suggested by the contrast of the Father of History with his greatest and most immediate successor, Thucydides; nor is it reasonable to waive the question by merely insisting upon the contrast of their natural characters, and the different social and political atmosphere in which they were educated. Had Herodotus been a cold and sceptical critic, a despiser of all the domestic and personal features in great men or in dominant nationalities, a Periclean Athenian whose exclusiveness raised the pettiest Greek quarrel above the largest revolutions among barbarians, he might, no doubt, have sifted such materials with greater acumen, but he certainly would have had neither the desire to possess them nor the temper and the patience to collect them. The genial simplicity and wide sympathy of Herodotus not only supplied him with the stimulus to seek, but his informants with the inclination to impart, what they knew, and thus vastly counterbalanced any inferiority of judgment by the larger field of knowledge which he embraced.' His just estimate of the

The only authority I can quote for this view, which I have implied long ago in my Prolegomena to Ancient History, is that of the Comte de

older civilisations of the Lydians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Egyptians, has made his great work a picture, not of Greece, but of the old world at one of its most interesting periods. To the student of ancient history in any large and comprehensive sense, it must be pronounced a work of infinitely greater value and more permanent interest than the struggle for ascendancy between the two leading states of Greece, which had no general effects upon the changes of the world. While, therefore, the conceptions of history in Herodotus and Thucydides were mainly the consequence of the temper of the men and of their surroundings, it must be declared that, for an historian, the atmosphere in which the latter lived, while giving him critical acumen and freeing him from theological prejudices, narrowed his view and distorted his estimate of the relative importance of events. We may indeed feel very grateful that Herodotus was not attracted in early life by this brilliant exclusiveness, and that he remained an Ionic instead of becoming an Attic historian.

§ 319. There is a like contrast between the style of the earlier and the later historians. Herodotus was thought the master of the λéis εipoμévn, or style of simple co-ordination of clauses, while Attic rhetoric brought them into complex connections, so as form ingeniously constructed periods.1 There are, indeed, speeches introduced by Herodotus, such as the discussion on the best form of government by the fellow-conspirators of Darius,2 where he shows ample acquaintance with the rhetoric of the day, and where the periods are formed with some skill

Gobineau, in his exquisitely written but fantastic Histoire des Perses (i. 247, sq.). He goes further than I do, and makes a curious apologia for the Oriental chroniclers in connection with the receptive and uncritical temper of Herodotus.

1 Dionysius Hal. gives, as an example, Herodotus' words: Kpoîros v Λυδὸς μὲν γένος, παῖς δὲ ̓Αλυάττεω, τύραννος δὲ ἐθνέων τῶν ἐντὸς Αλυος Tотаμοû; which, if periodically constructed, would be: K. v vids μèv 'A., γένος δὲ Λ., τύραννος δὲ τῶν ἐντὸς Αλυος ποταμοῦ ἐθνῶν. He even adds a forced and unnatural construction. This loose and easy style was sometimes affected by Attic rhetors, as, for example, by the tyrant Critias, and may be seen in fragment 25 of his Lacedæmonian Polity.

2 iii. 80, sq.

and intricacy. This intermediate sort of writing was the historic period as opposed to the stricter rhetorical or logical period. These speeches, which are a common feature of all the classical historians, are by no means so signal a blemish to his work as are the rhetorical harangues in later literature; for his speeches are well contrasted with those in Thucydides as dramatic, and coming in so naturally as to produce a lifelike picture of scenes and characters.1 I add a passage from one which strikes us as very peculiar, from its Thucydidean tone, and which proves

1 The most elaborate instance just referred to is most severely censured by all the critics, who think it absurd that the great Persian nobles should discuss aristocracy and democracy after the manner of Greek sophists. Nevertheless Herodotus insists, in spite of the disbelief of his contemporaries, that this discussion really took place. It seems to me a very bold thing to deny flatly the truth of an assertion which Herodotusa man of undoubted honesty and intelligence-makes in the face of hostile criticism; and, even had I no stronger reason, I should hesitate to disbelieve him. But Gobineau has clearly shown the elements of truth in the story, and how the historian puts in a Greek form the really vital problem of the Persian empire. It is usual to regard it as an Oriental despotism, which was occasionally the case, when the central power came into strong hands; but this is really a false view. The Iranian nobles were a feudal aristocracy, divided into classes, within which each member was really free, though bound by immemorial customs to render certain dues of respect and service to the chief. The independence of all these clans and families really constituted a democracy, not of course a city democracy, with an agora and public debates, but a country democracy, with liberty and equality of rights, and this was somewhat the form of constitution into which Persia relapsed under the Arsacidæ, when the tyranny of the central king of kings was found too oppressive. Cambyses, succeeding to the wealth of Cyrus, and to the possession of his conquests, which of course did not belong to the hereditary nobles of Iran, began to make them feel this tyranny. Hence the discussion of the conspirators were they to continue this imposing but dangerous monarchy? Could the seven lords in council control the other feudatories, and maintain the empire? or should they revert to the natural condition of old Iranian society, and let all the clans live under their immemorial customs? It is also to be noted that they do not resolve on a monarchy, without limiting it beforehand by reserving to themselves certain hereditary privileges, thus showing their appreciation of the danger. I must again refer for an excellent statement of this matter to Gobineau, Histoire des Perses, i. 583, sq.

how fully Herodotus sympathised with the enterprise of imperial Athens, as expounded in Thucydides' speeches.1

But the general character of his writing, with its gossiping resumptions (έπαναλήψεις) and its natural anacolutha (which old grammarians noted and admired), is that of a peculiarly easy and artless flow, more like a charming conversation than a set composition; and this is characterised by a constant passage from narrative to dialogue, which comes in so naturally as to be often unperceived. There is reason to believe (above, p. 14) that Hecatæus followed the same practice, which may have been a typical feature of Ionic historical prose. But it is not likely that many writers could have attained this art to such perfection as Herodotus. He employs it constantly to paint characters, which he never describes in a formal paragraph, but brings, as it were, living and speaking upon his stage. It has, nevertheless, been justly remarked that he is more successful in portraying types than individuals, national characteristics than personal features. His Persians, and Lydians, and Spartans are very distinct; but his Croesus becomes a Solon in captivity, and his Eastern grandees all use the same formulæ of contempt for unknown Hellenes of the West. This monotony was doubtless fostered by the gentle fatalism which prevails throughout early Greek literature, and which finds its perfect expression in the dialogues of Artabanus and Xerxes. But this same feeling

I vii. 50 : 'Αμείβεται Ξέρξης τοισίδε• ‘Αρτάβανε, οἰκότως μὲν σύ γε τουτέων ἕκαστα διαιρέεαι· ἀτὰρ μήτε πάντα φοβέο, μήτε πᾶν ὁμοίως ἐπιλέγει. Εἰ γὰρ δὴ βούλοιο ἐπὶ τῷ αἰεὶ ἐπεσφερομένῳ πρήγματι τὸ πᾶν ὁμοίως ἐπιλέγεσθαι, ποιήσειας ἂν οὐδαμᾶ οὐδέν· κρέσσον δὲ πάντα θαρσέοντα ἥμισυ τῶν δεινῶν πάσχειν μᾶλλον, ἢ πᾶν χρῆμα προδειμαίνοντα μηδαμᾶ μηδὲν παθεῖν εἰ δὲ ἐρίζων πρὸς πᾶν τὸ λεγόμενον μὴ τὸ βέβαιον ἀποδέξεις, σφάλλεσθαι ὀφείλεις ἐν αὐτοῖσι ὁμοίως καὶ ὁ ὑπεναντία τούτοισι λέξας. τοῦτο μέν νυν ἐπ ̓ ἴσης ἔχει· εἰδέναι δὲ ἄνθρωπον ἐόντα κῶς χρὴ τὸ βέβαιον ; δοκέω μὲν οὐδαμῶς. τοῖσι τοίνυν βουλομένοισι ποιέειν ὡς τὸ ἐπίπαν φιλέει γίνεσθαι τὰ κέρδεα, τοῖσι δὲ ἐπιλεγομένοισί τε πάντα καὶ ὀκνεῦσι οὐ μάλα ἐθέλει. Ὁρᾷς τὰ Περσέων πρήγματα ἐς τὸ δυνάμιος προκεχώρηκε· εἰ τοίνυν ἐκεῖνοι οἱ πρὸ ἐμεῦ γενόμενοι βασιλέες γνώμῃσι ἐχρέοντο ὁμοίῃσι καὶ σύ, ἢ μὴ χρεόμενοι γνώμῃσι τοιαύτῃσι ἄλλους συμβούλους εἶχον τοιούτους, οὐκ ἄν κοτε εἶδες αὐτὰ ἐς τοῦτο προελθόντα· νῦν δὲ κινδύνους ἀναῤῥιπτέοντες ἐς τοῦτό σφεα προηγάγοντο. μεγάλα γὰρ πρήγματα μεγάλοισι κινδύνοισι ἐθέλει καταιρέεσθαι.

2 vii. Io, sq. ; and thus in 46, sq. : Μαθὼν δέ μιν ̓Αρτάβανος ὁ πατρως,