Plutarch feels under obligation to defend his countrymen and others
from the ungenerous representations of Herodotus, 331. Some signs
of a malicious narrative, 332. To put the worst construction on
actions; to relate faults having no connection with the story; to
omit the relation of laudable actions; when the same action has been
related in two different ways, to prefer the more unfavorable; to
assign bad motives for an action of which the true motive is unknown:
these things are signs of malice, 332-334. Many misrepresentations
occur in Herodotus: as in the story of Io; the cause of the Trojan
war; and that the Greeks derived their religious worship from the
Egyptians, 335, 336. Also that the Persians learned the castration of
boys from the Greeks, 336. That Hercules came from Egypt, and Thales
from Phœnicia, 337. That the Alcmaeonidae were guilty of treason,
338. That Othryadas was not truly a hero, 338. He is inconsistent
in his account of Croesus, 339. He misrepresents the Athenians
in the affair of the Milesians, 339. And the Lacedaemonians
in their expedition against Polycrates of Samos, 340. And the
Corinthians in the affair of the 300 boys from Corcyra, 341. He
calumniates Clisthenes, the deliverer of Athens, Aristogiton, and
the Lacedaemonians, for their share in the expulsion of Hippias,
343. He gives an incorrect and defective account of the burning of
Sardis by the Athenians and Eretrians, 344. He falsifies the history
of the Persian invasion of Greece, 345, _et seq._ He defames the
Alemaeonidae and the Argives, for their conduct in that affair,
347-349. He indulges a malignant spite against the Thebans, 351-356.
He does injustice to Leonidas, 354. He misrepresents the retirement
of the Greek fleet after the battle of Artemisium, 356-358. He is
unfair towards those of the Greeks who were compelled to submit
to the overwhelming power of the Persians, 351, 352, 360. He
misrepresents the Naxians, 360, 361. He is unjust to Themistocles,
and to Adimantus, the Corinthian admiral, in respect to their conduct
at Salamis, 361-364. He unfairly represents the battle of Plataea,
and the part taken in it by several of the confederate States,
366-369. The summing up of the case, 370.