I. HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON

B.C. 550-401

The Persian monarchy.–Singular principle of human nature.- -Grandeur of the Persian monarchy.–Its origin.–The republics of Greece.–Written characters Greek and Persian.–Preservation of the Greek language.–Herodotus and Xenophon.–Birth of Herodotus.–Education of the Greeks.–How public affairs were discussed.–Literary entertainments.–Herodotus’s early love of knowledge.–Intercourse of nations.–Military expeditions.–Plan of Herodotus’s tour.–Herodotus visits Egypt.–Libya and the Straits of Gibraltar.–Route of Herodotus in Asia.–His return to Greece.–Doubts as to the extent of Herodotus’s tour.–His history “adorned.”–Herodotus’s credibility questioned.–Sources of bias.–Samos.–Patmos.–The Olympiads.–Herodotus at Olympia.–History received with applause.–Herodotus at Athens.–His literary fame.–Birth of Xenophon.–Cyrus the Younger.–Ambition of Cyrus.–He attempts to assassinate his brother.–Rebellion of Cyrus.–The Greek auxiliaries.–Artaxerxes assembles his army.–The battle.–Cyrus slain.–Murder of the Greek generals.–Critical situation of the Greeks.–Xenophon’s proposal.–Retreat of the Ten Thousand.–Xenophon’s retirement.–Xenophon’s writings.–Credibility of Herodotus and Xenophon.–Importance of the story.–Object of this work.

Cyrus was the founder of the ancient Persian empire–a monarchy, perhaps, the most wealthy and magnificent which the world has ever seen. Of that strange and incomprehensible principle of human nature, under the influence of which vast masses of men, notwithstanding the universal instinct of aversion to control, combine, under certain circumstances, by millions and millions, to maintain, for many successive centuries, the representatives of some one great family in a condition of exalted, and absolute, and utterly irresponsible ascendency over themselves, while they toil for them, watch over them, submit to endless and most humiliating privations in their behalf, and commit, if commanded to do so, the most inexcusable and atrocious crimes to sustain the demigods they have thus made in their lofty estate, we have, in the case of this Persian monarchy, one of the most extraordinary exhibitions.

The Persian monarchy appears, in fact, even as we look back upon it from this remote distance both of space and of time, as a very vast wave of human power and grandeur. It swelled up among the populations of Asia, between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, about five hundred years before Christ, and rolled on in undiminished magnitude and glory for many cen