Herodotus then produces a passage from the Iliad, with a view to prove that Homer knew of the voyage of Paris and Helen to Egypt; but the passage proves nothing at all to the point.
Again (c. 120), his slender confidence in the epic poets breaks out—εἰ χρή τι τοῖσι ἐποποιοῖσι χρεώμενον λέγειν.
It is remarkable that Herodotus is disposed to identify Helen with the ξείνη Ἀφροδίτη whose temple he saw at Memphis (c. 112).
[938] “Ut conquirere fabulosa (says Tacitus, Hist. ii. 50, a worthy parallel of Thucydidês) et fictis oblectare legentium animos, procul gravitate cœpti operis crediderim, ita vulgatis traditisque demere fidem non ausim. Die, quo Bebriaci certabatur, avem inusitatâ specie, apud Regium Lepidum celebri vico consedisse, incolæ memorant; nec deinde cœtu hominum aut circumvolitantium alitum, territam pulsamque, donec Otho se ipse interficeret: tum ablatam ex oculis: et tempora reputantibus, initium finemque miraculi cum Othonis exitu competisse.” Suetonius (Vesp. 5) recounts a different miracle, in which three eagles appear.
This passage of Tacitus occurs immediately after his magnificent description of the suicide of the emperor Otho, a deed which he contemplates with the most fervent admiration. His feelings were evidently so wrought up that he was content to relax the canons of historical credibility.
[939] Thucyd. i. 9-12.
[940] Thucyd. i. 25.
[941] Thucyd. ii. 29. Καὶ τὸ ἔργον τὸ περὶ τὸν Ἴτυν αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν τῇ γῇ ταύτῃ ἔπραξαν· πολλοῖς δὲ καὶ τῶν ποιητῶν ἐν ἀηδόνος μνήμῃ Δαυλιὰς ἡ ὄρνις ἐπωνόμασται. Εἰκὸς τε καὶ τὸ κῆδος Πανδίονα ξυνάψασθαι τῆς θυγατρὸς διὰ τοσούτου, ἐπ᾽ ὠφελείᾳ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους, μᾶλλον ἢ διὰ πολλῶν ἡμερῶν ἐς Ὀδρύσας ὁδοῦ. The first of these sentences would lead us to infer, if it came from any other pen than that of Thucydidês, that the writer believed the metamorphosis of Philomêla into a nightingale: see above, [ch. xi. p. 270].
The observation respecting the convenience of neighborhood for the marriage is remarkable, and shows how completely Thucydidês regarded the event as historical. What would he have said respecting the marriage of Oreithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, with Boreas, and the prodigious distance which she is reported to have been carried by her husband? Ὑπέρ τε πόντον πάντ᾽, ἐπ᾽ ἔσχατα χθονὸς, etc. (Sophoklês ap. Strabo. vii. p. 295.)
From the way in which Thucydidês introduces the mention of this event, we see that he intended to correct the misapprehension of his countrymen, who having just made an alliance with the Odrysian Têrês, were led by that circumstance to think of the old mythical Têreus, and to regard him as the ancestor of Têrês.