In the first place, it has the best of all names to describe it – equality before the law.
In the second place, it is entirely free of the vices of monarchy. It is government by
lot, it is accountable government, and it refers all decisions to the common people.
(3, 80)Though not an Athenian himself and evidently writing at a time when Athens was
unpopular as a result of her empire, Herodotus boldly hails freedom-loving Athens
asthe saviour of Greece: Athenian naval power was decisive. ‘It was they who
aroused the whole of the rest of Greece... and, with the help of the gods, repelled
the king’s advance’ (7, 139). Philobarbaros though he certainly is, Herodotus has no
doubt that Greek civic values represent a higher order of things than oriental despo-
tism, and his history expresses the new self-confidence in Greece in the generation
after the Persian Wars.
Most readers find his history an attractively written and fascinating human
document rising to a dramatic climax in the two Persian campaigns. However, the
reliability of it all has always been a matter of debate. The narrative of Solon and
Croesus (1, 29–34) sounds like a folk-tale and even in ancient times was rejected on
chronological grounds. We may suspect that the conversations between Xerxes and
Demaratus and the discussion on the various forms of constitution are largely, if not
wholly, invented for dramatic effect, though here it can be said in Herodotus’ defence
that it remained the general practice of ancient historians to put words into the
mouths of their protagonists. He is often criticized not only for lapses in chronology
but also for a lack of military knowledge and often for a general credulity in relation
to his sources. But it would be wrong simply to regard the history as largely a
compilation of travellers’ tales preserving the distorted folk memories of the oral
tradition, followed by a dramatic account of the Persian Wars in which historical truth
is often sacrificed for literary effect. He frequently expresses scepticism about what
he is told and sometimes gives two versions of events, leaving the reader to decide
the balance of probability. Modern scholars who have looked beyond Herodotus to
the evidence of inscriptions and archaeology often report back with favourable
verdicts. Given the difficulties in writing history at all in an age when written records
were not available, and in determining criteria for deciding between myth and fact,
and given that Herodotus is a pioneer in the scale of his undertaking, it is difficult not
to admire the lengths to which he went in his pursuit of truth about the human world
of his recent past.
Thucydides
The chief source for the Peloponnesian War and its immediate antecedents is one of
the most important Greek writers, Thucydides (c. 455–c. 400):
HISTORY 39