28 Herodotus. Greek and Barbarian 



ruling race were apparently invaders not akin to any of the Italian 

 stocks : their subjects probably belonged to the old Ligurian race, in 

 early times spread over a large part of the peninsula. That the 

 Etruscan cities recognized a common interest, but in practice did not 

 support each other consistently, was the chief cause of their gradual 

 weakening and final fall. Noble lords with warlike traditions had little 

 bent for farm life or sympathy with the serfs who tilled the soil. The 

 two classes seem to have kept to their own 1 languages, and the 

 Etruscan gradually died out under the supremacy of Rome. 



VII. HERODOTUS. 



Herodotus, writing in the first half of the fifth century BC, partly 

 recording the results of his own travels, partly dependent on the work 

 of his predecessors, is a witness of great value. In him we find the 

 contrast and antipathy 2 of Greek and Barbarian an acknowledged fact, 

 guiding and dominating Greek sentiment. Unhappily he yields us 

 very little evidence bearing on the present subject. To slavery and 

 slave-trade he often refers without comment: these are matters of 

 course. The servile character of oriental peoples subject to Persia is 

 contemptuously described 3 through the mouth of the Greek queen of 

 Halicarnassus. Nor does he spare the Ionian Greeks, whose jealousies 

 and consequent inefficiency made them the unworthy tools of Persian 

 ambition ; a sad contrast to those patriotic Greeks of old Hellas who, 

 fired by the grand example of Athens, fought for their freedom and 

 won it in the face of terrible odds. The disgust a sort of physical 

 loathing with which the free Greek, proud of training his body to per- 

 fection, regarded corporal mutilation as practised in the East, is illus- 

 trated by such passages 4 as that in which the Persians are astounded 

 at the Greek athletic competitions for a wreath of olive leaves, and that 

 in which he coolly tells the story of the eunuch's revenge. But all this, 

 interesting as giving us his point of view, does not help us in clearing 

 up the relations of free and slave labour. As for handicrafts, it is 

 enough to refer to the well-known passage 5 in which, while speaking 

 of Egypt, he will not decide whether the Greeks got their contempt for 

 manual trades from the Egyptians or not. That the Greeks, above all 

 the Spartans, do despise xeipwvaglai, is certain; but least true of the 

 Corinthians. Barbarians in general respect the warrior class among 

 their own folk and regard manual trades as ignoble. So the source of 

 Greek prejudice is doubtful. That the craftsmen are free is clear from 



1 See Livy x 4 9. 



2 See his references to the Spartan use of eli>ot = pdppapoi ix ir, 53, 55. 



3 vin 687. 4 vm 26> IQ _ 6 ' 6 



