No More Learning

To submit my works to you, to win _your_ approbation--if such a
thing might be! --were to reach the goal of my desire; for your suffrage
carries the rest with it. Whom, indeed, could I substitute in your place,
and hope to preserve a reputation for sanity? In a sense, no doubt, I
shall be hazarding all on one cast of the die: yet with more truth I
might be said to have summoned the whole population into one audience-
chamber; for your single judgement must assuredly outweigh the rest,
taken individually or collectively. The Spartan kings had two votes each
to the ordinary man's one: but you are a whole Privy Council and Senate
in yourself. Your influence is unequalled in the Court of Literature,
and, above all, yours is the casting-vote of acquittal; an encouraging
thought for me, who might well be uneasy otherwise at the extent of my
hardihood. Moreover, I am not wholly without a claim on your interest, as
belonging to that city which has so often enjoyed peculiar benefits at
your hand, in addition to those which it has shared with the nation at
large; and this encourages me to hope that in the present instance, if
judgement is going against me, and the votes of acquittal are in a
minority, you will use your prerogative, and make all right with that
casting-vote of yours. I may have had successes, I may have made a name,
my lectures may have been well received:--all this amounts to nothing; it
is visionary; it is a mere bubble. The truth must come to light now; I am
put to a final test; there will be no room for doubt or hesitation after
this. It rests with you, whether my literary rank shall be assured, or my
pretensions--but no! with such a contest before me, I will abstain from
words of evil omen.

Ye Gods, give me approval _here_, and set the seal upon my
reputation! I may then face the world with a light heart: he who has
carried the prize at Olympia need fear no other course.




THE SCYTHIAN


Anacharsis was not the first Scythian who was induced by the love of
Greek culture to leave his native country and visit Athens: he had been
preceded by Toxaris, a man of high ability and noble sentiments, and an
eager student of manners and customs; but of low origin, not like
Anacharsis a member of the royal family or of the aristocracy of his
country, but what they call _'an eight-hoof man,'_ a term which
implies the possession of a waggon and two oxen. Toxaris never returned
to Scythia, but died at Athens, where he presently came to be ranked
among the Heroes; and sacrifice is still paid to 'the Foreign Physician,'
as he was styled after his deification. Some account of the significance
of this name, the origin of his worship, and his connexion with the sons
of Asclepius, will not, I think, be out of place: for it will be seen
from this that the Scythians, in conferring immortality on mortals, and
sending them to keep company with Zamolxis, do not stand alone; since the
Athenians permit themselves to make Gods of Scythians upon Greek soil.

At the time of the great plague, the wife of Architeles the Areopagite
had a vision: the Scythian Toxaris stood over her and commanded her to
tell the Athenians that the plague would cease if they would sprinkle
their back-streets with wine. The Athenians attended to his instructions,
and after several sprinklings had been performed, the plague troubled
them no more; whether it was that the perfume of the wine neutralized
certain noxious vapours, or that the hero, being a medical hero, had some
other motive for his advice. However that may be, he continues to this
day to draw a fee for his professional services, in the shape of a white
horse, which is sacrificed on his tomb. This tomb was pointed out by
Dimaenete as the place from which he issued with his instructions about
the wine; and beneath it Toxaris was found buried, his identity being
established not merely by the inscription, of which only a part remained
legible, but also by the figure engraved on the monument, which was that
of a Scythian, with a bow, ready strung, in his left hand, and in the
right what appeared to be a book. You may still make out more than half
the figure, with the bow and book complete: but the upper portion of the
stone, including the face, has suffered from the ravages of time. It is
situated not far from the Dipylus, on your left as you leave the Dipylus
for the Academy. The mound is of no great size, and the pillar lies
prostrate: yet it never lacks a garland, and there are statements to the
effect that fever-patients have been known to be cured by the hero; which
indeed is not surprising, considering that he once healed an entire city.

However, my reason for mentioning Toxaris was this. He was still alive,
when Anacharsis landed at Piraeus and made his way up to Athens, in no
small perturbation of spirit; a foreigner and a barbarian, everything was
strange to him, and many things caused him uneasiness; he knew not what
to do with himself; he saw that every one was laughing at his attire; he
could find no one to speak his native tongue;--in short he was heartily
sick of his travels, and made up his mind that he would just see Athens,
and then retreat to his ship without loss of time, get on board, and so
back to the Bosphorus; once there he had no great journey to perform
before he would be home again. In this frame of mind he had already
reached the Ceramicus, when his good genius appeared to him in the guise
of Toxaris. The attention of the latter was immediately arrested by the
dress of his native country, nor was it likely that he would have any
difficulty in recognizing Anacharsis, who was of noble birth and of the
highest rank in Scythia. Anacharsis, on the other hand, could not be
expected to see a compatriot in Toxaris, who was dressed in the Greek
fashion, without sword or belt, wore no beard, and from his fluent speech
might have been an Athenian born; so completely had time transformed him.
'You are surely Anacharsis, the son of Daucetas? ' he said, addressing him
in the Scythian language. Anacharsis wept tears of joy; he not only heard
his mother-tongue, but heard it from one who had known him in Scythia.
'How comes it, sir, that you know me? ' he asked.

'I too am of that country; my name is Toxaris; but it is probably not
known to you, for I am a man of no family. '

'Are you that Toxaris,' exclaimed the other, 'of whom I heard that for
love of Greece he had left wife and children in Scythia, and gone to
Athens, and was there dwelling in high honour? '

'What, is my name still remembered among you? --Yes, I am Toxaris. '

'Then,' said Anacharsis, 'you see before you a disciple, who has caught
your enthusiasm for Greece; it was with no other object than this that I
set out on my travels. The hardships I have endured in the countries
through which I passed on my way hither are infinite; and I had already
decided, when I met you, that before the sun set I would return to my
ship; so much was I disturbed at the strange and outlandish sights that I
have seen. And now, Toxaris, I adjure you by Scimetar and Zamolxis, our
country's Gods,--take me by the hand, be my guide, and make me acquainted
with all that is best in Athens and in the rest of Greece; their great
men, their wise laws, their customs, their assemblies, their
constitution, their everyday life. You and I have both travelled far to
see these things: you will not suffer me to depart without seeing them? '

'What! come to the very door, and then turn back? This is not the
language of enthusiasm. However, there is no fear of that--you will not
go back, Athens will not let you off so easily. She is not so much at a
loss for charms wherewith to detain the stranger: she will take such a
hold on you, that you will forget your own wife and children--if you have
any. Now I will put you into the readiest way of seeing Athens, ay, and
Greece, and the glories of Greece. There is a certain philosopher living
here; he is an Athenian, but has travelled a great deal in Asia and
Egypt, and held intercourse with the most eminent men. For the rest, he
is none of your moneyed men: indeed, he is quite poor; be prepared for an
old man, dressed as plainly as could be. Yet his virtue and wisdom are
held in such esteem, that he was employed by them to draw up a
constitution, and his ordinances form their rule of life. Make this man
your friend, study him, and rest assured that in knowing him you know
Greece; for he is an epitome of all that is excellent in the Greek
character. I can do you no greater service than to introduce you to him. '

'Let us lose no time, then, Toxaris. Take me to him. But perhaps that is
not so easily done? He may slight your intercessions on my behalf? '

'You know not what you say. Nothing gives him greater pleasure than to
have an opportunity of showing his hospitality to strangers. Only follow
me, and you shall see how courteous and benevolent he is, and how devout
a worshipper of the God of Hospitality. But stay: how fortunate! here he
comes towards us. See, he is wrapped in thought, and mutters to himself.
--Solon! ' he cried; 'I bring you the best of gifts--a stranger who craves
your friendship. He is a Scythian of noble family; but has left all and
come here to enjoy the society of Greeks, and to view the wonders of
their country. I have hit upon a simple expedient which will enable him
to do both, to see all that is to be seen, and to form the most desirable
acquaintances: in other words, I have brought him to Solon, who, if I
know anything of his character, will not refuse to take him under his
protection, and to make him a Greek among Greeks. --It is as I told you,
Anacharsis: having seen Solon, you have seen all; behold Athens; behold
Greece. You are a stranger no longer: all men know you, all men are your
friends; this it is to possess the friendship of the venerable Solon.
Conversing with him, you will forget Scythia and all that is in it. Your
toils are rewarded, your desire is fulfilled. In him you have the
mainspring of Greek civilization, in him the ideals of Athenian
philosophers are realized. Happy man--if you know your happiness--to be
the friend and intimate of Solon! '

It would take too long to describe the pleasure of Solon at Toxaris's
'gift,' his words on the occasion, and his subsequent intercourse with
Anacharsis--how he gave him the most valuable instruction, procured him
the friendship of all Athens, showed him the sights of Greece, and took
every trouble to make his stay in the country a pleasant one; and how
Anacharsis for his part regarded the sage with such reverence, that he
was never willingly absent from his side. Suffice it to say, that the
promise of Toxaris was fulfilled: thanks to Solon's good offices,
Anacharsis speedily became familiar with Greece and with Greek society,
in which he was treated with the consideration due to one who came thus
strongly recommended; for here too Solon was a lawgiver: those whom he
esteemed were loved and admired by all. Finally, if we may believe the
statement of Theoxenus, Anacharsis was presented with the freedom of the
city, and initiated into the mysteries; nor does it seem likely that he
would ever have returned to Scythia, had not Solon died.

And now perhaps I had better put the moral to my tale, if it is not to
wander about in a headless condition. What are Anacharsis and Toxaris
doing here to-day in Macedonia, bringing Solon with them too, poor old
gentleman, all the way from Athens? It is time for me to explain. The
fact is, my situation is pretty much that of Anacharsis. I crave your
indulgence, in venturing to compare myself with royalty. Anacharsis,
after all, was a barbarian; and I should hope that we Syrians are as good
as Scythians. And I am not comparing myself with Anacharsis the king, but
Anacharsis the barbarian. When first I set foot in your city, I was
filled with amazement at its size, its beauty, its population, its
resources and splendour generally. For a time I was dumb with admiration;
the sight was too much for me. I felt like the island lad Telemachus, in
the palace of Menelaus; and well I might, as I viewed this city in all
her pride;

A garden she, whose flowers are ev'ry blessing.

Thus affected, I had to bethink me what course I should adopt. For as to
lecturing here, my mind had long been made up about _that_; what
other audience could I have in view, that I should pass by this great
city in silence? To make a clean breast of it, then, I set about
inquiring who were your great men; for it was my design to approach them,
and secure their patronage and support in facing the public. Unlike
Anacharsis, who had but one informant, and a barbarian at that, I had
many; and all told me the same tale, in almost the same words. 'Sir,'
they said, 'we have many excellent and able men in this city--nowhere
will you find more: but two there are who stand pre-eminent; who in birth
and in prestige are without a rival, and in learning and eloquence might
be matched with the Ten Orators of Athens. They are regarded by the
public with feelings of absolute devotion: their will is law; for they
will nothing but the highest interests of the city. Their courtesy, their
hospitality towards strangers, their unassuming benevolence, their
modesty in the midst of greatness, their gentleness, their affability,--
all these you will presently experience, and will have something to say
on the subject yourself. But--wonder of wonders! --these two are of one
house, father and son. For the father, conceive to yourself a Solon, a
Pericles, an Aristides: as to the son, his manly comeliness and noble
stature will attract you at the first glance; and if he do but say two
words, your ears will be taken captive by the charm that sits upon his
tongue. When he speaks in public, the city listens like one man, open-
mouthed; 'tis Athens listening to Alcibiades; yet the Athenians presently
repented of their infatuation for the son of Clinias, but here love grows
to reverence; the welfare of this city, the happiness of her citizens,
are all bound up in one man. Once let the father and son admit you to
their friendship, and the city is yours; they have but to raise a finger,
to put your success beyond a doubt. '--Such, by Heaven (if Heaven must be
invoked for the purpose), such was the unvarying report I heard; and I
now know from experience that it fell far short of the truth.

Then up, nor waste thy days In indolent delays,

as the Cean poet cries; I must strain every nerve, work body and soul, to
gain these friends. That once achieved, fair weather and calm seas are
before me, and my haven is near at hand.




THE WAY TO WRITE HISTORY


MY DEAR PHILO,

There is a story of a curious epidemic at Abdera, just after the
accession of King Lysimachus. It began with the whole population's
exhibiting feverish symptoms, strongly marked and unintermittent from the
very first attack. About the seventh day, the fever was relieved, in some
cases by a violent flow of blood from the nose, in others by perspiration
not less violent. The mental effects, however, were most ridiculous; they
were all stage-struck, mouthing blank verse and ranting at the top of
their voices. Their favourite recitation was the _Andromeda_ of
Euripides; one after another would go through the great speech of
Perseus; the whole place was full of pale ghosts, who were our seventh-
day tragedians vociferating,

O Love, who lord'st it over Gods and men,

and the rest of it. This continued for some time, till the coming of
winter put an end to their madness with a sharp frost. I find the
explanation of the form it took in this fact: Archelaus was then the
great tragic actor, and in the middle of the summer, during some very hot
weather, he had played the _Andromeda_ there; most of them took the
fever in the theatre, and convalescence was followed by a relapse--into
tragedy, the _Andromeda_ haunting their memories, and Perseus
hovering, Gorgon's head in hand, before the mind's eye.

Well, to compare like with like, the majority of our educated class is
now suffering from an Abderite epidemic. They are not stage-struck,
indeed; that would have been a minor infatuation--to be possessed with
other people's verses, not bad ones either; no; but from the beginning of
the present excitements--the barbarian war, the Armenian disaster, the
succession of victories--you cannot find a man but is writing history;
nay, every one you meet is a Thucydides, a Herodotus, a Xenophon. The old
saying must be true, and war be the father of all things [Footnote: See
note on _Icaromenippus_, 8. ], seeing what a litter of historians it
has now teemed forth at a birth.

Such sights and sounds, my Philo, brought into my head that old anecdote
about the Sinopean. A report that Philip was marching on the town had
thrown all Corinth into a bustle; one was furbishing his arms, another
wheeling stones, a third patching the wall, a fourth strengthening a
battlement, every one making himself useful somehow or other. Diogenes
having nothing to do--of course no one thought of giving _him_ a
job--was moved by the sight to gird up his philosopher's cloak and begin
rolling his tub-dwelling energetically up and down the Craneum; an
acquaintance asked, and got, the explanation: 'I do not want to be
thought the only idler in such a busy multitude; I am rolling my tub to
be like the rest. '

I too am reluctant to be the only dumb man at so vociferous a season; I
do not like walking across the stage, like a 'super', in gaping silence;
so I decided to roll _my_ cask as best I could. I do not intend to
write a history, or attempt actual narrative; I am not courageous enough
for that; have no apprehensions on my account; I realize the danger of
rolling the thing over the rocks, especially if it is only a poor little
jar of brittle earthenware like mine; I should very soon knock against
some pebble and find myself picking up the pieces. Come, I will tell you
my idea for campaigning in safety, and keeping well out of range.

Give a wide berth to all that foam and spray, and to the anxieties which
vex the historian--that I shall be wise enough to do; but I propose to
give a little advice, and lay down a few principles for the benefit of
those who do venture. I shall have a share in their building, if not in
the dedicatory inscription; my finger-tips will at least have touched
their wet mortar.

However, most of them see no need for advice here: _there might as well
be an art of talking, seeing, or eating; history-writing is perfectly
easy, comes natural, is a universal gift; all that is necessary is the
faculty of translating your thoughts into words_. But the truth is--you
know it without my telling, old friend--, it is _not_ a task to be lightly
undertaken, or carried through without effort; no, it needs as much care
as any sort of composition whatever, if one means to create 'a possession
for ever,' as Thucydides calls it. Well, I know I shall not get a hearing
from many of them, and some will be seriously offended--especially any who
have finished and produced their work; in cases where its first reception
was favourable, it would be folly to expect the authors to recast or
correct; has it not the stamp of finality? is it not almost a State
document? Yet even they may profit by my words; _we_ are not likely to be
attacked again; we have disposed of all our enemies; but there might be a
Celto-Gothic or an Indo-Bactrian war; then our friends' composition might
be improved by the application of my measuring-rod--always supposing that
they recognize its correctness; failing that, let them do their own
mensuration with the old foot-rule; the doctor will not particularly mind,
though all Abdera insists on spouting the _Andromeda_.

Advice has two provinces--one of choice, the other of avoidance; let us
first decide what the historian is to avoid--of what faults he must purge
himself--, and then proceed to the measures he must take for putting
himself on the straight high road. This will include the manner of his
beginning, the order in which he should marshal his facts, the questions
of proportion, of discreet silence, of full or cursory narration, of
comment and connexion. Of all that, however, later on; for the present we
deal with the vices to which bad writers are liable. As to those faults
of diction, construction, meaning, and general amateurishness, which are
common to every kind of composition, to discuss them is neither
compatible with my space nor relevant to my purpose.

But there are mistakes peculiar to history; your own observation will
show you just those which a constant attendance at authors'
readings [Footnote: These were very common in Roman Imperial times, for
purposes of advertisement, of eliciting criticism, &c. 'The audience at
recitations may be compared with the modern literary reviews, discharging
the functions of a preventive and emendatory, not merely of a
correctional tribunal. Before publication a work might thus be known to
more hearers than it would now find readers' Mayor, _Juvenal_, iii.
9. ] has impressed on me; you have only to keep your ears open at every
opportunity. It will be convenient, however, to refer by the way to a few
illustrations in recent histories. Here is a serious fault to begin with.
It is the fashion to neglect the examination of facts, and give the space
gained to eulogies of generals and commanders; those of their own side
they exalt to the skies, the other side they disparage intemperately.
They forget that between history and panegyric there is a great gulf
fixed, barring communication; in musical phrase, the two things are a
couple of octaves apart. The panegyrist has only one concern--to commend
and gratify his living theme some way or other; if misrepresentation will
serve his purpose, he has no objection to that. History, on the other
hand, abhors the intrusion of any least scruple of falsehood; it is like
the windpipe, which the doctors tell us will not tolerate a morsel of
stray food.

Another thing these gentlemen seem not to know is that poetry and history
offer different wares, and have their separate rules. Poetry enjoys
unrestricted freedom; it has but one law--the poet's fancy. He is
inspired and possessed by the Muses; if he chooses to horse his car with
winged steeds, or set others a-galloping over the sea, or standing corn,
none challenges his right; his Zeus, with a single cord, may haul up
earth and sea, and hold them dangling together--there is no fear the cord
may break, the load come tumbling down and be smashed to atoms. In a
complimentary picture of Agamemnon, there is nothing against his having
Zeus's head and eyes, his brother Posidon's chest, Ares's belt--in fact,
the son of Atreus and Aerope will naturally be an epitome of all
Divinity; Zeus or Posidon or Ares could not singly or severally provide
the requisite perfections. But, if history adopts such servile arts, it
is nothing but poetry without the wings; the exalted tones are missing;
and imposition of other kinds without the assistance of metre is only the
more easily detected. It is surely a great, a superlative weakness, this
inability to distinguish history from poetry; what, bedizen history, like
her sister, with tale and eulogy and their attendant exaggerations? as
well take some mighty athlete with muscles of steel, rig him up with
purple drapery and meretricious ornament, rouge and powder his cheeks;
faugh, what an object would one make of him with such defilements!

I would not be understood to exclude eulogy from history altogether; it
is to be kept to its place and used with moderation, is not to tax the
reader's patience; I shall presently show, indeed, that in all such
matters an eye is to be had to posterity. It is true, there is a school
which makes a pretty division of history into the agreeable and the
useful, and defends the introduction of panegyric on the ground that it
is agreeable, and pleases the general reader. But nothing could be
further from the truth. In the first place the division is quite a false
one; history has only one concern and aim, and that is the useful; which
again has one single source, and that is truth. The agreeable is no doubt
an addition, if it is present; so is beauty to an athlete; but a
Nicostratus, who is a fine fellow and proves himself a better man than
either of his opponents, gets his recognition as a Heracles, however ugly
his face may be; and if one opponent is the handsome Alcaeus himself--
handsome enough to make Nicostratus in love with him, says the story--,
that does not affect the issue. History too, if it can deal incidentally
in the agreeable, will attract a multitude of lovers; but so long as it
does its proper business efficiently--and that is the establishment of
truth--, it may be indifferent to beauty.

It is further to be remarked, that in history sheer extravagance has not
even the merit of being agreeable; and the extravagance of eulogy is
doubly repulsive, as extravagance, and as eulogy; at least it is only
welcome to the vulgar majority, not to that critical, that perhaps
hypercritical audience, whom no slip can escape, who are all eyes like
Argus, but keener than he, who test every word as a moneychanger might
his coins, rejecting the false on the spot, but accepting the good and
heavy and true; it is they that we should have in mind as we write
history, and never heed the others, though they applaud till they crack
their voices. If you neglect the critics, and indulge in the cloying
sweetness of tales and eulogies and such baits, you will soon find your
history a 'Heracles in Lydia. ' No doubt you have seen some picture of
him: he is Omphale's slave, dressed up in an absurd costume, his lion-
skin and club transferred to her, as though she were the true Heracles,
while he, in saffron robe and purple jacket, is combing wool and wincing
under Omphale's slipper. A degrading spectacle it is--the dress loose and
flapping open, and all that was man in him turned to woman.

The vulgar may very likely extend their favour to this; but the select
(whose judgement you disregard) will get a good deal of entertainment out
of your heterogeneous, disjointed, fragmentary stuff. There is nothing
which has not a beauty of its own; but take it out of its proper sphere,
and the misuse turns its beauty to ugliness. Eulogy, I need hardly say,
may possibly please one person, the eulogized, but will disgust every one
else; this is particularly so with the monstrous exaggerations which are
in fashion; the authors are so intent on the patron-hunt that they cannot
relinquish it without a full exhibition of servility; they have no idea
of finesse, never mask their flattery, but blurt out their unconvincing
bald tale anyhow.

The consequence is, they miss even their immediate end; the objects of
their praise are more inclined (and quite right too) to dislike and
discard them for toadies--if they are men of spirit, at any rate.
Aristobulus inserted in his history an account of a single combat between
Alexander and Porus, and selected this passage to read aloud to the
former; he reckoned that his best chance of pleasing was to invent heroic
deeds for the king, and heighten his achievements. Well, they were on
board ship in the Hydaspes; Alexander took hold of the book, and tossed
it overboard; 'the author should have been treated the same way, by
rights,' he added, 'for presuming to fight duels for me like that, and
shoot down elephants single-handed. ' A very natural indignation in
Alexander, of a piece with his treatment of the intrusive architect; this
person offered to convert the whole of Mount Athos into a colossal statue
of the king--who however decided that he was a toady, and actually gave
him less employment in ordinary than before.

The fact is, there is nothing agreeable in these things, except to any
one who is fool enough to enjoy commendations which the slightest inquiry
will prove to be unfounded; of course there _are_ ugly persons--women more
especially--who ask artists to paint them as beautiful as they can; they
think they will be really better-looking if the painter heightens the rose
a little and distributes a good deal of the lily. There you have the
origin of the present crowd of historians, intent only upon the passing
day, the selfish interest, the profit which they reckon to make out of
their work; execration is their desert--in the present for their
undisguised clumsy flattery, in the future for the stigma which their
exaggerations bring upon history in general. If any one takes some
admixture of the agreeable to be an absolute necessity, let him be
content with the independent beauties of style; these are agreeable
without being false; but they are usually neglected now, for the better
foisting upon us of irrelevant substitutes.

Passing from that point, I wish to put on record some fresh recollections
of Ionian histories--supported, now I think of it, by Greek analogies
also of recent date--both concerned with the war already alluded to. You
may trust my report, the Graces be my witness; I would take oath to its
truth, if it were polite to swear on paper. One writer started with
invoking the Muses to lend a hand. What a tasteful exordium! How suited
to the historic spirit! How appropriate to the style! When he had got a
little way on, he compared our ruler to Achilles, and the Parthian king
to Thersites; he forgot that Achilles would have done better if he had
had Hector instead of Thersites to beat, if there had been a man of might
fleeing in front,

But at his heels a mightier far than he.

He next proceeded to say something handsome about himself, as a fit
chronicler of such brilliant deeds. As he got near his point of
departure, he threw in a word for his native town of Miletus, adding that
he was thus improving on Homer, who never so much as mentioned his
birthplace. And he concluded his preface with a plain express promise to
advance our cause and personally wage war against the barbarians, to the
best of his ability. The actual history, and recital of the causes of
hostilities, began with these words:--'The detestable Vologesus (whom
Heaven confound! ) commenced war on the following pretext. '

Enough of him. Another is a keen emulator of Thucydides, and by way of
close approximation to his model starts with his own name--most graceful
of beginnings, redolent of Attic thyme! Look at it: 'Crepereius
Calpurnianus of Pompeiopolis wrote the history of the war between Parthia
and Rome, how they warred one upon the other, beginning with the
commencement of the war. ' After that exordium, what need to describe the
rest--what harangues he delivers in Armenia, resuscitating our old friend
the Corcyrean envoy--what a plague he inflicts on Nisibis (which would
not espouse the Roman cause), lifting the whole thing bodily from
Thucydides--except the Pelasgicum and the Long Walls, where the victims
of the earlier plague found shelter; there the difference ends; like the
other, 'it began in Ethiopia, whence it descended to Egypt,' and to most
of the Parthian empire, where it very discreetly remained. I left him
engaged in burying the poor Athenians in Nisibis, and knew quite well how
he would continue after my exit. Indeed it is a pretty common belief at
present that you are writing like Thucydides, if you just use his actual
words, _mutatis mutandis_. [Footnote: Omitting, with Dindorf, the words
which appear in the Teubner text, after emendation, as: mikra rakia, opos
kai autos au phaiaes, on di autaen. ] Ah, and I almost forgot to mention
one thing: this same writer gives many names of weapons and military
engines in Latin--_phossa_ for trench, _pons_ for bridge, and so forth.
Just think of the dignity of history, and the Thucydidean style--the Attic
embroidered with these Latin words, like a toga relieved and picked out
with the purple stripe--so harmonious!

Another puts down a bald list of events, as prosy and commonplace as a
private's or a carpenter's or a sutler's diary. However, there is more
sense in this poor man's performance; he flies his true colours from the
first; he has cleared the ground for some educated person who knows how
to deal with history. The only fault I have to find with him is that he
inscribes his volumes with a solemnity rather disproportioned to the rank
of their contents--'Parthian History, by Callimorphus, Surgeon of the 6th
Pikemen, volume so-and-so. ' Ah, yes, and there is a lamentable preface,
which closes with the remark that, since Asclepius is the son of Apollo,
and Apollo director of the Muses and patron of all culture, it is very
proper for a doctor to write history. Also, he starts in Ionic, but very
soon, for no apparent reason, abandons it for every-day Greek, still
keeping the Ionic _es_ and _ks_ and _ous_, but otherwise writing like
ordinary people--rather too ordinary, indeed.

Perhaps I should balance him with a philosophic historian; this
gentleman's name I will conceal, and merely indicate his attitude, as
revealed in a recent publication at Corinth. Much had been expected of
him, but not enough; starting straight off with the first sentence of the
preface, he subjects his readers to a dialectic catechism, his thesis
being the highly philosophic one, that no one but a philosopher should
write history. Very shortly there follows a second logical process,
itself followed by a third; in fact the whole preface is one mass of
dialectic figures. There is flattery, indeed, _ad nauseam_, eulogy
vulgar to the point of farce; but never without the logical trimmings;
always that dialectical catechism. I confess it strikes me as a vulgarity
also, hardly worthy of a philosopher with so long and white a beard, when
he gives it in his preface as our ruler's special good fortune that
philosophers should consent to record his actions; he had better have
left us to reach that conclusion for ourselves--if at all.

Again, it would be a sinful neglect to omit the man who begins like
this:--'I devise to tell of Romans and Persians'; then a little later,
'For 'twas Heaven's decree that the Persians should suffer evils'; and
again, 'One Osroes there was, whom Hellenes name Oxyroes'--and much more
in that style. He corresponds, you see, to one of my previous examples;
only he is a second Herodotus, and the other a second Thucydides.

There is another distinguished artist in words--again rather more
Thucydidean than Thucydides--, who gives, according to his own idea, the
clearest, most convincing descriptions of every town, mountain, plain, or
river.
I wish my bitterest foe no worse fate than the reading of them.
Frigid? Caspian snows, Celtic ice, are warm in comparison. A whole book
hardly suffices him for the Emperor's shield--the Gorgon on its boss,
with eyes of blue and white and black, rainbow girdle, and snakes twined
and knotted. Why, Vologesus's breeches or his bridle, God bless me, they
take up several thousand lines apiece; the same for the look of Osroes's
hair as he swims the Tigris--or what the cave was like that sheltered
him, ivy and myrtle and bay clustered all together to shut out every ray
of light. You observe how indispensable it all is to the history; without
the scene, how could we have comprehended the action?

It is helplessness about the real essentials, or ignorance of what should
be given, that makes them take refuge in word-painting--landscapes,
caves, and the like; and when they do come upon a series of important
matters, they are just like a slave whose master has left him his money
and made him a rich man; he does not know how to put on his clothes or
take his food properly; partridges or sweetbreads or hare are served; but
he rushes in, and fills himself up with pea soup or salt fish, till he is
fit to burst. Well, the man I spoke of gives the most unconvincing wounds
and singular deaths: some one has his big toe injured, and dies on the
spot; the general Priscus calls out, and seven-and-twenty of the enemy
fall dead at the sound. As to the numbers killed, he actually falsifies
dispatches; at Europus he slaughters 70,236 of the enemy, while the
Romans lose two, and have seven wounded! How any man of sense can tolerate
such stuff, I do not know.

Here is another point quite worth mention. This writer has such a passion
for unadulterated Attic, and for refining speech to the last degree of
purity, that he metamorphoses the Latin names and translates them into
Greek; Saturninus figures as Cronius, Fronto must be Phrontis, Titianus
Titanius, with queerer transmogrifications yet. Further, on the subject
of Severian's death, he accuses all other writers of a blunder in putting
him to the sword; he is really to have starved himself to death, as the
most painless method; the fact, however, is that it was all over in three
days, whereas seven days is the regular time for starvation; are we
perhaps to conceive an Osroes waiting about for Severian to complete the
process, and putting off his assault till after the seventh day?

Then, Philo, how shall we class the historians who indulge in poetical
phraseology? 'The catapult rocked responsive,' they say; 'Loud thundered
the breach'; or, somewhere else in this delectable history, 'Thus Edessa
was girdled with clash of arms, and all was din and turmoil,' or, 'The
general pondered in his heart how to attack the wall. ' Only he fills up
the interstices with such wretched common lower-class phrases as 'The
military prefect wrote His Majesty,' 'The troops were procuring the
needful,' 'They got a wash [Footnote: It was suggested in the Introduction
that Lucian's criticism is for practical purposes out of date; but
Prescott writes: 'He was surrounded by a party of friends, who had
_dropped in_, it seems, after mass, to inquire after the state of his
health, some of whom had remained to partake of his repast. '] and put in
an appearance,' and so on. It is like an actor with one foot raised on a
high buskin, and the other in a slipper.

You will find others writing brilliant high-sounding prefaces of
outrageous length, raising great expectations of the wonders to follow--
and then comes a poor little appendix of a--history; it is like nothing
in the world but a child--say the Eros you must have seen in a picture
playing in an enormous mask of Heracles or a Titan; _parturiunt montes_,
cries the audience, very naturally. That is not the way to do things; the
whole should be homogeneous and uniform, and the body in proportion to the
head--not a helmet of gold, a ridiculous breastplate patched up out of
rags or rotten leather, shield of wicker, and pig-skin greaves. You will
find plenty of historians prepared to set the Rhodian Colossus's head on
the body of a dwarf; others on the contrary show us headless bodies, and
plunge into the facts without exordium. These plead the example of
Xenophon, who starts with 'Darius and Parysatis had two children'; if they
only knew it, there is such a thing as a _virtual_ exordium, not realized
as such by everybody; but of that hereafter.

However, any mistake in mere expression or arrangement is excusable; but
when you come to fancy geography, differing from the other not by miles
or leagues, but by whole days' journeys, where is the classical model for
that? One writer has taken so little trouble with his facts--never met a
Syrian, I suppose, nor listened to the stray information you may pick up
at the barber's--, that he thus locates Europus:--'Europus lies in
Mesopotamia, two days' journey from the Euphrates, and is a colony from
Edessa. ' Not content with that, this enterprising person has in the same
book taken up my native Samosata and shifted it, citadel, walls, and all,
into Mesopotamia, giving it the two rivers for boundaries, and making
them shave past it, all but touching the walls on either side. I suspect
you would laugh at me, Philo, if I were to set about convincing you that
I am neither Parthian nor Mesopotamian, as this whimsical colony-planter
makes me.

By the way, he has also a very attractive tale of Severian, learnt, he
assures us on oath, from one of the actual fugitives. According to this,
he would not die by the sword, the rope, or poison, but contrived a death
which should be tragic and impressive. He was the owner of some large
goblets of the most precious glass; having made up his mind to die, he
broke the largest of these, and used a splinter of it for the purpose,
cutting his throat with the glass. A dagger or a lancet, good enough
instruments for a manly and heroic death, he could not come at, forsooth!

Then, as Thucydides composed a funeral oration over the first victims of
that old war, our author feels it incumbent on him to do the same for
Severian; they all challenge Thucydides, you see, little as he can be
held responsible for the Armenian troubles. So he buries Severian, and
then solemnly ushers up to the grave, as Pericles's rival, one Afranius
Silo, a centurion; the flood of rhetoric which follows is so copious and
remarkable that it drew tears from me--ye Graces! --tears of laughter;
most of all where the eloquent Afranius, drawing to a close, makes
mention, with weeping and distressful moans, of all those costly dinners
and toasts. But he is a very Ajax in his conclusion. He draws his sword,
gallantly as an Afranius should, and in sight of all cuts his throat over
the grave--and God knows it was high time for an execution, if oratory
can be felony. The historian states that all the spectators admired and
lauded Afranius; as for me, I was inclined to condemn him on general
grounds--he had all but given a catalogue of sauces and dishes, and shed
tears over the memory of departed cakes--, but his capital offence was
that he had not cut the historian-tragedian's throat before he left this
life himself.

I assure you, my friend, I could largely increase my list of such
offenders; but one or two more will suffice, before proceeding to the
second part of my undertaking, the suggestions for improvement. There are
some, then, who leave alone, or deal very cursorily with, all that is
great and memorable; amateurs and not artists, they have no selective
faculty, and loiter over copious laboured descriptions of the veriest
trifles; it is as if a visitor to Olympia, instead of examining,
commending or describing to his stay-at-home friends the general
greatness and beauty of the Zeus, were to be struck with the exact
symmetry and polish of its footstool, or the proportions of its shoe, and
give all his attention to these minor points.

For instance, I have known a man get through the battle of Europus in
less than seven whole lines, and then spend twenty mortal hours on a dull
and perfectly irrelevant tale about a Moorish trooper. The trooper's name
was Mausacas; he wandered up the hills in search of water, and came upon
some Syrian yokels getting their lunch; at first they were afraid of him,
but when they found he was on the right side, they invited him to share
the meal; for one of them had travelled in the Moorish country, having a
brother serving in the army. Then come long stories and descriptions of
how he hunted there, and saw a great herd of elephants at pasture, and
was nearly eaten up by a lion, and what huge fish he had bought at
Caesarea. So this quaint historian leaves the terrible carnage to go on
at Europus, and lets the pursuit, the forced armistice, the settling of
outposts, shift for themselves, while he lingers far into the evening
watching Malchion the Syrian cheapen big mackarel at Caesarea; if night
had not come all too soon, I dare say he would have dined with him when
the fish was cooked. If all this had not been accurately set down in the
history, what sad ignorance we should have been left in! The loss to the
Romans would have been irreparable, if Mausacas the Moor had got nothing
to quench his thirst, and come back fasting to camp. Yet I am wilfully
omitting innumerable details of yet greater importance--the arrival of a
flute-girl from the next village, the exchange of gifts (Mausacas's was a
spear, Malchion's a brooch), and other incidents most essential to the
battle of Europus. It is no exaggeration to say that such writers never
give the rose a glance, but devote all their curiosity to the thorns on
its stem.

Another entertaining person, who has never set foot outside Corinth, nor
travelled as far as its harbour--not to mention seeing Syria or Armenia
--, starts with words which impressed themselves on my memory:--'Seeing
is believing: I therefore write what I have seen, not what I have been
told. ' His personal observation has been so close that he describes the
Parthian 'Dragons' (they use this ensign as a numerical formula--a
thousand men to the Dragon, I believe): they are huge live dragons, he
says, breeding in Persian territory beyond Iberia; these are first
fastened to great poles and hoisted up aloft, striking terror at a
distance while the advance is going on; then, when the battle begins,
they are released and set on the enemy; numbers of our men, it seems,
were actually swallowed by them, and others strangled or crushed in their
coils; of all this he was an eye-witness, taking his observations,
however, from a safe perch up a tree. Thank goodness he did not come to
close quarters with the brutes! we should have lost a very remarkable
historian, and one who did doughty deeds in this war with his own right
hand; for he had many adventures, and was wounded at Sura (in the course
of a stroll from the Craneum to Lerna, apparently). All this he used to
read to a Corinthian audience, which was perfectly aware that he had
never so much as seen a battle-picture. Why, he did not know one weapon
or engine from another; the names of manoeuvres and formations had no
meaning for him; flank or front, line or column, it was all one.

Then there is a splendid fellow, who has boiled down into the compass of
five hundred lines (or less, to be accurate) the whole business from
beginning to end--campaigns in Armenia, in Syria, in Mesopotamia, on the
Tigris, and in Media; and having done it, he calls it a history. His
title very narrowly misses being longer than his book: 'An account of the
late campaigns of the Romans in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Media, by
Antiochianus, victor at the festival of Apollo'; he had probably won some
junior flat race.

I have known one writer compile a history of the future, including the
capture of Vologesus, the execution of Osroes (he is to be thrown to the
lions), and, crowning all, our long-deferred triumph. In this prophetic
vein, he sweeps hastily on to the end of his work; yet he finds time for
the foundation in Mesopotamia of a city, greatest of the great, and
fairest of the fair; he is still debating, however, whether the most
appropriate name will be Victoria, Concord, or Peacetown; that is yet
unsettled; we must leave the fair city unnamed for the present; but it is
already thickly populated--with empty dreams and literary drivellings. He
has also pledged himself to an account of coming events in India, and a
circumnavigation of the Atlantic; nay, the pledge is half redeemed; the
preface to the _India_ is complete; the third legion, the Celtic
contingent, and a small Moorish division, have crossed the Indus in full
force under Cassius; our most original historian will soon be posting us
up in their doings--their method of 'receiving elephants,' for instance--
in letters dated Muziris or Oxydracae.

These people's uneducated antics are infinite; they have no eyes for the
noteworthy, nor, if they had eyes, any adequate faculty of expression;
invention and fiction provide their matter, and belief in the first word
that comes their style; they pride themselves on the number of books they
run to, and yet more on their titles; for these again are quite absurd:
_--So-and-so's so many books of Parthian victories; The Parthis_, book I;
_The Parthis_, book II--quite a rival to the _Atthis_, eh? Another does it
(I have read the book) still more neatly--'_The Parthonicy of Demetrius of
Sagalassus_. ' I do not wish to ridicule or make a jest of these pretty
histories; I write for a practical purpose: any one who avoids these and
similar errors is already well on the road to historical success; nay, he
is almost there, if the logical axiom is correct, that, with
incompatibles, denial of the one amounts to affirmation of the other.

_Well_, I may be told, _you have now a clear field; the thorns and
brambles have all been extirpated, the debris of others' buildings has
been carted of, the rough places have been made smooth; come, do a little
construction yourself, and show that you are not only good at destroying,
but capable of yourself planning a model, in which criticism itself shall
find nothing to criticize. _

Well then, my perfect historian must start with two indispensable
qualifications; the one is political insight, the other the faculty of
expression; the first is a gift of nature, which can never be learnt; the
second should have been acquired by long practice, unremitting toil, and
loving study of the classics. There is nothing technical here, and no
room for any advice of mine; this essay does not profess to bestow
insight and acumen on those who are not endowed with them by nature;
valuable, or invaluable rather, would it have been, if it could recast
and modify like that, transmute lead into gold, tin into silver, magnify
a Conon or Leotrophides into Titormus or Milo.

But what is the function of professional advice? not the creation of
qualities which should be already there, but the indication of their
proper use. No trainer, of course,--let him be Iccus, Herodicus, Theon,
or who he may--will suggest that he can take a Perdiccas [Footnote:
Omitting, with Dindorf, a note on Perdiccas which runs thus: 'if
Perdiccas it was, and not rather Seleucus's son Antiochus, who was wasted
to a shadow by his passion for his step-mother. '] and make an Olympic
victor of him, fit to face Theagenes of Thasos or Polydamas of Scotussa;
what he _will_ tell you is that, given a constitution that will
stand training, his system will considerably improve it. So with us--we
are not to have every failure cast in our teeth, if we claim to have
invented a system for so great and difficult a subject. We do not offer
to take the first comer and make a historian of him--only to point out to
any one who has natural insight and acquired literary skill certain
straight roads (they may or may not be so in reality) which will bring
him with less waste of time and effort to his goal.

I do not suppose you will object that the man with insight has no need of
system and instruction upon the things he is ignorant of; in that case he
might have played the harp or flute untaught, and in fact have been
omniscient. But, as things are at present, he cannot perform in these
ways untaught, though with some assistance he will learn very easily, and
soon be able to get along by himself.

You now know what sort of a pupil I (like the trainer) insist upon. He
must not be weak either at understanding or at making himself understood,
but a man of penetration, a capable administrator--potentially, that is,
--with a soldierly spirit (which does not however exclude the civil
spirit), and some military experience; at the least he must have been in
camp, seen troops drilled or manoeuvred, know a little about weapons and
military engines, the differences between line and column, cavalry and
infantry tactics (with the reasons for them), frontal and flank attacks;
in a word, none of your armchair strategists relying wholly on hearsay.

But first and foremost, let him be a man of independent spirit, with
nothing to fear or hope from anybody; else he will be a corrupt judge
open to undue influences. If Philip's eye is knocked out at Olynthus by
Aster the Amphipolite archer, it is not his business to exclaim, but just
to show him as he is; he is not to think whether Alexander will be
annoyed by a circumstantial account of the cruel murder of Clitus at
table. If a Cleon has the ear of the assembly, and a monopoly of the
tribune, he will not shrink on that account from describing him as a
pestilent madman; all Athens will not stop him from dwelling on the
Sicilian disaster, the capture of Demosthenes, the death of Nicias, the
thirst, the foul water, and the shooting down of the drinkers. He will
consider very rightly that no man of sense will blame him for recounting
the effects of misfortune or folly in their entirety; he is not the
author, but only the reporter of them. If a fleet is destroyed, it is not
he who sinks it; if there is a rout, he is not in pursuit--unless perhaps
he ought to have prayed for better things, and omitted to do so. Of
course, if silence or contradiction would have put matters right,
Thucydides might with a stroke of the pen have knocked down the
counterwall on Epipolae, sent Hermocrates's trireme to the bottom, let
daylight through the accursed Gylippus before he had done blocking the
roads with wall and trench, and, finally, have cast the Syracusans into
their own quarries and sent the Athenians cruising round Sicily and Italy
with Alcibiades's first high hopes still on board. Alas, not Fate itself
may undo the work of Fate.

The historian's one task is to tell the thing as it happened. This he
cannot do, if he is Artaxerxes's physician [Footnote: See Ctesias in
Notes] trembling before him, or hoping to get a purple cloak, a golden
chain, a horse of the Nisaean breed, in payment for his laudations. A
fair historian, a Xenophon, a Thucydides, will not accept that position.
He may nurse some private dislikes, but he will attach far more
importance to the public good, and set the truth high above his hate; he
may have his favourites, but he will not spare their errors. For history,
I say again, has this and this only for its own; if a man will start upon
it, he must sacrifice to no God but Truth; he must neglect all else; his
sole rule and unerring guide is this--to think not of those who are
listening to him now, but of the yet unborn who shall seek his converse.

Any one who is intent only upon the immediate effect may reasonably be
classed among the flatterers; and History has long ago realized that
flattery is as little congenial to her as the arts of personal adornment
to an athlete's training. An anecdote of Alexander is to the point. 'Ah,
Onesicritus,' said he, 'how I should like to come to life again for a
little while, and see how your stuff strikes people by that time; at
present they have good enough reason to praise and welcome it; that is
their way of angling for a share of my favour. ' On the same principle
some people actually accept Homer's history of Achilles, full of
exaggerations as it is; the one great guarantee which they recognize of
his truth is the fact that his subject was not living; that leaves him no
motive for lying.

There stands my model, then: fearless, incorruptible, independent, a
believer in frankness and veracity; one that will call a spade a spade,
make no concession to likes and dislikes, nor spare any man for pity or
respect or propriety; an impartial judge, kind to all, but too kind to
none; a literary cosmopolite with neither suzerain nor king, never
heeding what this or that man may think, but setting down the thing that
befell.

Thucydides is our noble legislator; he marked the admiration that met
Herodotus and gave the Muses' names to his nine books; and thereupon he
drew the line which parts a good historian from a bad: our work is to be
a possession for ever, not a bid for present reputation; we are not to
seize upon the sensational, but bequeath the truth to them that come
after; he applies the test of use, and defines the end which a wise
historian will set before himself: it is that, should history ever repeat
itself, the records of the past may give present guidance.

Such are to be my historian's principles. As for diction and style, he is
not to set about his work armed to the teeth from the rhetorician's
arsenal of impetuosity and incisiveness, rolling periods, close-packed
arguments, and the rest; for him a serener mood. His matter should be
homogeneous and compact, his vocabulary fit to be understanded of the
people, for the clearest possible setting forth of his subject.

For to those marks which we set up for the historic spirit--frankness and
truth--corresponds one at which the historic style should first of all
aim, namely, a lucidity which leaves nothing obscure, impartially
avoiding abstruse out-of-the-way expressions, and the illiberal jargon of
the market; we wish the vulgar to comprehend, the cultivated to commend
us. Ornament should be unobtrusive, and never smack of elaboration, if it
is not to remind us of over-seasoned dishes.

The historian's spirit should not be without a touch of the poetical; it
needs, like poetry, to employ impressive and exalted tones, especially
when it finds itself in the midst of battle array and conflicts by land
or sea; it is then that the poetic gale must blow to speed the vessel on,
and help her ride the waves in majesty. But the diction is to be content
with _terra firma_, rising a little to assimilate itself to the beauty and
grandeur of the subject, but never startling the hearer, nor forgetting a
due restraint; there is great risk at such times of its running wild and
falling into poetic frenzy; and then it is that writers should hold
themselves in with bit and bridle; with them as with horses an
uncontrollable temper means disaster. At these times it is best for the
spirit to go a-horseback, and the expression to run beside on foot,
holding on to the saddle so as not to be outstripped.

As to the marshalling of your words, a moderate compromise is desirable
between the harshness which results from separating what belongs
together, and the jingling concatenations--one may almost call them--
which are so common; one extreme is a definite vice, and the other
repellent.

Facts are not to be collected at haphazard, but with careful, laborious,
repeated investigation; when possible, a man should have been present and
seen for himself; failing that, he should prefer the disinterested
account, selecting the informants least likely to diminish or magnify
from partiality. And here comes the occasion for exercising the judgement
in weighing probabilities.

The material once complete, or nearly so, an abstract should be made of
it, and a rough draught of the whole work put down, not yet distributed
into its parts; the detailed arrangement should then be introduced, after
which adornment may be added, the diction receive its colour, the
phrasing and rhythm be perfected.

The historian's position should now be precisely that of Zeus in Homer,
surveying now the Mysians', now the Thracian horsemen's land. Even so
_he_ will survey now his own party (telling us what we looked like
to him from his post of vantage), now the Persians, and yet again both at
once, if they come to blows. And when they are face to face, his eyes are
not to be on one division, nor yet on one man, mounted or afoot--unless
it be a Brasidas leading the forlorn hope, or a Demosthenes repelling it;
his attention should be for the generals first of all; their exhortations
should be recorded, the dispositions they make, and the motives and plans
that prompted them. When the engagement has begun, he should give us a
bird's-eye view of it, show the scales oscillating, and accompany
pursuers and pursued alike.

All this, however, with moderation; a subject is not to be ridden to
death; no neglect of proportion, no childish engrossment, but easy
transitions. He should call a halt here, while he crosses over to another
set of operations which demands attention; that settled up, he can return
to the first set, now ripe for him; he must pass swiftly to each in turn,
keeping his different lines of advance as nearly as possible level, fly
from Armenia to Media, thence swoop straight upon Iberia, and then take
wing for Italy, everywhere present at the nick of time.

He has to make of his brain a mirror, unclouded, bright, and true of
surface; then he will reflect events as they presented themselves to him,
neither distorted, discoloured, nor variable. Historians are not writing
fancy school essays; what they have to say is before them, and will get
itself said somehow, being solid fact; their task is to arrange and put
it into words; they have not to consider what to say, but how to say it.
The historian, we may say, should be like Phidias, Praxiteles, Alcamenes,
or any great sculptor. They similarly did not create the gold, silver,
ivory, or other material they used; it was ready to their hands, provided
by Athens, Elis, or Argos; they only made the model, sawed, polished,
cemented, proportioned the ivory, and plated it with gold; that was what
their art consisted in--the right arrangement of their material. The
historian's business is similar--to superinduce upon events the charm of
order, and set them forth in the most lucid fashion he can manage. When
subsequently a hearer feels as though he were looking at what is being
told him, and expresses his approval, then our historical Phidias's work
has reached perfection, and received its appropriate reward.

When all is ready, a writer will sometimes start without formal preface,
if there is no pressing occasion to clear away preliminaries by that
means, though even then his explanation of what he is to say constitutes
a virtual preface.

When a formal preface is used, one of the three objects to which a public
speaker devotes his exordium may be neglected; the historian, that is,
has not to bespeak goodwill--only attention and an open mind. The way to
secure the reader's attention is to show that the affairs to be narrated
are great in themselves, throw light on Destiny, or come home to his
business and bosom; and as to the open mind, the lucidity in the body of
the work, which is to secure that, will be facilitated by a preliminary
view of the causes in operation and a precise summary of events.

Prefaces of this character have been employed by the best historians--by
Herodotus, 'to the end that what befell may not grow dim by lapse of
time, seeing that it was great and wondrous, and showed forth withal
Greeks vanquishing and barbarians vanquished'; and by Thucydides,
'believing that that war would be great and memorable beyond any previous
one; for indeed great calamities took place during its course. '

After the preface, long or short in proportion to the subject, should
come an easy natural transition to the narrative; for the body of the
history which remains is nothing from beginning to end but a long
narrative; it must therefore be graced with the narrative virtues--
smooth, level, and consistent progress, neither soaring nor crawling, and
the charm of lucidity--which is attained, as I remarked above, partly by
the diction, and partly by the treatment of connected events. For, though
all parts must be independently perfected, when the first is complete the
second will be brought into essential connexion with it, and attached
like one link of a chain to another; there must be no possibility of
separating them; no mere bundle of parallel threads; the first is not
simply to be next to the second, but part of it, their extremities
intermingling.

Brevity is always desirable, and especially where matter is abundant; and
the problem is less a grammatical than a substantial one; the solution, I
mean, is to deal summarily with all immaterial details, and give adequate
treatment to the principal events; much, indeed, is better omitted
altogether. Suppose yourself giving a dinner, and extremely well
provided; there is pastry, game, kickshaws without end, wild boar, hare,
sweetbreads; well, you will not produce among these a pike, or a bowl of
peasoup, just because they are there in the kitchen; you will dispense
with such common things.

Restraint in descriptions of mountains, walls, rivers, and the like, is
very important; you must not give the impression that you are making a
tasteless display of word-painting, and expatiating independently while
the history takes care of itself. Just a light touch--no more than meets
the need of clearness--, and you should pass on, evading the snare, and
denying yourself all such indulgences. You have the mighty Homer's
example in such a case; poet as he is, he yet hurries past Tantalus and
Ixion, Tityus and the rest of them. If Parthenius, Euphorion, or
Callimachus had been in his place, how many lines do you suppose it would
have taken to get the water to Tantalus's lip; how many more to set Ixion
spinning? Better still, mark how Thucydides--a very sparing dealer in
description--leaves the subject at once, as soon as he has given an idea
(very necessary and useful, too) of an engine or a siege-operation, of
the conformation of Epipolae, or the Syracusan harbour. It may occur to
you that his account of the plague is long; but you must allow for the
subject; then you will appreciate his brevity; _he_ is hastening on;
it is only that the weight of matter holds him back in spite of himself.

When it comes in your way to introduce a speech, the first requirement is
that it should suit the character both of the speaker and of the occasion;
the second is (once more) lucidity; but in these cases you have the
counsel's right of showing your eloquence.

Not so with praise or censure; these should be sparing, cautious,
avoiding hypercriticism and producing proofs, always brief, and never
intrusive; historical characters are not prisoners on trial. Without
these precautions you will share the ill name of Theopompus, who delights
in flinging accusations broadcast, makes a business of the thing in fact,
and of himself rather a public prosecutor than a historian.

It may occasionally happen that some extraordinary story has to be
introduced; it should be simply narrated, without guarantee of its truth,
thrown down for any one to make what he can of it; the writer takes no
risks and shows no preference.

But the general principle I would have remembered--it will ever be on my
lips--is this: do not write merely with an eye to the present, that those
now living may commend and honour you; aim at eternity, compose for
posterity, and from it ask your reward; and that reward? --that it be said
of you, 'This was a man indeed, free and free-spoken; flattery and
servility were not in him; he was truth all through. ' It is a name which
a man of judgement might well prefer to all the fleeting hopes of the
present.

Do you know the story of the great Cnidian architect? He was the builder
of that incomparable work, whether for size or beauty, the Pharus tower.
Its light was to warn ships far out at sea, and save them from running on
the Paraetonia, a spot so fatal to all who get among its reefs that
escape is said to be hopeless. When the building was done, he inscribed
on the actual masonry his own name, but covered this up with plaster, on
which he then added the name of the reigning king. He knew that, as
happened later, letters and plaster would fall off together, and reveal
the words:

SOSTRATUS SON OF DEXIPHANES OF CNIDUS ON BEHALF OF ALL MARINERS TO THE
SAVIOUR GODS

_He_ looked not, it appears, to that time, nor to the space of his
own little life, but to this time, and to all time, as long as his tower
shall stand and his art abide.

So too should the historian write, consorting with Truth and not with
flattery, looking to the future hope, not to the gratification of the
flattered.

There is your measuring-line for just history. If any one be found to use
it, well; I have not written in vain: if none, yet have I rolled my tub
on the Craneum.




THE TRUE HISTORY


INTRODUCTION

Athletes and physical trainers do not limit their attention to the
questions of perfect condition and exercise; they say there is a time for
relaxation also--which indeed they represent as the most important
element in training. I hold it equally true for literary men that after
severe study they should unbend the intellect, if it is to come perfectly
efficient to its next task.

The rest they want will best be found in a course of literature which
does not offer entertainment pure and simple, depending on mere wit or
felicity, but is also capable of stirring an educated curiosity--in a way
which I hope will be exemplified in the following pages. They are
intended to have an attraction independent of any originality of subject,
any happiness of general design, any verisimilitude in the piling up of
fictions. This attraction is in the veiled reference underlying all the
details of my narrative; they parody the cock-and-bull stories of ancient
poets, historians, and philosophers; I have only refrained from adding a
key because I could rely upon you to recognize as you read.

Ctesias, son of Ctesiochus of Cnidus, in his work on India and its
characteristics, gives details for which he had neither the evidence of
his eyes nor of hearsay. Iambulus's _Oceanica_ is full of marvels;
the whole thing is a manifest fiction, but at the same time pleasant
reading. Many other writers have adopted the same plan, professing to
relate their own travels, and describing monstrous beasts, savages, and
strange ways of life. The fount and inspiration of their humour is the
Homeric Odysseus, entertaining Alcinous's court with his prisoned winds,
his men one-eyed or wild or cannibal, his beasts with many heads, and his
metamorphosed comrades; the Phaeacians were simple folk, and he fooled
them to the top of their bent.

When I come across a writer of this sort, I do not much mind his lying;
the practice is much too well established for that, even with professed
philosophers; I am only surprised at his expecting to escape detection.
Now I am myself vain enough to cherish the hope of bequeathing something
to posterity; I see no reason for resigning my right to that inventive
freedom which others enjoy; and, as I have no truth to put on record,
having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood--but falsehood
of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you
are to expect--that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full
defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither
seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could
conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers' incredulity.

BOOK I

Starting on a certain date from the Pillars of Heracles, I sailed with a
fair wind into the Atlantic. The motives of my voyage were a certain
intellectual restlessness, a passion for novelty, a curiosity about the
limits of the ocean and the peoples who might dwell beyond it. This being
my design, I provisioned and watered my ship on a generous scale. My crew
amounted to fifty, all men whose interests, as well as their years,
corresponded with my own. I had further provided a good supply of arms,
secured the best navigator to be had for money, and had the ship--a
sloop--specially strengthened for a long and arduous voyage.

For a day and a night we were carried quietly along by the breeze, with
land still in sight. But with the next day's dawn the wind rose to a
gale, with a heavy sea and a dark sky; we found ourselves unable to take
in sail. We surrendered ourselves to the elements, let her run, and were
storm-driven for more than eleven weeks. On the eightieth day the sun
came out quite suddenly, and we found ourselves close to a lofty wooded
island, round which the waves were murmuring gently, the sea having
almost fallen by this time. We brought her to land, disembarked, and
after our long tossing lay a considerable time idle on shore; we at last
made a start, however, and leaving thirty of our number to guard the ship
I took the other twenty on a tour of inspection.

We had advanced half a mile inland through woods, when we came upon a
brazen pillar, inscribed in Greek characters--which however were worn and
dim--'Heracles and Dionysus reached this point. ' Not far off were two
footprints on rock; one might have been an acre in area, the other being
smaller; and I conjecture that the latter was Dionysus's, and the other
Heracles's; we did obeisance, and proceeded. Before we had gone far, we
found ourselves on a river which ran wine; it was very like Chian; the
stream full and copious, even navigable in parts. This evidence of
Dionysus's sojourn was enough to convince us that the inscription on the
pillar was authentic. Resolving to find the source, I followed the river
up, and discovered, instead of a fountain, a number of huge vines covered
with grapes; from the root of each there issued a trickle of perfectly
clear wine, the joining of which made the river. It was well stocked with
great fish, resembling wine both in colour and taste; catching and eating
some, we at once found ourselves intoxicated; and indeed when opened the
fish were full of wine-lees; presently it occurred to us to mix them with
ordinary water fish, thus diluting the strength of our spirituous food.

We now crossed the river by a ford, and came to some vines of a most
extraordinary kind. Out of the ground came a thick well-grown stem; but
the upper part was a woman, complete from the loins upward. They were
like our painters' representations of Daphne in the act of turning into a
tree just as Apollo overtakes her. From the finger-tips sprang vine
twigs, all loaded with grapes; the hair of their heads was tendrils,
leaves, and grape-clusters. They greeted us and welcomed our approach,
talking Lydian, Indian, and Greek, most of them the last. They went so
far as to kiss us on the mouth; and whoever was kissed staggered like a
drunken man. But they would not permit us to pluck their fruit, meeting
the attempt with cries of pain. Some of them made further amorous
advances; and two of my comrades who yielded to these solicitations found
it impossible to extricate themselves again from their embraces; the man
became one plant with the vine, striking root beside it; his fingers
turned to vine twigs, the tendrils were all round him, and embryo grape-
clusters were already visible on him.

We left them there and hurried back to the ship, where we told our tale,
including our friends' experiment in viticulture. Then after taking some
casks ashore and filling them with wine and water we bivouacked near the
beach, and next morning set sail before a gentle breeze. But about
midday, when we were out of sight of the island, a waterspout suddenly
came upon us, which swept the ship round and up to a height of some three
hundred and fifty miles above the earth. She did not fall back into the
sea, but was suspended aloft, and at the same time carried along by a
wind which struck and filled the sails.

For a whole week we pursued our airy course, and on the eighth day
descried land; it was an island with air for sea, glistening, spherical,
and bathed in light. We reached it, cast anchor, and landed; inspection
soon showed that it was inhabited and cultivated. In the daytime nothing
could be discerned outside of it; but night revealed many neighbouring
islands, some larger and some smaller than ours; there was also another
land below us containing cities, rivers, seas, forests, and mountains;
and this we concluded to be our Earth.

We were intending to continue our voyage, when we were discovered and
detained by the Horse-vultures, as they are called. These are men mounted
on huge vultures, which they ride like horses; the great birds have
ordinarily three heads. It will give you some idea of their size if I
state that each of their quill-feathers is longer and thicker than the
mast of a large merchantman. This corps is charged with the duty of
patrolling the land, and bringing any strangers it may find to the king;
this was what was now done with us. The king surveyed us, and, forming
his conclusions from our dress, 'Strangers,' said he, 'you are Greeks,
are you not? ' we assented. 'And how did you traverse this vast space of
air? ' In answer we gave a full account of ourselves, to which he at once
replied with his own history. It seemed he too was a mortal, named
Endymion, who had been conveyed up from our Earth in his sleep, and after
his arrival had become king of the country; this was, he told us, what we
knew on our Earth as the moon. He bade us be of good cheer and entertain
no apprehensions; all our needs should be supplied.

'And if I am victorious,' he added, 'in the campaign which I am now
commencing against the inhabitants of the Sun, I promise you an extremely
pleasant life at my court. ' We asked about the enemy, and the quarrel.