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 for them always to make such a
profession; but their business was to demonstrate that they could
write well, and make an impression upon mankind thereby; and in
what manner of writing they thought they were able to exceed
others, to that did they apply themselves, Some of them betook
themselves to the writing of fabulous narrations; some of them
endeavored to please the cities or the kings, by writing in their
commendation; others of them fell to finding faults with
transactions, or with the writers of such transactions, and
thought to make a great figure by so doing. And indeed these do
what is of all things the most contrary to true history; for it
is the great character of true history that all concerned therein
both speak and write the same things; while these men, by writing
differently about the same things, think they shall be believed
to write with the greatest regard to truth. We therefore [who are
Jews] must yield to the Grecian writers as to language and
eloquence of composition; but then we shall give them no such