BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA.

EDITED BY

GEORGE LONG, M.A.

FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,

AND THE

REV. A. J. MACLEANE, M.A.

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

VOL. III.

HERODOTUS,

WITH A

COMMENTARY BY THE REV. J. W. BLAKESLEY, B.D.

LONDON:

WHITTAKER AND CO. AVE MARIA LANE;

GEORGE BELL, FLEET STREET.

1854.

HERODOTUS,

WITH

A COMMENTARY

BY

JOSEPH WILLIAMS BLAKESLEY, B.D.

LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

WHITTAKER AND CO. AVE MARIA LANE;
GEORGE BELL, FLEET STREET.

1854.

INTRODUCTION.

BEFORE Commencing the study of any ancient book, a modern reader is naturally desirous of being made acquainted with whatever is known of the personal history of the author. In the case of Herodotus there is little information remaining to gratify this desire, and that little is of a doubtful character. The brief notice in SUIDAS, which attributes to him a prolonged residence in the island Samos, after expulsion, in the sequel of a political convulsion, from his native city Halicarnassus, might from its probability be received without any suspicion, if it were not combined with the assertion, that in Samos he cultivated the Ionian dialect, and there wrote his history. But the Ionian dialect was in fact the dialect of literature at the time, and, although Samos was one of the Ionian states of Asia, its language was quite a peculiar one, as Herodotus himself remarks'; and, indeed, the few characteristics of it which are recorded do not appear in any of the MSS of his work. Nevertheless, although we cannot accept any view which would connect his residence in Samos with the peculiarities of his language, there are indications in the course of his work that he was familiar with the island, and that some of his accounts of distant regions are derived from information furnished by the enterprising navigators whose home it was. Suidas goes on to say that after a prolonged stay there he returned to Halicarnassus, and assisted in the expulsion of the tyrant

1 i. 142. The Samians said Δεύνυσος and Θεύδοτος instead of Διόνυσος and OcódOTOS. ETYMOLOGICUM MAGNUM, p. 259. A reason for the anomalous character of the language may be found in the fortunes of the population. (See iii. 147. 149.) VOL. I.

a