and all the later writers do to Herodotus (3) nor could Timeus
agree with Antiochus 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