Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/29

 HERODOTtrS. 5 too good a possession for any mortal man except the Persian kings."! Fifteen years before, the Milesian Aristagoras,2 when entreating the Spartans to assist the Ionic revolt, had exaggerated the wealth and productiveness of Asia in contrast with the pov- erty of Greece, — a contrast less widely removed from the truth, at that time, than the picture presented by Mardonius. Having thus been persuaded to alter liis original views, Xerxes convoked a meeting of the principal Persian counsellors, and announced to them his resolution to invade Greece, setting forth the mingled motives of revenge and aggrandizement which im- pelled him, and representing the conquest of Greece as carrying with it that of all Europe, so that the Persian empire would be- come coextensive with the aether of Zeus and the limits of the sun's course. On the occasion of this invasion, now announced and about to take place, we must notice especially the historical manner and conception of our capital informant, — Herodotus. The invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and the final repulse of his forces, constitute the entire theme of his three last books, and the principal object of his whole history, towards which the previous matter is intended to conduct. Amidst those prior cir- cumstances, there are doubtless many which have a substantive importance and interest of their own, recounted at so much length that they appear coordinate and principal, so that the thread of the history is for a time put out of sight. Yet we shall find, if we bring together the larger divisions of his history, omitting the occasional prolixities of detail, that such thread is never lost in the historian's own mind : it may be traced by an attentive reader, from his preface and the statement immediately following it — of Croesus, as the first barbaric conqueror of the Ionian Greeks — down to the full expansion of his theme, " Grae- cia Barbariae lento collisa duello," in the expedition of Xerxes. That expedition, as forming the consummation of his historical scheme, is not only related more copiously and continuously than any events preceding it, but is also ushered in with an unusual solemnity of rehgious and poetical accompaniment, so that the • Herodot. vii, 5. (if tj "Evpuirr} ■7TeptKa?i?.T/r x"Pn< xal divi^pea navrola 6epei Tu Tjfiepa, (3aac?.ei re (lovvifi ■&v7]tuv u^Itj kKrfjd'&aL — X'^PV' T^Cjiipo- puTe,)Tiv (vii, 8). « Herodot. v, 49.