History has no mercy. There are no laws in it against suffering and cruelty,no internal balance that restores a people much sinned against to their rightfulplace in the world. Cyclical views of history have always seemed to me flawedfor that reason, as if the turning of the screw means that present evil canlater be transformed into good. Nonsense. Turning the screw of suffering meansmore suffering, and not a path to salvation. The most frustrating thing abouthistory, however, is that so much in it escapes language, escapes attention andmemory altogether. Historians have therefore resorted to metaphors and poeticfigures to fill in the spaces, and this is why the first great historian,Herodotus, was also known as the Father of Lies: so much in what he wroteembellished and, to a great extent also, concealed the truth that it is thepowers of his imagination that make him so great a writer, not the vast numberof facts he deployed.