xviii DIGRESSIONS OF THE HISTORY. end, that power and wealth united cannot make man happy, unless accompanied by virtue. But the reign of Periander was many years anterior to the events which constitute the subject of the Third Book, and is totally unconnected with the object of the History. The art with which this beautiful moral lesson is introduced is therefore deserving of some consideration. The History is engaged in the account of some Samians, who, in order to assert their freedom, attract the arms of the Lacedæmonians on their island, to which are united those of the Corinthians 93. This portion of the History is itself a digression, which Herodotus takes the opportunity of introducing in this place, because some of the Samians had been sent by their tyrant Polycrates to assist Cambyses, and because the dates of the Persian expedition against Egypt, and of that of the Lacedæmonians against Samos, were coincident24. The interference of foreign nations in civil wars may generally be attributed to one of two motives; either to an honest desire of ensuring the success of one party, or to a crafty design of weakening the country itself for some political reason, by entangling the quarrel, and adding to the horrors of the struggle: it is not therefore surprising, that two causes should have been alleged for the alacrity with which the Lacedæmonians joined the republican party; the Samians asserting that it was out of gratitude for a former favour, while the Lacedæmonians themselves declared it was from a desire to be avenged on the Samians for some acts of piracy which they had committed on their nation. With regard to the Corinthians, Plutarch, in his Treatise of the Malignity of Herodotus-the prototype of those compositions, improperly termed criticisms, with which modern literature is infested-takes for granted that they acted from the pure and praiseworthy desire of putting down tyranny: it is to be hoped, for the honour of human-nature, that such was really the case. Hero 93 Lib. iii. 48. 94 Lib. iii. 39, 44. 95 Lib. iii. 47. dotus, however, states, that the Corinthians meddled in the civil war out of a desire of vengeance, and in order to punish the Samians for an insult received at their hands, when some Corcyræan boys, being sent by Periander to Asia for a most infamous purpose, in order thereby to punish the Corcyræans who had murdered his son, were rescued by the Samians. It is very true, that when we consider the time elapsed between the rescue of the boys and the Samian revolution, and, likewise, when we consider that the rescue, if an insult at all, was an insult not on the Corinthian people, but on the Cypselidæ their tyrants, a family at this period recollected only with feelings of detestation by the descendants of their subjects", this motive does at first appear extremely improbable: but the Historian, foreseeing, as it were, the objection, gives a very good reason why the Corinthians should have considered the service rendered by the Samians to the Corcyræans as an insult on their whole body; the Corinthians and Corcyræans had, in fact, been at variance from the very foundation of the island: Νῦν δὲ αἰεὶ, ἐπεί τε ἔκτισαν τὴν νῆσον, εἰσὶ διάφοροι ἐόντες ἑωυτοῖσι :—and surely this is not the only instance of gross anomaly in conduct produced by national animosity. Whether Herodotus is right in the motive which he attributes to the merchants of the Isthmus, is however a question of little importance, and perhaps somewhat foreign to the object of these remarks: the mention of the tradition which he adopts, whether true or false, makes room for an account of Periander himself, and affords an opportunity of attaching to the historical digression a moral episode: the tyrant had murdered his wife, but neither power nor wealth could shield him from the vengeance of Providence, which smote him while yet alive: one of his sons was an idiot: the other, seeing in his father the murderer of his mother, made use of the powerful qualifications with which nature had endowed his mind to 96 Lib. iii. 48. 98 torment an aged parent by obstinate disobedience: the young man at last meets his death in Corcyra; and Periander, at the edge of his grave, finds himself reft of any useful posterity, and completely miserable. Such indeed is the art of the Historian, that he not unfrequently takes advantage of some obscure tradition, or even some most improbable report, to narrate events which may illustrate his moral principles; and, as before has been observed, it is upon this ground that the insertion of not a few digressions must be accounted for. MORAL CHARACTER OF HERODOTUS. This likewise leads us to the consideration of a subject both important and interesting, namely, the moral and religious philosophy which pervades the History of Herodotus. The principles of the system are submitted to the reader at an early stage of the work, and represented as proceeding from the lips of Solon: 1. Power and wealth are not sufficient to constitute happiness; for the man in possession of a moderate fortune is oftentimes happier than the sovereign on his throne. 2. Every thing is subject to the laws of destiny, which not even the gods can avert. 3. The divinity is jealous of the pride and vanity of men', and loves to abash those that raise themselves too high. 4. Consequently, no man can be predicted to have been truly happy until he has ended life in happiness. To which may be added two other maxims, which are repeatedly illustrated in the course of the History: 5. The divinity visits great crimes with punishment in this world. 6. The divinity is wont to interfere directly in human affairs. Any remarks on these maxims would be inconsistent with the scope of these observations: it will suffice, to prove that such were the ideas of Herodotus, in order that, in reading the History, the attention may be directed towards their illustration. 99 Lib. i. 32. 1 The authorities concerning the Dov lovegòv are, i. 32. iii. 40. and vii. 46. The first maxim, that power and wealth are not sufficient to constitute happiness, is strikingly displayed in the account of Crœsus himself, who, soon after the departure of the Athenian sage, is plunged into the deepest domestic misery: his son, the only darling of his hope, is killed by the hand of a person whom he had comforted in misery and cherished as it were in his bosom2. The same principle is likewise remarkably illustrated in the Seventh Book. The account of the wreck of the Persian fleet off the Sepiad foreland leads the writer to mention an individual who much enriched himself by the quantities of gold and silver plate thrown up by the sea on his estate: men are wont to listen with a sort of envious and eager curiosity to the narratives of wealth thus obtained by chance: those feelings, however, are in this instance benumbed; for the Moralist carefully observes, that even this individual was visited with sorrow, which embittered his days, λυπεῦσα καὶ τοῦτον, to use his own expressive language. The same maxim is illustrated in the history of Polycrates', of Periander, and indeed almost every high personage brought to the reader's view. Hardly less numerous are the illustrations of the second maxim—that every thing is subject to the laws of destiny; or, as he makes the Pythoness reply to the remonstrances of Crœsus, τὴν πεπρωμένην μοῖραν ἀδύνατά ἐστι ἀποφυγέειν καὶ Θεῷ. This principle sheds a consi derable degree of dramatic interest on several portions of the work, more particularly, perhaps, on the misfortunes and death of Adrastus'; a tragedy which, by the effects it produces on the finer feelings of our nature, nay be placed on a level with those written by the best masters, purposely for the stage. Nor must we omit to observe the art with which the Historian avails himself of this principle to rivet the attention of his reader: Cambyses, wounded accidentally to death, finding that he has mistaken 4 Lib. iii. 120, 124. 7 Lib. i. 45. 2 Lib. i. 43. 3 Lib. vii. 190. the oracle, and that the Ecbatana, which he understood of Media, alluded to an obscure town in Syria of the same name, exclaims, Here is the fated spot for Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, to die!"-no person can read this passage without having the same searching feeling as is produced by a similar stroke of art in Shakspeare's Macbeth. Xerxes, in the pride of youth and power, has brought the myriads of Asia across the Hellespont: hardly has he set foot on the European shore, than various tokens forebode his disasters': the Persian prince passes them unheeded: not so the reader, who is prepared to contemplate, during the whole account of the expedition, the imbecillity of human power, when acting contrary to the decrees of fate. The same art, if art it may be called, is displayed in the narrative of the death of Polycrates: the dream of the daughter previous to the departure of her father to meet the treacherous Orates, the earnestness with which she is represented foreboding her parent's calamity, and the simplicity with which she prefers to abide long unwedded rather than to lose a dear father, excite an awful interest in the reader 10. The third maxim, that the divinity is jealous of the pride and vanity of man, and loves to abash those that raise themselves too high, is too frequently laid down in the course of the History for any one to doubt that such was the idea of Herodotus, Solon produces it, in his discourse, to humble the pride of Croesus"1: Amasis, in his letter to Polycrates, wherein he endeavours to set his friend on his guard against too great a reliance in his own good fortune": and Artabanus, when, taking advantage of the young King's state of mind, he makes a last effort to bring him to some feelings of humility 13. To illustrate this principle, the Historian, previous to recounting the disastrous expedition of Cyrus against the Massagetæ, his death, and the ignominious treatment of 8 Lib. iii. 64. 12 Lib. iii. 40. 9 Lib. vii. 57. |