But there is an intermediate attitude taken towards his work by a certain section of the learned world, about which a few words must be said. MODERN CRITICISM. There is a widespread tendency to adopt the view that, whatever the inaccuracies contained in his writings, they represent the high-watermark of knowledge attainable at the present day concerning the period of Greek history of which he wrote; and that, therefore, fertile criticism of his work aiming at any reconstruction of the story is impossible. Such reconstructions are, moreover, frequently stigmatized as attempts to read the ideas of the nineteenth century after Christ into the history of the fifth century before Christ. A charge, of the kind can only be founded on the assumption that Herodotus was qualified not merely to record the acts of the men of the period of which he wrote, but to appreciate to the full the ideas and motives which produced the acts of those who were presumably the most skilled men of their day in special departments of life.

The evidence which is given in this volume, with respect at least to the military history of this period, does not support such an assumption. Putting aside detail, the general conclusions to which it points are three in number:⁠—

1. The extraordinary accuracy of statements of fact in Herodotus;

2. His lack of information as to the motives of those in command;

3. His lack of experience such as might have enabled him to form deductions as to those motives.

If the evidence on which the first of these conclusions is founded be held to justify it, it is not too much to assert that the modern world is provided with the means of forming a sound judgment as to the causes underlying the history of the most critical years of the fifth century.

The debt of civilization to Herodotus does not require exaggeration.

INDEX.

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