Transcriber's Note
Apparent typographical errors have been corrected. The inconsistent useof hyphens has been retained, as has the use of both "king" and "King".A phrase in black letter font has been bolded.
An advertisement for another work by the same author has been shifted tothe back of the book.
The illustration titled "ALPHABET" does not identify which alphabet itis, but it appears to illustrate Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The "Synchronistical Table of the Principal Events in Herodotus"towards the end of the book extends over two pages in small font: one onthe Greeks and one on the "Barbarians". The text on the Persian Empireis spread over several columns on the second page. In this version thetable on each page has been split into two, and the text on the PersianEmpire placed at the end.
THE PYRAMIDS AND SPHINX.
THE
BOYS' AND GIRLS'
HERODOTUS
BEING
PARTS OF THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS
Edited for Boys and Girls, with an Introduction
BY
JOHN S. WHITE, LL.D.
HEAD-MASTER, BERKELEY SCHOOL; EDITOR OF THE BOYS' AND GIRLS' PLUTARCH
WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press
1884
COPYRIGHT BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1884
INTRODUCTION.
Imagine yourself in the city of Athens near the close of theyear 446 B.C. The proud city, after many years of supremacy overthe whole of Central Greece, has passed her zenith, and is surelyon the decline. She has never recovered from the blow receivedat Coronea. The year has been one of gloom and foreboding.The coming spring will bring the end of the five years' truce; andan invasion from the Peloponnesus is imminent. But, as the centreof learning, refinement, and the arts, the lustre of her fame is yetundimmed, and men of education throughout the world deem theirlives incomplete until they have sought and reached this intellectualMecca. During this year a stranger from Halicarnassus, inAsia Minor, after many years of travel in Asia, Scythia, Libya,Egypt, and Magna Græcia, has taken up his abode at Athens. Heis still a young man, hardly thirty-seven, yet his fame is that of thefirst and greatest of historians. Dramatists and poets immortalthere have been, but never man has written such exquisite prose.Twenty centuries and more shall wear away, and his history willbe read in a hundred different tongues, as well as in the beautifuland simple Greek that he wrote. His name will grow into ahousehold word; the school-boy will revel in his delightful tales,and wise men will call him the Father of History! For weeks thepeople of Athens have listened entranced to the public reading ofhis great work, and now the Assembly has passed a decree tenderingto him the city's thanks, together with a most substantial gift inrecognition of his talents—a purse of money equal to twelvethousand American dollars.
{iv}Such is the account which Eusebius gives, and others to whomwe may fairly accord belief; and it adds no slight tinge of romanceto the picture to discover among the lis