Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/435

 THE MYTHES AS TREATED BY THUCYDIDES. 4Q3 are unworthy of trust, and their narratives must be brought into conformity with historical and ethical conditions, before they can be admitted as truth. To accomplish this conformity, Herodotus is willing to mutilate the old legend in one of its most vital points: he sacrifices the personal presence of Helena in Troy, which ran through every one of the ancient epic poems belonging to the Trojan cycle, and is indeed, under the gods, the great and present moving force throughout. Thucydides places himself generally in the same point of view as Herodotus with regard to mythical antiquity, yet with some con- siderable differences. Though manifesting no belief in present miracles or prodigies, 1 he seems to accept without reserve the pre- existent reality of all the persons mentioned in the mythes, and of the long series of generations extending back through so many supposed centuries : in this category, too, are included the epony- mous personages, Hellen, Kekrops, Eumolpus, Pandion, Amphi- lochus the son of Amphiaraus, and Akaman. But on the other hand, we find no trace of that distinction between a human and an heroic ante-human race, which Herodotus still admitted, nor any respect for Egyptian legends. Thucydides, regarding the personages of the mythes as men of the same breed and stature with his own contemporaries, not only tests the acts imputed to them by the same limits of credibility, but presumes in them the same political views and feelings as he was accustomed to trace in the proceedings of Peisistratus or Perikles. He treats the Trojan war as a great political enterprise, undertaken by all Greece ; brought into combination through the imposing power of 1 " Ut conquirere fabulosa (says Tacitus, Hist. ii. 50, a worthy parallel of Thucydides) et fictis oblectare legentium animos, procul gravitate ccepti operis crcdiderim, ita vulgatis traditisque demcre fidcm non ansim. Die, quo Bebriaci certabatur, avem inusitatA specie, apud Regium Lepidum ccle- bri vico consedisse, incolaa memorant ; nee deinde ccetu hominum aut cir- eumvolitantium alitum, territam pulsamque, donee Otho se ipse interficeret : turn ablatam ex oculis : et tempora reputantibus, initiura finemque miraculi cum Othonis exitu competisse." Suetonius (Vesp. 5) recounts a different miracle, in which three eagles appear. This passage of Tacitus occurs immediately after his magnificent descrip- tion of the suicide of the emperor Otho, a deed which he contemplates with the most fervent admiration. His feelings were evidently so wi ought uji that he was content to relax the canons of historical credibility.