iochus and Philistius, or
with Callias, about the Sicilian History, no more than do the several
writers of the Athide follow one another about the Athenian affairs; nor
do the historians the like, that wrote the Argolics, about the affairs
of the Argives. And now what need I say any more about particular cities
and smaller places, while in the most approved writers of the expedition
of the Persians, and of the actions which were therein performed, there
are so great differences? Nay, Thucydides himself is accused of some as
writing what is false, although he seems to have given us the exactest
history of the affairs of his own time. [4]

4. As for the occasions of so great disagreement of theirs, there may
be assigned many that are very probable, if any have a mind to make an
inquiry about them; but I ascribe these contradictions chiefly to two
causes, which I will now mention, and still think what I shall mention
in the first place to be the principal of all. For if we remember that
in the beginning the Greeks had taken no care to have public records
of their several transactions preserved, this must for certain
have afforded those that would afterward write about those ancient
transactions the opportunity of making mistakes, and the power of making
lies also; for this original recording of such ancient transactions hath
not only been neglected by the other states of Greece, but even among
the Athenians themselves also, who pretend to be Aborigines, and to have
applied themselves to learning, there are no such records extant; nay,
they say themselves that the laws of Draco concerning murders, which
are now extant in writing, are the most ancient of their public records;
which Draco yet lived but a little before the tyrant Pisistratus. [5]
For as to the Arcadians, who make such boasts of their antiquity, what
need I speak of them in particular, since it was still later before they
got their letters, and learned them, and that with difficulty also. [6]

5. There must therefore naturally arise great differences among writers,
when they had no original records to lay for their foundation, which
might at once inform those who had an inclination to learn, and
contradict those that would tell lies. However, we are to suppose a
second occasion besides the former of these contradictions; it is
this: That those who were the most zealous to write history were not
solicitous for the discovery of truth, although it was very easy
f