om giving first an account of the straits they were in who
revolted to the Persians, that, having related how the Thessalians sent
to the Phocians, who were their mortal enemies, and promised to preserve
their country free from all damage if they might receive from them a
reward of fifty talents, he writ thus of the Phocians: "For the Phocians
were the only people in these quarters who inclined not to the Persians,
and that, as far as I upon due consideration can find, for no other
reason but because they hated the Thessalians; for if the Thessalians
had been affected to the Grecian affairs, I suppose the Phocians would
have joined themselves to the Persians." And yet, a little after he
would say that thirteen cities of the Phocians were burned by the
barbarians, their country laid waste, and the temple which was in Abae
set on fire, and all of both sexes put to the sword, except those that
by flight escaped to Parnassus. (Herodotus, viii. 30-33. Compare ix.
17.) Nevertheless, he puts those who suffered all extremities
rather than lose their honesty in the same rank with those who most
affectionately sided with the Persians. And when he could not blame the
Phocians actions, writing at his desk invented false causes and got up
suspicions against them, and bids us judge them not by what they did,
but by what they would have done if the Thessalians had not taken the
same side, as if they had been prevented from treason because they found
the place already occupied by others! Now if any one, going about to
excuse the revolt of the Thessalians to the Persians, should say
that they would not have done it but for the hatred they bare the
Phocians,--whom when they saw joined to the Greeks, they against their
inclinations followed the party of the Persians,--would not such a one
be thought most shamefully to flatter, and for the sake of others to
pervert the truth, by reigning good causes for evil actions? Indeed, I
think, he would. Why then would not he be thought openly to calumniate,
who says that the Phocians chose the best, not for the love of virtue,
but because they saw the Thessalians on the contrary side? For neither
does he refer this device to other authors, as he is elsewhere wont
to do, but says that himself found it out by conjecture. He should
therefore have produced certain arguments, by which he was persuaded
that they, who did things like the best, followed the same counsels
with the worst. For what he alleges of