Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/36

 12 fflSTORi OF GREECE. While we take due notice of those religious conceptions with which both the poet and the historian surround this vast conflict ing both in themselves and in the trophies and offerings which they ex- hibited, while the persons belonging to them were, as a general rule, ac- cessible and communicative to strangers, as we may see both from Pausa- nias and Plutarch, — both of whom, however, had books before them also to consult, which Herodotus hardly had at all. It was not only the priests and ministers of temples in Egypt, of Herakles at Tyre, and of Belus at Baby- lon, that Herodotus questioned (i, 181 ; ii, 3, 44, 143), but also those of Delphi (Ae/(/>(jv olda eyu ovruc uKovaag yevead-ai, i, 20: compare i, 91, 92, 51); Dodona (ii, 52); of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes (v, 59) ; of Athene Alea at Tegea (i. 66); of Demeter at Paros (vi, 134 — if not the priests, at least persons full of temple inspirations); of Halus in Achaia Phthiotis (vii, 197) ; of the Kabeiri in Thrace (ii, 51) ; of persons connect- ed with the Hereon of Protesilaus in the Chersonese (ix, 116, 120). The facts which these persons commimicated to him were always presented along with associations referring to their own functions or religious senti- ments, nor did Herodotus introduce anything new when he incorporated them as such in his history. The treatise of Plutarch — " Cur Pythia nunc non reddat Oracula Carmine" — aflfords an instructive description of the ample and multifarious narratives given by the expositors at Delphi, re- specting the eminent persons and events of Grecian history, so well fitted to satisfy the visitors who came full of curiosity — (piXo^eafiove^, (pi?.6?io-yoi, and ^</lo^ai?edf (Plutarch, ib. p. 394) — such as Herodotus was in a high degree. Compare pp. 396, 397, 400, 407, of the same treatise : also Plu- tarch, De Defectu Oraculorum, p. 417 — ol Ae2.(puv ^e6?L.ojoi, etc. Plutarch remarks that in his time political life was extinguished in Greece, and that the questions put to the Pythian priestess related altogether to private and individual affairs ; whereas, in earlier times, almost all political events came somehow or other under her cognizance, either by questions to be answered, or by commemorative public offerings (p. 407). In the time of Herodotus, the great temples, especially those of Delphi and Olympia, were interwoven with the whole web of Grecian political history. See the Dissertation of Preller, annexed to his edition of Polemonis Fragmenta, c. 3, pp. 157-162 ; De HistoriA atque Arte Periegetarum ; also K.F. Hemnann, Gottesdienstli- che Alterthiimer der Griechen, part 1, ch. 12, p. 52. The religious interpretation of historical phenomena is not peculiar to Herodotus, but belongs to him in common with his informants and his age generally, as indeed Hoffmeister remarks (pp. 31-136) : though it is re- markable to notice the fi-ankness with which he (as well as the contempo- rary poets : see the references in Monk ad Em-ipid. Alcestis, 1 1 54) predicates eniy and jealousy of the gods, in cases where the conduct, which he sup- poses them to pursue, is really such as would desen'e that name in a man, — and such as he himself ascribes to the despot (iii, 80) : he does not think himself obliged to caU the gods just and merciful while he is attributing to