Up to this period, history had been composed expressly for recital at the national games, and was couched in a rhetorical transition from the preceding poetical form. The minstrel of the Homeric banquet became the eulogist of his countrymen before applauding thousands at Olympia; but now arose another master who foresaw that his work would survive the forms of society then existing, and he aimed not so much for a transient hearing, as to be perpetually read. The Attic Thucydides had listened to Herodotus in the great presence of the nation, and became inspired with an enthusiasm which bore him to the height of superior excellence. He was cotemporary with Socrates, and under Anaxagoras and Antiphon, matured that compressed eloquence which was to commemorate an age then dawning full of stirring incident. He renounced the episodic movement common to his great predecessor, and instead of supplying a pastime for the present, aspired to portray universal man, and inculcate profound lessons respecting the Providence that rules the world. Thucydides perfected that form of historical writing which is peculiarly Greek, and was succeeded by Xenophon, whose third remove was clearly beyond the culminating point. Polybius developed the idea of universal disquisition, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was honored as the first of historic critics; but after the fall of freedom, there was little worthy for one either to portray or appreciate. It was in the day of Themistocles especially, the Greeks appear to have been sensible that they were instruments in the hands of destiny, and that their greatness was greatly to sway the generations of all coming time. This national consciousness, increasingly intensified in description and illustration, is strongly impressed on the sententious pages of Thucydides. The theme of Herodotus was a particular war, the Persian, and he treated it as an epical artist. But his acuter successor added philosophical composition to the densest power of combination, and was the first to attempt the analysis and portraiture of character. Thus, as in every other literary walk, the march of historical excellence became most extended and regular at the mighty heart of intelligence; on the spot where its origin was indigenous, its perfection was most splendidly evolved.