De Heroditi malignate

But in this place indeed he has highly magnified the Athenians and pronounced them the saviors of Greece, doing herein rightly and justly, if he had not intermixed many reproaches with their praises. But now, when he says[*](Herod. VII. 139.) that (had it not been for the Athenians) the Lacedaemonians would have been betrayed by the other Greeks, and then, being left alone and having performed great exploits, they would have died generously; or else, having before seen that the Greeks were favoring the Medes, they would have made terms with Xerxes; it is manifest, he speaks not these things to the commendation of the Athenians, but he praises the Athenians that he may speak ill of all the rest. For how can any one now be angry with him for so bitterly and intemperately upbraiding the Thebans and Phocians at every turn, when he charges even those who exposed themselves to all perils for Greece with a treason which was never acted, but which (as he suspects) might have been acted. Nay, of the Lacedaemonians themselves, he makes it doubtful whether they would have fallen in the battle or have yielded to the enemy, distrusting the proofs of their valor which were shown at Thermopylae; — and these indeed were slight!