It is a matter too of no unprofitable consideration, how the minds of

the Trojans and of Hector too were affected when he and Ajax were about

to engage in a single combat. For Aeschylus, when, upon one of the

fighters at fisticuffs in the Isthmian games receiving a blow on the

face, there was made a great outcry among the people, said: "What a

thing is practice! See how the lookers-on only cry out, but the man that

received the stroke is silent." But when the poet tells us, that the

Greeks rejoiced when they saw Ajax in his glistering armor, but

The Trojans' knees for very fear did quake,

And even Hector's heart began to ache;

("Iliad," vii. 215. For the three following,

see "Iliad," ii. 220; v. 26 and 231.)

who is there that wonders not at this difference,--when the heart of

him that was to run the risk of the combat only beats inwardly, as if he

were to undertake a mere wrestling or running match, but the very bodies

of the spectators tremble and shake, out of the kindness and fear which

they had for their king?

In the same poet also we may observe the difference betwixt the humor of

a coward and a valiant man. For Thersites

Against Achilles a great malice had,

And wise Ulysses he did hate as bad;

but Ajax is always represented as friendly to Achilles; and particularly

he speaks thus to Hector concerning him:--

Hector I approach my arm, and singly know

What strength thou hast, and what the Grecian foe.

Achilles shuns the fight; yet some there are

Not void of soul, and not unskill'd in war:

wherein he insinuates the high commendation of that valiant man. And in

what follows, he speaks like handsome things of his fellow-soldiers in

general, thus:--

Whole troops of heroes Greece has yet to boast,

And sends thee one, a sample of her host;

wherein he doth not boast himself to be the only or the best champion,

but one of those, among many others, who were fit to undertake that

combat.

What hath been said is sufficient upon the point of dissimilitudes;

except we think fit to add this, that many of the Trojans came into the

enemy's power alive, but none of the Grecians; and that many Trojans

supplicated to their enemies,--as (for instance) Adrastus, the sons of

Antimachus, Lycaon,--and even Hector himself entreats Achilles for a

sepulture; but not one of these doth so, as judging it barbarous to

supplicate to a foe in the field, and more Greek-like either to conquer

or die.

But as, in the same plant, the bee feeds on the flower, the goat on the

bud, the hog on the root, and other living creatures on the seed and the

fruit; so in reading of poems, one man singleth out the historical

part, another dwells upon the elegancy and fit disposal of words, as

Aristophanes says of Euripides,--

His gallant language runs so smooth and round,

That I am ravisht with th' harmonious sound;

(See "Aristophanes," Frag. 397.)

but others, to whom this part of my discourse is directed, mind only

such things as are useful to the bettering of manners. And such we are

to put in mind that it is an absurd thing, that those who delight in

fables should not let anything slip them of the vain and extravagant

stories they find in poets, and that those who affect language should

pass over nothing that is elegantly and floridly expressed; and that

only the lovers of honor and virtue, who apply themselves to the study

of poems not for delight but for instruction's sake, should slightly

and negligently observe what is spoken in them relating to valor,

temperance, or justice. Of this nature is the following:--

And stand we deedless, O eternal shame!

Till Hector's arm involve the ships in flame?

Haste, let us join, and combat side by side.

("Iliad," xi. 313. For the four following see

"Odyssey," iii. 52; "Iliad," xxiv. 560 and 584;

"Odyssey," xvi. 274.)

For to see a man of the greatest wisdom in danger of being totally cut

off with all those that take part with him, and yet affected less with

fear of death than of shame and dishonor, must needs excite in a young

man a passionate affection for virtue. And this,

Joyed was the Goddess, for she much did prize

A man that was alike both just and wise,

teacheth us to infer that the Deity delights not in a rich or a proper

or a strong man, but in one that is furnished with wisdom and justice.

Again, when the same goddess (Minerva) saith that the reason why she did

not desert or neglect Ulysses was that he was

Gentle, of ready wit, of prudent mind,

she therein tells us that, of all things pertaining to us, nothing

is dear to the gods and godlike but our virtue, seeing like naturally

delights in like.

And seeing, moreover, that it both seemeth and really is a great thing

to be able to moderate a man's anger, but a greater by far to guard

a man's self beforehand by prudence, that he fall not into it nor be

surprised by it, therefore also such passages as tend that way are not

slightly to be represented to the readers; for example, that Achilles

himself--who was a man of no great forbearance, nor inclined to such

meekness--yet admonishes Priam to be calm and not to provoke him, thus,

Move me no more (Achilles thus replies,

While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes),

Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend:

To yield thy Hector I myself intend:

Cease; lest, neglectful of high Jove's command,

I show thee, king, thou tread'st on hostile land;

and that he himself first washeth and decently covereth the body of

Hector and then puts it into a chariot, to prevent his father's seeing

it so unworthily mangled as it was,--

Lest the unhappy sire,

Provoked to passion, once more rouse to ire

The stern Pelides; and nor sacred age,

Nor Jove's command, should check the rising rage.

For it is a piece of admirable prudence for a man so prone to anger, as

being by nature hasty and furious, to understand himself so well as to

set a guard upon his own inclinations, and by avoiding provocations to

keep his passion at due distance by the use of reason, lest he should be

unawares surprised by it. And after the same manner must the man that

is apt to be drunken forearm himself against that vice; and he that is

given to wantonness, against lust, as Agesilaus refused to receive a

kiss from a beautiful person addressing to him, and Cyrus would not so

much as endure to see Panthea. Whereas, on the contrary, those that are

not virtuously bred are wont to gather fuel to inflame their passions,

and voluntarily to abandon themselves to those temptations to which of

themselves they are endangered. But Ulysses does not only restrain his

own anger, but (perceiving by the discourse of his son Telemachus,

that through indignation conceived against such evil men he was greatly

provoked) he blunts his passion too beforehand, and composeth him to

calmness and patience, thus:--

There, if base scorn insult my reverend age,

Bear it, my son! repress thy rising rage.

If outraged, cease that outrage to repel;

Bear it, my son! howe'er thy heart rebel.

For as men are not wont to put bridles on their horses when they are

running in full speed, but bring them bridled beforehand to the race; so

do they use to preoccupy and predispose the minds of those persons with

rational considerations to enable them to encounter passion, whom

they perceive to be too mettlesome and unmanageable upon the sight of

provoking objects.

Furthermore, the young man is not altogether to neglect names themselves

when he meets with them; though he is not obliged to give much heed

to such idle descants as those of Cleanthes, who, while he professeth

himself an interpreter, plays the trifler, as in these passages of

Homer: [Greek omitted], ("Iliad," iii. 320; xvi. 233.) For he will

needs read the two of these words joined into one, and make them [Greek

omitted] for that the air evaporated from the earth by exhalation [Greek

omitted] is so called. Yea, and Chrysippus too, though he does not so

trifle, yet is very jejune, while he hunts after improbable etymologies.

As when he will need force the words [Greek omitted] to import Jupiter's

excellent faculty in speaking and powerfulness to persuade thereby.

But such things as these are fitter to be left to the examination of

grammarians and we are rather to insist upon such passages as are both

profitable and persuasive. Such, for instance, as these;--

My early youth was bred to martial pains,

My soul impels me to the embattled plains!

How skill'd he was in each obliging art;

The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart.

(Ibid. vi. 444; xvii. 671.)

For while the author tells us that fortitude may be taught, and that an

obliging and graceful way of conversing with others is to be gotten by

art and the use of reason, he exhorts us not to neglect the improvement

of ourselves, but by observing our teachers' instructions to learn a

becoming carriage, as knowing that clownishness and cowardice argue

ill-breeding and ignorance. And very suitable to what hath been said is

that which is said of Jupiter and Neptune:--

Gods of one source, of one ethereal race,

Alike divine, and heaven their native place;

But Jove the greater; first born of the skies,

And more than men or Gods supremely wise.

("Iliad," xiii. 354.)

For the poet therein pronounceth wisdom to be the most divine and royal

quality of all; as placing therein the greatest excellency of Jupiter

himself, and judging all virtues else to be necessarily consequent

thereunto. We are also to accustom a young man attentively to hear such

things as these:--

Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies:

And sure he will, for wisdom never lies:

The praise of wisdom, in thy youth obtain'd,

An act so rash, Antilochus, has stain'd:

Say, is it just, my friend, that Hector's ear

From such a warrior such a speech should hear?

I deemed thee once the wisest of thy kind,

But ill this insult suits a prudent mind.

("Odyssey," iii. 20; "Iliad," xxiii. 570; xvii. 170.)

These speeches teach us that it is beneath wise men to lie or to deal

otherwise than fairly, even in games, or to blame other men without just

cause. And when the poet attributes Pindarus's violation of the truce to

his folly, he withal declares his judgment that a wise man will not

be guilty of an unjust action. The like may we also infer concerning

continence, taking our ground for it from these passages:--

For him Antaea burn'd with lawless flame,

And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame:

In vain she tempted the relentless youth,

Endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth:

At first, with worthy shame and decent pride,

The royal dame, his lawless suit denied!

For virtue's image yet possessed her mind:

("Iliad," vi. 160; "Odyssey," iii. 265.)

in which speeches the poet assigns wisdom to be the cause of continence.

And when in exhortations made to encourage soldiers to fight, he speaks

in this manner:--

What mean you, Lycians? Stand! O stand, for shame!

Yet each reflect who prizes fame or breath,

On endless infamy, on instant death;

For, lo! the fated time, the appointed shore;

Hark! the gates burst, the brazen barriers roar!

("Iliad," xvi. 422; xiii. 121.)

he seems to intimate that prudent men are valiant men; because they fear

the shame of base actions, and can trample on pleasures and stand their

ground in the greatest hazards. Whence Timotheus, in the play called

Persae, takes occasion handsomely to exhort the Grecians thus:--

Brave soldiers of just shame in awe should stand;

For the blushing face oft helps the fighting hand.

And Aeschylus also makes it a point of wisdom not to be blown up with

pride when a man is honored, nor to be moved or elevated with the

acclamations of a multitude, writing thus of Amphiaraus:--

His shield no emblem bears; his generous soul

Wishes to be, not to appear, the best;

While the deep furrows of his noble mind

Harvests of wise and prudent counsel bear.

(See note in the same passage of

Aeschylus (Sept. 591), i. 210. (G).)

For it is the part of a wise man to value himself upon the consciousness

of his own true worth and excellency.

Whereas, therefore, all inward perfections are reducible to wisdom, it

appears that all sorts of virtue and learning are included in it

Again, boys may be instructed, by reading the poets as they ought, to

draw even from those passages that are most suspected as wicked and

absurd something that is useful and profitable; as the bee is taught by

Nature to gather the sweetest and most pleasant honey from the harshest

flowers and sharpest thorns. It does indeed at the first blush cast a

shrewd suspicion on Agmemnon of taking a bribe, when Homer tells us that

he discharged that rich man from the wars who presented him with his

fleet mare Aethe:--

Whom rich Echepolus, more rich than brave,

To 'scape the wars, to Agamemnon gave

(Aethe her name), at home to end his days;

Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.

("Iliad," xxiii. 297.)

Yet, as saith Aristotle, it was well done of him to prefer a good beast

before such a man. For, the truth is, a dog or ass is of more value than

a timorous and cowardly man that wallows in wealth and luxury. Again,

Thetis seems to do indecently, when she exhorts her son to follow his

pleasures and minds him of companying with women. But even here, on the

other side, the continency of Achilles is worthy to be considered; who,

though he dearly loved Briseis,--newly returned to him too,--yet, when

he knew his life to be near its end, does not hasten to the fruition

of pleasures, nor, when he mourns for his friend Patroclus, does he (as

most men are wont) shut himself up from all business and neglect his

duty, but only bars himself from recreations for his sorrow's sake,

while yet he gives himself up to action and military employments.

And Archilochus is not praiseworthy either, who, in the midst of his

mourning for his sister's husband drowned in the sea, contrives to

dispel his grief by drinking and merriment. And yet he gives this

plausible reason to justify that practice of his,

To drink and dance, rather than mourn, I choose;

Nor wrong I him, whom mourning can't reduce.

For, if he judged himself to do nothing amiss when he followed sports

and banquets, sure, we shall not do worse, if in whatever circumstances

we follow the study of philosophy, or manage public affairs, or go to

the market or to the Academy, or follow our husbandry. Wherefore those

corrections also are not to be rejected which Cleanthes and Antisthenes

have made use of. For Antisthenes, seeing the Athenians all in a tumult

in the theatre, and justly, upon the pronunciation of this verse,--

Except what men think wrong, there's nothing ill,

(From the "Aeolus" of Euripides, Frag. 19.)

presently subjoined this corrective,

What's wrong is so,--believe men what they will.

And Cleanthes, hearing this passage concerning wealth:--

Great is th' advantage that great wealth attends,

For oft with it we purchase health and friends,

(Euripides, "Electra," 428.)

presently altered it thus:

Great disadvantage oft attends on wealth;

We purchase whores with't and destroy our health.

And Zeno corrected that of Sophocles,

The man that in a tyrant's palace dwells

His liberty for's entertainment sells,

after this manner:--

No: if he came in free, he cannot lose

His liberty, though in a tyrant's house;

meaning by a free man one that is undaunted and magnanimous, and one of

a spirit too great to stoop beneath itself. And why may not we also, by

some such acclamations as those, call off young men to the better side,

by using some things spoken by poets after the same manner? For example,

it is said,

'Tis all that in this life one can require,

To hit the mark he aims at in desire.

To which we may reply thus:--

'Tis false; except one level his desire

At what's expedient, and no more require.

For it is an unhappy thing and not to be wished, for a man to obtain and

be master of what he desires if it be inexpedient. Again this saying,

Thou, Agamemnon, must thyself prepare

Of joy and grief by turns to take thy share,

Thy father, Atreus, sure, ne'er thee begat,

To be an unchanged favorite of Fate:

(Euripides, "Iphigenia at Aulus," 29.)

we may thus invert:--

Thy father, Atreus, never thee begat,

To be an unchanged favorite of Fate:

Therefore, if moderate thy fortunes are,

Thou shouldst rejoice always, and grief forbear.

Again it is said,

Alas! this ill comes from the powers divine

That oft we see what's good, yet it decline.

(From the "Chrysippus" of Euripides, Frag. 838.)

Yea, rather, say we, it is a brutish and irrational and wretched fault

of ours, that when we understand better things, we are carried away

to the pursuit of those which are worse, through our intemperance and

effeminacy. Again, one says,

For not the teacher's speech but practice moves.

(From Menander.)

Yea, rather, say we, both the speech and practice,--or the practice by

the means of speech,--as the horse is managed with the bridle, and

the ship with the helm. For virtue hath no instrument so suitable and

agreeable to human nature to work on men withal, as that of rational

discourse. Again, we meet with this character of some person:--

A. Is he more inclined to male or female love?

B. He bends both ways, where beauty moves.

But it had been better said thus:--

He's flexible to both, where virtue moves.

For it is no commendation of a man's dexterity to be tossed up and down

as pleasure and beauty move him, but an argument rather of a weak and

unstable disposition. Once more, this speech,

Religion damps the courage of our minds,

And ev'n wise men to cowardice inclines,

is by no means to be allowed; but rather the contrary,

Religion truly fortifies men's minds,

And a wise man to valiant acts inclines,

and gives not occasion of fear to any but weak and foolish persons and

such as are ungrateful to the Deity, who are apt to look on that divine

power and principle which is the cause of all good with suspicion and

jealousy, as being hurtful unto them. And so much for that which I call

correction of poets' sayings.

There is yet another way of improving poems, taught us well by

Chrysippus; which is, by accommodation of any saying, to transfer that

which is useful and serviceable in it to divers things of the same kind.

For whereas Hesiod saith,

If but a cow miscarry, the common fame

Upon the next ill neighbor lays the blame;

(Hesiod, "Work and Days," 348.)

the same may be applied to a man's dog or ass or any other beast of his

which is liable to the like mischance. Again, Euripides saith,

How can that man be called a slave, who slights

Ev'n death itself, which servile spirits frights?

the like whereof may be said of hard labor or painful sickness. For as

physicians, finding by experience the force of any medicine in the cure

of some one disease, make use of it by accommodation, proportionably

to every other disease of affinity thereto, so are we to deal with such

speeches as are of a common import and apt to communicate their value to

other things; we must not confine them to that one thing only to which

they were at first adapted, but transfer them to all other of like

nature, and accustom young men by many parallel instances to see the

communicableness of them, and exercise the promptness of their wits in

such applications so that when Menander says,

Happy is he who wealth and wisdom hath,

they may be able to judge that the same is fitly applicable to glory

and authority and eloquence also. And the reproof which Ulysses gives

Achilles, when he found him sitting in Scyrus in the apartment of the

young ladies,

Thou, who from noblest Greeks deriv'st thy race,

Dost thou with spinning wool thy birth disgrace?

may be as well given to the prodigal, to him that undertakes any

dishonest way of living, yea, to the slothful and unlearned person,

thus:--

Thou, who from noblest Greeks deriv'st thy race,

Dost thou with fuddling thy great birth disgrace?

or dost thou spend thy time in dicing, or quail-striking, (The word here

used [Greek omitted] denotes a game among the Grecians, which Suidas

describes to be the setting of quails in a round compass or ring and

striking at the heads of them; and he that in the ring struck one had

liberty to strike at the rest in order, but he that missed was obliged

to set up quails for others; and this they did by turns.) or deal in

adulterate wares or griping usury, not minding anything that is great

and worthy thy noble extraction? So when they read,

For wealth, the God most served, I little care,

Since the worst men his favors often wear,

(From the "Aeolus," of Euripides, Frag. 20.)

they may be able to infer, therefore, as little regard is to be had to

glory and bodily beauty and princely robes and priestly garlands, all

which also we see to be the enjoyments of very bad men. Again, when they

read this passage,

A coward father propagates his vice,

And gets a son heir to his cowardice,

they may in truth apply the same to intemperance, to superstition,

to envy, and all other diseases of men's minds. Again, whereas it is

handsomely said of Homer,

Unhappy Paris, fairest to behold!

and

Hector, of noble form.

("Iliad," iii. 39; xvii. 142.)

for herein he shows that a man who hath no greater excellency than that

of beauty to commend him deserves to have it mentioned with contempt

and ignominy,--such expressions we should make use of in like cases to

repress the insolence of such as bear themselves high upon the account

of such things as are of no real value, and to teach young men to look

upon such compellations as "O thou richest of men," and "O thou that

excellest in feasting, in multitudes of attendants, in herds of cattle,

yea, and in eloquent speaking itself," to be (as they are indeed)

expressions that import reproach and infamy. For, in truth, a man

that designs to excel ought to endeavor it in those things that are

in themselves most excellent, and to become chief in the chiefest, and

great in the greatest things. Whereas glory that ariseth from things in

themselves small and inconsiderable is inglorious and contemptible.

To mind us whereof we shall never be at a loss for instances, if, in

reading Homer especially, we observe how he applieth the expressions

that import praise or disgrace; wherein we have clear proof that he

makes small account of the good things either of the body or Fortune.

And first of all, in meetings and salutations, men do not call others

fair or rich or strong, but use such terms of commendation as these:--

Son of Laertes, from great Jove deriving

Thy pedigree, and skilled in wise contriving;

Hector, thou son of Priam, whose advice

With wisest Jove's men count of equal price;

Achilles, son of Peleus, whom all story

Shall mention as the Grecians greatest glory;

Divine Patroclus, for thy worth thou art,

Of all the friends I have, lodged next my heart.

("Iliad," ii. 173; vii. 47; xix. 216; xi. 608.)

And moreover, when they speak disgracefully of any person, they touch

not at bodily defects, but direct all their reproaches to vicious

actions; as for instance:--

A dogged-looking, drunken beast thou art,

And in thy bosom hast a deer's faint heart;

Ajax at brawling valiant still,

Whose tongue is used to speaking ill;

A tongue so loose hung, and so vain withal,

Idomeneus, becomes thee not at all;

Ajax thy tongue doth oft offend;

For of thy boasting there's no end.

(Ibid. i. 225; xxiii. 483 and 474-479; xiii. 824.)

Lastly, when Ulysses reproacheth Thersites, he objecteth not to him his

lameness nor his baldness nor his hunched back, but the vicious quality

of indiscreet babbling. On the other side, when Juno means to express a

dalliance or motherly fondness to her son Vulcan, she courts him with an

epithet taken from his halting, thus,

Rouse thee, my limping son!

(Ibid, xxi. 331.)

In this instance, Homer does (as it were) deride those who are ashamed

of their lameness or blindness, as not thinking anything a disgrace that

is not in itself disgraceful, nor any person liable to a reproach for

that which is not imputable to himself but to Fortune. These two

great advantages may be made by those who frequently study poets;--the

learning moderation, to keep them from unseasonable and foolish

reproaching others with their misfortunes, when they themselves enjoy a

constant current of prosperity; and magnanimity, that under variety of

accidents they be not dejected nor disturbed, but meekly bear the being

scoffed at, reproached, and drolled upon. Especially, let them have that

saying of Philemon ready at hand in such cases:--

That spirit's well in tune, whose sweet repose

No railer's tongue can ever discompose.

And yet, if one that so rails do himself merit reprehension, thou mayst

take occasion to retort upon him his own vices and inordinate passions;

as when Adrastus in the tragedy is assaulted thus by Alcmaeon,

Thy sister's one that did her husband kill,

he returns him this answer,

But thou thyself thy mother's blood did spill.

For as they who scourge a man's garments do not touch the body, so those

that turn other men's evil fortunes or mean births to matter of reproach

do only with vanity and folly enough lash their external circumstances,

but touch not their internal part, the soul, nor those things which

truly need correction and reproof.

Moreover, as we have above taught you to abate and lessen the credit

of evil and hurtful poems by setting in opposition to them the famous

speeches and sentences of such worthy men as have managed public

affairs, so will it be useful to us, where we find any things in them

of civil and profitable import, to improve and strengthen them by

testimonies and proofs taken from philosophers, withal giving these the

credit of being the first inventors of them. For this is both just and

profitable to be done, seeing by this means such sayings receive an

additional strength and esteem, when it appears that what is spoken

on the stage or sung to the harp or occurs in a scholar's lesson

is agreeable to the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato, and that the

sentences of Chile and Bias tend to the same issue with those that

are found in the authors which children read. Therefore must we

industriously show them that these poetical sentences,

Not these, O daughter, are thy proper cares,

Thee milder arts befit, and softer wars;

Sweet smiles are thine, and kind endearing charms;

To Mars and Pallas leave the deeds of arms;

Jove's angry with thee, when thy unmanaged rage

With those that overmatch thee doth engage;

("Iliad," v. 248; xi. 543.)

differ not in substance but bear plainly the same sense with that

philosophical sentence, Know thyself, And these

Fools, who by wrong seek to augment their store,

And know not how much half than all is more;

Of counsel giv'n to mischievous intents,

The man that gives it most of all repents;

(Hesiod, "Works and Days," 40 and 266.)

are of near kin to what we find in the determination of Plato, in his

books entitled Gorgias and Concerning the Commonwealth, to wit, that

it is worse to do than to suffer injury, and that a man more endamageth

himself when he hurts another, than he would be damnified if he were the

sufferer. And that of Aeschylus,

Cheer up, friend; sorrows, when they highest climb,

What they exceed in measure want in time,

we must inform them, is but the same famous sentence which is so much

admired in Epicurus, that great griefs are but short, and those that

are of long continuance are but small. The former clause whereof is that

which Aeschylus here saith expressly, and the latter but the consequent

of that. For if a great and intense sorrow do not last, then that which

doth last is not great nor hard to be borne. And those words of Thespis,

Seest not how Jove,--because he cannot lie

Nor vaunt nor laugh at impious drollery,

And pleasure's charms are things to him unknown,--

Among the gods wears the imperial crown?

wherein differ they from what Plato says, that the divine nature is

remote from both joy and grief? And that saying of Bacchylides,

Virtue alone doth lasting honor gain,

But men of basest souls oft wealth attain;

and those of Euripides much of the same import,

Hence temperance in my esteem excels,

Because it constantly with good men dwells;

However you may strive for honor

And you may seem to have secured by wealth virtue,

Good men will place you among the miserable;

do they not evidently confirm to us what the philosophers say of riches

and other external good things, that without virtue they are fruitless

and unprofitable enjoyments?

Now thus to accommodate and reconcile poetry to the doctrines of

philosophy strips it of its fabulous and personated parts, and makes

those things which it delivers usefully to acquire also the reputation

of gravity; and over and above, it inclines the soul of a young man to

receive the impressions of philosophical precepts. For he will hereby be

enabled to come to them not altogether destitute of some sort of relish

of them, not as to things that he has heard nothing of before, nor with

an head confusedly full of the false notions which he hath sucked in

from the daily tattle of his mother and nurse,--yea, sometimes too of

his father and pedant,--who have been wont to speak of rich men as the

happy men and mention them always with honor, and to express themselves

concerning death and pain with horror, and to look on virtue without

riches and glory as a thing of nought and not to be desired. Whence it

comes to pass, that when such youths first do hear things of a quite

contrary nature from philosophers, they are surprised with a kind of

amazement, trouble, and stupid astonishment, which makes them afraid to

entertain or endure them, except they be dealt with as those who come

out of very great darkness into the light of the bright sun, that is,

be first accustomed for a while to behold those doctrines in fabulous

authors, as in a kind of false light, which hath but a moderate

brightness and is easy to be looked on and borne without disturbance to

the weak sight. For having before heard or read from poets such things

as these are,--

Mourn one's birth, as the entrance of all ills;

But joy at death, as that which finishes misery;

Of worldly things a mortal needs but two;

A drink of water and the gift of Ceres:

O tyranny, to barbarous nations dear!

This in all human happiness is chief,

To know as little as we can of grief;

they are the less disturbed and offended when they hear from

philosophers that no man ought to be overconcerned about death; that

riches are limited to the necessities of nature; that the happiness of

man's life doth not consist in the abundance of wealth or vastness

of employments or height of authority and power, but in freedom from

sorrow, in moderation of passions, and in such a temper of mind as

measures all things by the use of Nature.

Wherefore, upon all these accounts, as well as for all the reasons

before mentioned, youth stands in need of good government to manage it

in the reading of poetry, that being free from all prejudicate opinions,

and rather instructed beforehand in conformity thereunto, it may with

more calmness, friendliness, and familiarity pass from thence to the

study of philosophy.

END OF FOURTEEN------------

ABSTRACT OF A COMPARISON BETWEEN ARISTOPHANE AND MENANDER

To speak in sum and in general, he prefers Menander by far; and as

to particulars, he adds what here ensues. Aristophanes, he saith, is

importune, theatric, and sordid in his expression; but Menander not

so at all. For the rude and vulgar person is taken with the things the

former speaketh; but the well-bred man will be quite out of humor with

them. I mean, his opposed terms, his words of one cadence, and his

derivatives. For the one makes use of these with due observance and

but seldom, and bestows care upon them; but the other frequently,

unseasonably, and frigidly. "For he is much commended," said he, "for

ducking the chamberlains, they being indeed not chamberlains [Greek

omitted] but witches."[Greek omitted]. And again,--"This rascal breathes

out nothing but roguery and sycophanty"; and "Smite him well in his

belly with the entrails and the guts"; and, "By laughing I shall get to

Laughington [Greek omitted]"; and, "Thou poor sharded ostracized pot,

what shall I do with thee?" and, "To you women surely he is a mad

plague, for he was brought up among these mad worts";--and, "Look here,

how the moths have eaten away my crest"; and, "Bring me hither the

gorgon-backed circle of my shield"; "Give me the round-backed circle

of a cheese-cake";--and much more of the same kind. (See Aristophanes,

"Knights," 437, 455; "Thesmophoriazusae," 455; Acharnians," 1109,

1124.) There is then in the structure of his words something tragic and

something comic, something blustering and something low, an obscurity, a

vulgarness, a turgidness, and a strutting, with a nauseous prattling and

fooling. And as his style has so great varieties and dissonances in it,

so neither doth he give to his persons what is fitting and proper

to each,--as state (for instance) to a prince, force to an orator,

innocence to a woman, meanness of language to a poor man, and sauciness

to a tradesman,--but he deals out to every person, as it were by lot,

such words as come next to his hand, and you would scarce discern

whether he be a son a father, a peasant, a god, an old woman, or a hero

that is talking.

But now Menander's phrase is so well turned and contempered with itself,

and so everywhere conspiring, that, while it traverses many passions and

humors and is accommodated to all sorts of persons, it still shows the

same, and retains its semblance even in trite, familiar, and everyday

expressions. And if his master do now and then require something of rant

and noise, he doth but (like a skilful flutist) set open all the holes

of his pipe, and their presently stop them again with good decorum

and restore the tune to its natural state. And though there be a great

number of excellent artists of all professions, yet never did any

shoemaker make the same sort of shoe, or tireman the same sort of visor,

or tailor the same sort of garment, to fit a man, a woman, a child, an

old man, and a slave. But Menander hath so addressed his style, as to

proportion it to every sex, condition, and age; and this, though he took

the business in hand when he was very young, and died in the vigor of

his composition and action, when, as Aristotle tells us, authors receive

most and greatest improvement in their styles. If a man shall then

compare the middle and last with the first of Menander's plays, he will

by them easily conceive what others he would have added to them, had he

had but longer life.

He adds further, that of dramatic exhibitors, some address themselves

to the crowd and populace, and others again to a few; but it is a hard

matter to say which of them all knew what was befitting in both the

kinds. But Aristophanes is neither grateful to the vulgar, nor tolerable

to the wise; but it fares with his poesy as it doth with a courtesan

who, when she finds she is now stricken and past her prime, counterfeits

a sober matron, and then the vulgar cannot endure her affectation, and

the better sort abominate her lewdness and wicked nature. But

Menander hath with his charms shown himself every way sufficient for

satisfaction, being the sole lecture, argument, and dispute at theatres,

schools, and at tables; hereby rendering his poesy the most universal

ornament that was ever produced by Greece, and showing what and how

extraordinary his ability in language was, while he passes every

way with an irresistible persuasion, and gains every man's ear and

understanding who has any knowledge of the Greek tongue. And for what

other reason in truth should a man of parts and erudition be at the

pains to frequent the theatre, but for the sake of Menander only? And

when are the playhouses better filled with men of letters, than when his

comic mask is exhibited? And at private entertainments among friends,

for whom doth the table more justly make room or Bacchus give place than

for Menander? To philosophers also and hard students (as painters are

wont, when they have tired out their eyes at their work, to divert them

to certain florid and green colors) Menander is a repose from their

auditors and intense thinkings, and entertains their minds with gay

shady meadows refreshed with cool and gentle breezes.

He adds, moreover, that though this city breeds at this time very many

and excellent representers of comedy, Menander's plays participate of a

plenteous and divine salt, as though they were made of the very sea out

of which Venus herself sprang. But that of Aristophanes is harsh and

coarse, and hath in it an angry and biting sharpness. And for my part I

cannot tell where his so much boasted ability lies, whether in his

style or persons. The parts he acts I am sure are quite overacted and

depraved. His knave (for instance) is not fine, but dirty; his peasant

is not assured, but stupid; his droll is not jocose, but ridiculous; and

his lover is not gay, but lewd. So that to me the man seems not to have

written his poesy for any temperate person, but to have intended his

smut and obscenity for the debauched and lewd, his invective and satire

for the malicious and ill-humored.

END OF FIFTEEN------

THE MALICE OF HERODOTUS.

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 meantime 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 the 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 the 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.

First then, whoever in relating a story shall use the odious terms

when gentler expressions might do as well, is it 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 superstitious, should call him fanatic, or should accuse Cleon

of presumption and madness rather than of inconsiderateness in

speech.----------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 cicumlocutions,

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."

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.

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.

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.

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 bravery, 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 performer of them to have done them generously, industriously,

virtuously, and by themselves.

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.

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.

We might here also reckon up more notes; but these are sufficient to let

us understand the nature and manners of Herodotus.

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 ports, 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 (Herodotus, i. 5.) 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. (Ibid. i. 1.) 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. (Ibid. i.

4.) 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, general 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.

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 favorable 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. (See Herodotus, ii. 45.) From what Egyptian this

story proceeds, I know not. For, on the contrary, many honors are even

at this day given by the Egyptians to Helen and Menelaus.

The same Herodotus, that he may still be like himself, says that the

Persians learned the defiling of the male sex from the Greeks. (Ibid,

i. 135.) And yet how could the Greeks have taught this impurity to the

Persians, amongst whom, as is confessed by many, 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 refused

to 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 has 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 gods 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. (For

the passages referred to in this chapter, see Herodotus, ii. 48, 51,

145, 146, 171.)

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." (Herodotus, vi. 53, 54.) 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 declares to have been the third, out of

Greece to the barbarians. But of the ancient learned writers, neither

Homer, nor Hesiod, nor 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.

Now of the seven sages, whom he calls Sophisters, he affirms Thales to

have been a barbarian, descended of the Phoenicians. (Ibid, i. 170.)

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 envious and tumultuous." (Ibid, i. 32.)

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 Mitylaenans 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 offers his testimony to those who say, that from one

and the same malice proceed both envy and a rejoicing at other men's

harms. (Herodotus v. 95.)

After this, he accuses of treason the Alcmaeonidae who showed themselves

generous men, and delivered their country from tyranny. (Ibid. i. 61.)

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 known by

Pisistratus contrary to nature? The Alcmaeonidae were so offended at

this villany, that they expelled the tyrant.

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." (Ibid. i. 82.) 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.

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. (Ibid. i.

155, 156, 207, 208.) 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 property. (Ibid. i. 92.) Of Deioces also, the Median,

who by virtue and justice obtained the government, he says that he got

it not by real but pretended justice. (Ibid. i. 96.)

But I let pass the barbarian examples, since he has offered us plenty

enough in the Grecian affairs. He says, that the Athenians and many

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 come 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. (Herodotus, i. 143-148.) In this manner does he

deprive these two states of their nobility.

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. Bravo!--not to know what it was, and yet to cast such an infamy on

a Grecian city, without 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

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." (See Herodotus, i. 157. etc.)

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. (Ibid. iii.

47, 48.) 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.

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 brought in--going out of his way (as they

say) to fasten upon it--and has bespattered it with a most filthy crime

and most shameful calumny. "The Corinthians," says he, "studiously

helped 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 mingled 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 recollection, 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.

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. (Herodotus, v. 63, 70.) 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. (Herodotus, v. 66.) 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 heard by report. (Ibid, v. 58.) 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

persuaded 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. (Ibid, v. 90, 91.) 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

saying 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.

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.

(Ibid, v. 97.) 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."

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 goodwill, as through a desire to find

work for the Athenians by engaging them with the Boeotians. (Herodotus,

vi. 108.) 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.

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 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." (Herodotus, vi. 106.)

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 claim 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 remark that Philippides, when on the ninth he summoned 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.

But letting this pass, let us see what was done after the fight. "The

barbarians," say 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." (Herodotus, vi. 115, 121-124.) 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 credit the report 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"; it reminds me of a certain proverbial saving,--Stay 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

else 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 did not drive 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.

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

anything rather than the present trouble." (Herodotus, vii. 148-152.)

Therefore, as himself reports the Ethiopian to have said of the ointment

and purple, "Deceitful are the beauties, deceitful the garments of

the Persians," (Herodotus, iii. 22.) 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 leadership 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 Medes? 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.

But in this place indeed he has highly magnified the Athenians and

pronounced them the saviours of Greece, doing herein rightly and justly,

if he had not intermixed many reproaches with their praises. But

now, when he says (Ibid. vii. 139.) that (but 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 thinks) might have

been. Nay, of the Lacedaemonians themselves, he makes it doubtful

whether they might have fallen in the battle or have yielded to

the enemy, minimizing the proofs of their valor which were shown at

Thermopylae;--and these indeed were small!

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," say she, "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."

(Herodotus, vii. 190.) 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.

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,

(Ibid, vii. 172.) 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 blames the Thebans, who were forced

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." (Herodotus, vii. 222.) 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." (Herodotus, vii. 220.) 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 tossed 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.

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. (Herodotus, vii. 225.) 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 spectacles, 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 a good man, and bring him 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

postman. The other he commanded to go on a message to the magistrates

of Sparta; but he, answering, that is a messenger's business, 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.

He says that the Thebans, being at the first with the Greeks, fought

compelled by necessity. (Ibid, vii. 233.) 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

ruthless libeller could there be 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 writer who makes the

barbarian's cruelty against Leonidas when dead a sign that he hated him

most of all men when living, (Herodotus, vii. 238.) 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 (See Herodotus, vi. 126-130.) who gesticulating with his

limbs by standing on his head on a table--would dance away the truth and

say, It makes no difference to Herodotus.

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 (Ibid. viii. 4.) 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 anything 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." (Ibid. viii. 18.) 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."

(Herodotus, viii. 23.) 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-FACING) 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'verthrown,

And all the Persian army put to flight,

Than which a greater scare 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. (Ibid. viii, 21.)

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

would 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. (Herodotus, viii. 30-33. Compare ix.

17.) 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, writing at his desk invented false causes and got up

suspicions against them, and bids 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 prevented 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 reigning 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 hatreds 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, turn 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. (Herodotus, ix. 31.)

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. (Ibid.

viii. 46.) 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, had they not 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.

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, on 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." (Herodotus, viii. 57, 58.)

You see how he accuses Themistocles of disingenuity in arrogating to

himself the counsel of Mnesiphilus.

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 put them to flight, and they

will retire 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." (Ibid. viii. 68.) 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 children wanted a train of

female attendants.

But it is not our design to search into the lies of Herodotus; we only

make inquiry 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." (Herodotus, viii. 94.) 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

reality 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.

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.

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,--(Herodotus,

viii. 112.) 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." (Ibid. viii.

122.) 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 give 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. (Ibid. viii. 123, 124.)

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, slighted the rest,

feasting and making merry at home, and deluding and delaying the

Athenian ambassadors. (Herodotus, ix. 8. See also viii. 141.) 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." (Ibid. ix. 9.) 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.

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 brought down their discourse to the battle of

Marathon, saying, however, that they would be satisfied with the command

of the left wing. (Ibid. ix. 26, 27.) 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. (Ibid. ix.

46.) 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. (Ibid. ix. 52.) 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 later, and falling on the Theban horse, were all cut off; that the

Corinthians were not at the battle, and that after the victory, by

hastening on over the hills, they escaped the Theban cavalry. (See

the account of the battle of Plataea, Herodotus, ix, 59-70.) 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." (Herodotus,

ix. 85.) 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. Now 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.

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 related in a 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, elaborated 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.

END OF SIXTEEN-----------

INDEX.

Abuse of and by one's enemies.

Achelous, myths of the.

Achilles, Homer's lessons from.

Achilles's Grove.

Acrotatus, saying of.

Actaeon, tragic history of.

Actors, tragic vs. comic.

Administration, caution about.

Admonitions, on hearing.

Adrastea, root of madness.

Adultery and curiosity compared.

Advantage from enemies.

Aeantis, chorus of tribe.

Aegyptus, Nile formerly called.

[Greek],

Aemilii, tyrants called.

Aemilius, Paulus.

Aenianes, the.

Aeschines the Academic, Life of; quoted.

Aeschylus, verses of; quoted; paraphrase of Homer by.

Aesculapius, temple of.

Aesop, at Delphi; at banquet of seven Wise Men.

Agasicles, Spartan king.

Agathocles, king of Sicily.

Age, cause of old.

Aged, the part of the, in state affairs; love of pure wine by;

intoxication among the.

Agenor, grove of.

Agesilaus, sayings of.

Agesipolis, son of Cleombrotus.

Agesipolis, son of Pausanias.

Agis, King; example of; story of.

Agis the Younger.

Air, an element.

Ajax, parents of; place of soul of.

Alalcomenae, city called.

[Greek]

Alcamenes, son of Teleclus.

Alcibiades, stories about.

Alcippus, wife and daughters of.

Alexander the Great, sayings and stories of; and Timoclea; orations on;

remark of Theocritus about; Diogenes and; in India; as a great drinker.

Alexander, tyrant of Pheraeans.

Alexandridas, son of Laid to.

Allegory in Homer.

Almonds for drinkers.

Alpha, position of, in alphabet.

Alpheus, history of.

Altar of ashes at Olympia.

"Alter ego" of Pythagoras, parallel saying in Homer.

Amasis, Herodotus relates a detail concerning.

Amazonian river.

Ambassadors, recording names of.

Ambition, accompaniments of.

America, a hint of.

Ammon, Egyptian name for Jupiter; temple of.

Ammonius the philosopher.

[Greek]

Amoebus, musician.

Amphilochus, oracle of.

Amplification in Homer.

Anatole, mountain.

Anaxagoras, story of.

Anaxander, son of Eurycrates.

Anaxarchus.

Anaxilas, saying of.

Anchus compared with Curtius.

Ancients, council of.

Andocides, Greek orator.

Androclidas, saying of.

Anger, nature of; the restraint of; Homer on.

Animals, human beings born of; self-cures by wild; craftiness of water

and of land; amours of, with human beings; reason in; generation of;

embryos of; method of nutrition and growth of; appetites and pleasures

in; vision of, in the dark.

Answers to questions.

Antalcidas, sayings of.

Anthedon, explanation of.

Anticyra, cure of madness from.

Antigonus the First.

Antigonus the Second.

Antiochus; surnamed the Falcon.

Antiochus Hierax.

Antiochus the third.

Antipater, nickname of.

Antiphon, Greek orator.

Antiphrasis in Homer.

Antithesis, Homer's use of.

Ants, intelligence of.

Apelles and Megabyzus.

Apesantus, mountain.

[Greek], defined.

[Greek]

Aphrodite, epithets of; statue of, at Elis; called "fruitful Cytherea.";

charmed girdle of.

Aphrodite the Murderess, temple of.

Apis.

Apollo, place of birth; temple of, at Delphi; derivation from [Greek]

and [Greek]; titles of; an oracle delivered by; a flatterer the enemy

of; motto in temple of; inventor of music; causes of common diseases are

from.

Apollodorus, painter.

Apollonius, consolation to, on death of son.

Apoplexy produced by fumes of lamp-wick.

{Greek]

Apostrophe, figure of speech called.

Apothegms, of kings and great commanders; Roman; Laconic or Spartan; in

Homer.

Appetites in animals.

Apples and apple-trees.

Araenus, sea shore of.

Arar, river, derivation of name.

Aratus, paraphrase of sayings of Homer by.

Archimedes, story of.

Aregeus, sayings of.

Ares, varying opinions of.

Aretaphila, Cyrenaean woman.

Argive women, the.

Argives, images called; customs of.

Argyllus, mountain in Egypt.

Aristarchus, arrangement of Iliad and Odyssey by.

Aristides the Just.

Aristippus, rebuke of a father by.

Aristo, punishment of.

Aristoclia of Haliartus.

Aristodemus, tyrant of Cumae.

Ariston, sayings of.