A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

Sophocles.
lb. 214.
Euripides.
lb. 241.
Aristophanes.
lb.
Herodotus,
about 480-
42s B.C.
Ancient
World, 215.
70 Introduction to the Sources
heroic for his theme.
His younger contemporary Sophocles,
hving a comfortable, serene life in the age of Pericles,
devoted his mind to the ideal human character and to the
peaceful compromise of warring religious and moral beliefs.
Euripides, who wrote in the latter part of the century,
in a period of political and intellectual unrest, deals
with human nature as it is. He is intensely modern, endowed
with a deep knowledge of human character and a
broad, sympathetic spirit—the Shakespeare of Athens.
Slightly younger than Euripides was Aristophanes, the
greatest master of Greek comedy. Deriving his subjects
from contemporary politics and society , he transfigured them
with his splendid imagination and his inexhaustible wit.
Contemporary with Sophocles was the earliest Greek
historian—Herodotus "the father of history," who wrote
an account of the great struggle between the Greeks and
the Persians.
In tracing the events which led up to it he
narrates from the earliest times the history of the various
nations involved in the conflict. His work, he informs us,
The Greek
is a presentation
word
of the results of his own inquiry "to the
for
"inquiry" end that neither the deeds of men be forgotten in the lapse
is history
{[(TTopia)., of time nor oblivion overtake the great and marvelous
here for the
first time applied
achievements of the Hellenes and the barbarians, particupartment
to a delarly
those which brought about the war." As he was
of
literature. born in the midst of that war, he had the opportunity
to learn its history directly from those who had fought
in it. This portion of his work is therefore more trustworthy
than the earlier parts. The chief value of history
lies in the study of characters of individuals and of nations;
and in the faithful, sympathetic presentation of
human nature, alike of Greeks and foreigners, Herodotus,
whether dealing with fact or fiction, is the truest as well
as the most attractive of historians.