t cannot be
denied but that they acted in a manner not beseeming their nobility and
descent from Hercules. For it had been more honorable for the Argives
under the leadership of Siphnians and Cythnians to have defended the
Grecian liberty, than contending with the Spartans for superiority to
have avoided so many and such signal combats. And if it was they
who brought the Persians into Greece, because their war against the
Lacedaemonians succeeded ill, how came it to pass, that they did not
at the coming of Xerxes openly join themselves to the Medes? Or if they
would not fight under the King, why did they not, being left at home,
make incursions into Laconia or again attempt Thyreae or by some other
way disturb and infest the Lacedaemonians? For they might have greatly
damaged the Grecians, by hindering the Spartans from going with so great
an army to Plataea.

But in this place indeed he has highly magnified the Athenians and
pronounced them the saviours of Greece, doing herein rightly and justly,
if he had not intermixed many reproaches with their praises. But
now, when he says (Ibid. vii. 139.) that (but for the Athenians) the
Lacedaemonians would have been betrayed by the other Greeks, and then,
being left alone and having performed great exploits, they would have
died generously; or else, having before seen that the Greeks were
favoring the Medes, they would have made terms with Xerxes; it is
manifest, he speaks not these things to the commendation of the
Athenians, but he praises the Athenians that he may speak ill of all
the rest. For how can any one now be angry with him for so bitterly and
intemperately upbraiding the Thebans and Phocians at every turn, when he
charges even those who exposed themselves to all perils for Greece with
a treason which was never acted, but which (as he thinks) might have
been. Nay, of the Lacedaemonians themselves, he makes it doubtful
whether they might have fallen in the battle or have yielded to
the enemy, minimizing the proofs of their valor which were shown at
Thermopylae;--and these indeed were small!

After this, when he declares the shipwreck that befell the King's fleet,
and how, an infinite mass of wealth being cast away, Aminocles the
Magnesian, son of Cresines, was greatly enriched by it, having gotten
an immense quantity of gold and silver; he could not so much as let this
pass without snarling at it. "For this man," say she, "who had till then
been none of the most fo