Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/434

 402 HISTORY OF GREECE. where she remained during the whole siege of Troy, having been detained by Proteus, the king of the country, until Menelaua came to reclaim her after his triumph. The Egyptian pi-iests, with their usual boldness of assertion, professed to have heard the whole story from Menelaus himself the Greeks had be- seiged Troy, in the full persuasion that Helen and the stolen treasures were within the walls, nor would they ever believe the repeated denials of the Trojans as to the fact of her presence. In mtimating his preference for the Egyptian narrative, Herodotus betrays at once his perfect and unsuspecting confidence that he is dealing with genuine matter of history, and his entire distrust of the epic poets, even including Homer, upon whose authority that supposed history rested. His reason for rejecting the Homeric version is that it teems with historical improbabilities. If Helen had been really in Troy (he says), Priam and the Trojans would never have been so insane as to retain her to their own utter ruin : but it was the divine judgment which drove them into the miserable alternative of neither being able to surrender Helen, nor to satisfy the Greeks of the real fact that they had never had possession of her in order that mankind might plainly read, in the utter destruction of Troy, the great punishments with which the gods visit great misdeeds. Homer (Herodotus thinks) had heard this story, but designedly departed from it, because it was not so suitable a subject for epic poetry. 1 Enough has been said to show how wide is the difference be- tween Herodotus and the logographers with their literal tran- script of the ancient legends. Though he agrees with them in admitting the full series of persons and generations, he tries the circumstances narrated by a new standard. Scruples have arisen in his mind respecting violations of the laws of nature : the poets 1 Herod, ii. 116. doxeei tie /J.OL nal "Oftijpoe TOV "koyov TOVT ov -yilp ofioiuf tinrpSTrTJf fyv If TTJV EiroTtourjv rjv T$ ETepfi TU> nep ix.prjaa.TO if b /lerjjKe avrov, tiqTiuaaf wf Kal TOVTOV emaTaiTO TOV Tvbyov, Herodotus then produces a passage from the Iliad, with a view to prove that Homer knew of the voyage of Paris and Helen to Egypt; but tho passage proves nothing at all to the point. Again (c. 120), his slender confidence in the epic poets breaks but d xpq TI roiai iTfOTfoiolai xpeupevov heyeiv. It is remarkable that Herodotus is disposed to identify Helen with the fr'tvy 'AfipotiiTij whose temple he saw at Memphis (c. 112).