Excerpt from The Value of Ancient History

'The purpose of the enquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is this: to prevent the works of men from becoming obliterated by time, and to ensure that great and admirable deeds, some performed by Greeks, some by foreigners, should not lose their renown; and, more particularly, why they fought with one another.'

I

Such is the brief preface with which the Father of History inaugurates his work: so brief, that it reads more like a title page than a preface; and indeed deserves to be set out as such some day on the first leaf of an edition. But this title-page to all History is also more than a preface; it is the announcement of a discovery, and the definition of a science and an art.

Inspired by the National exaltation of soul which carried the Greeks through their Birth-struggle, the first Pan-Hellenic Act since the Trojan War, Herodotus writes in the calm after the storm, with adjustment and expansion still active around him; and looking back, as Milton could look back over the Elizabethan Age, or Victor Hugo over the Napoleonic, he sees that Heroic Age far enough off to be contemplated whole, yet near enough still for the Divine Justice and Mercy to be very real and terrible.

The purpose of his enquiry was consciously present to him. His title-page and preface are the key to his whole book; their significance docs not end here.

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