PROSE WRITERS AND PHILOSOPHERS. 61 drama we shall have occasion to describe when we narrate Herodotus's visits to Athens. The origin and contemporary state of prose composition demand our immediate attention. The prose writers of ancient Greece are divided into two classes, namely, the philosophers and the logographers. The philosophers, with a boldness characteristic of inexperience and ignorance, had begun to speculate upon the origin and principle of the existence of all things, and consequently to reject, more or less, the national conceptions of the gods and the universe. Hence they renounced the ornaments of verse, and adopted the unadorned language of common conversation, which indeed had been used long before for laws, treaties, and similar purposes; and the most ancient writings of Greek philosophers are merely brief records of their principal doctrines, designed to be imparted to a few persons only. The philosophers themselves were nearly all Ionians. Of these THALES, about B. C. 600, or more than a hundred years before Herodotus visited Samos, had taught that everything was full of gods, and that water was a general principle or cause. ANAXIMANDER, about B. C. 547, had supposed that there were innumerable worlds; that always some were perishing, whilst new ones sprang into being, so that motion was perpetual; and that all these worlds, and, of course, all things in them, arose out of an eternal or indeterminable substance, to which likewise they all returned. ANAXIMENES, about B. c. 520, had considered that air must have been the substance from which all things were formed. He says, "As the soul in us, which is air, holds us together, so breath and air surround the whole world." HERACLITUS, about B. C. 500, was one of the haughtiest of the philosophers, and spoke in a still more bold and decided language. The cardinal doctrine of his natural philosophy seems to have been that everything is in perpetual motion, that nothing has any stable or per manent existence, but that everything is assuming a new form or perishing. "We step," he says, in his symbolical language, "into the same rivers, and we do not step into them," because, as he means, the waters are changed in a moment. “We are, and we are not," because no point in our existence remains fixed. The principle of this perpetual motion he supposed to be fire. He says, "The unchanging order of all things was made neither by a god nor a man; but it has always been, is, and will be, the living fire, which is kindled and extinguished in regular succession." Lastly, we may mention ANAXAGORAS, who about the time of Herodotus's visit was fairly rejecting all the popular notions of religion, and striking into a new path of speculation on divine things. "The Greeks," he says, "are mistaken in their doctrine of creation and destruction, for no thing is either created or destroyed, but is only produced from existing things by mixture, or is dissolved by separation; they should, therefore, rather call creation a conjunction, and destruction a dissolution." Spirit was supposed by Anaxagoras to be the principle of life and motion, and to give its impulse to the material universe in a circular direction. Thus not only the sun, moon, and stars, but even the air and the æther were constantly moving in a circle. Above all, Anaxagoras supposed, probably from the examination of a meteoric stone, that the sun was a mass of red-hot iron. Our readers may easily imagine the offence which this doctrine must have given to the national belief. To declare that the bountiful god Helios, who shone upon mortals and immortals, was a mere mass of burning matter!-why the idea was rank atheism! But for the present we have done with the philosophers, and must glance for a few moments at the logographers. It is a very remarkable fact that so intellectual and cultivated a nation as the Greeks should have continued for centuries without feeling the want of a correct record THE HISTORIANS, OR LOGOGRAPHERS. 63 of its history. Egypt preserved a very ancient history, based upon accurate chronological records, as is proved by the work of Manetho. Babylon possessed a history similarly ancient, which was imparted to the Greeks by Berosus. Ahasuerus is described in the Book of Esther as causing the benefactors of his throne to be registered in his chronicle, which was read to him in nights when he could not sleep. The ancient sculptures of Assyria and Persia likewise record military expeditions, treaties, pacifications of kingdoms, and the payment of tribute by subject provinces; whilst the contemporary chronicles of the kings of Judah and Israel are still preserved in the inspired pages of Holy Writ. On the other hand, the Greeks, from the earliest times until almost the breaking out of the Persian war, seem to have preserved no historical records worthy of the name. The charms of the ancient epic which celebrated the glories of a bygone age engrossed all their attention. The division of the nation into numerous small states, and the prevalence of republican governments, had prevented a concentration of interest on particular events and persons; whilst, owing to the dissensions between the several states, their historical traditions must have offended some, though they may have flattered others. In history as in philosophy the Ionians were the first innovators. We shall not dwell upon the mere compilers of genealogies and mythic legends, such as Cadmus, Pherecydes, and others, but will merely glance at those chroniclers who might aspire to be regarded as historians. Four of these are all that require notice — namely, Hecatæus, Charon, Hellanicus, and Xanthus; and we may presume that Herodotus, during his stay at Samos, carefully studied the works of these writers. HECATEUS was a man of great consideration in the time of the Ionian revolt, about B. C. 500; and he was also greatly distinguished for his political sagacity. He wrote two books, one called "Travels round the Earth," and the other called "Genealogies." In his travels he described the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and of Southern Asia as far as India, and especially related many particulars concerning Egypt, where he appears to have resided for a considerable time. In his "Genealogies " he admitted many of the Greek legends; and though, like the philosophers of the time, he expressed a contempt for old fables, yet he laid great stress upon genealogies ascending to the mythological period, and even made a pedigree for himself, in which his sixteenth ancestor was a god. Genealogies afforded opportunities for introducing accounts of different periods; and Hecatæus certainly narrated many historical events in this work, although he did not write a connected history of the period comprised in it. CHARON wrote a little later, about B. C. 470, and continued the researches of Hecatæus. He produced separate works upon Persia, Libya, Ethiopia, and other countries, and also narrated some of the events of the Persian war; but he was only a dry chronicler, and Herodotus found his works to be very heavy reading. HELLANICUS and XANTHUS were contemporary with Herodotus. Hellanicus wrote a great many books, principally consisting of temple legends and untrustworthy accounts of his own time. Xanthus was a far more able author, for he wrote an account of the nature of the earth's surface in Asia Minor, and made many remarks which are both excellent and interesting. Such was the character of the literature with which we may suppose that Herodotus made himself acquainted. What effect they had upon his tone of thought will be further exhibited in the course of the present narrative. CHAP. V. CORINTH, B. C. 461. THREE YEARS AT SAMOS. -INCREASE OF HERODOTUS'S INFORMATION, AND DEVELOPMENT OF HIS MIND. -LETTER FROM LYXES. DELOS.-LEGEND ANCIENT FESTIVALS. ARRIVAL AT CO OF THE BIRTH OF APOLLO. www - GLAUCUS, THE IMAGE AND SHRINE UNPACKING OF EPHESIAN DEITIES. POLYDORUS, THE CORINTHIAN RAKE. - HOSPITALITY OF GLAUCUS, AND POLITENESS OF HIS TWO DAUGHTERS. HERODOTUS BECOMES GALLANT. THREE years passed away, and Herodotus found himself, at the age of three-and-twenty, still residing in the house of his kinsman Theodorus. His mind and ideas had undergone great changes, and he began to regard himself as a man. To describe his intellectual and moral development, is only to state those results which the reader may easily have imagined from the perusal of the foregoing chapter. He had learned to speak and write in the soft Ionian dialect; and the delight which he had taken in the old epic poetry, when he roved as a boy upon the sunny hills of Halicarnassus, had almost passed away. He had read the works of the Ionian philosophers, and heard their doctrines propounded and discussed in the quiet symposium. He had perused the parchments and books of the prose historians, or logographers as they were called, and had become learned in old genealogies and legends of gods and men. Above all, he had read the "Travels round the Earth," by Hecatæus, the Milesian; and had heard the stories of wrinkled sailors and sunburnt traders, until he himself had begun to long to travel, and gaze upon the splendid cities and strange nations which he had heard described. Meantime, it may be remarked that his re |