Note 107 — Chapter XXXIX · PROCEEDINGS IN GREECE FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE TIME OF THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLÆ.

Herodot. vii, 139. Ἐνθαῦτα ἀναγκαίῃ ἐξέργομαι γνώμην ἀποδέξασθαι, ἐπίφθονον μὲν πρὸς τῶν πλεόνων ἀνθρώπων· ὅμως δὲ, τῇ γέ μοι φαίνεται εἶναι ἀληθὲς, οὐκ ἐπισχήσω. Εἰ Ἀθηναῖοι, καταῤῥωδήσαντες τὸν ἐπιόντα κίνδυνον, ἐξέλιπον τὴν σφετέρην, etc. ... Νῦν δὲ, Ἀθηναίους ἄν τις λέγων σωτῆρας γενέσθαι τῆς Ἑλλάδος, οὐκ ἂν ἁμαρτάνοι τὸ ἀληθές, etc.

The whole chapter deserves peculiar attention, as it brings before us the feelings of those contemporaries to whom his history is addressed, and the mode of judging with which they looked back on the Persian war. One is apt unconsciously to fancy that an ancient historian writes for men in the abstract, and not for men of given sentiments, prejudices, and belief. The persons whom Herodotus addressed are those who were so full of admiration for Sparta, as to ascribe to her chiefly the honor of having beaten back the Persians; and to maintain that, even without the aid of Athens, the Spartans and Peloponnesians both could have defended, and would have defended, the isthmus of Corinth, fortified as it was by a wall built expressly. The Peloponnesian allies of that day forgot that they were open to attack by sea as well as by land.