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214 ANCIENT GREECE.[CHAP. xiv.choice was intimately connected with the impulse given tothe political character of his nation.The first great step had thus been taken. A purely his*torical subject, relating to the past, but to no distant period,and no longer belonging to tradition, had been treated by amaster, who had devoted the largest part of his life to a plan,framed with deliberation and executed with enthusiasm!The nation possessed an historical work, which first showedwhat history is ;and which was particularly well fitted toawaken a taste for it. As Herodotus read his work to allGreece assembled at Olympia, a youth, according to thetradition, was incited by it to become, not his imitator, buthis successor. 1had written a hisThucydides appeared. Flis predecessortory of the past. He became the historian of his own time.He was the first who seized oil this idea, on which the wholecharacter of his work depends ;though others, especially theancient cities, looked for it in his style,his eloquence, andother secondary matters.By this means he advanced thescience of history in a higher degree than he himself wasaware of. His subject made him necessarilya critic.The storm of the Persian wars had been terrific, but transitory. During its continuance, no historian could appear.It was not till after its fury had for some time abated, andmen had regained their composure of mind, that Herodotuscould find a place. Amidst the splendour of the victorieswhich had been gained, under the shade of security won byvalour, with what emotions did the Greek look back uponthose years! Who could be more welcome to him than the1That Thucydides was not present as a hearer of Herodotus, is clearlyproved by Dahlmann, p. 20 and 216. Had he, as a youth of sixteen in theyear 456 B. C., listened to Herodotus, he must have formed his purpose of becoming an historian at least two-and-thirty years before he carried it intoefiect, and before he had chosen a subject ;for his biographer, Marcellinus,informs us, that he did not write his history till after his exile, that is afteri I ear ^i 24 B C " The narrative of*. Lucian, that Herodotus read hisaloud historyat Olympia, contains no date jthe assumption that it was in 456 B Crests on the anecdote about Thucydides, which Lucian does not mention.Wny then may it not have taken place at a later day ? Lucian may have coloured the narrative, but hardly invented it. That such readings tooknot place,before the whole people, but only before those interested, follows ofcourse jand if Herodotus read not his whole work, but only a part of it, (andhis work was probably finished by portions.) the difficulties suggested by-Uaiilmann disappear. These remarks are designed not to prove the truthof the narrative, but to show that it docs not involve improbabilities.