several places, cannot be doubted by any one who weighs the whole evidence[1].
In the view of Thucydides there had hitherto been two classes of writers concerned with the
- ↑ That Thucydides knew the work of Herodotus is assumed by Lucian (de cons. hist. § 42), Marcellinus (vit. Thuc. 54), Suidas (s.v. ὀργᾶν), Photius (cod. 60), and the Scholiast on Thuc. i. 22, etc. In modern times it has been denied or questioned by F. C Dahlmann (Herodot. p. 214), K. O. Müller (Hist. Gk. Lit. c. xxxiv. § 2, and Dorians, ii. 98, § 2), by J. C. F. Bähr (in his edition of Herodotus), and in an essay De plurimis Thuc. Herodotique locis, by H. Fütterer (Heiligenstadt, 1843). The proofs that Thucydides knew the works of Herodotus have been brought together by Mure (Hist. Gk. Lit. Bk. iv. ch. 8), and more recently by H. Lemcke, in an essay entitled Hat Thuc. das Werk des Herod. gekannt? (Stettin, 1873). The crucial texts are (1) Thuc. i. 20, on the common errors regarding the vote of the Spartan kings and the Pitanate company, compared with Her. vi. 57 and ix. 53; (2) Thuc. ii. 97, on the Thracians and Scythians—tacitly correcting what Herodotus says of the Thracians (v. 3) and of the Scythians (iv. 46); (3) Thuc. i. 126, on Cylon's conspiracy, compared with Her. v. 71; Thuc. vi. 4 on Zankle (Messene) compared with Her. vi. 23; Thuc. ii. 8, on the earthquake at Delos (cf. i. 23) compared with Her. vi. 98. In view of all these, passages, it seems impossible to doubt that in i. 97 Thucydides includes or specially designates Herodotus among those who ἢ τὰ πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἑλληνικὰ ξυνετίθεσαν ἢ αὐτὰ τὰ Μηδικά.
I must add a word on the vexed interpretation of Her. vi. 57, τοὺς μάλιστά σφι τῶν γερόντων προσήκοντας ἔχειν τὰ τῶν βασιλέων γέρεα, δύο ψήφους τιθεμένουσ, τρίτην δὲ τὴν ἑωυτῶν. The question is, Does Herodotus mean τιθεμένους δύο ψήφους ἑκάτερον, τρίτην δὲ τὴν ἑωυτοῦ? Shilleto (Thuc. i. 20) thinks that this is not certain, suggesting that τοὺς προσήκοντας might mean τὸν ἀεὶ προσήκοντα, and comparing Her. iv. 62, τοῖσδε = τῷ ἐν ἑκάστῳ ἀρχηΐῳ, but he sees the difficulty of supposing the same person to be nearest of kin to both kings. Failing this resource, we must surely allow that Herodotus means δύο ψήφους ἑκάτερον, for else how could he possibly have written τρίτην δὲ τὴν ἑωυτῶν? Would he not have written δευτέρας δὲ τὰς ἑωυτῶν?
