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bringing over the Athenians, he had carefully spared Attica; but as soon as he was assured that they were immoveable, he gave up the country for plunder to his troops, and he completely destroyed the city." We are not to conclude from this that he troubled himself about gathering in the harvest. He fell back on his magazines. How he had managed to fill those magazines, was, indeed, a very extraordinary thing; but, that his army was abundantly supplied, is as much a fact as any thing in the whole campaign. "Tents and their furniture, adorned with gold and silver, collars, bracelets, hilts of scimitars, golden cups, and various other utensils of gold and silver, together with horses, camels, and women, were the principal spoil. Abundance of rich clothes, which at another time," says the historian, "would have been thought valuable plunder, were now disregarded." "Pausanias, after admiring the various riches of the scene, and the many contrivances of luxury, ordered a supper to be prepared by the Persian

slaves, exactly as it would have been for Mardonius had he been living. The orders were diligently executed; the splendid furniture was arranged; the side-board displayed a profusion of gold and silver plate; the table was covered with exquisite elegance." All this took place in the camp of Mardonius, a camp which had just been made the field of slaughter, and where more than 100,000 dead bodies were lying unburied a.

Have we banished fairy tales from the nursery, that Herodotus might be studied at the University? How true is the remark of Thucydides: Οὕτως ἀταλαίπωρος τοῖς πολλοῖς ἡ ζήτησις τῆς ἀληθείας, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ἑτοῖμα μᾶλλον τρέπονται ! Notwithstanding the boasted march of intellect, how little have

a If the reader will turn to Herodotus, Lib. ix. c. 70., he will find that I have under-rated the slaughter. There is nothing in Herodotus, or Mitford, which shows, or implies, that the Greeks concerned themselves about the wounded or dead Persians. What became of the prisoners, of the women, horses, and camels?

b Lib. i. c. 20.

we profited by the remark of Horsley, that wonder connected with a principle of rational curiosity is the source of all knowledge and discovery, and it is a principle even of piety; but wonder, which ends in wonder, and is satisfied with wondering, is the quality of an idiot!

Let us return to the sagacious and noble-minded exile, who preferred truth to flattery, and wrote not for present applause, but for the information of future ages. Had Thucydides mentioned Herodotus, we might have expected that he would have condemned him in plain, though guarded words. But Thucydides, refers to Hellanicus, and not to Herodotus, and we must therefore endeavour to learn his opinion of Herodotus, not from single and explicit passages, but from the whole tenor of his history; bearing in mind, however, that as Fox, who was said to be English all over, had yet two opinions on parliamentary reform, one for the public and the other for his own friends; so might

Thucydides have found it necessary not to tell the whole truth, when he touched upon the invasion and defeat of the Persians. For although Herodotus is said to have been on good terms with the nine Muses, yet had Clio herself been disposed to turn his romance into history, she might have been as much puzzled as Britomart in the house of Busyrane.

"And as she lookt about, she did behold

How over that same dore was likewise writ,
Be bolde, Be bolde, and every where Be bold;
That much she muz'd, yet could not construe it,
By any ridling skill, or commune wit.
At last she spyde at that rowmes upper end
Another yron dore, on which was writ
Be not too bold!"

In his very first book Thucydides mentions, that after the battle near Potidea, the Athenians erected a trophy, and restored the dead bodies to the Potidæans; and from several other passages we may safely infer that to erect a trophy, to bury their own dead, and to allow the enemy to bury

theirs, was the practice of the Greeks on gaining a victory, and that it was in fact the acknowledged proof of victory. But in no part of Herodotus do we find that the Greeks erected a trophy. At Artemisium, Thermopyla, and Salamis, the wounded and the dead seem to have been neglected alike; at Platæa, Herodotus says, that the dead were buried on the field of battle; but as far as regards the Athenians he is contradicted by Thucydides. Here, therefore, we have a strong though incidental testimony against the correctness of Herodotus. Where no trophy was erected, we may question if any victory was gained; where no care was taken of the bodies of the dead, we may question if any battle was fought.

Thucydides, however, does mention the fight of Thermopylæ, and mentions it under remarkable circumstances. They who have read his history must remember the blockade of Sphacteria. The number of the blockaded Spartans was 420, and when

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