18 FEBRUARY 1955, Page 20

SIR,—Sir Compton Mackenzie is not fair to Herodotus, who, though

he does record (Book 8, Chapter 94) that the Athenians told a story of the Corinthians keeping out of the Battle of Salamis until it was won, adds that the Corinthians did not accept this story, but claimed that they had played a leading part in the victory. He goes on to say that the rest of Greece agreed with the Corinthians.

Nor is it true that the Athenian calumny was accepted for nearly two and half millennia. Reputable historians have never accepted it, and the couplet on the fairly recently dis- covered stele, which Sir Compton translates, was quoted by Plutarch and other ancient writers, and has always been well known to historians.—Yours faithfully, N. WHATLEY 10 Staverton Road, Oxford