Through life, great Zeus, sustain their feet; Morice. Of the many mythical legends with which the odes abound, none is more artistically told than that of Castor and Pollux : 'To them in turn the lot is given For one short day to taste the bliss of heaven, The silence of the tomb, the lot of man, to prove. One fortune share. For such the lot immortal Pollux chose, What time to his free choice 'twas given Or share his brother's woes.' Moberly. In an ode celebrating an athletic triumph, the following lines, which are of universal application, occur :— 'But not in every age successive born Doth its full strength ancestral virtue show, Nor are the laden trees unfailing drest With their sweet burthen hour by hour, But all alike they own alternate wealth and rest. Moberly. Notwithstanding its many beauties, it is remarkable how seldom the poetry of Pindar is quoted by other writers, probably because his genius consisted chiefly in reflecting the spirit of the age he lived in, and in recording events which were of deeper interest to those for whose gratification they were celebrated than to future generations. The popularity, too, which his compositions enjoyed from their sonorous adaptation to music and the dance was not likely to survive the national demands for Choral odes; and his rapid transition of thought undoubtedly weakens the impression of his conceptions on the memory. On the other hand, there are many such passages as the following, which will never become obsolete : 'What are we, great or lowly? Creatures of a day! 'Hiero, thou knowest, for known to thee is all tradition's lore, How, for each blessing gods bestow, they add a double share of woe; Fools may not brook its weight, but wise men find The threatening cloud is silver-lined.' 'What is gone (Came it of right or maugre right) is none; For blessings new destroy the primal curse.' Morice. There is, moreover, a general tone of morality and philosophy throughout his works, to which he gives expression in the prayer : 'Grant me, O Jove, each crooked path to shun, So may mine be No name to tinge with shame my children's cheek! The good to adorn, And load the vile with scorn.' Moberly. HERODOTUS. DIED B.C. 413. ERODOTUS is famous not only as the father of history, but as having visited the greater portion of the then known world, availing himself, in the course of his travels, of every accessible source of information. Living in the days of Salamis and Platea, the principal subject of his history is the overthrow of the Persian armada, by which event the western world generally escaped being orientalised, probably for ever, and the freedom and progress of later times were secured. He has a habit of narrating fact and fable with equal apparent credence, but he treats the rites and beliefs of religion, such as they were. in those days, with deep respect, and maintains the principle that Nemesis will not permit an excess of mortal prosperity. He is not always impartial, though he has none of the usual Greek contempt for 'barbarians,' and, while he invariably sympathises with heroism, 'he combines the head of a sage with the heart of a mother and the simpleness of a child.' Commencing with the quarrels between Europe and Asia in the mythical ages, he relates how a Phoenician skipper carried off Io, daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, to Egypt, upon which the Greeks abducted Europa from Tyre, and Medea from Colchis. Then Croesus, king of Lydia, who was fabulously rich, deriving his wealth from the gold washed down in the sand of the river Pactolus, invaded several of the Grecian states, but afterwards made alliance with the Spartans to assist him in a campaign against Cyrus the Persian, by whom he was made prisoner at Sardis, the great slave market of the ancient world, and the place where money was first coined. He then reverts to the times of the Assyrian rule in Asia, followed, after the fall of Nineveh, by that of the Medes, whose wonderful city Agbatana he describes as built on a conical hill, and surrounded by seven circular walls, one within the other, the last two with silvered and gilded battlements. He also records how Astyages, their last king, having given his daughter in marriage to Cambyses, a Persian, was deposed by their son Cyrus, who was rescued from death when a child by a herdsman named Harpagus, and who thus, after defeating Croesus, became sole master of Asia. It is mentioned that the Persians used to expose their dead to be eaten by wild animals and birds, a practice continued by the Parsees in India to the present day. Harpagus, now a general, soon reduced to submission the petty states in Asia Minor, and awed the Greeks against aiding them; while Cyrus proceeded against Babylon, whose marvels the historian fully describes, and, by diverting the course of the river Euphrates, which ran through it, made his way to the palace where the handwriting on the wall was interpreted by the prophet Daniel. One of the customs of the city, Heredotus tells us, was that the women were disposed of in marriage by auction, the sums paid for the beauties being given as premiums to those who would take the plain and ugly damsels. Cyrus's next and last expedition was against the Greater Goths, who lived in the steppes near the Caspian Sea, ruled by an Amazonian widow named Tom-y-ris, under whom they fought so fiercely that the Persian king was slain, and his army completely defeated. The history next passes on to the most ancient of all dynasties, the land of Egypt, whose arts were as primeval as her monuments are vast and indestructible. Dealing first with the source of the Nile, and the supposed causes of its overflow in the midst of summer, Herodotus observes that the Egyptians asserted the migration of the soul in a cycle of other created beings for three thousand years, when it lived again in human form; and that at their banquets it was the custom to hand round the figure of a corpse, with the admonition, 'Such shalt thou be.' He also traces the names of many of the Greek deities to those of the Egyptians, and relates that they held the cow, as well as other animals and birds, as sacred, and that when their cats and dogs died they went into mourning for them. confesses that he never saw the sacred bird, the phoenix, except in pictures, according to which it was like an eagle with red and golden plumage. He mentions the reverence paid by young men to their elders, and that he had learnt from the priests of Heliopolis, who were proficient in mathematics and astronomy, that the first kings were gods, and that the sufferings and death of Osiris, the last of the dynasty, were the great mysteries of their creed. Also that the first human ruler was Menes, the founder of Memphis, and that after him came three hundred and fifty monarchs, whose names were read from a roll, and respecting whom he narrates several curious legends. Among their successors was Cheops, who built the pyramids, which employed a hundred thousand men at a time for thirty years; and, later on, Sethos, a priest of Vulcan, who was aided against Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, by the god sending mice during the night to gnaw the enemy's bow-strings and shield straps. After him twelve kings reigned at once, and one having deposed the rest, his son, Necko, first attempted to construct a canal to the Red Sea. The last king he names made a law that every man should appear once a year before the governor of his province, and prove, on pain of death, that he was getting an honest livelihood; and the book relating to Egypt concludes with the story of a beautiful Greek slave whose sandal was carried off by an eagle as she was bathing, and dropped before the king, who was so charmed with the idea of the foot which it fitted, that he sent for and made the owner his queen. Next follow the exploits of Cambyses, son of Cyrus, who made war against the Egyptians and captured the city of Memphis. Heredotus notes that he went over the battlefield, and remarked how much stronger the skulls of the Egyptians were than those of the Persians, which he attributes to the latter wearing turbans. He proceeds to relate |