Respecting the influence of dreams in determining the enterprises of the early Turkish Sultans, see Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, book ii, vol. i, p. 49. [18] Compare the dream of Darius Codomannus. Plutarch, Alexander, c. 18. Concerning the punishment inflicted by Astyagês on the Magians for misinterpreting his dreams, see Herodot. i, 128. Philochorus, skilled in divination, affirmed that Nikias put a totally wrong interpretation upon that fatal eclipse of the moon which induced him to delay his retreat, and proved his ruin (Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23). [19] Æschylus, Pers. 96, 104, 181, 220, 368, 745, 825: compare Sophocl. Ajax, 129, 744, 775, and the end of the Œdipus Tyrannus; Euripid. Hecub. 58; Pindar, Olymp. viii. 86; Isthm. vi, 39; Pausanias, ii, 33, 3. Compare the sense of the word δεισιδαίμων in Xenophon, Agesilaus, c. 11, sect. 8,—“the man who in the midst of success fears the envious gods,”—opposed to the person who confides in its continuance; and Klausen, Theologumena Æschyli, p. 18. [20] The manner in which Herodotus groups together the facts of his history, in obedience to certain religious and moral sentiments in his own mind, is well set forth in Hoffmeister, Sittlich—religiöse Lebensansicht des Herodotos, Essen, 1832, especially sects. 21, 22, pp. 112, _seqq._ Hoffmeister traces the veins of sentiment running through, and often overlaying, or transforming, the matters of fact through a considerable portion of the nine books. He does not, perhaps, sufficiently advert to the circumstance, that the informants from whom Herodotus collected his facts were for the most part imbued with sentiments similar to himself; so that the religious and moral vein pervaded more or less his original materials, and did not need to be added by himself. There can be little doubt that the priests, the ministers of temples and oracles, the exegetæ or interpreting guides around these holy places were among his chief sources for instructing himself: a stranger, visiting so many different cities must have been constantly in a situation to have no other person whom he could consult. The temples were interesting both in themselves and in the trophies and offerings which they exhibited, while the persons belonging to them were, as a general rule, accessible and communicative to strangers, as we may see both from Pausanias and Plutarch,—both of whom, however, had books before them also to consult, which Herodotus hardly had at all. It was not only the priests and ministers of temples in Egypt, of Hêraklês at Tyre, and of Bêlus at Babylon, that Herodotus questioned (i, 181; ii, 3, 44, 143), but also those of Delphi (Δελφῶν οἶδα ἐγὼ οὕτως ἀκούσας γενέσθαι, i, 20: compare i, 91, 92, 51); Dôdôna (ii, 52); of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes (v, 59); of Athênê Alea at Tegea (i, 66); of Dêmêtêr