First therefore, — beginning, as the proverb is, with Vesta, — whereas all the Grecians affirm Io, daughter to Inachus, to have been worshipped with divine honor by the barbarians, and by her glory to have left her name to many seas and principal passages, and to have given a source and original to most noble and royal families; this famous author says of her, that she gave herself to certain Phoenician merchants, having been not unwillingly deflowered by a mariner, and fearing lest she should be found by her friends to be with child. Herod. I. 5. And he belies the Phoenicians as having delivered these things of her, and says that the Persian stories testify of her being carried away by the Phoenicians with other women. Herod. I. 1. Presently after, he gives sentence on the bravest and greatest exploits of Greece, saying that the Trojan war was foolishly undertaken for an ill woman. For it is manifest, says he, that had they not been willing they had never been ravished. Herod. I. 4. Let us then say, that the Gods also acted foolishly, in inflicting their indignation on the Spartans for abusing the daughters of Scedasus the Leuctrian, and in punishing Ajax for the violation of Cassandra. For it is manifest, if we believe Herodotus, that if they had not been willing they had never been defiled. And yet he himself said that Aristomenes was taken alive by the Spartans; and the same afterwards happened to Philopoemen, commander of the Achaeans; and the Carthaginians took Regulus, the consul of the Romans; than whom there are not easily to be found more valiant and warlike men. Nor is it to be wondered, since even leopards and tigers are taken alive by men. But Herodotus blames the poor women that have been abused by violence, and patronizes their ravishers. Nay, he is so favorable to the barbarians, that, acquitting Busiris of those human sacrifices and that slaughter of his guests for which he is accused, and attributing by his testimony to the Egyptians much religion and justice, he endeavors to cast that abominable wickedness and those impious murders on the Grecians. For in his Second Book he says, that Menelaus, having received Helen from Proteus and having been honored by him with many presents, showed himself a most unjust and wicked man; for wanting a fair wind to set sail, he found out an impious device, and having taken two of the inhabitants’ boys, consulted their entrails; for which villany being hated and persecuted, he fled with his ships directly into Libya. See Herod. II. 45. From what Egyptian this story proceeds, I know not. For, on the contrary, many honors are even at this day given by the Egyptians both to Helen and Menelaus. The same Herodotus, that he may still be like himself, says that the Persians learned the defiling of the male sex from the Greeks. Herod. I. 135. And yet how could the Greeks have taught this impurity to the Persians, amongst whom, as is confessed by almost all, boys had been castrated before ever they arrived in the Grecian seas? He writes also, that the Greeks were instructed by the Egyptians in their pomps, solemn festivals, and worship of the twelve Gods; that Melampus also learned of the Egyptians the name of Dionysus (or Bacchus) and taught it the other Greeks; that the mysteries likewise and rites of Ceres were brought out of Egypt by the daughters of Danaus; and that the Egyptians were wont to beat themselves and make great lamentation, but yet he himself would not tell the names of their Deities, but concealed them in silence. As to Hercules and Bacchus, whom the Egyptians named Gods, and the Greeks very aged men, he nowhere feels such scruples and hesitation; although he places also the Egyptian Hercules amongst the Gods of the second rank, and Bacchus amongst those of the third, as having had some beginning of their being and not being eternal, and yet he pronounces those to be Gods; but to the Greek Bacchus and Hercules, as having been mortal and being now demi gods, he thinks we ought to perform anniversary solemnities, but not to sacrifice to them as to Gods. The same also he said of Pan, overthrowing the most venerable and purest sacrifices of the Greeks by the proud vanities and mythologies of the Egyptians. For the passages referred to in this chapter, see Herod. II. 48-51, 145, 146, 171. Nor is this impious enough; but moreover, deriving the pedigree of Hercules from Perseus, he says that Perseus was an Assyrian, as the Persians affirm. But the leaders, says he, of the Dorians may appear to be descended in a right line from the Egyptians, reckoning their ancestors from before Danae and Acrisius. Herod. VI. 53, 54. Here he has wholly passed by Epaphus, Io, Iasus, and Argus, being ambitious not only to make the other Herculeses Egyptians and Phoenicians, but to carry this also, whom himself affirms to have been the third, out of Greece to the barbarians. But of the ancient learned writers, neither Homer, nor Hesiod, or Archilochus, nor Pisander, nor Stesichorus, nor Alcman, nor Pindar, makes any mention of the Egyptian or the Phoenician Hercules, but all acknowledge this our own Boeotian and Argive Hercules. Now of the seven sages, whom he calls Sophisters, he affirms Thales to have been a barbarian, descended of the Phoenicians. Herod. I. 170. Speaking ill also of the Gods under the person of Solon, he has these words: Thou, O Croesus, askest me concerning human affairs, who know that every one of the Deities is envious and tumultuous. Herod. I. 32. Thus attributing to Solon what himself thinks of the Gods, he joins malice to blasphemy. Having made use also of Pittacus in some trivial matters, not worth the mentioning, he has passed over the greatest and gallantest action that was ever done by him. For when the Athenians and Mitylenaeans were at war about Sigaeum, Phrynon, the Athenian general, challenging whoever would come forth to a single combat, Pittacus advanced to meet him, and catching him in a net, slew that stout and giant-like man; for which when the Mitylenaeans offered him great presents, darting his javelin as far as he could out of his hand, he desired only so much ground as he should reach with that throw; and the place is to this day called Pittacium. Now what does Herodotus, when he comes to this? Instead of Pittacus’s valiant act, he tells us the fight of Alcaeus the poet, who throwing away his arms ran out of the battle; by thus not writing of honorable deeds and not passing over such as are dishonorable, he gives his testimony to those who say, that from one and the same malice proceed both envy and a rejoicing at other men’s harms. Herod. V. 95.