Transcriber's Note. Apparent typographical errors have been corrected. The inconsistent use of hyphens has been retained, as has the use of both "king" and "King". Small capitals have been replaced by full capitals, while italics are indicated by _underscores_. A phrase in black letter font is indicated by +plus signs+. An advertisement for another work by the same author has been shifted to the back of the book. The illustration titled "ALPHABET" does not identify which alphabet it is, but it appears to illustrate Egyptian hieroglyphics. The "Synchronistical Table of the Principal Events in Herodotus" towards the end of the book extends over two pages in small font: one on the Greeks and one on the "Barbarians". The text on the Persian Empire is spread over several columns on the second page. In this version the table on each page has been split into two, and the text on the Persian Empire placed at the end. [Illustration: THE PYRAMIDS AND SPHINX.] THE BOYS' AND GIRLS' HERODOTUS BEING PARTS OF THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS EDITED FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN S. WHITE, LL.D. HEAD-MASTER, BERKELEY SCHOOL; EDITOR OF THE BOYS' AND GIRLS' PLUTARCH _WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS_ NEW YORK & LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS +The Knickerbocker Press+ 1884 COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1884 INTRODUCTION. Imagine yourself in the city of Athens near the close of the year 446 B.C. The proud city, after many years of supremacy over the whole of Central Greece, has passed her zenith, and is surely on the decline. She has never recovered from the blow received at Coronea. The year has been one of gloom and foreboding. The coming spring will bring the end of the five years' truce; and an invasion from the Peloponnesus is imminent. But, as the centre of learning, refinement, and the arts, the lustre of her fame is yet undimmed, and men of education throughout the world deem their lives incomplete until they have sought and reached this intellectual Mecca. During this year a stranger from Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor, after many years of travel in Asia, Scythia, Libya, Egypt, and Magna Græcia, has taken up his abode at Athens. He is still a young man, hardly thirty-seven, yet his fame is that of the first and greatest of historians. Dramatists and poets immortal there have been, but never man has written such exquisite prose. Twenty centuries and more shall wear away, and his history will be read in a hundred different tongues, as well as in the beautiful and simple Greek that he wrote. His name will grow into a household word; the school-boy will revel in his delightful tales, and wise men will call him the Father of History! For weeks the people of Athens have listened entranced to the public reading of his great work, and now the Assembly has passed a decree tendering to him the city's thanks, together with a most substantial gift in recognition of his talents—a purse of money equal to twelve thousand