Philochorus, skilled in divination, affirmed that Nikias put a totally wrong interpretation upon that fatal eclipse of the moon which induced him to delay his retreat, and proved his ruin (Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23).
[19] Æschylus, Pers. 96, 104, 181, 220, 368, 745, 825: compare Sophocl. Ajax, 129, 744, 775, and the end of the Œdipus Tyrannus; Euripid. Hecub. 58; Pindar, Olymp. viii. 86; Isthm. vi, 39; Pausanias, ii, 33, 3. Compare the sense of the word δεισιδαίμων in Xenophon, Agesilaus, c. 11, sect. 8,—“the man who in the midst of success fears the envious gods,”—opposed to the person who confides in its continuance; and Klausen, Theologumena Æschyli, p. 18.
[20] The manner in which Herodotus groups together the facts of his history, in obedience to certain religious and moral sentiments in his own mind, is well set forth in Hoffmeister, Sittlich—religiöse Lebensansicht des Herodotos, Essen, 1832, especially sects. 21, 22, pp. 112, seqq. Hoffmeister traces the veins of sentiment running through, and often overlaying, or transforming, the matters of fact through a considerable portion of the nine books. He does not, perhaps, sufficiently advert to the circumstance, that the informants from whom Herodotus collected his facts were for the most part imbued with sentiments similar to himself; so that the religious and moral vein pervaded more or less his original materials, and did not need to be added by himself. There can be little doubt that the priests, the ministers of temples and oracles, the exegetæ or interpreting guides around these holy places were among his chief sources for instructing himself: a stranger, visiting so many different cities must have been constantly in a situation to have no other person whom he could consult. The temples were interesting both in themselves and in the trophies and offerings which they exhibited, while the persons belonging to them were, as a general rule, accessible and communicative to strangers, as we may see both from Pausanias and Plutarch,—both of whom, however, had books before them also to consult, which Herodotus hardly had at all. It was not only the priests and ministers of temples in Egypt, of Hêraklês at Tyre, and of Bêlus at Babylon, that Herodotus questioned (i, 181; ii, 3, 44, 143), but also those of Delphi (Δελφῶν οἶδα ἐγὼ οὕτως ἀκούσας γενέσθαι, i, 20: compare i, 91, 92, 51); Dôdôna (ii, 52); of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes (v, 59); of Athênê Alea at Tegea (i, 66); of Dêmêtêr at Paros (vi, 134—if not the priests, at least persons full of temple inspirations); of Halus in Achaia Phthiôtis (vii, 197); of the Kabeiri in Thrace (ii, 51); of persons connected with the Herôon of Protesilaus in the Chersonese (ix, 116, 120). The facts which these persons communicated to him were always presented along with associations referring to their own functions or religious sentiments, nor did Herodotus introduce anything new when he incorporated them as such in his history. The treatise of Plutarch—“Cur Pythia nunc non reddat Oracula Carmine”—affords an instructive description of the ample and multifarious narratives given by the expositors at Delphi, respecting the eminent persons and events of Grecian history, so well fitted to satisfy the visitors who came full of curiosity—φιλοθεάμονες, φιλόλογοι, and φιλομαθεῖς (Plutarch, ib. p. 394)—such as Herodotus was in a high degree. Compare pp. 396, 397, 400, 407, of the same treatise: also Plutarch, De Defectu Oraculorum, p. 417—οἱ Δελφῶν θεολόγοι, etc. Plutarch remarks that in his time political life was extinguished in Greece, and that the questions put to the Pythian priestess related altogether to private and individual affairs; whereas, in earlier times, almost all political events came somehow or other under her cognizance, either by questions to be answered, or by commemorative public offerings (p. 407). In the time of Herodotus, the great temples, especially those of Delphi and Olympia, were interwoven with the whole web of Grecian political history. See the Dissertation of Preller, annexed to his edition of Polemonis Fragmenta, c. 3, pp. 157-162; De Historiâ atque Arte Periegetarum; also K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen, part 1, ch. 12, p. 52.
The religious interpretation of historical phenomena is not peculiar to Herodotus, but belongs to him in common with his informants and his age generally, as indeed Hoffmeister remarks (pp. 31-136): though it is remarkable to notice the frankness with which he (as well as the contemporary poets: see the references in Monk ad Euripid. Alcestis, 1154) predicates envy and jealousy of the gods, in cases where the conduct, which he supposes them to pursue, is really such as would deserve that name in a man,—and such as he himself ascribes to the despot (iii, 80): he does not think himself obliged to call the gods just and merciful while he is attributing to them acts of envy and jealousy in their dealing with mankind. But the religious interpretation does not reign alone throughout the narrative of Herodotus: it is found side by side with careful sifting of fact and specification of positive, definite, appreciable causes: and this latter vein is what really distinguishes the historian from his age,—forming the preparation for Thucydides, in whom it appears predominant and almost exclusive. See this point illustrated in Creuzer, Historische Kunst der Griechen, Abschnitt iii, pp. 150-159.
Jäger (Disputationes Herodoteæ, p. 16. Göttingen, 1828) professes to detect evidences of old age (senile ingenium) in the moralizing color which overspreads the history of Herodotus, but which I believe to have belonged to his middle and mature age not less than to his latter years,—if indeed he lived to be very old, which is noway proved, except upon reasons which I have already disputed in my preceding volume. See Bähr, Commentatio de Vitâ et Scriptis Herodoti, in the fourth volume of his edition, c. 6, p. 388.
[21] Herodot. vii, 19. χῶρον πάντα ἐρευνῶν τῆς ἠπείρου.
[22] Herodot. vii, 106. Κατέστασαν γὰρ ἔτι πρότερον ταύτης τῆς ἐξελάσιος (i. e. the invasion by Xerxes) ὕπαρχοι ἐν τῇ Θρηΐκῃ καὶ τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου πανταχῇ. vii, 108. ἐδεδούλωτο γὰρ, ὡς καὶ πρότερόν μοι δεδήλωται, ἡ μέχρι Θεσσαλίης πᾶσα, καὶ ἦν ὑπὸ βασιλῆα δασμοφόρος, Μεγαβάζου τε καταστρεψαμένου καὶ ὕστερον Μαρδονίου; also vii, 59, and Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 5, 11. Compare Æschylus Pers. 871-896, and the vision ascribed to Cyrus in reference to his successor Darius, covering with his wings both Europe and Asia (Herodot. i, 209).
[23] Herodot. vii, 26-31.
[24] Herodot. vii. 23-25.
[25] Æschylus, Pers. 731, 754, 873.