The works devoted to limited periods of Grecian history and special
departments of research are very numerous. Among the most valuable
of the former is the History of the Peloponnesian War, by the
Greek historian Thucydides, of which there are several English
versions. He was born in Athens, about the year 471 B.C. His is
one of the ablest histories ever written.

Herodotus, the earliest and best of the romantic historians,
sometimes called the "Father of History," was contemporary with
Thucydides. He wrote, in a charming style, an elaborate work on
the Persian and Grecian wars, most of the scenes of which he
visited in person; and in numerous episodes and digressions he
interweaves the most valuable history that we have of the early
Asiatic nations and the Egyptians; but he indulges too much in
the marvelous to be altogether reliable."

Of the numerous works of Xenophon, an Athenian who is sometimes
called the "Attic Muse," from the simplicity and beauty of his
style, the best known and the most pleasing are the Anab'asis,
the Memorabil'ia of Socrates, and the Cyropedi'a, a political
romance. He was born about 443 B.C. The best English translation
of his works is by Watson, in Harper's "New Classical Library."

The work of the Greek historian, Polybius, originally in forty
volumes, of which only five remain entire covered a period from
the downfall of the Macedonian power to the subversion of Grecian
liberty by the Romans, 146 B.C. It is a work of great accuracy,
but of little rhetorical polish, and embraces much of Roman history
from which Livy derived most of the materials for his account of
the wars with Carthage.