1. The style, O Alexander, of Herodotus, as being simple, free, and
easily suiting itself to its subject, has deceived many; but more, a
persuasion of his dispositions being equally sincere. For it is not
only (as Plato says) an extreme injustice, to make a show of being just
when one is not so; but it is also the highest malignity, to pretend to
simplicity and mildness and be in the mean time really most malicious.
Now since he principally exerts his malice against the Boeotians
and Corinthians, though without sparing any other, I think myself
obliged to defend our ancestors and the truth against this part of his
writings, since those who would detect all his other lies and fictions
would have need of many books. But, as Sophocles has it, the face of
persuasion is prevalent, especially when delivered in good language,
and such as has power to conceal both the other absurdities and the
ill-nature of the writer. King Philip told the Greeks who revolted
from him to Titus Quinctius, that they had got a more polished, but a
longer-lasting yoke. So the malice of Herodotus is indeed more polite
and delicate than that of Theopompus, yet it pinches closer, and makes
a more severe impression,—not unlike to those winds which, blowing
secretly through narrow chinks, are sharper than those that are more
diffused. Now it seems to me very convenient to delineate, as it were,
in a rough draught, those signs and marks that distinguish a malicious
narration from a candid and unbiassed one, applying afterwards every
point we shall examine to such as appertain to them.
2. First then, whoever in relating a story shall use the most odious
terms when gentler expressions might do as well, is not to be esteemed
impartial, but an enjoyer of his own fancy, in putting the worst
construction on things; as if any one, instead of saying Nicias is too
much given to superstition, should call him fanatic, or should accuse
Cleon of presumption and madness rather than of inconsiderateness in
speech.
3. Secondly, when a writer, catching hold of a fault which has no
reference to his story, shall draw it into the relation of such affairs
as need it not, extending his narrative with circumlocutions, only that
he may insert a man’s misfortune, offence, or discommendable action,
it is manifest that he delights in speaking evil. Therefore Thucydides
would not clearly relate the faults of Cleon, which were very numerous;
and as for Hyperbolus the orator, having touched at him in a word and
called him an ill man, he let him go. Philistus also passed over all
those outrages committed by Dionysius on the barbarians which had no
connection with the Grecian affairs. For the excursions and digressions
of history are principally allowed for fables and antiquities,
and sometimes also for encomiums. But he who makes reproaches and
detractions an addition to his discourse seems to incur the tragedian’s
curse on the “collector of men’s calamities.”
4. Now the opposite to this is known to every one, as the omitting
to relate some good and laudable action, which, though it may seem
not to be reprehensible, yet is then done maliciously when the
omission happens in a place that is pertinent to the history. For to
praise unwillingly is so far from being more civil than to dispraise
willingly, that it is perhaps rather more uncivil.
5. The fourth sign of a partial disposition in writing of history
I take to be this: When a matter is related in two or more several
manners, and the historian shall embrace the worst. Sophisters indeed
are permitted, for the obtaining either of profit or reputation, to
undertake the defence of the worst cause; for they neither create any
firm belief of the matter, nor yet do they deny that they are often
pleased in maintaining paradoxes and making incredible things appear
probable. But an historian is then just, when he asserts such things
as he knows to be true, and of those that are uncertain reports rather
the better than the worse. Nay, there are many writers who wholly
omit the worse. Thus Ephorus writes of Themistocles, that he was
acquainted with the treason of Pausanias and his negotiations with the
King’s lieutenants, but that he neither consented to it, nor hearkened
to Pausanias’s proffers of making him partaker of his hopes; and
Thucydides left the whole matter out of his story, as judging it to be
false.
6. Moreover, in things confessed to have been done, but for doing which
the cause and intention is unknown, he who casts his conjectures on the
worst side is partial and malicious. Thus do the comedians, who affirm
the Peloponnesian war to have been kindled by Pericles for the love of
Aspasia or the sake of Phidias, and not through any desire of honor,
or ambition of pulling down the Peloponnesian pride and giving place
in nothing to the Lacedaemonians. For those who suppose a bad cause
for laudable works and commendable actions, endeavoring by calumnies
to insinuate sinister suspicions of the actor when they cannot openly
discommend the act,—as they that impute the killing of Alexander the
tyrant by Theba not to any magnanimity or hatred of vice, but to a
certain feminine jealousy and passion, and those that say Cato slew
himself for fear Caesar should put him to a more shameful death,—such
as these are manifestly in the highest degree envious and malicious.
7. An historical narration is also more or less guilty of malice,
according as it relates the manner of the action; as if one should
be said to have performed an exploit rather by money than valor, as
some affirm of Philip; or else easily and without any labor, as it is
said of Alexander; or else not by prudence, but by Fortune, as the
enemies of Timotheus painted cities falling into his nets as he lay
sleeping. For they undoubtedly diminish the greatness and beauty of the
actions, who deny the performers of them to have done them generously,
industriously, virtuously, and by themselves.
8. Moreover, those who will directly speak ill of any one incur the
reproach of moroseness, rashness, and madness, unless they keep within
measure. But they who send forth calumnies obliquely, as if they were
shooting arrows out of corners, and then stepping back think to conceal
themselves by saying they do not believe what they most earnestly
desire to have believed, whilst they disclaim all malice, condemn
themselves also of farther disingenuity.
9. Next to these are they who with their reproaches intermix some
praises, as did Aristoxenus, who, having termed Socrates unlearned,
ignorant, and libidinous, added, Yet was he free from injustice. For,
as they who flatter artificially and craftily sometimes mingle light
reprehensions with their many and great praises, joining this liberty
of speech as a sauce to their flattery; so malice, that it may gain
belief to its accusations, adds also praise.
10. We might here also reckon up more notes; but these are sufficient
to let us understand the nature and manners of Herodotus.
11. First therefore,—beginning, as the proverb is, with Vesta,—whereas
all the Grecians affirm Io, daughter to Inachus, to have been
worshipped with divine honor by the barbarians, and by her glory to
have left her name to many seas and principal passages, and to have
given a source and original to most noble and royal families; this
famous author says of her, that she gave herself to certain Phoenician
merchants, having been not unwillingly deflowered by a mariner, and
fearing lest she should be found by her friends to be with child.[119]
And he belies the Phoenicians as having delivered these things of her,
and says that the Persian stories testify of her being carried away
by the Phoenicians with other women.[120] Presently after, he gives
sentence on the bravest and greatest exploits of Greece, saying that
the Trojan war was foolishly undertaken for an ill woman. For it is
manifest, says he, that had they not been willing they had never been
ravished.[121] Let us then say, that the Gods also acted foolishly, in
inflicting their indignation on the Spartans for abusing the daughters
of Scedasus the Leuctrian, and in punishing Ajax for the violation of
Cassandra. For it is manifest, if we believe Herodotus, that if they
had not been willing they had never been defiled. And yet he himself
said that Aristomenes was taken alive by the Spartans; and the same
afterwards happened to Philopoemen, commander of the Achaeans; and the
Carthaginians took Regulus, the consul of the Romans; than whom there
are not easily to be found more valiant and warlike men. Nor is it to
be wondered, since even leopards and tigers are taken alive by men. But
Herodotus blames the poor women that have been abused by violence, and
patronizes their ravishers.
12. Nay, he is so favorable to the barbarians, that, acquitting Busiris
of those human sacrifices and that slaughter of his guests for which
he is accused, and attributing by his testimony to the Egyptians much
religion and justice, he endeavors to cast that abominable wickedness
and those impious murders on the Grecians. For in his Second Book he
says, that Menelaus, having received Helen from Proteus and having
been honored by him with many presents, showed himself a most unjust
and wicked man; for wanting a fair wind to set sail, he found out
an impious device, and having taken two of the inhabitants’ boys,
consulted their entrails; for which villany being hated and persecuted,
he fled with his ships directly into Libya.[122] From what Egyptian
this story proceeds, I know not. For, on the contrary, many honors are
even at this day given by the Egyptians both to Helen and Menelaus.
13. The same Herodotus, that he may still be like himself, says that
the Persians learned the defiling of the male sex from the Greeks.[123]
And yet how could the Greeks have taught this impurity to the Persians,
amongst whom, as is confessed by almost all, boys had been castrated
before ever they arrived in the Grecian seas? He writes also, that
the Greeks were instructed by the Egyptians in their pomps, solemn
festivals, and worship of the twelve Gods; that Melampus also learned
of the Egyptians the name of Dionysus (or Bacchus) and taught it the
other Greeks; that the mysteries likewise and rites of Ceres were
brought out of Egypt by the daughters of Danaus; and that the Egyptians
were wont to beat themselves and make great lamentation, but yet he
himself would not tell the names of their Deities, but concealed them
in silence. As to Hercules and Bacchus, whom the Egyptians named Gods,
and the Greeks very aged men, he nowhere feels such scruples and
hesitation; although he places also the Egyptian Hercules amongst the
Gods of the second rank, and Bacchus amongst those of the third, as
having had some beginning of their being and not being eternal, and yet
he pronounces those to be Gods; but to the Greek Bacchus and Hercules,
as having been mortal and being now demi gods, he thinks we ought to
perform anniversary solemnities, but not to sacrifice to them as to
Gods. The same also he said of Pan, overthrowing the most venerable and
purest sacrifices of the Greeks by the proud vanities and mythologies
of the Egyptians.[124]
14. Nor is this impious enough; but moreover, deriving the pedigree of
Hercules from Perseus, he says that Perseus was an Assyrian, as the
Persians affirm. “But the leaders,” says he, “of the Dorians may appear
to be descended in a right line from the Egyptians, reckoning their
ancestors from before Danae and Acrisius.”[125] Here he has wholly
passed by Epaphus, Io, Iasus, and Argus, being ambitious not only to
make the other Herculeses Egyptians and Phoenicians, but to carry this
also, whom himself affirms to have been the third, out of Greece to
the barbarians. But of the ancient learned writers, neither Homer, nor
Hesiod, or Archilochus, nor Pisander, nor Stesichorus, nor Alcman, nor
Pindar, makes any mention of the Egyptian or the Phoenician Hercules,
but all acknowledge this our own Boeotian and Argive Hercules.
15. Now of the seven sages, whom he calls Sophisters, he affirms
Thales to have been a barbarian, descended of the Phoenicians.[126]
Speaking ill also of the Gods under the person of Solon, he has these
words: “Thou, O Croesus, askest me concerning human affairs, who
know that every one of the Deities is envious and tumultuous.”[127]
Thus attributing to Solon what himself thinks of the Gods, he joins
malice to blasphemy. Having made use also of Pittacus in some trivial
matters, not worth the mentioning, he has passed over the greatest and
gallantest action that was ever done by him. For when the Athenians
and Mitylenaeans were at war about Sigaeum, Phrynon, the Athenian
general, challenging whoever would come forth to a single combat,
Pittacus advanced to meet him, and catching him in a net, slew that
stout and giant-like man; for which when the Mitylenaeans offered him
great presents, darting his javelin as far as he could out of his hand,
he desired only so much ground as he should reach with that throw; and
the place is to this day called Pittacium. Now what does Herodotus,
when he comes to this? Instead of Pittacus’s valiant act, he tells us
the fight of Alcaeus the poet, who throwing away his arms ran out of
the battle; by thus not writing of honorable deeds and not passing over
such as are dishonorable, he gives his testimony to those who say, that
from one and the same malice proceed both envy and a rejoicing at other
men’s harms.[128]
16. After this, he accuses of treason the Alcmaeonidae, who showed
themselves generous men, and delivered their country from tyranny.[129]
He says, that they received Pisistratus after his banishment and got
him called home, on condition he should marry the daughter of Megacles;
but the damsel saying to her mother, Do you see, mother, how I am not
known by Pisistratus according to nature? the Alcmaeonidae were so
offended at this villany, that they expelled the tyrant.
17. Now that the Lacedaemonians might have no less share of his malice
than the Athenians, behold how he bespatters Othryadas, the man most
admired and honored by them. “He only,” says Herodotus, “remaining
alive of the three hundred, and ashamed to return to Sparta, his
companions being lost, slew himself on the spot at Thyreae.”[130] For
having before said the victory was doubtful on both sides, he here,
by making Othryadas ashamed, witnesses that the Lacedaemonians were
vanquished. For it was shameful for him to survive, if conquered; but
glorious, if conqueror.
18. I pass by now, that having represented Croesus as foolish,
vainglorious, and ridiculous in all things, he makes him, when a
prisoner, to have taught and instructed Cyrus, who seems to have
excelled all other kings in prudence, virtue, and magnanimity.[131]
Having testified of the same Croesus nothing else that was commendable,
but his honoring the Gods with many and great oblations, he shows
that very act of his to have been the most impious of all. For he
says, that he and his brother Pantoleon contended for the kingdom
while their father was yet alive; and that Croesus, having obtained
the crown, caused a companion and familiar friend of Pantoleon’s to
be torn in pieces in a fulling-mill, and sent presents to the Gods
from his estate.[132] Of Deïoces also, the Median, who by virtue and
justice obtained the government, he says that he got it not by real but
pretended justice.[133]
19. But I let pass the barbarian examples, since he has offered us
plenty enough in the Grecian affairs. He says, that the Athenians
and most other Ionians were so ashamed of that name that they wholly
refused to be called Ionians; and that those who esteemed themselves
the noblest among them, and who had set forth from the very Prytaneum
of Athens, begat children on barbarian wives whose parents, husbands,
and former children they had slain; that the women had therefore made a
law among themselves, confirmed it by oath, and delivered it to be kept
by their daughters, never to eat with their husbands, nor to call any
of them by his name; and that the present Milesians are descended from
these women. Having afterwards added that those are true Ionians who
celebrate the feast called Apaturia; they all, says he, keep it except
the Ephesians and Colophonians.[134] In this manner does he deprive
these two states of their nobility.
20. He says moreover, that the Cumaeans and Mitylenaeans agreed with
Cyrus to deliver up to him for a price Pactyas, who had revolted from
him. I know not indeed, says he, for how much; since it is not certain
what it was. Well done!—not to know what it was, and yet to cast
such an infamy on a Grecian city, as if he had an assured knowledge!
He says farther, that the Chians took Pactyas, who was brought to
them out of the temple of Minerva Poliuchus (or Guardianess of the
city), and delivered him up, having received the city Atarneus for
their recompense. And yet Charon the Lampsacenian, a more ancient
writer, relating this matter concerning Pactyas, charges neither the
Mitylenaeans nor the Chians with any such impious action. These are his
very words: “Pactyas, hearing that the Persian army drew near, fled
first to Mitylene, then to Chios, and there fell into the hands of
Cyrus.”[135]
21. Our author in his Third Book, relating the expedition of the
Lacedaemonians against the tyrant Polycrates, affirms, that the Samians
think and say that the Spartans, to recompense them for their former
assistance against the Messenians, both brought back the Samians that
were banished, and made war on the tyrant; but that the Lacedaemonians
deny this, and say, they undertook this design not to help or deliver
the Samians, but to punish them for having taken away a cup sent by
them to Croesus, and besides, a breastplate sent them by Amasis.[136]
And yet we know that there was not at that time any city so desirous of
honor, or such an enemy to tyrants, as Sparta. For what breastplate or
cup was the cause of their driving the Cypselidae out of Corinth and
Ambracia, Lygdamis out of Naxos, the children of Pisistratus out of
Athens, Aeschines out of Sicyon, Symmachus out of Thasus, Aulis out of
Phocis, and Aristogenes out of Miletus; and of their overturning the
domineering powers of Thessaly, pulling down Aristomedes and Angelus by
the help of King Leotychides?—which facts are elsewhere more largely
described. Now, if Herodotus says true, they were in the highest degree
guilty both of malice and folly, when, denying a most honorable and
most just cause of their expedition, they confessed that in remembrance
of a former injury, and too highly valuing an inconsiderable matter,
they invaded a miserable and afflicted people.
22. Now perhaps he gave the Lacedaemonians this stroke, as directly
falling under his pen; but the city of Corinth, which was wholly out
of the course of his story, he has dragged in—going out of his way
(as they say) to seize upon it—and has bespattered it with a most
filthy crime and most shameful calumny. “The Corinthians,” says he,
“studiously forwarded this expedition of the Lacedaemonians to Samos,
as having themselves also been formerly affronted by the Samians.” The
matter was this. Periander tyrant of Corinth sent three hundred boys,
sons to the principal men of Corcyra, to King Alyattes, to be gelt.
These, going ashore in the island of Samos, were by the Samians taught
to sit as suppliants in the temple of Diana, where they preserved
them, setting before them for their food sesame mixed with honey. This
our author calls an affront put by the Samians on the Corinthians,
who therefore instigated the Lacedaemonians against them, to wit,
because the Samians had saved three hundred children of the Greeks
from being unmanned. By attributing this villany to the Corinthians,
he makes the city more wicked than the tyrant. He indeed was revenging
himself on those of Corcyra who had slain his son; but what had the
Corinthians suffered, that they should punish the Samians for putting
an obstacle to so great a cruelty and wickedness?—and this, after three
generations, reviving the memory of an old quarrel for the sake of that
tyranny, which they found so grievous and intolerable that they are
still endlessly abolishing all the monuments and marks of it, though
long since extinct. Such then was the injury done by the Samians to
the Corinthians. Now what a kind of punishment was it the Corinthians
would have inflicted on them? Had they been indeed angry with the
Samians, they should not have incited the Lacedaemonians, but rather
diverted them from their war against Polycrates, that the Samians might
not by the tyrant’s overthrow recover liberty, and be freed from their
slavery. But (what is most to be observed) why were the Corinthians so
offended with the Samians, that desired indeed but were not able to
save the Corcyraeans’ children, and yet were not displeased with the
Cnidians, who both preserved them and restored them to their friends?
Nor indeed have the Corcyraeans any great esteem for the Samians on
this account; but of the Cnidians they preserve a grateful memory,
having granted them several honors and privileges, and made decrees in
their favor. For these, sailing to Samos, drove away Periander’s guards
from the temple, and taking the children aboard their ships, carried
them safe to Corcyra; as it is recorded by Antenor the Cretan, and by
Dionysius the Chalcidian in his foundations. Now that the Spartans
undertook not this war on any design of punishing the Samians, but to
save them by delivering them from the tyrant, we have the testimony
of the Samians themselves. For they affirm that there is in Samos a
monument erected at the public charge, and honors there done to Archias
a Spartan, who fell fighting valiantly in that quarrel; for which cause
also his posterity still keep a familiar and friendly correspondence
with the Samians, as Herodotus himself witnesses.
23. In his Fifth Book, he says, that Clisthenes, one of the best and
noblest men in Athens, persuaded the priestess Pythia to be a false
prophetess, and always to exhort the Lacedaemonians to free Athens
from the tyrants; calumniating this most excellent and just action
by the imputation of so great a wickedness and imposture, and taking
from Apollo the credit of that true and good prophecy, beseeming even
Themis herself, who is also said to have joined with him. He says
farther, that Isagoras prostituted his wife to Cleomenes, who came
to her.[137] Then, as his manner is, to gain credit by mixing some
praises with his reproaches, he says: Isagoras the son of Tisander was
of a noble family, but I cannot tell the original of it; his kinsmen,
however, sacrifice to the Carian Jupiter.[138] O this pleasant and
cunning scoffer of a writer, who thus disgracefully sends Isagoras
to the Carians, as it were to the ravens. As for Aristogiton, he
puts him not forth at the back door, but thrusts him directly out of
the gate into Phoenicia, saying that he had his original from the
Gephyraeans, and that the Gephyraeans were not, as some think, Euboeans
or Eretrians, but Phoenicians, as himself has learned by report.[139]
And since he cannot altogether take from the Lacedaemonians the glory
of having delivered the Athenians from the tyrants, he endeavors to
cloud and disgrace that most honorable act by as foul a passion. For
he says, they presently repented of it, as not having done well, in
that they had been induced by spurious and deceitful oracles to drive
the tyrants, who were their allies and had promised to put Athens into
their hands, out of their country, and had restored the city to an
ungrateful people. He adds, that they were about to send for Hippias
from Sigeum, and bring him back to Athens; but that they were opposed
by the Corinthians, Sosicles telling them how much the city of Corinth
had suffered under the tyranny of Cypselus and Periander.[140] And
yet there was no outrage of Periander’s more abominable and cruel than
his sending the three hundred children to be emasculated, for the
delivering and saving of whom from that contumely, the Corinthians,
he says, were angry and bore a grudge against the Samians, as having
put an affront upon them. With so much repugnance and contradiction is
that malice of his discourse filled, which on every occasion insinuates
itself into his narrations.
24. After this, relating the action of Sardis, he, as much as in
him lies, diminishes and discredits the matter; being so audacious
as to call the ships which the Athenians sent to the assistance of
the Ionians, who had revolted from the King, the beginning of evils,
because they endeavored to deliver so many and so great Grecian
cities from the barbarians.[141] As to the Eretrians, making mention
of them only by the way, he passes over in silence a great, gallant,
and memorable action of theirs. For when all Ionia was in a confusion
and uproar, and the King’s fleet drew nigh, they, going forth to meet
him, overcame in a sea-fight the Cyprians in the Pamphylian Sea. Then
turning back and leaving their ships at Ephesus, they invaded Sardis
and besieged Artaphernes, who was fled into the castle, that so they
might raise the siege of Miletus. And this indeed they effected,
causing the enemies to break up their camp and remove thence in a
wonderful fright, and then seeing themselves in danger to be oppressed
by a multitude, retired. This not only others, but Lysanias of Mallus
also in his history of Eretria relates, thinking it convenient, if for
no other reason, yet after the taking and destruction of the city, to
add this valiant and heroic act. But this writer of ours says, they
were defeated, and pursued even to their ships by the barbarians;
though Charon the Lampsacenian has no such thing, but writes thus,
word for word: “The Athenians set forth with twenty galleys to the
assistance of the Ionians, and going to Sardis, took all thereabouts,
except the King’s wall; which having done, they returned to Miletus.”
25. In his Sixth Book, our author, discoursing of the Plataeans,—how
they gave themselves to the Lacedaemonians, who exhorted them rather
to have recourse to the Athenians, who were nearer to them and no
bad defenders,—adds, not as a matter of suspicion or opinion, but
as a thing certainly known by him, that the Lacedaemonians gave the
Plataeans this advice, not so much for any good will, as through
a desire to find work for the Athenians by engaging them with the
Boeotians.[142] If then Herodotus is not malicious, the Lacedaemonians
must have been both fraudulent and spiteful; and the Athenians fools,
in suffering themselves to be thus imposed on; and the Plataeans were
brought into play, not for any good-will or respect, but as an occasion
of war.
26. He is farther manifestly convinced of belying the Lacedaemonians,
when he says that, whilst they expected the full moon, they failed of
giving their assistance to the Athenians at Marathon. For they not only
made a thousand other excursions and fights at the beginning of the
month, without staying for the full moon; but wanted so little of being
present at this very battle, which was fought the sixth day of the
month Boedromion, that at their coming they found the dead still lying
in the field. And yet he has written thus of the full moon: “It was
impossible for them to do these things at that present, being unwilling
to break the law; for it was the ninth day of the month, and they said,
they could not go forth on the ninth day, the orb of the moon being not
yet full. And therefore they stayed for the full moon.”[143] But thou,
O Herodotus, transferest the full moon from the middle to the beginning
of the month, and at the same time confoundest the heavens, days, and
all things; and yet thou dost pretend to be the historian of Greece!
And professing to write more particularly and carefully of the
affairs of Athens, thou dost not so much as say a word of that solemn
procession which the Athenians even at this day send to Agrae,
celebrating a feast of thanksgiving to Hecate for their victory. But
this helps Herodotus to refel the crime with which he is charged, of
having flattered the Athenians for a great sum of money he received
of them. For if he had rehearsed these things to them, they would not
have omitted or neglected to notice that Philippides, when on the
ninth he called the Lacedaemonians to the fight, must have come from
it himself, since (as Herodotus says) he went in two days from Athens
to Sparta; unless the Athenians sent for their allies to the fight
after their enemies were overcome. Indeed Diyllus the Athenian, none
of the most contemptible as an historian, says, that he received from
Athens a present of ten talents, Anytus proposing the decree. Moreover
Herodotus, as many say, has in relating the fight at Marathon derogated
from the credit of it, by the number he sets down of the slain. For
it is said that the Athenians made a vow to sacrifice so many kids to
Diana Agrotera, as they should kill barbarians; but that after the
fight, the number of the dead appearing infinite, they appeased the
Goddess by making a decree to immolate five hundred to her every year.
27. But letting this pass, let us see what was done after the fight.
“The barbarians,” says he, “retiring back with the rest of their ships,
and taking the Eretrian slaves out of the island, where they had left
them, doubled the point of Sunium, desiring to prevent the Athenians
before they could gain the city. The Athenians suspected this to have
been done by a plot of the Alcmaeonidae, who by agreement showed
a shield to the Persians when they were got into their ships. They
therefore doubled the cape of Sunium.”[144] Let us in this place take
no notice of his calling the Eretrians slaves, who showed as much
courage and gallantry in this war as any other of the Grecians, and
suffered things unworthy their virtue. Nor let us insist much on the
calumny with which he defames the Alcmaeonidae, some of whom were both
the greatest families and noblest men of the city. But the greatness
of the victory itself is overthrown, and the end of that so celebrated
action comes to nothing, nor does it seem to have been a fight or any
great exploit, but only a light skirmish with the barbarians, as the
envious and ill-willers affirm, if they did not after the battle fly
away, cutting their cables and giving themselves to the wind, to carry
them as far as might be from the Attic coast, but having a shield
lifted up to them as a signal of treason, made straight with their
fleet for Athens, in hope to surprise it, and having at leisure doubled
the point of Sunium, were discovered above the port Phalerum, so that
the chief and most illustrious men, despairing to save the city, would
have betrayed it. For a little after, acquitting the Alcmaeonidae, he
charges others with the treason. “For the shield indeed was shown, nor
can it be denied,” says he, as if he had seen it himself. But this
could no way be, since the Athenians obtained a solid victory; and
if it had been done, it could not have been seen by the barbarians,
flying in a hurry amidst wounds and arrows into their ships, and
leaving every one the place with all possible speed. But when he again
pretends to excuse the Alcmaeonidae of those crimes which he first
of all men objected against them, and speaks thus: “I cannot believe
that the Alcmaeonidae by agreement would ever have lifted up a shield
to the Persians, and have brought the Athenians under the power of
the barbarians and Hippias;” I am reminded of a certain proverbial
saying,—Stop and be caught, crab, and I’ll let you go. For why art
thou so eager to catch him, if thou wilt let him go when he is caught?
Thus you first accuse, then apologize; and you write calumnies against
illustrious men, which again you refute. And you discredit yourself;
for you heard no one but yourself say that the Alcmaeonidae lifted up
a shield to the vanquished and flying barbarians. And in those very
things which you allege for the Alcmaeonidae, you show yourself a
sycophant. For if, as here you write, the Alcmaeonidae were more or
no less enemies to tyrants than Callias, the son of Phaenippus and
father of Hipponicus, where will you place their conspiracy, of which
you write in your First Book, that assisting Pisistratus they brought
him back from exile to the tyranny and would not have driven him away
till he was accused of unnaturally abusing his wife? Such then are the
repugnances of these things; and by his intermixing the praises of
Callias, the son of Phaenippus, amidst the crimes and suspicions of
the Alcmaeonidae, and joining to him his son Hipponicus, who was (as
Herodotus himself says) one of the richest men in Athens, he confesses
that he brought in Callias not for any necessity of the story, but to
ingratiate himself and gain favor with Hipponicus.
28. Now, whereas all know that the Argives denied not to enter into
the common league of the Grecians, though they thought not fit to
follow and be under the command of the Lacedaemonians, who were their
mortal enemies, and that this was no otherways, our author subjoins
a most malicious cause for it, writing thus: “When they saw they
were comprised by the Greeks, knowing that the Lacedaemonians would
not admit them into a share of the command, they requested it, that
they might have a pretence to lie still,” “And of this,” he says,
“the Argive ambassadors afterwards put Artaxerxes in mind, when they
attended him at Susa, and the King said, he esteemed no city more his
friend than Argos.” Then adding, as his manner is, to cover the matter,
he says: “Of these things I know nothing certainly; but this I know,
that all men have faults, and that the worst things were not done by
the Argives; but I must tell such things as are reported, though I am
not bound to believe them all; and let this be understood of all my
narrations. For it is farther said that the Argives, when they were
not able to sustain the war against the Lacedaemonians, called the
Persians into Greece, willing to suffer any thing rather than the
present trouble.”[145] Therefore, as himself reports the Ethiopian to
have said of the ointment and purple, “Deceitful are the beauties,
deceitful the garments of the Persians,”[146] may not any one say also
of him, Deceitful are the phrases, deceitful the figures of Herodotus’s
speeches; as being perplexed, unsound, and full of ambiguities? For
as painters set off and render more eminent the luminous part of
their pictures by adding shadows, so he by his denials extends his
calumnies, and by his dubious speeches makes his suspicions take deeper
impression. If the Argives joined not with the other Greeks, but stood
out through an emulation of the Lacedaemonians’ command and valor, it
cannot be denied but that they acted in a manner not beseeming their
nobility and descent from Hercules. For it had been more honorable for
the Argives under the rule of Siphnians and Cythnians to have defended
the Grecian liberty, than contending with the Spartans for superiority
to have avoided so many and such signal combats. And if it was they
who brought the Persians into Greece, because their war against the
Lacedaemonians succeeded ill, how came it to pass, that they did not at
the coming of Xerxes openly join themselves to the Persians? Or if they
would not fight under the King, why did they not, being left at home,
make incursions into Laconia, or again attempt Thyreae, or by some
other way disturb and infest the Lacedaemonians? For they might have
greatly damaged the Grecians, by hindering the Spartans from going with
so great an army to Plataea.
29. But in this place indeed he has highly magnified the Athenians
and pronounced them the saviors of Greece, doing herein rightly and
justly, if he had not intermixed many reproaches with their praises.
But now, when he says[147] that (had it not been for the Athenians)
the Lacedaemonians would have been betrayed by the other Greeks, and
then, being left alone and having performed great exploits, they would
have died generously; or else, having before seen that the Greeks
were favoring the Medes, they would have made terms with Xerxes; it
is manifest, he speaks not these things to the commendation of the
Athenians, but he praises the Athenians that he may speak ill of all
the rest. For how can any one now be angry with him for so bitterly and
intemperately upbraiding the Thebans and Phocians at every turn, when
he charges even those who exposed themselves to all perils for Greece
with a treason which was never acted, but which (as he suspects) might
have been acted. Nay, of the Lacedaemonians themselves, he makes it
doubtful whether they would have fallen in the battle or have yielded
to the enemy, distrusting the proofs of their valor which were shown at
Thermopylae;—and these indeed were slight!
30. After this, when he declares the shipwreck that befell the King’s
fleet, and how, an infinite mass of wealth being cast away, Aminocles
the Magnesian, son of Cresines, was greatly enriched by it, having
gotten an immense quantity of gold and silver; he could not so much
as let this pass without snarling at it. “For this man,” says he,
“who had till then been none of the most fortunate, by wrecks became
exceeding rich; for the misfortune he had in killing his son much
afflicted his mind.”[148] This indeed is manifest to every one, that
he brought this golden treasure and this wealth cast up by the sea
into his history, that he might make way for the inserting Aminocles’s
killing his son.
31. Now Aristophanes the Boeotian wrote, that Herodotus demanded money
of the Thebans but received none, and that going about to discourse
and reason with the young men, he was prohibited by the magistrates
through their clownishness and hatred of learning; of which there is no
other argument. But Herodotus bears witness to Aristophanes, whilst he
charges the Thebans with some things falsely, with others ignorantly,
and with others as hating them and having a quarrel with them. For
he affirms that the Thessalians at first upon necessity inclined to
the Persians,[149] in which he says the truth; and prophesying of the
other Grecians that they would betray the Lacedaemonians, he added,
that they would not do it willingly, but upon necessity, one city being
taken after another. But he does not allow the Thebans the same plea
of necessity, although they sent to Tempe five hundred men under the
command of Mnamias, and to Thermopylae as many as Leonidas desired, who
also alone with the Thespians stood by him, the rest leaving him after
he was surrounded. But when the barbarian, having possessed himself of
the avenues, was got into their confines, and Demaratus the Spartan,
favoring in right of hospitality Attaginus, the chief of the oligarchy,
had so wrought that he became the King’s friend and familiar, whilst
the other Greeks were in their ships, and none came on by land; then
at last being forsaken did they accept conditions of peace, to which
they were compelled by great necessity. For they had neither the sea
and ships at hand, as had the Athenians; nor did they dwell far off, as
the Spartans, who inhabited the most remote parts of Greece; but were
not above a day and half’s journey from the Persian army, whom they had
already with the Spartans and Thespians alone resisted at the entrance
of the straits, and were defeated.
But this writer is so equitable, that having said, “The Lacedaemonians,
being alone and deserted by their allies, would perhaps have made a
composition with Xerxes,” he yet abuses the Thebans, who were driven
to the same act by the same necessity. But when he could not wholly
obliterate this most great and glorious act of the Thebans, yet went he
about to deface it with a most vile imputation and suspicion, writing
thus: “The confederates who had been sent returned back, obeying the
commands of Leonidas; there remained only with the Lacedaemonians the
Thespians and the Thebans: of these, the Thebans stayed against their
wills, for Leonidas retained them as hostages; but the Thespians most
willingly, as they said they would never depart from Leonidas and those
that were with him.”[150] Does he not here manifestly discover himself
to have a peculiar pique and hatred against the Thebans, by the impulse
of which he not only falsely and unjustly calumniated the city, but
did not so much as take care to render his contradiction probable, or
to conceal, at least from a few men, his being conscious of having
knowingly contradicted himself? For having before said that Leonidas,
perceiving his confederates not to be in good heart nor prepared to
undergo danger, wished them to depart, he a little after adds that
the Thebans were against their wills detained by him; whereas, if he
had believed them inclined to the Persians, he should have driven
them away though they had been willing to tarry. For if he thought
that those who were not brisk would be useless, to what purpose was
it to mix among his soldiers those that were suspected? Nor was the
king of the Spartans and general of all Greece so senseless as to
think that four hundred armed Thebans could be detained as hostages
by his three hundred, especially the enemy being both in his front
and rear. For though at first he might have taken them along with him
as hostages; it is certainly probable that at last, having no regard
for him, they would have gone away from him, and that Leonidas would
have more feared his being encompassed by them than by the enemy.
Furthermore, would not Leonidas have been ridiculous, to have sent
away the other Greeks, as if by staying they should soon after have
died, and to have detained the Thebans, that being himself about to
die, he might keep them for the Greeks? For if he had indeed carried
them along with him for hostages, or rather for slaves, he should not
have kept them with those that were at the point of perishing, but
have delivered them to the Greeks that went away. There remained but
one cause that might be alleged for Leonidas’s unwillingness to let
them go, to wit, that they might die with him; and this our historian
himself has taken away, writing thus of Leonidas’s ambition: “Leonidas
considering these things, and desirous that this glory might redound
to the Spartans alone, sent away his confederates rather for this than
because they differed in their opinions.”[151] For it had certainly
been the height of folly to keep his enemies against their wills, to
be partakers of that glory from which he drove away his confederates.
But it is manifest from the effects, that Leonidas suspected not
the Thebans of insincerity, but esteemed them to be his steadfast
friends. For he marched with his army into Thebes, and at his request
obtained that which was never granted to any other, to sleep within
the temple of Hercules; and the next morning he related to the Thebans
the vision that had appeared to him. For he imagined that he saw the
most illustrious and greatest cities of Greece irregularly tost and
floating up and down on a very stormy and tempestuous sea; that Thebes,
being carried above all the rest, was lifted up on high to heaven, and
suddenly after disappeared. And this indeed had a resemblance of those
things which long after befell that city.
32. Now Herodotus, in his narration of that fight, hath obscured also
the bravest act of Leonidas, saying that they all fell in the straits
near the hill.[152] But the affair was otherwise managed. For when they
perceived by night that they were encompassed by the barbarians, they
marched straight to the enemies’ camp, and got very near the King’s
pavilion, with a resolution to kill him and leave their lives about
him. They came then to his tent, killing or putting to flight all they
met; but when Xerxes was not found there, seeking him in that vast
camp and wandering about, they were at last with much difficulty slain
by the barbarians, who surrounded them on every side. What other acts
and sayings of the Spartans Herodotus has omitted, we will write in
the Life of Leonidas; yet that hinders not but we may here set down
also some few. Before Leonidas went forth to that war, the Spartans
exhibited to him funeral games, at which the fathers and mothers of
those that went along with him were spectators. Leonidas himself, when
one said to him, You lead very few with you to the battle, answered,
There are many to die there. When his wife, at his departure, asked
him what commands he had for her; he, turning to her, said, I command
you to marry good men, and bring them good children. After he was
enclosed by the enemy at Thermopylae, desiring to save two that were
related to him, he gave one of them a letter and sent him away; but
he rejected it, saying angrily, I followed you as a soldier, not as a
post. The other he commanded on a message to the magistrates of Sparta;
but he, answering by his act, took his shield, and stood up in his
rank. Who would not have blamed another that should have omitted these
things? But he who has collected and recorded the fart of Amasis, the
coming of the thief’s asses, and the giving of bottles, and many such
like things, cannot seem to have omitted these gallant acts and these
remarkable sayings by negligence and oversight, but as bearing ill-will
and being unjust to some.
33. He says that the Thebans, being at the first with the Greeks,
fought compelled by necessity.[153] For belike not only Xerxes, but
Leonidas also, had whipsters following his camp, by whom the Thebans
were scourged and forced against their wills to fight. And what more
savage libeller could be found than Herodotus, when he says that they
fought upon necessity, who might have gone away and fled, and that
they inclined to the Persians, whereas not one came in to help them.
After this, he writes that, the rest making to the hill, the Thebans
separated themselves from them, lifted up their hands to the barbarian,
and coming near, cried with a most true voice, that they had favored
the Persians, had given earth and water to the King, that now being
forced by necessity they were come to Thermopylae, and that they were
innocent of the King’s wound. Having said these things, they obtained
quarter; for they had the Thessalians for witnesses of all they said.
Behold, how amidst the barbarians’ exclamations, tumults of all sorts,
flights and pursuits, their apology was heard, the witnesses examined;
and the Thessalians, in the midst of those that were slain and trodden
under foot, all being done in a very narrow passage, patronized the
Thebans, to wit, because the Thebans had but a little before driven
away them, who were possessed of all Greece as far as Thespiae,
having conquered them in a battle, and slain their leader Lattamyas!
For thus at that time stood matters between the Boeotians and the
Thessalians, without any friendship or good-will. But yet how did the
Thebans escape, the Thessalians helping them with their testimonies?
Some of them, says he, were slain by the barbarians; many of them
were by command of Xerxes marked with the royal mark, beginning with
their leader Leontiades. Now the captain of the Thebans at Thermopylae
was not Leontiades, but Anaxander, as both Aristophanes, out of the
Commentaries of the Magistrates, and Nicander the Colophonian have
taught us. Nor did any man before Herodotus know that the Thebans
were stigmatized by Xerxes; for otherwise this would have been an
excellent plea for them against his calumny, and this city might well
have gloried in these marks, that Xerxes had punished Leonidas and
Leontiades as his greatest enemies, having outraged the body of the one
when he was dead, and caused the other to be tormented whilst living.
But as to a man who makes the barbarian’s cruelty against Leonidas
when dead a sign that he hated him most of all men when living,[154]
and yet says that the Thebans, though favoring the Persians, were
stigmatized by them at Thermopylae, and having been thus stigmatized,
again cheerfully took their parts at Plataea, it seems to me that such
a man—like that Hippoclides[155] who stood on his head upon a table
and gesticulated with his legs—would dance away the truth and exclaim,
Herodotus cares not for that.
34. In the Eighth Book our author says, that the Greeks being
frighted designed to fly from Artemisium into Greece, and that, being
requested by the Euboeans to stay a little till they could dispose of
their wives and families, they regarded them not, till such time as
Themistocles, having taken money of them, divided it between Eurybiades
and Adimantus, the captain of the Corinthians, and that then they
stayed and had a sea-fight with the barbarians.[156] Yet Pindar, who
was not a citizen of any of the confederate cities, but of one that
was suspected to take part with the Medians, having made mention of
Artemisium, brake forth into this exclamation: “This is the place where
the sons of the Athenians laid the glorious foundation of liberty.” But
Herodotus, by whom, as some will have it, Greece is honored, makes that
victory a work of bribery and theft, saying that the Greeks, deceived
by their captains, who had to that end taken money, fought against
their wills. Nor does he here put an end to his malice. All men in a
manner confess that, although the Greeks got the better at sea, they
nevertheless abandoned Artemisium to the barbarians after they had
received the news of the overthrow at Thermopylae. For it was to no
purpose for them to stay there and keep the sea, the war being already
within Thermopylae, and Xerxes having possessed himself of the avenues.
But Herodotus makes the Greeks contriving to fly before they heard any
thing of Leonidas’s death. For thus he says: “But they having been
ill-treated, and especially the Athenians, half of whose ships were
sorely shattered, consulted to take their flight into Greece.”[157]
But let him be permitted so to name (or rather reproach) this retreat
of theirs before the fight; but having before called it a flight, he
both now styles it a flight, and will again a little after term it a
flight; so bitterly does he adhere to this word “flight.” “Presently
after this,” says he, “there came to the barbarians in the pinnace a
man of Hestiaea, who acquainted them with the flight of the Grecians
from Artemisium. They, because the thing seemed incredible, kept the
messenger in custody, and sent forth some light galleys to discover the
truth.”[158] But what is this you say? That they fled as conquered,
whom the enemies after the fight could not believe to have fled, as
having got much the better? Is then this a fellow fit to be believed
when he writes of any man or city, who in one word deprives Greece of
the victory, throws down the trophy, and pronounces the inscriptions
they had set up to Diana Proseoa (_Eastward-looking_) to be nothing but
pride and vain boasting? The tenor of the inscription was as follows:
When Athens youth had in a naval fight
All Asia’s forces on this sea o’erthrown,
And all the Persian army put to flight,
Than which a greater scarce was ever known,
To show how much Diana they respected,
This trophy to her honor they erected.
Moreover, not having described any order of the Greeks, nor told us
what place every city of theirs held during the sea-fight, he says that
in this retreat, which he calls their flight, the Corinthians sailed
first and the Athenians last.[159]
35. He indeed ought not to have too much insulted over the Greeks that
took part with the Persians, who, being by others thought a Thurian,
reckons himself among the Halicarnassians, who, being Dorians by
descent, went with their wives and children to the war against the
Greeks. But he is so far from giving first an account of the straits
they were in who revolted to the Persians, that, having related how
the Thessalians sent to the Phocians, who were their mortal enemies,
and promised to preserve their country free from all damage if they
might receive from them a reward of fifty talents, he writ thus of the
Phocians: “For the Phocians were the only people in these quarters
who inclined not to the Persians, and that, as far as I upon due
consideration can find, for no other reason but because they hated the
Thessalians; for if the Thessalians had been affected to the Grecian
affairs, I suppose the Phocians would have joined themselves to the
Persians.” And yet a little after he will say, that thirteen cities of
the Phocians were burned by the barbarians, their country laid waste,
and the temple which was in Abae set on fire, and all of both sexes put
to the sword, except those that by flight escaped to Parnassus.[160]
Nevertheless, he puts those who suffered all extremities rather than
lose their honesty in the same rank with those who most affectionately
sided with the Persians. And when he could not blame the Phocians’
actions, he sat at his desk devising false causes and framing
suspicions against them, and bidding us judge them not by what they
did, but by what they would have done if the Thessalians had not taken
the same side, as if they had been shut out from treason because they
found the place already occupied by others! Now if any one, going
about to excuse the revolt of the Thessalians to the Persians, should
say that they would not have done it but for the hatred they bare
the Phocians,—whom when they saw joined to the Greeks, they against
their inclinations followed the party of the Persians,—would not such
a one be thought most shamefully to flatter, and for the sake of
others to pervert the truth, by feigning good causes for evil actions?
Indeed, I think, he would. Why then would not he be thought openly to
calumniate, who says that the Phocians chose the best, not for the
love of virtue, but because they saw the Thessalians on the contrary
side? For neither does he refer this device to other authors, as he is
elsewhere wont to do, but says that himself found it out by conjecture.
He should therefore have produced certain arguments, by which he was
persuaded that they, who did things like the best, followed the same
counsels with the worst. For what he alleges of their enmities is
ridiculous. For neither did the difference between the Aeginetans and
the Athenians, nor that between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians,
nor yet that between the Corinthians and the Megarians, hinder them
from fighting together for Greece. Nor did the Macedonians, their most
bitter enemies, divert the Thessalians from their friendship with the
barbarians, by joining the Persian party themselves. For the common
danger did so bury their private grudges, that banishing their other
passions, they applied their minds either to honesty for the sake of
virtue, or to profit through the impulse of necessity. And indeed,
after that necessity which compelled them to obey the Persians was
over, they returned again to the Greeks, as Lacrates the Spartan has
openly testified of them. And Herodotus, as constrained to it, in his
relation of the affairs at Plataea, confessed that the Phocians took
part with the Greeks.[161]
36. Neither ought it to seem strange to any, if he thus bitterly
inveighs against the unfortunate; since he reckons amongst enemies
and traitors those who were present at the engagement, and together
with the other Greeks hazarded their safety. For the Naxians, says he,
sent three ships to the assistance of the barbarians; but Democritus,
one of their captains, persuaded the others to take the party of the
Greeks.[162] So unable he is to praise without dispraising, that if
he commends one man he must condemn a whole city or people. But in
this there give testimony against him, of the more ancient writers
Hellanicus, and of the later Ephorus, one of which says that the
Naxians came with six ships to aid the Greeks, and the other with five.
And Herodotus convinces himself of having feigned these things. For
the writers of the Naxian annals say, that they had before beaten back
Megabates, who came to their island with two hundred ships, and after
that had put to flight the general Datis, who had set their city on
fire. Now if, as Herodotus has elsewhere said, the barbarians burned
their city so that the men were glad to save themselves by flying
into the mountains, most surely had they just cause rather to send
aid to the destroyers of their country than to help the protectors of
the common liberty. But that he framed this lie not so much to honor
Democritus, as to cast infamy on the Naxians, is manifest from his
omitting and wholly passing over in silence the valiant acts then
performed by Democritus, of which Simonides gives us an account in this
epigram:
When as the Greeks at sea the Medes did meet,
And had near Salamis a naval fight,
Democritus as third led up the fleet,
Charging the enemy with all his might;
He took five of their ships, and did another,
Which they had taken from the Greeks, recover.
37. But why should any one be angry with him about the Naxians? If we
have, as some say, antipodes inhabiting the other hemisphere, I believe
that they also have heard of Themistocles and his counsel, which he
gave to the Greeks, to fight a naval battle before Salamis, after
which, the barbarian being overcome, he built in Melite a temple to
Diana the Counsellor. This gentle writer, endeavoring, as much as in
him lies, to deprive Themistocles of the glory of this, and transfer
it to another, writes thus word for word: “Whilst things were thus,
Mnesiphilus, an Athenian, asked Themistocles, as he was going aboard
his ship, what had been resolved on in council. And being answered,
that it was decreed the ships should be brought back to Isthmus, and a
battle fought at sea before Peloponnesus; he said, If then they remove
the navy from Salamis, you will no longer be fighting for one country;
for they will return every one to his own city. Wherefore, if there be
any way left, go and endeavor to break this resolution; and, if it be
possible, persuade Eurybiades to change his mind and stay here.” Then
adding that this advice pleased Themistocles, who, without making any
reply, went straight to Eurybiades, he has these very expressions: “And
sitting by him he related what he had heard from Mnesiphilus, feigning
as if it came from himself, and adding other things.”[163] You see how
he accuses Themistocles of disingenuity in arrogating to himself the
counsel of Mnesiphilus.
38. And deriding the Greeks still further, he says, that Themistocles,
who was called another Ulysses for his wisdom, was so blind that he
could not foresee what was fit to be done; but that Artemisia, who was
of the same city with Herodotus, without being taught by any one, but
by her own consideration, said thus to Xerxes: “The Greeks will not
long be able to hold out against you, but you will scatter them, and
they will flee to their own cities; nor is it probable, if you march
your army by land to Peloponnesus, that they will sit still, or take
care to fight at sea for the Athenians. But if you make haste to give
them a naval battle, I fear lest your fleets receiving damage may prove
also very prejudicial to your land-forces.”[164] Certainly Herodotus
wanted nothing but verses to make Artemisia another Sibyl, so exactly
prophesying of things to come. Therefore Xerxes also delivered his sons
to her to be carried to Ephesus; for he had (it seems) forgot to bring
women with him from Susa, if indeed the boys wanted a train of female
attendants.
39. But it is not our design to search into the lies of Herodotus;
we only make enquiry into those which he invented to detract from
the glory of others. He says: “It is reported by the Athenians that
Adimantus, captain of the Corinthians, when the enemies were now ready
to join battle, was struck with such fear and astonishment that he
fled; not thrusting his ship backward by the stern, or leisurely
retreating through those that were engaged, but openly hoisting up his
sails, and turning the heads of all his vessels. And about the farther
part of the Salaminian coast, he was met by a pinnace, out of which one
spake thus to him: “Thou indeed, Adimantus, fliest, having betrayed the
Grecians; yet they overcome, and according to their desires have the
better of their enemies.”[165] This pinnace was certainly let down from
heaven. For what should hinder him from erecting a tragical machine,
who by his boasting excelled the tragedians in all other things?
Adimantus then crediting him (he adds) “returned to the fleet, when
the business was already done.” “This report,” says he, “is believed
by the Athenians; but the Corinthians deny it, and say, they were
the first at the sea-fight, for which they have the testimony of all
the other Greeks.” Such is this man in many other places. He spreads
different calumnies and accusations of different men, that he may not
fail of making some one appear altogether wicked. And it has succeeded
well with him in this place; for if the calumny is believed, the
Corinthians—if it is not, the Athenians—are rendered infamous. But in
truth the Athenians did not belie the Corinthians, but he hath belied
them both. Certainly Thucydides, bringing in an Athenian ambassador
contesting with a Corinthian at Sparta, and gloriously boasting of many
things about the Persian war and the sea-fight at Salamis, charges not
the Corinthians with any crime of treachery or leaving their station.
Nor was it likely the Athenians should object any such thing against
Corinth, when they saw her engraven in the third place after the
Lacedaemonians and themselves on those spoils which, being taken from
the barbarians, were consecrated to the Gods. And in Salamis they had
permitted them to bury the dead near the city, as being men who had
behaved themselves gallantly, and to write over them this elegy:
Well-watered Corinth, stranger, was our home;
Salamis, Ajax’s isle, is now our grave;
Here Medes and Persians and Phoenician ships
We fought and routed, sacred Greece to save.
And their honorary sepulchre at the Isthmus has on it this epitaph:
When Greece upon the point of danger stood,
We fell, defending her with our life-blood.[166]
Moreover, on the offerings of Diodorus, one of the Corinthian
sea-captains, reserved in the temple of Latona, there is this
inscription:
Diodorus’s seamen to Latona sent
These arms, of hostile Medes the monument.
And as for Adimantus himself, against whom Herodotus frequently
inveighs,—saying, that he was the only captain who went about to fly
from Artemisium, and would not stay the fight,—behold in how great
honor he is:
Here Adimantus rests: the same was he,
Whose counsels won for Greece the crown of liberty.
For neither is it probable, that such honor would have been shown to a
coward and a traitor after his decease; nor would he have dared to give
his daughters the names of Nausinica, Acrothinius, and Alexibia, and
his son that of Aristeas, if he had not performed some illustrious and
memorable action in that fight. Nor is it credible that Herodotus was
ignorant of that which could not be unknown even to the meanest Carian,
that the Corinthian women alone made that glorious and divine prayer,
by which they besought the Goddess Venus to inspire their husbands with
a love of fighting against the barbarians. For it was a thing divulged
abroad, concerning which Simonides made an epigram to be inscribed on
the brazen image set up in that temple of Venus which is said to have
been founded by Medea, when she desired the Goddess, as some affirm,
to deliver her from loving her husband Jason, or, as others say, to
free him from loving Thetis. The tenor of the epigram follows:
For those who, fighting on their country’s side,
Opposed th’ imperial Mede’s advancing tide,
We, votaresses, to Cythera pray’d;
Th’ indulgent power vouchsafed her timely aid,
And kept the citadel of Hellas free
From rude assaults of Persia’s archery.
These things he should rather have written and recorded, than have
inserted Aminocles’s killing of his son.
40. After he had abundantly satisfied himself with the accusations
brought against Themistocles,—of whom he says that, unknown to the
other captains, he incessantly robbed and spoiled the islands,—[167] he
at length openly takes away the crown of victory from the Athenians,
and sets it on the head of the Aeginetans, writing thus: “The Greeks
having sent the first-fruits of their spoils to Delphi, asked in
general of the God, whether he had a sufficient part of the booty and
were contented with it. He answered, that he had enough of all the
other Greeks, but not of the Aeginetans; for he expected a donary of
them, as having won the greatest honor in the battle at Salamis.”[168]
See here how he attributes not his fictions to the Scythians, to the
Persians, or to the Egyptians, as Aesop did his to the ravens and
apes; but using the very person of the Pythian Apollo, he takes from
Athens the chief honor of the battle at Salamis. And the second place
in honor being given to Themistocles at the Isthmus by all the other
captains,—every one of which attributed to himself the first degree of
valor, but gave the next to Themistocles,—and the judgment not coming
to a determination, when he should have reprehended the ambition of
the captains, he said, that all the Greeks weighed anchor from thence
through envy, not being willing to give the chief honor of the victory
to Themistocles.[169]
41. In his ninth and last book, having nothing left to vent his
malice on but the Lacedaemonians and their glorious action against
the barbarians at Plataea, he writes, that the Spartans at first
feared lest the Athenians should suffer themselves to be persuaded
by Mardonius to forsake the other Greeks; but that now, the Isthmus
being fortified, they, supposing all to be safe at Peloponnesus,
neglected and slighted the rest, feasting and making merry at home,
and deluding and delaying the Athenian ambassadors.[170] How then did
there go forth from Sparta to Plataea a thousand and five men, having
every one of them with him seven Helots? Or how came it that, exposing
themselves to so many dangers, they vanquished and overthrew so many
thousand barbarians? Hear now his probable cause of it. “It happened,”
says he, “that there was then at Sparta a certain stranger of Tegea,
named Chileus, who had some friends amongst the Ephori, between whom
and him there was mutual hospitality. He then persuaded them to send
forth the army, telling them that the fortification on the Isthmus,
by which they had fenced in Peloponnesus, would be of no avail if the
Athenians joined themselves with Mardonius.”[171] This counsel then
drew Pausanias with his army to Plataea; but if any private business
had kept that Chileus at Tegea, Greece had never been victorious.
42. Again, not knowing what to do with the Athenians, he tosses to
and fro that city, sometimes extolling it, and sometimes debasing it.
He says that, contending for the second place with the Tegeatans they
made mention of the Heraclidae, alleged their acts against the Amazons,
and the sepulchres of the Peloponnesians that died under the walls
of Cadmea, and at last ambitiously brought down their discourse to
the battle of Marathon, saying, however, that they would be contented
with the command of the left wing.[172] A little after, he says,
Pausanias and the Spartans yielded them the first place, desiring
them to fight in the right wing against the Persians and give them
the left, who excused themselves as not skilled in fighting against
the barbarians.[173] Now it is a ridiculous thing, to be unwilling to
fight against an enemy unless one has been used to him. But he says
farther, that the other Greeks being led by their captains to encamp
in another place, as soon as they were moved, the horse fled with joy
towards Plataea, and in their flight came as far as Juno’s temple.[174]
In which place indeed he charges them all in general with disobedience,
cowardice, and treason. At last he says, that only the Lacedaemonians
and the Tegeates fought with the barbarians, and the Athenians with the
Thebans; equally defrauding all the other cities of their part in the
honor of the victory, whilst he affirms that none of them joined in
the fight, but that all of them, sitting still hard by in their arms,
betrayed and forsook those who fought for them; that the Phliasians
and Megarians indeed, when they heard Pausanias had got the better,
came in late, and falling on the Theban horse, were all cut off; that
the Corinthians were not at the battle, and that after the victory, by
pressing on over the hills, they escaped the Theban cavalry.[175] For
the Thebans, after the barbarians were overthrown, going before with
their horse, affectionately assisted them in their flight; to return
them thanks (forsooth) for the marks they had stigmatized them with at
Thermopylae! Now what rank the Corinthians had in the fight at Plataea
against the barbarians, and how they performed their duty, you may hear
from Simonides in these verses:
I’ th’ midst were men, in warlike feats excelling,
Who Ephyre, full of springs, inhabited,
And who in Corinth, Glaucus’ city, dwelling,
Great praise by their great valor merited;
Of which they to perpetuate the fame,
To th’ Gods of well-wrought gold did offerings frame.
For he wrote not these things, as one that taught at Corinth or that
made verses in honor of the city, but only as recording these actions
in elegiac verses. But Herodotus, whilst he desires to prevent that
objection by which those might convince him of lying who should ask,
Whence then are so many mounts, tombs, and monuments of the dead, at
which the Plataeans, even to this day, celebrate funeral solemnities in
the presence of the Greeks?—has charged, unless I am mistaken, a fouler
crime than that of treason on their posterity. For these are his words:
“As for the other sepulchres that are seen in Plataea, I have heard
that their successors, being ashamed of their progenitors’ absence from
this battle, erected every man a monument for posterity’s sake.”[176]
Of this treacherous deserting the battle Herodotus was the only man
that ever heard. For if any Greeks withdrew themselves from the battle,
they must have deceived Pausanias, Aristides, the Lacedaemonians, and
the Athenians. Neither yet did the Athenians exclude the Aeginetans
who were their adversaries from the inscription, nor convince the
Corinthians of having fled from Salamis before the victory, Greece
bearing witness to the contrary. Indeed Cleadas, a Plataean, ten years
after the Persian war, to gratify, as Herodotus says, the Aeginetans,
erected a mount bearing their name. How came it then to pass that the
Athenians and Lacedaemonians, who were so jealous of each other that
they were presently after the war ready to go together by the ears
about the setting up a trophy, did not yet repel those Greeks who fled
in a fear from the battle from having a share in the honor of those
that behaved themselves valiantly, but inscribed their names on the
trophies and colossuses, and granted them part of the spoils? Lastly
they set up an altar, on which was engraven this epigram:
The Greeks, by valor having put to flight
The Persians and preserved their country’s right,
Erected here this altar which you see,
To Jove, preserver of their liberty.
Did Cleadas, O Herodotus, or some other, write this also, to oblige
the cities by flattery? What need had they then to employ fruitless
labor in digging up the earth, to make tombs and erect monuments for
posterity’s sake, when they saw their glory consecrated in the most
illustrious and greatest donaries? Pausanias indeed, when he was
aspiring to the tyranny, set up this inscription in Delphi:
Pausanias, of Greeks the general,
When he the Medes in fight had overthrown,
Offered to Phoebus a memorial
Of victory, this monumental stone.
In which he gave the glory to the Greeks, whose general he professed
himself to be. Yet the Greeks not enduring but utterly misliking it,
the Lacedaemonians, sending to Delphi, caused this to be cut out, and
the names of the cities, as it was fit, to be engraven instead of
it. Now how is it possible that the Greeks should have been offended
that there was no mention made of them in the inscription, if they
had been conscious to themselves of deserting the fight? or that the
Lacedaemonians would have erased the name of their leader and general,
to insert deserters and such as withdrew themselves from the common
danger? For it would have been a great indignity, that Sophanes,
Aeimnestus, and all the rest who showed their valor in that fight,
should calmly suffer even the Cythnians and Melians to be inscribed
on the trophies; and that Herodotus, attributing that fight only to
three cities, should raze all the rest out of those and other sacred
monuments and donaries.
43. There having been then four fights with the barbarians; he says,
that the Greeks fled from Artemisium; that, whilst their king and
general exposed himself to danger at Thermopylae, the Lacedaemonians
sat negligent at home, celebrating the Olympian and Carnean feasts;
and discoursing of the action at Salamis, he uses more words about
Artemisia than he does in his whole narrative of the naval battle.
Lastly, he says, that the Greeks sat still at Plataea, knowing no more
of the fight, till it was over, than if it had been a skirmish between
mice and frogs (like that which Pigres, Artemisia’s fellow-countryman,
merrily and scoffingly described in his poem), and it had been agreed
to fight silently, lest they should be heard by others; and that the
Lacedaemonians excelled not the barbarians in valor, but only got
the better, as fighting against naked and unarmed men. To wit, when
Xerxes himself was present, the barbarians were with much difficulty
compelled by scourges to fight with the Greeks; but at Plataea, having
taken other resolutions, as Herodotus says, “they were no way inferior
in courage and strength; but their garments being without armor was
prejudicial to them, since being naked they fought against a completely
armed enemy.” What then is there left great and memorable to the
Grecians of those fights, if the Lacedaemonians fought with unarmed
men, and the other Greeks, though present, were ignorant of the battle;
if empty monuments are set up everywhere, and tripods and altars full
of lying inscriptions are placed before the Gods; if, lastly, Herodotus
only knows the truth, and all others that give any account of the
Greeks have been deceived by the fame of those glorious actions, as
the effect of an admirable prowess? But he is an acute writer, his
style is pleasant, there is a certain grace, force, and elegancy in his
narrations; and he has, like a musician, pronounced his discourse,
though not knowingly, still clearly and elegantly. These things
delight, please, and affect all men. But as in roses we must beware
of the venomous flies called cantharides; so must we take heed of the
calumnies and envy lying hid under smooth and well-couched phrases and
expressions, lest we imprudently entertain absurd and false opinions of
the most excellent and greatest cities and men of Greece.