Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/288

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§ 1. Events of the life of Herodotus. § 2. His travels. § 3. Gradual formation of his work. § 4. Its plan. § 5. Its leading ideas. § 6. Defects and excellencies of his historical researches. § 7. Style of his narrative; character of his language.

§ 1., the son of Lyxes, was, according to a statement of good authority , born in Olymp. 74. 1. B. C. 484, in the period between the first and second Persian wars. His family was one of the most distinguished in the Doric colony of Halicarnassus, and thus became involved in the civil commotions of the city. Halicarnassus was at that time governed by the family of Artemisia, the princess who fought so bravely for the Persians in the battle of Salamis, that Xerxes declared that she was the only man among many women. Lygdamis, the son of Pisindelis, and grandson of Artemisia, was hostile to the family of Herodotus. He killed Panyasis, who was probably the maternal uncle of Herodotus, and who will be mentioned hereafter as one of the restorers of epic poetry; and he obliged Herodotus himself to take refuge abroad. His flight must have taken place about the 82nd Olympiad, B. C. 452.

Herodotus repaired to Samos, the Ionic island, where probably some of his kinsmen resided. Samos must be looked upon as the second home of Herodotus; in many passages of his work he shows a minute acquaintance with this island and its inhabitants, and he seems to take a pleasure in incidentally mentioning the part played by it in events of importance. It must have been in Samos that Herodotus imbibed the Ionic spirit which pervades his history. Herodotus likewise undertook from Samos the liberation of his native city from the yoke of Lygdamis; and he succeeded in the attempt; but the contest between the nobles and the commons having placed obstacles in the way of his well-intentioned plans, he once more forsook his native city.

Herodotus passed the latter years of his life at Thurii, the great Grecian settlement in Italy, to which so many distinguished men had intrusted their fortunes. It does not however follow from this account that Herodotus was among the first settlers of Thurii; the numbers of the original colonists doubtless received subsequent additions. It is certain that Herodotus did not go to Thurii till after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war; since at the beginning of it he must have been at Athens. He describes a sacred offering, which was on the Acropolis of Athens, by its position with regard to the Propylæa ; now the Propylæa were not finished till the year in which the Peloponnesian war began. Herodotus likewise evidently appears to adopt those views of