By the GREEKS. 45 



celebrated ftory of HARMODIUS and ARISTOGITON. Of this 

 he gives the detail in his fixth book ; " Becaufe neither^ the 

 " Athenians, or others, knew who was the tyrant at the time, 

 " or what was the real fac"l that happened." Poems had been 

 compofed, and flames erected, in honour of thofe men, as be- 

 ing the champions of liberty, and the deliverers of their coun- 

 try, by a bold ftroke, in putting its tyrant to death ; bxit it ap- 

 pears, from the narrative of THUG YD IDES, that all this was un- 

 deferved, and proceeded from a grofs miftake ; for they did not 

 kill HIPPIAS, who was the tyrant, but his brother HIPPAR- 

 CHUS ; and him, not from a love of their country, or hatred of 

 tyranny, but from very unworthy motives, which it would be 

 indelicate to explain *. 



IF the Athenians, the moft enlightened people of Greece, 

 could be fo milled as to an event which happened but eighty- 

 two years before the Peloponnefian war, what liberties might 

 not HOMER take, in relating the circumftances of an expedition 

 which preceded, by many centuries, the age in which he lived, 

 and as to which, in all probability, there was no record or 

 writing whatever ? 



IT is, indeed, fuppofed by the author of the life of HOMER, 

 commonly afcribed to HERODOTUS, that he was only 168 years 

 later than the Trojan war ; but, from what THUCYDIDES fays, 

 it mould feem that he thought he was long pofterior f to it ; 

 and that, in fad:, he was fo, is apparent from feveral paflages in 

 his works. In one place, he fays, that DIOMEDE lifted, bran- 

 diflied, and threw a flone, which two men," fuch as men are 

 now-a-days, would not be able to carry j and, in another, that 

 HECTOR lifted, brandifhed, and threw a flone, which two men, 

 fuch as men are now-a-days, would not be able to heave from 

 the ground into a cart j but fo great a degeneracy could not 



have 



* IT took its rife from a-?ijn*. THUCYDIDES fays AMSTOQITON ti%s> 



