Cyrus? And how is it possible, if the Grecians had
any records, that they should be so ignorant about some of their most
famous men? Of Homer how little is known! and of what is transmitted, how
little, upon which we may depend! Seven places in Greece contend for his
birth: while many doubt whether he was of Grecian original. It is said of
Pythagoras, [559]that according to Hippobotrus he was of Samos: but
Aristoxenus, who wrote his life, as well as Aristarchus, and Theopompus,
makes him a Tyrrhenian. According to Neanthes he was of Syria, or else a
native of Tyre. In like manner Thales was said by Herodotus, Leander, and
Duris, to have been a Phenician: but he was by others referred to Miletus
in Ionia. It is reported of Pythagoras, that he visited Egypt in the time
of Cambyses. From thence he betook himself to Croton in Italy: where he is
supposed to have resided till the last year of the seventieth Olympiad:
consequently he could not be above thirty or forty years prior to the birth
of AEschylus and Pindar. What credit can we give to people for histories
many ages backward; who were so ignorant in matters of importance, which
happened in the days of their fathers? The like difficulties occur about
Pherecydes Syrius; whom Suidas styles Babylonius: neither the time, when he
lived, nor the place of his birth, have been ever satisfactorily proved.
Till Eudoxus had been in Egypt the Grecians did not know the space of which
the true year consisted. [560][Greek: All' egnoeito teos ho eniautos para
tois Hellesin, hos kai alla pleio.]

Another reason may be given for the obscurity in the Grecian history, even
when letters had been introduced among them. They had a childish antipathy
to every foreign language: and were equally prejudiced in favour of their
own. This has passed unnoticed; yet was attended with the most fatal
consequences. They were misled by the too great delicacy of their ear; and
could not bear any term which appeared to them barbarous and uncouth. On
this account they either rejected foreign [561]appellations; or so modelled
and changed them, that they became, in sound and meaning, essentially
different. And as they were attached to their own country, and its customs,
they presumed that every thing was to be looked for among themselves. They
did not consider, that the titles of their Gods, the names of cities, and
their terms of worship, were imported: that their ancient hymns were grown
obsolete: and that ti