_Time when Herodotus wrote_ (vol. ii., p. 405.; Vol. iii., p. 30.)--The
passage in Herodotus (i. 5.) is certainly curious, and had escaped my
notice, until pointed out by your correspondent. I am unable at present to
refer to Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology_;
but I doubt whether the reading of the poem or title, in Aristotle's
_Rhetoric_ (II. 9. Sec. 1.), has received much attention. In my forthcoming
translation of the "Pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer" prefixed to the
_Odysseia_ (Bohn's _Classical Library_), note 1., I have thus given it:--
"This is the exposition of the historical researches of Herodotus of
_Thurium_," &c.
Now Aristotle makes no remark on the passage as being unusual, and it
therefore inclines me to think that, at the time of that philosopher and
critic, both editions were in use.
The date of the building of Thurium is B.C. 444, and Herodotus was there at
its foundation, being then about forty years of age. Most likely he had
published a smaller edition of this book before that time, bearing the
original date from Halicarnassus, which he revised, _enlarged_, corrected,
and _partly re-wrote_ at Thurium. I think this would not be difficult to
prove; and I would add that this retouching would be found more apparent at
the beginning of the volume than elsewhere. This may be easily accounted
for by the feeling that modern as well as ancient authors have, viz., that
of laziness and inertness; revising the first 100 pages carefully, but
decreasing from that point. But to return: Later editors, I conceive,
erased the word Thurium used by Herodotus, who was piqued and vexed at his
native city, and substituted, or restored, Halicarnassus; not, however,
changing the text.
A learned friend of mine wished for the bibliographical history of the
classics. I told him then, as I tell the readers of the "NOTES AND QUERIES"
now, "Search for that history in the pages of the classics themselves;
extend to them the critical spirit that is applied to our own Chaucer,
Shakspeare, and Milton, and your trouble will not be in vain. The history
of any book (that is the general history of the gradual development of its
ideas) is written in its own pages." In truth, the prose classics deserve
as much attention as the poems of Homer.