dialogue, but to the choral songs. Herodotus lastly shows his awe of the divine Nemesis by his moderation and the firmness with which he keeps down the ebullitions of national pride. For, if the eastern princes by their own rashness bring destruction upon themselves, and the Greeks remain the victors, yet he describes the East, with its early civilization, as highly worthy of respect and admiration; he even points out traits of greatness of character in the hostile kings of Persia; shows his countrymen how they often owed their successes to divine providence and external advantages, rather than to their own valour and ability; and, on the whole, is anything but a panegyrist of the exploits of the Greeks. So little indeed has he this character, that when the rhetorical historians of later times had introduced a more pretending account of these events, the simple, faithful, and impartial Herodotus was reproached with being actuated by a spirit of calumny, and with seeking to detract from the heroic acts of his countrymen[1].
§ 6. Since Herodotus saw the working of a divine agency in all human events, and considered the exhibition of it as the main object of his history, his aim is entirely different from that of a historian who regards the events of life merely with reference to man. Herodotus is, in truth, a theologian and a poet as well as an historian. The individual parts of his work are treated entirely in this spirit. His aim is not merely to give the results of common experience in human life. His mind is turned to the extraordinary and the marvellous. In this respect his work bears an uniform colour. The great events which he relates—the gigantic enterprises of princes, the unexpected turns of fortune, and other marvellous occurrences—harmonise with the accounts of the astonishing buildings and other works of the East, of the multifarious and often singular manners of the different nations, the surprising phenomena of nature, and the rare productions and animals of the remote regions of the world. Herodotus presented a picture of strange and astonishing things to his mobile and curious countrymen. It were vain to deny that Herodotus, when he does not describe things which he had himself observed, was often deceived by the misrepresentations of priests, interpreters, and guides; and, above all, by that propensity to boasting and that love of the marvellous which are so common in the East[2]. Yet, without his singlehearted simplicity, his disposition to listen to every remarkable account, and his admiration (undisturbed by the national prejudices of a Greek) for the wonders of the Eastern world, Herodotus would never have imparted to us many valuable accounts, in which recent inquirers have discovered substantial truth, though mixed with fable. How often have modern travellers,
- ↑ Plutarch's Treatise περὶ τῆς Ἡροδότου κακοηθείας, concerning the malignity of Herodotus.
- ↑ Aristotle, in his Treatise on the Generation of Animals, III. 5, calls him Ἡρόδοτος ὁ μυθολόγος, "Herodotus the story-teller."
