Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/254

 204 Outlifies of European History their deliverance from Persia. Throughout Greece it created a deep impression, but so tremendous was its effect in Athens that, in spite of the financial drain of war, the Athenians voted Herodotus a reward of ten talents, some thirteen thousand dollars. In this earliest history of the world which has come down to us, Herodotus traced the course of events as he believed them to be directed by the will of the gods, and as prophesied in their divine oracles. Hence he made but little effort to explain historical events as natural results, even though he was too modern and had seen too much of the Orient to believe that the gods who caused such events had been actually present on earth only a few generations back. But the old beliefs of the fathers regarding the gods had been rudely disturbed by such men as the Sophists, and by the troublous problems of destiny which the tragedies of Euripides still placed' upon the stage (Fig. 94). A comic poet named Aristophanes Aristophanes wrote very clever comedies in which he made ridiculous the mental struggles of Euripides. The people keenly enjoyed these as well as his amusing mockery of the teaching and methods of the Sophists. To be sure, they were also obliged to see the rule of the people with all its weaknesses and mistakes ridiculed on the same stage, much as we see the faults of our own lawmakers pictured in the cartoons which adorn our daily papers. Thus, while the citizens were still ready for any popular experiment in government by the people at the expense of the aristocrats, they shared the feelings of the aristocrats in their resentment toward those who stirred up doubt regarding the gods of the fathers. Socrates Aristophanes was sure of a sympathetic audience of Athe- nians when he put upon the stage a caricature of a certain annoying citizen, whose ill-clothed figure and ugly face (Fig. 96) had become familiar in the streets to all the folk of Athens since the outbreak of the second war with Sparta. He had just returned from a campaign in the north ; his name was Socrates, and he was the son of a stone mason.. He was accustomed to