The Historians of Greece

THE HISTORIANS OF GREECE r THE OLYKPIC EDITION Th_ e_tio_ is strictly li_ted to ore tltou- 8an_ rigid, _r_ber_ and registered _tm, of which thi, is HOMAS COMPANY _tbtntb _tntut_ HIEnglishS designMonksis ,typicalshowingof tilethe wstageork ofwhichtile it had reached during the latter part of the Seventh and earlier part of the Eighth Centuries. The foliage ornamentation, the somewhat subdued col- ours and the profuse use of gold are highly charac- teristic. The most beautiful example of work of this period is a copy of the Gospels written by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who died A. D. 721. It is known as the Durham Manuscript and is considered the most beautiful manuscript in the collection of tile British Museum. _ THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. CANON OF CANTERBURY AND PROFE_OR OF ANCIENT HISq_PRY IN TIIE UNIVERSITY OF oXFORD ; AUTHOR OF TIIE FIVE GRF.AT MONARCHI_ __ '_ANC/ENT HmTORY_ _t ETC. VOLUME I NEW YORK THE TANDY-THOMAS COMPANY THm T_ov-THo_ Co_Px_r_ ILLUSTRATIONS Gram AND CA_VAU,ZS ...... Frostlapiece Photo-masotint after the Painting of IWW_MINA_D Trr_z-Pz, ml ....... Title Designed by Walter Tittle, after the English School o_ t_ _ c_tm7 pAmE A_mmR T_mo Hzx_N ....... _6 Photo-nm_ttnt after the Painting by Lib_md Dmr_Ncz o_ A C,_ ......... 6_ Ag1:e_ an Btohin S in the B0dl_iau Library, Oxford Tz_ BvRmNO oF Cnffisvs ....... 98 From a Ger-_- Steel Engraving A C_E yc_ DzMo_sn'm_, WAL_ ..... 158 Kfter an Etcld_ in the Collection of the Hem. Oswald Bauer Reproduced from • Rare Engraving of the Paint- lz_ by V_ N_bauer or SB_s ........ 288 After a Steel Engravin_ of the Eighteenth Century ILLUSTRATIONS HE illustrations of this work have been designed to show the development of book ornamentation. The earliest forms which have survived the ravages of time are the illnm_natlous of the Medlawal manuscripts. This art was the outgrowth of the work of the Ancient Greeks and was in turn the source from which modern book illustration has devdope& With the introduction of printing, wood cut blocks came into use but were rapidly supplanted by etchings, especially for finer work. This process dates from 1477 and held first place for centuries until superseded by steel engravlngs and finally by modern photographic processes. Mr. Walter Tittle, who has made a life study of the subject, has designed a series of title-pages for this work. Each of these embodies the salient features of a particular school of Medieval illumination, thus epito- mising the whole history of the art. The illustrations also include reproductions of a nmn- her of rare old etchings of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, showing the Art of War among the Ancients, a numberof the finest steel engravlngs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, and finally some beautiful Twentieth Century photo-me_otlnts of celebrated paintings, illustrating the life and customs of the Ancient World. GENERAL INTRODUCTION N these volumes the works of the three famous Greek historians are presented to the public for the first time in a readable and entirely intelligible form. The very best English translations are ren- dered available, denuded of the obscurities of scholarship and robbed of all pedantry. Greek scholarship from the point of view of the school-master simply has not been considerecL The heart is here without the covering of confusion. For thirty centuries the whole world has felt the in- tiuence of Ancient Greece, and this influence is stronger to-day for liberty and justice than ever before. It was in Ancient Greece that the true universal spirit first found its expression, and so has come to be known as "The Greek Spirit "--the spirit of liberty which een- turles later overthrew the tyrannies of the Old World and which gave us the great American Republic---the spirit of progress, the spirit of art and of literature, and of all that makes life worth the living. The poetry of Homer and Anacreon, the philosophy of Socrates and Aristotle, the oratory of Demosthenes and Hyperldes, the romance of Pericles and Aspasla, the art and sculpture of the Acropolis and the Par- thenon, the heroism of Marathon and Tbermopyhe, shed a lustre of glory around this most marvellous country of the ancient world and make a knowledge of its history and its literature an absolute necessity to vi GENERAL INTRODUCTION I the man who would have an understanding of the true sims and purposes of life. Scholarship is not requisite to an appredation of the actions of the Greeks and other people of antiquity as told by the Greek historians ; for in all of us lies the deep curiosity that seeks information, and the love of the beautiful and heroic that lifts us to a broader plane of thought and endeavour. While much of value has been discovered and written by modern scholars, history, as recorded by the men who actually lived it, must take first place. These records may not be as accurate in matters of fact as more recent writings, but they certainly are truer history; for they tell us more truly what manner of people they were among whom the authors lived. The earliest forms of this history, of course, are found in the epics of Homer. But of historians in the more modern sense of the word, the writings of three alone have descended to us through the lapse of the ages. These are Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon; and it is due to their wisdom and energy that humanity has gained its greatest inspiration toward that progress which spells perfection in the end. Every day of our lives we are brought into contact in some way with the lives of the Greeks ; and the main purpose of these volumes is to give a wider opportun- ity for the enjoyment in complete form of the record of ancient doings. If the works of Herodotus, Thucyd- ides and Xenophon had been dry and uninteresting they never could have lived for twenty-three centuries, hut would have sunk into oblivion along with their less entertaining contemporaries. It is their essential human interest and readableness which has preserved GENERAL INTRODUCTION vii them through the ages; and the man, be he student or no, who can take up any one of these volumes and read it as he would read any master-work of fact, fiction or philosophy, is fortunate: for he will be entertained and instructed at one and the same time as never before. Like all the ancient classics, these works were written not to he read, but to be heard. They were read aloud by their authors to the populace in Athens and elsewhere; and this partly accounts for the fact that in reading them we seem to hear the authors talk- ing, rather than to be reading the words which were written so many centuries ago. They had a story to tell, and told it in a manner and style so simple and straightforward that the marvel of their composition has aroused the admiration of all who have come after. Herodotus was the first writer to put into enduring form a description of the acts of the nations, and is entitled, therefore, to be called "The Father of His- tory"; also, he was the first great traveller who visited remote parts of his world in search of information. He had the knack of taking interest in the right things,-- customs, habits, acts,--the things which have con- tinued to interest people for twenty-three hundred years. He wrote in a style worthy of the glorious spirit of liberty which actuated his compatriots. Thucydides was the first critical historian and he sifted the evidence for his statements with the utmost care. He alone among the Andent Greeks wrote for posterity; for he it was who first conceived the idea that the history of the past bore a huon for the future guidance of the human rac_ He recorded the oeeur- fences of his day for the benefit of future ages. viii GEN_ INTRODUCTION Xenophon was the first war correslmndent. He travelled with Cyrus and recorded his conquests in a style no modern journalist can hope to equal. He had the ability to give a graphic description of a battle in a few words, and his narrative reads llke a novel of adventure. There is action and llfe in every line of his writings. We are brought into the very camp of Cyrus _ made to know and love the great characters of his age. Socrates and all the famous men of his time were his intimate friends, and are portrayed in such vivid language that they are brought to life in his writings, and become to us once more men of flesh and blood instead of almost mythical characters of a by-gone age. In the writings of these three men we have all that has survived of the written history of Ancient Greece. More than this, we have the greatest of Greek prose literature,--literature which has defied the hand of t_me and which stands for all ages as the criterion of prose as Homer's does of verse. An intimate knowledge of these authors is a liberal education in itself. To neglect reading them is to miss one of the greatest of literary pleasures. This introduction is not intended to be erltical, or in any sense explanatory, the hope in presenting it being solely to arouse a degree of interest in masters whose actual writings are, to an almost unbelievable extent, neglected by the very people who should know them as they do the Bible and Shakespeare,--whose lives will be broader and sweeter through the reading.

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