imagination to take liberties with facts. The very caution, too, which he displays as an historian is evidently a prominent characteristic of the man,—a characteristic which would almost inevitably lead him to shun a collision with the views of those of his fellow-men with whom he was most intimately connected in life and sentiment. But his silence is sometimes eloquent. In the Thermopylæ narrative he mentions Leonidas’ demand for reinforcements: he states that the intention of sending them existed; but he never hints that even a show of carrying out the intention was ever made. The inadequacy of the reasons which he gives for the omission to send help,—the occurrence of the Carnean and Olympian festivals, and the alleged miscalculation made by the Spartans as to the time at which the Persians would arrive before the pass,—is patent on impartial examination. He himself clearly shows that the Greeks had information as to the movements of the Persian army; for he says that Leonidas was despatched to Thermopylæ “when they heard the Persian was in Pieria.” #FACT AND MOTIVE.# Leonidas and his band were then in good time. Nor was any such mistake made in despatching the fleet to Artemisium. And when it is all over, what is the alleged cause of Leonidas’ death? It is represented as an act of self-sacrifice. An oracle had declared that one king must die, that Spartan liberty perish not. And so Leonidas immolated himself on the altar of Patriotism. This is a motive which would directly appeal to the piety of the historian. But some contemporary sceptic might well have asked why, under the circumstances, the hero of a deed of such splendid self-sacrifice should have thought it right to involve therein the Thespian and Theban contingents. That Leonidas’ act was one of the most glorious recorded in history there is no reason to doubt: the question is as to the motive. How can the motive be judged of at the present day? Herodotus himself supplies the apparatus of criticism by his narrative of the incidents which occurred at Thermopylæ, which, when statements of motive are excluded, is in nearly every single detail capable of verification on the spot at the present day. The modern world possesses in it a sound basis for an induction of the causes which produced the events. The motives alleged here and in other parts of his history of the Persian War are little more than hypotheses for the verification or disproof of which the genuine honesty of the historian often supplies the means. ◆H. vii. 201.◆