Style. even by the standard historians of the subsequent generation. The remaining titles in the list may be briefly disposed of. The Instituta Barbarica, once mentioned by Suidas, may possibly have been an integral composition; not, probably, a genuine one. The title Foundations, with that of Foundation of Chios, may indicate chapters of the Chronicle of Priestesses, or of other ascertained works devoted more immediately to geographical research. The rare and vague citations of Scythica, Cypriaca, and Phoenicica, also probably refer to integral portions of other works, in which the author may have touched on the history or geography of Scythia, Cyprus, or Phonicia. The title of Dios Polytychia, or Fortunes of Jupiter, once noticed by Suidas, may be allowed to remain in the same state of mystery in which that learned compiler has left it, and in which probably the subject of the work referred to was equally involved. Although we possess several long paraphrases of passages of this author, the literal extracts from his text are rare and scanty. The imperfect evidence. which they afford would indicate his style to have been, like that of his contemporary Pherecydes, a medium between the sententiousness of the primitive logographer, and the studied periods of the SiculoAttic rhetorician. It is described by the antient commentators as in no respect distinguished by popular attributes.2 Of the Ionic dialect in which he 1 It is described by Porphyry (ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. x. p. 466.), as a cento of passages pirated from Herodotus (?) and Damasus (Damastes?). See Müller ad Fragg. Hellan. p. xxix. 2 Auctt. ap. Müller in Fragg. p. xxxiii. composed, little trace is observable in his remains. This may be owing partly to the changes which his text may have undergone on its passage to posterity; partly perhaps to an approximation of his own idiom to that of Attica, which during the greater part of his literary career was rapidly acquiring, in every branch of composition, a marked ascendancy over the other dialects. DAMASTES of Sigeum in the Troad, son of Dioxippus, is de- Damastes scribed by Dionysius as contemporaneous with Hel- of Sigeum, lanicus and Herodotus1; and as author of many works, four of which are specified under the following titles: 1. A genealogy of the heroes who fought at Troy.2 2. A catalogue of nations and cities. 3. A Periplus. 4. On the poets and sophists. He is called a pupil of Hellanicus, and accused of having pirated from Hecatæus.3 The former notice seems to be confirmed by the agreement between the two authors in various important heads of historical information. By both the foundation of Rome was ascribed to Æneas1; both derived the name of the city from Roma, chief of the fugitive Trojan matrons who, by burning the hero's fleet off the coast of Latium, forced him to settle in that region; to which might be added other less momentous points of correspondence. This writer seems to have been chiefly quoted as 1 Dion. Hal. de Thucyd. 5.; Suidas, v. ▲aμáorns. 2 Some ascribed this work to Polus of Agrigentum; Suid. v. IIλoç. 3 Suid. v. Aapάorns; Agathem. Epitom. geog. 1. 1. 4 Frg. 8. conf. Hellan. Frag. 53. an authority on geographical questions. Eratosthenes frequently referred to him; sometimes as a voucher for his own statements, sometimes for the purpose of refuting his opinions or censuring his errors. Eratosthenes has been severely blamed in his turn by Strabo1, for having honoured with so much attention. one whom Strabo characterises as so frivolous a writer. But the hasty severity with which Strabo is apt to dismiss authorities of better-attested value than Damastes, renders his condemnatory verdict of less weight in any such question than the more favourable judgement of Eratosthenes. The work On the poets and sophists may rank with that of Glaucus of Rhegium on the Musicians, and with the Carneonica of Hellanicus, among the earliest essays in literary history. Damastes is quoted, probably from this treatise, as having, in common with Pherecydes and Hellanicus, traced the pedigree of Homer back to Orpheus and Musæus. 11. p. 47., XIV. p. 684. CHAP. IV. HERODOTUS. HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 1. HERODOTUS THE HOMER OF PROSE HISTORY.-2. HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL - the Homer 1. It may possibly have occurred to the critical Herodotus reader, in following the previous course of this narra- of prose tive, that a reasonable claim might be advanced in history. favour of Herodotus, to rank as prior rather than posterior to several of the authors who have occupied our attention in the foregoing chapter. But whatever may be the speculative arguments in favour either of his or their title to precedence, it is at least certain, that the literary life of each of the rival candidates was comprised in whole or in greater part within the second half of the fifth century B. C., and that all consequently were more or less contemporaneous. It has therefore been thought desirable, setting aside any more special pretensions that might be advanced on one or other side, to assign to Herodotus the last, and, as reflecting his more advanced proficiency in the common art, the most honourable position in the series. This arrangement will tend, on the one hand to secure him that individual prominence which belongs to him as the most accom plished master of the primitive school of historical composition; on the other hand, it will connect him. more directly with his great rival in fame Thucydides, who stands to him in the immediate relation of successor in regard to the subject, the style, and it may be presumed the publication, of his work. Next to the Iliad and Odyssey, which two poems, as jointly representing the Homeric epopee, may here be considered as one, the history of Herodotus is the greatest effort of Greek literary genius. The analogy between the works is not more remarkable in their common features of grandeur, than in those of structure and character. The one is the perfection of epic poetry, the other the perfection of epic prose. Were it not for the influence which the prior existence of so noble a model, even in a different branch of composition, has evidently exercised on the historian, his title to the palm of original invention might rival even that of his poetical predecessor. It is usually, and perhaps reasonably, assumed, that the Iliad is the prototype of the Hellenic epopee, and that the poems which preceded it were comparatively brief and desultory ballads. There is however no actual proof that such was the case; while there are even symptoms in Homer's own allusions to earlier minstrels and their lays, of a certain advance having already been made towards that comprehensive unity of design which we admire in the Iliad and Odyssey. But it is very doubtful at the best, whether any similar approach had been made by the predecessors of Herodotus to a similar unity in his own order of narrative composition. If we follow out the analogy between the two authors from their relation towards their predecessors to that which they bear to their successors, the claim. |