Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/246

 228 HISTORY OF GREECE. It has already been observed that the subjugation of the recu- sant Medes was not the only embarrassment of the first years of imce for something which had occurred one hundred and fifty years bcf ire, ia unnatural and far-fetched, if not positively inadmissible. The preceding arguments go to show that the natural construction of the passage in Herodotus points to Darius son of Hystaspes, and not to .Da- rius Nothus ; but this is not all. There are yet stronger reasons why the reference to Darius Nothus should be discarded. The supposed mention, in Herodotus, of a fact so late as 408 B.C., per- plexes the whole chronology of his life and authorship. According to the usual statement of his biography, which every one admits, and which there is no reason to call in question, he was born in 484 B.C. Here, then, is an event alluded to in his history, which occurred when the historian was sev- enty-six years old, and the allusion to which he must be presumed to have written when about eighty years old, if not more; for his mention of the fact by no means implies that it was particularly recent. Those who adopt this view, do not imagine that he wrote his whole history at that age ; but they maintain that he made later additions, of which they contend that this is one. I do not say that this is impossible : we know that Isokrates composed his Panathenaic oration at the age of ninety-four ; but it must be admitted to be highly improbable, a supposition which ought not to be advanced without some cogent proof to support it. But here no proof whatever is produced. Herodotus mentions a revolt of the Medes against Darius, Xenophon also mentions a revolt of the Medes against Darius ; hence, chronologists have taken it as a matter of course, that both authors must allude to the same event ; though the supposition is unnatural as regards the text, and still more unnatural as regards the biography, of Herodotus. In respect to that biography, Mr. Clinton appears to me to have adopted another erroneous opinion ; in which, however, both Larcher and Wesseliiig are against him, though Dahlmann and lleyse agree with him. He maintains that the passage in Herodotus (iii, 15), wherein it is stated that 1'ausiris succeeded his father Amyrtams by consent of the Persians in the govern- ment of Egypt, is to be referred to a fact which happened subsequent to thi year 414 B.C., or the tenth year of Darius Nothus; since it was in that year that Amyrtams acquired the government of Egypt. But this opinion rest? altogether upon the assumption that a certain Amyrtoeus, whose name and date occur in Manctho (see Eusebius, Chronicon),is the same person as the Amyrtseus mentioned in Herodotus ; which identity is not only not proved, but is extremely improbable, since Mr. Clinton himself admits (F. II. Ap- pendix, p. 317), while maintaining the identity: "He (Amyrtaeus) Iniri conducted a war against the Persian government more than fifty years l# fare.'' This, though not impossible, is surely very improbable ; it is at least equally probable that the Anyrtaeus of Manetho was a different person from (perhaps even the grandson of ) that Amyrtzeus in Herod >tus, who had