Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/423

 HERODOTUS, THUCYIMDES, ETC. 391 however still find favor in his eyes, as in the case of the speaking ram who carried Phryxus over the Hellespont. He pronounced the Grecian fables to be " many and ridiculous ;" whether from their discrepancies or from their intrinsic improbabilities we do not know : and we owe to him the first attempt to force them with- in the limits of historical credibility ; as where he transforms the three-headed Cerberus, the dog of Hades, into a serpent inhabit- ing a cavern on Cape Ttenarus and GeryCn of Erytheia into a king of Epirus rich in herds of oxen. 1 Hekataeus traced the genealogy of himself and the gens to which he belonged through a line of fifteen progenitors up to an initial god, 2 the clearest proof both of his profound faith in the reality of the mythical world, and of his religious attachment to it as the point of junc- tion between the human and the divine personality. We have next to consider the historians, especially Herodotus and Thucydides. Like Hekataeus, Thucydides belonged to a gens which traced its descent from Ajax, and through Ajax to ^Eakus and Zeus. 3 Herodotus modestly implies that he himself had no such privilege to boast of. 4 Their curiosity respecting the 1 Hckatjci Fragm. cd. Didot. 332, 346, 349 ; Schol. Apollon. Rhod. 1. 256 ; Athenae. ii. p. 133 ; Skylax, c. 26. Perhaps Hekataeus was induced to look for Erytheia in Epirus by the brick-red color of the earth there in many places, noticed by Pouqueville and other travellers ("Voyage dans la Grece, vol. ii. 248 : see Klausen, JEneas und die Penaten, vol. i. p. 222). 'E/caratof 6 fi/ii^ffaiof "Koyov evpev elKora > Pausan. iii. 25, 4. He seems to have written expressly concerning the fabu- lous Hyperboreans, and to have upheld the common faith against doubts which had begun to rise in his time : the derisory notice of Hyperboreans in Herodotus is probably directed against Hekatacus, iv. 36 ; Schol. Apollon. Rhod. ii. 675 ; Diodor. ii. 47. It is maintained by Mr. Clinton (Fast. Hell. ii. p. 480) and others (see not. ad Fragment. Hecatei, p. 30, ed. Didot), that the work on the Hyperboreans was written by Hekataeus of Abdera, a literary Greek of the age of Ptolemy Philadelphus not by Hekatasus of Miletus. I do not concur in this opin- ion. I think it much more probable that the earlier Hekataeus was the author spoken of. The distinguished position held by Hekataeus at Miletus is marked not only by the notice which Herodotus takes of his opinions on public matters, but also by his negotiation with the Persian satrap Artaphernes on behalf of his countrymen (Diodor. Excerpt, xlvii. p. 41, ed. Dindorf }. 2 Herodot. ii. 143 3 Marcellin. Vit- Thucyd. ir.it 4 Herodot. ii. 143.