Precisely the same fault which Dionysius here imputes to Thucydides (though in other places he acquits him, ἀπὸ παντὸς φθόνου καὶ πάσης κολακείας, p. 824), Plutarch and Dio cast far more harshly upon Herodotus. In neither case is the reproach deserved. Both the moralists and the rhetoricians of ancient times were very apt to treat history, not as a series of true matters of fact, exemplifying the laws of human nature and society, and enlarging our knowledge of them for purposes of future inference,—but as if it were a branch of fiction, so to be handled as to please our taste or improve our morality. Dionysius, blaming Thucydides for the choice of his subject, goes so far as to say that the Peloponnesian war, a period of ruinous discord in Greece, ought to have been left in oblivion and never to have passed into history (σιωπῇ καὶ λήθῃ παραδοθεὶς, ὑπο τῶν ἐπιγιγνομένων ἠγνοῆσθαι, ibid. p. 768),—and that especially Thucydides ought never to have thrown the blame of it upon his own city, since there were many other causes to which it might have been imputed (ἑτέραις ἔχοντα πολλαῖς ἀφορμαῖς περιάψαι τὰς αἰτίας, p. 770). I have already mentioned that Xerxes is described as having originally been averse to the enterprise, and only stimulated thereto by the persuasions of Mardonius: this was probably the genuine Persian belief, for the blame of so great a disaster would naturally be transferred from the monarch to some evil counsellor.[10] As soon as Xerxes, yielding to persuasion, has announced to the Persian chief men whom he had convoked his resolution to bridge over the Hellespont and march to the conquest of Greece and Europe, Mardonius is represented as expressing his warm concurrence in the project, extolling the immense force[11] of Persia and depreciating the Ionians in Europe—so he denominated them—as so poor and disunited that success was not only certain but easy. Against the rashness of this general—the evil genius of Xerxes—we find opposed the prudence and long experience of Artabanus, brother of the deceased Darius, and therefore uncle to the monarch. The age and relationship of this Persian Nestor emboldens him to undertake the dangerous task of questioning the determination which Xerxes, though professing to invite the opinions of others, had proclaimed as already settled in his own mind. The speech which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Artabanus is that of a thoughtful and religious Greek: it opens with the Grecian conception of the necessity of hearing and comparing opposite views, prior to any final decision,—reproves Mardonius for falsely depreciating the Greeks and seducing his master into personal danger,—sets forth the probability that the Greeks, if victorious at sea, would come and destroy the bridge by which Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont,—reminds the latter of the imminent hazard which Darius and his army had undergone in Scythia, from