History of the transmission of ancient books to modern times / together with the process of historical proof; or, a concise account of the means by which genuineness of ancient literature generally, and the authenticity of historical works especially are ascertained including incidental remarks upon the relative strength of the evidence usually adduced in behalf of the Holy Scriptures

by Isaac Taylor

FOOTNOTES:

[5] I have lately brought forward some facts of this kind, relating to an abbot of a Nitrian monastery. Essays, &c.; Nilus.

[6] These are, Palladius, Eusebius, Socrates, Jerome, Rufinus, Evagrius, Cassian; and others incidentally.

[7] An account in full of these researches appeared in No. CLIII. of the Quarterly Review (1845), and afterwards in the Edinburgh Review.

[8] The reader who is a student in Biblical criticism will know where to look for precise information on this ground.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE PROCESS OF HISTORIC EVIDENCE EXEMPLIFIED IN THE INSTANCE OF HERODOTUS.

We have now seen in what way, and liable to what conditions, the mass of ancient literature, including the Holy Scriptures, has been sent forward through the long track of centuries intervening between the times of its production and the revival of learning, and the employment of the printing-press, in these modern times.

What I now propose to do is to place before the reader—in a single and a very signal instance, the entire historic process; or that method of proceeding by means of which we, at this time, may find our way retrogressively upwards, along the high road of history from this, our nineteenth century, to the times—four and five hundred years before the Christian era. This journey is not of less extent than two thousand five hundred years, and it brings us to the time of the last of the Hebrew prophets.

A very frequent phrase in historical writings of any sort relating to antiquity is this, “Herodotus informs us, so and so.” Now my questions, in hearing this, are these: “This Herodotus, who was he? When did he live? What did he write? and how do I know that the books which bear his name on the title-page, were written by any such person, or at the time to which they are usually assigned?” And then, supposing these questions to be answered to my satisfaction, “What reason have I for believing that the narratives which I find in these books are, in the main, true? How does it appear that what I read is history, and is not fiction?”

We select Herodotus as a sample of this process, or this method of historic proof, for several reasons:—such as these. This Greek writer stands forward as the “Father of history;” he is the earliest of all extant writers of this class, excepting those of the Old Testament; his writings embrace a great compass of subjects—in fact, they give us, in outline or in detail, almost all we know of the nations of a remote antiquity. Then there is this peculiar circumstance attaching to the writings of this author, that, after having been much disparaged in modern times, and his credit greatly lowered, he has, within a few years, been restored to his place of authority by the greater intelligence of recent writers; and by an extension of our knowledge of the countries spoken of by him, as to their natural productions, their arts, their works, and their history. Of late—and almost every year has done something to bring about this result—Herodotus has returned to his position; and his assailants and critics have, in consequence, fallen out of repute. These writings, therefore, are samples at once of the authenticity of ancient history, and of what may be called the immortality of historic truth—its resurrection to a new life, after a period of entombment.

To begin at the beginning;—I will now suppose that I have before me several works in English, French, German, Italian, Latin, each of them purporting to be—“The History of Herodotus, translated from the Greek.” In collating these books it becomes evident that they are all derived from some one source. But it may be well to give attention to some facts at this stage of our progress.

We affirm that the Greek text of Herodotus, such as it now appears, was extant some time before the publication of the earliest printed editions. Ostensible and tangible proof of what we here allege, is afforded by the existence, at the present time, as we shall presently state, in several public libraries, of many manuscript copies of the Greek text, which, by the date affixed to them, by the character of the writing, by the appearance of the ink, and material, and by the traditionary history of some of them, are clearly attributable to different ages, from the tenth century to the fifteenth. But now if it were possible to suppose that all these copies were derived from one MS. and that one a forgery of a late date, an examination and comparison of them, and a comparison of the manuscripts with the printed editions, will furnish several special demonstrations of the point affirmed. In 1474, twenty-eight years before the appearance of the first printed edition of the Greek text, Laurentius Valla, an Italian scholar, published at Venice a Latin translation of Herodotus, purporting to have been made from the Greek. Now if, in comparing this translation with the Greek manuscripts that are still extant, it were asked which is the original, the Latin or the Greek? no one acquainted with the structure of language could hesitate in declaring for the latter; for in the Latin (as in every translation) ellipses are supplied, exegetical and connective phrases are introduced; and what is still more decisive, there are many passages in the Greek where an obvious and consistent sense is evidently misunderstood in the Latin; for Valla seems, from all his translations, to have been but imperfectly acquainted with the Greek language. In such instances the occasion of the translator’s error may often be detected; by which means incontestable proof is afforded of the fact now supposed to be questioned, namely—that the Greek is the original, and the Latin the translation. Again:—The Latin, as compared with the Greek, is deficient in many entire paragraphs, and in many single sentences. In the Greek these passages are one with the context; but in the Latin, the hiatus is either abrupt and apparent, or it is concealed by a connective sentence, evidently inserted as a link between the disjoined portions of the text. Now, when evidence like this is presented, we need not lay stress upon the traditionary history of particular manuscripts, nor upon their apparent antiquity, nor upon the genuineness of the dates affixed to them; for from the facts actually before us, we can draw only one inference. Without going further, therefore, we may conclude with certainty, that several Greek manuscripts of Herodotus were in existence some time before the publication of the printed editions; and by consequence, the averments of the first editors are confirmed, who declare that they derived their text from manuscripts—already known to the learned.

The Greek text of Herodotus was, for the first time, printed by Minutius Aldus, at Venice, September, 1502. Copies of this beautiful and correct edition, “corrected by a collation of many manuscripts,” are still extant:—it is distinguished by its retention of the forms of the Ionic dialect—a proof that the editor followed a pure and ancient manuscript, for the Ionic forms are generally lost in those copies, the text of which has passed through many transcriptions. This edition, with corrections and notes, was reprinted at Basil, in 1541, and again in 1557, by Joachim Camerarius. In 1570 the Aldine text of Herodotus was printed at Paris, by Henry Stephens, who does not profess himself to have collated manuscripts. The title-page declares that the books were “ex vetustis exemplaribus recogniti:” but in his second edition, Stephens confesses that up to that time he had not been able to procure an ancient copy by which to correct the text; he must, therefore, in the phrase just quoted, be understood to refer to the manuscripts that were consulted by Aldus. G. Jungerman, assuming the edition just mentioned as the basis of his own, in which however he made, without specification, many conjectural emendations, printed the Greek text, at Frankfort, in 1608. This was the first edition in which the text was divided into sections, as it now appears. The London edition, dated 1679, and published under favour of the name of the learned Thomas Gale, was derived, without acknowledgment, from that of Jungerman. Hitherto the editions were only successive reprints of the Aldine text; and came, therefore, all from a single source; but in 1715, an edition of Herodotus was published at Leyden, under the care of J. Gronovius, who collated the former editions with some manuscripts before unknown, or not examined. A Glasgow edition appeared in 1761; and two years later that of Wesseling, printed at Amsterdam. Some quotations from this editor’s preface will give the general reader a good idea of the method of conducting these literary labours, and of the security afforded for the purity of the text of ancient authors. Several German and Dutch editions have appeared since that of Wesseling; the most esteemed are those of Borheck, Reiz, Schaefer, and Schweighæuser. Of the laborious care bestowed by the learned editors upon these editions, the following citations from their Prefaces will give evidence. Wesseling says:—

“The forms and proprieties of the Ionic dialect I have restored, wherever they could be gathered clearly from the ancient codices, and have replaced some readings which, without cause, had been rejected. Innumerable passages I have relieved from errors, yet very rarely on mere conjecture, and only in those words which the genius of the language would not admit; and in many instances have thought it enough just to point out the means of amending the text, where it is evidently corrupted.” In quoting this passage from Wesseling, Schweighæuser says, “Neither have we, except in a very few places, admitted conjectural emendations into the text; and these only where it was evident that all the readings of all the existing copies were corrupted; and where an emendation presented itself which not merely seemed probable, but which was so clear and certain as to need no argument in its favour.” Very judiciously, this editor refuses to impute to the temerity or ignorance of copyists all the variations from the Ionic forms; since it is evident that Greek writers who adopted one of the dialects, allowed themselves the liberty of occasionally using the common forms of the language: he therefore restores the ionicisms only when he has the authority of MSS. for so doing. Of Wesseling’s extreme caution, Schweighæuser thus expresses his opinion:—In this edition, excepting a few errors, easily corrected, or some cases which may be open to disputation, the learned have nothing to complain of; unless it be, that, in adopting better readings, warranted by MSS., as well as in correcting, on probable conjecture, some places manifestly faulty in all copies, the Editor was too timid—so much so, indeed, that many approved readings which he might well have admitted into the text, he ventured not to adopt. And often he preferred to leave, untouched, manifest and gross corruptions, rather than to put in their place his own emendations, or those of others, though decidedly approved by himself. As to conjectural emendations, even in those places where all the MSS. are plainly in fault, we have seen him, in his preface, ingenuously confess that he had rather be thought too cautious, than too bold: and who would not esteem, yes and admire, rather than condemn, this illustrious man, blaming his own timidity in this sort:—“In attempting to restore the language of Herodotus, I have been restrained often by more than a due timidity; but such is my nature.” This editor, in his preface, states that, having been applied to, to superintend a reprint of Wesseling’s Herodotus, he had declined doing so, unless he should be able to obtain, from the French king’s library, the loan of the MSS. of Herodotus, there preserved:—the troubles of the times preventing this, he sought for some one, residing at Paris, who would freely undertake the irksome and painful toil of collating Wesseling’s text with all those codices; and at length, by means of a learned friend, he met with a young man, a native of Greece, who executed the task of comparing the text—word by word—with the five principal manuscripts in the library, and making a separate list of the various readings in each.

From the mass of variations brought before him, the office of the editor is to select that one which most recommends itself, either by the superior authority of the codex in which it appears, or by its particular probability, or seeming accordance with the author’s style or meaning, or with the proprieties of the language. And not seldom it happens that the most inferior copies have chanced to preserve an evidently genuine reading, where the best have, as plainly, erred.—“No MS.,” an eminent critic has said, “ought to be thought unworthy of being consulted.” Yet in cases of importance, where there may be room for doubt among the existing variations, the canon must be obeyed which enjoins that, “Codices should rather be weighed than numbered.” Although discussions on subjects of this kind cannot but seem uninteresting, and even trivial to general readers—and perhaps absurd, when the gravity and strenuousness with which, sometimes, the most minute points are argued, is observed; yet it ought never to be forgotten that the credit, the purity, and the consistency of ancient literature, are very greatly promoted by the indefatigable zeal of those who devote their lives to these learned and unattractive labours.

But I now look into some of the printed editions. For instance, here is a small folio volume, in excellent style, as to type, and paper, and execution, printed in Paris, MDLXX, and edited by Henry Stephens. I have also in hand the edition edited by J. Schweighæuser, in four volumes octavo, reprinted in London, 1822; and also a more recent edition, namely—that of Professor Gaisford, in two volumes octavo. Besides these there are ten other editions of the Greek text—German, Dutch, and English. I open these several editions, at hazard—say at the beginning of the third book—Thalia: I find that they correspond, word for word, for some way on; but in the fifth line I find an unimportant variation—one form of a word is used instead of another; and further on the order of the words is a little different, but the sense is the same. Sometimes one particle or expletive is used instead of another; sometimes those expletives that barely affect the sense in any way, are omitted. Frequently the orthography of proper names is differently given in the different editions. Very rarely are these variations of so much importance as would affect the sense in a translation. But now, from the fact of the verbal identity of these editions throughout by far the larger part of them, and also from the occurrence of not infrequent, and yet inconsiderable differences, I infer, first—that they have all had a common source in some one original exemplar; and, secondly—that there have been many copyings from that first copy; and that it has been in the course of these repetitions, in which the ear, the eye, and the hand of many writers have done their part, that these departures from the author’s first copy have taken place. In a word, the printed editions have followed manuscripts; and these have undergone those chances, and those mischances which, in the ordinary course of things, must attach to a process like this, notwithstanding the care and the fidelity of those who practise it.

The next step, then, is to make search for those ancient manuscripts, or for some of them, whence these printed editions have been derived. About fifteen such manuscripts are now known, and may be inspected in public or private libraries. One of the purest of these is preserved in the French King’s library (now the Imperial) and it is thus described.—It is a parchment in folio, purchased in 1688, containing the nine books of Herodotus. This codex is by far the best of all, and appears to have been executed in the 12th century. It is distinguished by its uniform retention of the forms of the Ionic dialect—an indication of the antiquity and purity of the copy from which it was derived. The same library contains also several other MSS. of this author, which are thus described—A codex on paper, formerly belonging to the Colbertine library, containing the nine books of Herodotus: in the margin are notes of some value. This MS. was executed in 1372. A copy on paper, written in the year 1447. The negligence of the copyist is, in this instance, much to be complained of, for sometimes entire phrases are wanting. Yet it contains some readings that deserve attention. A MS. on paper, dated 1474. Besides the nine books of Herodotus, this codex contains parts of the works of Isocrates, and Plutarch, together with a lexicon of words peculiar to Herodotus. A MS., which along with extracts from several Greek authors, contains part of the first book of Herodotus, as far as c. 87. Although this codex is of late date, the extract from Clio appears to have been made from a very ancient copy. Some other codices in the same library afford also parts of our author’s work. There is a codex formerly in the Florentine library, which from the condition of the parchment, and the antique style of the writing, is manifestly of great antiquity. Montfaucon assigns it to the tenth century. This codex belongs to the same family as that of Askew, and the Medicean. Yet neither was it copied from the latter, with which, indeed, it might dispute the palm of excellence; but being derived from a more ancient source, it offers many approved readings, differing from the Medicean, where that is in fault, or where it offers no emendation of the common text. This Medicean codex is thus described in the Catalogue of the Florentine library: “Herodotus:—a very ancient codex, valuable beyond all praise. It is on paper, in quarto, well preserved: executed in the tenth century. The titles of the books are in uncial letters of gold; it contains 374 pages.” This copy was followed with a too superstitious reverence by Gronovius; yet being compelled to consult it in the public library, and under the eye of the librarian, he has not seldom mistaken its readings. A MS. of Herodotus, formerly in the library of Archbishop Sancroft, and afterwards in that of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, has been deemed of high antiquity, and great value. The libraries of Oxford contain also some codices of our author, and several are known to be in the possession of private persons. “These manuscript copies,” says Wesseling, “brought to light from various places, have not, it is manifest, originated all from one source (in modern times). Where the copy followed by Valla is torn or defective, there also the Vienna, the Vatican, and the Oxford MSS. are wanting. And in what these are remarkable, so is the Florentine. But the Medicean MS., that of Cardinal Passio, and of Askew, for the most part agree. The three first mentioned, seem to have been derived all from some one more ancient parchment, the writer of which, offended perhaps at the frequent digressions of the first book, very daringly cut them all off; and lest the hiatus should seem harsh, he skilfully fitted the parts, so as to preserve the continuity of the style. The three last, on the contrary, were derived from the copy of a transcriber better informed, who scrupled to make any needless alterations. A great number of the various readings which distinguish these MSS. are attributable to the copyists who have substituted the common forms of the language, and words better known, in the place of the Ionic forms and of obsolete words.”

All that is of any importance in proof of the genuineness and integrity of ancient books, is to know that there are now in existence several copies, evidently of older date than the first printed edition of the author; and that these copies, by their general agreement, and, not less so, by their smaller diversities, prove, at once, their derivation from the same original, and their long distance from that original; since many of these diversities are such as could have arisen only from many successive transcriptions. Beyond these simple facts, the knowledge of codices, and of various readings, is interesting to none but editors and critics.

We may now fairly assume as certain, so much as this—that the work before us—mainly such as we now have it in our hands, is an ancient work, and that it has come down to modern times in that mode of which, in the preceding chapters, we have given some account, and have adduced several instances. Our next question is this—To what age this work ought to be attributed? Or this—When did the author live and write? In obtaining an answer to this question, or to these two questions—considered as one, we must look to that succession of writers, retrogressively examined, who mention Herodotus, and his History, who describe it, and make quotations from it, or who give summaries of its contents. The proper and the most complete proof of the antiquity and genuineness of ancient books, is that which is thus derived from their mutual references and quotations. There is an independence in this kind of evidence which renders it, when it is precise and copious, quite conclusive. It is not the evidence of witnesses, who first have been schooled and cautioned, and then brought into court to do their best for the party by whom they are summoned; but it is the purely incidental testimony of unconnected persons, who, in the pursuit of their particular objects, gather up, and present to us, the facts which we were in search of. Besides—these facts have a peculiarity, which renders them eminently capable of furnishing precise and conclusive proof. A book is an aggregate of many thousand separable parts, each of which, both by the thought it contains, and by the choice and arrangement of the words, possesses a perfect individuality, such as fits it for the purpose of defining or identifying the whole to which it belongs; and if several of these definite parts are adduced, the identification is rendered the more complete. This kind of definition is moreover capable of being multiplied, almost without end; for each writer who quotes a book, having probably a different object in view, selects a different set of quotations, yet all of them meeting in the same work. We are thus furnished with a complicated system of concentric lines, which intersect nowhere—but in the book in question.

Then it is to be remembered that each of these quoting writers stands himself as the centre of a similar system of references, so that the complication of proof becomes infinitely intricate, and therefore it is so much the more conclusive. It is again involved, and so is rendered secure, by the occurrence of double or triple quotations; for example—Photius quotes Ctesias—quoting Herodotus. The proof of genuineness in the instance of a standard author, is by such means as these extended, attenuated, and involved in a degree to which no other species of evidence makes any approach.

It hardly needs to be said, that this high degree of certainty, resulting from the complication, as well as the number of testimonies, belongs only to works that are explicitly and frequently quoted by succeeding writers. And yet this sort of proof is deemed to be in its nature so valid and satisfactory, that a very small portion of it is ordinarily admitted as quite sufficient. If, for instance, a book is explicitly mentioned only by one or two writers of the next age, the evidence is allowed to decide the question of genuineness; unless when there appears some positive reasons to justify suspicion. But with questionable matters we have not now to do.

It cannot be thought necessary to adduce separately, any proof of the genuineness of the works that are about to be cited; since they all possess an established character, resting upon evidence of the same kind as that which is here displayed in the case of Herodotus. To bring forward all this proof, in each instance, would fill volumes.

We have seen that many manuscript copies of Herodotus, of which several are still preserved, were extant before the first printed editions appeared; and from a comparison of these manuscripts, as well as from the date which some of them bear, and from their seeming antiquity, it is evident that the work had then been in existence much longer than three hundred years; for these several manuscripts exhibit, as we have said, in their various readings, those minute diversities which are found to arise from repeated transcriptions, made by copyists in different ages and countries—some of these copyists being exact and skilful, while others were careless and ignorant. This proof of antiquity is more conclusive than that which arises from a mere traditionary history of a single manuscript, or from a date affixed to a copy; for the date may be spurious, or the tradition may be unauthentic; but in the various readings we have before our eyes a species of decay, which time alone could produce.

It is thus that we have assumed it as certain, that the text of this author was extant at least as early as the twelfth century. And if it were supposed that we could not trace the history of these manuscripts higher than that time, then we should turn to this other species of evidence, namely—that arising from the quotations of a series of writers, extending upwards from the age in which the history of the manuscripts merges in obscurity, to the very age of the author.

The evidence which we adduce for this purpose we divide into two portions;—in the first portion proving—that the history of Herodotus was known to the learned during a period of a thousand years, from A.D. 1150 to A.D. 150.

Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, flourished in the latter part of the twelfth century. His Commentaries upon the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, contain many references to Herodotus, that are more or less full and precise. Among these, the following afford sufficient proof of the point we have to establish; for they leave no room to doubt that the History of Herodotus, as now extant, was in the hands of this learned prelate. In the course of these commentaries he says, “But Herodotus seems to resemble Pherecydes and Hecatæus, who (in writing history) threw aside the adornments of the poetic style.” Again, “Herodotus (Erato 74) says that Nonacris is a city of Arcadia where the waters of Styx arise.” Again, “Herodotus, that sweet writer of the Ionic.” Eustathius cites our author to illustrate the meaning of the word mitra—girdle or turban. On the word phalanx he quotes from the fourth book a sentence in which Herodotus calls Pythagoras “a man eminent among the Greeks for his intelligence.” He quotes a passage relative to the Egyptian bread from the second book. Again, “Menelaus certainly visited those other Ethiopians whom Herodotus describes as bordering upon the Egyptians:” he alludes to the account given by our author of the sheep sacred to the sun in Apollonia. Eustathius quotes Herodotus, in proof that the Athenians were of Pelasgian origin.

Suidas, a learned Byzantine monk, is believed to have flourished at the close of the eleventh century. His Lexicon contains a brief Life of Herodotus; besides which, there occur under other words, not fewer than two hundred incidental references to different parts of the history. They are for the most part verbal citations of a very exact kind, adduced in illustration of the meaning, or the orthography of words.

Photius, the learned and ambitious patriarch of Constantinople, belongs to the ninth century. This writer has preserved the only portions that remain of the Persian and Indian history of Ctesias, who, as we shall see, gives a nearly contemporaneous testimony to Herodotus. The Myriobiblon of Photius consists of notices and abridgments of two hundred and eighty works which he had read, and it affords therefore much information available in determining questions of literary antiquity. Many works were extant in the ninth century—at Constantinople especially, which disappeared in the following age; and Photius, who had free access to the extensive libraries of that city, wanted no advantage which might fit him for the task of reviewing the literature of the preceding ages. When therefore he quotes and describes a work, and speaks of it confidently as having been long known in the world, and generally received as a genuine production of the author whose name it bears, his evidence carries up the proof to a still more remote age; for no spurious work, recently produced, could have been so mentioned by a critic of great learning and sound judgment. In the Myriobiblon, besides some incidental references to Herodotus, we find the following account (Art. 60) of him:—“We have perused the nine historical books of Herodotus, bearing the names of the Nine Muses. This writer uses the Ionic dialect, as Thucydides employs the Attic. He admits fabulous accounts, and frequent digressions, which give a pleasing flow to the narrative; though indeed this manner of writing violates the strict proprieties of the historical style, in which the accuracy of truth ought not to be obscured by any mixtures of fable, nor the end proposed by the author to be long lost sight of. He begins the history with the reign of Cyrus—the first of the Persian kings—narrating his birth, education, elevation, and rule; and he brings it down as far as the reign of Xerxes—his expedition against the Athenians, and his flight. Xerxes was indeed the fourth king from Cyrus—Cambyses being the second, and Darius the third; for Smerdes the Mage is not to be reckoned in the line of kings, inasmuch as he was an usurper who possessed himself of the throne by fraud. With Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, the history closes (the close of the war with Greece), nor indeed is it carried to the end of his reign; for Herodotus himself flourished in those very times, as Diodorus the Sicilian, and others relate, who mention the story that Thucydides, while yet a youth, was present with his father when Herodotus read his History in public, on which occasion he burst into tears; which being observed by Herodotus, the historian turned to the father and said, ‘O! Olorus, what a son have you, who thus burns with a passion for learning!’”

This description of the work, although concise, is abundantly sufficient to prove the existence of the text (as now extant) in the age of Photius, whose testimony establishes also the fact that it had then been long known and reputed as a genuine production of Herodotus, while the exceptions made against certain fabulous digressions contain an explicit acknowledgment that the history was generally received as authentic.

Stephen of Byzantium, author of a geographical and historical lexicon, flourished in the middle of the sixth century. He very frequently refers to Herodotus. Art. Thurium, he quotes an epigram relating to him; and under the following words references to him occur:—Abarnus, a city, region, and promontory of Pariana, which Herodotus in his fourth book, says, is called Abaris. Arisbe—Herodotus and Jason call it Arisba. Archandroupolis, a city of Egypt, according to Herodotus, in his second book. Assa, a city near Mount Atho, mentioned by Herodotus, in his seventh book. Thalamanæi, a nation subject to the Persians. Inycum, a city of Sicily, called by Herodotus, Inychos. Herodotus appears to have been one of the principal authorities of this writer, and his citations are usually correct.

Marcellinus, a critic of the sixth century, in his “Life of Thucydides,” mentions Herodotus descriptively, and compares him on many points with his rival. Omitting many less direct allusions, the following may be mentioned. He commends the impartiality of Thucydides, who did not allow his personal wrongs to give any colouring to his narrative of facts—a degree of magnanimity uncommon, he says, among historians—“For even Herodotus, having been slighted by the Corinthians, affirms that they fled from the engagement at Salamis.” Describing the lofty style of Thucydides, he compares it with that of Herodotus, which, he says, “is neither lofty like that of the Attic historian, nor elegant like that of Xenophon.” On the ground of authenticity also, he compares the two historians, giving the advantage in this respect to the younger; while he charges the former with admitting marvellous tales, citing, as an example, the story of Arion and the dolphin: and, towards the close, he repeats the incident already mentioned, said to have taken place when Herodotus read his History in public.

Procopius, the historian of the reign of Justinian, wrote about the middle of the sixth century. He cites Herodotus in precise terms:—“Now Herodotus, the Halicarnassian, in the fourth book of his History, says, that the earth, though distributed into three portions—Africa, Asia, and Europe, is one; and that the Egyptian Nile flows between Africa and Asia.” (Gothic Wars, b. IV.)

Stobæus lived a century earlier than the last-named writer. In illustration of various ethical topics, he collects the sentiments of a multitude of authors, and amongst the number, of Herodotus. Short sentences from the historian are adduced in four or five places, and there is one of some length.

The Emperor Julian makes several allusions to our author:—thus, in his first oration in praise of Constantine, he says, “Cyrus was called the father, Cambyses the lord of his people.” In the exordium of his Epistle to the Athenian people, several distinct allusions to the history of the Persian invasion occur; and in the Misopogon the story of Solon and Crœsus, as related by Herodotus, is distinctly mentioned. In mentioning the principal Greek authors (Epist. XLII.), Herodotus is included. And in an epistle not now extant, but quoted by Suidas (Art. Herodotus), the apostate, as he is there called, cites the historian as “the Thurian writer of history.”

Hesychius, the Lexicographer, lived in the third century. He makes several quotations from our author—as thus:—“Agathoergoi—persons discharged from the cavalry of Sparta—five every year, as Herodotus relates.” “Basilees—judges; according to Herodotus, the avengers of wrong.” “Zeira—a zone, according to Herodotus.” “Canamis, Tiara—the bonnet of the Persians, according to Herodotus.” Zalmoxis—the account given of the Getæ, is quoted at length.

Athenæus, a critic of the second century, quotes our author in the following, among other instances: “Herodotus, in his first book, writes that the Persian kings drink no water except that which is brought from the Choaspian spring at Susa, which is carried for their use wherever they travel.” “Herodotus, comparing the Grecian entertainments with those of the Persians, relates that the latter pay a peculiar regard to their natal day.” “Herodotus, in his seventh book, says that those Greeks who entertained Xerxes on his way, were reduced to such distress, that many of them left their homes.” “Herodotus relates that Amasis, king of Egypt, was accustomed to jest very freely with his guests.”

Longinus, the celebrated secretary of Queen Zenobia, quotes our author several times in his treatise on the Sublime. “Was Herodotus alone an imitator of Homer?”—the address of Dionysius to the Phocæans is quoted, “Our affairs, Ionians! have reached a crisis—we must be free or slaves;” he quotes with high commendation a passage, in which our author describes the course of the Nile between Elephantine and Meroe. There is a quotation from the first book, also the story of Cleomenes in the fifth book is quoted:—“Cleomenes devoured his own flesh.”

Diogenes Laertius, author of the “Lives of the Philosophers,” brings the line of testimonies up to the time above mentioned: he makes the following references to our author. In his Preface, he refers to the assertions of Herodotus relative to the Mages, and to Xerxes, whom he affirms to have lanced darts at the sun, and to have thrown fetters into the sea. In the Life of Pythagoras, a passage is quoted relative to Zamolxis, who was worshipped by the Getæ.

It is obvious that if the testimonies which are next to be adduced are full and conclusive, they will, in point of argument, supersede those which have been already brought forward; for if it can be satisfactorily proved that the now-existing text of Herodotus was known more than two thousand years ago, it cannot be necessary to prove that it was extant at any intermediate period. Nevertheless the above-cited authorities do not merely serve the purpose of completing our chain of evidence, but they are important in proving that the work, far from having been lost sight of in any age, was always familiarly known to scholars. We may therefore feel assured that copies were to be found in most libraries—that the work was frequently transcribed; and that, as the existing manuscripts indicate, we are not dependent upon the accuracy of one or two copyists only, for the integrity of the text.

We have now to show that the history of Herodotus was in existence, and was known to a succession of writers from the age of the writer last mentioned, up to his own times—or about B.C. 440.

A period of six or seven hundred years, ending in the second century of the Christian era, includes the brightest times, both of Grecian and of the Roman literature. Evidence of the most conclusive kind on all questions of literary history may therefore be collected in abundance from the writers of those ages. Innumerable quotations from all the principal authors are found on the pages of almost every prose writer whose works have descended to modern times. The critics and historians, especially, furnish abundantly the evidence we are in search of. We begin this second series with—

Pausanias, who, in his historical description of Greece, has frequent occasion to cite the authority of Herodotus. Of these citations the following may be mentioned:—In a digression relating to the Ethiopians, he quotes from the second, and from the fourth book; “For the Nasamones, whom Herodotus considers as the same with the Atlantics, and who are said to know the measure of the earth, are called by the Libyans, dwelling in the extreme parts of Libya, near Mount Atlas—Loxi.” “Agreeably to this Herodotus tells us that in Scythia shipwrecked persons sacrificed bulls to a virgin, called by them Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon.” The story of Io is referred to: he quotes from Herodotus a prediction of the Delphic oracle; he authenticates a story told by our author; “these particulars as they are accurately related by Herodotus, it would be superfluous for me to repeat.” He refers to the orthography of a name: “and Herodotus in his History of Crœsus informs us that this Labotas was under the guardianship of Lycurgus, who gave laws to the Lacedæmonians; but he calls him Leobotas.” In this form, in fact, the name now stands in the Greek text:—minute correspondences of this kind vouch for the correct transmission of ancient books. He affirms that at Tænarus was to be seen “Arion the harper, sitting on a dolphin. And the particulars respecting Arion and the dolphin Herodotus relates, as what he himself heard, in his account of the Lydian affairs.” Book X. 32, “As to the name of the city, I know that Herodotus, in that part of his History in which he gives an account of the irruption of the Persians into Greece, differs from what is asserted in the oracles of Bacis.”

Lucian of Samosata devotes some pages to Herodotus, whose style he characterises and commends; and he relates particularly the mode adopted by the historian for making his work known to the Greeks, so that wherever he appeared all might say—That is Herodotus who wrote the history of the Persian war in the Ionian dialect, and who so gloriously chanted our victories.

Hermogenes, a rhetorician and the contemporary of Lucian, gives the following description of the historian’s style: “The diction of Herodotus is pure, easy, and perspicuous. Whenever he introduces fables he employs a poetic style. His thoughts are just, his language graceful and noble. No one excels him in the art of describing, after the manner of the poets, the manners and characters of his different personages. In many places he attains greatness of style, of which the conversation betwixt Xerxes and Artabanus is an example.”

Aulus Gellius, a miscellaneous writer, abounds with references to authors of every class. In his Attic Nights, Herodotus is frequently mentioned, as for example—he quotes at length the story of Arion. Again: “Yet Herodotus, the historian, affirms, contrary to the opinion of almost all, that the Bosphorus or Cimmerian Sea is liable to be frozen.” There is a verbal quotation from the third book, relative to the lioness, and another, of the fable of the Psyllians.

The evidence of Plutarch is sufficiently ample and conclusive to bear alone the whole burden of our argument. The writings of Plutarch, having in every age enjoyed the highest reputation, have descended to modern times, abundantly authenticated:—among them there is a small treatise (if it be genuine, which is very questionable) entitled “Of the Malignity of Herodotus.” The historian, in his account of the Persian invasion, affirms the conduct of the Bœotians on various occasions to have been traitorous and pusillanimous. Now Plutarch was a Bœotian, and he felt so keenly the infamy attached by Herodotus to his countrymen, that, with the hope of wiping out the stain, he endeavoured if possible, to destroy the reputation of our author, by advancing against him the heavy charge of a malignant falsification of facts throughout his history. To effect his object, he reviews the entire work, bringing to bear upon every assailable point the utmost efforts of his critical acuteness, and all the stores of his learning. The specific charges advanced against Herodotus in this treatise must, to a modern reader, appear for the most part, extremely frivolous. So far as they may seem to be more serious, they have been fully refuted by several critics. But our business, at present, with Plutarch’s treatise, is to derive from it a proof of the genuineness and general authenticity of the work which is the subject of our argument. In the first place, then, this treatise, by its many and exact references to all parts of the History, proves beyond a doubt that the Greek text, as now extant, is substantially the same as that read by Plutarch—or rather by this writer who assumes his name, at the time now in view. In the second place, Plutarch’s tacit acknowledgment of the work as the genuine production of Herodotus, may be taken as affording alone a sufficient proof of that fact;—for if it had been at all questionable—if any obscurity had rested upon its traditionary history, this writer, whose learning was extensive, could not have been ignorant of such grounds of doubt; nor would he have failed to take the short course of denying at once the authenticity of the book. The five hundred years which intervened between the times of Herodotus and of Plutarch, were ages of uninterrupted and widely-diffused intelligence and erudition;—much more so than the last five hundred years of European history: and Plutarch had more ample means of ascertaining the genuineness of the History attributed to Herodotus, than a critic of the present day possesses in judging of the genuineness of Froissart, or of Abulfeda. In the third place, this small treatise yields an implicit testimony in support of the general truth of the history itself; for in leaving untouched all the main parts of the story, and in fixing his criticisms upon minor facts, and upon the mere colouring given to the narrative, this critic virtually acknowledges that the principal facts are unquestionable. It may be affirmed that he has in fact, on the whole, rather established the authenticity of the History against which he levels his critical weapons, than succeeded in destroying its credit.

Josephus quotes and corrects Herodotus—in the Jewish Antiquities; and in his reply to Apion he mentions him descriptively more than once, as where he enumerates the Greek historians; a few pages further, he notices the remarkable fact that “neither Herodotus nor Thucydides nor any of their contemporaries make the slightest mention of the Romans.” Presently afterwards he quotes Manetho in opposition to Herodotus, in his account of Egyptian history: and some pages further, he makes an exact quotation from the second book.

Quintilian compares Herodotus with Thucydides: “Herodotus, sweet, bland, and copious.” “In Herodotus, as I think, there is always a gentle flow of language.” “Nor need Herodotus scorn to be conjoined with Livy.”

Strabo, the most learned, exact, and intelligent of the ancient geographers, very frequently cites our author, upon whose statements he makes some severe criticisms; yet without impugning the general authenticity of the History. Art. Halicarnassus. “Among the illustrious men born at this place is Herodotus, the historian, who is called the Thurian, because he joined himself to a colony at that place.” “It was not improperly said by Herodotus, that the whole of Egypt, at least the Delta, was a gift of the river.” Strabo refers to the account given of the voyage round Africa, attempted by the order of Darius. He refers to, and quotes the authority of Herodotus, who affirms that at Memphis in Egypt there was a temple of Neptune.

The last-named writer brings our series of testimonies up to the commencement of the Christian era. In passing up the stream of time, we meet next with—

Dionysius, the countryman of Herodotus, and author of the “Roman antiquities,” and of several critical treatises. In one of these, entitled “The Judgment of Ancient Writers,” and in another, addressed to Cn. Pompey, Dionysius gives a minute account of the style, method, and comparative merits of our author. In the book on composition, he makes a long and literal quotation from the first book. In giving the character of Thucydides, he thus speaks of Herodotus:—“Herodotus the Halicarnassian, who survived to the time of the Peloponnesian War, though born a little before the Persian War, raised the style of writing history: nor was it the history of one city or nation only that he composed; but included in his work the many and various affairs both of Europe and Asia. For beginning with the Lydian kingdom, he continues to the Persian War—relates whatever was performed by the Greeks and Barbarians during a period of 240 years—selecting whatever was most worthy of record, and connecting them in a single history; at the same time gracing his work with excellencies that had been neglected by his predecessors.” Several descriptive commendations of a similar kind might be adduced from the critical writings of this author.

Contemporary with Dionysius, though a few years his senior, was Diodorus the Sicilian. This learned and laborious historian passes over much of the same ground with Herodotus, to whom he makes several allusions. In discussing the question relative to the inundations of the Nile, he states and controverts the opinion advanced by Herodotus on that subject. Further on, he rejects as fabulous the accounts given by Herodotus and others of the remote history of Egypt, and professes to follow the public records of the Egyptian priests; yet he had before eulogised our author as a writer “without a rival, indefatigable in his researches, and extensively learned in history.” Diodorus states the various opinions of writers relative to the Median empire, and among these, Herodotus: “Now Herodotus, who lived in the time of Xerxes, affirms that the Assyrians had governed Asia during a period of 500 years before it was subjugated by the Medes.”

Our author was known to the Roman writers. Cornelius Nepos evidently follows him in some passages, though he professes to adhere chiefly to the authority of Theopompus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. Cicero bestows upon him high commendation in several places, declaring that “so far as his knowledge of the Greek language permitted him to enjoy it, the eloquence of the historian (whom he terms ‘the Father of History’) gave him the greatest delight:”—that his language “flows like an unobstructed river:”—and that “nothing can be more sweet than his style.”

Pliny the Elder refers to Herodotus frequently; as thus—“If we credit Herodotus, the sea once extended beyond Memphis, as far as the mountains of Ethiopia:” speaking of the inundation of the Nile, he quotes our author—“the river, as Herodotus relates, subsides within its banks on the hundredth day after its first rise.” Passing references occur in many places:—“Herodotus, more ancient and a better authority than Juba;” “Herodotus says that ebony formed part of the tribute rendered by the Ethiopians to the kings of Persia;” “this author composed (corrected) his History at Thurium in Italy, in the 310th year of Rome.”

Scymnus of Chios, of whose writings some fragments only remain, professes, in his Description of the Earth, to report what “Herodotus has recorded in his History.” This writer is believed to have flourished in the second century before the Christian era.

Aristotle cites Herodotus as an example of the antiquated, continuous style. “If the works of Herodotus were turned into verse, they would not by that means become a poem, but would remain a history.” In his History of Animals he charges our author with an error, in affirming that “at the siege of Ninus, an eagle was seen to drink;” but no such assertion is to be found in the works of the historian: probably a passage of some other writer was quoted by Aristotle from memory, and erroneously attributed to Herodotus; or possibly he quoted some work of this historian which has since perished. The ambiguous reply of the Pythian to Crœsus is quoted, though not explicitly from Herodotus.

Ctesias, an abstract of whose works is preserved by Photius, is very frequently quoted by ancient authors. He was a Greek physician, who accompanied the expedition led against Artaxerxes by his brother, the younger Cyrus. Though a few years younger, he was contemporary with Herodotus: his testimony therefore brings the series of evidences up to the very time of our author. Ctesias, having fallen into the hands of the Persians at the battle of Cunaxa, was detained at the court of Artaxerxes as physician, during seventeen years; and it seems that, with the hope of recommending himself to the favour of “the great king,” and of obtaining his own freedom, he undertook to compose a history of Persia, with the express and avowed design of impeaching the authority of Herodotus, whom, in no very courteous terms, he accuses of many falsifications. The jealousy and malice of a little mind are apparent in these accusations. Nothing can be much more inane than the fragments that are preserved of this author’s two works—his History of Persia, and his Indian History; yet, though possessing little intrinsic value, they serve an important purpose, in furnishing a very explicit evidence of the genuineness and general authenticity of the work which Ctesias laboured to depreciate. If the account given by Herodotus of Persian affairs had been altogether untrue, his rival wanted neither the will nor the means to expose the imposition. But while, like Plutarch, he cavils at minor points, he leaves the substance of the narrative uncontradicted.

Thucydides, the contemporary and rival of Herodotus, whose writings are said to have kindled in his young mind the passion for literary distinction, makes only an indistinct allusion to the History; yet this allusion is such as can hardly be misunderstood. Book I. 22, in explaining the principles by which he proposed to be guided in writing his History, he glances sarcastically at certain writers, who, in narrating events that had taken place in remote times, mix fables with truth, and who seem to have aimed rather to amuse than to instruct their readers. He then immediately mentions the Median war, which forms the principal subject of his rival’s work, and of which that work was the well-known record. But if this allusion may not be admitted in evidence, our chain of proof is complete without it.

Citations or allusions similar to these might be brought forward almost without number; but every purpose, both of illustration and of argument—if argument were needed, is accomplished as well by a few as by many. From the entire mass of testimonies, if we were to select, for example, those of Photius, of Dionysius, and of Diodorus, we have proof enough of the genuineness and integrity of the work; for the existence of these testimonies could not be accounted for on a contrary supposition, in any reasonable manner. And when we find the work reflected, as it were, more or less distinctly, from almost the entire surface of ancient literature, no room is left for doubt. The writers of every age, from the time of the author, speak of the work as being well known in their times:—none of them quote it in any such terms as these, “an ancient history, said to have been written by Herodotus:”—or, “a history which most persons believe to be genuine;” for they all refer to it as a book that was in every one’s hands. If, therefore, the History had been produced in any age subsequent to that of Herodotus, the author of any such spurious work must have had under his control, for the purpose of interpolation, not only a copy of every considerable work that was extant in his time, but every copy of every such work:—he must in fact have new created the entire mass of books existing in the eastern and western world at the time; and he must have destroyed all but his own interpolated copies; otherwise, some copies of some of these works would have reached us in which these interpolated quotations from Herodotus were wanting. Although such suppositions are extravagant, yet let us attempt to realise one or two of them.

We may imagine then that this History, pretending to be an ancient work, was actually produced in the ninth century, by some learned monk of Constantinople. On this supposition, we must believe that the copyists of that time, in all parts of the Greek empire, having been gained over by the forger to favour the fraud, issued new and ingeniously interpolated copies of the following authors:—namely, Procopius, Stephen, Stobæus, Marcellinus, Julian, Hesychius, Athenæus, Longinus, Laertius, Lucian, Hermogenes, Pausanias, Aulus Gellius, Plutarch, Josephus, Strabo, Dionysius, Diodorus, Aristotle, Ctesias, and many others that are not cited above. Then to this list must be added many works that were extant in the ninth century, but since lost. All the previously existing copies of these authors must have been gathered in, and destroyed; but even this would not be enough; for the Byzantine writers must have had the concurrence of the Latin copyists, throughout the monasteries of western Europe; otherwise, the works of Cicero, and of Quintilian, and of Pliny, would not have contained those references to the History which we actually find in them. Now to effect all this, or a twentieth part of it, was as impracticable in the middle ages, as it would be for us to alter the spots in the moon—for the things to be altered were absolutely out of the reach of those whom we suppose to have made the attempt.

But as to these supposed interpolations, it was not formal sentences, or distinct paragraphs—wedged in where they seem to have little fitness, but citations or allusions of an incidental kind, proper to the connexion in which they occur, and perfectly congruous with the text.

Let it next be supposed that the genuine History of Herodotus—referred to as we have seen by earlier writers, had perished, or was supposed to have perished, about the seventh century; and that some writer of the ninth century composed a work which should pass in the world for the genuine History. Now, to effect this, he must have had in his memory, as he went along, the entire body of ancient literature, both Greek and Roman; or otherwise he could not have worked up all the references and quotations of earlier authors, so as to make them tally, as we find they do, with his spurious production: and if any of these authors were unknown to him, or forgotten, then we should find discrepant quotations that could not be verified. Moreover, as the genuine work was certainly in existence and widely diffused in the sixth century, no writer wishing to make such an attempt could think himself secure against the existence of some copies of the genuine work, which, if brought to light, would at once expose his own to contempt.

Or if a forgery had been attempted at a time nearer to that of the alleged author, then, in proportion as we recede from difficulties of one kind, we run upon those of another kind. For if, to avoid the absurdity of supposing that a huge mass of books, scattered through many and distant countries, were at once called in, and re-issued with the requisite interpolations, we imagine that the work was forged at an earlier time, when fewer testimonies needed to have been foisted into existing books; then we come to a period when learning was at its height—at Alexandria—throughout Greece, and its colonies—when every fact connected with the history of books was familiarly known; when many large libraries existed—when, therefore, no standard work could disappear, or could be supplanted by a spurious one; much less could a work which had never before been heard of, create to itself the credit of a book long and familiarly known: how could the learned in the east and the west be persuaded that a work, newly produced, had been in their libraries for a hundred years? Though the knowledge of books is more widely diffused in modern, than it was in ancient times, yet among those who addict themselves to literature, there is not now more of erudition, of intelligence, of discrimination, than were displayed in the three or four centuries of which the Augustan age formed the centre. To issue a voluminous history, and to persuade the world that it had been known during the last two hundred years, is an attempt not more impracticable in the present day, than it would have been in the times of Dionysius, of Cicero, of Quintilian, or of Plutarch.

If we carry our supposition still higher, that is to say, till we get free from all the difficulties above-mentioned, then we gain nothing. The fact principally important as an historical question is granted, namely, that the History was actually extant at, or very near the time, commonly supposed; and then the only point in dispute is the bare name of the author, which, so far as the truth of the history is involved, is a question of inferior consequence. Yet let us pursue this doubt a step further;—If Herodotus, the Halicarnassian, were a real person, known in his time as a writer, then some self-denying forger made over to this Herodotus all the glory of being the author of so admirable a work; and this Herodotus accepted the generous fraud, and acted his part to give it credit. But if the name and designation be altogether fictitious—the real author concealing himself; then how happened it that the Greeks of that age should speak of Herodotus as of a real person whom they had known, honoured and rewarded? In preference to any such impracticable hypothesis, who would not rather accept as true the affirmation which the work bears upon its front?

But now we take up another supposition. After tracing as we have done, the history of the work in question, up through a continued series of quotations, in the Greek and Latin writers, and obtaining by that means a conclusive proof of its antiquity, we may imagine that there is in existence a Persian translation of the History of Herodotus, which, by the peculiarities of its style, as well as by external evidence, is ascertained to have been executed in the time of Artaxerxes. Another translation of the same work is then brought forward in the language of ancient Carthage, which, except in this (supposed) translation, has been long extinct. And there is another in the Coptic, or ancient language of Egypt; and another in the Latin, of the time of Plautus and Terence. If these several translations had each descended to modern times, through some independent channel, and if each possessed a separate mass of evidence in proof of its antiquity; and if, when collated among themselves, and with the Greek original, they were found to harmonize, except in those variations which must always belong to a translation; then, and in such a case, we should possess an instance of that sort of redundant demonstration which in fact does belong in full to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; but to no other writings whatever.

Let it now be granted as possible that a writer of a later age, who was a perfect master of the Greek language, who possessed an endless fund of various learning, and who was gifted in a high degree with the imitative faculty, might produce nine books like those of Herodotus, which, supposing there were no external evidence to contradict the fraud, might pass as genuine. To affirm that a forgery such as this is possible, is to allow the utmost that our knowledge of the powers of the human mind will permit to be granted; and much more than the history of literary forgeries will warrant us to suppose: for all the attempts of that sort that have been detected, either abound with manifest incongruities; or if executed by men of learning and ability, they have been formed upon a small scale, and have excluded, as far as possible, all exact references to particular facts.

But the work before us is of great extent; its allusions to particular facts are innumerable, precise, and incautious; its style and dialect are proper to the age to which it pretends:—in a word, it is in every respect what a genuine production of that age ought to be. If then it were to be judged of, on the ground of internal evidence alone, no scholar could for a moment hesitate to decide in favour of its genuineness. The reader will recollect that the supposition of a forgery in a later age is excluded by the evidence already adduced in this chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.
METHOD OF ARGUING FROM THE GENUINENESS, TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS.

That the Greek text of Herodotus, such as it now appears—small verbal variations only excepted, was extant and well known in Greece, at least as early as the commencement of the Peloponnesian war (B.C. 431), is the conclusion that is warranted by the evidence already adduced. It now remains to inquire how far this proof of the antiquity and genuineness of the work carries with it a proof of the general truth of the History.

In a civilized community, where a free expression of opinion is allowed, and where opposing interests actually exist, a writer, who professes to compile an authentic account of transactions that are still fresh in the recollection of the people, can move only within certain limits, even if he might wish to misrepresent facts.—Circumstances, known only to a few, may be falsified—motives may be maligned—actions may be exaggerated—wrongs and sufferings may be coloured by rhetorical declamation—fair characters may be defamed, and foul ones eulogised:—these are nearly the boundaries of falsification. But if personages altogether fictitious are made the heroes of the story—if invasions, battles, sieges, conspiracies, are described which never happened—if, in a word, the entire narrative is a fiction, then it ranks in a different class of productions, nor could it ever gain credit as an authentic account of real and recent events. The same evidence, therefore, which establishes the existence of an historical work at a time near to that of the events it records, establishes also the general authenticity of the narrative;—for the work is not only mentioned by contemporary writers, but it is mentioned as a history. This character granted to the book by the author’s contemporaries contains, by condensation, the suffrages of the whole community. In substance, we hear the people of Greece assenting to the historian in relation to those principal portions of his narrative, at least, of which they were qualified to form an opinion, and relative to which no writer would attempt to deceive them.

Equity demands that we treat an historian conformably with his own professions. When he narrates events as well known to his contemporaries as to himself, he is not to be considered as sustaining any other responsibility than that of telling his story well:—in such instances we may ask for proof of his impartiality, or of the soundness of his judgment, but not of his veracity, which is not taxed. But when he relates incidents of a private or remote kind;—when he makes a demand upon the confidence of his contemporaries by affirming things in relation to which they could not generally detect his misstatements if he erred;—then, and in such cases, we may fairly search for evidence bearing upon the historian’s character, and circumstances, and his means of information. This is an important distinction, never to be lost sight of in reading history;—and the inference it contains is this—that a history of public transactions, published while many of the actors were still living, and while the events were familiarly remembered by a large number of persons, and which was commonly received as authentic, must be accepted, as to its principal facts, as true, even though there should be reason to suspect the impartiality, the veracity, or the judgment of the writer; but if in these respects, he is entitled to a common degree of confidence, then nothing more than a few errors of inadvertency can, with any fairness, be deducted from the narrative.

Every historical work, therefore, needs to be analyzed, and to have its several portions separately estimated.—Whatever is remote or particular will claim our credence according to the opinion we may form of the historian’s veracity, accuracy, judgment, and his means of information; but the truth of narratives relating to events that were matters of notoriety in the writer’s time, rests altogether upon a different ground; being necessarily involved in the fact that the work was published and accepted as authentic at such or such a date. The strength of this inference will best appear by examining a particular instance.

In adherence to the distinction above mentioned, we must detach from the History of Herodotus the following portions (not as if they were proved to be false, or even improbable; but simply because the truth of them cannot be directly inferred from the fact of the genuineness of the work). First—Geographical and antiquarian descriptions of countries remote from Greece: Secondly—The early history of such countries, and indeed the early history of Greece itself: Thirdly—Events or conferences said to have taken place at the Persian court during the war with Greece; and lastly, many single incidents, reported to have happened among the Greeks, but which rest upon suspicious or insufficient evidence. After making deductions of this sort, there will remain—all those principal events of the Persian invasion which were as well known to thousands of the author’s countrymen and contemporaries as to himself; and in describing which his responsibility is that of an author only, who is required to digest his materials in the best manner he can—not that of a witness, called to give evidence upon a matter of doubt.

The leading events which we may accept as vouched for by the antiquity and genuineness of the work are these—The invasion of Greece by a large Asiatic army, about five-and-forty years before the publication of the History:—the defeat of that army by the Athenians and Platæans on the plains of Marathon:—a second invasion of Greece ten years afterwards, by an immense host, gathered from many nations:—the desertion of their city by the Athenians:—an ineffectual contest with the invaders at the pass of Thermopylæ:—the occupation of Athens by the Persians:—the defeat of the invading fleet at Salamis:—the retreat of the Persians, and their second advance in the following year, when the destruction of Athens was completed; and—the final overthrow of the Asiatic army at Platæa and Mycale. That these events actually took place—assuming the History to be genuine—will appear if the circumstances of the case are examined.

At the time when, as it has been proved, the History of Herodotus was generally known and received as authentic, the several states of Greece were marshalled under the rival interests of Athens and Sparta; and an intestine war, carried on with the utmost animosity, raged by turns in all parts of this narrow territory. Such a period, therefore, was not the time when flagrant misrepresentations of recent facts, tending to flatter the vanity of one of these rival states, at the expense of the honour of others, could be endured, or could gain any credit. The Athenians gloried, beyond all bounds of modesty, in having, with the assistance of the Platæans only, repelled the Median invasion on the plains of Marathon. But would this boast have been allowed—would the account of the battle given by Herodotus have been suffered to pass without contradiction by the other states, if no such invasion had actually taken place, or if it had been much less formidable than is represented by the historian; or if the other states had in fact been present on the field? Our author affirms that the Lacedæmonians, though fully informed of the danger which threatened the independence of Greece, persisted in a scrupulous adherence to their custom of not setting out upon a military expedition till after the full moon. In the meantime the battle took place, and a body of two thousand Lacedæmonians, afterwards despatched from Sparta, reached the field of battle only time enough to gratify their curiosity by a sight of the slaughtered Medes. This absence of their allies was ever afterwards made matter of arrogant exultation by the Athenians; and the historian, in giving his support to their boast, dared the contradiction of one half of the people of Greece.

The second invasion of Greece, conducted by the Persian monarch in person, took place ten years after the defeat of the first at Marathon; or about five and thirty years before the publication of the History: many individuals, therefore, were then living who took part in the several battles and engagements; and every remarkable event of the war was then as well known and remembered in Greece as are the circumstances of the French Revolution by the people of Europe at the present time (1828).

Our immediate purpose does not demand that we should examine the credibility of the description given by Herodotus of the Asiatic army; for even if it were proved that the numbers stated by him are exaggerated, the principal facts would not be brought into doubt; nor would even the credit due to the historian be much impeached; for in all these particulars he is careful, again and again, to remind the reader that he brings forward the best accounts he could collect—not vouching for their absolute accuracy. That he did avail himself of authentic documents in compiling this description is rendered evident by the graphic truth and propriety of all the particulars. Indeed the picture of the Persian army, and of its discipline and movements, is strikingly accordant with the known modes of Asiatic warfare. The army of Xerxes consisted of a small body of brave and well-disciplined troops—Medes, Persians, and Saces, which, if it had been ably commanded, and unencumbered, might very probably have succeeded in their enterprise; but being impeded and embarrassed by the presence of a vast and disorderly mob of half-savage or dissolute attendants, they were, at every step, surrounded by a wide-spreading desolation—more fatal than the enemy, which rendered the advance of the army in the highest degree difficult, and its retreat desperate. To all this, parallel instances may be adduced from almost every page of Asiatic history.

When speaking of the twenty Satrapies of Darius, Major Rennell, in his Essay on the Geography of Herodotus, avails himself of the information contained in our author’s description of the army of Xerxes, to which he attributes a high degree of authority. Now it is evident that, unless Herodotus had possessed authentic and accurate documents, it would have been impossible for him to have given the consistency of truth to two distinct accounts of nations and of people, so various and so remote from Greece. “Although,” says this writer, “there are some errors in the description, as there must necessarily be where the subject is so very extensive, yet it is on the whole so remarkably consistent, that one is surprised how the Greeks found means to acquire so much knowledge respecting so distant a part. It is possible that we have been in the habit of doing them an injustice, by allowing them a less degree of knowledge of the geography of Asia, down to the expedition of Alexander, than they really possessed; that is, we have, in some instances, ascribed to Alexander, certain geographical discoveries which perhaps were made long anterior to his expedition.... We shall close the account of the Satrapies, and our remarks on the armament of Xerxes, with some additional ones on the general truth of the statement of the latter, and on the final object of the expedition. Brief as the descriptions in the text are, they contain a great variety of information, and furnish a number of proofs of the general truth of our author’s history; for the descriptions of the dress and weapons of several of the remote nations, engaged in the expedition of Xerxes, agree with what appears amongst them at this day; which is a strong confirmation of it; notwithstanding that some attempts have been made to ridicule it by different writers. Herodotus had conversed with those who had seen the dress and weapons of these tribes during the invasion; and therefore we cannot doubt that the Indians clothed in cotton, and with bows made of reeds (i. e. bamboos), were amongst them: of course, that the great king had summoned his vassals and allies, generally, to this European war; a war intended, not merely against Greece, but against Europe in general, as appears by the speeches of Xerxes, and other circumstances.... The evident cause of the assemblage of so many nations was that the Europeans (as at the present day) were deemed so far superior to Asiatics as to require a vastly greater number of the latter to oppose them. This is no less apparent in the history of the wars of Alexander, and of the wars made by Europeans in the East in modern times. However, we do not by any means believe in the numbers described by the Greek historians; because we cannot comprehend, from what is seen and known, how such a multitude could be provided with food, and their beasts with forage. But that the army of Xerxes was great beyond all example, may be readily believed, because it was collected from a vastly extended empire, every part of which, as well as its allies, furnished a proportion; and if the aggregate had amounted to a moderate number only, it would have been nugatory to levy that number throughout the whole empire; and to collect troops from India and Ethiopia to attack Greece, when the whole number required might be collected in Lower Asia.”

It seems impracticable, from the existing evidence, to ascertain how great a deduction ought to be made from the calculations of Herodotus, as to the numbers of the invading army; but it is easy to believe that his authorities, which unquestionably were authentic in what relates to the description of the forces, might lead him astray, without any fault on his part. Or probably, as the numbers exceeded the facilities of common computation, some conjectural mode of calculation was adopted by the contemporary Greeks, which might easily exceed the truth.—For example, the length of time occupied by the barbarian train in passing certain defiles:—or the very fallacious mode of reckoning employed by the Persians was perhaps followed:—this, as Herodotus describes it, consisted in counting ten thousand men, who were packed in a circle as closely as possible, and a fence formed round them: they were then removed, and the entire army, in turns, was made to pass within the inclosure: the whole was thus counted into ten thousands. But how probable is it, that, by the inattention of the persons who conducted this process, the successive packages were less and less dense.—Seven thousand men might easily seem to fill the space in which ten had been at first crammed. Nor is it at all safe to argue à priori on the supposition that so many could not have been supported on the march. The power which drew a large levy of men from twenty-nine nations, might also drain those nations of their grain. A vast fleet of flat-bottomed barges attended the army along the coast; and as soon as this fleet was separated from it, all the extremities of famine were suffered by the retreating host. This armament is not fairly compared with those which, in later times, have traversed the continent of Asia; for in these instances the aid of an attendant fleet was not available. Without this aid the distant movement of five hundred thousand men is scarcely practicable; with it, three or four times that number might with little difficulty be led a distance of three or six months’ march. This important difference has not been duly regarded by those who have discussed the question. If then such a deduction from the army of Xerxes is made as may readily be accounted for from the inaccurate mode of computation employed by the Persians or the Greeks; and if the attendance of so large a fleet of store ships is considered, we may well hold Herodotus excused from the charge, either of deliberate falsification, or of intended exaggeration.

If it were alleged that Herodotus discovers an inclination on every occasion to place the conduct of the Athenians in the most advantageous light, it may be replied that, if such a disposition is charged upon him, then his substantial impartiality, and the authenticity of the narrative are convincingly proved, by his allowing to the Spartans the undivided and enviable glory of having first encountered the invaders at the pass of Thermopylæ. In relating this memorable action he affirms that all the allies under the command of Leonidas, excepting only a small body of Thebans and of Thespians, retired from the pass as soon as it was known that they were circumvented by the Barbarians; and he plainly attributes this desertion to the prevalence of unsoldier-like fears. This statement therefore—like many others in the History—challenged contradiction from the parties implicated in the dishonour.

In recounting the naval engagements which took place in the Eubœan straits, the historian contents himself with affirming that, after a doubtful contest, each fleet retired to its station; and he attributes the final success of the Greeks, not so much to their valour and skill, as to a divine interposition, which, by a violent storm, so far diminished the Persian fleet that the two armaments were reduced to an equality.

The ill success of the Greeks in attempting to oppose the advance of the Barbarians at Thermopylæ, and the losses they had sustained in several naval engagements, having reduced them almost to despair, the Athenians, thinking it impracticable to defend Attica, abandoned their city, and took refuge on board their ships, and in the neighbouring islands. The invader therefore was allowed, without opposition, to execute his threat—that he would retaliate upon the Athenians the burning of Sardis. Here then we arrive at a definite fact, which may be considered as forming the central point of the History. If this fact be established, most of the subordinate incidents must be admitted to have taken place, as they were nothing more than either the proper causes, or the effects, of this main event.

Within so short a period as five and thirty, or forty years, it could not be a matter of doubt or controversy among the Athenians, or indeed with any of the people of Greece, whether Athens had been occupied by a foreign army—its halls and temples overthrown or burned—its sacred groves cut down, and its surrounding gardens and fields devastated. But while several thousand citizens were still living, who had attained an adult age at the time of the alleged invasion, and while the structures of the new city were in their first freshness, or were scarcely completed; and while, if it had actually taken place, the marks of this destruction must have been everywhere apparent, a history is published, and is universally applauded, in which this invasion of Attica, and this destruction of Athens are particularly described. Can then this fact be reconciled with the supposition that no such events had really taken place—that these arrogant citizens had never been driven from their homes? Can we believe that, for the sake of assuming to themselves the glory of having repelled such an invasion, the entire people of Athens would have given their assent to a fictitious narrative, which every one of them must have known had no foundation in truth? or, if such an infatuation had prevailed at Athens, would their neighbours—the Corinthians, and the Bœotians, have left such a falsehood uncontradicted?

It is evident that, unless a powerful invasion of Greece had taken place, Athens—the principal city of Greece, could not have been occupied and destroyed; and unless that invasion had been speedily repulsed, Athens could not have regained that wealth, and power, and liberty which, on other evidence, it is known to have possessed in the first years of the Peloponnesian war. Here then, if the truth of the History of Herodotus were to be argued, the question must come to its issue. If it were denied that such an invasion of Greece happened at the time affirmed by our author, then the fact of the general diffusion, and the high credit, of the History of Herodotus, throughout Greece, must be shown to consist with that denial. On the other hand, an apologist for Herodotus, having established the antiquity and genuineness of the work, must not be required, either to defend the veracity of the historian, or to adduce corroborative evidence in proof of the fact, until the difficulty which rests upon the contrary hypothesis has been disposed of.

The account given by Herodotus of the subsequent events of the Persian war—that is to say—the defeat of the Asiatic fleet at Salamis—the retreat of Xerxes—the second occupation of Athens in the following spring by the Persians under the command of Mardonius; and the final discomfiture and destruction of the Barbarian army at Platæa and at Mycale, follow of course, as substantially true, if the preceding facts are established. It must however be observed that a peculiar character of authenticity belongs to this latter portion of the History: for though the issue of the war was indeed highly gratifying to the vanity of the Greeks, one would almost think that the historian wished, as far as possible, to check their exultation, or to balance the vaunts of each of the states by some circumstances of dishonour. For instance—no veil is drawn over those almost fatal contentions for precedency by which the counsels of the confederates were distracted; nor are the treasons and the interested conduct of the chiefs concealed or excused. The pusillanimity of some, and the fears of all are confessed: indeed so much of infamy or of discredit is thrown by Herodotus upon individuals, and upon the whole community, that his boldness in publishing such statements, and the candour of the Greeks in admitting them, are alike worthy of admiration. Nor can we believe otherwise than that a full conviction of the substantial truth of these statements at once inspired the writer with this courage, and compelled his hearers to exercise this forbearance. It cannot seem surprising that, in later times, some writers, jealous for the honour of Greece at large, or of some particular state, should attempt to remove these blots, by impugning the credit of the historian. Yet even in making this attempt, they venture no further than to call in question his account of a few particular transactions, or to dispute those portions of the work which relate to remote times, and distant nations.

We have seen that the history of the Persian invasion, as given by Herodotus, is, in its main circumstances, established by the mere fact that the work was known, and had been accepted as authentic, within forty years of the events it records, This then is not an instance in which the veracity of the historian needs to be vindicated, or in which our faith in his veracity must be dependent upon other evidence. Yet it is natural to look around for such other evidence as may be found to bear upon the history. We have a good right to suppose that events of such magnitude as those which Herodotus relates, would be mentioned, more or less explicitly, by other writers of the same age—whether philosophers, poets, orators, or historians. And this in fact is the case in the instance before us; for almost every writer—contemporary with Herodotus—whose works are extant, makes allusions of a direct or indirect kind to the Persian invasion. Some of the authors already adduced in proof of the antiquity and genuineness of the history, must now be recalled to give evidence as to the matter of fact.

Pindar, the prince of lyric poets, is reported to have died at the age of eighty, and was born about B. C. 521, and was in mid-life at the time of the Persian invasion. The odes now extant were recited in Greece before the history of Herodotus was composed. The subject of these compositions are the praises of the victors at the Olympic, the Isthmian, the Pythian, and the Nemean games; and in extolling his heroes, the poet finds occasion to refer to the glories of the cities to which they belonged: they contain therefore many allusions to the events of Grecian history; and as these odes were recited at all the great festivals, the allusions were such as the mass of the people could not fail to understand. This sort of incidental and brief notice of public events, intended to kindle the enthusiasm of the audience, must of course rest upon the knowledge, or the convictions of those to whom they were addressed. In the first of the Pythian odes, a rapid sketch is given of the principal events of the Persian war.—Such defeat as they suffered by the Syracusan prince, who, manning the swift ships, with the youth, delivered Greece from heavy servitude.—I would choose the praise won by the Athenians at Salamis:—or I would tell at Sparta the fight near Mount Cithæron, in which the Medes with their curved bows (ἀγκυλότοξοι) were oppressed.—The Median bow as seen in the bas-reliefs of Persepolis, is very properly described by this epithet—it is very long, and much curved, even in its extended state.

These allusions may be explained by referring to those places in Herodotus, where it is related, that, while Xerxes was advancing towards Greece, the Athenians and Lacedæmonians sent an embassy to Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, to ask his aid against the Barbarian: this he refused to grant, except upon conditions with which the Greeks could not comply. Yet he fitted out a fleet, and engaged and defeated the Carthagenians, commanded by Amilcar, who had been incited by the Persians to join in the war upon the Greeks: by this victory Greece was delivered from the danger of an attack which must have proved fatal to its liberties; for if the Carthagenian fleet had arrived in the Archipelago, and had joined the Persians, the Greeks could hardly have withstood so vast a combination. The next allusion is to the engagement at Salamis, in which the Athenians, as Herodotus affirms, took the principal part: and the last, is to the final defeat of the Barbarians near Platæa, at the foot of Mount Cithæron. In this battle the Spartans were the most distinguished. In the fifth Isthmian ode, another allusion to Salamis occurs—where men innumerable met their death, as by a hail-storm of destruction.

Æschylus, the father of tragedy among the Greeks, had reached manhood at the time of the first invasion of Greece, and took part in the battle of Marathon: he was present also in the engagement at Salamis, and again at the battle of Platæa. Seven only of his seventy tragedies have descended to modern times:—one of these is entitled “The Persians.” The scene is laid at Susa in Persia, and the time supposed is during the absence of Xerxes in Greece. The play is opened by a chorus of elders, who discourse anxiously concerning the fate of the expedition;—All Asia is exhausted of men:—wives count the days, and mourn the long absence of their warrior-consorts—Atossa the queen enters dejected, and recounts a portentous dream:—a messenger then arrives from Greece: he reports the defeat of the Persian fleet, and the retreat of Xerxes:—in relating the particulars, he glances at the circumstances which preceded the engagement at Salamis, as mentioned by Herodotus—That a messenger (sent by Themistocles) informed Xerxes that the Greeks were about to disperse; to prevent which he imprudently surrounded them:—an engagement ensued, of which Xerxes was a spectator from a neighbouring hill:—the Persians are defeated;—those who occupied the island (of Psyttalea) were all slain. The army, in its retreat, suffers the extremity of cold, hunger, and thirst. On hearing this, the queen invokes the shade of Darius, which appears.—Atossa repeats the story of his son’s defeat:—The shade predicts the fatal battle of Platæa, and the destruction of the army. In the closing scene, Xerxes himself arrives, bewailing his misfortunes, and bringing back nothing but an empty quiver. The only material point in which Æschylus differs from Herodotus, is in reckoning the Greek fleet at three hundred, instead of seven hundred sail:—this is evidently a poetic deviation from fact, intended to enhance the glory of the victory.

Of all the Greek historians, none bears so high a character for authenticity and for exactness in matters of fact as Thucydides: his impartiality, his laborious collection, and his judicious selection of materials, and his rejection of whatever seemed to rest on suspicious evidence, are apparent on almost every page of the history of the Peloponnesian war. This history was published about sixty years after the expedition of Xerxes. Thucydides had conversed with many of those who had taken part in the battles described by Herodotus. Many allusions to the events of the Persian invasion occur in the course of the work, and they are all of that kind which is natural, when an historian refers to facts which he supposes to be fresh in the recollection of his readers. The introductory sections of the history contain an outline of Grecian affairs, from the earliest times to the commencement of the war between Athens and Sparta. In this preliminary sketch, the leading circumstances of the invasion, as related by Herodotus, are mentioned; such as—the war and conquests of Cyrus and Cambyses—the subjugation of the Greeks of Asia Minor—the naval power of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos—the Median war, the reigns of Darius and of Xerxes, and the conduct of Themistocles.—The expulsion of the Pisistratidæ from Greece, the battle between the Medes and the Greeks at Marathon, and, ten years afterwards, the second invasion of Greece by the Barbarians—the desertion of their city by the Athenians, and their taking refuge on board their ships.—Not many years after the expulsion of the tyrants from Greece, happened the battle between the Medes and the Athenians at Marathon; and ten years after that battle, the Barbarians arrived with a great armament, intended to reduce the Greeks to bondage. In this imminent danger, the Lacedæmonians, who were more powerful than the other states, took the command in the war. The Athenians, as the Medes advanced, having resolved to abandon their city, collected all their goods, and went on board their ships, and from that time became a maritime people. After, by their united efforts, the Greeks had repulsed the Barbarians, the several states, as well those which fell away from the king, as those which had fought with the Greeks, took part, some with the Athenians, and some with the Lacedæmonians.—Again, Thucydides refers to—the late Median war—which, he says, was quickly terminated in two battles and two naval engagements. The battle of Marathon, and the burial of the slain upon the field, are afterwards mentioned; and in a funeral oration pronounced by Pericles (whether really so or not is of no consequence to the argument) the exploits of the Athenians in repelling the Barbarians are spoken of as being too well known to need to be particularized; and again, the conflict at Thermopylæ is mentioned;—the battle of Platæa, and the engagement at Artemisium. The defeat of the Medes, the devastation of Athens, and its restoration are narrated. The distance of time, namely, fifty years, between the defeat of Xerxes, and the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, is mentioned.—All these actions which took place either among the Greeks, or between them and the Barbarians, were included within a period of nearly fifty years, reckoning from the retreat of Xerxes, to the commencement of the present war.

These, and some other allusions to the events of the Persian invasion, coinciding as they do with the more ample narrative given by Herodotus, and coming from an historian who made it his boast that he admitted nothing into his work which was not supported by satisfactory evidence, and who, moreover, was disposed rather to detract from the credit of his rival, than to confirm it, must be held to furnish the most conclusive kind of independent testimony. Indeed, the express affirmation of Thucydides that Athens was destroyed by the Persians, affords alone a sufficient proof of the fact; for no such affirmation as this could either have been made, or tolerated, within sixty years after the event, unless it were universally known to be true.

Lysias the orator, at the early age of fifteen years, it is said, accompanied Herodotus and other Athenians to Thurium: after a long residence in Italy, he returned to Athens, where he distinguished himself by his eloquence. In a funeral oration, pronounced in honour of the Athenians who fell in the Corinthian war, he speaks of the Persian war.—The king of Asia, unsatisfied with his present greatness, and actuated by a boundless ambition, prepared an army of 500,000 men, hoping by this mighty force to reduce Europe under his subjection.... With such rapidity was the victory (at Marathon) accomplished, that the other states of Greece learned by the same messenger the invasion of the Persians, and their defeat; and without the terror of danger, felt the pleasure of deliverance. It is not surprising, then, that such actions, though ancient (about eighty years) should still retain the full verdure of glory, and remain to succeeding ages the examples and the envy of mankind.... Many causes conspired to engage Xerxes, king of Asia, to undertake a second expedition against Europe.... After ten years preparation, he landed in Europe, with a fleet of 1200 sail, and such a number of land forces, that it would be tedious to recount even the names of those various nations by whom he was attended.... He made a journey over land, by joining the Hellespont, and a voyage by sea, by dividing Mount Athos. The orator then briefly mentions the engagements at Artemisium and Thermopylæ, the abandonment of Athens, and the removal of the citizens to Salamis:—their city was deserted, their temples burnt or demolished, their country laid waste.

Isocrates flourished a few years later than Lysias, yet he was contemporary with Herodotus. One of his orations, pronounced in praise of the Athenians, contains passages to the same effect. They first (the Athenians) signalized their courage against the troops of Darius (at Marathon).... The Persians, a short time after renewed their attempts, and Xerxes himself, forsaking his palace and his pleasures, ventured to become a general. At the head of all Asia he formed the most towering designs. For who, though inclined to exaggeration, can come up to the reality? The conquest of Greece appeared to him an object below his ambition.—Designing to effect something beyond human power, he projected that enterprise, so celebrated, of making his army sail through the land, and march over the sea; and he carried this idea into execution by piercing Mount Athos, and by throwing a bridge over the Hellespont. Against a monarch so proud and enterprising, who had executed such vast designs, and who commanded so many armies, the Lacedæmonians, dividing the danger with Athens, drew themselves up at Thermopylæ. With a thousand of their own troops, and a small body of their allies, they determined in that narrow pass to resist the progress of all his land forces. While our ancestors (the Athenians of the last generation) sailed with sixty galleys to Artemisium, and expected the whole fleet of the Barbarians.... The Lacedæmonians perished to a man; but the Athenians conquered the fleet they had undertaken to oppose. Their allies were dispirited. The Peloponnesians, occupied for their own safety, had begun to fortify the Isthmus.... The enemy approached Attica with a fleet of twelve hundred sail, and with land forces innumerable.... The Athenians assembled all the inhabitants of their city, and transported them into the neighbouring island.—And where shall we find more generous lovers of Greece than those who in its defence abandoned their abodes, suffered their city to be ravaged, their altars to be violated, their temples to be burned to the ground, and all the terrors of war to rage in their native country?... Athens, even in her misfortunes, furnished more ships for the sea-fight off Salamis, which was to decide the fate of Greece, than all the other states together; and there is no one, I believe, so unjust as to deny, that by our victory in that engagement the war was terminated, and the danger removed.

Ctesias, as we have seen, affords a testimony conclusive in favour of the antiquity of the history attributed to Herodotus. We have now to adduce his evidence on the subject of the Persian invasion—reminding the reader that his history of Persia was composed with the avowed design of invalidating the account given by Herodotus of Persian affairs: he thus speaks of the expedition of Xerxes:—Xerxes, having collected a Persian army, consisting, besides the chariots of war, of eight hundred thousand men, and a thousand galleys, led them into Greece by a bridge which he had caused to be constructed at Abydos. It was then that he was accosted by Demaratus the Lacedæmonian, who passed with him into Europe, and who endeavoured to dissuade the king from attacking the Lacedæmonians. Xerxes arriving at the pass of Thermopylæ, placed ten thousand men under the command of Artapanus, who there engaged Leonidas—chief of the Lacedæmonians. In this conflict a great slaughter of the Persians took place, while not more than three or four of the Lacedæmonians were slain. After this Xerxes sent twenty thousand men to the field; these also were overcome, and though driven to fight by blows, were still vanquished. The next day he sent forward fifty thousand men; but as these also failed in their attack, he no longer attempted to fight. Thorax the Thessalian, and Calliades and Timaphernes, princes of the Trachinians, were then present (in the Persian camp) with their troops. These, with Demaratus, and Hegias of Ephesus, Xerxes called into his presence, and from them he learned that the Lacedæmonians could by no means be vanquished unless they were surrounded and attacked on all sides. Forty thousand Persians were therefore despatched under the command of these two Trachinian leaders, who traversing a difficult path, came behind the Lacedæmonians. Thus surrounded, they fought valiantly, and perished to a man. Again Xerxes sent an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, commanded by Mardonius, against the Platæans: it was the Thebans who incited the king against the Platæans. Mardonius was met by Pausanias the Lacedæmonian, at the head of not more than three hundred Spartans—one thousand of the people of the country—and about six thousand from the other cities. The Persian army being vanquished, Mardonius fled from the field wounded. This same Mardonius was sent by Xerxes to pillage the temple of Apollo; but to the great grief of the king, perished in the attempt by a hail-storm.

Xerxes next advanced with his army to Athens; but the Athenians having fitted out one hundred and ten galleys, fled to the island of Salamis: he therefore entered the deserted city, and burned it, except only the citadel, which was defended by a few who remained; but they retiring by night, he burned that also. The king then advancing to the narrowest part of Attica, called Heracleum, began to construct a mole towards Salamis, with the intention of marching his army on to the island. But by the advice of Themistocles the Athenian, and of Aristides, a body of Cretan archers was brought up to obstruct the work. A naval engagement then took place between the Persians and the Greeks, the former having more than a thousand ships, commanded by Onophas—the latter seven hundred. Yet the Greeks conquered, and the Persians lost five hundred ships. Xerxes himself, by the counsel and contrivance of Themistocles and Aristides, fled:—not fewer than one hundred and twenty thousand men having perished on the side of the Persians in the several actions. Passages to this effect occur in the Myriobiblon of Photius.

In those particulars in which this account of the Persian invasion differs from that of our author, no one who carefully compares the two, can hesitate to give his confidence to Herodotus rather than to Ctesias, not only because he lived some years nearer to the events; but because his narrative displays more judgment, more consistency, and more probability, and is also better supported by other evidence. It is enough for our present purpose that this writer affirms the same great events to have taken place—that the Persian king led an immense army into Greece, where he met a total defeat.

Of the authors whom we have cited, the first two—Pindar and Æschylus, had reached maturity at the time of the Persian invasion, and were personally concerned in its events, and composed the works to which we have referred while Herodotus was yet a youth. Though poets, they represent the victories of the Greeks as recent facts, well known to their hearers, and the slightest allusion to which was enough to kindle the national enthusiasm. The other writers—Thucydides, Lysias, Isocrates, and Ctesias, were also contemporary with Herodotus; and two of them were his professed rivals. From their evidence it is apparent that the events of the Persian invasion were matters of common knowledge and conversation, and were the themes of writers in every class among the Greeks, in the very age in which they are said to have taken place.

It follows therefore that the historian of these transactions is not to be regarded as if he were the author of a narrative for the truth of which he is individually responsible, and in which we cannot confide until we have proof of his veracity. He is rather the collector of facts that were universally acknowledged by his contemporaries:—and the truth of the history rests upon the fact that it was published, and was accepted, while the individuals to whom the events were known were still living.

If we look to the Greek writers of the next and of the following age, we find the same general facts affirmed or alluded to—orators, poets, and historians, hold the same language, and assume it as certain that their ancestors gloriously repulsed an innumerable Asiatic army. But historical proof of a traditionary kind differs essentially from that which it is just now our intention to display; we therefore do not bring it forward in the present instance.

In a preceding chapter (XV.) we have referred to the mass of evidence, confirmatory of the written testimony of ancient Historians, which might be brought forward from the treasures of the British Museum. In many instances the general truthfulness of Herodotus, and his exactness also, are vouched for in the most substantial and convincing manner, by objects of various kinds, to which the reader may have access any day in that vast collection. Yet in relation to such instances there may be room for a cautionary remark; and it is of this kind.—

There is a tendency in the mind to relieve itself from the labour of thinking, by accepting, without inquiry, any sort of proof that offers itself to the senses—to the eye and to the touch. In this manner we may fall into the habit of forgetting, or of neglecting, the direct and proper evidence of written and authentic testimony, while we are occupied with that which seems, although it may not be so in reality, to be more convincing, or to be less precarious; as for example: after giving attention to the evidence that has been adduced in the preceding chapters, we may feel assured of the fact—that the Greeks and Persians did fight on the plains of Marathon. There is then shown to us a seal, which, on good evidence, we know to have been picked up upon the very spot that still bears that name in Greece: the device upon this gem is manifestly Persian;—the winged lions are almost a copy of the bas-reliefs still existing on several ruins in Persia: we conclude therefore that this relic of antiquity belonged to a chief of the Persian army, and we accept it as a palpable proof of the truth of the historian’s narrative: and though that narrative thus gains, in our view, a confirmation, it does so by losing something of its proper weight; and we are afterwards inclined to think, that if the tangible proof were withdrawn, the written proof would stand less firmly than it did before.

Then again, in relying upon the evidence of gems, inscriptions, or sculptures, not merely as illustrations of history, but as proofs of its truth, we may sometimes substitute the worse kind of evidence for the better.—The relics of ancient art, in very many instances, derive their meaning, and draw their historic value from the concurrent testimony of written history: the entire proof is a product of the two taken together. Then it must not be forgotten that the traditionary history of the relic is often of doubtful authenticity—resting perhaps upon the word of those who had a commodity of indefinite value to sell;—or the workmanship may be of a later age than the antiquary is willing to admit;—or the inscription may have been placed by authority out of the reach of that opinion to which an historian is always amenable. An arrogant republic, or a vain-glorious tyrant, might, without fear, stamp bold lies upon coins, or engrave impudent untruths upon the entablatures of temples; and the brazen or the marble record may receive from the modern antiquary a degree of respect which it never won from contemporaries. Herodotus mentions some instances of this kind. An intelligent inquirer into the truth of remote facts will usually give more confidence to the explicit assertions of one with whose character and qualifications he is in some measure acquainted, than he does to positive averments that come from a party altogether unknown. Now an historian is a person concerning whose veracity, discretion, and intentions we have the means of forming our own opinion; but in admitting the evidence of inscriptions and coins, we receive a testimony—knowing perhaps nothing of the witness.

CHAPTER XIX.
EXAMPLES OF IMPERFECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE:—HERODOTUS.

The object of the preceding pages has been to display, in its several parts, that chain of evidence, by means of which a high degree of certainty in matters of antiquity is attainable. And it appears that there are cases in which the proof of remote facts rests, as it were, in our own hands, so that, irrespectively of the veracity, or accuracy, or impartiality of the witnesses, our assent is demanded on the ground of the constancy of the laws of the social system. In such cases, a consideration of distance of time does not enter into the argument; for the proof remains from age to age unimpaired; or rather, we are carried by this proof up to the times of the events in question, and are now as competent to judge of the validity of the evidence as we could have been if we had lived in that age.

The real difference between this absolute proof and every other sort of historical evidence, will be best exhibited by adducing some instances of a different kind; and in taking our examples from the same author—Herodotus, we place both kinds of evidence upon the same level, so far as the personal qualities and the merits of the historian are concerned in the argument.

The distinctive character of all such historical evidence as ought to be called imperfect, is this—that it comes to us through some medium, upon the trustworthiness of which we must more or less implicitly rely. Ordinarily, this medium is the veracity, or the accuracy—the learning, or the impartiality, of the historian. In such instances the immediate proof stands beyond our reach; and instead of being able to handle and inspect it for ourselves, we can only inspect it at a distance, and, by the best means in our power, estimate its probable value. This secondary evidence may indeed sometimes rise almost to absolute certainty; in other cases it may possess scarcely an atom of real weight. The first book of Herodotus will furnish examples of both sorts, and some in every degree between the two extremes.

In the introductory sections of his history, Herodotus refers to those mutual aggressions which were ordinarily assigned by the authors of his times as the origin of the animosity which had so long raged between the Greeks and the people of Asia: thus he mentions the abduction of Io from Argos by the Phœnicians—of Europa from Tyre—of Medea from Colchis, and of Helen from Sparta; which last act of violence produced, he says, the Trojan war, and which the Persians, as he affirms, were wont to allege as a perpetual justification of every enterprise they might attempt against the Greeks.

These events took place—if at all—from thirteen to eight hundred years before the time of Herodotus: the last of them, the Trojan war, may well be regarded as substantially true on the authority of the poems of Homer, which bear the character of history too strongly to be treated as mere fiction. As to the abductions above-mentioned, they are to be regarded as samples of the manners of the times:—such circumstances, and many others to which neither poets nor historians have given celebrity, no doubt took place on the shores of the Ægæan sea—favourable as these have ever been to piratical enterprises. Yet if we can believe that Herodotus actually examined for himself the writings of the “Persian historians” whom he quotes, and if he there found coincident narratives of the above-mentioned outrages, these vague traditions would then acquire something like the authority of history.

There is a fact affirmed by the historian in the outset of his history which deserves a passing notice:—he says, that “the Phœnicians, coming from the shores of the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf, or the Indian Ocean) settled upon the borders of this sea (the Mediterranean) in the country they now inhabit; whence they made distant voyages, carrying on the commerce of Egypt and Assyria, with the surrounding countries.” This emigration of the Phœnicians—which in itself is by no means improbable—the distance between the two seas being not great, and such emigrations being frequent in ancient times—is mentioned by several ancient authors, though denied by Strabo; nevertheless it provoked the ridicule of Voltaire, who asks, “What does the father of history mean in the commencement of his work, when he says that, ‘the Persian historians relate that the Phœnicians were the authors of all the wars; and that they came from the Red Sea to ours’? It seems then that they embarked on the Gulf of Suez—passed through the straits of Babel Mandel—coasted along the shores of Ethiopia—crossed the Line—doubled the Cape of Tempests, since called the Cape of Good Hope—ascended the sea between Africa and America, which is the only way in which they could come—re-crossed the Line, and entered the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules, which would have been a voyage of more than four thousand marine leagues, at a time when navigation was in its infancy!”

This passage is a sample of this writer’s ignorance and audacity in dealing with history; and it is an instance of the ease with which a charge of absurdity or falsification may be made out against an historian by a writer who is at once destitute of learning and of candour. “M. Voltaire,” says Larches “would have spared himself this criticism, had he possessed even a moderate knowledge of the Greek language. If Herodotus had intended to intimate that the Phœnicians came by sea, he would have employed another Greek idiom. Besides, he would not have added, that ‘they then undertook long voyages;’ as, on the supposition of their having come by sea, they had already made a voyage much longer and more perilous than any they afterwards undertook. But if there remained any doubt as to the meaning of the passage, the author removes it in another place (Polymnia, 89): ‘These Phœnicians, as they themselves say, formerly inhabited the shores of the Red Sea, whence passing over, they now occupy the maritime part of Syria.’”

The History—properly speaking—commences with the story of Crœsus, king of Lydia, who reigned at Sardis about a century before the time of Herodotus. The Greeks, especially those of Asia Minor, maintained a frequent intercourse with the Lydians, and must therefore have had some general knowledge of their history; and it is evident that our author made himself acquainted, by personal researches, with such records and traditions as he could find at Sardis. But between his time and the reign of Crœsus, that city had once and again been pillaged, its government overthrown, the manners of its inhabitants changed, and probably, most of the ancient families had been banished, exterminated, or reduced to poverty; their places being supplied by Persians and Greeks. It must therefore be believed, that the authentic records of the state had to a great extent been dissipated, and that little better than vague reports remained to be collected when Herodotus visited Sardis. We are not therefore to be surprised if we find an air of the fabulous in the story of Crœsus and of his predecessors, the kings of Lydia. Nevertheless, some of the leading facts were authenticated by those gifts, of various kinds, that had been consecrated by the Lydian kings at Delphi, and many of which were preserved in the temple of Apollo, at that place, in the time of Herodotus: these gifts, by the inscriptions they bore, served to verify the accounts elsewhere received. At Delphi, Herodotus not only inspected vessels of gold and silver, preserved in the temple where the oracles were given, but he received from the priests their own copies of the many responses which he quotes in the course of his work. In these vaticinative verses the craft of the priests who composed them is often sufficiently apparent: and whatever they may be, their genuineness rests entirely upon the honesty of the Delphian priests, from whom our author received them. Yet the subject of the ancient oracles should not be passed by without acknowledging that, amidst all the glaring frauds, and the frivolous evasions, and the interested compliances with the wishes of the applicants, which characterise these responses, there is apparent also in some of them a knowledge of contemporary—though remote events, and of a sagacity in relation to the future, which is not satisfactorily explained without admitting the interposition of a super-human agency. An absolute denial of any such intervention, while it is unsupported by a true philosophy, does violence to the principles of historical evidence; nor is it demanded by any argumentative necessity.

The interlocution between Crœsus and Solon—the Athenian legislator, as related by Herodotus, may fairly be numbered among those dramatic embellishments with which ancient writers—and our author not less than others—thought themselves at liberty to relieve the attention of their readers. It need not be questioned that Solon visited Sardis; and it is not improbable that some rebuke of the Lydian king’s preposterous vanity—really uttered by the Grecian sage, may have formed the text of this long conversation.

The story of Adrastus, the Phrygian refugee, and of Atys, the son of Crœsus, if founded in fact, are evidently much indebted to the ingenuity of the narrator. Though these incidents may seem puerile to a modern reader, we ought to carry ourselves back to the author’s times, before we pronounce them to be altogether improper in the place where they appear. A student of history who reads only modern compilations will fail to obtain that just and exact idea of antiquity which these excrescent parts of the works of ancient historians convey.

The history of Crœsus is interrupted by a long digression, in which our author gives a sketch of the early history of the Athenians and Lacedæmonians. On these points he could be at no loss for traditions, or other sources of information; and here also he was open to correction from his contemporaries, who were as well informed as himself in matters of Grecian history. Yet the reader should not lose sight of the dates of the events severally mentioned, in forming his opinion of the value of the evidence. It is the manner of Herodotus to relate unimportant circumstances which took place—if at all—five hundred, or a thousand years before his time, with as much minuteness of detail, and as much confidence, as when he is describing recent events. Frequently, it may be supposed, he followed what he deemed authentic documents; but as we have no sufficient means of forming an opinion on the subject, such recitals are not to be admitted among the established points of history, unless they are confirmed by a coincidence of authorities.

The narrative of the war between Crœsus and Cyrus, which ended in the final dissolution of the Lydian kingdom, is resumed, sect. 69. The leading events of this war could not fail to be well known at the time in Greece; for besides that the intercourse between Greece and Asia was frequent, Crœsus was on terms of friendship with the Lacedæmonians, and was everywhere celebrated for the magnificence of his offerings to the Delphic god: moreover, the fall of Sardis, and the consequent conquests of the Persians in Asia Minor, brought a formidable enemy to the very door of Greece, and obliged the several states to inform themselves much more exactly than heretofore, of the affairs of their Asiatic neighbours. We may therefore place the conquests of Cyrus in Asia Minor among the authenticated facts of history. Yet from the details, as given by Herodotus, some considerable deductions must be made; for there is an air of dramatic embellishment apparent throughout the narrative. Sardis was taken by Cyrus about one hundred years before Herodotus wrote his history: it is not therefore probable that he had the opportunity of verifying his authorities by consulting any living witnesses of the event: it is more likely that he worked up, in his own manner, some floating traditions received from the Asiatic Greeks.

Crœsus, confounded by misfortunes which seemed to give the lie to the Delphic god, whose favour and advice he had courted by gifts of unexampled richness, requested permission of Cyrus to send the fetters he had worn, to Delphi, to be laid on the threshold of the temple;—directing the messenger to ask the Grecian god—If it was his custom to delude those who had merited the best at his hands. This request was granted; and the Lydian messenger brought back a reply which, whether or not it may be considered as genuine, is curious, if taken as a specimen of the policy and style of the Pythian:—

—When the Lydians arrived and delivered their message, the Pythian is said to have replied—That even the god could not avert the decree of fate. That Crœsus, the fifth in descent, suffered for the sin of his progenitor, who being a servant of the Heraclidæ, consented to the guile of the woman, and slew his master; taking possession without right, of his place and honour. That yet Apollo had endeavoured to defer the fall of Sardis till the next generation; but that he had not been able to move the Fates, who would no further yield to his solicitation than, as a special favour to Crœsus, to place the taking of Sardis three years later than otherwise it would have happened. Let Crœsus therefore know that he is a captive three years later than the Fates had decreed; and then remember that Apollo rescued him when about to be burned. As to the response, Crœsus had no right to complain; for the god had foretold that if he invaded the Persians, he would overthrow a great empire; and if upon this he had wished to be better informed, he should have inquired again, whether his own empire, or that of Cyrus was intended. Wherefore, as he had neither understood the oracle, nor asked for its meaning, he might take the blame to himself.

Having dismissed the Lydian affairs, Herodotus proceeds to give a sketch of the history of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, and to relate the story of the elevation of Cyrus to supreme power in Upper Asia. That he had visited Persia cannot reasonably be questioned; nor need it be doubted that he diligently availed himself of every means in his power to acquire information. Whether he was master of any of the eastern languages does not certainly appear; for though he frequently refers to the Persian historians, and though, in one place (139), he makes a philological remark on a peculiarity of the Persian language, we must ask more direct proof than this of his possessing an accomplishment so rare among the Greeks. We must however believe, that, at least by means of an interpreter, he had consulted the Persian writers. In commencing the history of Cyrus, he says—I shall follow those Persian writers who, without endeavouring to exaggerate the exploits of Cyrus, seem to adhere to the simple truth;—yet not ignorant that three different accounts of him are abroad.—Whether these three accounts are in fact those given by himself, by Ctesias, and by Æschylus, cannot be ascertained. It is evident that exaggerations and errors abounded among the oriental historians: the Greeks therefore, having at best a very imperfect access to these discordant authorities, must be perused with caution: it would be unsafe to rely with confidence upon any of these narratives; or to found upon them objections to statements which we derive from sources that are much more credible.

A general conformity with facts is all that we ought to expect from the Greek historians when they speak of the remote history of Asia. Herodotus at Babylon, or at Susa, must have been almost entirely dependent upon the good faith of the learned men with whom he happened to form acquaintance; and even if we give them credit for as much honesty as is usually practised on similar occasions towards foreigners—and him for a great measure of diligence and discretion, we shall scarcely find reason for considering these portions of the work to be true, otherwise than as to the general outline of events. Herodotus must however be allowed to rank above Xenophon, on the ground of authenticity; for the Cyropædia is only a political romance. Diodorus Siculus had access to sources of information that were not open to Herodotus; and the statements of the later may be admitted in correction of those of the earlier historian. Justin, or rather Trogus, seems to follow our author in his incidents, varying from him only in the order of some events. Josephus, in his reply to Apion, treats the Greek historians with contempt when they presumed to speak of Asiatic affairs; urging against them their many contradictions, and their want of really ancient and authentic documents, and quoting, as of higher authority, several works of which these citations are almost the only remaining fragments. Without impeaching the character of Herodotus, we may peruse the earlier portions of his history as an entertaining narrative, held together by a connected thread of truth, and supporting a series of incidents which, though characteristic of the times, are of very questionable historical authority. Of this kind is the story of the birth and early adventures of Cyrus, in which the art of the narrator in working up his materials, is apparent.—Probably some popular tales communicated to our author in Persia, were adapted by him to the taste of the Greeks. In his account of the manners, usages, habits, and buildings of the nations he visited, and of the features and productions of the countries through which he travelled, our author is deserving of a high degree of confidence; and though a few particulars,—plainly fabulous, are mingled with these descriptions, they must be admitted to take a place among the most valuable of the remains of ancient literature.

The narrative of the subjugation of the Ionians and Æolians of Asia Minor, by the Persians, stands, for the most part, upon a higher ground of authority than those which precede, and those which immediately follow it; not only because the transactions were comparatively recent; but because the affairs of these Asiatic Greeks were, at all times, well known to those of Europe.

The capture of Babylon by Cyrus was an event too remarkable in itself, and in the extraordinary circumstances attending it, to leave room for much diversity among the accounts of it which were transmitted to the next age. The Greek historians differ but little in relating this memorable event, and their testimony, independent as it is, when collated with the circumstantial predictions of the Hebrew prophet, deserves peculiar regard. If the history of Herodotus had no other claims to attention, it would have claim enough by affording, as it does, in several signal instances, an unexceptionable testimony in illustration of the fulfilment of prophecy.

The expedition of Cyrus against the Massagetes, a Scythian nation, in which he perished, closes the first book of the history. Here again there may be reason to suspect a want of authentic information. The scene of action was remote, not merely from Greece, but from Persia, and the survivors of the Persian army told, when they returned, each his own tale of wonder: nor is it probable that any other account of the war was extant in the time of Herodotus than what had been received from these persons.

The instances that have now been mentioned, occurring in the first book of Herodotus, may serve as examples of the different degrees of authority which may belong to different portions of an historical work—dependent both upon the means of information possessed by the writer, and upon his liability to contradiction and correction from his contemporaries. It is enough if we keep in view the general principles stated above (chap. XIII.), in adhering to which, we have a sufficient guidance in perusing a work like that of Herodotus, combining as it does, materials of all kinds, more or less valuable and authentic. As to some of the facts he relates, we may regard them as absolutely certain, others as doubtful, improbable, or unreal. With the worst intentions, and the meanest qualifications, an historian of recent events, whose writings are received in his own times as authentic, can seldom be charged with glaring falsifications of facts; on the other hand, the most cautious, industrious, and scrupulous writer, who compiles the history of remote times, and of foreign nations, may innocently wander very far from the path of truth. It would subserve no useful purpose to adduce a larger sample of instances in illustration of these obvious principles. We may now give some account of those who have signalised themselves as the assailants of this great writer.

Herodotus, as we have already said, was severely reprehended by several ancient writers, especially by Ctesias, Manetho, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Josephus, and, above all, by Plutarch, or by the angry writer who assumes his name. The grounds of exception taken by these writers are, in a few instances just; in most cases, the influence of prejudice or petty jealousy is apparent; yet none of these criticisms affect that part of the history which alone we allege to be unquestionably authentic. But modern authors also have attacked the reputation of the historian, and we may briefly notice some of these more recent criticisms; for if it is affirmed of a portion of this history, that its truth is absolutely certain, it ought to be shown that the facts in behalf of which so high a claim is advanced have never been called in question—or never, with any degree of plausibility.

Certain critics, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, taking offence at some of the less authentic portions of this work, and especially at some ill-understood descriptions of animals and plants, speak of the historian as a compiler of fables: thus Ludovicus Vives, a learned Spaniard, well known in England during the reign of Henry VIII., speaks of the books of Herodotus as abounding in things untrue. Another says, “Herodotus, that he might not seem to have omitted anything, brought together, without selection, matters of all kinds; of which the greater part were derived, not from ancient records, but from the fables of the vulgar. And although his style is agreeable, and even elegant, he forfeits the confidence of those who exercise a sound and impartial judgment; for such readers cannot give credence to a work so crammed with various narrations.—By some indeed he is called the ‘father of history;’ but by others he is justly named the ‘father of fables.’”

Bodin, in his “Method of History,” says, “I wonder that Cicero should have designated Herodotus alone as the father of history, whom all antiquity accuses of falsehood; for there cannot be a greater proof that an historian is unworthy of credit, than that he should be manifestly convicted of error by all writers. Nevertheless I do not think that he ought to be wholly rejected; for besides the merit of eloquence, and the charm of the Ionic sweetness, there is in him much that holds forth antiquity, and many things in the latter books of his history, are narrated with an exact adherence to truth.”

Wheare, in his “Method of reading History,” thus speaks of our author: “Although Herodotus gives some relations that are not much better than fables, yet the body of his history is composed with eminent fidelity, and a diligent pursuit of truth. Many of those less authentic narratives he himself introduces by saying that he reports not what he thinks true, but what he had received from others.”

“It would be absurd,” says Isaac Vossius, “to confide in Herodotus alone, in what relates to Persian and Babylonian affairs; seeing that he was unacquainted with the Persian language, and unfurnished with the records of any of the nations of the east.” Bishop Stillingfleet speaks of the historian very much in the same strain as the authors above quoted. He has also been uncourteously treated by some later writers; of these Voltaire is the most distinguished. Whenever occasion presents itself he labours to cast contempt upon the father of history. Of this writer’s ignorance and flippancy in commenting upon Herodotus, we have already adduced an example: others of a similar kind might easily be cited. Thus, he represents the historian as affirming, in a number of instances, what he professes only to report; as the story of Arion, and that of the Lydians who are said to have invented various games to allay the pains of hunger. He denies as utterly incredible the account given by Herodotus of the dissolute manners of the Babylonians: “that which does not accord with human nature, can never be true.” Yet the customs alluded to are expressly affirmed to have prevailed there by Strabo, and are distinctly mentioned by a writer whose evidence in such a case need not be suspected—Baruch, VI. 43; and usages not less revolting are known to have been established in many ancient cities.

In several instances, either from ignorance or malice, Voltaire mistranslates Herodotus, in such a manner as to create an absurdity or impropriety which does not exist in the original; and sometimes he cites passages that are nowhere to be found in our author. Herodotus, (Thalia, 72) affirms that it was the custom of the Scythians to impale a number of persons, having first strangled them, as a part of the funeral rites with which their kings were honoured. But Voltaire makes the historian affirm that the victims of this barbarous custom were impaled alive; and he then finds occasion to deny the truth of the story. If there are any, who, at this time, think Voltaire’s criticisms upon the Scriptures worthy of any regard, they would do well to examine, with some care, the grounds of his remarks upon Herodotus. If in the case of a Greek historian, towards whom we may suppose him to have entertained no peculiar ill feeling, we find him displaying ignorance, indifference to truth, and a senseless flippancy—what may we expect when he attacks those writings towards which he avows the utmost hostility of intention?

Under all these attacks Herodotus has not wanted apologists; and while the writers above mentioned, taking an unfair advantage of some doubtful, or evidently fabulous passages, for the truth of which the historian does not pledge himself, have accused him of a want of veracity; others, more candid, have entered into the details of these accusations, and have shown, either that the author’s credit is not really implicated in the narratives he brings together; or that these accounts are much better founded than, at first sight, they may appear. The editors and translators of Herodotus—such as Aldus, Camerarius, Stephens, Wesseling, Gronovius—have undertaken his defence; in some instances establishing the disputed facts; in others excusing the author from the charge of falsification. These discussions relate, for the most part, to those portions of the history which we have excluded from our present argument; and with which therefore we have here no immediate concern.

“Few writers,” says Larcher, “have united in so eminent a degree as Herodotus the various excellences proper to an historian. Let us in the first place speak of his love of truth. Whoever reads his history with attention, easily perceives that he has proposed to himself no other object but truth; and that when he entertains a doubt he adduces both opinions, leaving it to his readers to choose which they please of the two. If any particular seems to himself unauthentic or incredible, he never fails to add that he only reports what has been told him. Among a thousand examples I shall cite but two.—When Neco ceased to dig the canal which was to have led the waters of the Nile into the Arabian Gulf, he despatched from this gulf certain Phœnicians, with orders to make the circuit of Africa, and to return to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules, now known as the Straits of Gibraltar. These Phœnicians returned to Egypt the third year after their departure, and related, among other things, that in sailing round Africa, they had had the sun (rising) on their right hand. Herodotus did not doubt that the Phœnicians actually made the circuit of Africa; but as astronomy was then in its infancy, he could not believe that in this voyage they had really seen the sun on the right hand:—‘this fact,’ says he, ‘appeared to me by no means credible; yet perhaps there are those to whom it may seem so.’

“Another point which has not been duly attended to is, that very often he commences his narrative thus—The Persians—The Phœnicians—The Egyptian Priests, have told me this or that. These narrations, which sometimes extend to a considerable length, are, in the original, throughout, made to depend upon this word φασί—they say, either expressed or understood. The genius of our modern languages obliging us to retrench these phrases, it often happens that Herodotus is made to say in his own person what in fact he reports in the third person. Thus things have been attributed to him, for the authenticity of which he is very far from vouching.

“He travelled in all the countries of which he has occasion to speak, he examined with scrupulous attention the rivers and streams by which they are watered—the animals which belong to them—the productions of the earth—the manners of the inhabitants—their usages, as well religious as civil;—he consulted their archives, their inscriptions, their monuments; and when these means of information failed him, or appeared to him insufficient, he had recourse to those among the people who were reputed to be the most skilled in history. He even carried his scrupulosity so far, that though he had no just reason for distrusting the priests of Memphis, he repaired to Heliopolis (Euterpe, 3), and then to Thebes, in order to discover if the priests of the latter city agreed with those of Memphis.

“One cannot refuse confidence to an historian who takes such pains to assure himself of the truth. If, however, notwithstanding all these precautions, it has sometimes happened to him to be deceived, I think he deserves in such instances rather indulgence than blame. Herodotus is not less exact in all matters of Natural History than in historical facts. Some ancient writers have dismissed, as fabulous, some particulars which have since been verified by modern naturalists—much more learned than the ancients. The celebrated Boerhaave did not hesitate to say, in speaking of Herodotus—‘modern observations establish almost all that great man’s assertions.’”

Some English writers also, wishing, as it seems, like Voltaire, to bring all history under suspicion, by endeavouring to prove that the best authenticated facts may, with some show of reason be questioned, have impugned the testimony, not of Herodotus alone, but of all the Greek historians.

In recent times all this ground has been so well and thoroughly explored by writers eminently qualified for the task, that it would be quite a superfluous labour to refute those whose criticisms have passed into oblivion.[9]

Writers who, on general grounds, have laboured to show that Herodotus vastly exaggerates the power, valour, energy, of the Greeks, as compared with the Asiatic nations, have forgotten that, in estimating his testimony in this case, we are abundantly furnished with independent evidences—touching, as well the Asiatic, as the European civilisation, at the times in question. These existing monuments on the one side, leave no room to doubt that the soil of Greece, during a long course of time, supported a numerous people, eminently endowed at once with the physical qualities of strength, beauty, alacrity, and courage, and with a mental conformation, combining the ratiocinative and imaginative faculties in the happiest proportions. There is proof before us that these advantages, inherent in the race, were improved; that a very high degree of civilisation in almost all its branches, and of refinement, was attained; that the resources of an extensive commerce were possessed, and a large amount of political power acquired, by the Greeks; or to express all at once—that the Greeks were then, what the nations of western Europe are now, as compared with the nations of Asia.

Even if it could be made to appear probable that, in the first ages of the world, Asia—and in Asia, Persia, was the centre of civilisation, yet it must be granted, that, so far as authentic history reaches, the picture of the Asiatic nations is uniform in its character and colouring. Asia has indeed produced some races distinguished by a fierce energy, by romantic courage, by loftiness and richness of imagination. But in no people of Asiatic origin that has displayed at once, and in combination, the effective energy, the high intelligence, the taste, the well-directed and sustained industry, which belong to the more advanced of the European nations:—never have its hordes risen to that level on the scale of intelligence at which men become at once desirous of political liberty, and capable of enjoying so great a good.

The relation which modern European armies—those of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, and the English, have always borne to the native forces of India, is very much the same as that which history affirms to have existed in all ages between the people of the East and of the West. Though the latter have not driven the former before them like sheep, they have at length prevailed over them, as courage conquers rage, as mind subdues mere force, and as skill is more than numbers. It is, in substance, the same story that we read, whether the page of history presents us with the exploits of Clive in India, or of Pompey in Parthia and Syria, or of Miltiades at Marathon, or of Alexander in Persia.

The narrative of Herodotus is therefore substantially the first chapter of the history of the enduring conflict between Asia and Europe; and this commencement of the story is in harmony with all its subsequent events. On the one side is seen a reckless despotism, seated on the shoulders of a boundless population, and which, at the instigation of a puerile or a ferocious ambition, lets forth a deluge of war, the course of which was as little directed by skill, as it was checked by humanity. On the other side are seen much smaller means, employed with incomparably greater intelligence; and excepting only the partial events of war, the general issue has ever been the same.