Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/11

 PREFACE.

aim of the present work is to furnish the classical student such material as will enable him to appreciate the fascinating narrative of Herodotus respecting the nations of Western Asia.

Herodotus has been criticised unjustly, we think, by some modern scholars. A well-known Assyrioiogist has even gone so far as to call Herodotus a mere, who "pilfered freely and without acknowledgment,"who "assumed a knowledge he did not possess," who "professed to derive information from personal experience and eyewitnesses which really came from the very sources he seeks to disparage and supersede," and who "lays claim to extensive travels which are as mythical as those of the early philosophers." Such extreme views are as harmful as they are unfair. While we do not profess to claim for Herodotus absolute historical accuracy, yet we are convinced that recent investigations in the native literature of the Eastern nations have confirmed the trustworthiness of many statements which were formerly (5)